No, no, not politics but in general! Being nice hasn’t worked but perhaps acrimonious discussion of minor issues might! And what better way to settle an issue than a fight between a giant kaiju monster and a giant robot.
[Note: I’m on the side of the monster in this one I think]
11 responses to “It Is Time for Less Civil Debate!”
There is of course many says to divide up literature. Tolkien, Asimov and Rushdie are (where) all writing non- realist literature while Zola or Tolstoy wrote its opposite: realistic fiction. But if you instead decide to divide littterature between romantic/nostalgic reactions to modernity, then Tolkien and and any realist author expressing the same attitude belongs in the same category, while Asimov, Zola and Ruschdie belongs in the same. While if you divide books in naive optimism in technology or not naive optimism in technology, then Asimov stands alone of those mentioned above.
When I was getting my masters in linguistics, I took a class on ontologies. It quickly became clear to me that the language makes arbitrary distinctions like this one all over the place. It’s not usually possible to say that one or the other is “wrong”; the most you can do is say how useful they are.
The example that stuck in my mind was the challenge of defining what a “cat” is. We started with the slightly- whimsical “A cat is a mammal with whiskers that purrs.” So does that mean a dead cat isn’t a cat? Does it stop being a cat if you shave the whiskers off? Is a lion a cat?
The answer is, it depends on what you’re trying to communicate. For some purposes, it’s helpful to define SF as a special kind of fantasy. For others, it’s not. Both will work to an extent, and both will have edge cases that don’t.
I think the monster isn’t defeated, he’s just leaving in disgust and muttering as he walks away. He may also be biding his time till the radioactivity has a bad effect on the robot’s circuits.
Camestros Felapton 
11 responses to “It Is Time for Less Civil Debate!”
There is of course many says to divide up literature. Tolkien, Asimov and Rushdie are (where) all writing non- realist literature while Zola or Tolstoy wrote its opposite: realistic fiction. But if you instead decide to divide littterature between romantic/nostalgic reactions to modernity, then Tolkien and and any realist author expressing the same attitude belongs in the same category, while Asimov, Zola and Ruschdie belongs in the same. While if you divide books in naive optimism in technology or not naive optimism in technology, then Asimov stands alone of those mentioned above.
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Ooh, I like those as a set of axes. Nostalgia versus anti-nostalgia, optimism in technology versus pessimism. Nice.
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Science fiction is a subgenre of fantasy.
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Mothra descends from above
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When I was getting my masters in linguistics, I took a class on ontologies. It quickly became clear to me that the language makes arbitrary distinctions like this one all over the place. It’s not usually possible to say that one or the other is “wrong”; the most you can do is say how useful they are.
The example that stuck in my mind was the challenge of defining what a “cat” is. We started with the slightly- whimsical “A cat is a mammal with whiskers that purrs.” So does that mean a dead cat isn’t a cat? Does it stop being a cat if you shave the whiskers off? Is a lion a cat?
The answer is, it depends on what you’re trying to communicate. For some purposes, it’s helpful to define SF as a special kind of fantasy. For others, it’s not. Both will work to an extent, and both will have edge cases that don’t.
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Wittgenstein had a good take on this
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I think the monster isn’t defeated, he’s just leaving in disgust and muttering as he walks away. He may also be biding his time till the radioactivity has a bad effect on the robot’s circuits.
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He needs to replenish his energy on monster island
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With a Monster energy drink?
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