I'm going to go ahead and say "fuck the Military Industrial Complex, don't work for those bastards."
1
Easy for you to say. Is the questioner currently employed? Waiting for a better opportunity while employed is a bit different than waiting for a better opportunity while unemployed.
1: that's quite a chunk of the American economy you're ruling off limits, there.
Or are we all so complicit anyway that it doesn't make a real difference, as some have suggested to me?
That's my vote. Give money to striking workers and if you absolutely must camouflage cluster bombs in children's toys, do it incompetently.
I was talking to my friend about whether or not it's okay to take those big, tempting sacks of DoD money if you can be (very nearly) 100% sure that even the most determined person would be unable to find a way to kill somebody with what you're working on (or that the non-killing-oriented benefits would vastly outweigh that). He came down on the side of "no", but I pointed out that they have all the freakin' money, and if you're doing something that seems like it should be supported and which non-military private industry (or non-military scientific funding) is unwilling to support, why shouldn't you have some of it? I also reminded him of the story of our mutual friend who built a robot fish (a pike; very cute) entirely with Navy money. Sure, maybe someday the Navy will have deadly robot fish mowing down dolphins en masse, but as my friend left it they had a project of vastly more interest to Walt Disney than to the Navy.
The only sure ways not to work for the man at some level are to become a professional revolutionary or to go and stand on a pillar in the desert for the rest of your (short) life. So assuming you're not considering either of these, the question is, what compromises are you willing to make and why? What makes the DoD contracts with this company worse than, say, contracts with an oil company that's been heavily into Gaddafi? Or Union Carbide - yes, I remember Bhopal? Or most other major corporations?
If your position is that you can compromise up to but not beyond working for local government as a child care attendant or civic gardener, or for a non-profit or charity, then that's fine, but it's a decision you have to make on the understanding that your employment prospects will forever be extremely limited, but your need to eat will not.
But once you accept that you're going to work for a quoted corporation, then you need to accept further that they're pretty much inextricably linked to each other, so there's no such thing as clean hands.
Engels worked for years as a factory manager, but I don't think he sold out much.
And what James said in 2.
they had a project of vastly more interest to Walt Disney than to the Navy.
Big Tobacco and the Military Industrial Complex are one thing, but there has to be a limit. I draw the line at aiding Disney!
Can I have a room in the undersea dome off the coast of Bahrain or where ever?
The following is a joke, FBI guys.
Julian Assange needs people on the inside.
That was a joke. Really. I would never ever encourage illegal activity. Ask the other members of my cell here at Unfogged.
I may have something substantive to say on this later, but I doubt it. This is Empire, and we are in and of it, and equally complicit. Even the peaceniks just provide a safe controllable release of internal tensions. Doctors without Borders serve Empire. Debs served, Goldman served. Any consequentialism serves.
The only way to not serve Empire is to be destructive as possible, with willful disregard for consequences. That can be done in many ways. Gavrilo Princep attacked Empire, as did Sid Vicious. Let "Who gives a fuck, let's fuck it All up" be your guide.
Or as we said, "Tune In, turn on, drop out." Sitting under a tree with your dogs, thinkin about Atsuka also works.
I draw the line at aiding Disney!
C'est pire qu'un crime, c'est une faute.
The question may answer itself in the course of the interview: e.g., if the interviewers wax Rumsfeldian about the world-changing power of their killbot command-and-control iPhone app. Alternatively, they may be more invested in the development of telecommunications or biomedical technologies (cough where would we be in our idle hours without the legacy of DARPAnet? cough), perhaps more palatable to the questioner.
If the interviewers wax Rumsfeldian about the world-changing power of their killbot command-and-control iPhone app., take the job and leak the code.
I'm a bit concerned that the questioner is put off by the prospect of working with ex-servicemen, since they are, in my experience anyway, an extremely diverse lot in terms of their political opinions and no easier or harder to get on with than anyone else. Maybe American ex-servicemen are different.
Good point. We can always build more killbots!
I also agree with 14. And 15, but that seems obvious.
To expand on 14, ex-servicemen I have met start at one end of the scale with Bill, who lives on a commune behind a very large moustache and grows potatoes, and goes all the way via Steve, who is a primary school teacher, and Other Steve, who is a financial PR, to Simon, who is a "private security contractor" in Africa.
14: This is a very fair point. The online/in-published-print American veteran tends to the bellicose and obnoxious, but of those I have met in person, none has been like that and no two have been very similar in character to each other, except in a bias to being organized and prepared. Veterans of combat in the twentieth century include characters as different as John Kerry, Michael Caine and Ernst Jünger.
I apologise for the fact that, on rereading, 17 sounds like the setup for a mediocre situation comedy.
1: that's quite a chunk of the American economy you're ruling off limits, there.
Perhaps, but I've done ok in my career by ruling it out. Not to say I haven't been tempted - unemployment is a really crappy place to be, and I realize that sometimes principals are sacrificed because you just need a goddamned job. That makes it understandable, but its still a very bad thing.
... I still don't think that the work I did harmed anyone. ...
There is the question of whether you harmed yourself. You certainly didn't come across as a happy camper and seem much more content now. Also a worse blogger of course but I suppose it would be churlish to complain.
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul.
The only way to not serve Empire is to be destructive as possible, with willful disregard for consequences
I disagree with this. The nihilistic destructive revolutionary serves the Empire best of all, playing the role of bogeyman, scaring the masses into supporting the Empire that will protect them.
There is the question of whether you harmed yourself.
I think LB's disaffection from her old job was in large part because it was a crappy place to work, which is an important consideration if you're applying for a position, but not the one we're discussing here. Job-Seeker seems to think the place ze's looking at is a happy ship.
More information about seeker's current circumstances would be helpful.
A factor to consider is whether the job requires a security clearance. As well as being somewhat intrusive (if you care about privacy) a clearance requirement filters out a lot of people changing the mix of people you will be working with.
In the US, military officers tend to be almost exclusively Republicans, that being the unthinkingly nationalist party. In the Air Force they tend to be fundamentalist Christians as well. Lower-level people include all types - that's my experience as well.
22. But I was so much older then/I'm younger than that now.
Along the lines of 5, this is an interesting discussion to be having here on the ARPANET.
Chomsky's advice ("Dear Noam, I never thought this would happen to me, but...") would apparently have been to go for it, in that he acknowledged funding from the the US Army, Navy and Air Force in Syntactic Structures, and responded in a similar way to 5 when asked about it:
Ever since the Second World War, the Defence Department has been the main channel for the support of the universities, because Congress and society as a whole have been unwilling to provide adequate public funds [...]. Luckily, Congress doesn't look too closely at the Defence Department budget, and the Defence Department, which is a vast and complex organisation, doesn't look closely at the projects it supports -- its right hand doesn't know what its left hand is doing. Until 1969, more than half the M.I.T. budget came from the Defence Department, but this funding at M.I.T. is a bookkeeping trick. Although I'm a full-time teacher, M.I.T. pays only thirty or forty per cent of my salary. The rest comes from other sources -- most of it from the Defence Department. But I get the money through M.I.T.
28: Thanks for making that explicit, me.
The only way to not serve Empire is to be destructive as possible
bob has started by destroying definite articles. Seriously, is actually reason for saying Empire? What is? To me is like Russian speaking English on Internet. In the Wisconsin.
32: Haven't you heard of Malcom Gladwell?
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Gaddafi live: "There are people who have been in power longer - Queen Elizabeth"
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34: also still determined to hand over power to her unpopular son! The parallels are just extraordinary.
One has a personal bodyguard of 200 attractive women with AKMs, the other has the Household Cavalry. Hmm.
33: I decided long ago that I had reached my Gladwel, anti-Gladwell and I'm-not-envious-of-Gladwell-really saturation point. It's kind of impressive how much time that freed up.
I had to think about this one for a while, but I'm casting my lot with 4 and 6. The anti-imperialist cause doesn't need any more hermetic moral purists; it needs an engaged donor class. That means enagement in the economy as it exists. And engagement in the political process, of course.
(One could fairly claim that my answer is awfully morally convenient for me, given some of the choices I've made. But that doesn't make it any less true.)
On the topic of rulers, it's ridiculous that Belgium spends months and months claiming not to have a government, at the same time that it has a freaking king. Just start ordering people around, your majesty! Come on!
31: Articles are bourgeois?
Depends. If they're articles in Horse and Hounds, not so much. If they're in the NYRB, then certainly.
If you really find the thought of working for the military or with veterans so distasteful, perhaps you should pass on the job for practical reasons--as much as you want a job, why work someplace where you will be miserable, even if you can find a way to slip under the bar of what you find morally unacceptable. If you will hate the job and your co-workers, why do it? As comment 29 notes, there are lots of places that take DoD money that perhaps you would feel more at home, so worry about slipping under the moral qualms bar there. [and yes, I am not just a veteran, but a Repblican retired officer, so perhaps you might not view me as a good advisor, but whatever . . . ]
There are people shape-shifting alien lizards who have been in power longer - Queen Elizabeth
38:There's a pretty good episode of The Tick in which the King of Belgium is replaced by a robot that says "I am the King! Give me the money!"
This was also the episode in which the Tick, upon learning that people in Europe spoke both French and German, exclaimed "Egad! How many languages do you people have?!"
I'm still envious of Gladwell. He has an amazing capability to combine making shit up with a compelling narrative so that whatever he's talking about sounds totally plausible. I wish I could do that.
38. the fact that he's still king may have something to do with his reluctance to just start ordering people around.
See also, Elizabeth II. And ajay is wrong. She's not determined to hand over power to her unpopular son, she's determined to live to be 120 so that she doesn't have to.
Prince Charles is unpopular? I must have been reading too many menswear blogs, where he is very popular indeed.
