chiakiakito

[chiakiakito]

I'm sorry to hijack your post but I also wanted to point out that this is Amazon's modus operandi with the marketplace, too. As a small indie publisher we have Amazon listings for our physical books, and the customer service that's so nice and servile and ready to refund your order without the slightest justification is a NIGHTMARE when you're the seller. Replies are barely there, and those that are are draconian.

A customer asks for a refund while falsely claiming they never got their package and you have a tracking link that says they did receive and accept the delivery? Not sufficient proof. Seller, eat that refund. A customer gets the book, uses the handy pdf code printed inside to download the digital copy we include (useful for ttrpgs), and then returns the book for a full refund? Eat it, they just got a free ebook. Wait more than like 3 days INCLUDING WEEKENDS AND HOLIDAYS to ship something? Bad seller, your rating will go down.

Like, you have to be on Amazon because everyone shops from it, but it just sucks to sell your stuff on Amazon in any way shape or form. If you can buy something on any other platform and you want to support the person making it, please just do that instead.

Hnngh. The Audible "hack" is making the rounds again, with people claiming you can use your Audible credit to listen to a book and then return it "for free." While I am the first among many to say "fuck Amazon and we should gullotine Jeff Bezos," I need you all to know it's not Amazon refunding you.

It's the authors.

They take that out of our royalties. And that's after they take 80% of our royalties on sales we do make.

(Note: Also, do not assume that your credit is worth the price listing that Amazon shows. Amazon does not pay us the cost of the listing. ((WHICH THEY PICK, we cannot set our own prices on audiobooks and then that forces us to use the Amazon price for the rest of the market!!)) What we get is 20% of the credit's value, so my book might appear on Audible for $20-30. However, if you received an Amazon credit for one of those $4.99 deals, I'd get 20% of $4.99. Yes, it's fucked, it's all fucked. Yes, other audio retailers do the exact same thing. This is one of the reasons authors don't make half as much money as people think they do.)

This became such a big issue that they had to make it impossible to return books after a certain point without talking to a customer service representative, because people were using Kindle/Audible and Amazon's return policy "like a library," and some authors (myself included) were getting royalty checks that showed negative income.

At this point, I don't even know if the Audible "hack" still works (Amazon has made changes to protect authors from this kind of thing at a glacial pace), but I need you to know it's not Amazon that's refunding you. This isn't a fun little "fuck Amazon" thing. The way Amazon has it set up, it's directly fucking the authors over.

So, yeah. Obviously, if you download something and can't get into it, or if something pops up on the author's side that makes you not want to support them anymore, yeah, process that return. Yeet the bitch. But please don't use it "like a library."

It's really harrowing to see your predicted income based on sales and then find out you're getting one-tenth of that because of refunds. And it's not even because people didn't like your book. They're just using the wrong place like a library and fucking over your algorithm as well, because once you get too many returns, you stop getting promoted.

Try using a library. You can access places like @queerliblib for FREE provided you have a US library account that you've hooked up to Libby. It's a little bit of work, but once you've got a card number, you're golden.

Just, y'know, throwing it out there because I don't think people realize this is how it works. You're not taking something back to Walmart, and Walmart is eating the refund before dumping the item in the garbage. Amazon takes the refund, turns to the author, and takes it off our plates.

Note: this does not affect Kindle Unlimited. Flip through the end pages to give the author maximum pages read, and then return that bad boy so the author can get paid. But also, please, maybe think about switching to a Kobo+ account instead. It offers the same subscription-based membership without demanding exclusivity, so authors aren't locked into just Amazon the way they are with KU. (Royalty rates are roughly the same, but it's a better deal in terms of allowing broader market access.)

This has been a rambling and exhausted PSA from your local peddler of weres.

