For so many fine comments.
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
File 770
Mike Glyer's news of science fiction fandom
For so many fine comments.
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
junego: Since I voted for Helsinki last year, does that mean I get an automatic supporting membership in Worldcon 75?
Yes, indeedy. You already have nominating and voting privileges for Helsinki next year (and the ability to upgrade to a full membership for less money if you do it sooner, rather than later).
HOME WITH MIKE!
DOWN WITH THE ELEVATOR!
@Doctor Science
I actually went the other way. When I managed free up money in my budget to be able to buy the books I read I did so. I almost never check out books from the library now. I actually specifically look for first time authors in the mass market section of the bookstore. This has lead to a huge increase in my buy on sight list. In the last year I added, Wesley Chu, Marshall Ryan Maresca, Ferrett Steinmetz, Ben Aaronovitch* and Adam Rakunas. I try really hard to buy books in the first week of publication. I’m not good at waiting for my books.
I totally understand your decision and think it is likely the way to best benefit the author. However, I just can’t, I feel the need to grow my own lending library.
*ok he wasn’t a new author, but I can’t leave him off
Being a nerd when I grew up was more like having a diagnosis. It was not only liking something others didn’t like, it was being obsessed by them. It was about building up an expertise and a knowledge base – to the demerit of all else.
Now it is more to belong to a tribe, to have the correct attributes and to be proud of them. And nerds are so much more visible now, taking their place. I guess this is partly what Moshe is referring to.
But I do not like the word “Prime”, in the same way as I do not like the words “real” and “true” being applied to only a select group of fans.
And while I call myself a nerd, it is not really with any sense of pride. More like mixed feelings. Nerd is for me still more connected to a social disconnect and awkwardness I have worked to get rid of.
@Lee
On wealthy not believing they are. So true. I was reading a CNN article this week where it said the 10% wealthiest includes anyone with high $900k in liquid assets including real estate, IRAs, and 401k, and more. I know several people who meet or exceed that number but who would argue they aren’t rich. For a number of them much of their wealth is in IRA/401Ks which they can’t touch without major tax penalties for another 10-20 years. Day-to-day they live comfortably off but not as many whites think of as rich – they work 40-60 hour weeks, rarely take vacations, have 5-10 year-old cars, haven’t moved in 10-20 years.
My take on what he meant about arriving in the early 1970s was that the original SF/F fans were still around and in force, so he learned from them what fandom was all about. Their feelings of finding kindred spirits around a scorned interest informed his values. I don’t think he was claiming to be from early fandom himself.
I envy you being a part of fandom in the early 1970s. I was in comics fandom a decade later, but it took me longer to get into SF/F.
Wil Wheaton posts his thoughts on Star Trek: Beyond.
(I have to say that he captured my reaction pretty damn well.)
Glad to read that you’re improving steadily, Mike. Can’t imagine how frustrating it is to be stuck in a hospital for so long. Hope the 9/2 date holds for your release. We miss you.
@Doctor Science — IANAL but in law there’s a concept that people have a “reasonable expectation of safety” when entering property. I think a reasonable expectation sounds a little friendlier than a right or a privilege. Also, sorry about the noisy peach gummies.
@Mike — congrats on your parole date! And congrats on having a bunch of fans that are loyal and dedicated and fiercely addicted to your pixels!
And wrt “middle class”
Part of the problem is that people conflate income and class – they really aren’t the same.
@JJ
Yes, indeedy. You already have nominating and voting privileges for Helsinki next year
Thx for info. I forgot to vote for site selection this year. I’ll remember to do it from now on and hope I back the winners more often than the losers! 🙂
junego: Thx for info. I forgot to vote for site selection this year. I’ll remember to do it from now on and hope I back the winners more often than the losers! 🙂
It doesn’t matter whether you back the winner or the loser. If you vote in Site Selection, you are automatically a Supporting Member of the Worldcon for that year, regardless of whether the bid you supported won.
ETA: Note that this does not apply to NASFiC bids.
I voted for site selection this year, but other than the credit card bill I haven’t gotten any notice from…. um… MidAmericon? Helsinki? I’m not entirely sure who I should be getting notice from. And the con’s only just over so maybe it’s too soon for me to fret….
I think the standard Puppy claim that someone they disagree with or don’t like is “virtue signalling” is just a run-of-the-mill Puppy insult.
