Speak Stiltedly and Wear a Yellow Shirt

MacOS X link of the day: iTerm, a cross between Chimera (sorry, Camino) and the Terminal app

I’ve seen this bit of writing advices a few times recently: one should not call it a tragic death because all death is tragic. The phrase is, presumably, redundant. Of course I disagree.

First of all, it’s a misuse of the word tragic. Tragedy refers to the fall of great men through a tragic flaw or an unstoppable force, or calamities more generally. The death of a 90-year-old man in his sleep can hardly be described as tragic. If a policeman guns down an escaping axe-murderer, perhaps the angels weep but we don’t.

Perhaps death is always sad, but it isn’t always unexpected enough to make it tragic. Sometimes it’s simply unfortunate. I don’t think of the Columbia accident as a tragedy - though it could turn out to be an instance of culpable negligence, it hasn’t yet. Someone who was against the space program in general might consider it proof of NASA’s hubris - a traditional tragic flaw - but I’m not against the space program.

NASA and its astronauts take a calculated risk. No one is forced into the profession by any means - they want to be up there despite the danger. The disaster, if there is one, is in the consequences. None of the Columbia’s crew would have wanted their deaths to bring a halt to the ISS program. They would have wanted us to go right back up there, even though sometimes the atmosphere wins.

I’m not taking NaNoEdMo as seriously as I took NaNoWriMo. There’s some debate over in the NaNoEdMo forums, about what exactly counts towards your fifty hours of editing. The strict interpretation says you should have pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, during your whole fifty hours. My interpretation includes random daydreaming about my story, or rereading it in the tub. (That’s how I consumed today’s 2 hours of editing.)

If I were being serious about it, I would have planned ahead according to the tips. I would be writing 50,000 more words to add to the current 50,000 and make my novel commercially viable, besides brushing up the scenes that are there. Instead I’m doing things vaguely related to the novel, like converting the encyclopedia I keep for my universe into XML.

I’m enjoying the rereading more than I expected. The novel gets a little rough at the end, when the deadline was pressing, but overall it’s better than I expected. It needs some subplot filler (as opposed to padding, which is bad filler) - not just to fill out the word count but to flesh out the main character, who’s really growing on me. He may be a homicidal maniac, but he’s my homicidal maniac.

During the other 22 hours of the day, I’ve been working on my encyclopedia. I wrote an XML DTD for it, as well as a CSS stylesheet for the XML. It’s gorgeous, if I do say so myself. I looked around for some cool fonts - the only one I downloaded was KelmscottRoman, but the sites were fun just to look through: Nick’s Fonts and apostrophic laboratories.

I used to keep all my info for my original stories in a TWiki running on my mac’s local webserver, but I found that too cumbersome to use. I prefer editing in emacs instead of browser windows, for one thing, and I wanted more control over the display of my encyclopedia. XML and CSS did enough for me, though it’s clunky in some ways.

The Encyclopedia DTD and stylesheet are available upon request. My email address is around here somewhere…

I’d heard of the Horatio Hornblower novels (by C. S. Forester, author of The African Queen) mainly as an influence upon the military sci-fi coming-of-age genre. I certainly saw Honor Harrington in old Mr. Midshipman Hornblower. Back when I read the other H.H., I expressed a hope that 2D naval battles would be easier to follow than Weber’s space battles. In that I was disappointed - I was lost many times, not only in battle, and my ignorance of sailing ships accounts for only a part of my confusion. The characterization wasn’t quite what I might have hoped, but I don’t mind a stock, reticent, long-suffering hero now and again. By the way, there’s Horatio Hornblower fanfic out there, if you’re interested.

I can’t stop rubbernecking at anthologies. I’m always disappointed with them, but when I see one lying around the new books table in the library, I think, maybe this one will be different. Impossible Things, covering about ten years of Alan Dean Foster in short stories, wasn’t any different. Many of the stories were written for other anthologies - never a good sign. None of the stories were actually bad, though - he’s a competent writer. Several were trick stories where the end reveals that the story was not about what you thought. Having more than one such in the collection detracted from their effect.