[chiakiakito]

Listing is hard bc at some point they all blend together. Anyways:

D&D 3.5, Pathfinder 1e, Warcraft D20, FATE core, FATE accelerated, Dungeon World, Urban Shadows, City of Mist, Itras By, Stonetop, The Sword and the Loves, Montsegur 1544, Fall of Magic, Our Queen Crumbles, Les Petits Choses Oubliées, Never Tell Me the Odds, Lasers & Feelings, Porco & Marco, The Warren, 24 Game Poems (anthology, would count as like 10+), Endtime Year 21, Orchidelirium, Back Again from the Broken Land, Kagematsu, Tirnath en-el Annun, Pigsmoke, Arc, The Marvelous Children of Inang-Uri, The Magus, Triangle Agency, Crescent Moon, Exiles, Meanwhile in the Subway, Feathered Adventures, On the Way to Chrysopoeia, Chrysopoeia & All Around, Fedora Noir, The Slow Knife, Orbital, Koriko: A Magical Year, The One Ring, Epigoni, Alas for the Awful Sea, Scurry, Ma Nishtana, Quietus, Sweet Agatha, Apawthecaria, My Red Goddess, The Hangman Saga, Space Bounty Blues, Drama Llamas

That's around 60 games aaaaand I'm fairly sure I left stuff out. Convention play ain't the best way to remember game names.

How many different ttrpgs have you played ?

We are counting them all. To answer what has been asked on the Anim ttrpg book club where this poll originated, yes solo and one page games count of course.

The Stipulation : you have to have sat down for at least one session of gameplay

For the sake of this poll, different editions count as different games, if they are major rules or design changes between the different editions.

[chiakiakito]

mid-year resolutions:

gain 10 pounds

forget a language

spend more money on take-out

be less thoughtful

lose control of my finances

worsen my sleep schedule

etc.

[chiakiakito]

The claim that all ttrpg descend from d&d and wargaming is also ahistorical by itself, by the way. It's true that it was hugely influential, but there have always been variations of "playing make-believe" in the form of parlor games, historical reenactment, improv theatre etc. And what about chatroom roleplay and virtual cities and rpg forums? Many, many of these activities developed independently and have nothing to do with wargaming and still had a traceable influence on the development of both larp and ttrpg. And much more to do with character development and interpersonal relationships.

People don't get to make a genealogy that includes wargaming while conveniently leaving out the whole constellation of other activities that merge into modern rpg culture.

Chewing on an argument I've heard about roleplaying (I won't cite sources bc I'm not trying to convince anyone, nor cause folks trouble by sending them naysayers), where the proponents assert that—in their words—conceiving of roleplaying as a focus on scene work, character interaction, dialogue and internal motivation is ahistorical, and therefore not representative of the actual hobby.

I've been turning over that argument—particularly the assertion that it's ahistorical—and I think that while there is truth to it, there is a rigidity inherent to the argument that doesn't meet the reality of the modern scene. Sure, trpg comes from d&d, a series of games that put no emphasis on character development, interpersonal relationships, or storytelling in their early iterations. However, I think that insisting that any definition of roleplaying must then be based on its earliest ancestors lets slide the fact that there is a significant and muddy gap where the wargames of yore slowly became the trpgs of today.

Wargaming and skirmish games that have characters with tightly defined combat roles with choose your flavor progression still exist today alongside modern trpgs. We wouldn't confuse one for another, because part of the promise of a roleplaying game has evolved over time to mean "a story about my oc".

That doesn't mean that OD&D isn't a roleplaying game. It also doesn't mean that it isn't a wargame. It's both, a messy, hybrid ancestor of something that has become more tightly defined in the decades since its conception.

Any definition for roleplaying and its games, therefore, must be something that can meet the modern expectations of trpgs culturally while still being identifiable in earlier iterations. In most cultural artifacts concerning themselves with these games and their play, we see an emphasis not on the way that rules text produces a mechanically unique character, but how the players craft the legend of their game thru their heroic avatars. A game of narrative tennis and choice is what is culturally promised to players, and if that can be achieved without using rules defining what a character can do mechanically, then insisting that all contact with rules *is* roleplay is as acontemporary as the insistence that roleplay must always center scene work is ahistorical.

Just because something is mechanically attached to your character doesn't mean that invoking it is roleplay. Just because there aren't story driving mechanics in OD&D doesn't mean it's not a roleplaying game. We can identify roleplay happening when a player shapes a narrative thru active participation with its characters, and you can't do that by invoking rules in a contextual vacuum.

