Some time today, I’m going to go through all the writers’ groups I belong to online and cancel my memberships of all but a couple. It’s something that I’m very sad about since I love chatting with other writers about books, genres, ideas, and the craft of writing, but I’ve had enough. The problem is, in every group to which I belong, while there is a handful of serious, intelligent people who can talk sensibly about these things, that happy few is vastly outnumbered by a great mass of stupid, ignorant idiots who can’t even construct a sentence let alone put anything worth reading into it.
Arrogant? Opinionated? Moi?
Well, yes, I suppose so, but if I join a “hard science fiction” group (say) I don’t expect it to be full of people speculating about the role their particular god played in manipulating human evolution (or, in a couple of cases, denying that evolution even happens!) When I cite Einstein or list some experimental findings to support an idea, I don’t want to be told I have a ‘closed mind’ because, well, I’m not sure why, except that the position of most people in these groups seems to be that, if you can imagine it, it must be possible, so scientific evidence can all be taken with a pinch of salt!
The thing is, they’re writers, of course, not scientists (for the most part) or philosophers, and that seems to give them freedom to talk all kinds of twaddle about life without the need for any kind of evidence or investigation. Their belief seems to be adequate justification for any bizarre position whatsoever. And I don’t just mean belief in gods or other supernatural beings of forces – just belief. They don’t believe in global warming – so it’s not happening. They believe that alien bacteria are alive on Earth – so that must be true. They don’t believe that the speed of light is the fastest you can go – so there’s no need to worry about that, then. They believe that psychic powers are real – so they can ignore forty years of exhaustive studies on the matter that say they’re not. And on, and on. It’s driving me mad. Mad, I tells ya.
I’m beginning to think that, when I’m Dictator of the World (surely it must happen soon, since anything is possible, right?), I will make everyone who wants to write take a sanity test. If they fail – because they believe their beliefs are more valid than actual evidence and are therefore clearly certifiable – they will only be allowed to write in crayon in locked, padded rooms. Meanwhile, the best I can do is stay out of the places where these people congregate – science fiction writers’ forums – and lament that my efforts to network with like-minded people have been stymied by the astonishing scarcity of such people.
Yeah, best to steer clear, because the sad fact is that these people will never listen to a reasonable argument when they can run ahead on ignorance and belief.
I haven’t been on a writers forum in ages. It’s safer that way
What I can’t understand is why they’re on sci-fi forums instead of magical realism forums
Because magical realism forums lack credibility?
Go get em G. Oh, keep taking the pills, you know the ones I mean, the ones in your hand, the ones I believe are there. LOL
That’s the problem, Jack. Not the pills, the going and getting them. I get so incensed by the ignorance and blind stupidity sometimes that I do lay into them – which, as M says, is a waste of text. There are people in these forums who put me to shame, absolute saints who will reasonably explain what science is, or what logic demands, over and over again in the teeth of utter idiocy from the rest of them. I really don’t know how they do it – or why – but their even-tempered reasonableness is something I admire greatly but which completely eludes me. My guess is that all the non-saintly sensible people have been driven away, as I have been.
Well, then I have a great idea, Graham. (Such a great name that, heh) Start your own hard scifi writrs forum and moderate membership. I’m with you! Shoot me an invite if you do.
ROFL at the very idea of me and “moderate” (in the sense you didn’t intend).
Sadly, I am barely a joiner, let alone a leader. Besides, it would be so much harder to storm out of my own forum in a huff
But if you were to start one…
Haven’t seen your work but I know of Mr. Eason’s.
I want to someday be a writer with a following but like many I dream of what could be, not what is.
I spent the better part of a year trying to explore ways man could get from point a to b in the short span of a human lifetime. Like you I had to buck people who insisted it really didn’t matter because if you write it you make it so.
Delving far deeper than I wished into Quantum Physics I found my ‘loop hole’ and use it, though even it is a stretch of the laws of science I have been told it is ‘plausible’ by real scientists so I’ll stick with it until the laws change to something more plausible or it is disproved. When I write I try to stay inside the realm of old school Science Fiction. Not fact but possible and get irritated when people argue about it.
I love those loopholes, MF, and I too am always looking for them. The only ones I know for FTL are wormholes (it takes two, I’ve heard) and space warping (as with the Alcubiere drive). Both plausible in a sense but requiring either technologies that border on the fantastical, or energies (negative energies even!) that border on the infinite. Even plain old sub-light travel at relativistic speeds has energy requirements that would make most SF writers blush.
Given the work people like you and I put into researching and understanding these things, it certainly is irritating when people try to argue that their *belief* in astral projection means you don’t need to worry about all that Einstein stuff.
What are the best and worst writers forums in your opinion, Graham? Your comment, though I suspect in jest, is not far from an idea I had, and was wondering if there was a *need* for good writing forums. Thus, I am constantly researching them, and would love a couple of links to which you consider the best and worst.
Now, Graeme, you know I can’t name names.
I suspect a writing forum of the kind I’d like just couldn’t exist. Honestly, I’d probably have been unhappy if I’d been a member of the Bloomsbury Group.