The spine reads Del Rey Science Fiction, but out of nineteen stories, perhaps three were science fiction proper. If you consider medical thrillers, superheroes, and alien abduction stories sci-fi, then a few more could be included. The majority, though were fantasy, or more accurately, magical realism (unless you define magical realism to be fantasy written by someone with a Spanish surname). Now, I like magical realism, but it’s not science fiction. I think Alan Dean Foster is better at writing magical realism than sci-fi. I’d have been more likely to pick up the book had it advertised itself as such, rather than as sci-fi by a sci-fi writer I’ve never heard anything good (or for that matter, bad) about. I particularly liked “Laying Veneer,” an Australian outback story which I’d read before elsewhere, and the trick stories. I can’t tell you which ones they were; that would spoil the trick.

Another anthology I couldn’t leave well enough alone was the latest Writers of the Future volume. Though it had a higher proportion of sci-fi, the fantasy was better. There was more sex than the contest rule against it would have led me to expect, but it wasn’t particularly explicit. The nonfiction articles were not as helpful as the ones in the last volume I read. My favorite stories were “Graveyard Tea” and “The Road to Levenshir,” which were both first-place winners for their quarters. The former was magical realism and the latter fantasy in a more standard medieval mode.

So, to define my terms: Science fiction is fiction set in the future or an reality which depends on science or technology for major plot points, or at least for the setting, or at the very least to explain the setting. Fantasy is fiction set in the past or an reality which depends on magic or medievalism for major plot points, or at least for the setting. Magical realism is fiction set in the present which involves magic or the vaguely supernatural. Anything else probably falls into a non-sf/f genre or subgenre: medical thrillers, spy thrillers, horror, disaster, comic books, etc.

NaNoEdMo begins in just a few short hours, and their registration is finally working, more or less. Ignore the error message after you submit your registration, if you get one, and just try to log in with the account you were making and you should be fine. For more details on National Novel Editing Month, see
my previous NaNoEdMo post, which has the link to the one-pass manuscript editing essay.

Related fic: Than Fade Away (post-VOY)

Just recently I read about SatireWire shutting down, though it happened half a year ago. After citing creative differences, the sole satirist went on to blame burnout, if not in so many words. Today I was looking through Daypop and found a blog entry that related the SatireWire grand exit to the perils of doing what you love for a living.

Burnout is a danger to fan writers, too. The legal tender of fandom is fame and feedback, and fans may end up writing long after the muse has gone because they can’t give up the steady paycheck. I’m not addicted to feedback (or I’d have died of the DT’s long ago), but I’m sentimental about the good old days when the muse was writing 200k epics. I keep hanging around, hoping that the glory days of 2001 will return, or writing the esoteric pairings or Borg-victory plots which still interest me.

I don’t mean the burnout caused by fandom wankery, though I’ve seen my share of that. I used to think I was protecting my fan self from RL by hiding my identity, but I realized a while back that fans are much more of a danger to my RL self than RL people are to my hobby. This horror story of late-night harassment is a prime specimen of the viciousness of fandom, but that’s not my topic.

Whether you’re a fan writer, a professional author, a humorist, or even a blogger, burnout is always a risk. The advantage of getting paid for your hobby is that then you get to do it at least 40 hours a week. Those 40 hours are a dead loss if you’re working some non-beloved job in order to make ends meet and support your avocation. I’d gladly risk burnout for those 40 hours, not to mention the fifteen I spend commuting.

I don’t think you can save your love from burnout just by saving it from the nine-to-five hamster wheel. All those BOFQ’s and burned-out fan writers demostrate otherwise. Deadlines or financial stress or fan harassment can wear you out. Maybe you’ll be too lazy to do what you love. Ayn Rand said it was the hardest thing to do what you really want. She would have been livid at anyone who suggested chasing your dreams was a ruinous and destructive way to think.