[chiakiakito]

I can even kind of understand that university systems that charge students exorbitant amounts of money for their degrees affect the general view of education and "the academy," but the extent to which people have just stopped believing in and valuing expertise is so scary. You cannot replace scientific training. I am "only" a literary scholar but any person with a lit studies background will tell you that it is a vastly different experience discussing literature (of any kind! my area of expertise is romance novels!) with another scholar versus at a random book club. And it's not bad to not be an expert! You are not an expert about the vast majority of stuff! But when somebody says "I have dedicated years of my life to the systematic study of this subject in conversation and exchange with other people who have done the same, and based on our combined knowledge we conclude that x," that needs to be taken more seriously than someone who has not gone through this process.

An academic degree is no different from, say, a medical license or even a driver's license in the sense that it functions as shorthand for "this person has undergone the necessary training and passed the necessary tests to certify that they possess the skills needed for this specific profession/task." That's it! And yes, there are many problems within academia (these days, the majority of lecturers and researchers are in precarious employment. ask me how I know) and a university degree is no guarantee that a person can't be spouting absolute nonsense. But its purpose is to facilitate the pursuit, expansion, and passing on of knowledge, which is really, really important and should not be devalued by claiming you don't need formal training to know stuff.

[chiakiakito]

I love your mind 🤗😊🥰💓🦜💓

[chiakiakito]

paladin oaths :)!

[chiakiakito]

if you like crafting and also free things, might i suggest the antique pattern library?

it’s a not for profit that’s gathering books, patterns, and other materials related to crafting that are out of copyright (or getting permission from copyright holders in some cases) in order to share them online. they scan items, clean them up, then make everything available for free!

free things are great, especially when you’re just starting to get into something. like oh, i’m supposed to spend money on this hobby i just picked up 20 minutes ago???

the first time i ended up on the site, i seriously spent hours just trawling through everything. there’s the usual suspects like knitting, crochet, embroidery, but there’s also woodwork, calligraphy, and books on things like how to mount and frame pictures. with cross stitch patterns, they also make modern charts with the dmc colour codes available.

links to their webbed site and instagram:

https://www.antiquepatternlibrary.org/

https://www.instagram.com/theantiquepatternlibrary/

behold, a glorious cat cross stitch pattern (link goes to antique pattern library page):

[image id: Multicolour charted cross stitch design of a cat sitting on a red pillow with tassels, holding a green ball]

[chiakiakito]

How to Disable and Remove All AI Features in Mozilla Firefox

*deep, calming breath* On the plus side, the steps at that link were very clear and easy to follow.

[chiakiakito]

After re-listening to the Silt Verses, I have to say that Paige's introduction episode really changed the feel of the horror of the podcast.

Before Paige, we have Carpenter, Faulkner and Hayward, and they are all experiencing the Horrors. But they are all in small towns/in the country, and these horrific situations caused by hungry gods are somewhat expected. A detective who actively searches out suspicious gods, two illegal worshippers actively looking for evidence of their god. Every encounter we get are with small, illegal gods that comit atrocities that the characters are horrified with.

Then we get Paige. A normal corporate worker, living in a nice apartment with her 9-5 job in the city. And we expect the horrifying things in the woods, in the little towns and creepy out of the way farms. That's horror classic. But not in the city.

Then Paige glosses over the train saint. And then her job is how to profit off gods, how to shape them, and she acts so normal about it.

It was this episode that changed the horror from gods and cults and sacrifices, to gods and capitalism. It was these atrocities being committed in the name of progress and value and normalcy. It was the sacrifice of the few, not for the many, but for profit.

And that idea drives the world of the Silt Verses into something too real for comfort.

[chiakiakito]

As someone who has always been enthusiastic about literature and good at talking about it, and who started a PhD course in literature this year, let me tell you there is a big difference between having a love of learning about a thing and being academically rigorous about a thing.

One of the things I did this year was editing my master's dissertation to make a peer-reviewed publication out of it. And like, it's a cool piece of writing. I like it, I think it says true things. I was so passionate writing it that I cried while writing the conclusion and I still choke up with tears every time I reread it.