If you vote in the Hugos for a work they don’t like, they declare you couldn’t possibly have liked that work, you voted for it for Some Other Reason! You only voted for that work because of the author’s politics or gender; the protagonist’s sexual orientation or race; because of the publisher’s (imagined) politics; or to show the world something about yourself; etc., etc., etc.
If slated or nominated individuals specifically said they didn’t want to be associated with the Puppies, the Puppies claimed those individuals were being threatened by non-Puppies, or trying to get in good with non-Puppies, or scared of some ruthless anti-Puppy influence they had Reason To Fear. I even saw Puppies claim (I first saw this claim made by a Puppy supporter on FB) that the truth behind those withdrawals was that Tor Books bribed them to withdraw from the ballot.
In the nearly two years that Puppies have been barking and braying, I’ve yet to see one of them make an intelligent, informed, and/or persuasive argument. All the Puppy commentaries (their own blogs, their own posts all over the internet, the interviews they give, their own Tweets, etc.–not what people say about then, but rather their own words) I’ve seen for the past 2 years have been some combination or variation of misinformation, fabrication, hysteria, ludicrous accusations, unfounded claims, professional envy, personal resentment, grandstanding, paranoia, entitlement, personal attacks, and tantrums.
Their mode of “debate” is to keep repeating false claims, ignore every demand that they produce evidence of their claims, and double-down on their claims in the face of information that challenges or completely disproves them.
So I think that whole “virtue signaling” insult that’s so popular among the Puppies is just another lazy tactic arising from the emptiness of their ideology. It’s the same strategy as their insisting you didn’t love a book you say you loved, etc.
When someone holds a view they don’t agree with, the Puppies claiming that person is a hypocrite or coward who’s merely PRETENDING to hold that view in order to curry favor with [insert name(s) here], is an easy way of dissing that person without even having to grapple with their argument.
Cassy B.: I voted for site selection this year, but other than the credit card bill I haven’t gotten any notice from…. um… MidAmericon? Helsinki? I’m not entirely sure who I should be getting notice from. And the con’s only just over so maybe it’s too soon for me to fret….
Based on my past experience, you won’t get anything for a considerable amount of time. Hang on to the little strip of paper receipt you were given at voting, and keep it in a safe place.
Heh. I consider myself fabulously wealthy–I can shop at a Target and not do math in my head on the way to the checkout!
Man, I am enjoying the hell out of The Obelisk Gate.
RedWombat: Heh. I consider myself fabulously wealthy – I can shop at a Target and not do math in my head on the way to the checkout!
I realized the other day how much my life has changed in the last few years: I no longer have to limit my grocery store purchases to a certain amount (within reason), if something breaks, I can afford to fix it or replace it, and I can always fill up my gas tank, instead of calculating just how much I can spend on gas at the moment. I am able to throw $10-25 out of my paycheck every fortnight to someone in need on GoFundMe or KickStarter, and I sponsor about 15 people on Patreon for a dollar or two each per month. And I still manage to put a fair bit away in savings each month.
It was pretty sobering when it hit me just how dramatically things have changed for me — and how thankful and blessed I feel that it is so.
And I never lose sight of the fact that things can turn on a dime and change in the other direction, as they did for me in the past, putting me back into dire straits in just a moment.
Which is why I feel so strongly about contributing to people who are in that place. I’ve been there, and I know just how easy it is for one disastrous thing to put someone who is doing okay into that dire place, and how even a tiny bit of money can ease that stress a bit.
Cassy B. said:
Worldcon 76, the former San Jose in 2018, which you’ve now got a supporting membership in. (Assuming we’re talking Worldcon and not NASFiC site selection.)
As someone who orders those books for our library, I appreciate receiving the requests, even if we don’t have a budget large enough to fulfill all of them. They help me track local reading interest trends in terms of both author and sub-genre. If I’m trying to decide if spending part of my budget on a debut author is a worthwhile investment based on early reviews and I’m not certain, but I then receive a patron request, there’s a very good chance that book will be purchased.
Even if you don’t place requests, tell us if you like something we’ve ordered, especially if it’s a new author or a new series. It’s so much easier to promote books when we can say we’ve heard good things about them. As much as I’d like to, I can’t read everything that comes in. Too many books, too little time.
JJ, I believe the same rule does apply to NASFiC site selection – it doesn’t matter who you vote for. If you voted, you can convert to attending for a fixed relatively low cost within, IIRC, 90 days. They can’t tell who you voted for, anyway, because the ballot is separated from your identifying information before it is cast.
Same deal for worldcons, except that you get WSFS membership in the winning con, and the right to nominate and vote in the Hugos that year, even if you don’t convert to attending.
