But that’s an excellent point you make–I use “Facebook” and “Mark Zuckerberg” as my examples mostly because they’re the one everyone knows, but that usually gets the counters of “Mark Zuckerberg is just an idiot” or “Facebook isn’t that bad”. The next step–that such technology in the hands of a government or even someone as simple as a teacher, and can easily be used for abuse–is one a lot of people don’t want to see.

My use of the word “value” was meant in more direct financial terms. We have an emotional value to creativity–being in a band will get you laid, making a game will be something to talk about at parties, writing a novel gives you an unparalleled sense of accomplishment–but the internet is in a state of systematically dismantling every single creative industry humanity has made. It’s even more difficult than ever to make a living through one’s artistic creations–when I say we don’t value creativity, I mean we don’t put money behind it. This is *my* topic I’m working on a piece on–the whole “Rise of the Zinesters” aesthetic is great for getting a lot of new blood into the scene, but no one knows how to get the old guard paid, and the realization that *this is a huge fucking problem* doesn’t seem to have clicked.

Now THAT might be an interesting letters series–someone new to Mass Effect going through the story for the first time vs. someone who knows where it’s all going. It would also make an interesting LOST podcast. Everyone knows that “someone new and someone old look at something” is a great formula for Star Trek podcasts already!

My generation of grumpy old men have more right simply because we’re better. I mean I thought that part would be obvious!

There is something troubling about the dismantling of institutions and regulations that were put in place for a reason. Separation of church and state. Checking of facts vs reporting of rumours (the latter is currently illegal within financial firms, by the way). Right to privacy. Sometimes people think they don’t need protection because they’ve been safe – because they’ve been living under that protection, which is precisely why Christine Love’s “Don’t Take It Personally” got me so riled.

@matt w
Ah, so QPP was Twine after all. I did try to find out, but no proof jumped out at me.

I do know who Stephen Colbert is! Regardless of my own interpretation of Polymorphous Perversity, a lot of folks found its implications offensive and I’ve talked to Nicolau Chaud over e-mail about that. Even those of us who have their head screwed on right can occasionally put our foot in it without realising. The problem is the audience often cannot distinguish between intent and mistake and even then the mistake is sometimes cast as subconscious intent, via gender, racial or privileged bias. It’s one of the reasons I don’t engage in these hot button topics if I can help it. There’s an interesting interview coming up in a few weeks that touches on some of these points.

@Jonas
What I didn’t explore is whether these incidents such as with Frank Miller, Orson Scott Card and yourself (uh, not that I wished to chuck into that particular grouping) had any material impact. Boycotts don’t tend to be effective so Shadow Complex probably sold pretty much the same. Most of the grief you had was with developers rather than players – and there was likely a lot of negative attention from people who never played your games before.

@mwm
That was a great response to Richard. If only you had dropped in something like “what makes your generation of grumpy old men any more right than the previous ones?” And we would have laughed and laughed.

I am more on Richard’s side regarding a culture that does not *value* creativity but I have way more thoughts on this which will emerge from their chrysalis later this year, giving everybody a new comments page on which to chatter about it.

I’m not sure what I would do if the comments started going bad. It’s a future I don’t like to think about. Maybe I’ll threaten everyone with embedded ADVERTS.

(No vegetarian commentators will want to be associated with Grade A Beef.)

I think, in addition to wannabees, the terms hipster and hedonist would be pretty helpful. Hipsters are essentially ‘remix culture’ turned to 11. Where wannabees want to be ‘the guy’, hipsters want to be the ‘cool guy’ in the room.

“The trends that disturb me…towards a culture which does not value creativity, towards one which does not support its artists…” I had to read that one a couple times. I’ve been taught (by the better teachers) that society is undergoing a shift *favoring* creativity. So, the idea that society doesn’t value creativity is a hard sell to me (it’s certainly half-assed either way; the school system loves perpetuating sterility in ideas, while pretending to embrace thought). Creative individuals are becoming more *important*, but becoming less *rewarded*, it seems to me. You have a hundred makers trying to make the same thing; they all make it, but only the very ‘best’ thing gets its owner fed.

As for *this* -and I’m assuming you have a fairly positive view of our conversation- well: Yeah, Electron Dance is pretty grade A beef. There’s a chance that the conversations start to deteriorate as the plebeians start to find their way here, but that’s a while off.

I think it’s rare to have a place this good about having intellectual conversations, but I don’t think it’s too difficult to find a good community. I was part of a long-term Minecraft community. Because the ‘barrier to entry’ was a mild interest in an incredibly popular game, the community was composed of a wide cross-section of humanity. Americans, Brit’s, Australians, Kazakhstanians; Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, Libertarians; men, women; young, less-young, less-young, old. Most everyone had a good attitude, and could take a joke. And, there were enough people in college that there were several philosophical conversations in -of all things- the public server.

Facebook is for narcissists. Twitter is for people who think they have something important to say. Tumblr is for trashy pictures. But, the forums? The forums are for *everything*.

If you want an example, go to 4chan. You’ll find ‘Science & Math’ right next to ‘sports’. A few steps over, you’ll avoid the ‘Sexy Beautiful Women’ board.

But, by all means, to your work; that takes priority.

Generational terms probably aren’t the appropriate ones. The trends that disturb me–towards the dissolution of privacy, towards a culture which does not value creativity, towards one which does not support its artists–that is more of an expression of a certain tech philosophy–one which like most tech-related things is embraced more readily by younger than older people but which was set in place by people who *were* older.

Cause, yeah, I’m remembering an old cliche about a bestselling writer–one who’s honed his talent for years and years and has deservedly received fame and critical attention, who through skill and determination has risen to the top of his profession–returning home, and his dad’s got a funny story published in Reader’s Digest and is crowing about how he’s a “published writer, just like you, Son”. It’s been in sitcoms and books–that feeling of ambivalence. A *jealousy* almost. Equating the two gives no reason to put effort, particularly if crap is gonna get praised higher. Ubiquitous praise leads to the bottom.

Does that sound like a more logical formulation? I can’t really think of any non-condescending ways of praising your criticism of my comment, but I’ll just say that *this* is more like what I remember the Internet being like back in middle school. I feel like I’m half-assing my replies here because they’re kind of in line with a piece I’m writing (which I am now going to revise to take out any generational rhetoric, because god damn that *was* stupid), so I guess I just gotta shut up and finish writing it.

(Please don’t think poorly of me for my last post. I’m not outraged or anything; you just hit a sore spot [arbitrary divisions]. Complaining about ‘them youngun’s and their rap music’ is about as worthy of your time and thought as telling everyone you know about Dick Cheney and his secret world government.)