679 thoughts on “The Paw of Oberon 5/4”

1. @snowcrash “I truly do look forward to reading his work. He stands a good chance of being worse than last years monologue of a novella from his master.”

   He actually can write small-unit actions fairly well, if you like that kind of thing.

   When he tries to get into economics, the books get hilarious- In one of the more recent ones he spends a few paragraphs explaining how a government spending program for arms helped stimulate the economy, just as Keynes would have expected… Then he claims that this is proof that trickle-down economics is real!

   Basically, if he is talking about anything except for fighting, make sure that you are sitting somewhere with a clean floor, so you can find your eyeballs after they roll out of your head.

2. “Some Euro weenie” — Karlheinz Stockhausen.

   A man, by the way, of far greater intellect and artistic significance than you could ever hope to achieve.

3. @Kratman “Personally I don’t give a shit how they treat their women, qua _their_ women.. There is no social contract between me and Islam.”

   Yes Tom, we get that you don’t care about bad things happening provided they occur to sufficiently “other” people in the world. However, quite a lot of people actually allow their principles to extend beyond the issues in their immediate view, and your entire wordspew has originated in you wanting to tell us how wrong we are for doing so.

4. Anna, nothing is absolutely certain in war. Let us note, however, that Czech resistance to German occupation, post Lidice, was esentially nil and that Rome had no more significant organized servile insurrections after your countryman Marcus Licinius Crassus nailed up 6400 or so recaptuired slaves along the Appian Way. And we know who won Vietnam, right?

   Are you defining “rational” as absolutely, 100% guaranteed to work? That doesn’t happen much. D Day would be irrational by that light. So would the Destruction of Army Group Center. Both worked, in fact, well.

   You suggest the potential backlash, but what if there is no real potential for that? As I think I mentioned, there is essentially no chance of a backlash over this girl. FLOTUS is going to hold up a white sign on facebook? Okay, and?

   You also need to be careful of the inappropriate analogy. Ulster is not Afghanistan. The front held in WW I,s o the front must always hold…and then they come through the Ardennes. The Spartans won at Mantinea, and then came Leuctra.

5. Quite possibly, Steven, which would reduce you to an earthworm by comparison.

6. Mark, if those were their principles, then why haven’t those principled folks volunteered to go there, train as infantry, and suffer, fight, and die for about 15 k a year?

   Principle? “Theese word you are usink? I dunno thin’ it means wha’ you thin’ it means.”

7. @Steven Schwartz “One is, of course, always free to wonder *why* people who choose to build worlds to permit certain acts do so — and need not take them at their word when they explain it.”

   Interesting, I hadn’t read that Kessel piece before.

   This does help….clarify….”Watch on the Rhine” for me somewhat.

8. The other thing, mark, is that the way they actually treat their women and girls is not necessarily the way we think they do. The following applies only to girls within a tribe, and doesn’t bear on “foreign” girls who may have been married:

   In theory, a Saudi husband, say, can beat his wife. In practice, he usually doesn’t have to because, you know, she very often likes being a wife and is in the process of growing to love him or already does. Still, it could happen and I am sure it sometimes does.

   But not so much. Why? Because she has a father, brother, and cousins who love her and will kill the man who abuses her without what they consider sufficient reason. There are some reasons they would consider sufficient, of course, and for some they’d shoot her themselves, but, on average, no. Beating someone’s sister is an invitation to an unmarked grave, somewhere out in the desert.

   Now, as suggested, girls who aren’t connected to the local tribal system, their lives can frequently be a lot more grim.

9. @Tom Thanks. The idea that everyone has a self-consistent worldview is something that makes plenty of sense to me as a guy with an anthro degree, so I’m glad to understand where you’re coming from on it. The question of what to do with that fact is one of the most interesting in anthropology, FWIW, and was part of the reason I was wondering today if there were some way to conceive of this whole kerfuffle (I proposed starting with “we all belong to the United Federation of Planets” and going from there) that would help us actually realize our common ground, of which there’s almost always a lot more than anyone thinks. And I’ve thought about some of the facets of it–Apocalypse Now being one of my favorite movies, for instance–that I can see how there’s a point here where we almost immediately start talking past each other, which is never my interest, and I would doubt is others’ either. One of my favorite recently found quotes is from McLuhan and goes: “Discovery comes from dialogue that starts with the sharing of ignorance.” And so, in honor of that, I will stop there.

