StarDestroyer.Net BBS

From http://www.youaredumb.net/

Memo to "The Talifan": BE BETTER... WAIT, YOU'RE HOPELESS.

This is a special, post-hoc, emergency edition of Be A Better Nerd, because at no point in the previous instances of the series did one important question get answered - at what point is a nerd unsalvageable? At what point are they so insane, so caught up, so trapped in a web of their own minutiae that they aren't just stalking their hobby, they've kidnapped their hobby, tied it up in their basement, and force it to watch while they masturbate to the Star Wars Holiday Special?

At what point are nerds simply incapable of being better nerds? At what point are exile, euthanasia, or chemical castration the only alternatives to a lifetime of sad nerditry? Here's a hint - when they decide they need to dispute the number of clones in the Clone Army. In Star Wars.

Of course, it's "sad nerditry" to argue against Karen Traviss' numbers for the size of the clone army in Star Wars, but it's not "sad nerditry" to raise counter-arguments against those arguments, as our inadvertently self-contradictory moron friend is about to do:

The official number, which for the record is a factoid I now bitterly resent knowing at all, is "about three million". Which, to the very tiny extent that I can force myself for the purposes of this column to give a shit, seems like a lot. I mean, that's three times the number of people who showed up at the Million Man March, and that was pretty damn big.

Wow, it's so big ... it's ... like ... a small fraction of the Soviet Red Army. Donald Rumsfeld is being lambasted as an idiot and a liar for saying that he could hold the small country of Iraq with a hundred thousand men, but that's a vastly higher troop-to-civilian ratio than anyone could achieve with 3 million men and just one planet, never mind thousands or millions. If the Republic had to occupy just one planet, they'd need more than 3 million men right there. And what about all these "Outer Rim Sieges" we heard about? How the fuck do you conduct sieges without large blockading forces? But I guess current events such as the Iraq War are also too "nerdy" for our friend to care about.

This number was revealed in an article in Star Wars Insider, a fact which I hope prompted the same reaction in all of you that it did in me, that being "Holy shit, they're still publishing Star Wars Insider?" I mean, I know it's heavily subsidized by the sale of plastic Wookiees, but still. It was revealed by author Karen Traviss*, who writes Star Wars books. Hey, we all gotta make rent somehow. I'm told she also writes real books. I can't tell you whether they're any good or not, because to be perfectly honest, the last time I looked over the SF section at Barnes and Noble, the visual assault of three thousand uniformly awful covers** gave me a mild seizure, and as a protective measure, my doctors have warned me to stay at least 500 feet from midlist paperback scifi at all times.

Notice how he spends most of his effort trying to pretend he's way too cool to be interested in sci-fi literature, even though he obviously must be interested if he even knows this argument is taking place. My own wife has no idea that this argument is taking place, for fuck's sake. If you mentioned "Karen Traviss" to her, she'd probably ask if I'm talking about one of the other parents at my son's private school.

There is a subset of Star Wars fandom that thinks that all those movies and books about the banking space-plane flown by a light-sword-wielding magician whose dad was friends with a floppy-eared racial stereotype should be treated as "hard SF". Hard SF meaning grounded firmly in science and extrapolated technology and military reality. This is, on the face of it, patently insane. Because at the end of the day, making a movie is a collaborative effort. The product of thousands of tired, time-crunched people with a wide variety of motives. And while some of those motives may be the art of meticulous world-building, others of those motives are getting this fucking shot rendered because they haven't eaten in two days, slept in three, or kissed their wives in seven.

Under such circumstances, the center cannot hold. The numbers cannot, will not, ever add up. And every bit of creative mathsturbation nerds use to fill in the gaps is one more step down the road to Irrevocable Madness, and the aforementioned euthanasia.

For someone who claims to not care at all about sci-fi, he obviously cares enough to put forth arguments about the epistemology of visual sci-fi. But that kind of self-contradiction obviously doesn't bother him; this is a geek in denial. What's more tiresome is his idiotic notion that imperfections in the creative process mean that you can say anything you want. This would be like me saying that the Incredible Hulk is three inches tall because his size wasn't precisely consistent between shots, and the FX artists probably had marital problems on their minds. Never mind the fact that you don't need to freeze-frame movies in order to know that you can't possibly fight a war on a galactic scale with an army smaller than Stalin had. Anybody with military knowledge could walk into this argument and know that this "3 million soldiers" number makes no sense without even having seen all six Star Wars movies.