But... It still needed a lot of work to make scientific publication material. There were huge holes in my background knowledge. At the time I contorted myself into pretzels trying to find sources for my vibe-based claims because I missed the Big Theoretical Foundation that articulated my feelings better than I could have put them myself and found a way to make the contradictions still left in there make sense.

So I tried to go back and fix those things as best as I could, to give my enthusiasm solid scaffolding. And I did my best to try to be rigorous and not sneaky with words, but someone I don't know is currently reading the result and will likely recognize the enthusiasm. But what they're looking for is the rigor. And where they don't see it right away, their comments will hopefully help me achieve it. Illuminate my blind spots.

As an academic-in-training, my biggest challenge so far is learning to manage my enthusiasm. For my project I'm working on two things I'm deeply passionate about: fantasy literature and roleplaying games. I write games! I translate them! I know a lot about games. But the thing I am still learning to do is taking a step back and saying "okay, yeah, you love this shit. You think it's important and unique. But can you look at it critically and explain how it works beyond just the vibes? Will somebody who is NOT enthusiastic about it read what you're writing and still find it useful?".

WOW.

Okay, after a night's sleep, I have decided that yeah, there is value in responding to this absolutely steaming pile of ignorant, self-centered, self-important, anti-intellectual, b.s.

It looks like a number of people in the notes were swayed, at least to some degree, by this garbage, so I think it is worth trying to show why it is nonsense.

(Also it's possible I'm still spoiling for a fight after being denied an evidentiary hearing on Friday.)

I'm not reblogging the post because folks don't need a self-aggrandizing tantrum on their dash, but I do think it is worth taking a look for yourself, in order to practice your analytical skills. Some questions to consider as you read:

(1) What is OP saying in her original post? What claims is she making?

(2) How, if at all, does the poster respond to claims OP made? What claims is the poster saying that OP made? Do these match what OP actually said? If not, (a) what techniques does the poster use to transform what OP said into the claims the poster is claiming OP made? (b) What rhetorical purpose does it serve for the poster to warp OP's claims?

(3) What affirmative claims is the poster making? What evidence or arguments do they provide to support their claims? Do they explore any of the specifics or real world implications of their claims? If not, what real world implications of their claims can you think of?

(3) What other rhetorical techniques does the poster use to bolster their argument? Do these techniques actually enhance and support the substance of their argument?

(4) Relatedly, how does the poster play into the biases of their assumed audience (tumblr users with generally progressive policies). What claims do they make to play into those biases? What evidence or argument, if any, do they make to support those claims? Are these claims by the poster reasonably related to the claims made by OP?

Now, let's explore their response in detail!

(Also obviously don't harass the poster, and I would recommend not directly engaging with them at all. Harassment is vile and makes you far worse than them. And earnest engagement is unlikely to be productive - the OP tried to engage with them politely (and even offered to help) in the notes of poster's original post. In response, the poster (1) implied that OP is an obsessive rude busybody. (2) Told OP to "Shhhhh. Chill." (in response to (paraphrased), 'hey, the advice someone else gave you is probably a waste of time and effort'). (3) And finally, after condescendingly telling OP, "Breathe. Practice radical acceptance. Know that I am here on the other side of the internet, flagrantly wasting my effort and thinking of you every second of that time," proceeded to prove that they were, in fact, "thinking of [OP] every second of that time" by searching OP's blog to find this post by OP and dumping this Arrested-Development-level demand to be taken seriously in the reblogs.)

(All of which is to say: hi, poster who was "being vagueposted about." I assume you are reading this, because you demonstrably don't have the good sense to block and move on. I'm not going to block you in advance, because I think you have the right to make your own terrible decisions, and I suspect any response you make is going to be *very* funny. See you in the notes!)

So, let's go through the poster's response, paragraph by paragraph.

They begin by doubling down on the stance that, "any sufficiently deep enthusiasm is indistinguishable from academic rigor." This, they say, is their defense of that stance. Let's see how it goes - but first, I think it's worth remembering, OP's original post is literally a single sentence long.

