Links : Send 'em all to Iraq!

It has been an interesting week for SF Diplomat.  Following my decision to review La Hamilton's The Harlequin I seemingly stumbled into a sub-cultural no man's land between two rival sets of fans.  On the one hand you have the Laurell K. Hamilton official forums where people are hilariously banned from using the term "Mary Sue" and an anti-LKH livejournal community with hundreds of members.  In fact, my blog has been going for nearly two years (though seriously only for about 9 months of that) and 10% of my total number of hits came this week.

The idea of an anti-someone community is an interesting one especially as most of the people on there appear to not only be still reading LKH's books but a number of them are still buying them.  Setting aside the issue of whether or not I'd be capable of hating someone so much I'd become part of a community that defined itself in such terms, it does strike me as somewhat astonishing that people who hate LKH still read her books.  In the comments section of my review I mention the fact (which I also raised in my ill-fated aesthetics of fantasy) that people read bad books because they walk into a book shop and simply don't know what to buy so in the case of fantasy they'll go for the one about the elves or they'll buy the name they know.  Apparently, this conservatism/brand loyalty is powerful enough to convince people to buy books by authors they don't like.  I had encountered this before on forums where people would say "I didn't like the first volume at all, but I'll probably pick up the second volume anyway if I see it" but never on the scale you see in the anti-LKH community.

This, to me, is mind-boggling.  If I don't like a book, I most likely won't finish it and it would take quite a bit of convincing to get me to buy that author again.  There are too many good books out there for people to spend their lives reading shit, especially seeing as there are LOADS of review sites out there nowadays that you can read for free.

Speaking of which, I have now heard from Gabe who assures me that he is no longer trapped under a pile of old newspapers ensconced in his new place and will be in a position to get Scalpel back up soon.  Hurrah!

Anyway, enough about me... on with the links!

FIRSTLY,  David Moles weighs in on the issue of people taking children to conventions.  He claims that seeing as Wiscon was largely centered upon feminist SF then people shouldn't be surprised to see people bring their children with them.  As a founder of the world's first Childfree political group, it's obvious that I have views on this.  If you take a child to an adult function such as a literary SF convention then you're effectively saying that your being able to attend a convention without shelling out for childcare is more important than someone's right to attend the convention without having to put up with screaming children (and if you take children to a function largely composed of people sitting around and talking about books, those children will scream and run around).  To me this is a bit like people who don't wash but insist upon taking the tube.  They're effectively saying that their convenience outweighs your basic ability to enjoy whatever it is you're doing and you should be fine with this.  Obviously, to my eyes this is clearly selfish behaviour.

As to the question of it being a feminist issue... yes.  It is an issue.  Not an axiom.  Some feminists argue that as having children is a natural thing women do, then women should not have to deal with any of the downsides of having children such as being passed over for promotion as a result of taking months and months off work and then going home early every day or curtail their social life because they have a child who is unable (because he's a child) to sit still and be quiet while the adults have fun.  Not all feminists believe this to be the case.  In fact, there's a huge amount written about how having children is no more integral to the "female experience" than any other particular lifestyle choice, including being childfree.  But whether or not you buy into the various branches of feminist theory, the issue to me is that most of the childfree people I've met in my life have been female and some of the loudest claimants of "parents' rights" have been male.  This isn't a male/female thing, it's a breeder/childless thing.  Obviously, not everyone is going to agree with my take on this (in fact, a lot of people tend to be offended by it) but my point is not that I'm right and Moles is wrong, my point is that the contrary of Moles' opinion is just as intellectually credible as the position he maintains, as a result, it's perfectly reasonable for people to turn up to Wiscon and then roll their eyes at the number of kids there (if a trifle melodramatic).

 

SECONDLY, an interesting article on the Advertising Standards Authority about why adverts invariably seem louder than the programmes they so rudely interrupt.  It turns out that the problem is the way in which "loudness" is defined.  The rules are that no advert can be higher than a particular volume.  However, unlike TV programmes where the volume goes up and down, the sound levels in adverts vary a lot less.  Clearly the issue needs to be average volume and not peak volume.  Clever example of gaming a poorly conceived system though.  This is pretty much what advertisers do though... they spend their time coming up with ways to sneak around the system.  Hence the people who came up with French Connection's obnoxious FCUK logo appearing in front of the ASA and smugly going "what? what? FCUK - French Connection UK? I don't see the problem... it must be your filthy mind playing tricks on you".  This strategy became less viable when they started using FCUK as a verb.  This is why I'm in favour of the law being changed to allow the ASA to issue on the spot punishment beatings to smug cocaine shoveling tossers with £300 shoes and ironic Tshirts.  And I know just how to get the law changed too...

