Where Did Things Go So Wrong?!?

[ficbot]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Personally, even though I disagree with some of your stances, they would not influence my decision to buy or not buy your books.

It's not that I disagree with his stances, it's that he writes about them with such scorn, pompousness and disregard for those he dialogues with that I find him alienating. If he's this unpleasant in a hundred-word forum post, I can't imagine choosing to spend a couple hundred pages with him. There are plenty of people whose personal opinions I disagree with but I would still buy their books. The issue is how he presents himself and how that builds---or fails to build---an audience who connects with him.

This thread is a perfect example. He asked for honest feedback. People gave him some. And for every suggestion, he had an argument about why it did not apply to him. For every person who challenged him on it, he outright dismissed them and in some cases even demanded that they go away and stop bothering him. The suggestion I gave him---which is coming from my own opinion, but was reiterated by at least a few others who share it---he has mocked in every post he's made since then. I have accepted that Steven and I are just people who have to agree to disagree on some things (the piracy thread being an example---it seemed to get ever more circular the longer it went on for). But 'being someone with whom I disagree' and 'being someone who presents himself, in a short message board post, in a way that makes me sure I would not enjoy his writing in a longer form' are two completely separate things.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Doesn't matter. We're all allowed to make idiosyncratic choices about our reading for pleasure. If I think some author is a jerk and decide not to buy his or her books, that's my business.

I'm not forcing him to read Steve's books.
Of course it's your business.
If you post your business on a public discussion forum, folks will probably tell you their opinion of your business, yes?

[Penforhire]

We use passwords for DRM now. All I'm suggesting is a biometric alternate, with your original passwords as a fall-back capability.

Whatever you can do to yourself with passwords you can do with the scanner. If your hands shake that much then just enter your password instead, which must be tough if you shake that much anyway. I'm pretty messy at my desk and the top of my print scanner is, fortunately, sealed, lol. The software can, today, accept all 10 fingertips as alternate entries (in case of injury).

In the case of your 12 year old daughter, assuming her prints changed enough to make the scanner reject her all she'd have to do is go back to an original passord and re-enter her current fingerprints. Same for adding you as a second or third user's prints. Same if you somehow delete your fingerprints. Easy peasy. Keep in mind that we are talking about an alternate identity verication system.

The more paranoid companies require a personal USB token to be connected in addition to the password/finger scan.

Methinks the lady doth protest too much. I'll grant you the question of how often to require a password or print scan entry. The biometric technique is so easy that doing it several times a day (if I walk away from my work PC) is painless. If you're some sort of shaky-fingered fringe case then, yes, entering a password would be obnoxious, though plenty of smartphone users have their devices require a password every time they turn on the screen.

It would be tied to a device (edit - though with the "cloud" your print file could be automatically copied to your devices), while your password makes your Amazon (for example) acount transportable. If you buy a new Kindle you have to enter your password anyway, no?

I do expect retinal or face-recognition scanners to take the place of fingerprints as camera tech gets ever cheaper. Or else a whole-finger scanner, rather than a stripe-style, which would help those with shaky fingers.

[ApK]

Regarding biometric tech,
At work, I've developed systems that use inexpensive fingerprint sensors, and also palm vein scanners, which are getting attention in hospitals and police applications, because they work through latex gloves and require no direct contact.
Pretty cool stuff. Works better than I thought it would.

Yeah yeah: OK.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by ApK

I'm not forcing him to read Steve's books.
Of course it's your business.
If you post your business on a public discussion forum, folks will probably tell you their opinion of your business, yes?

Huh? You called people closeminded for not being willing to read authors whose ideology they disdained. Why is that criterion less valid than any other when one is reading for pleasure?

[Worldwalker]

Press releases? Press releases? The mind boggles.

Steve, people in the book business (and pretty much every other business) consider unsolicited press releases to be just another form of spam, and filter accordingly.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Huh? You called people closeminded for not being willing to read authors whose ideology they disdained. Why is that criterion less valid than any other when one is reading for pleasure?

