tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post1530645047666974502..comments2024-02-23T00:27:41.196-08:00Comments on Refugees From the City: Zero Tolerance for Stupid - My Own IncludedJohn the Scientisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03467337009577733553noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post-87831816321204898742008-11-10T18:48:00.000-08:002008-11-10T18:48:00.000-08:00And another blow struck against echo chambers and ...And another blow struck against echo chambers and groupthink. Excellent work!<BR/><BR/>:clinks all around:<BR/><BR/>:DNathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00648438549121320566noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post-60019871731863278132008-11-10T15:00:00.000-08:002008-11-10T15:00:00.000-08:00PSAnd, John, you're still a mensch.::clicks an ima...PS<BR/><BR/>And, John, you're still a <I>mensch</I>.<BR/><BR/>::clicks an imaginary bottle of Sam Adams Winter Brew against Jeri's imaginary root beer bottle--and then goes off to open the real bottle of SAWB he has in the fridge because he bought a six-pack of it while at the market today::Erichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18275812152895151542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post-72204049198332905452008-11-10T14:58:00.000-08:002008-11-10T14:58:00.000-08:00Ah--one clarification.You're right that there are ...Ah--one clarification.<BR/><BR/>You're right that there are those who argue the superiority of non-Western medicine with insufficient evidence and/or no basis in known science; those people, I agree, are gobsmackingly stupid. And I agree that there are people--like the nurses you cite--who really ought to know better.<BR/><BR/>My statement, "To take such an argument seriously would be gobsmackingly stupid," wasn't in reference to that point; it was in reference to a hypothetical argument about historical contingency, specifically the historical contingency of "what would have happened to American medicine if the 'Discovery' of the Americas and subsequent colonization had not occurred?"<BR/><BR/>Is it hypothetically possible that Americans would have stumbled onto some surprising developments in medicine if the invasion of 1492? Perhaps, but I think it <I>would have required one of the American indigenous peoples to stumble upon something like the scientific method during that alternate timeline</I>. It doesn't seem probable, but it's not impossible.<BR/><BR/>The thing to note about that particular historical contingency is that it doesn't actually advance a claim that non-Western medicine is or could be superior. Or, to be more precise, it suggests that had indigenous American peoples developed logical rigor, they might have achieved much more (after all, during much of the era we're talking about--starting in the fifteenth century and moving on from there--much of Western medicine was sidetracked onto anti-scientific and anti-rational methodologies derived from an unholy mixture of bullshit philosophy and European folk cures; indeed, Western medicine still retained and was bogged down by anti-scientific elements and dead-ends into the nineteenth century).<BR/><BR/>O'course, now we're really getting off into a tangent. The point was: I agree with you about all the useless woo plaguing the medical field. My "gobsmackingly stupid" comment was about something else entirely--the limited usefulness of thought experiments in understanding history.Erichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18275812152895151542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post-51148917402074398612008-11-10T14:57:00.000-08:002008-11-10T14:57:00.000-08:00Thanks, John, for the update - I raise my virtual ...Thanks, John, for the update - I raise my virtual root beer to you!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post-53000809423555347992008-11-10T14:33:00.000-08:002008-11-10T14:33:00.000-08:00John, for the record: it takes a real mensch to ad...John, for the record: it takes a real <I>mensch</I> to admit a mistake. Virtual beers all around!Erichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18275812152895151542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post-66967423629888645302008-11-10T12:42:00.000-08:002008-11-10T12:42:00.000-08:00Hi John - I appreciate the update. Perhaps when I'...Hi John - I appreciate the update. Perhaps when I'm in Manhattan next I'll call on you for that beer. In the meantime, best of luck on NaNo.<BR/>cheers,<BR/>BenBen Parzybokhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01265656141209603906noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post-54602873020871343522008-11-09T21:51:00.000-08:002008-11-09T21:51:00.000-08:00John, I have to say that I, too, am more than a li...John, I have to say that I, too, am more than a little uncomfortable with this - but it's your venue and you certainly get to mount whatever soapbox you please.<BR/><BR/>Walter is worth your time - he's a non-scientist claiming nonexistent credentials in the real-world hard sciences.<BR/><BR/>Ben Parzybok is a <I>fiction author</I>. Fiction! To hold his flights of what-if - his research methodology - and his assumptions and conclusions up to the same lens is a faulty application of methodology.