Burlaki [back] on the Hudson

I would support you on this one, can’t explain it but it feels that John was the self-righteous one, with the o-my-god-it’s-only-6-bucks-let’s-do-the-anti-GOP-thing. I wonder if the same response would come, if a full refund came.

His response to you was very passive-aggressive, which to me shows that you have struck a nerve.

Opinion is just what it is, an opinion. It doesn’t have to be right or wrong, and everyone is entitled to one. Dismissing somebody out-right, is a true indicator that a person is not so sure about it.

This is the part about Scalzi that irritates the heck out of me. He pretends to be centrist. He has a few moments of Right thinking (such as his support for the 2nd Amendment, about which I will get around to addressing your thoughts in a little while).

But Scalzi skews heavily to the left, he just, like most of the journalists he hangs around with, tries to mask that fact. Although living in Ohio tempers that quite a bit – the echo chamber in NYC is quite strong.

Ilya, I’ve been reading Scalzi long enough that I feel reasonably comfortable speculating that what probably set him off was your mention of his daughter. The same comment, minus the final line, probably would’ve gotten you a rebuttal but not a testy rebuke.

That said, I think his response to you was unwarranted and just plain rude. I generally agree with his politics (if you couldn’t guess from my infrequent political postings) and I certainly get the point he was making about that ridiculously tiny “why bother” stimulus check, but it seems to me that he’s been increasingly self-righteous lately, and I’m beginning to find it distasteful. I don’t know if his disgust with the current administration is reaching some sort of critical mass, or if perhaps he’s getting a bit fat-headed from his success as a novelist and popularity as a blogger, or if maybe he’s just under a lot of pressure at the moment and is getting grumpy because of it. Still… “cram it” isn’t much of a debating tactic, is it?

(I also get your point, by the way, and think it’s equally valid… yes, a stimulus check for six bucks was a waste of paper and postage, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have still accomplished something of genuine value with it, instead of just pulling some kind of infantile “screw you” stunt.)

I’m going to have to disagree with Jason on this one, Ilya – Scalzi can be incredibly condescending and rude when someone disagrees with him publicly, and it’s definitely gotten worse over the years.

I used to be one of his most frequent commenters, and we’d often get into dust-ups over politics.

When we got to this post about detainees at Guantanamo, he accused me of lying and spent multiple comments ripping apart my grammar & sentence structure, while all around him, his commenters were having a solid, fact-based discussion about the issue at hand. I sent him a few e-mails about it, but then let it drop.

Then, there was this post, where he told me I didn’t know anything about intellectual property in legal contracts. I went right to e-mail at that point, telling him how I’d likely negotiated a significantly larger number of contracts than he had, for orders of magnitude more money, and that I did, indeed, know what I was talking about. In e-mail, he accused me of lying again, suggesting that I had researched legal IP issues online in order to respond to his comment, rather than possessing the knowledge all along. It was at that point that I told him I was happy to continue reading his blog, but would never comment there again.

You’ll also note (particularly in the first link above) that his commenters used to be comprised of “fanboys” who constantly post the “You’re *SO* right, John!!!” comments, and several others who would regularly challenge him with differing opinions and their own research/knowledge. These days, the latter seem to have vanished almost entirely, leaving the “stable of sychophants” (excellent term, btw…) behind to stroke his ego for him. Obviously, I can’t prove it, but I personally believe that this shift has occurred because of the way he treats folks like you and I when we dare say something off the “fanboy” path.

Oh, and by the way, most experts agree that the stimulus package is working, albeit only as a temporary fix.

John’s post (and donation to Barr), in my humble opinion, was just an excuse to call President Bush “stupid” on his blog one more time…

Well, it was late and you were in the heat of the moment. And it’s the internet, where things get blown out of proportion and misunderstood almost as a matter of course. God knows I’ve gotten myself into similar situations. I wouldn’t beat myself up too much, or dwell very much longer on it.

My last comment was directed at Ilya, if that wasn’t obvious.

Brian, I don’t think we disagree as much as you may believe. Scalzi has definitely grown more intolerant of other points of view in the time I’ve been reading his blog, and, as I thought I made clear, I don’t care for how he handles dissenters these days. I just thought in this particular case (i.e., his specific response to Ilya) I could see what specifically may have set him off. Irregardless of what actually did set him off, though, I think his response was rude and unwarranted, and the donation to Barr was a stupid stunt.

“High IQ indeed”

Dude, IQ and EQ are often inversely proportional. It’s Nature’s way of keeping the geeks from running the world, and then running it into the gorund by playing video games all night.

What I meant was not that he’s on the Right or Left, it’s that he smugly sits there pretending to be centrist, and no one calls him on his bullshit. I’d be just as offended if he leaned Right. The “stable of sycophants” rarely call him on it anymore, though.

Our own MWT had a similar experience with Mr. Scalzi.

My own opinion is that Scalzi is a bit of a prick, but he knows it and tries to tone it down a bit. Sometimes successfully. But it’s getting harder now that so few people challenge his ideas in his own playground.