10. “It’s hardly a strawman, Olif, when people keep going back to irrational as morally wrong. And almost all of you have.”

    I don’t think they have … most of the conversation I’ve seen has been painting irrational as … _not_ rational. For example I think we can all agree that a mother charging into a burning building to save her child is an irrational act … but certainly not immoral. And on the other hand … shooting a 14 year old girl in order to terrorize other girls might be a rational act that is completely immoral.

    So yeah we all get that. Or at least *I* do.

    What I am somehow missing is why you continue to use this argument as a justification for anti-social beliefs. On one hand it seems as if you’re arguing that “yes those actions are terrible and that’s why we fight” and on the other hand “those actions are terrible but so very effective and we wish we could be just as effective” … which leads me to the conclusion that you *admire* those actions.

    perhaps *admire* is the wrong word … *respect the effectiveness of* may be better … but seriously, is there a great difference in meaning?

11. I think there is a difference, yes.

    Actually, I’m with Heinlein on that; the mother’s act is perfectly rational.

    They’re not using the words, that way, but that how I read the meaning. Starting with Vox’s initital comment that it was rational, every counter has been morality based, or seems to have been, to me.

12. Watch is old news, Mark, but you can go read that RPG cite I gave.

13. Why we fight is easy.

    Because someone with more shiny stuff on their uniform than we have us too.

14. @Kratman

    “Mark, if those were their principles, then why haven’t those principled folks volunteered to go there, train as infantry, and suffer, fight, and die for about 15 k a year?

    Principle? “Theese word you are usink? I dunno thin’ it means wha’ you thin’ it means.” ”

    Ah yes, the argument that if you disagree with something, you must personally march to wherever it is and defeat it in manly combat, otherwise you don’t really disagree enough. Not very persuasive in the real world, I’m afraid.

    In other news, the injection of your belief that physical abuse of women is less prevalent than we think, into a discussion of whether it was okay to shoot a 14 year old girl in the head is….noted.

15. Will, I have a few columns, a short series, on everyjoe,com that discusses the desperate need for us to come together and reject the extremes. I cna find a link if you want it.

16. “Mark, if those were their principles, then why haven’t those principled folks volunteered to go there, train as infantry, and suffer, fight, and die for about 15 k a year?”

    Well, let’s see; let’s start with the fact that the U.S. hasn’t fought a war for civil rights in….well, more or less ever. Making “volunteering” a case of volunteering to fight for an irregular force, I suppose?

    Instead, I volunteer, do good things here*, where I am and where I can be the most useful. Because I don’t believe that “Things are worse over there” are a reason not to do good things where I am.

    “Quite possibly, Steven, which would reduce you to an earthworm by comparison.”

    Given that you know nothing of what I’ve done, I find this…amusing projection, to put it mildly. But we’ve been over that whole “dehumanizing your opponents” thing before, so I’ll just mark the placeholder.

    (Here being my geographical area and the communities I’m in.)

17. My position is that without some real personal commitment it doesn’t arise to the level of a principle but is a mere preference. Yes, men of principle take action. You can disagree; I shall not lose sleep over it.

18. “…the U.S. hasn’t fought a war for civil rights in….well, more or less ever….”

    Doesn’t that depend upon which year of Abraham Lincoln’s career you’re reading about?

19. And you know what about me, Steven? What I know of you includes things like being unable to see that an address was not a lifestyle, and that getting the address did not gain the life for which the address was sought. In other words, you’re just another blind and doctrinaire lefty.

    Who said they had to go with US forces, Steven? A man of principle would go and sign on with the Afghans. It would be even less pay, of course, and the food would be somewhat iffy, but we’re talking _principle_ here.

20. @Tom I would read that. Thanks.