<BR/><BR/>If you removed all SF books from the shelves that were scientifically implausible or based on inaccurate or just plain bad science research, the shelves would be sparse and lonely places indeed.<BR/><BR/>But it's fiction, and not all fiction is written by scientists and none of it needs to meet the standard of the scientific method.<BR/><BR/>If I in my book decide that Mt Rainier will blow its top with the force of the original Yellowstone cataclysm - then in my alternate fictional universe, that's what happens. (I'm not going quite that overboard.) Sure, it's implausible, but it's my fiction and I get to write the rules of my universe. If you don't like it don't buy it - but don't try to subject it to the rules of your universe, your scientific methodology, because they simply don't apply.<BR/><BR/>Also, I have to ask this - in your zeal to correct what you see as wrong on the Internet, are you remembering that there are real human beings behind these issues? And that they deserve respect, compassion and a fair hearing on general principle? Not everyone out there is actually doing something stupid or needs to be corrected. Although if you perceive that as your mission - it looks to be pretty infinite. ;)<BR/><BR/>It seems unnecessarily cruel to me to target a debut author's fantastical and mythologically focused work - have you even done him the courtesy of reading it, as source material? - and demolish it in terms of its scientific inadequacies.<BR/><BR/>As I said, it's your blog, and you certainly get to tackle any topic you choose. If Parzybok didn't write the story that you would have written - or come to the conclusions that you would have reached - it doesn't make him wrong. He wrote <I>his own book</I>. If you'd like a book that approaches the concepts differently, then you write it! Don't fault him for not doing so.<BR/><BR/>Given your assessment of his novel - I'm not entirely sure I'd be very enthusiastic about you reading or reviewing mine, post-publication.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post-80579113568149475212008-11-09T21:40:00.000-08:002008-11-09T21:40:00.000-08:00It may or may not be a coincidence that Parzybok i...It may or may not be a coincidence that Parzybok is using fluffy language or framing his ideas from a fluffy POV, but it also may not be significant.<BR/><BR/>Scalzi isn't running an academic blog, and Parzybok isn't pimping an academic work. Scalzi has made it a practice (for various reasons, and probably they're not all altruistic ones) to let friends and new authors self-pimp on his extremely popular and successful blog by letting them guest-blog about how their latest books came into being. Unfortunately, "where do you get your ideas from?" is a <I>really</I> stupid question, even when it's only implicit, and the best answers (e.g. "a PO box in Schenectady") are smartass replies that won't fill up a proper blog entry. As a result, the "Big Idea" entries are usually kind of vapid and desultory, and usually don't deserve to be taken very seriously. (Having said all of that, if I'm ever in the unlikely position of getting an invite from Scalzi to self-pimp with a "Big Idea" piece on Whatever, will I write something vapid and desultory? In a heartbeat!)<BR/><BR/>I guess it's not so much that you pulled the trigger on Parzybok too soon, but that you pulled it at all. The context of his comments seems pretty obvious to me. It's not really even clear that he believes what he's saying at all, nor would he have to for the things he says to make for an interesting train of thought that inspires him. Inspiration isn't always factual or logical in any case.<BR/><BR/>There's no reason whatsoever that the "Big Idea" pieces need a disclaimer. It's pretty obvious that they're all about writers writing about writing, and it's fairly obvious from Scalzi's introductions and/or the authors' statements and/or the book covers and/or the book titles whether the writing that is the <I>subject</I> of the writing is fiction or non-. And the "Big Idea" pieces <I>themselves</I> aren't really fiction--they're about the writing process, which means they're sometimes about really <I>stupid</I> ideas that maybe made a pretty good book when the author was done. Or not.<BR/><BR/>_________<BR/><BR/>Oh, and by the way, here's a <A HREF="http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/09/02/attention-authors-more-big-ideas-needed" REL="nofollow">"Big Idea" disclaimer of sorts, from when Scalzi solicited for "Big Idea" entries</A>:<BR/><BR/><I>Fellow authors (and related editors, publishers, and publicists), if you’ve been asking yourself, “Hey, how do I promote this book I will soon have in the stores, to up to 40,000 unique readers daily, all of whom have some interest in the written word?” I may have a solution for you. As you know, I run a feature here called “The Big Idea,” in which authors talk about the big idea behind their latest works, and playing with those ideas affected the writing of the book. Here are some recent examples of the feature. And it’s open to writers of all genres of fiction and non-fiction, because variety is good.