Daniel Dvorkin @medigoth@qoto.org

@deathhistorian Oh, that's brilliant.

Now I'm hearing the #Belarus deal only applies to #Prigozhin personally, and the #Wagner troops are expected to go back to fighting in #Ukraine. This does not make me any less confused.

Allegedly, #Prighozhin's march on #Moscow has ended in a deal brokered by #Lukashenko, in which #Wagner Group forces will head to #Belarus and ... become Lukashenko's #Varangian Guard, or something? Assuming of course #Putin doesn't wait for them to get strung out on the road and bomb them all to bits.

I can't help but be struck by how antiquated all this feels. The Varangian Guard reference above is deliberate—the whole thing is #Byzantine in both the original and modern senses of that word. Shades of #Belisarius and #Justinian. Yes, I know I'm mixing up periods, and the analogy is inexact in all kinds of ways: history doesn't repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes.

#Kings and #emperors and shifting personal loyalties, not cold-blooded calculation of national interests. It's not the way #modern states make #war—even though #Ukraine may well be the first modern war of the twenty-first century, through future eyes. Something older, more visceral, rising from ancient slumber.

Hell of a time to be alive. I suppose that's always true.

Why #statistics is hard, and why you should learn it anyway.

https://www.quora.com/Why-are-some-people-who-are-really-good-at-algebra-terrible-at-statistics-Ive-always-been-surprised-by-this-because-I-would-have-thought-that-statistics-is-the-easier-of-the-two-to-understand-since-it-is-more-real/answer/Daniel-Dvorkin-3

All of this. Like the post says sarcastically:

"One bright, sunny morning around the spring of 1972, this continent that had given us the #slave trade, various flavors of #racial #caste systems in the #Americas, virulent #antisemitism, the ethnic cleansing of millions of people in Eastern Europe, #Nazism and sundry forms of #fascism, and a #racist #colonialist regime in virtually all parts of #Asia and #Africa, decided to bring out the magic wand its denizens had been carrying all along and proclaim, 'Let there be no more #racism on the holy soil of #Europe.' And this mighty spell having been cast, racism was apparently eradicated there."

Is the #US more racist than most European countries? Yes, I think, on the whole. Is there racism in Europe? Without question, a hell of a lot of it. And #white Europeans' reluctance to face up to that means it won't get any better. At least we're *trying* on this side of the #Atlantic.

https://www.quora.com/Do-you-think-Europe-is-more-racist-than-the-USA/answer/Habib-F-2

@Pat The way it worked then, and I assume still does, is that the property owner licenses a publisher to publish franchise books (Pocket Books, at the time) and then authors submit a query to the publisher for any other novel. Our proposal consisted of an outline and maybe a sample chapter—I don't quite remember since it's been thirty-five years!

It didn't hurt that my Dad had already written a couple of other Star Trek novels and worked with the same editor. But with Next Gen novels, Paramount was exerting steadily more creative control, so we had to satisfy the studio too. Before that, it was pretty free-form: as long as the editors and authors were happy, they could do just about anything. There was a lot of innovation in the original series novels of the '70s and '80s.

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.

===

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.

===

†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.😐