21. Just trying to explain to you, Mark, that not everything over there is necessarily what it seems to be from the outside. Yes, I know, I know; explanation = approval in the lefty mind. Okay, I suppose I have to be all multiculturally sensitive and say that it’s wrong for those brothers to interfere with their sister’s husband beating her since, after all, women “have always fought….”

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    ha

22. @MikeGlyer “…the U.S. hasn’t fought a war for civil rights in….well, more or less ever….”

    Doesn’t that depend upon which year of Abraham Lincoln’s career you’re reading about?”

    How shall we put this: the war *started* over this little issue of a bunch of states leaving. I think that the reason a bunch of states left had to do with that, but…

    Your point stands, though I think my own remains fairly intact, given the arguable nature and the 150+ year time gap. 🙂

23. It starts here and then continues for another 4, Will:

    http://www.everyjoe.com/2015/01/12/politics/breakup-of-united-states-terrible-idea/#1

24. “My position is that without some real personal commitment it doesn’t arise to the level of a principle but is a mere preference. Yes, men of principle take action. You can disagree; I shall not lose sleep over it.”

    Women of principle also take action. (Sorry, but given your severe apparent case of “only fighting counts as action” and sexual military dimorphism, it has to be pointed out.)

    People who protest in the face of police brutality are “taking action”, for example. People who do escort duty at clinics are “taking action”. Perhaps someday you’ll understand this, Tom, and see that your narrow definitions are simply causing you more trouble.

25. @Kratman “Watch is old news, Mark, but you can go read that RPG cite I gave.”

    No need, I read it in the train-wreck original. Anyway, your insistence that the SS-elements in WotR just had to be in there, because you just had to write the story that appeared in your mind without editorialising, makes a lot more sense in light of Steven’s comments about some authors worldbuilding in particular ways to allow them to present an particular act as acceptable.

26. Steven Schwartz: Of course you think your point still stands. “Never” only means “never” if nobody comes along and shows evidence. After that “never” is unmasked to display the original meaning, “I’m right because feelings.” 🙂

27. “I think there is a difference, yes.

    Actually, I’m with Heinlein on that; the mother’s act is perfectly rational.

    They’re not using the words, that way, but that how I read the meaning. Starting with Vox’s initital comment that it was rational, every counter has been morality based, or seems to have been, to me.”

    the mother’s act is rational in her own mind, and also to the extent we can all understand and sympathize with her motivation … to the point of bystanders and emergency workers *also* committing irrational acts in her place … it’s part of what being human means.

    Vox didn’t write his argument about the shooting of that girl as a rational act. He wrote it as an act that he admired (he used that word whereas you haven’t). He admired the ruthlessness of it. Only later did he backpedal and claim that “yes of course it was a rational act, and that’s all I ever meant”. That’s how I read it anyway and granted I came late to the argument so may have missed parts of it.

    However I suspect that you (and he) will insist on having it your way.

28. Oh, I dunno if it was a train wreck; I was, after all, “way up on points.”

29. @Tom Thanks. It’s in my queue now.

30. @Mike: “Steven Schwartz: Of course you think your point still stands. “Never” only means “never” if nobody comes along and shows evidence. After that “never” is unmasked to display the original meaning, “I’m right because feelings.” 🙂

    I could quibble, and argue “More or less ever” is not “never” — after all, one could argue that the American Revolution qualified (though not the U.S. starting the war)

    If you would prefer, I am also prepared to qualify my statement more fully: “The U.S. hasn’t started a war primarily on the grounds of enforcing someone’s civil rights — and a) one can argue that it has not done so, depending on one’s view of the civil war, and b) expecting or hoping it to do so for one’s particular civil rights position seems a very foolish reason to volunteer for service.”

    I didn’t think that was required, but if you wish it, I can do it.

    And, I submit, the difference between that and my original point is primarily a matter of word count. 🙂

31. People who sit around and whine on the net, at no personal cost, even hiding their real names, are not, however, taking action, Steven. They’re just, in Heinlein’s words, “Parlor pinks.” Of course i am not, but, again, no social contract between me and the women or the Islamic world unless and until they undertake to become Americans or serve American interests.