OP's claim, paraphrased, that the claim that "any sufficiently deep enthusiasm is indistinguishable from academic rigor" is incorrect and anti-intellectual. If we read the OP's tags, she clarifies that enthusiasm is valuable, but different from expertise.

The poster starts their defense with a long...explanation that the structure of their claim was a reference to the Arthur C Clarke's third "law" (read: sci-fi fiction adage).

*deep breath*

Ok. I'm a big a fan of wordplay as the next person. And I know from personal experience that it can be really frustrating to do some fun wordplay to make a point, and then get misinterpreted here on tumblr.com.

But. The wordplay has to make a point for it to be relevant to your defense. OP's claim wasn't "this poster did a bad job with the linguistic structure of this sentence and is not familiar with classic sci-fi." How does the "rhetorical structure" of the poster's claim support the substance of their claim???

It doesn't, is the answer. The poster explicitly asks this question later down, but then they never actually answer it. Instead, the rhetorical effect of this whole digression is just to throw out surface level references to things (Arthur C Clarke! "AI"!) that might make the poster sound more thoughtful and knowledgeable. It also creates distance from OP's actual point - as the post continues, the poster has to remind us what they're talking about. This gives the poster more control over the narrative, over what claims are under discussion.

Which leads to the poster's next paragraph: the unanswered question of why the poster structured their claim to resemble a sci-fi author's famous quote, and a baseless attack on OP.

And I think it is worth really lingering on this attack on OP. The poster claims, OP perhaps is "misreading or misinterpreting" the poster's point. But what on earth is the poster talking about? OP literally just quoted the poster's exact words and then said that they think this is anti-intellectual. What "misreading or misinterpreting" is being done?

No. Instead, this attack rhetorically sets up the poster's next couple paragraphs: not actually defending their claim as OP originally quoted, but reinterpreting their own words, providing their own special unique meaning that they will then proceed to use for the rest of the post. They are redrawing the rhetorical bounds of the conversation. Rather than defending their stance, they are redefining their stance so that it matches the defense they now want to make.

(Which is still bad. It's a bad defense and it makes me very angry.)

The poster proceeds to define "academic rigor" in a way that just means, "enthusiasm." Notice how no part of their definition includes things like critical thinking skills, building up a knowledge base, testing ideas, receiving criticism (wow I wonder why), or any expertise or action to build up and test that expertise. It's just what a person "cares very much about," how much "curiosity" they have; some inherent quality someone who "NEEDS to know." (Also hit the bell for another surface level reference - this time to Herodotus - to make the poster sound more knowledgeable.) If you actually read the poster's definition, it is entirely "idk vibes i guess."

Now, having defined "academic rigor" as enthusiasm, they successfully declare that enthusiasm is a necessary precondition of enthusiasm.

And then, we get the best paragraph of this entire tantrum of a post: "Any sufficiently deep enthusiasm is indistinguishable from academic rigor. It's like a fractal -- the closer you look, the more complicated it gets." No only is this another attempted surface level reference, this time to fractals, but just. What is this supposed to mean. At a glance, it seems like it kind of follows from the last paragraph - maybe, the more an enthusiast looks at something, the more there is to know? But the closer you look at this sentence, the more nonsensical it gets. What does things getting more complicated the more you look at them have to do with academic rigor (either a real definition or the poster's enthusiasm-based definition)? More importantly, what does it have to do with proving the point - that enthusiasm is indistinguishable from academic rigor? (You might as well say, "the further you fall down the rabbit hole, the deeper you realize it goes," except then more people would realize you are expressing straight conspiracist reasoning oops.)

Now, several paragraphs in and having firmly taken control of the rhetorical boundaries of the argument, the poster finally decides to provide some context to the original statement (and needlessly insult OP for trying to be helpful again).

The poster correctly quotes relevant parts of the discussion (although mischaracterizes their own responses as "polite" instead of "incredibly condescending and rude"). However, the poster then immediately characterizes OP's response as "muddied." Because words have objective meanings, however, we do not need to accept this characterization. OP expressed her argument very clearly. Rather, it is the the poster who claimed that OP was making an argument that she was not, which we can paraphrase as, 'passion and capacity for learning are limited to formal education at academic institutions.' It would be convenient for the poster if OP was making this argument, because it could be easy to argue against. But since OP clearly stated that she does not believe this clearly incorrect thing that the poster made up in her head, the poster claims that her response was "muddied."

