No, I haven’t gone on hiatus again. My last post garnered a lot of unexpected attention, so I decided to leave it up a little longer. I’ve been told that Newly Nerfed may get a plug during the TAM paper session, and I had intended to write something all serious and connected to my thesis of “compassionate skepticism” so that any new readers wouldn’t be confronted with my mooning over videogame characters. (At least not initially, but they’re in for it if they keep reading, as you know.)
Anyway, I wrote that post a little prematurely, apparently, but I’m gratified that it got people talking about the subject, since it’s one I care about passionately. Heidi Anderson was kind enough to repost it at She Thought, and I spoke with Kylie Sturgess on the Token Skeptic podcast about the post as well as some other topics, like Deaf culture. I will be posting a sequel of sorts next week that goes into more specifics, and after that I have no idea how long it’ll be until I recover from TAM to start blogging again. (It’s going to be awesome, but a major physical challenge at the same time.)
I’ve seen some criticisms lately of TAM itself and more generally of social skeptical events. The charge is that the social aspect — seeing celebrities, partying, etc. — diminishes or distracts from the more important skeptical work, either at TAM or in general. I can see the point. But I don’t entirely agree. So much of what we do these days takes place at a physical distance from our fellow skeptics, on blogs and podcasts and on Twitter and Facebook. Of course there are tons of in-person skeptical groups and events. But there are also people who don’t get much if any meatspace interaction with other skeptics, due to location, time, finances, family, disability, and so forth.
Someone made a comment to…I think it was Heidi, but I can’t find the page now, sorry. It had to do with civility and tone, and one of the points he made resonated with me. It’s very easy to spew insults and vitriol to people who are only pixels on a screen to you. As a former general-interest forum administrator, I encountered this frequently when I had to do the equivalent of breaking up kindergarten slap-fights between posters. Things were said that I can guarantee you would not have been said had any two given opponents been face-to-face.
No matter how well your online and offline personae match up, you’re still just a name, or an alias, to someone who doesn’t know you. There are people I’ve met online and then in person, and even if the meeting was exactly as I expected, it still affected how I saw the person online. Even if the message doesn’t change, there’s context behind it. And in my experience, that context can change a relationship for the better. Maybe that context will come from a serious interchange at a workshop. Or maybe it’ll come from getting squiffy together after a long day of workshops. In my opinion, each one has its benefits.
Well, I’m boring myself now, so I’ll sign off. I’m really looking forward to meeting anyone reading this who’s going to TAM. I’ll be the gal with the rainbow cane, as seen in the picture on the About Me page (and probably dressed the same). And to my fellow countrypeople, have a safe and happy holiday weekend. Apropos of nothing, I send you off with this little-known gem: Louis Armstrong doing death metal.
I’m not taking a break from writing — far from it. I’m taking a short break from the blog so that I can focus my energy on a couple of posts that I plan to submit to some great new ventures, as well as an application to present a paper at The Amazing Meeting (TAM), the “skeptical convention” held in the summer. And on top of all that, there is the excellent game that I have been working on, Paradox! the Musical, for which I am long overdue on a really fun project.
On Monday, the U.K.’s Science and Technology Select Committee delivered a death blow to homeopathy by 