14 isn't nearly strong enough. Personally, I'm appalled that the questioner is put off by the prospect of working with veterans. But aside from that personal judgment, I think that fact is a dead giveaway that the asker sees the world through a highly polarized and uncompromising political lens, and, while all the arguments upthread about why it's okay to take the job are reasonable, I can't imagine the asker being anything but deeply unhappy there.
23:And then Empire overreacts, and the people see its failures and true nature. It takes a truckload of failure to get a Revolution.
Bernstein was so full of shit.
Look, I don't necessarily enjoy "heightening the contradictions" but the last 15 years have shown me, again, that the contradictions must and will be heightened. And as participants in Empire, there really is nothing we can do but ride the wave and heighten the contradictions. The Revolutionary Consciousness "only" means that we are trying to break it rather than build it.
You're thinking Princep;I'm thinking Sid. Wear a bright green tie to work today. Don't pretend that you are increasing freedom rather than collapsing structure.
Śiva is a god of ambiguity and paradox, the auspicious one.
It takes a truckload of failure to get a Revolution.
That's why I keep voting for Dennis Kucinich.
Oh men swear about him a lot. And women. He's widely considered to be several sandwiches short of a picnic, and the kind of people who really care about the institution haven't quite forgiven him for playing away when he was married to everybody's favourite land mine campaigner.
Bernstein was so full of shit.
What the fuck are you on about? That 'America' song was meant to be ironic (to the audience).
50 works for 49 if you change ending just a bit.
She's not determined to hand over power to her unpopular son, she's determined to live to be 120 so that she doesn't have to.
God bless you ma'am.
I'm just a bit worried that she'll lose the momentum after 2016 because she'll have beaten the endurance record. (64 years, Queen Victoria.)
48: Historians may disagree, but my opinion is that Sid Vicious did not contribute much to the overthrow of capitalism.
I am waiting for an explanation of WTF Sid Vicious is supposed to have done to weaken (the) Empire.
55. As of now, no. Although the scag barons of the world must have taken a hell of a hoit to their bottom lines after he checked out.
peep pwned pretty post per punk pistol performer.
40, 47: I kind of agree with both of these -- the fact that working with veterans was seriously offputting to the asker seems somewhere between screwy and wrong. Although I'd disagree with 47 that it means that the asker would probably be unhappy in the job. I think a more likely reaction would be that after a couple months of nervously tiptoeing around the other employees, the asker would realize that there was nothing particularly difficult about getting along with them, and would become less of a jerk on that subject.
47: Personally, I'm appalled that the questioner is put off by the prospect of working with veterans.
Eh, I dunno, it seems like a reasonable concern to me. My father, a veteran, worked in a DoD agency that was among the most liberal of such enterprises, and was also chock-a-block full of veterans. And he was often put off by the baseline conservatism of his fellow employees. If you're not a vet yourself, don't come from a military family, and don't have a social circle that includes a lot of veterans, the cultural shift might very well be impossible to deal with.
Of course, my mother, a veteran as well, is always at pains to point out that there are a lot of people in the military, and they represent a broad spectrum of opinion on many issues. It might very well be that the questioner could find him or herself in a department with a bunch of liberal veterans who were glad to have someone of their own ilk to talk to.
61: no, fool, Sid James, the legendary British actor and auteur, who satirised the Empire and the society that supported it in a series of devastatingly incisive cinematic critiques in the 60s and 70s.
"The British Empire could have survived Suez, but it could never have survived 'Carry On Up The Khyber'", as AJP Taylor wrote.
And he was often put off by the baseline conservatism of his fellow employees.
That seems like more of a reasonable social worry than working with veterans specifically. Ideal's firm was, when I was working there, fairly seriously hard-right politically for the most part, and it wasn't the most comfortable place to talk about anything non-work-related for that reason. I was there in 2003, and I remember having these craven, whining conversations about the case for the war with one of the partners, where I'd be mumbling all this heavily caveated stuff about how "Golly, don't you think that it's not actually proven that there's all that much in the way of WMDs in Iraq?" Standing up for your political opinions is tricky if you're isolated.
But that's a problem with working in a uniformly conservative workplace, not so much with working with veterans specifically.
the fact that working with veterans was seriously offputting to the asker seems somewhere between screwy and wrong
Depends on the veterans. Navy dudes are one thing, but if the asker is going to be working with a steady stream of newly-discharged marines, I could see how that could put off the delicate. They have a distinctive culture.
In the US, military officers tend to be almost exclusively Republicans, that being the unthinkingly nationalist party. In the Air Force they tend to be fundamentalist Christians as well.
This has not been my experience. More conservative than average, but not necessarily Republican. As to religion, the institution has chaplains so yeah it is all over the place. But the AF officers that I have worked with aren't evangelical. Prayers during major events still bug me though, and I am pretty laid back. So YMMV.
As to the OP, if the prospect of working with/for DoD (or even the US government--it employs many vets) is uncomfortable in itself, then another workplace is probably a better fit.
63. Nonsense! Ramblin' Sid Rumpo, the great folk balladeer. (Kenneth Williams, songs by Took/Feldman).
Considering that veterans who enlisted post-2003 were willing participants in an illegal war, I think its perfectly reasonable not to want to work with them.
if the asker is going to be working with a steady stream of newly-discharged marines
Objection: marines leaving the service are not discharged. They are released.
I think a more likely reaction would be that after a couple months of nervously tiptoeing around the other employees, the asker would realize that there was nothing particularly difficult about getting along with them, and would become less of a jerk on that subject.
I suppose this might be true if the asker hasn't had much personal exposure to veterans. Which isn't unlikely, I suppose--prejudice is more often bred from ignorance than experience.
68: most people who enlisted post-2003 are probably still in, though. The vast majority of veterans will have enlisted before 2003.
Considering that veterans who enlisted post-2003 were willing participants in an illegal war, I think its perfectly reasonable not to want to work with them.
That's not very reasonable.
most people who enlisted post-2003 are probably still in, though. The vast majority of veterans will have enlisted before 2003.
This is true today, but is likely to become less and less true at a fairly rapid pace.
There's some truth to 68, I think. There are a lot of veterans in my family, and on average they're probably more liberal than the non-veterans in my family. But my cousin who joined the army after the start of the Iraq War seems like a totally different case, and I was pretty creeped out by his enthusiasm for joining the military.
veterans who enlisted post-2003 were willing participants in an illegal warmostly teenagers from lower-class backgrounds with very few other decent prospects, I think its perfectly reasonable not to want to work with themassholish to judge them by UMC liberal standards.
74: My cousin joined up after 9/11 but before the war started, and did a couple of tours in Iraq, and while I didn't particularly think it was a wise choice, it didn't come off as evidencing a creepy enthusiasm for imperial conquest. He's on the idiosyncratic side, decisionmaking-wise, though.
38. the fact that he's still king may have something to do with his reluctance to just start ordering people around.
If they really have this power vacuum at the top of their legitimate regime, who's going to stop him? And conversely, if the man who by all rights should be a despot keeps following your prescription for a limited role, some Simon de Montfort figure is going to rise up and turn him into the figurehead he longs to be. Control the Belgian monarchy, you control Brussels. Control Brussels, you control the E.U. Maybe Silvio Berlusconi will do if if these prosecutions look like they're finally going somewhere.
I mean, there are definitely people who get off on the idea of kicking the ass of some towelheads, and the fact that a lot of recent military recruiting has played up that angle is ghastly, but I don't think that's a huge percentage of even the post-2003 recruits. I think most of them are just looking for a decent job. Maybe I'm wrong.
75: I would say that while that's probably the bulk of veterans, it's probably only a small minority of the kind of veterans who are going to end up in a workplace like the one described. The asker's talking about working with veterans who were probably officers, and almost certainly college-educated, wouldn't you think?
79: that's true, I suppose. 75 was to the more general sentiment that seemed to be expressed in 68.
Depends entirely on the nature of the work & the contracts, I think.
Depends entirely on the nature of the work & the contracts, I think.
This is true today, but is likely to become less and less true at a fairly rapid pace.
Actually, it isn't.
There have only been seven annual cohorts recruited since 2003. The normal term of enlistment is four years (I think) so essentially all of the classes of 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 are still in the military and therefore not veterans. Really there are only three or four classes of post-2003 veterans out there - less all the ones who are still in.
Now, compare that to all the pre-2003 classes.
First of all, far more of them will now be out of the forces; there will be very few of the class of 1990 still in.
Second, most of them will be much larger classes, because the armed forces were much bigger in 1990 than they are now.
Third, most of them will still be alive; the class of 1990 will only be in their early forties now.
Fourth, assuming that Obama keeps his word about withdrawal this year, the classes of 2010, 2011 and 2012 (and subsequent years) will also be ideologically pure, because they'll have joined in the reasonable expectation that they will not serve in Iraq.
Therefore Spike is wrong: the percentage of veterans that Spike can happily condemn will always be small and is unlikely ever to get much bigger than it is at present.
I don't think I could work for a company heavily involved with defense contracts, but I'm not kidding myself that I've always had clean hands. I've worked for companies that contracted for the likes of BP, and various other major polluters. It is, as others have said, about finding a line where you are OK with the level of compromise, rather than avoiding compromise altogether.
Lots of people don't have the luxury of avoiding difficult choices, and it's hard not to be sympathetic to someone who feels that military service is the only route out of poverty for them and their family. Also, all of my male ancestors going back umpty-generations seem to have been in the military at one time or another, so it'd be a bit rich to get all arsey about it even if it's a choice I wouldn't personally make.
So I'm feeling moral qualms: would this count as active participation in the imperialist project? Or are we all so complicit anyway that it doesn't make a real difference, as some have suggested to me?
