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humanodon  ·  1225 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Hubski Virtual Meetup No. 4

This was really fun! In many ways, this was reaffirming as well. I'm glad that though I've been mostly absent, hubski persists in such a great way. Thanks c_hawkthorne for doing the thing!

humanodon  ·  3424 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Soylent for lunch is ok.

Do it!

humanodon  ·  3434 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Goodbye Hubski, Thanks for Trying

To me, this post and posts like it seem to be coming from users who joined in "The Wave of Mute-ilation" (or whatever we're calling that). Anyway, lots of focus on cliques and powerusers. In any conversation, certain voices will dominate. Bein considerate to the less vociferous can only help so much. In other words, I think people need to stop assuming that their voice will be valued as much as any other on the internet, because that's not how human interactions work. Charisma matters everywhere and no, "goodbye cruel world" posts are not a solution.

By the way, this DST shit . . . (yes, I am almost 30) this means I have to wake up earlier, right?

humanodon  ·  3536 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: "You're Doing Great Work, It's Just...You Aren't Trying Very Hard."

    The result was an "efficiency expert" following me around for a week, writing down notes about everything I did. She kept asking me how I knew to do what I did. I pretty much had to say "folklore and experience" or variations on that theme. Day 3 she started to cry at rare moments. Day 4 she went deadpan. Day 5 she stared off into space.

That had me laughing! Oh, I would have loved that.

1. Find a topic you'd like to talk about and either pose a question or contribute to an ongoing discussion

2. Remember that the person you are replying to or who is replying to you is a human being. Try talking to them as one.

3. Recognize that hubski is NOT reddit or any other internet forum. Each place has its own flavor, largely because of the people that comprise it. Preferring one site's culture does not mean that another site should be like any other one's.

4. Recognize that if people are saying that you are being shitty, you are probably being shitty. And yeah, I have to remind myself of this one too.

humanodon  ·  3547 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Is Hubski An Echo Chamber?

    believing in astrology is just an indication of being uneducated

Now, I don't believe in astrology but I do know some very well educated people who do. While I think I know where you're coming from, to me this statement is as dismissive as saying that someone is "crazy". I astrology extremely unlikely to be true? Of course. But does it provide a comforting framework from which to view the universe? Absolutely. Personally, while I find many people's beliefs to be absurd, ridiculous or downright silly, I can't go around presuming that education will persuade them to believe otherwise or presume that because I don't believe in these things that I'm better, more intelligent or more educated than they are.

humanodon  ·  3598 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Who is in?

You're living with outlaws. It's ok, you can say it.

humanodon  ·  3666 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Writers of Hubski: How do you get over your crushing disdain for your own work?

Have you ever taken a writing workshop? A lot of what workshopping is, is to help people figure out why they write the way that they do and to get perspectives on how other people who write view the work and why. This format is typically brutal and can be quite good at toughening people up for when they do begin submitting work.

One of my mentors died three days ago and he was considered by some to be one of the greatest living American poets. In his view though, he was an utter failure and utterly unimportant as a poet. In fact, I (and I'm not alone in this, I'm sure) think he might have garnered much more critical acclaim had he been less prickly and less interested in pushing his writing as far as he possibly could. I mean, as far as I could see, he pissed everyone off at one point or another.

I bring him up for two other reasons. One is that he was brutal and unflinching in his criticism of poetry and instilled in all his workshop students (that made it through his classes) that this particular brutality and desire to push work as far as it will go even if it's being praised, is a necessity. This personal critical eye must also be tempered with the willingness to get the shit beat out of oneself. Sure, your friends may like it, but at the end of the day they might not know what "good" is. You're right to question your work, but you're wrong to let it cripple you.

The other reason I bring him up is because he kept a blog of some of the rejection letters he received over his long career, which you can find here.

The first poem I felt pretty good about that I sent out to publication was accepted in The Emerson Review, which is a difficult market to get published in even for Emerson students. My thesis advisor was the editor of Ploughshares and he told me he thought my stuff was pretty great. But the best compliment I ever got in regard to my work was from that mentor I mentioned, Bill Knott, who said he thought I was talented. Not pretty good, not great, just talented. It was one of three compliments he gave out that semester, the others being about how one girl was good at writing abortion poems and how another guy would be a good poet if anyone (including the guy he was addressing) had any idea what the fuck he was writing about. I don't think my stuff is that great, but I don't think it's any worse (or not much worse) than stuff I see published in a lot of respected journals either. Either way, it's getting submitted somewhere.

My point is, poetry is necessarily something that makes a writer vulnerable and that's not something anyone can tell another person how to get over. I suppose you could stuff all your poems into an old drawer to be discovered upon your death, but I have my doubts as to the likelihood of that strategy succeeding twice.

humanodon  ·  3678 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Why Russia no longer fears the West

I think you're right that this is overly simplistic, but on this side of the world, there is a real lack of reportage from the Russian point of view (surprise, surprise). I was just listening to the news and the reporter was commenting that in diplomatic circles, parallels are being drawn between this and the military intervention in Iraq and the consequences of those actions, so the US definitely has to contend with that as it takes its stance, too.

At the same time, it makes sense for Russia to flex right now, as the US is still very weak economically and has also begun to withdraw troops and to pare down defense spending. Not to mention that the US citizenry are tired of war and a lot of veterans who have returned are highly critical of the motives that sent them overseas to begin with.

Dude. What? "Time-honored"? C'mon. You're training to become an economist and the best you can do is glib comments that don't bother to question why this is a pattern that perhaps can be tied to economics or other social sciences?

You can't honestly think that these people are simpletons who just happened to "end up" in power and that they alone are responsible for the circumstances that are now unfolding. Oh, no doubt they played their roles and did at a minimum, their fair share of awfulness but Genghis Khan didn't alter the course of history on his own, you know what I mean?

That governments overreact to peaceful protest time and again is terrible, but it is also worth puzzling out. Clearly, at least some of the people in those governments are very capable people and certainly capable of high level thought and discourse. By reducing them to mere idiots is to make light of what they've done. It's a much greater offense to purposefully engineer a situation where people then believe that they've accumulated enough wealth and power through illegitimate means to simply crush any opposition that rears its head, than for a fool to act without understanding any of the stakes.

Clearly, these are people who were interested in becoming powerful and I have no doubt that they studied history and the history of powerful figures. There is something about that that creates monsters. Finding out what that is, is essential for the progress of human governance.

We already know how to deal with stupid.