I liked that too.

I also liked this description of someone else being interviewed by O'Reilly, with odd results.

You think Electrolite's hosting a train wreck right now? Naah. The Mamatas-Bond debate on screenwriting on Tim's board, that was a train wreck.

Dan Savage is a genius. I hope some DJ takes him up on the suggestion.

Yes, yes he is. And I believe that a number of them had.

(scroll down to "After some searching,")

I agree with Jon: I've seen worse train wrecks. Heck, the Derek vs. Matt Sturges war overtook two blogs.

And if given a vote regarding herd vs. pack vs. whatever, I think several of my acquaintance may actually qualify as pod people.

By the way, is the Mamatas/Bond debate still on line?

I didn't delete any of the Mamatas/Bond stuff on my message board -- leave it up for posterity, and all that. Part of our rich internet history and so forth. Dunno about the other places where it popped up, though.

As one of the trains, or cars on the train, or something...no, I'm not sure it's a wreck. It's fairly ugly, though.

Thing is, I don't like posting somewhere in good faith, then having sarcastic insinuations that I'm beneath response thrown in my face, then being accused of "slithering" and "talking shit", then being spoken to as a child who can't read.

I don't think I deserved any of it. I'm civil when people are civil to me. I call them on it when they're not. PNH was not.

Ah, it's all over now. To paraphrase Joe Mantell, "Forget it, Derek. It's the Internet."

If it had been me in your shoes I would probably have said “What?” after Patrick’s “Comment is superfluous” instead of accusing Patrick of being glib and insubstantial. Yeah, it was glib and, at least for those of us who don’t know whatever he thinks we’re supposed to know about Russert, insubstantial too. But, not having ever watched Meet the Press, I’ll never know what that was unless I somehow manage to buttonhole Patrick at a cocktail party, since shortly after that the conversation went off the rails.

Not that I think Patrick’s accusation of “slithering” was proportionate to that remark; I have to assume it came out of some earlier argument the two of you got into. Since I don’t know where it came from, I can’t say whether it was justified or not — the choice of words was certainly less than civil.

But in the abstract, I know what he’s talking about, having been guilty of it myself on more than one occasion, and it gets back to what I said over there about “argument” vs. “rational discussion”. There’s a point where tempers rise and winning the debate, or looking good in front of the audience, becomes more important than actually having a frank exchange of views. So if your (for “your”, read “one’s”) opponent — and if you’re thinking of them as an opponent, you’re already in trouble — makes a point you can’t answer, rather than acknowledging the point and retracting that part of your argument, you ignore it and shift your ground to bring up some other point, or to attack some other part of what your opponent said.

I’m guessing that’s what Patrick meant by “slithering”. And whether that’s fair or not, whether it’s civil or not — you might want to ask yourself why you’re giving that impression.

So you're saying Patrick was being glib and unsubstantial, but that I shouldn't have accused him of being so?

I'd hoped my retort would lead to a justification of why he thought Russert was so incredibly lame as to not warrant comment. Instead I got "Oh, I'm not falling for that trick" combined with "That wasn't what I was arguing in the first place", neither of which were reasonable responses.

As you say, the conversation went into a tailspin after that, never having the possiblity of getting back on track.

I could have simply lapped up the derision, condescension, and false accusation and either begged for a second helping or skulked away, but good gosh, I actually tried to stand up for myself.

If what you really wanted was for him to explain his opinion of Russert, then no, you shouldn’t have called him on it. Obviously it didn’t work, right?

Beyond that, you could have taken the moral high ground by saying “Whoa, Patrick, simmer down”, and nobody — if that’s what you’re worried about — would have thought you were licking Patrick’s boots.

But maybe things between you were already too poisoned for that before this discussion started, in which case I wonder what you bothered to enter into it for.

I will observe that I asked a direct question re: Russert's potential lameness and got an explanation from Claude Munsey (probably overlooked, as I think the shooting had started by that point), which I sincerely appreciated.

Otherwise, I will say that the Internet appears quite grumpy today. What's up? Did everyone's weekend suck?

Yes, you did, and that exchange was one of the few bits of substance in there. It’s too bad; there were at least two or three potentially interesting conversations in there, but they all got shivved.

I don’t know what’s up with the Net. Maybe it’s the weather.

So where’s that screenwriting discussion, again, anyway?

