Daniel Dvorkin @medigoth@qoto.org

Here's the original discussion, in all its glory: https://www.facebook.com/groups/594532837265674/posts/6636781216374109/

On an #Aliens fan group to which I belong, there is a discussion going on about a particular plot point, the kind of endless dissection #obsessive #fans know well. I know this *very* well, because I'm one of them. Someone said "read this tie-in novel, it explains everything!" Then someone else called it "fan fiction," and a third participant objected strenuously. Ah, #fandom: God help me, I do love it so.

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The most money I ever made from writing, by far, was by co-authoring a #StarTrek novel†. It did quite well, as Star Trek novels tend to do. I lived for the better part of a year on the advance, and the royalties were a nice supplement to my income for several years afterward. Over the decades since, many people have told me it was one of their favorite novels ever. I don't know how many copies I've signed. Feels good, man.

But I don't kid myself—it's fan fiction. So is all tie-in fiction to TV and movie series, *unless* an episode or a movie takes the story and puts it on screen. I'm not sure if that's ever happened with Star Trek, in the very long series of novels based on multiple iterations of the show, and I know it's never happened with the #Alienverse. All the tie-in novels, comics, and games are non-canonical. They just kind of exist out there in the realm of what-if and might-have-been. Maybe someday someone will stumble across them, floating in the deep, and do a salvage operation ...

#StarWars is the one partial exception I know of, with some portions of the extended universe making it at least into the animated series. In general, though, screen franchise owners don't think much of novels etc. They figure tie-ins are of interest only to hardcore fans, and there aren't enough of those to make up the audience needed to justify big-budget productions. To them it's just a way to squeeze a few extra bucks out of the property.

I'm not happy about this, because a lot of really great worldbuilding happens at the edges of known space. In the case of the Alienverse, for example, I think the #DarkHorse comics would have made a much better foundation for a third and fourth movie than what we actually got. But it's a sadly consistent pattern.

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†ST:TNG # 8, The Captains' Honor, by David and Daniel Dvorkin, in case you were wondering. David is my father, who has also written a few other Star Trek novels and a *lot* of original novels. Despite the money, neither of us has any desire ever to go through the experience of dealing with Paramount ever again.

@Pat Absolutely, and I do try to be tolerant. But for my own mental health, that tolerance is a lot more limited than it used to be.

Sometimes you just have to choose violence.

#vaccine #vaccination #antivax #covid

https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-think-we-should-approach-discussions-about-vaccines-with-those-who-hold-opposing-views/answer/Daniel-Dvorkin-3

@Pat I try to resist too ... but not nearly as hard as I used to. 😀

@Pat That too. It's just a bizarre idea that a threat (or even just an insult) needs to be aimed directly at you for the blocking to be justified.

#Blocking in a nutshell. My #online life is *so* much better now that I've figured this out.

https://www.quora.com/Do-you-realize-that-blocking-a-person-who-has-made-no-threats-against-you-or-uttered-any-insults-is-tantamount-to-admitting-defeat/answer/Daniel-Dvorkin-3

All of this. I’m so tired of people who build their entire identities around being anti-#woke pretending to be ignorant of the following:

1. Much of the entertainment they enjoyed when they were young was already “woke” by the standards of the time, and often of the present day too.

2. There is no “woke” conspiracy suppressing such entertainment today. Every possible viewpoint is present somewhere in the enormous variety of movies and TV available at the click of a button. If any viewpoint gets short shrift, it’s “wokeness” as opposed to the endless stream of Bigger! Louder! Stupider! chock-full of utterly predictable stereotypes.

3. They, not the “woke” crowd, are the ones who would absolutely melt down if the classics they liked when they were younger and more open-minded were coming out today, word for word and scene for scene.

Or hell, maybe they’re not pretending, except to themselves. It’s amazing how people can edit their own memories.

https://www.quora.com/Do-you-think-a-movie-like-Blazing-Saddles-could-be-made-in-today-s-woke-society/answer/Andy-Burns-22

@jon 🙂

@jon Even the joke is kind of antique these days, I guess!

@karawynn @mitchw I want to argue with this. But I'm not sure I can.😐

#Scientists are cautious, #businessmen are idiots. Film at 11:00, as we used to say in the days when we wore onions on our belts.

@jon Scientists are cautious, businessmen are idiots. Film at 11:00, as we used to say in the days when we wore onions on our belts.

@freemo Sure, causal inference, largely from time series data and/or Mendelian randomization, is a big part of my work. The methods as described in the article don't seem to be Granger or SEM, though. Of course one should never rely on popular science reporting for a thorough understanding of methods. 😀 I'd have to read the paper to be sure.

Because I loathe the blithe use of "correlation is not causation" to dismiss legitimate causal inference results, I want to see researchers being really careful when making causal claims from observational data. _If_ they met that standard here, good for them.

With the usual #statistician's caveat that #causality is really hard to sort out in data like this even with good #controls ... yes, I believe this. And the #mechanisms aren't hard to find, either. 😐

@fatsam With the usual statistician's caveat that causality is really hard to sort out in data like this even with good controls ... yes, I believe this. And the mechanisms aren't hard to find, either. 😐

Can't argue with the #logic here.