You needn't worry. Silicon Valley money will insure that foreign scientists and engineers, who can be kept on an H1B leash, will be permitted to enter the U.S.
Larry, there is a difference between planning one's own life as though Social Security will not exist, and shrugging off the specter of its non-existence for others.
Do I believe its doom is inevitable? No. Do I believe it will be looted and killed by the generation before mine? Yes. Does that mean I will let it go quietly? Hell no.
and I can't use the sixth without submitting to a search
And this is why so many people see taxes as theft: like children, they believe things just work as if by magic unless they, personally, are involved enough to see those workings.
So air-traffic control only exists when one gets on a plane; there's no awareness of an entire system devoted to keeping planes from crashing into one another, making orderly arrangements for when they are flying and where they will land, and so on. The planes just go magically where they're supposed to go and nobody has to pay a dime.
And if any of those invisible systems turn out to be imperfect--well, that's clear evidence that they don't work at all, and should be abolished, and in any event we shouldn't have to pay for them. (Why, I'm sure that Enron Postal Co. would deliver mail everywhere for half the price!)
I often wonder why the Goverment Fails folks live in the U.S., with all its bureaucracy and terrible laws. Surely there are plenty of places in the world where you don't pay taxes, because there are no oppressive laws requiring that "Prime Beef" in the store actually come from a cow, or prohibiting you from driving after you've downed a fifth of good Scotch. Utopia awaits, tax-loathers!
It's just that in my experience, government is a combination of predator and parasite
All that stuff about making sure you have running water, guaranteed mail delivery, inspected meat, regularly-policed communities, an operational justice system, air-traffic control, etc. etc. is just a lure to get you to hand over your paycheck to the predators, eh?
johnathan, don't even get me started about the underfunding of pensions. I'm not sure if anyone has actually uncovered a corporate document saying "Who cares? By the time they sue us they'll all be old and dead," but it wouldn't surprise me.
I'm not afraid of losing Social Security, because I never expected to receive a dime from it and thus never have and never will rely on it for retirement.
I'm one of the skeptics. I don't believe that it's inevitable, in the sense that legislators could 'top it up.' But I do believe it's inevitable, in the sense that those legislators will be at the beck and call of elderly Baby Boomers. I have no illusions that the previous generation (as a group) is going to be the first generation to say, in its old age, "Let's not just be in this for ourselves."
No, the Onion is both original and funny.
I still think the problem is that her original gimmick--"cute blonde conservative in a miniskirt"--wore out, and she never developed the writing or observation skills to replace the gimmick. Instead, she plays to an ever-more competitive field on the far right that cares only about vitriol, and since she's got competition, she has to go further and further Out There to get airtime. (I mean, even David Horowitz has washed his hands of her--that's pretty telling.)
Perhaps Coulter wrote the column before she got to the convention.
Such a simple explanation, and yet it makes perfect sense.
And you can get the Republicans for Voldemort shirt online.
I feel better about my all-monochrome wardrobe now.
I just have to say that having been close to an awful lot of moose noses
That sounds like a really interesting backstory.
Just try to buy red shoes right now. There aren't any.
What kind of red shoes? Fuck-me pumps are always available in red. Need links?
Last time we moved, we had paid movers. I think I will sell a kidney for money to pay movers again, if necessary, rather than do it myself.
John, nobody said it was WRONG to smoke crack and sodomize cats. As long as you don't drop hot ash on the cat, you know.
Someone with better theological credentials will have to classify what sort of sin that is, whether vernal or motile
"Shitty."
I intend not to follow up on this post or try to defend it.
What is it about the Internet that leads people to run in, say their piece, scream "No tagbacks!" and run back out?
Charlie, I don't think anyone is saying Mr. Pierce should get in here and apologize, but that he should and could have handled this far better.
Jeremy, if you denied membership, nobody would believe you anyway. That's the beauty of it.
I applaud Mary Anne's stance in favor of civil debate, and of eliminating cattiness and personal slams from debate. I don't think anyone is arguing she is wrong on those counts.
The problem is that mixed in with that very admirable stance was a defense of, well, indefensible behavior whose perpetrator either can't or won't admit was (at best) stupid. (It does seem that Mary Anne's original comments were based on the changes Mr. Pierce made to his advice after the zillion comments here. But given that TNH quoted those original comments at the beginning of the thread, it's a bit of an oversight, nu?)
From my point of view, whether Todd corrects his bad behavior or not isn't reallly relevant to the question of whether some of you also behaved badly, and might want to apologize.