Come to an end. Gwenda set up a board to move it off of Tim's, but as far as I know Nick never appeared there. He and I traded some emails furthering the discussion, but it finally died out when we got to the point of starting over with our arguments. He's got an interesting perspective, but not one I share for the most part.

Well, part of my own grumpitude stems from a mixed weekend. I attended the Turkey City workshop down in Austin at Bruce Sterling's house.

I'm becoming increasingly resentful of two prevailing attitudes in the SF community:

1) The assumption by many that we're all liberal, atheist, anti-war, Bush-haters. This uniformity of religious and political leaning was taken for granted, and for the most part I simply kept my mouth shut on political issues when the "We're living in Shrub's masturbatory apocalyptic fantasy" stuff started flying. For frig's sake, if the SF community can't be any more empathetic and tolerant of contrary viewpoints than say, the Freemasons or the 700 Club, then who the hell can?

2) The old school gets to deride and belittle newcomers ad nauseum, because of their past success. Success in a particular field earns you a significant amount of esteem and respect. It does not earn you a free ticket to belittle and shit upon up-and-comers.

Why, in PNH's case, was turnabout not fair play? My rule of thumb is to proceed respectfully and earnestly, to the point where somebody does not extend the same courtesy. Then I feel free to dish out what I'm getting. Why, again, is this not reasonable?

Perhaps I am feeling overly strained and bitter these days. My threshold for tolerating snideness and being talked down to is virtually non-existent.

That said, in the face of such language, I don't believe I ever initiated such language myself. Why are you so willing to defend and downplay Patrick's language and behavior? Would you have tolerated it from anyone else?

My rule of thumb is to proceed respectfully and earnestly, to the point where somebody does not extend the same courtesy. Then I feel free to dish out what I'm getting. Why, again, is this not reasonable?

It may be reasonable. It is not, however, constructive. Although ultimately it depends on what the point of the conversation is.

If the point is to have a calm, friendly discussion of thoughts and ideas, responding to rude behavior with further rude behavior is totally counterproductive; it has a high potential to result in a downward spiral of invective and loathing. Ignoring the rudeness, or *gently* objecting to it as an ancillary to whatever you would have said if you'd ignored it, may be less intrinsically satisfying - but it is far more likely to avoid degeneration.

I don't attach any particular moral stigma to failure to do this. However, as a practical matter, it's rarely a good idea unless you wish to inflame the situation and are scouting for methods by which to do it.

Well, Derek, I must admit you are pretty much the only conservative pro-Bush pro-war atheist I know of (the last being the key qualifier). Then again, maybe I don't get out much. Perhaps they knew you were an atheist and assumed the rest as a result. Not an excuse, but possibly an explanation.

And besides, while old schoolers may deride and belittle the newcomers (and that happens everywhere, not just in writing. "These durn kids today...!"), the newcomers will get to take a certain satisfaction later on by dancing on the graves of the old school.

It may be reasonable. It is not, however, constructive.

Thank you, Rob — very well put.

Derek, I think Patrick got out of hand. But Electrolite is his living room, and I won’t presume to tell him what to do in it any more than I’d tell you what to do in yours. What’s more, even though he sometimes has a hair trigger, I know him in general to be a fairly reasonable and well-intentioned individual, so I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt and presume that he acted out of misunderstanding rather than malice — just as I’m inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt and presume that your misunderstanding of him wasn’t deliberate.

But the real reason I’m not talking about what he said is that he’s not the one who’s here talking about it.

Sorry to hear you had a bad time at Turkey City. I sympathize, even though I am one of those liberal atheist anti-war Bush-haters. More or less. I don’t have a lot of patience with those pointless conversations where everyone just sits around in the echo chamber and complains about how the world’s going to hell in a handbasket even if they do all agree. And if they don’t — particularly if those who disagree are a small minority — it’s not just pointless, it’s rude.

That said, I think you’re unfairly judging the SF community as a whole by the segment of it you’ve been hanging out with. There are plenty of conservative pro-war Clinton-haters in the SF world, if you know where to look. Though I must admit they’re still mostly atheist.

As for how to deal with the Old School — I don’t have a better answer than Jon’s.

Wow, Jon, you’re right — the Mamatas/Bond discussion was a train wreck. Compared to that, the Electrolite discussion was just a delayed departure from Klamath Falls in order to fix the air conditioner.