32. It’s interesting to view a conversation about “rationality” in which one of the participants, nominated for a major award, appears to think that it’s rational to insult strangers, with epithets such as “revolting dolt”, “earthworm”, and “brain dead”, in a public forum which is read by many of the people who will be voting for that award.
    Maybe he doesn’t care about the award, or maybe he thinks that the only people who would be likely to vote for him in any case are impressed by this kind of behavior.
    I’m amused, in any case, by the claim, in the same thread, that “I don’t insult people for disagreeing.”

33. @Morris Keesan:

    Indeed, Tom displays a dizzying intellect. I think he needs a hug.

34. But seriously, Kratman, did being around Vox turn you into a raving misogynist or were you always like that?

35. is it immoral to admire a rational but immoral act?

36. @Rev. Bob

    Indeed, Tom displays a dizzying intellect. I think he needs a hug.

    I was reading comments in horror, but now I feel pity. Such empty bluster.

37. He does need a hug. Have a hug, Tom.

38. So the Rabid Puppies slate includes

    * One author who is so opposed to assisted suicide for the terminally ill, that he regrets not punching Terry Pratchett in the face for having spoken approvingly of it

    * Another author who is scolding everyone for finding the murder of a 14-year-old girl horrible.

    No wonder the Puppies are so vocally opposed to “message fic” and “political sniff tests.” Barring common threads such as “both these authors are assholes,” the slate’s politics are entirely incoherent.

    Also, now I better understand why John Scalzi dislikes sequential posts by the same commenter and has a rule against it over at the Whatever.

39. @clif Is that a question or are you describing the plot of “Inception”?

40. “People who sit around and whine on the net, at no personal cost, even hiding their real names, are not, however, taking action, Steven. They’re just, in Heinlein’s words, “Parlor pinks.” Of course i am not, but, again, no social contract between me and the women or the Islamic world unless and until they undertake to become Americans or serve American interests.”

    Of course, you have *no* evidence that anyone you’re talking to belongs to the group you describe. You have your prejudices, and your assumptions, but no evidence.

    And yet you seem to have no problem defining them as such, insulting them, etc., etc., and so forth.

    (And as for “hiding their real names” — if you are so *utterly* ignorant of cyberstalking as a weapon in the hands of people who want to maintain (or roll back) the status quo, I am truly impressed with how far you’ve stuck your head in the sand. Anonymity on the Net has a long history, for good and for ill — and your puffery about “courage” has very little to do with it.)

    I will also simply note your lack of concern for people in the rest of the world unless they happen to serve your interests, and leave it at that.

    (Steve Moss earlier said there was no cause to doubt your patriotism. For a very narrow definition of “patriotism”, this is true. The efficacy, usefulness, morality, or accuracy* of your patriotism, however, is a different matter.)

    *After all, can one be “patriotic” for a country whose core founding views one has expressed a disdain for, Mr. “some ideologies are grounds for execution”?

41. More substantially, I mean Tom that in this case, as in the case for example of the widespread use of torture by the US military (a cause I know dear to your heart), the potential for backlash is indeed there. So you cannot be sure it will work. I will also note that branding your reputation in the mind of opponents and potential allies alike as a bunch of blood-thirsty blasphemous madmen, rightly or wrongly, is not conducive to long-term victory. And yes, I would say that getting the rest of the world mad at you is not a prudent strategy. It wasn’t for Milosevic, and it wasn’t for the Taliban, who would still be lording it up in Afghanistan instead of having had to fight a war for the past fifteen years if they hadn’t wanted to deal a Decisive Blow From Which The Enemy Will Cower In Fear Forever in 2001. It didn’t turn out very well for the Reich, either.

    In fact, the point of non-violent action is sometimes precisely to provoke your adversary to lose their cool and do something that will show to all and sundry that your cause is just and worth of support. It won at least one country their independence, and I believe there are people in the US who have more rights now than they used to precisely because of this strategy.

    ObSF reference: I was thinking that this strategy of upping the ante to the point you are doing the unthinkable and drive your enemy to despair and confusion is a central point of Use of Weapons. So much so that I am tempted to call it The Chairmaker Principle. (Not a spoiler, I hope).