Back to the original post, I think 'all so complicit anyway' kind of sums it up. Like Katherine says in 81, there are some things that are just wrong in themselves, that you shouldn't be doing at all, and if the work you'll be doing is in that category, don't do it. If what you're concerned about is 'active participation in the imperialist project', I think we're all complicit to the extent we're not actively opposing it (which, I, for one, am not doing nearly enough about), and there's not a real moral difference between working for the DOD and just living in the US on the terms that our imperialist project makes possible -- refusing to work for the DOD doesn't make you a better person.
67 et al:
No, isn't it obvious? Darth Sidious!
I think we're all complicit to the extent we're not actively opposing it (which, I, for one, am not doing nearly enough about)
You've said things like this a bunch of times, and yet we so rarely get orange-colored post titles. It makes these words feel like empty gestures.
85: refusing to work for the DOD doesn't make you a better person
Yeah, there's lots of worse places to work than a DoD agency or a heavily contracted-to-the-DoD private firm. Although the converse is not necessarily true. I have two friends-of-friends who are self-taught weapons designers. By all accounts they are nice enough fellows, kind to children and small animals, and weapons design is just the one thing they happen to be really good at. But even so, I don't think I could countenance hanging out with them. What was it the one Spanish anarchist said about the decision of some of the anarchists to join the Republican government? "I don't always know what the right thing to do is, but I know what the things one must never do are." Something like that.
I, for one, welcome our new Imperial overlords.
Putting aside any moral concerns for a moment, I do think it is probably useful to distinguish between a workplace with a healthy component of veterans and one where they are so prevalent (especially towards the top) that the military culture is pervasive. Not a judgment on the culture or veterans, but I suspect there are many folks who would be fine with the former, but would not thrive in the latter.
I have two friends-of-friends who are self-taught weapons designers
Self-taught??
I was faced with the same choice as The Asker quite some time ago (almost 15 years ago, now). I decided to go for it. I still have reservations, which increase essentially every time I learn anything about the world. But I've got bills to pay, some peeps who rely on me, etc.
If you're comfortable with it, spin out your reservations a bit for us? You probably have a better sense of the non-obvious bits than someone who hasn't been in the situation.
I had a prof in engineering school who was a wizard at control systems. He switched in mid-career from working on guidance systems for weapons to controls for the electric power grid because he "didn't want to help drop bombs on people" (loose paraphrase). I once had the effrontery to point out that the power grid supported bomb manufacturers and he said "I made my statement, now you make your statement."
Yeah, 90 is a good point. If what the asker meant in saying that working with a lot of veterans was "a bad idea for practical reasons" wasn't "I don't like being around veterans" but was instead something along the lines of "veterans have a bias to being organized and prepared" (as 18 said), "and I'm generally disorganized and unprepared, so my work style may clash with theirs, making it an unlikely workplace for me to succeed", then my 47 should be retracted in its entirety.
91: That is the kind of thing were you don't want to be the beta tester.
90, 95: Or (and this is pure speculation, I don't know if it's likely to happen at all), if there's a culture in the workplace of thinking that veterans are systematically more sensible/competent/reliable than non-veterans, so coming in as someone without military experience would be likely to lead to being thought less of.
One more anecdote. As I've mentioned before I work for a very small programming shop and one of our largest clients is a major oil company.
In that specific case I'm okay with that because the main purpose of our work is to make life (very slightly) easier and safer for the people who are working in the refineries and to (very slightly) reduce waste and inefficiency in the refining process. Both of those strike me as positive contributions to be making. Given that oil refining happens you would want it to be as efficient and safe as possible.
That said, I'm pretty strongly opposed to the idea mentioned at the top of the thread of taking a job at which you don't plan on doing a good job or trying to subvert the institutional goals. That would drive me crazy.
That said, I'm pretty strongly opposed to the idea mentioned at the top of the thread of taking a job at which you don't plan on doing a good job or trying to subvert the institutional goals.
I don't think it makes any sense at all to do in a half-ass kind of way. If you seriously thought that sabotage was a good idea, then take the job and sabotage away, but just saying "Eh, I work for evil people but at least I take exorbitant lunch breaks" seems wrong to me.
but just saying "Eh, I work for evil people but at least I take exorbitant lunch breaks" seems wrong to me.
How about "I work for evil people, but I'm fairly useless"? That's my go-to rationalization.
You should take exorbitant lunch breaks regardless of whether or not your work for evil.
Just ten years ago, I got smoke breaks all the time. Now I've quit and it is illegal to smoke outside most buildings around here anyway, but I still take breaks as if I were doing a pack and half a day.
I take a few short breaks during the day to stop reading blogs and do a little work now and then.
How about "I work for evil people, but I'm fairly useless"? That's my go-to rationalization.
"I'm not so different from Oskar Schindler. We both sold arms to the Nazis - but mine worked, dammit!"
I also think the "lot of veterans" is an infelicitous phrasing rather than a foul prejudice. I can imagine that a DoD-oriented workplace that attracts a lot of veterans will have a certain character that is off-putting to someone who questions our nation's need to travel the world, meet interesting people, and kill them. But perhaps I share the foul prejudice.
91: That's how it was presented to me in each case. That the individuals, rather than going a traditional weapons-designer route of getting an engineering degree and internships and what-not, basically had some brilliant ideas based on fooling around with electronics and stuff, and managed to each get his foot in the door and went from there to be able to create new systems and improve on old ones. In both cases, it sounded like the guys involved were your basic Asperger's-spectrum misfits who understood electronics and physics and chemistry WAY better than they would ever understand small talk or relationships. The kind of people who could be a nightmare for a project manager unless they were just left alone to fiddle with their designs. Admittedly, in each case, when I heard these stories, I was somewhat taken aback that there's not more credentialing involved before you are allowed to design expensive devices that kill people, but the military is a whole different world.
102, 103: Moby and essear are inspiring!
106: wow, that's quite a story. Authentic mad-scientist stuff. It'd be inspiring if it was something that wasn't weapons.
I was somewhat taken aback that there's not more credentialing involved before you are allowed to design expensive devices that kill people
The whole credentialing thing (i.e. my lack of credentials that fit with the work I do) is kicking my ass, income-wise. Do the weapon designers need a data analyst? And can they pay them well?
Actually it still is inspiring. Some weapons designers have been inspiring people. Reginald Mitchell, Barnes Wallis, Robert Watson-Watt and Alan Turing to name four.
I used to work with a guy who left to go and create control systems for naval guns. As far as I know he had a bog standard CS degree, but no special experience or engineering knowledge, so I presume the rest was on-the-job training.
All this "all so complicit anyway" jazz is reminding me of a favored line from the much esteemed by me John Emerson: "[e]ven ethical, non-corporate, flesh and blood persons often spend the best part of their days working to satisfy corporate needs, and can only behave ethically after work as a sort of hobby."
How would you demonstrate your weapon designing prowess on a freelance basis? "Death ray, fiddlesticks. It doesn't even slow them down."
Frankly, increasing the employment of vets is a goal of the current administration. If that is the sort of thing that is off-putting, then working for the feds might not be the right choice.
On November 09, 2009, OPM Director John Berry joined President Obama as he signed the Executive Order on the Employment of Veterans in the Federal Government, which established the Veterans Employment Initiative for the executive branch. The Initiative underscores to Federal agencies the importance of recruiting and training veterans, increases the promotion of employment opportunities within the executive branch to veterans of the armed forces, and helps recently hired veterans adjust to service in a civilian capacity.
At the end of Fiscal Year 2008, there were approximately 480,000 veterans working within the Federal government.
re: 113
"I can produce letter from Abu Bakhar confirming I'm the best IED builder in the entire Swat valley..."
113: actually, the RAF in the 1930s was inundated with letters from inventors claiming to have built ray guns that could either stop aero engines or kill people. In order to deal with this, they had a goat on a string. Any inventor had to demonstrate his ray's ability to kill the goat before any further attention would be paid.
115: Abu Bakhr? Yeah, I was a fan before he sold out and started working for the big corporations.
115: Have someone else open that letter.
116.1: If the string was short enough to render the goat immobile, you could get past that by throwing the ray gun.
There's one of Spike Milligan's war books that has some of, iirc, his little brother's drawings of mega-weapons: giant tanks the size of aircraft carriers, death-rays, etc.
110 - Why do you leave out Hedy Lamarr, sexist?
When I worked for a military contractor on a civilian-side project, I'd say about a third of my coworkers were former military, and they ran the gamut, although I largely stayed off political subjects (as this was in the 2001-2003 period of total American madness across the spectrum). My boss was an incompetent asshole, but I think that's mostly his fault, as much as I'd like to blame the Air Force.
I think one of the main reasons it works that way is that it's easier to get security clearances for people who have already been through the military.
120: troops on rocket-propelled rollerskates, and troop-carrying submarines, IIRC. Very similar to the sort of thing the Germans were coming up with in all seriousness:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landkreuzer_P._1500_Monster
Why do you leave out Hedy Lamarr, sexist?
That's "Hedley".
How would you demonstrate your weapon designing prowess on a freelance basis?
The Supermarine Type 300 was developed on a spec. basis and demonstrated by flying it to an Air Force base and letting them play with it. These days the overheads would probably be too much for that approach, but I don't see why you shouldn't do it with a smaller system.
You really want to mind your overheads when approaching an Air Force base.
I'm surprised no one has marketed a Landkreuzer in the US. It could compete in the Ziggurat market.
OT: I'm having a stupid and mostly pointless debate I'm having with somebody I've never met. Any of you smart econ types know what accounts for the difference in federal revenue as a % of GDP figures presented in these two charts? This one versus this one.
I'm only having the debate once, so I'm having.
126:The second includes state and municipal, I think
The numbers I usually use are 16-18% Fed, 35% total taxes/revenues
During the Great Recession, all revenues are down a lot, as low as 14-15% for Federal. I think.
I've run into similar ethical dilemmas in my job searches. My general rule is to try to avoid doing anything that will have me waking up in the middle of the night with visions of children running around screaming with their skin burned off. I'm a bit of a sissy that way. Infrastructure widgetry like the Internet or better batteries and the like seem pretty harmless to me.