</I>Erichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18275812152895151542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post-23349400165852323202008-11-09T19:48:00.000-08:002008-11-09T19:48:00.000-08:00Well Eric, for my upcoming post on Historicism vs....Well Eric, for my upcoming post on Historicism vs. Post-Modernism, I've just been perusing <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/Racial-Economy-Science-Toward-Democratic/dp/0253208106/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226288808&sr=8-1" REL="nofollow">"The Racial Economy of Science"</A> edited by Sandra Harding, one of the preeminent American Post Modernists, and about 1/3 of the book not only takes that argument seriously, but takes it to even greater heights. <BR/><BR/>Parzybok uses <I>exactly</I> the same language as those nitwits, which may be a coincidence, but I didn't see anything in his "Big Idea" piece that said that he repudiated that worldview. So, based on my current reading load, I might be a <I>little</I> excused if I did take him seriously when he didn't mean to be. :p<BR/><BR/>If the ideas in "The Big Idea" were clearly labeled as "this is fiction", I'd likely have not written this piece, but I'm not kidding when I say that there are, well, not serious Academics, but Academics who are taken seriously, who say exactly what I was arguing against.<BR/><BR/>Perhaps I pulled the trigger too soon on Parzybok, but if you get out into public discourse without knowing something of what's been going on before, you're going to get tagged and bagged before you even realize there's a hunt on.John the Scientisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03467337009577733553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post-41620366663458615232008-11-09T18:28:00.000-08:002008-11-09T18:28:00.000-08:00I think "which of these civilizations had a cure f...I think "which of these civilizations had a cure for cancer?" can safely be filed under "hyperbole is an excellent seed for fiction" and "whimsical speculation."<BR/><BR/>I think context is also important. Had the writer said, "These civilizations might have had a cure for cancer... buy my herbal supplement," then I think we'd be talking "dreck" and he'd deserve every pound the hammer could bring to bear on his pointy little head. But he's talking about how that thought <I>altered the plot of his fictional novel about three men and their magic couch</I>. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and say it's a flight of fancy (perhaps worded a bit lazily, which may even be grounds for not running out and buying his novel), but at the very, very, very worst it's merely harmless and perhaps lazy--it's not like he's out there suing CERN or telling people not to vaccinate their kids or selling pyramidal hats to harness qi to overcome body thetans.<BR/><BR/>Even if the "unspoken subtext" was, indeed, "which of these civilizations would have had a cure for cancer by right now in history," it wouldn't be gobsmackingly stupid in the context of <I>magic couch</I>. It's much the same as: aliens building the Egyptian pyramids is gobsmackingly stupid in the context of an ex-cons bestselling "nonfiction" series of pseudo-archaeological "exposes," but kind of awesome in the context of the guy who played MacGyver (or Snake Plisskin--I just happen to like the TV show more) traveling across the universe through a magic hole to shoot an Egyptian god in the face and blow up his spaceship.<BR/><BR/>And, frankly, there's a limit to how gobsmackingly stupid "have a cure for cancer by right now in history" is as a "legitimate" historical hypothetical. Okay, it's stupid in that "cancer" is a cluster of cellular disorders with disparate causes that's unlikely to have a singular "cure," if any cures are available at all. So <I>anybody</I> talking about <I>any</I> singular cure for cancer is probably a bit off. But aside from that, historical contingency is a strange thing over the long haul. It's certainly unlikely that South American civilizations would have undergone a rapid technological expansion if they'd been unmolested after 1492 <I>if they had proceeded along the same trajectory they were on for the 600 years prior</I>; however, there's a helluva lot that can happen in the course of 600 years, enough that I think any talk of alternate possibilities has to have qualifiers and probabilities added at every turn and corner.<BR/><BR/>To take such an argument seriously would be gobsmackingly stupid. If you were to write an alternate history story in which South American cultures develop this way or that way after a non-Columbian 1492, I think it might be highly enjoyable. But the most I can do with an argument that pre-Colombian South Americans lacked the western cultural institutions that led to the development of what came to be scientific method from its underpinnings in western philosophy--well, the most I can do with that is to reply that you're probably right, unless you aren't. I'm sure I'll enjoy reading it, regardless, but what happened has happened, and alternate realities are mostly interesting as fictions and flights of fancy, little more.Erichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18275812152895151542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post-86068747822017927202008-11-09T17:45:00.000-08:002008-11-09T17:45:00.000-08:00OK, I'm gong to look at Parzybok's rebuttal becaus...OK, I'm gong to look at Parzybok's rebuttal because if I did read it wrong, then I went off on the wrong tangent. However, the choice of words "which of these civilizations had a cure for cancer?" instead of "which of these civilizations unmolested, would have come up with a cure for cancer" is what set me off in the first place. I just don't see how you can read that sentence any other way.