Cassy B, the 90 day thing means I would make a calendar reminder for mid-October to follow up with San Juan and San Jose if you haven’t heard anything by then.
Wheaton says ST:ID (or is it just STID?) fell apart for him shortly after watching it; it fell apart for me in the theater. I don’t think I stopped ranting to the friend I saw it with for at least half an hour. (Although I totally sympathize with anyone who makes their own entrance into Moscone.)
The reboot is blessed with some fantastic casting, and that’s it. Not enough to make up for missing the rest of what goes into a movie.
Eric Franklin, thanks for the link to the 50-free-ebooks promotion. A lot of the offerings made me go “meh”, but there were some that struck my interest. I downloaded THE HIPSTER FROM OUTER SPACE and TWO PERCENT POWER. (The latter is about a superhero with the power to control milk, which pushed my “goofy” button.)
There were milk-control powers in the British “Misfits” series. Someone put up a compilation video – let’s just say that while it started out goofy, it did not end up that way.
Dr Science said
Buy on sight is such an apt term – for me Bujold as well (miles!), and Hodgell (godstalk!) come to mind.
Used to also be Cherryh but have not followed her recent foreigner series, Zelazny before he passed away.
Glad Mike is nearing a date to return home. Keep getting better Mike !
@Kip W: That’s a damn fine explanation. Interesting how their sneer words for wrongthink include virtue and justice.
@Darren Garrison: There are NO clear nights in Gotham. They have all their own clouds, plus the ones that ought to hang over Metropolis.
@Eric: thanks for the link.
@rcade: thank you for not inflicting that upon us, and instead giving us a nice natural satellite.
@Greg: little harsh, yeah.
And yes can we please have a separate discussion about Hugo rules. My brain hurts and I don’t want to think about it again for at least a few months. Particularly since I’m not going to be at next year’s Business Meeting. I really don’t need to worry about it until 2018, frankly…
@ JJ
Site selection: Doh! I didn’t think it through that they wouldn’t know whether or not someone voted for the winning bid or not. I’m blaming it on the antibiotics. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)
Disposable income: Yeah, I remember the first time I spent $25 at one time and didn’t have to calculate if I could still make rent before hand! I also help others as I can, in part because I remember those lean times and how fragile our present comfort actually is.
There were milk-control powers in the British “Misfits” series.
Now I want to write this story of specialized telekinesis …
Tele-kine-esis?
Plus, rcade is correct:
“My take on what he meant about arriving in the early 1970s was that the original SF/F fans were still around and in force, so he learned from them what fandom was all about. Their feelings of finding kindred spirits around a scorned interest informed his values.”
In the early 70’s I went from ‘scorned and alone’ to ‘finding my tribe’ at cons, with plenty of “First Fandom” around to show me FIAWOL.
I read the series
But I did not read the pre-e-quels…
In 1977 I went into fandom with great hopes of finding my people. I did find some. But I also found a lot of men who did not want girl cooties all over their prime fandom space and who denigrated women in general.
And con fandom was all white and overwhelmingly heteronormative.
But no doubt true to that First True Fandom.
Max Gladstone on Twitter sparked a lot of replies and discussion about drinking at cons, and “BarCons” (when the hot place for conversation, especially pro talk, is at the hotel bar). This tweet started it off, but subsequent tweets got a lot of replies as well.
Personally, I feel uncomfortable at bars. The (usually unstated, but present) pressure to drink something alcoholic and the (unstated, but usually present) sense of surprise or disapproval from some people if you order a non-alcoholic drink are offputting and discomforting.
(Some of the Twitter replies from women mentioned ordering non-alcoholic drinks at a bar and people assuming they must be pregnant.)
Plus, I learned a long time ago that it doesn’t take much alcohol before I start turning into a bit of an ass. (Yes, yes, sometimes I manage that stone cold sober.) So I rarely drink at all, and never more than one, or VERY rarely two, drinks. I’m almost always a designated driver as well, another good reason or excuse to not drink.
(I actually have a fair amount of beer, wine, and hard liquor at home, but it’s used almost exclusively for cooking, not drinking. If you hand me a bottle of rum, you’re much more likely to get back a serving of Bananas Foster than a mixed drink.)
But there are non-alcohol related reasons I tend to avoid bars as well. They’re usually crowded. (And if Hilde’s with me… well, bars might be “accessible” but I’ve seen very few that are actually wheelchair-friendly and easy to navigate.) They’re usually noisy. Let me rephrase that: NOISY. It’s frequently hard to follow a conversation, and having good conversation is supposed to be the best reason to hang out at a con’s hotel bar.