My general rule is to try to avoid doing anything that will have me waking up in the middle of the night with visions of children running around screaming with their skin burned off.
Like working at IHOP.
128: Nice catch. I was mystified.
Apo, the radio button there to show which to calculate is selecting "total" rather than "federal."
Maybe this will change it?
It could compete in the Ziggurat market.
These would be the Ziggurats the vets are bringing home from Iraq? How strong is the market for those? Could Guatemala do knock-offs cheaper?
Here's the usgovernmentrevenue.com chart reset for the same period, and I think for just Federal revenue, although the controls are a little obscure. The scale is different enough that it's hard to tell if it matches, but it's closer.
Could Guatemala do knock-offs cheaper?
They already did.
134: I can't find it in the FA, but Flippanter offered that name for an SUV.
So I guess that WSJ graph is demonstrating that if you offset reductions in the top marginal rate with other taxes, revenues will be unchanged. Shocking.
140: No, what it's showing is that if you keep lowering the top marginal rate as an ever-expanding percentage of GDP is earned by the richest taxpayers, revenues will be unchanged. Shocking.
137. Yes, but are they selling them to the Yanqui?
I'm surprised no one has marketed a Landkreuzer in the US.
I may be generalising wildly, but I think its foreign import status might count against it in the super-SUV market.
Twelve yards long and two lanes wide,
Sixty-five tons of American pride,
Canyonero!
Another way to state 141: if you have a progressive tax system, then revenues as a percentage of GDP should rise if the percentage of GDP going to the top percentiles rises. The fact that ours hasn't risen reflects a significant deprogressivication of our tax system over the last 30 years.
How would you demonstrate your weapon designing prowess on a freelance basis?
There's also the guy who pitched the army a manually launched, visually guided, igneous antitank weapon.
On the OP:
85: there's not a real moral difference between working for the DOD and just living in the US on the terms that our imperialist project makes possible
A number of people have made this point, but I'm not really buying the sort of slippery-slope argument it represents. At best the point seems to be that given this country's imperialist project, any endeavor one may undertake will reflect a difference in degree of moral turpitude, but not one of kind. Which, well, okay, sure. We can't really conclude from that that within the spectrum of choices available, none is better than another, so I don't really get the "there's not a real moral difference."
To the questioner, if there's reasonable room to believe that other job opportunities will present themselves, and if your financial situation is comfortable enough to wait for them, I'd wait. Chiefly because of your own stated misgivings.
what it's showing is that if you keep lowering the top marginal rate as an ever-expanding percentage of GDP is earned by the richest taxpayers, revenues will be unchanged. Shocking
The other effect going on there that the WSJ elides is the ever-growing proportion of federal revenues that come from payroll taxes, which are inconsequential when you're at the top of the income distribution.
126:
What bob says may be true, and would account for the diffence between variation around 20 and around 30%. I think the bigger difference between the two charts is that the first one begins in 1950, where the second one begins in 1900. That, plus the expanded and bracketed scale of the second chart suggests an increasing upward rise rather than variation around a central line. Both seem to be true as far as they go. We certainly expected government to do a lot more in the second half of the 20th century than we did in the first.
Ooh, missed AG's adjustment before. Yeah, that seems consistent.
the ever-growing proportion of federal revenues that come from payroll taxes
Yes, that's a big part of what I am arguing. But, of course, to certain people, income tax (and the estate tax) is the only tax that matters.
141, 144: 147 is what I was referring to in 140, and I think both decreasing progressivity and increasing inequality are at play.
I'm surprised no one has marketed a Landkreuzer in the US.
Daimler did briefly offer a passenger version of the Unimog for sale in the U.S. market in the early 'aughts as a competitor in the giant SUV segment. Don't know if they ever sold one. It's hard to tell from the photos, but the standard Unimog dwarfs the Hummer.
150: It's as if the oppressive capital gains tax means nothing to you.
I know a couple of people with unimogs, but I think they bought the mil kind.
I haven't read the thread and I am 100% sure I'm in a minority here, but, personally, I think that working for DOD has a strong element of public service -- even if we all don't agree with many, many of the department's methods, the department does, at least you're working for something that has as its ultimate goal serving the public, maintaining peace, protecting the country, etc. In my book, that's infinitely more honorable than working for, say, big tobacco or the financial services industry.
There's a guy on the next street to us who buys and sells used Pinzgauers, and he seems to get through half a dozen a month, so I imagine there's a market for Unimogs too. (He's a serious nuisance, because he sometimes has four or five of the things parked on street, so nobody else can find a space.)
has as its ultimate goal... maintaining peace,
I would call this at least a controversial claim.
something that has as its ultimate goal serving the public, maintaining peace, protecting the country, etc.
I think a primary assumption in this thread is that many of the DoD's methods and proximate goals may not be well-designed to achieve those ultimate goals, and in some cases may be downright evil, and working towards those proximate goals in full knowledge of their incompatibility with the stated ultimate goals is culpable.
I am 100% sure I'm in a minority here
I largely concur with 155.
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I guess this means we have to attack Iraq again.
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155, 159: I don't really agree with this. But I think it's defensible enough to allow me to think of people doing work for the DOD or in the military as plausibly intending to serve ideals I approve of, if you see what I mean.
There used to be a big Unimog depot in our village growing up. There is/was a large timber yard, which did conversions of Unimogs for forestry work. A lot of the kids growing up fancied them as they looked pretty cool.
something that has as its ultimate goal serving the public, maintaining peace, protecting the country, etc.
This was my father's view of the matter as well; he was a military man who fully endorsed the "Peace through strength" motto. There's an argument to be made for it, but there's an equally strong argument to be made against it (or modifying it, or making a variety of quibbly caveats).
As far as the OP Questioner's dilemma goes, if he/she is concerned that working with numerous veterans is going to bring him/her into contact with that Peace Through Strength sentiment, I'd be chary. Mileage varies; depends on how much of a hippie you are.
I'm leaning the other way and thinking of starting a movement to get golf cart paths around my part of Pittsburgh.
164 to the various giant motor vehicle comments.
I certainly think working for DOD ought to have a strong element of public service, but I'm not sure how much in practice it does. Of course, this goes back to the answer in the OP: the way to change that is to have more people with a strong sense of public service start working for the DOD.
You could always do what this guy does andmake your own job.
something that has as its ultimate goal serving the public, maintaining peace, protecting the country, etc.
I heard recently that the Department Of Homeland Security had the lowest levels of employee job satisfaction of any federal department.
I think it would be even more depressing to work for an entity that you thought was doing harm in the world if you also believed that the entity could have a more noble calling.
Which is to again say that it would really matter what you were working on, and that not all DOD related jobs are alike.
Urple's 158 and 166 make a lot of sense, but it really just goes back to the "it all depends on the specific program" point. Obviously working for the Secret Office of Illegal Torture or the Corrupt Office of Contractor Kickbacks is going to be culpable, but most work isn't like that, and I personally certainly wouldn't put something like, e.g., building radar systems for submarines in that category.
I will say, though, that if the Original Poster has a real personal aversion to absolutely anything military related, he or she shouldn't take the job. The worst professional experience of my life was working for a client that I hated in a case where I felt that the client was morally (though not legally) extremely culpable, and I wouldn't recommend that to anyone for any amount of money.
147, 150: You probably already have it, but this is the classic chart on the relative contributions of payroll, income and corporate taxes. The other charts collected for Kevin Drum's recent article help the story as well, of course.
168: I heard recently that the Department Of Homeland Security had the lowest levels of employee job satisfaction of any federal department.
It's hard to say why that is: one hears that it's poorly funded, that it's a newish department, that its organizational charts and managers keep being switched around, or that more is being demanded of it than it's capable of doing, all while being yelled at.
I don't know if this is relevant to the Dept. of Homeland Security, but while people upthread have characterized the military and its various branches in various ways, the one characterization of its institutional culture that seems consistent throughout is its emphasis on order and control. It's authoritarian. (I confess that I never did read that thing on authoritarianism that this blog has talked about.)
Isn't the low level of job satisfaction explained by the fact that being an airline security guard or a USCIS agent totally sucks?
Being in the Coast Guard sounds like it would be a lot of fun. Fresh air, boats, etc.
172: I went to school with a guy who was in the Coast Guard. He seemed like a happy man, especially considering he was a vegan.
I am 100% sure I'm in a minority here, but, personally, I think that working for DOD has a strong element of public service
I don't disagree. Working for the DOD is certainly more public service-oriented than being, say, a hedge fund manager, or counsel to some especially loathsome corporation. Now whether some particular job with the DOD is morally acceptable depends, as people point out, on the duties required.
I wonder if the OP's Job-Seeker is reading and has anything to clarify regarding his/her concerns, or any reaction to what seems, in this thread, to be a contrast between, on the one hand, "Oh, we're all complicit, just don't take a job involving being an outright dick," and "Well, if you feel that you really would rather not launch a career in a direction you're already uncomfortable with in the first place, don't."
Also, we could probably comment more usefully if we knew zir current employment situation, and whether ze sees this as being a career commitment or just something to do for a couple of yeas to put on zir resume.
Has Job-Seeker just left college or is ze looking to retire soon?
zir
chris y is banned!
Seriously, there's nothing wrong with singular they.
That's what "zir" means? I thought he was doing a Dr. Strangelove accent.
Seriously, there's nothing wrong with singular they.
[Choking sound. Teeth grinding. Mumbled maledictions.]
Seriously, there's nothing wrong with singular they.
I just took a ridiculous test yesterday as part of the process of gaining employment at a place that seems to kind of suck; part of it involved assessing the grammaticality of various sentences and correcting the ungrammatical parts. Sometimes there were errors of diction but not grammar, and sometimes there were sentences containing phrases that style guides might fairly differ over. One such was the use of singular "their". Did I mark it as incorrect and suggest a substitution? Yes. But I also wrote in the margin that no real linguist would consider it, or several other of the sentences containing prescriptivist bugaboos, actually ungrammatical.