<BR/><BR/>And, if the unspoken subtext is the second alternative is "have a cure for cancer by right now in history", that's also gobsmackingly stupid, for reason I will shortly elaborate on.John the Scientisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03467337009577733553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post-6727969919735522432008-11-09T13:04:00.000-08:002008-11-09T13:04:00.000-08:00John, I'm afraid I skimmed your entry when it firs...John, I'm afraid I skimmed your entry when it first posted, and I agreed with it. Then I saw your comment at Giant Midgets about being in a pissing match with an author from Scalzi's blog, so I came back and not only re-read your piece here, but I actually went back and read "The Big Idea" post at Whatever (like Nathan, I almost never read that feature and I find it consistently disappointing) and Parzybok's reply at his own blog--and I no longer agree with you.<BR/><BR/>That is, like Nathan, I think you're railing against something Parzybok didn't say. Parzybok didn't offer up a massive dose of RFK-Junior-esque woo; he described the way in which he came up with a fantasy story (apparently) about a magical couch that wants to go somewhere, and how his writing this story was influenced by a sense of wonder as he walked over a bit of lost history.<BR/><BR/>I can't fault him for that one bit.<BR/><BR/>I mean, I'm a secular materialist atheist skeptic guy who enjoys stories about alien visitors and weird conspiracies and magic and ghosts and whatnot, not because I believe in any of those things, but because they're fun to think about. The idea that a lost culture might have had a cure for cancer is a fun idea to think about, even if it's a <I>factually</I> implausible idea. Just like the idea that there are ghosts is fun, even if there aren't any, or the idea of FTL drives is fun, even if they seem improbable given our current understandings in physics.<BR/><BR/>I think, from other discussions we've had around here and elsewhere, that there are actually two issues. First, I think you have a tendency to read too much politics/ideology into the text of a book, perhaps because you're a fan of at least one writer (RAH) who wrote with ideological agendas. Sometimes a writer's only agenda is to play with an interesting idea, and that's what the text is really about. Which brings up the second, directly-related issue: I think that because one of your favorite writers (RAH) wore his ideological beliefs (about government, about relationships, about religion, about everything) on his sleeve, frequently even inserting a character just to serve as a thinly-disguised writer's mouthpiece, because of this, I think you have a tendency to conflate the narrative viewpoint of a story with the writer's actual viewpoint.<BR/><BR/>In other words, just because a writer tells a story in which the heroes are fascists, doesn't mean <I>he's</I> a fascist, it means he thought that was an interesting story. Maybe he loves fascism and maybe he doesn't. A writer who writes a novel set in a technological dystopia may love technology or hate it--maybe he loves it and just thought of a cool idea that involved computers run amuck or genetics gone bad.<BR/><BR/>Hell, right now for National Novel Writing Month, I'm writing a story about zombies that may be a sign of God's wrath: I still don't believe in zombies or God, but zombies are interesting and the characters are people who would be apt to blame God, so I'll go with their point-of-view. But it's not a statement of belief. Hell, if the characters are right, and God is to blame for the disaster they're facing, it's only because the idea "what if there was a God and he was really, really pissed at these people for obvious reasons?" is an interesting idea to chew on.<BR/><BR/>It's in this vein, as an aside, that I think your dislike of H.P. Lovecraft is interesting. There are good reasons to despise HPL: e.g. the purple prose, the unmitigated racism, the way his reach sometimes exceeds his grasp. But you've expressed, if I understand you, a distaste for HPL based on his alleged fear of science or technology, which is (ironically) the exact opposite of who HPL was as a person <I>and</I> as a writer: his work may incorporate a fear of the unknown, but HPL was a voracious reader of science materials, a lifelong amateur astronomer, and (as a science-fiction/fantasy writer) an early-adopter of developments like Relativity and the discovery of Pluto--he wrote about the terrors of the universe because it interested and amused him to do so, not because he had an anti-science agenda. He wasn't, in other words, a writer like RAH or C.S. Lewis, in other words, writing (for better or worse) with an obvious agenda or to popularize an idea (be it the wonders of rocket science or the truth of Christian doctrine).