These nerds felt that three million was a ridiculous low-ball number for the amount of clone troopers required to perform the tasks hinted at by the Star Wars prequels. They may be correct. I don't know. I'm not the one stillframing DVDs and counting white suits. Which is bad, but not irredeemably bad. How several of them dealt with the results of their rectal Fort Knox of anal-retentiveness is what makes them the worst nerds ever. And I do not pass this judgment lightly. I've seen a lot of nerds in my life. Been a lot, too. But the level these feebs have achieved...

But that is a story for another day. And that other day is tomorrow.

What's more indicative of a problem? Attacking an author for writing a stupid number into her book, or attacking people for being "nerds" because they don't like that number? And doesn't he have a better criticism than "nerds"? How sophomoric is that? His entire article is nothing more than a rant that nobody with a life should give a damn about this entire argument ... mixed in with his attempt to argue the numbers himself. How dense is this clown, anyway?

In one of the other threads on this topic, did I not say that these morons see a number like 3 million and think its "big" even though in SW, "big" isn't good enough when you need "really fucking huge"?

The fact that he even brings up the old "Jar-jar is racist" bullshit from 7 years ago proves that a) he is just looking to make trouble and b) he is an idiot.

Who cares about what such sites says anyway? Thinking three million soldiers "seems like a lot" in a society which has one million major populated planets and fifty million colonies etc. seems more than dumb to me. However, I thought this was quite amusing from the YAD forum:

You Are Dumb Forum wrote:Thirteen referrals from stardestroyer.net, where this particular breed of nerds nests. I haven't found the specific linking post yet - they've got search tied to registration, and I'm debating whether I want to take that extra step.

+http://www.youaredumb.net/forum/discuss ... &msg=739.1

EDIT: He mentions the SW Insider as if it's the only source of the three million figure, but it has also appeared in Triple Zero and in the shortstory Odds.

Mange the Swede wrote:Who cares about what such sites says anyway?

Ordinarily I wouldn't give a shit, but I was just shocked at the bald-faced self-contradiction inherent in someone who not only knows about the Karen Traviss debate but actually voices an opinion on flaws in our epistemological method, yet whose biggest criticism is that only a "nerd" would care.

Thinking three million soldiers "seems like a lot" in a society which has one million major populated planets and fifty million colonies etc. seems more than dumb to me. However, I thought this was quite amusing from the YAD forum:

You Are Dumb Forum wrote:Thirteen referrals from stardestroyer.net, where this particular breed of nerds nests. I haven't found the specific linking post yet - they've got search tied to registration, and I'm debating whether I want to take that extra step.

+http://www.youaredumb.net/forum/discuss ... &msg=739.1

The really funny thing is that he's already tried to register, which is the only reason I discovered his site. Not only does he care about this debate that he claims not to care about, but he was willing to register on this forum that he also claims to not care about, so that he could see what the "nerds" (who he doesn't care about) are saying about him. He's in the admin activation queue right now, but I'm curious what he'll say. For someone whose website name is devoted to attacking other peoples' intelligence, he doesn't have particularly intelligent things to say.

Seriously, this guy needs to have "Geek in Denial" tattooed on his forehead.

The blog writer is a nerd who thinks he's cool because he has a blog and makes fun of people who like things he doesn't.

Actually, he may be more of an asshole than a nerd.

So, he's never heard about WWII armies and their sizes, then? How does he expect 3 mill. to fight on thousands of Earth-like planets, again?

Under such circumstances, the center cannot hold. The numbers cannot, will not, ever add up.

Actually, taking 5 minutes off to use a calculator before writing the clone-article would yield better numbers than what LFL did. Then again, 5 minutes "seems like a lot". :P

VT-16 wrote:So, he's never heard about WWII armies and their sizes, then? How does he expect 3 mill. to fight on thousands of Earth-like planets, again?

Please, you believe they ever think that far?

Given the bitch they are sucking up to, they presume the theory of "Enough tech can overcome any boundry!". These are people if you cited how many men and women the earth can come up with as viable soldiers, they would scream you're just making numbers up.

These are people if you cited how many men and women the earth can come up with as viable soldiers, they would scream you're just making numbers up.

Yeah, I need to do that one day to someone who'd give that kind of response. :P

Just some quick clarifications before you all have aneurysms:

1) You Are Dumb is not technically a blog - it's a web-column.