(And, when your own speaking voice is a soft, low-pitched rumbly sort of thing, it’s hard for people to hear your words. I’ve been told I sound like bees buzzing, or that I speak Modern Mumble instead of English. Now that I’m in my 60’s, I guess I probably speak Olde Mumble.)
Throw in a touch (sometimes more) of Social Anxiety Disorder, and hanging out in a bar is rarely comfortable for me, and frequently actively uncomfortable. This probably means that I miss out on opportunities to meet interesting people and have interesting conversations with them, but… well, sometimes that’s just the way it is.
Full disclosure: I only make it to one or two local conventions a year anymore. So you might want to salt the rim before swallowing what’s written above.
Not sure how it’s in the US, but here in Germany a lot of bars now offer alcohol-free cocktails, so if you’re driving/pregnant/don’t want to drink alcohol for health or religious reasons there’s something else to drink than water or Coke or alcohol-free beer. I have never been shamed by a barkeeper either for not drinking alcohol – which I don’t do, when I have to drive. I’ve never been asked if I was pregnant either, which is just a rude thing to do period. However, at a con, I wouldn’t have to drive the same day, so that problem wouldn’t arise.
As a woman, one issue I have with bars is that a lone women in a bar (and sometimes even a woman in a bar with female friends) is often assumed to be looking for male company and has to fend off men making passes at her. Which can be annoying, because sometimes you just want to have a glass of wine or beer or cidre or a cocktail in peace.
I really dislike the accusation of virtue-signalling, because it is a direct assertion that I don’t and didn’t “really” like something, I only pretended to like it. I take that sort of thing rather badly.
Hilariously, it’s not JUST a random insult: it’s yet another instance* of Puppy projection.
ANYBODY WHO USES THE TERM “virtue signaling” IS VIRTUE SIGNALING to THEIR PEERS that they are part of their in-group.
* “The Hugos are being run by a shadowy cabal” being the prime instance of Puppy projection.
Well, they didn’t used to be – but NOW the Pups ARE a shadowy cabal controlling the Hugos.
It’s projection all the way down.
@JJ, no receipt; just the credit card bill. Although I suppose that is a receipt of sorts. I’d sent a check which never arrived (wasn’t cashed; confirmed via email not received), so I last-minute (like, the day before mail-in-deadline) bought a site selection membership online, which I misclicked and bought a NASFIC site selection membership, so I re-clicked and bought a Worldcon site selection membership and send off a frantic email explaining I was an idiot, and a very nice person sent me a refund check in the mail for the NASFIC membership because I’m the only person in the history of the world to misclick that choice and they didn’t know how to refund through credit cards… <embarrassed>
@Petréa Mitchell, San Jose; thanks. (Almost NASFIC too, see above…)
@Lenore Jones, thanks for the timeline. Mid-October; got it. I figured with the con only just being over it was too early to hear anything, but it’s nice to know when it’s reasonable to start to worry. <wry>
@various, re: bars — I don’t drink. I’ve always hated the taste of alcohol, and I grew up in a “dry” town so there was no opportunity to learn bar culture when growing up, and no reason to want to (see above; blech) to do so as an adult. Now I’m on a dart team, and since the games are held in bars, I’m gradually learning bar culture, but I’ll probably never be truly comfortable in one, unlike my husband who practically grew up in bars. (His father was alcoholic.)
Alcohol and abstention in the US: Gallup has been surveying drinking habits since shortly after the end of Prohibition, and has been finding steadily that a third or so of US adults don’t drink at all. This statistic is a big surprise to a lot of people including non-drinkers. There’s no real collective recognition in US culture that a significant number of adults don’t wish to consume alcohol.
I don’t drink for the boring and practical reason that alcohol tastes absolutely hideous to me, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been to an establishment or event where there was an expectation of drinking alcohol and something more interesting for me to drink than water or soda.
(I wish I could still remember the name of that place we went to the night before the 2004 Worldcon started, because it had a fabulous selection of mocktails. IIRC it was a seafood restaurant in the mall connected to the Hynes.)
Bartenders are very unlikely to pressure you to order alcohol instead of soft drinks, for at least two reasons. One is that the profit on soft drinks is at least as high as on booze. Another is that, these days, bars (at least in the US) can be held legally responsible for drunk driving by someone who got drunk at the bar. The bartender is going to be aware that someone who says “just a coke” might be thinking they’ve had enough and want to sober up before driving home; pushing them to have alcohol at that point is both unethical and legally risky.