 

THIRDLY, A while ago the Prime Minister's office set up a web page allowing to set up online petitions (presumably to stop them having to deal with people delivering petitions to the door of Number 10).  The problem is that, thus far, the only people to pay any attention to this website have been the right wing tabloids demanding that the government do away with speed cameras (because it's immoral that people who break the law should be punished for it) or that they make Jeremy Clarkson Prime Minister ( who was "Created by the Luftwaffe").  However, if you look beyond the big causes celebres you'll see a frightening side to British politics.  Are you concerned that paedophiles might be getting off by watching adverts that feature children sitting on the loo?  some people are.  How about emptying the prisons and sending them all to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan? or a mandatory national day of prayer?  aside petitions from people who really shouldn't be allowed to vote, let alone petition the government, there are also glimpses into weird sub-cultures that most people won't have ever heard of.  What exactly is a late-night strongman competition?  the mind boggles.

 

FOURTHLY, THIS rather splendid article that links to an even better article by evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller.  Miller suggests that the reason we haven't discovered any signs of intelligent life is perhaps because alien species reach a certain level of cultural development and, instead of expanding outwards to other planets and solar systems, they turn inwards and shut themselves off from the rest of the galaxy because of the expense and complication and danger of moving outwards.  This idea pops up in Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained but more tellingly in Charlie Stross' Accelerando in which humanity does not expand outwards but inwards by changing all the matter in the solar system into what is known as a Matrioshka Brain.

Miller argues that our brain does not track what is good for us, it tracks the traces of stuff that it is hard wired to think are good for you.  The problem is that this means it is easy to trick the brain into making it think that you're engaging in something healthy.  So we might be hard-wired to like sugar because as plainsmen clinging to life sugar would be a good source of energy.  But when you're eating three square meals a day, sugar is not what you need.  Miller takes this point further in suggesting that a lot of entertainment media is in fact, like junk food, a way of tricking the brain into believing that we're doing stuff that's good for us.  So while we might be hard-wired to be curious and to seek out action, we get much the same satisfaction by playing a videogame or watching a film about being active and exploring.  So in effect, reading SF might be preventing us from going out and doing SFnal things.

It's an interesting point but what strikes me about the article is that it is theoretically quite self-serving.  According to evolutionary psychology, we behave the way we do because of genetic queues that make us more or less likely to reproduce and carry on our genes.  The problem with this view is that it immediately struggles to explain things like people doing unhealthy stuff or just refusing to reproduce.  As a result, the evolutionary psychology people have tried a work around by positing the idea that the brain can be tricked.  So, in essence, if you do stuff that confirms the idea that we're all about carrying on our genes then it proves evolutionary psychology correct and if we do stuff that actively prevents us from carrying on our genes then that proves evolutionary psychology true too.  And to think, in the old days, that used to be seen as grounds for thinking that your theory was pseudoscience.

 

FIFTHLY, Infest Wisely is a splendid series of SF shorts about the technologies of the near future.  Only the first four episodes are online so far but we've already had women giving guys hand-jobs in order to steal their semen for the purposes of identity theft and the idea of cybernetic enhancement through the use of nanites that come in sticks of gum.  Excellent stuff.

Comments

[Abigail]

I take serious exception to your depiction of the feminist issue in this case. Who are these women who feel comfortable telling me, or anyone else, what we should or shouldn't do with our reproductive systems, and how dare they call themselves feminists? Feminism isn't about dictating what choices women should make. It's about (among other things) making sure that women aren't unduly penalized for those choices--as they have been, financially, socially, academically and professionally, for the bulk of human history, for being biologically responsible for procreation, and for the social conventions that place the burden of child-rearing solely or primarily on their shoulders. One way to accomplish this goal is to provide adequate child-care, as Wiscon and most other fan conventions have been doing for years.