2) I registered with sd.net for the same reason I've registered with dozens of other UBB-based fora over the past three years - they don't pass referrers correctly and inexplicably lock their search feature off to non-members. And I'm always curious to see what people say about my column.

3) I'm not here to debate the column, and even if I were, I'd certainly not be here to debate the same "contradictions" based entirely on absolutist taxonomy, mistaken extrapolations, and projection I've seen dozens of times before. This is your playground, I'm just observing out of enlightened self-interest.

Bryan Lambert wrote:3) I'm not here to debate the column, and even if I were, I'd certainly not be here to debate the same "contradictions" based entirely on absolutist taxonomy, mistaken extrapolations, and projection I've seen dozens of times before. This is your playground, I'm just observing out of enlightened self-interest.

What's the matter, don't you dare to discuss things outside of your little sandbox where you can play with UNLIMITED POWAH?

Bryan Lambert wrote:Just some quick clarifications before you all have aneurysms:

1) You Are Dumb is not technically a blog - it's a web-column.

You're obviously a nerd. Only a nerd would care about the difference between a blog and a web column. I'm not even sure what the difference is myself. This clearly means that you are suffering from hopeless nerditry.

2) I registered with sd.net for the same reason I've registered with dozens of other UBB-based fora over the past three years - they don't pass referrers correctly and inexplicably lock their search feature off to non-members. And I'm always curious to see what people say about my column.

You have to go around to "dozens" of other forums because you're so egotistical that you need to see what people are saying about you no matter where they are? Sort of like the way you stare your weblogs like a hawk and track down referers? Sounds like some pretty damned nerdy behaviour to me. Man, what a pathetic nerd you are.

3) I'm not here to debate the column, and even if I were, I'd certainly not be here to debate the same "contradictions" based entirely on absolutist taxonomy, mistaken extrapolations, and projection I've seen dozens of times before. This is your playground, I'm just observing out of enlightened self-interest.

So you've made a point of examining "dozens" of debates on this subject before? This is clearly a case of unsalvageable nerditry.

What's the matter, don't you dare to discuss things outside of your little sandbox where you can play with UNLIMITED POWAH?

No, just trying to be polite, honestly. The issue of mod power is irrelevant. I have the same power to end the discussion on either board - the only difference is the method used. My momma always taught me it was bad form to pick fights with people on their own message board.

The YAD forum's sole purpose is to discuss the contents of the YAD website, so any discussion or argument would be on-topic over there.

Bryan Lambert wrote:

What's the matter, don't you dare to discuss things outside of your little sandbox where you can play with UNLIMITED POWAH?

No, just trying to be polite, honestly. The issue of mod power is irrelevant. I have the same power to end the discussion on either board - the only difference is the method used. My momma always taught me it was bad form to pick fights with people on their own message board.

But your momma told you it was OK to insult people from afar, right? Don't be a chickenshit.

The YAD forum's sole purpose is to discuss the contents of the YAD website, so any discussion or argument would be on-topic over there.

And I say it's on-topic here as well: a pronouncement which I am quite qualified to make since I own the place.

You Are Dumb is not technically a blog - it's a web-column.

Guess that explains the lack of comment-fields for people to use. Smart. ;P

I'm not here to debate the column, and even if I were, I'd certainly not be here to debate the same "contradictions" based entirely on absolutist taxonomy, mistaken extrapolations, and projection I've seen dozens of times before.

There's no extrapolation necessary from the many SW sources that don't comply with the "3 million" idea. Inside the Worlds of AOTC even mentioned millions of clone divisions being combat-evaluated at the start of the CW. (A division being a unit consisting of at least 10,000 to 20,000 troops).

Now, I read that you thought "3 million" sounded big and impressive. Know what's more impressive than that? 13 million. And that was just one side of a planetary war. The Germans in World War II, in fact.
Starting to see why it's a bit silly to take 1/4 of that and apply it to thousands of planets?

The best part so far, has been one particular author pushing this issue even further, and focusing all retro-connecting "fixes" around this one number, when she could easily have avoided picking sides and kept the "magical" aspect instead, by having things be undefined. Room enough for plenty of stories without getting bogged down in total numbers. She didn't, and didn't accept any kind of criticism whatsoever (I see you mentioned her other non-SW works, she's the same when it comes to criticism of anything she does, really.)