The annoying fellow customer who tries to pressure you into having alcohol instead of a soft drink doesn’t have those legal risks. They’re likely motivated by (at best) a feeling that the non-drinker is judging them for drinking, or worry that s/he’ll remember the stupid things the pressurer did while drunk, and at worst by the idea that a drunk person can be persuaded into bed, or testing whether they can use social pressure to get you to do something you’ve already said no to.
The problem with “human rights” is that it itself is a concept born from the extreme privilege brought about by the technological and social advances developed over the last few tens of thousands of years. You can bet that the anatomically modern (from the best we can tell from skeletal remains) humans of 200,000 years ago who chased their food around with a sharpened stick and huddled around a fire at night fearing lion attacks were not thinking about there being any such thing as “human rights.” The idea of “human rights” comes up only when you have a high enough level of comfort and–yes–privilege from technologies and traditions so nearly universal today as to be invisible.
(tl:dr–nature has no “rights”, human or otherwise. All “rights” are cultural conventions.)
@Bruce Arthurs
Max Gladstone on Twitter sparked a lot of replies and discussion about drinking at cons, and “BarCons” (when the hot place for conversation, especially pro talk, is at the hotel bar). This tweet started it off, but subsequent tweets got a lot of replies as well.
Thanks it was an interesting conversation.
Darren Garrison: All true, but
A: I’m not sure that’s a *problem* with human rights, as it’s true of most of modern society, period.
B: I’m not sure how it’s applicable or even relevant to a discussion of privilege and rights in the modern world. The long view is all very well but it’s not always the important view, and the question was how to discuss human rights that should be universal but are unevenly applied without using the word privilege. Not sure our distant ancestors have answers for that…
The problem is that “should be” is a subjective, philosophical opinion and not an objective fact. Different cultures have different views on what are “rights” and what aren’t. It is all well and good to have preferences on how you wish that society would work (I have them too) but it is a different thing to say that this is the one correct way of viewing things, and that anyone who disagrees is wrong. (See, for example: any argument ever about the “right” to free speech or the “right” to arm bears.)
Ouch. They ought to learn quickly then. It’s been a very big no-no with all the card processors I’ve been involved with. The one time I can remember we did do a refund other than by refunding the card we needed something like a written request from the original card holder, permission from the card issuer and final go-ahead from the card processor. Cutting any corners is very good way of getting the money-laundering police giving you a very thorough investigation.
@ Chip: I also think you overestimate the attraction of Star Trek, which died after three seasons.
The show died after three seasons (and don’t forget that the third season itself was a Reichenbach Falls event — the network had announced a cancellation, and the fans mounted a huge letter-writing campaign to get it reinstated), but the fandom and the influence of the show on fandom in general didn’t. Three seasons is usually not a long enough run to get a syndication contract, but Star Trek was continually in syndication almost from the day it went off the air; some cities had multiple channels showing it. That’s a pretty major influence.
OTOH, I agree with you that the split between fanzine fandom and con-going fandom was already pronounced in the 1970s. I still remember being told that I wasn’t a real fan because I didn’t do zines, even as I watched the people around me grumbling about how the Star Trek fans weren’t real fans because they didn’t read books, and that latter split is still very present today; witness how a number of people talk about the fans who go to media-cons.
@ JJ: Yes, and that seminal experience (to fans of our generation) of walking into a con and discovering that here was a WHOLE BUNCH of people who didn’t think we were weird for liking “that sci-fi stuff” has been greatly blunted by the existence of the Internet. Fans can now find their groups of like-minded people on Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr and Instagram and whatever the next thing will be. That sense of complete isolation, common to so many of us, is very rare now.
I fully understand the uneasiness some people have about BarCons. I have a bit of a mixed relationship with them myself, particularly because high ambient noise levels is one of the things that sets my introvert-timer on quick count-down. They can also be an intimidating place to try to socialize (although, oddly enough, far less intimidating for me than open room parties where I don’t know anyone). The two “fragile moments” I had at Worldcon were when I wanted to do some evening socializing and wandered through the Marriott bar failing to find anyone I felt comfortable approaching. (Interestingly, Twitter is what saved me both times. I tweeted about my fragility and received invites from people to join them in some other specific location.)
But I also love BarCons.