[Jonathan McCalmont]

Clearly, it is wrong to place the burden for reproduction solely on the shoulders of women. But the reasonable response to this is not to demand that that burden be placed equally on the shoulders of all, regardless of whether or not they want children.

Yet this is what happens as childfree people regularly pay higher taxes and work longer hours for less pay than people with kids working identical jobs.

In this particular example we have the expectation that all adults at the convention bear the social burden of unruly children (rather than solely the parents) by putting up with the noise and most likely (though I'm only guessing here) financially by not funding child care solely out of parental pockets.

As for feminism, I'm wary of any position that claims feminist status whilst simultaneously trotting out the same kind of argument that was once used to justify paying men more than women for the same job.

My original point was that there's room for reasonable people to disagree here and there's room for political discussion both in general and within feminist theory.

[A.R.Yngve]

You mention the strange way some groups declare their hate and loathing for a book series, but keep buying it anyway...

A guy I know reads the interminable "Wheel Of Time" fantasy book series. He's smart, educated, and readily admits the WoT books are only getting worse -- and yet he keeps buying and reading them, and can't offer a clear explanation why.

I once tried to read a page from a recent "Wheel Of Time" book... and the piss-poor language, style, grammar and story made me so mad I pounded the book with a hammer, then flung it to the floor and stomped on it. The book was an insult to literature, to writers, to readers, to culture itself, to the trees which were sacrificed in order to print it.

Is there a chemical explanation to the phenomenon? Are the pages of "Anita Blake" and "Wheel of Time" books laced with heroin??:-S

[MattD]

I wonder how much of the LKH (and WoT) phenomenon you mention are the social aspects. First, in that we're very much a bestseller culture, where people often feel they to read what others in their social circle are reading to maintain their place within the circle; and second, because while reading a book that you know is poorly written is a private activity, complaining about it to/with others is a social activity. Possibly the people reading these books that they dislike so that they can complain about them in online forums do not otherwise have the richest of social lives to distract them.

[MattD]

Oops, that should be "they *need* to read..."

[Jonathan McCalmont]

AR -- I think it's a similar psychology to the abusive relationship. I honestly do. The early days of the relationship are good and when things start to get bad you still have the good old days and when it gets really bad you remember the old days and you know that LKH CAN write good books (though in all honesty, I'd be astonished if the early books were much cop at all... they probably just have more plot and less shagging).

Matt -- Yes, I think you might be right about that. Forums are slightly weird places when it comes to hype and I imagine that being on a forum that systematically trashes everything someone puts out might well be quite rewarding. It is interesting though as that particular LJ community is huge and it seems to stretch over to the Amazon forums too (and no, I didn't know that Amazon had forums either).

It is funny though that people would get more out of trashing a series of bad books than they would out of reading good books (and there are loads of fantasy and SF oriented forums out there).

[A.R.Yngve]

MattD wrote that "reading a book that you know is poorly written is a private activity, complaining about it to/with others is a social activity."

That makes some sense. I enjoy watching "Mystery Science Theater 3000," where bad sci-fi movies are ruthlessly mocked with a running commentary.
Not sure whether it's the same thing as reading a book series and hating it on LiveJournal, though... the "humorous mocking commentary" factor is lacking(??)...

[Serdar]

I've said this before myself, many times: There are so many genuinely good, under-reported and under-rated and under-appreciated things out there, why waste time and energy celebrating crap? Is it because there are some people who just aren't interested in expending the energy to find what else might be out there, so they settle for what they know, even if it's not very good?

(For the record, I tried to read WoT myself and barely finished the first book.)

[Jonathan McCalmont]

I think that's definitely a part of it.

It takes time and effort to sniff out what's good in any particular scene; be it SF and fantasy books, asian cinema, BDSM or fine wines.

Some people are interested enough to find out what's going on and others just want a nice drink/decent read/enjoyable sex. That's why there are critics... it's a filtration system. Other people read books and write about them so that other people don't have to.

However, as Matt wrote, I think that hating bad books is a scene unto itself. Particularly in the case of LKH so people continue reading the books despite knowing full well how awful they are. There's something more than inertia and not knowing what to buy going on there.

[Benjamin Rosenbaum]

Um, where did you get the idea that the children at Wiscon were screaming again? I believe one single, solitary incident of a rambunctious child in the consuite was reported online, by an attendee who pointed out that it was a single, isolated incident.