'Huh?' back at you. I'm not sure I'm clear on what your asking or what point you're getting at.

ardeegee said:
" If we can't even agree on something as fundamental as what is a good thing for the future, why would I want to visit a future he envisions?"

But it's not like he actually knows what sort future the books presents. That's pretty much closed-mindedness by my understanding of the term.

And I'm not sure what constitutes "valid" criteria in this matter. I'm not aware of any "invalid" criteria in choosing pleasure reading. It's his choice. It can still be a close-minded choice (or racist, or noble, or anti-semitic, or patriotic, or pinko-liberal-commie choice, or wise choice, or any adjective that might apply.)

Or should I simply be interpreting your post to mean you disagree?

ApK

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

We use passwords for DRM now. All I'm suggesting is a biometric alternate, with your original passwords as a fall-back capability.

So you're assuming ebook readers would have *two* inputs: a fingerprint scanner, and a backup password entry method? Why bother with the fingerprint, then, as DRM, when people could just hand out the ebook with the password?

The idea expressed was ebook DRM that was better than the current system. Anything with a backup password is not, from the publishers' perspective; they don't want books that can be opened with a freely-exchangeable password.

[carld]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Press releases? Press releases? The mind boggles.

Steve, people in the book business (and pretty much every other business) consider unsolicited press releases to be just another form of spam, and filter accordingly.

That is not true in my experience.

[carld]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

A person whose ideologies don't show in their fiction is schizophrenic.

I disagree. I had no idea Orson Scott Card was a raging homophobe based on his fiction. He masks his true beliefs very effectively.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Press releases? Press releases? The mind boggles.

Steve, people in the book business (and pretty much every other business) consider unsolicited press releases to be just another form of spam, and filter accordingly.

I'm not sure what this is about in Steve's particular case, but in general, isn't that pretty much what press releases are for? You send them out to the press. Like magazine publishers.
Press releases aren't "releases" if they are just sitting around in your press kit waiting to be solicited.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by carld

I disagree. I had no idea Orson Scott Card was a raging homophobe based on his fiction. He masks his true beliefs very effectively.

I was thinking the same thing. I didn't especially like Ender's Game, and therefore never read anything else by him, but I can't remember anything reflecting that attitude. I think I recall he spoke quite a bit about Mormonism in the introduction.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by carld

I disagree. I had no idea Orson Scott Card was a raging homophobe based on his fiction. He masks his true beliefs very effectively.

He manages not to showcase the homophobia by the simple expedient of not having any bisexual or homosexual characters. However, the sex-negativity and belief that individual desires and passions are best subsumed into a larger family context (even when "the family" becomes "the military"), and that individuals without that context are dangerous and bad, shine through all of his works.

Not every ideological twist or application will be visible in an author's works, but any book so formulaic or abstract as to avoid all connection with the author's sense of self isn't worth reading.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by ApK

He said:
" If we can't even agree on something as fundamental as what is a good thing for the future, why would I want to visit a future he envisions?"

But not it's like he actually knows what sort future the books presents. That's pretty much closed-mindedness by my understanding of the term

No, it is pretty much logical. Just as you would not expect a staunch communist to write a book praising a capitalistic future, I see no reason to expect someone who strongly favors government enforced artificial scarcity to write anything positive about the type of post-scarcity, post-singularity future I prefer to read about.

I'll put it bluntly-- I do not want to live in the kind of world that he wants to live in. It is one thing if a writer presents a distopia knowing that it is a distopia, but another thing entirely when he presents a distopia thinking that this is just a swell way for things to end up.

"Money is a sign of poverty"
-- Ian M. Banks.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by ApK

Or should I simply be interpreting your post to mean you disagree?

ApK

At this juncture, I have no idea anymore!

My only point is this: I think it's perfectly reasonable to refuse to read an author because of his or her opinions, attitudes, activities, etc. Closeminded is a pejorative term, and I would not characterize it as closeminded.

Anyway, as regards the OP, I am much more disturbed by his saying his work isn't all that good (paraphrasing here) in an earlier thread, than by his opinions and attitude. Why should I read something the author himself denigrates?