Comments on: “We used to dream of living in a corridor!”

By: ian (none of the above)

ian (none of the above) — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 10:47:07 +0000

Ian B said: (re imaginary interlocutor)

“That was as Ted Unspellablesurname put it, not Ian B.”

I was referring to you in this thread
http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2010/10/because_liberta.html specifically referring to Paul.

By: John Sabotta

John Sabotta — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 03:14:14 +0000

There’s a tebndency here to miss the point. “Steampunk” has little or no real relationship to to any period in history. What Stross is doing is condemning an entire literary form on the basis of political ideology. He doesn’t bother to give an example of a “totalitarian” steampunk novel, because he’s claiming that by it’s nature fantasy stories set in the nineteeth century are reactionary. “As is well known, comrades, steampunks are objectively fascist”. Stross is trying to set himself up as the Zhdanov of sci-fi.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhdanov_Doctrine

By: Ted Schuerzinger

Ted Schuerzinger — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 22:31:06 +0000

That was as Ted Unspellablesurname put it, not Ian B.

You obviously don’t speak German.

I only realized several hours after posting my previous comment that I had screwed up the posting, and you can’t edit comments here.

Call me crotchety, but I find Paul’s use of the imaginary interlocutor, along with his endless parenthetical comments, make his comments and posts extremely tedious to read, and I usually just skip over them.

By: Alisa

Alisa — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 17:01:02 +0000

Get it?

What was I thinking? My bad.

By: Ian B

Ian B — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 16:42:01 +0000

That was as Ted Unspellablesurname put it, not Ian B.

By: ian (none of the above)

ian (none of the above) — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 16:00:34 +0000

A strawman in and of itself. A clue: the interlocutor is imaginary. Get it?

Nonsense – when the imaginary interlocutor introduces points not relevant to the discussion (the straw man) and they are then ‘demolished’ and this ‘demolition’ is used in turn as if it supports the initial point, this is rhetorical sleight of hand, not political discussion.

All of which says nothing at all about why that comment was deemed so offensive alongside ‘Chateau bottled shit’ that it merited deletion.

By: Alisa

Alisa — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 15:24:32 +0000

routinely uses a rhetorical device – the ‘imaginary interlocutor’ as Ian B put it

Absolutely true.

to introduce straw men into the discussion

A strawman in and of itself. A clue: the interlocutor is imaginary. Get it?

By: ian (none of the above)

ian (none of the above) — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 14:56:19 +0000

So let me get this straight. You (that is the collective otherwise known as Samizdata) can be as abusive as you like about others - see this(Link) about Peregrine Worsthorne "Chateau bottled shit", but let anyone make the slightest suggestion that one of the inner circle here routinely uses a rhetorical device - the 'imaginary interlocutor' as Ian B put it - to introduce straw men into the discussion and the heavens fall. I have found much to object to on this site, but so far hypocrisy hasn't been one of them. Sad... [Editor... i.e. Perry de Havilland: well yes, if you in insult one of my authors without making a compelling case why that is appropriate, I will delete your comment. Don't like it? Forgive me if I don't give a fuck]

By: John B

John B — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 13:46:11 +0000

We are a lot more comfortable and a lot less free than those who went before.
I don’t think the people (us) have changed to much. It’s the tech, as Paul M noted:

“The fiction writer is doing the old thing of comparing apples and oranges. He is comparing two periods of time with different tech levels (the real reason one is a nicer place to live than the other) and implying that the difference in living standards is due to a different political system and a different set of government policies.”

One cannot undo the technology even if one wanted to.
The velvet jail. Complete with National Health, universal monitoring and data systems, and the A bomb.
Perhaps having got rid of the “priest-ridden nightmare” we are headed on a soft ride to urban hell?
Human nature being not too much changed but more in control.

By: Plamus

Plamus — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 03:34:49 +0000

NickM, riffing off you Civilization reference: “The future will be better tomorrow.” – Dan Quayle.

By: Brad

Brad — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 18:16:11 +0000

A prime point missed is that “a good life” is not a constant, it is a variable – it is a state of mind of an individual. Endless debates about the merits of the past or the golden future to be had always are discussed in collective terms. What matters is the contentment, or lack thereof, of an individual and the “invisible hand” culmination of actions of individuals. The only thing we can glean from the past is that the greater the violence and Force within a culture and society, the greater chance that the life of an individual was brutish and short, and that truth is likely to extend into the future unless this lesson is learned. Charts and graphs and statistical tables to prove some sort of Quality of Life Index are the tools of polemicists and prove little about the effects of underlying Force and its consequences.

By: Richard Thomas

Richard Thomas — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 18:05:57 +0000

I think it’s also fair to say that the people of 100 years time will look back at current times and declare that you wouldn’t really want to live here. Even ignoring politically debatable items, there are some fairly objective problems that we take in our stride which will likely be gone by then. Traffic fatalities, barbarous surgical techniques, MRSA, commuting, manual labour are just a few that spring to mind. No doubt there are others which I’ve become inured to myself.

The point is that it’s in the eye of the beholder. It’s easy to say you wouldn’t want to live then but if you did, in general, you’d probably be pretty much as happy as you are now. Life goes on after all. Take for example, infant mortality. Sure, it’s unfortunate for the infant his or herself but we have to remember we’re looking at it from a perspective of a society that is now paranoid about protecting the children it does have, wrapping them in cotton wool, fearing the boogeyman around every corner and keeping them locked indoors away from all risk whatsoever, stifling their development and inculcating unhealthy practices. In a dispassionate analysis, is that really better?

And in my earlier post,I wrote cyberpunk when I meant steampunk as I’m sure everyone realized.