= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Rationalist fiction brainstorming funtimes - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (68)
I don't read Earthfic, it's a literary wasteland.
What would make it less of one?
Elves.
I would rather claim that contemporary Earthfic is a literary wasteland. Even shminux seems to implicitly agree, notice that the only one of his examples from the last 100 years started out as fanfiction to a fantasy novel.
This is not due to any inherent limitations of Earthfic but due to certain political/cultural trends (the same ones responsible for the ugliness of modern art) over the past century.
I was at a science fiction convention today where the following exchange (paraphrased) took place:
Sometimes fans forget just how much alienness there is to be had on Earth.
(And in any event, Sturgeon's Law can be expected to apply to earthfic just as much as to sf.)
Postmodernism: "Knowledge and symbols aren't 100% reliable... so let's make them completely unreliable and decry anyone who attempts otherwise!"
I didn't know that Earthfic was a thing. Apparently neither does Google, since the top hit is to the Alicorn's story of the same name. The top hit for "earth fic" is not very helpful, either.
It's obviously Alicorn's term in that very story that Eliezer is referring to...
He's casting aspersions on all literature that is not to his taste. "Earthfic" as a derogatory term for non-SF/F stuff.
It's not any more derogatory than 'fanfic'. Which is to say, it's a bit derogatory if you think it's lazy of the author not to have bothered to create his own universe to write a story in.
Yeah, there's a strong prejudice against non-nerdish fiction in this cluster of brains. From a sanity-waterline-raising POV, it seems like a failure of the imagination.
Hell, it's not even just non-nerdish fiction. This "cluster of brains" has a pretty narrow definition of "nerdish fiction" as well.
The thin slice of nerd culture that's actually observed and celebrated here has some serious issues with subtlety, context and communication not on their terms. It's funny; there are lots of nerd-friendly, genre-obsessed literary circles but I never see mystery or horror fans give themselves these sorts of airs, except for that thin slice for whom only Lovecraft and perhaps his closest contemporaries are of any interest in an otherwise SF/F-dominated palate.
(And it's not like the author of that piece is a genre/fandom outsider confident in her own superiority over the anoraks -- look at the descriptions of some of her books; those premises are inherently fantastical, with as much weird interesting fanciful shit as anything popular here, and they're explored in detail with lots of layers of both direct and subtle exploration -- and she can actually fucking write.)
Yeah, and the funny thing about subtlety, context, and communication (I suppose the first two are subcategories of the third) is that they are all opportunities to be more or less effective relative to one's goals. Which, rationality and all that.
Don't worry, I'm sure someone will be along to chastise us about opportunity cost, or other wordy rationalizations for why they don't care which basically boil down to "I d'wanna."
I'm only going to point out that you really managed to put on some airs while criticizing others for putting on airs.