I assume that they're looking for smartasses, first and foremost.
That's what "zir" means?
No, it means "I think I'm better than you".
Seriously, there's nothing wrong with singular they.
Blargh. The jury's still out, okay?
Being in the Coast Guard sounds like it would be a lot of fun. Fresh air, boats, etc.
Being an entertainment lawyer in Hollywood seems like it would be a lot of fun: celebrities, movies, etc.
179, 182: You really think you're better at this then I am?
Thanks for the comments, everyone. I'm traveling all day (layover now) and probably won't be able to participate in this thread before it wraps up.
I'm mostly swayed by the majority here - I'll judge the work done there on its own terms. And if I get an offer, I won't act on it until I have something to compare it with.
The veteran thing is, as was speculated, a poorly stated concern about there being a baseline conservatism there that I wouldn't thrive in.
I'd give more details but for the risk of indiscretion; the company has a number of distinctive aspects, as does my current personal situation.
the company has a number of distinctive aspects, as does my current personal situation.
Laydeez?
184: Was Jane fond of using "then" for than?
It's the early nineteenth century here, I'm not expected to be able to spell reliably yet.
Blargh. The jury's still out, okay?
No, it isn't.
Jane, if your standards for spelling weren't regularized, it's plausible that your standards for grammar weren't either. That doesn't make you wrong or anyone in the 20th century right, but really, it's not the case that historical precedent makes something right.
!!!
(This would be a hilarious argument if only I didn't feel kind of strongly about singular use of "they" and "their." Eventually the stubborns will get over it. Eventually "totes" will be a real word.)
Cordially,
Each editor will have to decide what they think best.
Singular "they" is exponentially better than the "zir" monstrosity.
Eventually "totes" will be a real word.
Totes is a real word! My NPR station gives them away every fundraising drive for some specific level of donation.
My NPR station gives them away every fundraising drive for some specific level of donation.
My NPR station gives a letter that says, "Thank you for not noticing iPods and internet news sites."
nosflow found a job that might require grammar bitchery? Between this and that story about Egyptians ordering Wisconsonites pizza I'm thinking maybe, just maybe, the world will be alright.
My job is primarily grammar bitchery. Ben, if that whole philosophy thing doesn't pan out, a lucrative* career editing clinical reports awaits you.
*don't have children.
[Ripping off my rubber Jane Austen mask] 190: But there hasn't been a period since the fourteenth century when educated, native speakers of English haven't used singular 'their'. Once the invented-Latin-based grammar bitches started complaining about it in the late eighteenth century, there's been a debate, but it's always been normal usage rather than an innovation.
And of course (aside from the fact that that was my typo, rather than a genuine early-nineteenth century nonstandard spelling), grammar back then was no more nor less regular than it is now, while spelling really was more variable.
People agreeing with Jane Austen on this point include Chaucer, Shakespeare, Whitman, Wilde, and God himself (or whoever wrote the King James Bible). Usage goes back to the 15th century. You're just wrong about this parsimon
I assume that they're looking for smartasses, first and foremost.
Once, at the end of a job application, after I checked the box asserting the truth of my statements I added a paragraph about Epimenides. Funny how I never heard back from them.
nosflow found a job that might require grammar bitchery?
No, that's the amazing thing; it doesn't.
You know, I wish people would stop spreading the myth around that there's a logical inconsistency in a Cretan saying "all Cretans are liars".
Suppose you have two Cretans, Epimenides and Hank. Hank is not a liar; Epimenides is. Epimenides know that Hank is not a liar; when he says "all Cretans are liars", he is lying. But he isn't caught in an inconsistency. He's lying because not all Cretans are liars; it's consistent with that that some Cretans be liars.
I like the new, descriptivist LB. What did the aliens do with the old one?
195: Having children destroyed your ability to edit?
I'm perfectly happy with singular they. I'd just flipped tabs from a site with peculiar standards and was too drunk to switch.
197: I know the story regarding historical precedent.
I suppose you want to tell me that my putting two spaces after a period when typing is wrong now, too.
180 is wonderful.
205. cont'd. There was also an element of "yeah, yeah, this person really needs to be ultra-presidential here, they've got a job interview under their RL name, what's the big anonymous deal?"
If this "company with DoD contracts" is actually Erik Prince Inc., whatever it's called this week, or some other truly scary outfit which you'd really not want to advertise that you worked for, then all bets are off.
206: Is there any alternative story supporting the wrongness of singular 'their' that doesn't equally apply to the wrongness of singular 'you'?
Old-timey people were wrong about a buttload of things, from the shape of the earth to the effects of masturbation. I see no reason to give their opinions special weight in anything, least of all modern English. If you can't figure out that masturbation doesn't drive men mad don't think you can lecture me on grammar, dead people!
206: So what's your counterargument? Certainly you're not going to try an argument from authority given the authorities lined up against you, right?
For one space vs. two spaces (as with many arguments) it's pretty obvious that both are in common usage and neither is "wrong." Which is "better" depends on design choices in fonts/html/browsers/typesetting software, and so I'm skeptical of anyone who is too sure about one or the other.
204: Having children destroyed my ability to live the luxurious life of free-spending decadence that an editor of my station deserves.
For one space vs. two spaces (as with many arguments) it's pretty obvious that both are in common usage and neither is "wrong."
This is absurd. Two spaces is clearly wrong, unless you're using an ugly font, which is itself wrong unless you're operating under some sort of external contraint requiring it. Unlike the singular "they", you won't find split authority on this--there's no authority anywhere that suggests two spaces after a period is preferred or even acceptable. The "both are in common usage" test would throw out virtually every rule imaginable.
neither is "wrong."
Right! It's a formatting preference along the lines of block justification versus left justification. I prefer two spaces not because I was taught one convention over the other*, but because a period can signal the end of a sentence or the end of an abbreviation. My OCD says the former should get two spaces and the latter should get one (unless the abbreviation ends a sentence, natch).
*I didn't really start typing until my 20s. Almost every single paper I turned in during college was hand-written, which now seems downright bizarre.
apostropher is not a respectable typesetting authority.
It's a formatting preference along the lines of block justification versus left justification.
It's "along the lines of" that except insofar as almost every authority you read will treat block justification versus left justification as a formatting preference, but one space vs. two spaces as correct vs. incorrect.
no authority anywhere that suggests two spaces after a period is preferred or even acceptable
Gregg Reference Manual: "Now that the standards of desktop publishing typically apply to all documents produced by computer, the use of one space is recommended after the punctuation that occurs at the end of a sentence. Yet this standard should not be mechanically applied.
"In all cases, the deciding factor should be the appearance of the breaks between sentences in a given document. If the use of one space does not provide enough of a visual break, use two spaces instead."
I stuck to two spaces after a period for a long, long time, due to residual pride from being the only kid in middle school who already knew how to type. In Intro to Word Processing, I already knew that you indent paragraphs, put an extra blank line between paragraphs (in business letters), put one space after commas, and two after periods. And these remained the rules for quite a few years of fixed-width typography. Sure, I grew up and dated font nerds who mocked me for the habit, but I was an expert typist before they'd stolen their first sheep! For fuck's sake!
Fun bonus fact, here's how to center text on a typewriter: you tab to the center of the page, then hit backspace once for every two characters of your text. I wonder if I will ever do this again.
I already said that my preference is driven by my own special flavor of obsessive-compulsive disorder. I edit to the standards of the client's style guide.
I'd just flipped tabs from a site with peculiar standards and was too drunk to switch.
This is like some wonderful Lucky Strikes and Dead Kennnedys mash-up.
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I just saw a woman wearing a t-shirt that said "Hooray for Boobies!" I couldn't tell if this was a breast cancer awareness thing or just oggedish enthusiasm. The shirt looked homemade, though. It was a baseball style t-shirt and the letters looked ironed on.
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It was a baseball style t-shirt and the letters looked ironed on if you looked at them really closely.
nosflow found a job that might require grammar bitchery?
I made the opposite assumption: nosflow found a job application process designed to weed out the grammar bitches.
216. I use two spaces after a period and I'm pretty sure that I couldn't stop without great effort and I'm certain that nobody who isn't paying me money could make me try.
Two spaces after a period is the actual, objective, typing rule. I have no idea what authority decided that it was superfluous in the computer age.
22: Ditto. Tell me how it improves my ability to get an idea across to someone who isn't a typography nut and I'll listen. Maybe.
This is a blind spot for me. I'm a habitual two-spacer, but I don't notice the difference or particularly care. Does it really look bad to the one-space advocates?
IIf this "company with DoD contracts" is actually Erik Prince Inc., whatever it's called this week, or some other truly scary outfit which you'd really not want to advertise that you worked for, then all bets are off.
Yeah, this. A helicopter pilot friend tells me he's working for some DoD-related thing, I wouldn't be surprised, and I'd ask him for details. He tells me (as he did a few months ago) that he's considering a job in Iraq, I say "you've got to be fucking kidding me".
So has anybody mentioned yet that unfogged automatically omits the second space after a period?
From the OP: Some suggestions on how to feel that out while I'm there would be welcome as well.
Maybe try to observe how the social interactions work, i.e., is your status determined by how well you do your job, or how well your personality and background mesh with the rest of the group?
I don't know any specific things to look out for, though.
Uh, and I use two spaces after a period when writing e-mail, and one space when commenting on blogs.
I'm still typing them, though. I don't care what it looks like on the screen, the number of spaces after the period is automatic.
If you really need that second space add an (or just put two of them and omit the normal space). Like this. Unlike this.
I have no idea what authority decided that it was superfluous in the computer age.