The poster emphasizes this false claim in the next few paragraphs. They say, "to me she seems to be arguing that one MUST (?) receive formal training at an academic institution ("academic training" "trained expertise") in order to achieve that level of rigor." But OP simply doesn't say that. You can look at the reply the poster quoted, it doesn't say what the poster says it does.

Now, this is speculation on my part, but I think the poster really believes that OP is saying 'passion and capacity for learning are limited to formal education at academic institutions.' I think they believe this because its how they feel when they hear the (correct) statement that enthusiasm does not equal expertise. The poster repeatedly says that they think that enthusiasm for learning is the same as expertise. They throw a tantrum after receiving the slightest, politest, disagreement. They think someone giving them advice that hey, maybe its a good idea to get a basic foundation of knowledge before cold-emailing experts is a busybody who is obsessed with lecturing them. The poster simply, demonstrably, doesn't believe expertise is real, and refuses to admit that someone else might know more or better than them. If they "care very much about getting it right," how dare you say they aren't as good as anyone with "academic training," fuck you very much you elitist jerk.

This sense is emphasized by their next paragraph. First, they shift the rhetoric framework of the conversation again. The actual claim the poster says they are defending is that "any sufficiently Deep Enthusiasm is indistinguishable from Academic Rigor" (emphasis added). Now, they are claiming that OP means that no one outside of an academic context "has the capacity to learn what rigor means in their field." These are very different claims, but the poster shits between them seamlessly.

Second, they just completely misunderstand what academic rigor is. I'm sorry, you can read every book and article and (*sigh* dear god) TED talk in the world, that doesn't make you an expert, and that's not academic rigor. A large part of academic rigor is in how you critically engage with what you read. Otherwise you just end up, at best, with a bunch of shallow facts that you can "whip out at dinner parties to impress [your] acquaintances" or sprinkle as references in arguments on tumblr to make you sound smarter.

But no, the poster confirms in the next paragraph, you don't need critical thinking or training or people who will tell you that you are wrong. All you need is the information. And if you disagree, you are arguing in favor of "the ivory tower." (Take a drink.)

In the next two paragraphs, the poster pays lip service to the idea that sure, it's easier to learn in academia. But even then, they imply that somehow that's the easy route, that good learning environments create weak men, that people who are self-taught are the ones who are actually building up the critical thinking skills because someone doesn't just "tell them the answer."

Then, before the readers have a chance to absorb, wait, did you really just say that academia is really just having someone either tell you the answer or where to look for the answer and therefore unsuitable for "sincerely love to learn," (because you are, in fact, anti-intellectual), the poster then throws in a bunch of shallow buzz phrases about how higher education isn't available to a lot of people.

And I say these are just shallow buzz phrases for two reasons. First, the poster never actually engages with this lack of access. It's just sprinkled in, like the references to Arthur C Clarke and Herodotus. (For example, no, actually, "any sufficiently MOTIVATED person" can't actually access all this information that is online. You need a stable internet connection, devices to allow you to make use of that connection, to speak or read the language those materials are published in, enough time and sleep and food and goddam shelter.)

Second, this doesn't actually have anything to do with the actual claim that the poster is supposedly defending. Remember that? Remember the position the poster is arguing for? "Any sufficiently deep enthusiasm is indistinguishable from academic rigor." How does, "some people can't go to college" support that claim, specifically?

It doesn't, which is why the poster's next paragraph instead claims that OP is arguing that "those people do not have the ability to hold themselves to a rigorous standard of learning."

Which just.

Fuck you?

Because yeah, that would be a shitty opinion to hold! And you are the only person raising it! You are explicitly making the claim - fuck, perpetrating the anti-intellectual worldview - that anyone who suggests "caring about something does not inherently equal subject matter expertise" is an elitist who thinks that everyone else, ordinary people, real Americans, are stupid.