I guess since my name has been invoked, I should say something.

In the particular case of what Ilya said, I side with Scalzi. I was actually hoping it was a completely different Ilya who’d made that comment, but apparently not. Perhaps I’m biased by being surrounded by family members who want to spend my money for me, but it IS his money to spend as he sees fit. In addition to the line about his daughter (which translates to me as “you should be ashamed of yourself!”), the general tone of the post was to be humorous, and your comment was not (I found it to be fairly rude), so I think he responded to that as well.

As for that Saberhagen/Wikipedia dustup last year… that wasn’t a run-in with Scalzi, that was a run-in with PNH. Scalzi was actually headed toward reason at the time the Nielsen Haydens barged in being all self-righteous with their hit-and-run snippiness and insults. I find Making Light to be as everyone else is describing Whatever here, but not Whatever.

On the other hand, my politics and Scalzi’s are generally in agreement, so perhaps I just haven’t had cause to engage him in a serious discussion from the other side.

Ouch. I find it annoying when Web 2.0 – which should be a source of entertainment and enjoyment – becomes a source of friction and lost sleep instead.

Sometimes it’s good for me to step away for a few days and breathe and get some perspective on real life vs. online dust-ups (I’m not recommending that here – I haven’t read Scalzi’s comment thread and I’m not at all equipped to chime in on the issue at hand.)

It’s hard, sometimes, because we lose nuance and shading and all sense of humor in the online written media – as well as the ability to mitigate and modify with any level of effectiveness, as we would have if we’d been having the same conversation in a pub over a hamburger and a beer.

Putting myself in Scalzi’s shoes, it is a different dynamic having such a widely read blog – it’s not a relationship dynamic with your readers, like we have among the UCF – it’s a one to many relationship where you are the center of your own universe. Perhaps it breeds a degree of megalomania – and perhaps not.

Insults and curse words aren’t directly related to level of rudeness.

So you weren’t directly telling him how he should’ve spent his money – but you were passing judgement on how he did, when you have no right to do that. That judgementalness is really annoying (to those of us regularly subjected to it, at least).

There is also the fact that Scalzi is in general very generous when it comes to charities. He runs regular fundraiser contests, auctions of his books and ARCs, whatever you want to call his Creation Museum visit, etc. He gives away his books to active-duty military. Given that context, I see nothing at all shameful if he wants to blow $6.10 of his money on a pointless political statement.

Yeah, two responses for the price of one!

My point is that a bystander does not have the right to criticize what someone does with their own money, especially not in the manner in which you did it, which was antagonistic at best. Next time try pointing things out with more respectfulness – it’ll probably get you farther. (Though in this particular case I’m not sure how; the govt gave him a stupid amount of money, so he did something stupid with it, and any form of pointing out how stupid it was would likely only come across as you not getting the joke. Which just makes you look bad without accomplishing much else. Hmm. I suppose that was basically what your post was about…)

Erm. Also, I actually didn’t drop in over here for the sole purpose of berating you … so I’ll see if I can think of something pleasant to say somewhere.

“Insults and curse words aren’t directly related to level of rudeness.”

Only in very rare cases, or in cases where the interlocutors know each other well. Otherwise, Heinlein’s rule of politeness is in effect:

“Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naïve, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as “empty,” “meaningless,” or “dishonest,” and scorn to use them. No matter how “pure” their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.” — RAH

Having lived in both communities, this conversation is a little amusing to me to watch (I’m being sincere, here, not smug). MWT is coming from the tactless Chinese tradition of elders commenting on everything and the younger ones not being expected to retort. That makes him defensive. I know a lot of ABCs (not that MWT is typical ABC) like that, ones that bristle at the Chinese word “guai” – “well behaved” – a word used to make kids walk the line all through childhood, with overtones of “what you do in public reflects on me, the parent, more than you, the kid”.

Russian culture also has elements of that, but not to the degree that Chinese culture does. However, reading Ilya’s comment, I could hear “стыдно” in the back of my head. The admonition is not as confrontational to someone of Russian background as it is to someone raised in the States to non-immigrant parents, which is why Scalzi took it so poorly in Ilya’s estimation.

A couple of other points, though. Scalzi runs a big public blog as an advertising outlet for his book sales and other ventures. It is not the same as a personal blog such as that run by UCFers. In that respect, he is to expect much more confrontation that a small-circulation personal blog, both on a statistical basis and on the basis that he’s a semi-public figure making pronouncements. And like it or not, people will judge him based on how he handles that confrontation.

As an example, I work heavily in demographic projections and projections of social service use in my job. That has made me keenly aware of the coming demographic and social security crisis. I also have 2 aunts with no kids whom I feel obligated to support in their old age. I feel the free rider problem keenly.

I have two kids, but I started too late to feel that I’d give the third the energy or attention he or she would deserve, so I feel I have failed to a certain degree in my reproductive duty.