I couldn't agree more.
However, I don't agree that the sheer volume of responses constitutes bad behavior, nor that questioning the credentials of someone who advocates lying about one's credentials is out of line.
All right, I'll give you "embrangle." And the last one.
Randall, I agree--please don't think I'm pillorying Mr. Pierce for being unsaintly. But there's a big gap between imperfect/cranky, and accusing your detractors of being part of a vast write-ring conspiracy.
Mary Anne, again: A bald exhortation to fabricate writing credentials (presented as authoritative advice, from a published author and professor) is not "rhetorical". His phrasing did not "suggest" lying. He did not limit his advice on credential-puffery to making a small journal with friends. Why do you feel the need to minimize and soft-pedal the awfulness of what he wrote?
Yes, there were posts that went beyond outrage over the advice and into personal snippery. It's fair to criticize that. It's not fair to criticize people who are upset about what he in fact wrote, by pretending he didn't really write that or mean it anyway.
And I certainly don't think it's fair to be upset with people for asking "Well, if making up credentials is such a great trick, did you do it? If not, why are you recommending it?"
Randall, most people who aren't going to "do it again" have some idea that what they did was a bad idea. Insisting that the fault lies in a shadowy cabal of editors and toadies isn't, at least to me, an indication that the person is thinking "Oh, hey, my bad."
You never expected that Todd would ever come read this board
As has been pointed out--repeatedly--as soon as he discovered the thread, John Scalzi made a point of e-mailing Mr. Pierce about it, and then Mr. Scalzi posted in his own blog (and, I believe, here) that he had done so. I know that at least one other person did so as well, because he posted the (form-letter) response too. I wouldn't be surprised if more people also e-mailed Mr. Pierce.
The "error" you refer to was not along the lines of dropping a comma. It was not merely "bad advice." It was extremely destructive advice to be offering new writers--especially as Mr. Pierce says he hasn't and wouldn't ever follow that advice himself. We're not talking about telling new writers to eschew semicolons. Mr. Pierce presented advice he himself claims not to follow that would, if taken, severely damage or terminate a fledgling writer's career.
So perhaps you understand now why people were a little, shall we say, harsh.
Were it me? Yes, I'd be pissed at the people who made pointless, petty remarks (like analyzing the quality of Mr. Pierce's prose). I like to think, though, that I would be grown-up enough to admit that my advice was very very wrong, that I had exaggerated my actual point, and that I was making an effort to find and get rid of still-extant copies of the Bad Advice lest it trip somebody up.
What I wouldn't do: claim that nobody had told me about the thread when I knew damn well they had, threaten lawsuits, accuse my detractors of being part of a ridiculous conspiracy, or pretend that my advice was ever justifiable in the first place. I certainly wouldn't be shocked, shocked that if I told people "Lie about your credentials," that they might wonder whether I put my own words into action.
It's nice that you know the guy in real life and find him both kind and trustworthy. Please understand that goes nowhere toward soft-pedaling the horribleness of his advice--presented as Words From An Expert--or his reaction to criticism of it.
Xopher, given fact that the reply was identical and the alleged Mr. Pierce stated it was 'not unique' to John Scalzi (and in fact, another person--who was irrationally pro-lying-advice--claims to have received the same thing) , I'm guessing it's either an autoresponder of some kind, or Mr. Pierce scanned the e-mail briefly, saw it was about his piece, sent off Standard Reply #469, and only noticed the "hey, there's this thread where people are ripping on your sorry ass" comment much later.
Sorry about the comma explosion there.
I'm not aware of expressing an opinion about it one way or another on this thread, actually.
Not so. On WHATEVER, you specifically stated that you wouldn't say anything behind someone's back that you refused to say to their face, and therefore you had e-mailed Mr. Pierce about the existence of the thread, and posted his reply to you. That bespeaks a certain lack of interest in petty cruelty.
A fellow on LiveJournal (who, if I recall right, goes by the userid "orgash") also claimed to have written to Mr. Pierce, and posted a reply remarkably similar to the one you received. I admit I suspected the fellow of simply copying from WHATEVER, but Mr. Pierce's comment You then used my email response, which was not unique to you cleared that up.
(Of course, Mr. Pierce also initially claimed never to have been contact by anyone, so perhaps this isn't actually Mr. Pierce. Or he's merely forgetful. Whatever.)
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|---|---|
| 2004 | 139 |
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