Which is why things eventually escalated, and we're more bemused by her antics than anything else. There's no need for a total of anything, but staying at least moderately consistent should be a demand for any fiction. If you're gonna play around in a galaxy with millions of planets, and fight a "galactic war", you need to be consistent. 3 clones per planet, isn't.

But your momma told you it was OK to insult people from afar, right? Don't be a chickenshit.

My momma didn't actually discuss message board etiquette with me, but I would point out that standing outside an insane asylum and saying "those people are crazy", and going inside the asylum and saying to those people, "Ha ha, you're crazy". One is a bit insensitive, the other is gratuitously cruel.

And I say it's on-topic here as well: a pronouncement which I am quite qualified to make since I own the place.

That's fair. What specific objections to the column do you have? Keeping in mind that it is part one of two, and that part two will be appearing tomorrow?

*runs in, grabs popcorn, sits back and rests feet on the table*

Please, continue.










... Some of you might decry the above as a violation of PR5 and/or PR12, but I counter with the motto on the top of the board's page; 'Get your fill of sci-fi, science, and mockery of stupid people.' So anyone short of The Lord God himself telling me this post was worthless, can go stuff themselves. Which is convenient for me, since I'm an athiest.

Bryan Lambert wrote:My momma didn't actually discuss message board etiquette with me, but I would point out that standing outside an insane asylum and saying "those people are crazy", and going inside the asylum and saying to those people, "Ha ha, you're crazy". One is a bit insensitive, the other is gratuitously cruel.

And both statements are equally stupid if you can't or won't back them up.

And I say it's on-topic here as well: a pronouncement which I am quite qualified to make since I own the place.

That's fair. What specific objections to the column do you have? Keeping in mind that it is part one of two, and that part two will be appearing tomorrow?

Did you not learn how to read in school? Is there some problem with your eyesight that prevents you from reading the very first post in this thread? Is English not your first language?

You can try to retcon or augment your article with more bullshit tomorrow if you like, but that's no substitute for defending your claims or explaining your hypocrisy when challenged. It seems you have just enough time to say that you won't be answering criticisms here.

There's no extrapolation necessary from the many SW sources that don't comply with the "3 million" idea. Inside the Worlds of AOTC even mentioned millions of clone divisions being combat-evaluated at the start of the CW. (A division being a unit consisting of at least 10,000 to 20,000 troops).

I wasn't referring to the number. I don't care about the number. The number is not the topic of the column I wrote. The extrapolation I'm referring to is people in this thread reading the column, or quotes from the column, and then extrapolating things from it about me, my points, my nature, and my motives that weren't said. Case in point, when you say:

Now, I read that you thought "3 million" was sounded big and impressive.

Maybe, instead, you should read what I wrote, and argue against that, because that's something I can actually address. I can't address something you think you read that I thought.

Guess that explains the lack of comment-fields for people to use. Smart. ;P

I thought emoticons were banned on this board? Anyway, that actually is one of the reasons. There's place to discuss the columns, but attaching the discussion of a work to the work itself is one of the aspects of "blogging" that I can't stand, so when I built my place, I built it the way I liked it. Not to shield myself from criticism, but to separate the criticism of the work from the work itself.

Bryan Lambert wrote:I wasn't referring to the number. I don't care about the number. The number is not the topic of the column I wrote. The extrapolation I'm referring to is people in this thread reading the column, or quotes from the column, and then extrapolating things from it about me, my points, my nature, and my motives that weren't said.

It's interesting how you pick and choose what you want to respond to.

Bryan Lambert wrote:
My momma didn't actually discuss message board etiquette with me, but I would point out that standing outside an insane asylum and saying "those people are crazy", and going inside the asylum and saying to those people, "Ha ha, you're crazy". One is a bit insensitive, the other is gratuitously cruel.

And both statements are equally stupid if you can't or won't back them up.

We weren't discussing my willingness to back up statements. We were discussing etiquette. Now that I have permission from the owner of the forum to discuss my column here, I'm willing to do so for a bit.

Let's keep in mind that I'm in the belly of the beast here, one against many, and I want to be thorough.

Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 3:51 pm Post subject:

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Bryan Lambert wrote:
My momma didn't actually discuss message board etiquette with me, but I would point out that standing outside an insane asylum and saying "those people are crazy", and going inside the asylum and saying to those people, "Ha ha, you're crazy". One is a bit insensitive, the other is gratuitously cruel.

And both statements are equally stupid if you can't or won't back them up.
Quote:
Quote:
And I say it's on-topic here as well: a pronouncement which I am quite qualified to make since I own the place.

