Martin, I'm going to put this post from r/antiwork here - US is far more like China than anyone in this country admits, yet an outside observer could easily put the US into a similar context to Philip K Dick Man in the High Castle (I do not mean the TV show) - I hope you had a good time at the con, but I went to my last event in 2015, which was a Northern CA convention with a theme of "Strong Women in Sci Fi" so our panel on that topic was placed at 10 AM Sunday in a room that had the dance the night before, and the floor was still in there - so there actually were abt 20 people in attendance to hear me, a well-known female TV producer (Black), and a trans-man on this topic, and we sat around with our legs crossed on the dance floor. Then there was the Worldcon at which the panel on "Diversity" in sci fi included 100% "white" 3 male, 1 female authors including Ian Banks who lectured for abt 10 straight minutes and Elizabeth Bear, who repeated the offense. My former fiance Alan Rodgers was on it and he walked off after stating he felt unqualified to comment. Our guess was they put him on it bc his books dealt with Southern US blues culture. So there actually was a Black fan sitting near me who tried to speak up several times and was ignored. I finally gestured to her to stand near me and I loudly told these pieces of self-entitled middle class white trash where they could stuff it. I wish that had been my last con - it's my shame I continued until 2015 - there is no saving any of it https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/rop58q/slavery_with_extra_steps/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3