But then again, Ayn Rand was an INTJ. If you’re the kind of person who chases your dreams, you’re probably the kind of person who catches them.

Cool link of the day: Space Film - I can’t believe no one had tried this before.

I thought I’d never think of a fannish application of J/P, but RJ’s comments have inspired me. This is my version of her version of the difference:
INTP: It’s true because it’s beautiful.
INTJ: It’s beautiful because it’s true.

The analogy to fanfic comes immediately. Some fans love any well-written story, no matter how depressing the plot or esoteric the pairing. It is a good story because it is beautiful. There’s another camp who appreciate any story about their one true pairing with a happily-ever-after ending, even if the literary quality is questionable. It is a beautiful story because it is fanon-correct.

So far it’s just an analogy. I’d have to know more about fans’ tastes and personality types to claim that it’s a real J/P distinction. I wouldn’t do a survey just over fic tastes, though it might be interesting to find out how the personality types found in fandom differ from the proportions of the types in the general population. That sounds like a job for Seema…

Lego link of the day: Lego Tarot

I’m going to have to backblog (place on the blog back burner) the fascinating topic of sexual politics until I’m feeling more meta. Today, I’d like to start, at least, on the final chapter of MBTI Theatre: J/P. I was inspired to return to this long-backblogged topic by an article on introversion currently making the blog rounds.

People have trouble understanding the J/P distinction, partly because it doesn’t give rise to the personality stereotypes that extreme E, I, T or F behavior does, and partly because of the dual definition. It is a mystical truth of MBTI that the J/P preference in behavior corresponds to the J/P preference in preferences, but it’s a tough idea to wrap your mind around.

In behavior, the J/P preference distinguishes between the judging types, who like to come to conclusions and make decisions (or at least to have the finality of the decision having been made). The perceiving types prefer to leave matters open-ended, to take in all new information rather than closing off some future possibility with a hasty decision now. Judging types tend to take control of a situation and give it direction. Perceivers tend to go along for the ride. J’s like to finish things; P’s like to start things. J’s are regimented, P’s are curious.

In preference, J’s prefer their judging preference over their perceiving preference, which is to say, either thinking or feeling (T/F), whichever is in their official personality type, over sensing or intuiting (S/N). For example, an ESFJ, given a choice of approaching a matter with his sensing abilities or his feeling, will lean towards the feeling approach. An ESFP, on the other hand, will go with the sensing. The J will decide how he feels about it, while the P will investigate what concrete data she can sense in the matter.

If you’re not boggled yet, there is an added complication. The J/P distinction establishes a preference for dealing with the external world, not the internal one. For extroverts, whose domain is the external world, the J/P preference therefore determines which out of S, N, T, or F is the dominant process - the leading part of their personality. The ESFJ has F for his dominant process; the ESFP has S.

For introverts, however, the external world is of secondary concern, so the J/P preference determines which process, S/N or T/F, is delegated to the scut work of dealing with the outside. Their dominant preference is instead the one that is left free to govern their internal affairs. Thus, an INTP such as yours truly has T for her dominant process, while an INTJ prefers N.

So that’s the explanation. It’s singularly unconvincing next to the more obvious distinctions of E/I, S/N and T/F. J/P is tied into the E/I preference, further muddying the waters. While it’s easy to say what an E as opposed to an I would do at a party, it’s not so clear what an IN (introvert with N as the dominant process), for example, would do differently from an IT.

I think personalities tend to be more balanced (that is, in the middle) between J and P than between any of the other opposites, and that makes it hard for the average person to get much out of their J/P label. I’m still searching for my inner P - or is that my inner J?

Cool link of the day: Memeufacture: Weblog and Automated Trend Reporting

In some really excessive midnight geekiness, I hacked modtool, a perl script for usenet moderators, to do NNTP authentication at Earthlink. I can only assume it was a more trusting time back in 1996 when the script was last updated, when NNTP servers ran wild and free… Anyway, if you want my modified script, email me and tell me what newsgroup you moderate and I’ll send it to you.