I'm gong to be honest, this is the part of the poster's claims that made me mad enough to respond.The notes include people agreeing that academics and "experts" are actually pretty elitist, aren't they, and they deserve to be "taken down a few pegs," that suggesting that you need a baseline level of knowledge or vocabulary before you can engage deeply with a subject is "gatekeeping."

The U.S.'s institutions are crumbling as they are dismantled by people that are making these exact same arguments. There is no meaningful difference in the reasoning of the poster's argument here, and the argument that "alternative medicine" hacks who never completed their medical training have sufficient credentials to run goverment agencies, and that if you bring up their lack of credentials, well, that just proves what an elitist you are.

The "worldview" the poster does not accept - is telling you not to accept - is the idea that expertise exists at all.

And because that is an incorrect and harmful worldview, the poster has to use a bunch of rhetorical tricks to hide what they are doing. And then to sell it, they throw in a bunch of words to stir up the audience's preconceptions and biases. OP's claim (again, that enthusiasm and academic rigor are not equivalent) is "racist and imperialist." Why? Don't worry about it. Something something college is expensive and inaccessible to a lot of people. All you need to remember is that these ivory-tower academics are The Bad Thing.

*deep breath*

Anyway, knowing we need a laugh to bring the mood back up, the poster then says someone on reddit criticizing your argument is an "informal version[] of the peer-review process." Besides betraying a deep ignorance of the nature of peer-review (I guess even knowing how academic processes work is also elitist?), I think this means that the poster has to be cool with my post here, right? Because I'm just doing peer review? (Because also, just to be clear: "the academic structure of the peer review is a formalized process of the very human impulse to gleefully tell other humans when they’ve stuck their foot in their mouth." No. This is just. No.)

Next, more misstating OP's original claim. The poster says, "An institution of formal learning is not a prerequisite to pursue and absorb information," which OP already agreed with in the comments of the poster's original post.

In support of this claim that no one is arguing with, the poster than makes up a "guy at the model airplane shop who seems to know absolutely everything that has ever been known about WWII planes," and asks, "why don’t we acknowledge him as a legitimate expert?" The poster implies that this is because this guy is autistic and OP is a bigot.

But the real answer is simpler:

Unless you are referring to something you chose not to link for some reason, he's made up. He's a made up guy in your brain. And OP never said anything about him, so it's really weird for you to criticize OP for not sufficiently praising him as an expert. Fanfic isn't reality.

To the extent we are talking about real phenomenons - who do you mean by "we" and what do you mean by "acknowledge him as a legitimate expert"? There are lots of people with legitimate expertise, and in my experience, they often are recognized as such. And I don't know where you live, but outside of revenge-fantasies of conservative pundits and the people who are mislead by them, most academic experts aren't exactly exhausted and prestige and praise.

'Knowing a lot about a subject' is not the same as academic rigor. This isn't a criticism or insult to people who know a lot of things, despite your weird, self-centered hang-ups. Let me be clear here, actually: I am not an academic. I am a lawyer. I know a lot about the law in the areas I practice in. I do not practice the law "with academic rigor" because that's not really meaningful. I also like to constantly learn more about the law, including in many areas I don't practice in. I am not an expert in those areas. Just as an academic who studies the law and legal practice would not necessarily be good at actually practicing the law, my enthusiasm does not mean I have academic expertise (and my academic training is rather rusty, this many years out). This is normal? My ego is not threatened by acknowledging different kinds of expertise and knowledge exist?

And perhaps most to the point - "seems to know absolutely everything that has ever been known about WWII planes." "Seems to." An important part of academia - part of what makes it rigorous, if you will - is that you actually have to prove your expertise to other experts. They are then "recognized" as experts because there is a process the public can usually trust that they don't just "seem to" know what they are talking about. If you are talking to an amateur enthusiast - how do you know you they actually have the expertise they claim to have? Because I know of some guys who are really enthusiastic about the, claim to be experts, and have a lot of strong opinions about how they have reclaimed their Sovereign Identity by not capitalizing the letters in their name.

