I'm discouraged and do not seem able to cure it.
I was just reading a very interesting discussion that I had been taken with, but as soon as they crossed an unseen line, I was finished reading it. It feels awful to condemn someone's work just because they crossed a conceptual boundary for me. At least I know it is there, but as to changing my mind about it, that seems unlikely.
The truth is that I am in many ways, extremely Puritanistic despite the fact that the community has been so unkind to me and many others. It feels as unchangeable as the difference between the numbers 3 and 4.
There are a number of Authors here that are wonderful and skilled, but if they delve into that forbidden territory, it is like hitting a brick wall for me. I usually try to leave without commenting or condemning. That is the best I can do.
I'm sorry.
Gwen
Comments
The Territory
You don't have to tell me, but I am pretty sure that I have dived into your forbidden territory a number of times.
There have been times when I hit something and stop reading. For example, I was watching a video about galaxies, and I could detect misunderstandings -- and it usually takes me some time, such as 24 hours, before I can really articulate what's wrong in such cases. But then one point hit me hard. Specifically, the "physicist" telling us that electricity (or electromagnetism), not gravity, determined galaxies' form and properties. He was denying not only modern physics, but also Newtonian gravity!
Newtonian gravity approximates what we see perfectly fine, and we detect no sign of the massive electrical currents through the galaxies required for his claim -- nor any possible sources of such currents. He was simply an ignorant crank (as his earlier talk suggested), a know-nothing know-it-all. I stopped watching at that point, except to repeat the passage and make sure I got the quote correct.
Of course, I couldn't rule out the "physicist" trolling the viewers or the publisher. I'm reminded of Alan Sokal's hoax on a social-theory publication.
-- Daphne Xu
A question of opinion
Should one sentence in your reply have included: "He was?" or "Was He?"
One of my premises about "The theory of everything" is that as Humans we know almost nothing. One of my feelings is that a lot goes on in the dimensions that we can not see. Mathematics indicates their existence but not what goes on. :)
Opinion vs. Fact
Isaac Asimov wrote something that might apply here: "The earth is flat," is wrong. "The earth is a sphere," is also wrong. The notion that they're both equally wrong is wronger than both put together.
I found two "He was" statements. "He was denying not only modern physics, but also Newtonian gravity!" Now that I think about it, "dismissing" would have been a better word than "denying". But that was a fact. Specifically, he was dismissing Newtonian gravity not only as at least a reasonable approximation in most cases, but even the notion that mass attracts other mass -- exerts an attractive force on other masses. (In many cases, Newtonian gravity is extremely accurate. It's used for spacecraft trajectories.)
The second "He was" statement, "He was simply an ignorant crank (as his earlier talk suggested), a know-nothing know-it-all", was a conclusion of fact. I gave reasons for the conclusion in previous sentences. I did present the alternate possibility that he was trolling. His arguments were of the kind one would present to troll the ignorant layman.
Part of his dismissal of modern physics appeared as ridiculing portrayal of the principle of relativity (one can't find an absolute velocity in the laws of physics; all velocities are relative). This principle is actually pre-Isaac-Newton. And part was a ridiculing portrayal of one inspiration of Einstein, that stationary in gravity is equivalent to acceleration without gravity. (I experienced the equivalence particularly as a young child, taking off in airplanes, thinking we were going uphill on the runway.)
-- Daphne Xu
Don't sweat it, Gwen.
Don't sweat it, Gwen.
Where one 'draw those lines' is one of the things that makes each of us unique. It took me a long time to learn one can't force their morality on another. It took a longer time to realize trying to do so is itself immoral. All part of growing up, I guess.
Over the years I've sometimes had to deal with people who didn't seem to have any lines they wouldn't cross. I much prefer the company of those who know where their lines are and aren't afraid to say so, even if we don't agree on where exactly that line is.
In my humble opinion, you have nothing to be sorry for.
- vessica b
I second that
If you can’t have give yourself latitude in this area then you are too easily swayed.
A strong sense of identity in this area is really neither here nor there.
Got it a bit wrong
You are a helpful puritanical person. (Real puritans were rabidly intolerant.) so I chafe at the helpless designation. I too selectively choose what I read. And who I read.
BAK 0.25tspgirl
It it's rubbing you the wrong way, why participate in it?
My Little Ponies and Pony Girls are both accepted genre but if somebody ever crossed the two, and I'm sure people have, my reaction would be "Ewww....". I believe our brains are instinctual, then emotional and then have logic tacked on as an after thought. If people are talking about something and their "facts" appear to be fiction to you or their logic appears to be faulty or the concepts they are exploring are ones you don't want to explore then why stay in the conversation if you don't have a stake in changing their minds or you're not in the mood to troll them?
So if you are just reading stuff for your pleasure then why not leave once you stop enjoying it?
And over the years your tastes may change. I spent 7 years living with someone that said over and over that country and western music is horrible. I went from loving it to not liking it myself, despite the fact that I know the only reason I don't like it any more is because I kept being told over and over that it's horrible.
Here on BCTS I've acquired a strong taste for military fiction. I read bits of it here and there before but on BCTS it's become one of my favorite genre. I've read about Lyssa Kordenay doing some of the most horrendous acts of torture and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Reading about it as fiction that is. The thought of someone doing this for real would still leave me feeling sick.
So unless you have some additional steak in it than just reading for pleasure, then just read what you're enjoying and stop once you're not enjoying it anymore.