Now, back to the meta. I was thinking about this topic even before I saw Melymbrosia’s comment, to which I hope this entry will be a sufficient answer. First of all, the purpose of a debate is not necessarily to convince the other party of the truth of your own point of view. Argument purely for the sake of winning converts is more properly called proselytization. The proselytizing mindset is most ironically seen in A’s allegation, you’ve already made up your mind. In that case, A believes that the sine qua non of argument is the potential for changing B’s mind. The possibility that B’s opposing arguments might, in fact, change A’s own mind has been completely overlooked.

There are very few cases in which I get into debates with the hope of persuading other people, and most of them involve communal activities where everyone wants a certain outcome - say, a fair set of rules for the ASC Awards, or a new XML DTD. In the case where there is a final goal the group wants to reach, you need people to be able to compromise on the outcome. Yet there is never a need for anyone in the group to actually change their mind about what they, individually, feel would have been the ideal story categorization.

Most of the time, I argue because I enjoy thinking about whatever the topic is, voicing my ever-ready opinions, and hearing what other people think. It’s entertaining. I don’t expect anyone to change their mind because of what I say, except possibly me. I don’t expect anyone to stop writing slash because I don’t care for it, any more than I expect professional SF writers to change their styles because I got bored halfway through their last book. Without a communal goal in mind, there is no pressing need for people to agree with one another.

Because it’s my personal soapbox, my blog is the biggest repository of argument for the sake of hearing what I think. I write it down because it clarifies issues for me, entertains me, and may even interest others or prod their own thoughts. If I get into a debate with another person about something as non-earthshattering as the latest fan follies, I don’t do it to convert them to the gen cause. I just find it interesting to dig down to where we truly differ. It’s fine if they’ve already made up their minds, as long as they can say how they came to that conclusion, and I can figure out where we diverged.

So where do discussions go wrong for me, so that I have to walk away? It’s never that B holds an opinion. It’s not that B doesn’t want to discuss the matter - in that case, B is the one who has walked away and I see no point in pestering her. If B is willing to argue, yet unwilling or unable to do so rationally, then I’m the one who has to walk away.

If B is incapable of expressing why she thinks X instead of Y, she’s useful as a statistical point in an opinion poll but not as an opponent in a debate. If B consistently misconstrues A’s statements or resorts to logical fallacies like ad hominem, whether out of malice or out of a simple lack of reasoning skills, it becomes impossible to have a rational discussion. Maybe other people enjoy a flamewar, but I don’t.

Is walking away from a bad B in itself itself impolite? If you’re face-to-face with someone, maybe you do owe them an explanation, but that explanation cannot be you’ve already made up your mind because there’s nothing wrong with having an opinion. That B stands by her original cause at the end could just mean that A presented no convincing arguments to the contrary that were based on premises B would accept. With a bad B, that’s not the case, but it’s logically possible. It’s not polite to tell B that she’s not as intelligent or interesting as you would prefer, so it’s probably best just to bow out of the situation gracefully and not get involved with B again.

If you’re on-line, most communication is asynchronous anyway, so there isn’t really a problem with dropping the ball when you’re tired of B. Unless B has left some outstanding question that A couldn’t answer (and this is unlikely with an irrational B), A can let her explanation stand. A could do so even with a rational opponent who hadn’t made any particularly intriguing points in the last round. Most arguments peter out one way or the other.

For instance, it could be 3 a.m. and A might need to get to bed.

Read the rest of this entry »

I confess - I’m a logician. I’ve seen my share of malice in fandom, but it never bothers me as much as irrationality does. The ad nauseum disturbs me because it is an attack on the possibility of rational debate in the area which “bores” the attacker. The ad hominem likewise bothers me, not because I’m the scapegoat, but because, again, the actual debate is tossed out the window when the debater herself is attacked.

I don’t mention fan foibles unless I’ve seen them more than once. I don’t link examples when the people involved are malicious, but if it’s just something an average fan might say or agree with, I will. Maybe not this time, though. Instead of linking, let me just rephrase one of the more frequent ad hominem arguments of fandom: A tells B, You’ve already made up your mind, and walks away.