I agree with the poster's final paragraph. I love learning. But I can't see this as anything other than a manipulative postscript, a rhetorical trick of ending on a point of agreement and mutual enthusiasm. By a person - and I can't emphasize this enough - who refused assistance in learning and threw an enormous tantrum because someone suggested hey, maybe its a good idea to get a basic foundation of knowledge before cold-emailing experts.

[chiakiakito]

honestly don't get why people dismiss johnny's segment of house of leaves. johnny's plot is just as powerful as the navidson record, i'd say, if you just pay attention. sometimes it's inconvenient to read. uncomfortable, even. but i feel like that all puts you in johnny's mind really effectively.

[chiakiakito]

the "chat is a pronoun" discourse is captivating to me because it goes so far beyond ordinary misinformation

like imagine if suddenly there was a wave of posts saying that Dogs Are Birds, like "omg you guys i just realized dogs are actually birds!!!" and any time anybody said "theyre mammals, not birds" dozens of people would get super defensive about it and make snide condescending posts/comments like "KNOWLEDGE is knowing that dogs arent birds, WISDOM is knowing that taxonomy is fake and all organisms are whatever you want them to be forever, peace and love on planet earth," and they would keep posting about how Dogs Are Totally Birds because "well dogs are majestic and have beautiful voices, like birds" and if you pointed out that those qualities are immeasurable (& have nothing to do with being a bird) and that metric could categorize most animals (& several things that arent animals) as 'birds' they would call you a gatekeeping elitist and say "let people enjoy things" or some thesaurused equivalent, and maybe someone would also say "we're just having a Laff, it's just a fun game dont be so Serious" but they (and a non-insignificant number of other people) otherwise speak as if they believe with conviction that Dogs Really Are Birds, and this is Really Big & Exciting News because Dogs Are The First 4-Legged Bird, and then when people who know biology made posts explaining in-depth what taxonomy is & why dogs arent birds theyd start getting asks like "what about cats, are cats birds??" "are hamsters birds?" "what about sharks??" "i think flies are birds because they have wings." and then imagine this all persisted for more than half a year

[chiakiakito]

im preparing to defend my thesis on therapeutically applied ttrpgs tomorrow and im sitting here and pondering ttrpgs and how unique they are as a genre and how you might describe them as texts and objects to someone who's not too familiar

because like ttrpgs (the texts) are very creative and theyre very artistic and inspiring and beautiful and moving and they're also ... instructional manuals. lmao. yknow? theyre Technical Writing by and large unless youre looking at like a lyric game or something. the main purpose of a ttrpg text is to instruct you how to carry out a series of tasks and rituals in order to produce a desired outcome. theyre instructions on how to facilitate a specific experience

and theyre pretty unique in that as a genre (in the writing studies sense of the term - a specific type of creation with shared features, uses, and intentions)

like kind of the only way i can think to compare them to something else is if you had a play script, right

and in the play script you have a description of all the characters. and you had a description of the setting. you know how many acts there are, maybe those acts have titles. the play might give you suggestions on how to design the stage and what props to include. and then as you're flipping through it all the stage directions are there and you know which order things are supposed to happen in

but all the character dialogue is blank

you cant really look at that and say "wow ive been moved by this story" because like. well. the story isn't there yet. it's potentially easy to tell what the intent of the play is - what kind of story it's likely to tell. you can look at the set of characters and reason out what might happen if you put them all together. you might even know some of the actions that are meant to take place in this play because of the stage directions (does someone shoot a gun? do the characters cry? does everyone fall over dead or do they dance?)

but at that point, even though it's creative and maybe even beautiful, this is really mostly an instructional manual. the story hasn't been told yet. there's a lot of room to imagine and generate and create - within the confines of the instructions they've given you. surely this is art, right? but what kind of art is it?

ttrpg texts largely aren't telling a story, they are instructional manuals on how to generate a specific story in the confines of that specific game. beautiful, lovely, creative instructional manuals that are really hard to explain to anyone who hasn't been involved in the experience of generating from one before

but ... yea :) thats the best metaphor i could come up with. thesis defense tomorrow !!

[chiakiakito]

can anyone tell me the watch order for every movie ever so i can understand all references and homages