Testing Chat IV: A New Hope

[adr]

i guess what gets me is that people can accept pure bullshit like FTL travel and gigaton lazerz

but a far more plausible thing like humans dying or fierballz are totally outlandish, because it is really easy to make that work even from the sdn style 'suspension of disbelief' frame of mind

(i remember having a similar argument back in like 2007 with some peeps before my fanfiction transitioned all the way to hard sci fi, and still had some other elements in there, including you guessed it, FTL and fireballs. and i said it is absurd to accept one but not the other

but perhaps i missed the point of that criticism, if it was about kinda inconsistent stuff or breaking with themes or whatever, i'd prolly agree - those are major reasons why i transitioned to moar hardness myself in the time after that. it is hard to have a super scary height when the characters are wizards who can fly.)

[Jung]

but you can put out fires by putting water on them too

perhaps the 'extinguish fire' spell works by just getting in the way of oxygen, and the cause of death on the person is actually some kind of supernatural suffocation

this isn't even hard

I think it has to do with the way "picking holes" in stuff and complaining about how "unrealistic" things are is a favorite passtime in places like that. It creates a mindset I kind of like to call "when in doubt, assume it's because the author's stupid," where they don't really want to work with the narrative and fill in gaps with their own explanations, they want to look for "holes" they can pick in it. There is, incidentally, I think a syncretism here with nerd obsession with "worldbuilding" and collecting "facts"; they want and expect everything to be spelled out for them and don't appreciate how narratives are often better served by ambiguity.

I used to suffer from that kind of mindset myself. Picking "holes" in stuff would make me feel all intellectual and learned and clever. "AHA, the author might have gotten away with this with the usual rubes, but I know better!"

[adr]

"when in doubt, assume it's because the author's stupid,"

Aye, and you see that in debate threads too, it really bugs me.

There is, incidentally, I think a syncretism here with nerd obsession with "worldbuilding" and collecting "facts"; they want and expect everything to be spelled out for them and don't appreciate how narratives are often better served by ambiguity.

BTW, generally I think we should be careful to avoid falling into our own version of that. It is one thing to open your mind to new ideas and encourage others to do so too, but if you just substitute "[characters|themes] are objectively better than hard facts" for "hard facts are objectively better than X", I think that isn't ideal yet.

I enjoy diamond hard sci fi, even those with cardboard characters and minimalistic plots (which isn't all of it!). I enjoy thinking about minor details of worldbuilding and tech. The problem comes only when you attack someone else for getting this stuff "wrong" when that isn't what they're after; judging them with mismatched criteria, and that knife cuts both ways.

[Bakustra]

"With Into Darkness, the focus is on the racist and sexist attitudes that persist in spite of the series' superficial utopianism, because the history of all hitherto existing Star Trek is the history of class struggles."

"Cloverfield isn't about 9/11; it's a typical Godzilla movie.

Godzilla isn't about Hiroshima; it's a typical King Kong movie.

King Kong isn't about colonialism; it's a monkey.

Cloverfield is a monkey."

"Cinema has been getting progressively better since its inception, reaching a peak around Prometheus and Battle: Los Angeles. I'm not even sure if I'm joking here."

'An excerpt from my Room 237 interview segment:

"if you slow this part down and zoom-enhance, you can see the father, high on oldschool racialism, axing a black dude in the chest with an axe."'

[Jung]

^ Context?

[Flagg]

Anyone know what's up with SDN? Other than that it's down, I mean?

[Aaron]

Toronto had some flash floods and heavy rain, might be that.

Though I think he's actually in Etobicoke.

[Flagg]

Well I sent him a message on FB just asking if it'd be back up ever. I don't know why he even keeps it running. Its membership is way down, the mods don't give a shit, and he's never there, so why bother?

[evilsoup]

eh, at least some people still enjoy it (it still has a larger membership than here, doesn't it?), and I gather it doesn't really cost him anything so

[Aaron]

He may have free time in the future and want to return to it. His kids won't be at home forever.

[Oxymoron]

Also, inertia and a sense of responsibility to the community that has grown around the forum.

At least that's how I'd see it in his position.

[timmy]

Yeah, ditto. Though you can see the (not always unwarranted) begrudgement he's had towards the broader userbase now and again in the last few years. I'm kind of surprised it's still going.

If it collapses entirely it'll drive a hole through Broomstick's life from which she might not recover.

[Shroom Man 777]

i was thinking that since i don't go to TEO anymore and TEO used to be a source of cool shits (like science news, sci-fi stuffs, even shitty political news), can't we start discussing similar stuffs like have folks post cool articels like woah NASA astronomers use quantum processing to see nanotech 3D printer stem cell singals from outer space that can cure cansor or something

[RyanThunder]

I would love that. That's the only thing I'm really missing from that place.

[Veef]

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/mov ... 2pnhr.html

the worst Australian accents in any movie

[RogueIce]

Toronto had some flash floods and heavy rain, might be that.

Though I think he's actually in Etobicoke.

I saw him responding to somebody else and it was exactly that. The floods and stuff. So I imagine whenever all that gets sorted out SDN (the forums at least, main site still works) will return.

[Big Orangutan]

I rather not get too tied to a talk forum these days and another place, ConceptArt.Org, suddenly folded (and its admin wad revealed to be a fraudster).

[RogueIce]

'suspension of disbelief'

"I am suspending your disbelief. Permanently."

[Bounty]

Starting September I'll be a Java Consultant! No, I don't know what that is either. I'm just happy it comes with a car cause mine just sort of lost its rear suspension.

[adr]

sounds like a sweet gig

[joviwan]

Starting September I'll be a Java Consultant! No, I don't know what that is either. I'm just happy it comes with a car cause mine just sort of lost its rear suspension.

...like, under the couch?

[Bounty]

Like, expensive-sounding BANG and then a metal-on-metal grating sound while the rear sagged.

sounds like a sweet gig

Best part: they called me. I've only been looking for two weeks.

[Jung]

i was thinking that since i don't go to TEO anymore and TEO used to be a source of cool shits (like science news, sci-fi stuffs, even shitty political news), can't we start discussing similar stuffs like have folks post cool articels like woah NASA astronomers use quantum processing to see nanotech 3D printer stem cell singals from outer space that can cure cansor or something

This sounds like an excellent idea to me.

[adr]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/ ... ystem-edge

[Darksi4190]

God I hate working at fucking Mcdonalds. I'm about three "bad" shifts away from adopting the same attitude as my friend, which is "fuck it. I'll just live off student loans until I can get a degree and find a job where they treat me like an actual person."