There was a recent piece about this in Slate, which I learned of when it was cited in a recent heated argument about this issue among colleagues (during which I also learned that dedication to the two-space approach appears to vary in direct proportion to age; but that the Seventh Circuit strongly disfavors it).
Which conclusively proves that I am not Farhad Manjoo. (I seem to recall that being linked here before but cannot find where.)
235: Yeah, pretty much no one does anymore. Curse you, Zuckerberg!
People, you can stop two-spacing within a couple of days if you set your mind to it. It's not like smoking. And there is no objective rule about it, just the silliness of two spaces after periods in an age of proportionally spaced typefaces.
I use the number of spaces after periods to steganographically send messages to my cell. Unfortunately our usenet group got taken over and html-ized by Google. Curses.
Unfortunately our usenet group got taken over and html-ized by Google. Curses.
You can still access usenet via NNTP, can't you? Something's fishy here.
Something's fishy here
Maybe he accesses the internet through a trouter.
Okay, that Slate article has made me hate an entire profession. Typographers can go fuck themselves.
re: grammar bitchery aptitude test
A couple of years ago I applied for a job that involved an online logic test. Having a couple of graduate degrees in philosophy is definitely not a help for that one, as I kept spotting where the test was wrong or ambiguous. I suspect I didn't do well.
re: the two space thing.
I used to temp, at a time when temps were still expected to be able to use typewriters.* So was taught the two space thing. I shook the habit a while back, though.
Pedantry can take a running fuck at itself, though.
* word processing was the main part of the job, but there were legacy forms, and carbon paper things and other shit, so there were still a load of electric typewriters around.
One of these days I'll remember that blank lines that look fine in the little comment box look shitty full-width. And I'm not even drunk.
Typographers can go fuck themselves.
Yep.
You can still access usenet via NNTP, can't you? Something's fishy here.
Yes, that's what's fishy.
re: 242
It's increasingly hard to find newsservers, though. A lot of ISPs no longer provide them, so you end up using some sluggish free shit run out of Berlin.
I guess I work more closely to the "How may wedding parties shall we bomb today?" side than I'd like. In college my research was funded by Army or Navy research labs and then in grad school, DARPA and Air Force and in each case was safely in the blue sky.
My hope is that enough people of good will and intentions can join me and help with the course correction.
One of these days I'll remember that blank lines that look fine in the little comment box look shitty full-width.
I wouldn't worry about it. Not necessarily everybody looks at the comments full-width anyway. Spacing separate thoughts is preferable to running them all together into a dense pack.
increasing the employment of vets is a goal of the current administration
Booooo! The military preference hires at my old federal job were conspicuously inept time-wasters who didn't care at all about the purpose of the agency. They'd been doing it for a long time, too, since they were Vietnam vets with "Days 'til Retirement" countdowns hanging in their cubes. Vet preference hiring procedures may be good for vets, but since I care(d) about what the agency does, I wish it weren't hiring policy.
I can't believe you all let parsimon distract you into an argument about spaces, distracting us from the important task of highlighting how wrong she is about singular 'they'.
Maybe it is fine for the agencies that are mostly paper shuffling, but the resource management agencies should be staffed by people who have a strong interest in the resources.
I suppose people with a broader worldview will say that other disciplines care about things in their field, but I have yet to acknowledge the existence of other disciplines.
255: You are about 1/2 way to being eligible to govern Wisconsin.
For a while the Chicago Manual of Style made the correct recommendation on singular 'they', but then they backed off. I think we should go find the editor responsible and intimidate them into putting it back.
207: I would happily tell everyone here where I'm interviewing; I'm mostly thinking of security clearance proceedings as a layman could easily connect up my pseud with my identity.
Do we teach children in first grade (or whatever) English class that the pronouns go:
singular: I / you / he-she-it-they //
plural: we / you / they
No. No, we do not. Or do we? I don't know, actually.
It's wonderful that first-grade curricula are so rigorously devoted to preserving the absolute truth. For instance, this is how I know, with certainty, that pilgrims had buckles on their hats.
So the argument is that first grade teachers know more about the English language than Oscar Wilde?
Also, that you can tell which animals are girls on the basis of whether or not they have a bow in their hair.
And two people can't possibly make a baby unless they "love each other very much."
re: 260
I don't think anyone gets taught grammar in first grade, do they? We barely touched on grammar even in high school. As it happens, I studied grammar for 4 years at university, but even there -- as everyone knows about linguistics/philology -- there was no prescriptive element. I'm not sure [pwned by essear] why what 'we' do or don't teach children is remotely relevant here?
264: You clearly went to a very advanced first grade. Mine failed to address the fine points of babymaking.
These prescriptivist arguments are always doubly dumb because they are always about cases where there's a clear position based on historical and contemporary usage; and another position based on what? Some half-remembered rule someone was taught by a pedant in high school? Some belief that the structure of language is in any way regular or logical, and, specifically, logical on just this one particular aspect of language that the speaker finds particularly grating when 'misused' by others?
261: Dude. If and when "they" becomes standard in formal English as a third person singular form, I'll accept it as the standard. Until then, it's a convenience* which has historical precedent. I continue to find it awkward, and inappropriate in formal English settings. Haven't we had this argument before?
I don't say it's wrong, because frankly, as 210 fortuitously noted regarding one vs. two spaces: it's pretty obvious that both are in common usage and neither is "wrong."
* Singular "they" and "their" have resurfaced as conveniences to avoid the gendering involved in the generic "he." Hence the "ze" that Chris Y used upthread. We know all this. We can normalize "they" or we can normalize "ze". Or we can continue to use "he/she" ("she/he") or randomly switch between "she" and "he", which doesn't seem that awful to me. I actually prefer the latter courses (he/she, she/he, she, he), as they don't simply avoid the gender issue.
another position based on what? Some half-remembered rule someone was taught by a pedant in high school?
In my case, the pedant had a very scary name and manner, such I'm not entirely convinced he won't jump out from behind the next corner at any given moment. But you're entirely correct [looks around warily for Mr. Hagathorn].
I continue to find it awkward, and inappropriate in formal English settings.
I continue to find your mom awkward and inappropriate in formal settings.
How are we supposed to prove that it's "standard" in formal written English other than by providing copious examples of its usage in standard formal written English by widely accepted masters of the language? What makes you think it isn't standard?
Wait, isn't 268.2 admitting that singular 'they' isn't wrong?
I don't think anyone gets taught grammar in first grade, do they? We barely touched on grammar even in high school.
We were taught Spanish grammar in much greater depth than English grammar.
But I do remember explicit grammar lessons, maybe from 4th grade through 8th or so? You know, all the crucial rules, like "don't end a sentence with a preposition" and "omit the comma before the last item in a list, until next year when your teacher tells you the opposite".
re: 268
I think the point is that 'they' has always been standard English, and the fact that some varieties of _formal_ English are hedged with rules that are wildly at odds with certain aspects of English-as-wot-it-is-spoke is something that has increasingly been seen as something unfortunate about formal English, rather than a reason why we should all adhere strictly to those rules.
Also, the fact that a lot of those 'rules' of formal English are widely disputed by people who spend their entire lives writing formal English prose suggests that they may not be quite as cast in stone as all that.
268: Singular "they" and "their" have resurfaced as conveniences to avoid the gendering involved in the generic "he."
They haven't 'resurfaced', they never went away. And while they do avoid the generic masculine without an artificial tactic like s/he, they're not merely a convenience for that purpose: singular 'they' connotes not merely indeterminate gender, but indeterminate identity. If I'm in a lingerie store, I'm as likely to say "Hey, someone dropped one of their bras" as I am to say "Someone dropped her bra," despite the fact that I know the dropper was a women.
We can normalize "they" or we can normalize "ze".
I very much doubt that anyone can normalize 'ze.' It's going to sound like mocking a foreign accent no matter what.
My tone of Olympian scorn would be so much more effective if I could spell.
I very much doubt that anyone can normalize 'ze.'
Maybe we can settle on a compromise and caramelize it. Mmmm, caramel.
270:I continue to find your mom awkward and inappropriate in formal settings.
Certainly, as the next post illustrates, your mother should be used in formal settings.
We all have things about other people's use of language that annoy us. For me, personally, it's people who say/write 'an hotel',* or pronounce the word 'herbal' without an audible fricative at the start, and yes, there are certain 'rules' of formal English that I prefer to see observed, but that doesn't mean those prejudices are sacred, especially when they are actually so at odds with usage.
* yes, I know it's 'correct'.
especially when they are actually so at odds with usage.
And people who overuse the word 'actually.' I hate those bastards.
Backing off the pile on, but still interested in the issue: Parsimon -- I'm curious about how you feel about some of the other similar grammar 'rules'. Do you actively try not to end sentences with prepositions and keep your infinitives unsplit in formal writing? (I actually do avoid ending sentences with prepositions, but just because I'm sick of having people change it for me.)
I had to make some dinner.
272: Wait, isn't 268.2 admitting that singular 'they' isn't wrong?
Yes, it is. That's why I introduced the two- vs. one-space typing example.
282: Careful pars, it may be a ploy to allow us to all further pile on.
Pronouns are so central to everyday usage that I don't think any effort to shift them will work unless it can be made to seem natural. I propose using "they" as a singular, gender-neutral pronoun and only as a singular pronoun. Then we use "theys" as a the equivalent plural. If "their" becomes singular, the plural is more difficult because "theirs" is already in use and sounds like "there's." But, I can't solve all problems and somebody else should get to work on that.
I'm as likely to say "Hey, someone dropped one of their bras""Titties! Hooray!" as I am to say "Someone dropped her bra,"
We could go all Southern, with "they'all".
275: And while they do avoid the generic masculine without an artificial tactic like s/he, they're not merely a convenience for that purpose: singular 'they' connotes not merely indeterminate gender, but indeterminate identity.