Too bad because, again, there was the germ of an interesting exchange of ideas there. Sometimes the Internet really sucks.

Jon writes: Well, Derek, I must admit you are pretty much the only conservative pro-Bush pro-war atheist I know of.

Well, for the record, I'm an independent agnostic who supports some of Bush's policies (mostly defense and national security) and despises others (missile defense, Federal funding for faith-based charities, the tax cut). I'm also not pro-war per se, though I did support our actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

David writes: But Electrolite is his living room, and I won’t presume to tell him what to do in it any more than I’d tell you what to do in yours.

I don't think the analogy is apt. The internet is a public place, not akin to a private residence. A person doesn't have to be invited to a bulletin board or blog comment section (though it would be trivial to install a password-protected section if one wanted to do so).

This doesn't mean courtesy doesn't apply. But of course, courtesy goes both ways. Even if I did grant the analogy, and it were his living room, there's still a certain level of respect a host should pay his or her guests, no? If I invite you into my home, it doesn't give me the right to slap your face if I disagree with you, simply because it's my living room, does it?

You say you don't presume to tell someone else how to behave in their own domain, but of course you do. We all hold each other to particular standards of behavior. And we should.

That said, I think you’re unfairly judging the SF community as a whole by the segment of it you’ve been hanging out with.

Perhaps. Though I did use a qualifier. I don't think the SF community as a whole is this way, but I admit being disappointed at the intolerance for opposing points of view that I've come across thus far.

I expect more from the SF community, mostly because it's a group of people whose living is crawling inside other points of view, very often extremely different from their own, and expressing them in words. Thus I'd expect SF writers to be more tolerant and less extreme, if anything.

There are plenty of conservative pro-war Clinton-haters in the SF world, if you know where to look.

But I'm not looking for another extreme. I'm looking for people who can do more than cluster around one end of a political spectrum, and rationally discuss issues on a case-by-case basis. To your credit, you seem perfectly capable of doing so.

Derek writes: Well, for the record, I'm an independent agnostic etc.

My apologies. I thought I'd seen on your journal that you were an atheist. Note to self: pay more attention.

re: the Mamatas/Bond "Debate"

Nick likes pushing buttons. He's good at it. It's kind of fun to watch, as long as you realize that he's probably more interested in impact than actual meaning.

I consider myself duly warned.

I tracked down the Mamatas/Bond debate in Tim's Quicktopic archives, and my eyes duly glazed over. Yeah, you guys are right. A degenerating thread is not a pretty thing to watch. I'll try to avoid it as much as possible myself in the future.

In the meantime, I have an uncontrollable urge to write a screenplay starring a character named "Shrieky the Nitwit".

I think it would make a good YA novel, too.

For what it’s worth, Derek, there was more than degenerate sub-thread in that Electrolite discussion — the “herd animal” debate got pretty pointless pretty quickly too, even if it didn’t achieve the same level of invective.

Rachel, I now see in the NightShade Books discussion that Nick seems to be pushing Ellen Datlow's buttons. In his area, if you're curious ("Genre to non-genre publications").

The really funny thing about that "train wreck' is that I never took it seriously for a moment. "Shrieky the Nitwit"? Please, this isn't the '50s. But I bet I got 50 emails telling me how certain people love to instigate this stuff. (And actually did a piece on the joys of flaming, once upon a time.) The funny place to be was over in my screenwriting workshop, where the "low" art form jokes are still surfacing now and then.

That's a lot of quotation marks. (Actually, I already thought about doing a "Shrieky the Nitwit" cartoon and putting it in the next issue of Say... Stay tuned.)

The Internet seems to propagate bluster and not substance when issues get contentious. It's a lot like the real world that way. Only here, people get to be way ruder than they ever would in real life and feel like that's okay. My rule of thumb is, never say anything online you wouldn't have the guts to say to someone's face.

Otherwise, your integrity becomes the train wreck.

(Now I have to go read PNH's comments section. Or maybe it's better just to pretend.

On O'Reilly -- one of my bosses agreed to be interviewed by him one time and I had to do the prep; it was a satellite interview -- later on they tried to convince us to come to the studio and we all said, no thanks -- and O'Reilly's staff completely lied about the questions. That is something legitimate journalists don't do. Much.)