Thank you, David. :)
Dunno where I grabbed the "piscus" misspelling then. I guess that means my pun is broken too. *ponders* Should I get my gmail account updated with a proper spelling?
As a kid, I don't think this ad would have affected me much one way or the other, but then I wasn't the target demographic. (And I was a paranoid hypochondriac of a child. Drugs were bad, mmmkay.)
Aren't they worried about all the kids who will be sniffing craft glue though?
Tracina: No worries. (Also my nick makes even more punnery fun if you know that the other nick I go by is PixelFish, but that one started getting ratherly commonly used by other folks, so I migrated to Piscus. Actually, I'm not totally sure if it should be piscus, pisces, or piscis. I've seen all three.)
Lucy: I too am inclined to be bulldoggish about the Moebius strip explanation, since my early childhood experiences seem to run very similarly. I first came across an illustration of a Moebius strip in Godel, Escher, and Bach (at the tender age of four or five, when I was reading everything I could get my hands on, including Dad's college texts). I used to make them, and like Escher, draw them. I don't know anybody who didn't think they were cool when I showed them how it worked.
Hrm. It is a bit intense and unexpected, and if I had kids who had seen it just by chance, I might be upset, not because they saw it, but because they weren't prepared for it in advance.(I know there are a lot of things you can't prepare kids for in advance: sudden death, puberty, accidents, whatever. But I think sometimes it would be nice to be able to discuss with the kids what they are about to see before they see it.) The news is generally cradled with frames and talking heads, and while it can be as graphic, I think most people have a sensitivity buffer when it comes to the news because of how it is framed and presented. But I think that same sensitivity buffer needs to get pulled down now and again so that we are spurred to action by truly horrific things.
I think CNN could have showed it later in the evening perhaps...
It was very impactful. I found myself tearing up...and imagining the faces of all the people round the world who go through that. I also found some of the comments mentioned chillingly callous or just willfully belligerent.
Scalzi: Must've missed that one somehow. :) I jokingly brought it up because I think the logic is just as silly as his original statement about women and physics.
Mm-hmmm. There's more women in the notorious Women Studies program at the University of Minnesota than there have ever been women writing hard SF since Jules Verne first put pen to paper, but I'm part of the problem. Come to think of it, there may be more PROFESSORS in that one women's program than there have ever been female hard SF writers. Did anyone ever give me the number I requested?
I'm sorry, but I fail to see how women participating in women's studies precludes their participation in the writing of hard SF. That's a false alternative: you seem to be stating that because this program exists and attracts women at a greater degree than the writing of hard SF, that it is detrimental to the aggregate forces of womyn power. Is that what you are trying to say here? Because that's what I am getting from that statement.
A silly digression: (Why isn't VD asking the hardball question of why men aren't writing Harlequin romance? Could something be wrong with their emotional receptors? Could they be unable to make the tender connections that presage successful romantic relationships?)
PiscusFische wrote:
"Presupposing that people would bar you somehow from said organisation because of a difference of opinion says more about you, I think, than the organisation."
Scalzi replied: Well, in Vox's defense, there were indeed some folks further up the comment stream who seemed to imply a politics check re: SFWA's Nebula juries would not be a bad thing, and in fact, it would, and very much so. Vox has got his publication credits, and that's all he needs, so he should quite obviously be able to participate in all SFWA activities.
To massacre Voltaire's sentiment, Vox may have indefensibly stupid opinions, but I for one would fight for the right for him to be an SFWA member with indefensibly stupid opinions. Lord knows he wouldn't be the first, or the last.
...
I retract that particular statement then.
Of course this idea is nonsense. If Vox Dei actually thinks that science fiction is about physics, he's plain, flat wrong. The idea is manifestly absurd. Articles in physics journals are about physics. Science fiction, like all fiction, is about people. Specifically, it is about how people adapt themselves and their societies to technological change and advances in scientific knowledge. An understanding of the human condition and character, and an ability to think critically about history is far more important for this purpose than detailed understanding of physics at the technical level. The science should not conflict with what is known; it need do no more than that.
Hurrah for Dave Luckett and Lucy who bring up the point: is Hard SF all about the physics?
I mean, why physics? Why does physics have the perception of being the Hard Science? Does microbiology not count? Genetics? Botany? Geology? Chemistry? Granted, a lot of these sciences come down to physics in the end, particularly on the micro end of things. Would these all be socked away as Not Hard Enough?
I like very much the explanation that Hard SF is where the story is about the science, where the science has been brought to the forefront.
I'm not sure how to respond to Vox's supposition that women don't write physics because we can't hack the physics. (Responding is particularly hard because he keeps backpedalling on this statement, saying it was meant to reflect societal influences, etc. etc.) I have both memories in school of being encouraged to delve into sciences, and of being dissuaded as well--sometimes because of my sex, sometimes not. I was the only female on my high school's Academic Decathlon team (Theme: Microbiology! Take that, physics!) and one of three girls that tried out. I can't argue that I haven't seen instances of societal influence pulling women in other directions. But it seems to be a logical fallacy to ascribe 100 percent of that behaviour to "fear of physics" and societal influences.
This is a case of somebody trying to invalidate the creative endeavours of an entire group of individuals (in this case, women) by implying that A) their own creative endeavours (writing in general) are inferior B) that this is because they belong to that group (women--we just can't hack it!) and C) people in the group who don't fit the original statement are statistical aberrations and therefore don't count. I tried talking my way around the misogyny and I just couldn't do it, sorry. It's a lot of time and energy I've already expended on this....so adieu.
I really can't add much else to the arguments already presented here at this time. I've got to go slay some monsters and write some Hard SF to prove that I'm not brainwashed by society and/or functionally incapable of the thought processes required.
...
Note for Meester Vox: I am not a member of the SFWA (yet) and some people might call me embryonically liberal, which up until as recently as five years ago, would have made me flinch in horror, such epithets ringing hard in my Reagan-Republican-Utah-raised little ears. (As I've come to find out, these labels are useful only for the broadness of their inclusivity. Otherwise they are pretty much meaningless to me.) But, I hardly think that having you as a member would cause the SFWA to be tipping over into great moral abyss. I suppose the criteria I would want in a writing organisation is that its members actually be writers, and by some coincidence, that seems to be SFWA's criteria as well. Presupposing that people would bar you somehow from said organisation because of a difference of opinion says more about you, I think, than the organisation.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2005 | 10 |
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