That's fair. What specific objections to the column do you have? Keeping in mind that it is part one of two, and that part two will be appearing tomorrow?

Did you not learn how to read in school? Is there some problem with your eyesight that prevents you from reading the very first post in this thread? Is English not your first language?

No need to be hostile. If you stand by your first post, that's all you need to say. I'll address your points in a separate reply shortly.

You can try to retcon or augment your article with more bullshit tomorrow if you like, but that's no substitute for defending your claims or explaining your hypocrisy when challenged.

It's a two-part column, not an ongoing series. Both parts were written at the same time. The total length meant it had to be split up.

And I wasn't exactly "challenged". The column was complained about in a place I wouldn't have seen if I hadn't stumbled across it. Which is perfectly acceptable, but I don't think it's fair to accuse me of "not defending" or "not explaining" when (a) I came to you, you didn't come to me, and (b) I'm in the process of explaining and defending, despite the fact that you in particular are just yelling loudly and not listening.

The official number, which for the record is a factoid I now bitterly resent knowing at all, is "about three million". Which, to the very tiny extent that I can force myself for the purposes of this column to give a shit, seems like a lot. I mean, that's three times the number of people who showed up at the Million Man March, and that was pretty damn big.

Those are your words, yes? I also like how you skip right across the rest of my post (which was reasonably diplomatic), just to strawman these few points. Notice I partially agree with you about having numbers and absolutes in something like this?

Ultimately, to people who pay for these stories, and have some numerical perspective, these details just reflect badly upon the authors and their poorly researched works. If you're going to make a sci-fi fantasy epic in a galaxy and pretend to know something about warfare, putting a ridiculously low number on it and recreate an entire conflict into nothing but "special operations" is downright insulting. An author has to handle criticism, but clearly this one didn't. Anally-retentive fans or not. (You may not have noticed, but there are some military personnel posting on this site, so it might be more than a little biased on such matters, but that still shouldn't excuse poor executions of a story.)

Bryan Lambert wrote:blah blah blah I'll get around to answering points when I have time blah blah blah

And yet again, you make a long post which addresses precisely none of the criticisms. For someone who has no time right now to address criticisms, you sure have a lot of time to defend your failure to address criticisms.

It's interesting how you pick and choose what you want to respond to.

We all do. You just did. You picked and chose one paragraph of my response to an entirely different poster, and responded to it in order to point out that I pick and choose what to respond to.

And you do this while I'm in the middle of typing a long post explaining that I'll get to your objections as soon as I'm able.

This is not how positive and negative reinforcement is supposed to work, you know.

Bryan Lambert wrote:

It's interesting how you pick and choose what you want to respond to.

We all do. You just did.

How so, retard? You haven't addressed a single point in my criticism at the top of this thread.

You picked and chose one paragraph of my response to an entirely different poster, and responded to it in order to point out that I pick and choose what to respond to.

Correct, because you are arguing with him, and ignoring me.

And you do this while I'm in the middle of typing a long post explaining that I'll get to your objections as soon as I'm able.

That's exactly the problem, asshole. You post endlessly about how you have no time to address criticisms.

This is not how positive and negative reinforcement is supposed to work, you know.

I'm not trying to train a dog; I expect you to act like a man. If you aren't up to that challenge, let me know.

I'll jump in here as one of the former military people who frequent this board. It has been pointed out many times how 3 million is ridiculously low compared to even a continental conflict on one planet (ours) that took place between 1939 and 1945 and was analoguous to the SW Clone Wars in that both sides had a similar level of technology at their disposal. Proposing that only fraction of that number could fight a war on a galactic scale is utterly stupid, and anyone supporting such stupidity can be labeled a moron outright.

For fuck's sake, military experts told Donald Rumsfeld that he would need a minimum of 250,000 troops in Iraq, a single country, and that the US should send half a million. A single, mid-sized country. So for a conflict millions of times larger than that, only ten times as much as what was considered suitable for a conflict in one country where there was a colossal disparity of capability in one side's favor?

So Lambert, do you have any fucking idea of what you're even talking about when you address this numbers argument? I'm inclined to say that you don't have the faintest fucking clue.

And that's completely ignoring your massive hypocrisy about lambasting us as über-nerds when you go to great lengths to demonstrate that you are as much or far more of a nerd than the majority of the people who frequent this place.

Edi