A couple of things: If "he/she" is artificial and a tactic, it's because women's studies has heightened our awareness of the default masculine gendering of agency. That's all to the good; we should be aware of it. I don't think it's a bad thing, and I don't understand any resistance there might be to it.
This is probably the core of my preference for "he/she" over "they", to be honest: the former continues to remind the listener that the agent in question might be a woman or a man, while I feel that the latter avoids the question. That's all.
If I'm in a lingerie store, I'm as likely to say "Hey, someone dropped one of their bras" as I am to say "Someone dropped her bra," despite the fact that I know the dropper was a women.
I would say, "Hey, someone dropped this [or a] bra."
Actually, this time, I'm the best. THE BEST!
There's theys's that use "they" as a singular pronoun and theys's that don't.
Or Pittsburgh's 'Yunz' (or Yinz or Yenz). Except that sounds stupider than 'ze'.
I put this in the empty "Mother" thread, but this one seems to be more active. Anybody heard the story about the use of Psy-ops on Senators?
Your mother is so empty that she dates a senator.
Yinz mother is so empty ze dates an senator.
has heightened our awareness of the default masculine gendering of agency. That's all to the good; we should be aware of it.
It's good that you brought this up, because on reading it, I think that you've hit something that annoys me about artificial alternatives to the singular 'they'.
I don't want to artificially resist the default masculine gendering of agency, so that I have a choice between using some strained contrivance like 's/he' or 'ze', or relaxing into the non-strained default. You give people a choice like that, they're going to want to relax rather than straining for the awkwardly feminist ideal, and there we are in the world where the generic masculine remains the default.
The virtue of the singular or indefinite 'they', on the feminist language front, is that it avoids the default masculine, while remaining graceful, unstrained, correct English. It's like the difference between "Chairperson" and "Chair" -- both avoid assuming the leader has to be a man, but the first makes people roll their eyes at stridently annoying wopersons, while the second just gets accepted and used.
And, of course, singular 'they' is just ordinary correct usage, so strained contrivances to avoid it are unnecessary and serve no purpose.
Nothing to do with anything in this thread, but oh man is this funny. "Your stories about the seventies make your daughter's roommates at Tufts very uncomfortable."
I got (clap clap) a gold star (clap clap) in session (clap clap) today (clap clap) because I am The BEST! CLAP CLAP CLAP!
Hey, I have a favorite rune and I'll be damned if I'll listen to any jackass play an electric flute (or whatever).
299: I just don't find "he/she" strained or contrived, LB. It feels quite normal to me.
makes people roll their eyes at stridently annoying
Again: I don't find something like "person" or "he/she" or whatever strident or annoying. Apparently you're saying that other people do, and that this feminist strident annoyingness should be acknowledged and avoided. I just disagree.
Maybe we should just drop gender distinctions in pronouns altogether. Or follow many other languages in giving apparently random genders to everyday objects, thus emasculating these pronouns stripping the words of their gender-essentializing power confusing things.
146
A number of people have made this point, but I'm not really buying the sort of slippery-slope argument it represents. At best the point seems to be that given this country's imperialist project, any endeavor one may undertake will reflect a difference in degree of moral turpitude, but not one of kind. Which, well, okay, sure. We can't really conclude from that that within the spectrum of choices available, none is better than another, so I don't really get the "there's not a real moral difference."
I agree with this.
304: We should dump third person pronouns completely. If you don't know what you are asking for by name, you don't fucking deserve what you want.
304: We should drop the distinction between singular and plural is what we should do. "We" should become an option for first person singular.
We should drop the distinction between self and other is what we should do.
303.1: Have you tried saying it out loud? How do you do that? "She-he" or "She/he"?
Apparently you're saying that other people do, and that this feminist strident annoyingness should be acknowledged and avoided. I just disagree.
Not exactly. Let me try this another way. Option 1: In this world, the standard correct singular pronoun in English when you don't know the sex of the referent is the masculine. Feminists find this problematically sexist, so they introduce innovative new pronouns like 'ze' or 'she/he'. Some people use the feminist options, others, some of whom are anti-feminist, others of whom find the feminist options esthetically displeasing or awkward, and some of whom just aren't up to speed on the latest fashions just speak naturally, and use 'he' whenever the sex of the referent of a pronoun is uncertain. Conventional usage remains kind of sexist, except in uniformly feminist circles.
Option 2: In this world, the standard correct singular pronoun when you don't know the sex of the referent is 'they'. It's not sexist. So no one worries about it. Conventional usage isn't sexist.
First, I think the latter is a better description of what is actually graceful standard English. Second, as a feminist, I strongly prefer the second world, because it makes the standard usage non-sexist: if singular 'they' is an option, someone using the generic masculine is doing something marked and strange rather than just speaking conventionally. Let the sexists be the weirdos for once.
308: For the last time, those are her pants and she is wearing them on purpose.
I know a few people who usually speak more or less flawless English, but consistently say "he" instead of "she" or "him" instead of "her" (sometimes managing to correct themselves). Apparently this is a language feature that's really hard to internalize if your native language doesn't have pronouns that distinguish gender.
Hell, I just use "she" whenever remotely possible, and even sometimes when it is confusing or offensive, in an attempt to maximize stridency. "She/he" is obeisance to the patriarchy. Let's pretend everyone's female.
309: Okay. I'm actually off to bed shortly.
As for saying "he/she" out loud, well, I was using that as typewritten shorthand for what I'd say aloud as "he or she." I do say the latter. Nobody seems to cringe.
I'm generally not happy with your characterization (in Option 1) of the standard correct singular pronoun in English as "he" -- I've been trying to say that in my view "he/she" (or "he or she" or "she or he" or just "she") is also perfectly correct and now standard. I'm kind of surprised that the "he or she" locution is viewed as so revolutionary and awkward.
The he/she convention is horrible for things involving generic persons, like manuals. The most common strategy seems to be some sort of alternation, but unless that's carefully applied, you end up with people changing genders in the middle of a process. They seems like an improvement.
But then, I'm a supporter of singular "they" anyway. By the way, I've heard of a professor in a graduate program actually marking off on papers for the use of singular "they". I'm sure there's more than one who does that, but the idea of actually considering an isolated style/grammar issue like that in grading (rather than as a minor editorial note) at that level seems beyond silly.
Let's pretend everyone's female.
I don't think I'm going to fool anybody.
Thinking a bit further, it seems like people use "you" to get around the "he or she" problem in spoken language when giving instructions/describing steps in a process. But that's generally not acceptable in written language. It seems like an objection to "they" that focuses on the lack of gender in the pronoun applies equally to the corresponding use of "you".
Scrolling up thru this thread, between correct gender pronouns and the number of spaces after a period, I have determined that y'all just suck at Revolution.
How 'bout this? We use third person impersonal for all males and "male" activity?
"It wants another beer."
"It is sullen and sulky because its football team lost."
"It thinks I care."
I have determined that y'all just suck at Revolution.
I believe you've determined that at least once per thread for several years now.
319.1: I don't even like it when my desk chair goes round.
319.last: It laughs every time it watches it.
I was thinking about a related issue, which is:has anything replaced ma'am and sir for when you're trying to politely flag down a stranger? Like returning a dropped item? I still use those, but quite often the person just thinks you don't mean them.
324: I have a yellow handkerchief with a small weight that I use.
"You dropped your keys right there...."
This must be the origin of Garfield without Garfield. (by the same person who did the video in 323)
has anything replaced ma'am and sir for when you're trying to politely flag down a stranger?
Nope. There's always "Excuse me! Excuse me, hello?!" (waves dropped glove in the air)
I advise you to try "Gentleperson!"
I advise you to try "Gentleperson!" "Yo, dude."
Maybe we can find comity with "dude" as gender-neutral third-person pronoun?
Maybe we can find comity with "dude" as gender-neutral third-person pronoun?
I'm imagining matching towels marked "Dude's" and "Dude's". It's beautiful.
323: Beat me to it. The actor playing Buffalo Bill is a friend from my college improv group. I have seen him do this sketch live. It is a sight to behold. (That's my keyboard playing the part of "keyboard" at 2:35)
He also wrote this beautiful essay about his Tournament-of-Champions-qualifying Jeopardy run.
335.2: Good story, worth a read. But arrgh, eyes! Recommend highlighting the text or cutting and pasting it onto some readable background.
From a Digby post: "Indeed, they delight in homing in on Democratic sacred cows and explicitly taking them apart." Good use of "homing in on", but the imagery is a little out there....
336: Install Readability! It makes the internet really nice.
or pronounce the word 'herbal' without an audible fricative at the start,
Realllllllllllllllllllly? I would find an audible fricative pretty annoying there. Though I suppose we live in different countries n'at.
Ferbal? Therbal? Oh, you must mean zerbal.
At least three million people have been killed in wars the U.S. engaged post-WWII. That's a lot of people. If you're comfy working directly in and for that system, then I guess that's cool...I kinda get the "we're all complicit" argument. On the other hand, I there are degrees of complicity.
I turned down a defense contractor job a while ago, but I had other opportunities...don't know what I would have done if I hadn't.
I have had great experiences working with veterans. They're often good people, and the officers can be very smart.
Let me be the first to propose "zerbal" as a pleasant, natural alternative to singular-"they".
Who among us does not enjoy a nice zerbal we?
re: 339
The American pronunciation, with the rhotacized schwa at the start makes me actually angry.* This has come up before. There's a UK shampoo advert with someone repeatedly talking about something being 'rrrble' which my wife will do an impression of if she wants to take the piss out of me.
It's fucking /hɛrbl/ or /hɛrbʌl/ [if you have my accent], and /həːbl/ maybe if you have some sort of speech impediment [i.e., are English]. /ɚbl/ or /ɹːbəl/ are Satan's work.
* exaggerating, but it does irrationally irritate.