It’s an ad hominem in the literal sense of the phrase, since it’s directed not at the point at hand but at the person (B) making the opposing argument. However, it’s not used (fallaciously) to establish the truth of A’s side, but merely to excuse A from further debate.

First of all, it’s meaningless to say that B has made up her mind. Believe me when I tell you, A wouldn’t be bothering with the argument if she hadn’t also made up her mind, at least provisionally. People who don’t have an opinion in the matter don’t get involved in debates.

A’s real meaning might be taken as, even if I proved my point, you wouldn’t accept the proof, but unless A is psychic and knows for sure what B’s reaction will be, this is just a baseless allegation. It takes quite a bit of argument to get down to another person’s fundamental irrationality, if she’s fundamentally irrational - I know, I’ve done it more than once. If you haven’t done the work, you have no right to impugn someone else’s rationality.

Of course, A is always free to walk away, but not to blame her forfeit on B. People are busy, and not everyone enjoys a good debate. Some people are culturally biased against certain styles of argument, considering them frightfully impolite. I’d guess the majority of fans either don’t like to argue or can’t argue their way out of a paper bag, which makes fandom a dull place for me. Even so, I never find myself cutting off an argument with an irrational opponent by saying you’ve already made up your mind - that is hardly B’s problem. If I have the time, interest, or a sudden fit of educational zeal, I will argue until it has become quite clear that B is a hopeless case. Then I just walk away, and I don’t look back.

The most common logical fallacy in fandom is not listed in Stephen’s Guide, but I keep running into it so I’m giving it a name. I’ll call it the argumentum ad nauseum. It’s a cross between the argumentum ad hominem and the fallacy of style over substance. A crossover fallacy is singularly appropriate for fandom.

The ad nauseum is the act of attacking a position, not for being incorrect nor for any other logical flaw, but simply for having been said many times before. There is, the man once said, nothing new under the sun, and even less new in fandom, so the ad nauseum is never a valid criticism. Usually it’s not even true - that is, the positions under attack have not been stated more frequently than anything else, nor than the opposite stance in particular.

Just as it’s only meta when somebody gets annoyed, it’s only boring when somebody doesn’t want to hear it. Maybe they feel threatened by opposing points of view, or maybe they aren’t intellectually capable of defending their own. The motives behind the ad nauseum are probably as diverse as those behind any other logical fallacy - it only holds the power it does because fandom is a literary community. Boring is a damning criticism when it’s leveled at fic, yet it is hollow when pointed at a blog or any other discussion forum.

If you really don’t want to hear it, you have the delete key and the back button. When instead you go on and on about how dull someone else’s blog is, questions automatically arise: Why did you keep reading it? Why are you pointing it out now?

I do book reviews in my blog, and I’ve never criticized a book without saying exactly how I thought it went wrong. Saying that meta is boring, dull, or “grey” is just a cop-out - a statement that the (allegedly) poor style negates the underlying substance. Ad nauseum is also a way to attack someone without having to justify, or even mention, your own position on the issue - that is its kinship with ad hominem.

So I really can’t get worked up over people who have nothing more insightful (or inciteful) to say about me than the standard ad nauseum “ho hum.” For an even better example of ad nauseum than my recent appearance on fandom_wank, I would refer you to Jintian protesting too much at the manifesto meme - for example: I don’t see the need for all of this sudden flag-waving and State of the Union speech-making. [The following has been edited.] I took this to mean, my opinions are interesting; your opinions are boring, unnecessary, or repetitive. The first half of the statement is merely implied, and isn’t necessary to ad nauseum. [end edits]

To recap, everyone has the right to be bored. If you’re bored, go away. If you attack me for boring you, it means you’re just faking the boredom - you’re really feeling threatened, guilty, or just plain hostile. Either learn to defend yourself without the ad nauseum arguments, or go away. Whining that something is boring is, for lack of a better term, boring.