<BR/><BR/>I don't know if I'll read Parzybok's book or not. I have a huge reading list, and frankly the description of the book somehow reminds me of a commercial for something (I think it's that old car commercial with the two guys rescuing a comfy-looking couch from a corner trash pickup, only to discover it's smelly).<BR/><BR/>But it doesn't sound like he's saying what you think he said.<BR/><BR/>And now I have to get back to zombies, and what may-or-may-not be God's judgment, and all that fun stuff. Hope the rest of your weekend's pretty copacetic.<BR/><BR/>PS<BR/><BR/>Hey, Zelda, you do know that you don't have to be a _____ to say you disagree with the _____er/ist or even to dislike their work. I mean, you don't walk out of a movie theater saying, "Wow, I really would have hated that movie we just saw, but I'm not a director, so I guess I don't have an opinion." Or hear a song on the radio and say, "Wow, that really grates on my ears and if I was a professional musician I might even say that the lead singer sounds like ass, but I'm not, so I guess I'll listen to this song that I would think was shit if I was qualified to think so."<BR/><BR/>Because, you know, that would be pretty retarded if you did. Just saying.<BR/><BR/>PPS<BR/><BR/>And John, if you do get around to publishing a novel, I not only non-sarcastically look forward to reading it, but I wouldn't be adverse to getting a signed ARC, hint hint. We may disagree 8/9 of the time on nearly everything, but I enjoy your work.<BR/><BR/>And now (finally) back to the NaNo!Erichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18275812152895151542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post-61571816549949587082008-11-09T07:56:00.000-08:002008-11-09T07:56:00.000-08:00As I hinted at last night, I hadn't read this part...As I hinted at last night, I hadn't read this particular BIG IDEA. For me, those pieces are like explanations of jokes. I like jokes all on their own without explanation and I like novels the same way. I either get them or I don't, but, for me, they should stand on their own.<BR/><BR/>Now, I <EM>have</EM> gone and read Parzybok's Big Idea piece and I think you're rant is against something he didn't actually say. I don't see him as having made some claim that these cultures or societies are/were somehow superior to our own. (His rebuttal comes closer to that, but still doesn't cross that line.) He's <EM>imagining</EM> a "what could have been". (If you're coming up with a premise that includes a magical couch, clearly you're going to step off into some flights of fancy.)<BR/><BR/>On the one hand, I'd say that a society that is now extinct obviously failed as a society. But I don't have any issue with someone examining what might have come to be if they had flourished, in isolation and in parallel to our own. <BR/><BR/>I'd love to visit Cuba solely because they've been systematically isolated from American culture. I want to see a place that is uniquely its own and doesn't have McDonalds and Starbucks on every corner. There is some amazing Cuban music that owes some of its awesomeness to the fact that it <EM>has</EM> developed in isolation. None of this equals an endorsement of their government any more than liking the blues is an endorsement of the social realities that brought them about in the first place.<BR/><BR/>Sorry, can't get behind you on this one. I think you've taken offense where none was really offered.Nathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00648438549121320566noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post-65575655281291400472008-11-08T23:18:00.000-08:002008-11-08T23:18:00.000-08:00Hi John - thanks for reading my Big Idea piece on ...Hi John - thanks for reading <A HREF="http://whatever.scalzi.com/2008/11/06/the-big-idea-benjamin-parzybok/" REL="nofollow">my Big Idea piece on Scalzi's blog</A>. <A HREF="http://secret.ideacog.net/2008/11/08/are-rebuttals-worthwhile/" REL="nofollow">I wrote a response to it here</A>.<BR/><BR/>cheers,<BR/>BenBen Parzybokhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01265656141209603906noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post-26141245482532327622008-11-08T22:41:00.000-08:002008-11-08T22:41:00.000-08:00Wow, you are clearly super smart -- nice work smac...Wow, you are clearly super smart -- nice work smackin' that debut novelist down. You showed him. Looking forward to reading your novel when it comes out..Zeldahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13023527146108196813noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1377385119326285192.post-5897151700472988022008-11-08T20:13:00.000-08:002008-11-08T20:13:00.000-08:00I was wondering what got you so het up. I almost ...I was wondering what got you so het up. I almost never read that feature. I've found that even if I liked the book, the BIG IDEA usually disappoints me.<BR/><BR/>I prefer my fiction as fiction.Nathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00648438549121320566noreply@blogger.com