I just saw a woman wearing a t-shirt that said "Hooray for Boobies!" I couldn't tell if this was a breast cancer awareness thing or just oggedish enthusiasm.
An ornithologist who had just got back from a trip to the Galapagos.
On the question of grammar pedantry, I suspect most grammar pedants don't even know how English grammar is currently defined. For instance, I was taught that English verbs had a whole lot of tenses and moods (by some strange coincidence, the very same ones as Latin.) But a friend who has recently completed a post-grad qualification in ESL tells me, no. English has two tenses, no moods, and a whole bunch of modal verbs.
And when you actually look at it, so it does.
So how would they analyze "I am going"? I learned that this was a tense distinct from present tense. ("Present continual" or something like that.)
re: 345
But a friend who has recently completed a post-grad qualification in ESL tells me, no. English has two tenses, no moods, and a whole bunch of modal verbs.
Yes, that's how I was taught, when I studied English grammar. There's a load of papers on the interaction between modal verbs, tenses and aspect in English. I remember a particularly nice paper summing up the interaction between tense, and the various forms of 'have', 'may', and 'will' in a clear diagram. Hence, as you say, the stupidity of attempting to apply 'rules' to English derived from Latin, which has a completely different grammar. As mentioned by LB above [and by at least one person in every thread on grammar, passim].
re: 346
That's a combination of tense and aspect. Present tense, progressive/continuous aspect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_aspect#English
There are only past and present tense. English has no future tense. However, there are gazillions of variations in mood and aspect that combine with those two tenses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tense-aspect-mood#English
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Interesting point on Libya via Jamie.
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Two spaces after a period is the actual, objective, typing rule. I have no idea what authority decided that it was superfluous in the computer age.
Isn't it just that books, magazines and newspapers have always been typeset with single spaces? And then, in the 1980s, we had DTP and The Mac is Not a Typewriter, and this fact became more widely known?
My favourite bit of computer typesetting pedantry--also gleaned from the Williams book--is correct usage of the em-dash. On a Mac, this requires a finger-twisting (but satisfying) Alt-Shift-hyphen key combo. I haven't yet learned to care about the en-dash, though.
The day I care about en-dashes and em-dashes is the day I have lived too long.
349: Based on his comments earlier this week, I just knew that something like that had to be true.
I see that the Unfogged web site blog code thingy shows its disdain for the em-dash by rendering it as two hyphens, so you're in the right place.
I have determined that y'all just suck at Revolution.
It's not my revolution. Seems like you're not so good at it either though.
re: 351
Two points of criticism raised about the first submission of my doctoral thesis were i) my use of em-dashes and en-dashes, and ii) the non-use of the Oxford comma. Some people care a lot about this shit.
355: I always saw it as analogous (sorry) to the "no brown M&Ms" rider.
355. Well, yes, the world is unfortunately full of Really Sad Bastards, and if I had advance warning that an RSB who might influence my life held Views on en-dashes, then I'd probably try to comply with them on that occasion, for my own convenience and because I honestly couldn't care less.
On the other hand, for the rest of my life I'd take pleasure, every time I heard or saw a reference to RSB's opinions on anything, in telling everybody who would listen, "Well, of course he says he supports X on this important issue, but if he found out that X didn't use the Oxford comma, he'd change his mind quick enough.
(I think I'm safe to assume RSB is male here.)
re: 356
TBH, there was a bit of that about it. He was (legitimately) pissed off about something else in the thesis, so went to town on the little errors which were more evidence (for him) of my failings, in much the same way that the brown M&Ms show that someone or other didn't read the rider properly.
Several of the things he went to town on were, however, things on which opinions differ (format of footnotes, certain punctuation uses, etc) and where I'd checked in advance there were no formal guidelines, and gone with my own standard usage. Some of the others were things where the standard LaTeX output differs from MS Word. On those he was just being a prick.
The day I care about en-dashes and em-dashes is the day I have lived too long I become a journalist.
There are only past and present tense. English has no future tense
"There is no present and no future
At least not in Wales"
RS Thomas.
358: fair enough; my attitude is that if I spot little typos it's evidence that the piece hasn't been reread carefully, and so there are probably factual as well as typographical errors in there that haven't been spotted either.
But there are people who just use errors or even - in this case - usage differences as excuses to be annoying.
I am probably one of them, from time to time. ("NO YOU CANNOT SAY THIS IS 'ONGOING', THAT IS A HORRIBLE WORD")
re: 361.1 Would be right. There were errors. In retrospect it needed a couple of days of solid re-proofing before it was submitted and I didn't have them and that was nobody's fault really but mine. That wasn't the worst fault, either, there were faults of substance.
However, some of the nitpicking was just bullshit.
Anyone that cares about the difference between en- and em-dashes isn't worth the time of day it would take to un-ass their worldview.
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http://bloodandtreasure.typepad.com/blood_treasure/2011/02/all-they-need-is-a-polish-legion.html
>
Anyone that cares about the difference between en- and em-dashes isn't worth the time of day it would take to un-ass their worldview.
Or, you know, is working to a style guide.
re: 365
Yeah, or if there are formal guidelines in a particular context it makes sense to stick to them. Generalizing from one's own preferences to some 'rule', not so much.
Or, you know, is working to a style guide.
The existence of "style guides" is a mere codification of the weeniehood of those people. Just because they wrote down a bunch of their drivel and nobody else cared enough to gainsay them during the process (likely because the tedious gits had previously browbeat them with Robert's Rules of Order or something), that doesn't make them less ridiculous.
Bob, you're being diverted from the class struggle by the seductions of identity politics, the means by which the boss class hijacks genuinely revolutionary impulses for its own sinister goals. You are a right deviationist! I move that Bob be severely criticised by the masses. The correct form is of course "comrade", or at least "citizen".
Also, style guides. I am much in favour. Without one, editing is simply a tiresome exercise of whim. And the very fact that you put in the effort to create one shows that you mean it.
I have determined that y'all just suck at Revolution.
OK, who leaked the Dave & Buster's meetup video?
Just because they wrote down a bunch of their drivel ...Just because they wrote down a bunch of their drivel ...
So what about ASCII, say? I suppose you could argue that style guides aren't comparable with ASCII or with the output of organisations like DIN, since styles in printed text aren't a matter of getting complex things to work right. I don't know: you'd have to ask the people who put newspapers together.
But let's concede that nothing will break no matter which symbols are typed where. Even then, I think there's something to be said for having some choices decided on in advance. I would love to be able to buy my colleagues copies of 'The Mac is Not ...' and never have to point out typesetting glitches ever again. The same way I don't want my colleagues to have food stains on the clothes they wear to a client meeting. The same way--I imagine--that the neater journalists at the Guardian are thoroughly sick of having their paper referred to as 'The Grauniad'. OK, enough worthiness: I'll stop. I had a major deadline recently, and there was proofing.
Also, style guides. I am much in favour. Without one, editing is simply a tiresome exercise of whim.
Without one, editing is an endless process of adjudicating between the conflicting, arbitrary whims of the entire roster of people who review the document. Do that once and you'll fall to your knees and thank God for style guides.
319
... I have determined that y'all just suck at Revolution.
In fact one might conclude they don't actually want a revolution, they are just posing.
Many people, many of them librarians themselves, seem to think the cataloging rules in AACR2 are evidence of some sort of overly-detailed, obsessive compulsiveness on the part of librarians. There's some truth to that, but a lot of the specific details people point to as evidence are punctuation and style details - placement of full stops and dashes and commas and such. It's kind of surprising how few people seem to have encountered style guides and copy editors. I've never had to write to a style at that detailed level, but I've at least come across the AP rules and I'm aware that the Chicago manual says things I've heretofore ignored.
As Kiyomori
Sick with beauty and power
Inflamed the Genpei
So I rhyme the blackened heath
And sing with the forlorn cranes
Plum blossoms of spring
And golden fields of summer
Forgotten in fall
And regretted in winter
Cherry blossoms say:Fuck you, clown.
The existence of "style guides" is a mere codification of the weeniehood of those people.
No, it's a codification (admittedly often an arbitrary one) of the fact that most journalistic publications like to be internally consistent in things like spelling and punctuation, or for that matter prose style. Now that isn't to say that style guides can't be weeniesque. My previous employer's style guide had a bizarre aversion to specific semi-cliche metaphors - we weren't allowed to use "doldrums" unless we were talking about equatorial ocean regions, or "leeway" unless we were talking about ships passing each other.
Note that when I say "style guide" I mean the sort of thing the Grauniad or the NYT makes its writers/editors adhere to, not something like Strunk & White or Fowler's. Those are indeed prescriptive abominations driven by weeniehood.
internally consistent
Exactly correct. All the different transliterations of Gaddafi, Qaddafi, Kaddafi, Kadhafi, Gadhafi, Qadhafi are currently driving me mildly up a wall. EVERYONE JUST DECIDE ON ONE; I DON'T CARE WHICH ONE.
YOU THINK YOU HAVE IT BAD?
I'm definately with the conservatives on calling things mumbai and roma and is just way too precious
wasn't it the ACLU founder who said work for the worst people so you can take their money? I think the only moral choice is that. doing 'good' like helping sick people or whatever is bullshit.
Like a bad sentimentalitarianism version of liberalism.
Perhaps it just just my USian igrnoance of what other fuckers are doing, but i can't imagine a single thing other people could do that i would care about, in a 'offended' way.
also they make 90 proof coconut rum now, wow
YOU THINK YOU HAVE IT BAD?
What about Muammar Gaddafi?
Forty-two short years
He's getting old and groggy
I don't think it's very fair
Cold, sharp, low
But it's all relative, my friends
No one rules forever.
also they make 90 proof coconut rum now, wow
You don't say.
hwaen i first had it i didn't get that you can't easily go fat->ETOH
best way to have sugarcane c4 save the planet
hwaen
A compelling archaic neologism.
my archneoglosim temporaneously agress