I, ahem, was *at* that Wiscon and the children I saw were doing *just* what the adults were doing -- singing their hearts out at karaoke, oohing and ahhing at the japanese tea party, schmoozing in the hallways and, yes, talking about books.

While some people at Wiscon were somewhat louder than others, none of the particularly loud ones were children. In fact I defy any child who attended Wiscon 2007 to claim that they were *anywhere near* as loud or unruly as *I* was in the hallways of that con.

In your abstract imaginary picture of Wiscon, in which all the children are apparently three years old, hopped up on sugar, and unattended, and the only activities on offer consist of adults sitting soberly in quiet, mutedly lit rooms discussing books in somber tones, you are undoubtedly correct.

With regard to actual Wiscon, however, with its robust childcare offerings and kids' programming (which mean that the children who are in non-exclusively-kid-space generally *want* to be there, since they have, after all, other options) and with a large number of attendees of various ages who are interested in attendees of various other ages (like, say, adults who want to talk about books with children, or children who want to talk about books with adults), with respect, I say, to *this* Wiscon... I have no idea what you are on about.

It seems to me that you are in the position of someone who claims that people you see through the window of a departing tube car are clearly selfish, or that it is reasonable to assume that they are selfish, because, though you have not smelled them and thus do not know whether they have washed or not, they rather *remind* you of some people you once sat near who did not wash before boarding the tube.

[Jonathan McCalmont]

It's interesting that you seem to want to discuss what happened at the actual Wiscon as that's what pissed me off about David's original post.

At which point do the actual goings on at this year's Wiscon get factored into "We discussed all of this four years ago... and besides it's a feminist convention"?

Seems a lot to me like the actual behaviour of actual children had no bearing on David's opinions about the place of children at Wiscon. It seems to me that he was saying that the principles in question had been addressed four years ago so the person complaining could shut up.

If he's allowed to talk in principles then so am I.

Your anology is also incorrect. To use your terms, I'm the person hearing stories about people complaining about unwashed people on tube cars and seeing people say "actually, we discussed this issue four years ago and the kind of people who use tubes have philosophical issues with deodorant anyway... so what do people expect when they decide to travel by tube?"

[Benjamin Rosenbaum]

Not quite. Your objection to David proceeds on the assumption that children are more unruly than adults, e.g. "and if you take children to a function largely composed of people sitting around and talking about books, those children will scream and run around".

If children are in fact at least as pleasant to be around than adults, the analogy to poor hygiene rather falls apart, doesn't it?

In this context it seemed you might be interested in the data.

[Jonathan McCalmont]

I'm not overly bothered by the data because my issue isn't with the behaviour of children at SF coventions. I don't go to them anyway.

My issue was with people having what sounded like legitimate concerns dismissed out of hand on the grounds that the issue had been discussed before and on the grounds that feminism has a monolithic attitude towards children (which is entirely fictional anyway as you can choose to not have kids and still be a feminist).

However, if adults were preventing other people from sitting down quietly and talking about books then I'd be in favour of doing something about them too.

In this case, my issue's with peoples' opinions being ignored on specious grounds.

[Benjamin Rosenbaum]

To clarify, I guess what I'm really reacting to is the phrase "If you take a child to an adult function such as a literary SF convention..."

I believe what David is saying is "we discussed four years ago whether Wiscon was an adult function, and we concluded it was not."

I have no objection to there being adult spaces, nor to the reasoning that if you take children into adult spaces, you are intruding.

I just have an objection to Wiscon being an adult space.

It does seem relevant to talk about what Wiscon actually is, in this regard.

If you were to say "if you are going to bring your children to an adult space such as a sex party, you are imposing on those who are there", I would heartily agree.

If you were to say "if you are going to bring your children to an adult space such as a public pool in the summertime, you are imposing on those who are there", I would heartily disagree.

I expect we agree on the notion of childfree space, and are only arguing about its borders.

Perhaps in that sense the lack of negative behavior of the children at the actual Wiscon is less interesting than their positive contributions. In any event, it is pretty clear from the Wiscon boards that actual Wiscon attendees overwhelmingly prefer Wiscon to be childfull space -- more like a public swimming pool, less like a sex party.