42. If you don’t make your real name public, Vox and friends are going to their best to make it public.

43. Er, there are, indeed, citizens of the USA who are both women and Muslim, I gather?

44. yes, I have read some of Mr. Kratman’s books (not ‘Caliphate,’ – I gave up on reading much of anything else by him after “Watch On The Rhine” and “Desert Called Peace” and am assuming now that what competent writing I saw in in Watch was Ringo’s

    Apparently I, having grown up in the same era as Mr Kratman, learned to view the world with a little more nuance than he did, especially after going to the funerals I had to for my fellows who died in Vietnam. I learned that the desire for vengeance is only momentarily satisfying, and doesn’t provide any but the briefest of solution, leading only to long term troubles.

45. @ Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little – “Another author who is scolding everyone for finding the murder of a 14-year-old girl horrible.”

    Are you referring to VD or Tom Kratman in this post? If the latter, you are either mistaken or deliberately restating his words and lying thereby. If the former, then you have been successfully trolled by a master. If you don’t like VD (and many don’t) then ignore him and vote against his work. Simple.

    Either way, the employment of the YeahBut tactic (“Yeah, but your side has a person who does x, y and z”) will boomerang so very fast that you will depart this thread in haste. If you like, I will match you author for author for who can present the most problematic statements and actions from the last 5-10 years of Hugo nominated authors.

    Pro tip – you can’t win this one. Best to let it lie.

46. @Will it was a question in general … but pointed in general at Tom who seems to want to have it both ways … admiration for an immoral act without the criticism associated with that admiration …

47. ‘No, rational and justified and good are not the same things. It’s a peculiarity and flaw of their minds that they insist, openly or tacitly, that they are and must be the same.’

    Actually, no. I very much doubt anyone here thinks they are. I certainly don’t. You seem to think that because people can act rationally in a war, all effective actions must be rational. Like shooting a 14 year old girl in the head. I would concede that it might seem rational to the perpetrator, whether it achieved the desired ends or not. It is a peculiarity and a flaw of your mind that you insist that if I disagree with you about this, I must therefore disagree with you about the other. I am sorry, that’s not how it works.

48. Er, there are, indeed, citizens of the USA who are both women and Muslim, I gather?

    I would say so, given that the Muslim men I know have wives, mothers, sisters, or daughters.

49. Wow, did I have to go a looooong way back to find the comment that kicked this all off back 20 pages or so ago, but I found it interesting to do so. Tl;dr version: I think Tom’s initial statement was misunderstood. Whether that is due to his way of stating it (Tom, you definitely don’t sugarcoat anything) or many other people’s (myself included) being primed to misread it (it didn’t help by following in sequence after his Voxness) hardly matters…it was misread, I think. I feel that was confirmed when I asked him to clarify that he did not think the shooting was “right,” to which he more than agreed. But you can see how quickly it went downhill from the initial statement–compounded by differing usages of the term “rational”–and after that, a general donnybrook ensued. (Thank god Wittgenstein’s poker wasn’t lying around.)

    It makes me think of that episode on STTNG where Wesley’s taking his exam and he meets a guy in the hall who insults him vehemently. Wesley apologizes, but the guy persists. Something dawns on Wesley: he retorts very strongly with an insult of his own. The alien is instantly pleased and leaves him in peace. Turns out, he comes from a culture where this is how one greets another and it’s a terrible insult not to return that initial bluster. (I’m probably paraphrasing badly. And I’m not saying Tom was looking for a fight–just the opposite–I think he thought it was kind of playful or something. He could tell us if he wanted, though he doesn’t have to.) My point is only that I think something like that happened here only we didn’t figure out the protocol (one might also say the alien [Tom’s not an alien–we’re all aliens] could have learned human ways, but the show makes it clear it’s in Wesley’s interest to be able to do what he does, which is figure it out).

    We are from some very different planets, but I’m glad we can all hug it out in the end. A good evening to my fellow members of the Federation.

50. @clif Sorry–was going to add a 😉 to my initial statement then held off. Should always trust my instinct on that. Was just noting the recursiveness (nothing wrong with that at all). Sorry for the mixup…

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