The sort of open-plan lounge-type bar typical of convention hotels makes it possible to have amorphous, long-term conversations with shifting participants. Unlike a restaurant meal, you don’t have to have a prior invitation to take part. There’s no pressure from the wait staff to finish up and make way for other customers. It is possible to walk in to the bar area, catch the eye of someone that you can scrape together a reason to greet, get yourself invited to pull up a chair, and before you know it, someone else you always wanted to meet but wouldn’t have dared to talk to sits down in the next chair.
It took me literally decades to work out the mechanics of how to participate in and enjoy BarCons, and I fully sympathize with those who either haven’t worked through to that same position or don’t feel the payoff is worth it. But for me, the BarCon structure has been immensely helpful in widening my circle of comfort at conventions and having a place to practice my socializing skills.
None of that has anything to do with alcohol, except insofar that the economics and social framework of serving alcohol make it possible for hotels to allow for the haphazard open-ended socializing in question. I only really started drinking socially about a decade ago (I’m 58), in part because I don’t like beer and am very picky about wine. It is not the case that alcohol enabled my BarCon skills, but rather that becoming comfortable with the BarCon format made me feel comfortable about drinking in that context.
Now, my ideal form of convention socializing would be something equivalent to a BarCon where alcohol was available but not the symbolic focus, and where the space was larger with more scattered seating groups and sound-damping acoustics. But as with atomic chain-reactions, I suspect that part of the dynamic that I like depends on a certain critical density of participants (enabling the ease of transitions and making approach less of a marked action). So I’m focusing more on figuring out how to make the existing structure work for me and getting better at monitoring my limits.
Why yes, I do over-analyze every single aspect of my life.
@ AsYouKnow
Additionally, every time I read the Puppies using the phrase “virtue signalling,” I automatically see in my mind’s eye, for reasons one may feel free to speculate on, everyone in sf/f dressed in Victorian gowns, signalling frantically with hand fans. And the phrase seems even sillier then.
Indeed. The irony of the mess the Puppies have created and continued fertilizing is so thick with irony, one needs a machete (and also a nosegay) to make one’s way through it.
For people who want to enjoy a BarCon, but do not want to drink, there are several ways to make it look like you have a drink, but actually have something with no alcohol in it. The easiest is to simply have a glass of ginger ale in your hand. It could be any number of drinks, and no one will be the wiser that it is not.
@Laura: now my imagination is combining Victorian formal dress with hip-hop, rap, and New Wave-style hand and arm movements.
I blame you.
@ Laura: some combination or variation of misinformation, fabrication, hysteria, ludicrous accusations, unfounded claims, professional envy, personal resentment, grandstanding, paranoia, entitlement, personal attacks, and tantrums. Their mode of “debate” is to keep repeating false claims, ignore every demand that they produce evidence of their claims, and double-down on their claims in the face of information that challenges or completely disproves them.
Pretty much exactly like a lot of right-wing politicians. I’ve been presuming all along that that’s where the Puppies copied their tactics from.
@ Bruce A.: You’ve described a lot of my feelings about BarCons as well. Especially the noise issue; I have very low-end sound-filtering software in my head, and it’s really hard for me to follow a conversation when there’s a lot of background noise, whether that’s from a vacuum cleaner or a large group of people All Talking Very Loudly. And no, I’m not hard of hearing at all; I think it has more to do with me not being the kind of person who has the TV or radio or mp3 player on all the time, and so my default environment is not noisy and distracting.
@ Petréa: SEEBLING! You’ve described exactly how I feel about alcohol — I don’t think there’s anything wrong or bad about it, but it tastes VILE, and I can taste it in ridiculously low concentrations. And smell it that way, too; generally, things I get offered as “you can’t even taste the alcohol in this” don’t make it past my nose.
This is one of the reasons I’m so happy about the spreading popularity of bubble tea (aka boba) in America. Most bubble-tea places don’t sell alcohol and don’t have a “bar culture”, which gives me a place to go if I just want to have a drink and read my book for a while. Plus, I like bubble tea — but even if you don’t, they generally have a wide range of other options including plain green and black tea, fruit juices, and smoothies.
@ Darren: All “rights” are cultural conventions.
Dear ghod, yes. You don’t want to know how many times I’ve tried to pound this thru the heads of Libertarians — most of whom appear to be infested with the attitude of “that to which I am accustomed has the force of natural law”, so it just bounces.
I hate being an old SJW and knowing that people laugh at me when I forget and go for blocks, still signaling: “Virtue… virtue… virtue…”