However, when people in the UCF make off-hand comments about not having or wanting kids, I bite my tongue. I have friends who are infertile, I have friends who have a history of mental illness and are choosing not to risk passing on that gene, and I realize I don’t know everyone’s story. But I feel that choosing not to replace yourself – especially if you have a good head on your shoulders and carry genes the race needs – is being a free rider. I’m not going to confront someone with that on a personal blog – I don’t feel I have the right – so in that respect, I agree with MWT.

On the other hand, if Scalzi were to say something stupid on this topic, I’d go after him. Scalzi’s site is different. He’s got a very public soapbox and he uses it. He acts at times as if it’s a personal blog, and I think he’s an effing idiot for putting as much out there as he does, but that’s his choice. He hides behind that, sometimes, too (don’t mess with my family stops an awful lot of trollage, but it also cuts off discussion).

If Scalzi does not want criticism on a post, he needs to set up a members only blog for certain topics. People do have the expectation to be able to call someone an ass when they are being so very publicly. That is why we don’t need to have laws for everything in society – certain civil norms are used to keep people in line without resorting to government coercion.

Another example – my wife reads a blog by a woman who complains about dirty looks when her autistic son acts up in public. My heart aches for that woman, but she has no right to complain, either. There are plenty of normal but poorly behaving children out there, and I reserve the right to put the verbal smackdown on really egregious behavior. A simple, quiet “he’s autistic” would calm me down, but every time my kids see other kids getting away with stuff in public, it makes my job harder, not to mention when they are adults, my kids are going to have to deal with these little гопники as adults. She does not have the right to shut off normal social expressions of approbation that serve a useful purpose just because she’s a special case. In this respect, I agree with Ilya.

My take on the whole thing is that Scalzi’s been handling confrontation much more poorly in recent months (see Brian’s comments, which I remember on Whatever), as noted here, and I have great doubts as to whether he’d be as gracious to MWT if that dust up before the NHs showed up were to occur today. His circle of yes-men have reduced his tolerance of dissent.

“My point is that a bystander does not have the right to criticize what someone does with their own money, especially not in the manner in which you did it, which was antagonistic at best.”

This case is a little differnt. Scalzi wasn’t doing this quitely, he plastered it up on the intertubes for approbation – “aren’t I the darling little subversive” – it was smug, and he was preening a bit.

Being the youngest of the bunch here, and the least “well behaved”, by the ways of being “spoiled” younger child, I will put in my two cents about the internet etiquette.

“So you weren’t directly telling him how he should’ve spent his money – but you were passing judgement on how he did, when you have no right to do that. ” — “Next time try pointing things out with more respectfulness – it’ll probably get you farther. ” (forgive me for taking it out of the context)

BTW, what you are doing here is telling Ilya what he can or can’t do, thus passing judgement yourself. And giving him advice, actually not in an exactly polite form, teaching him how to behave and where it will get him, which is VERY condescening.

Do we see a pattern here, on how the words can be easily misunderstood?

When somebody puts himself out there, as mr. Scalzi did, THEY certainly want a response. Do not put something up for everyone to read and not be judged. Internet is a free-for-all, EVERYONE has a right to pass judgement on the OPEN FORUM, or else as John the Scientist said, set up a membership blocking unwanted input.

My brother was right, you do the deed, don’t expect everyone to be happy with it; you tell everyone about it, expect someone to disagree with you, and point out a different solution.

“EVERYONE has a a right to pass judgement on the OPEN FORUM”

Yes, but there are ways and ways of doing that, and we coined the term “troll” for a reason. Not that I’m calling Ilya a troll.

One other note I didn’t make because I already had an unreadable mess there was that when I see Ilya’s name, I have certain cultural expectations of him. Some he lives up to, some he breaks, but Scalzi seems surprisingly inept at sussing non-American cultural persepctives out for someone who brags about being a Philosophy Major at Chicago. But then, his recent trip to France was his first time out of North America IIRC.

And it should be: “normal social expressions of approbation OR DERISION” in the first comment. Sheesh.

Heh. My wife is like you – between worlds. She came here at age 11, but she considers herself to eb less than completely Americanized. I’m VERY attuned to camoflauged cultural differences.

Heh, right after you presume to lecture Scalzi on how he spends his money.

I am sorry that the very first thing I’ve said on your blog was this.

May be it is not by the term of this discussion, but Kostya! Bravo! I like it how you stand by your brother-exactly the same way as you did when you were young boys and I argued with him about something.
And I fully agree with your opinion: you tell something in public – be ready that some can be opposite opinion. Better in polite and humorous way (as my son did), and not in aggressive (and I underline this) and very rude way to answer as it was done by Mr. Scalzi and his very supportive MWT. And I have the mind that “cultural behavue” have the same meaning in different part of our so big world.
All of you can regard me very pristrastney and critisize me in any words you like – polite or rude.

Mama-

K американцам, “стыдно” чуть сильнее чем к русским, по моему. Xотя бы редко слышно.

Heh. Not having an actual Russian word processor on the PC tends to make one terse.