Wildepad wrote:
> The assumptions are never arbitrary. They come as part of the
> character/action/theme and are crucial to producing
> conflict/limitations necessary for story development.
And since _you_ chose those issues, the assumptions _are_ arbitrary.
You could have chosen other ones. I don't think you know what the word
_arbitrary_ means.
> They are also never whimsical (although they probably seem that way).
> In each and every case, they are parallels of some real world
> event/practice/accepted procedure.
>
> Because of that, questioning the assumptions is an unwelcome and
> unnecessary distraction.
Once again, you do not have some sort of ownership over the threads you
create.
> On the rare occasions when I get a straight answer, I say "Thanks" and
> sometimes, but not all the time, ask a question to clarify the answer.
Here apparently "a straight answer" means "the answer I wanted to get."
Which is precisely part of the problem; you post these questions and
it's pretty clear that you want to hear a certain sort of response, or
class of responses, and if you don't get them you nitpick and argue and
goalpost shift and backpedal until one or both parties gives up. That's
a great way to totally miss the bigger picture; namely, that your
scenarios, premises, and situations are often completely implausible,
ridiculous, or contrary to basic facts.
This is really just a special case of a more general pattern with you;
you ask questions to people who at least ought to know what they're
talking about, and then argue with them. A good example was the
Slinky-down-an-escalator thread; you ask presumably-knowledgeable people
what would happen (after all, why would you ask people who you think
_don't_ know?), they tell you, and then you argue with them, even though
you admit you don't really know what you're talking about. What was the
freakin' point of asking, then? You just wanted to hear the answer you
thought was correct, and every other answer would be argued with and
incorrectly nitpicked and then ignored. What a great use of everyone's
time.
The current thread regarding the time traveller is a good example of all
this: The people you gave a curt "Thanks!" to were ones who simply
said, "Yeah, I'd buy the ticket."
The other people who told you that they wouldn't buy the ticket were
pointing out something important that you didn't want to hear, because
it wasn't the answer you wanted: Regardless of what goal this time
traveller has, regardless of what he's trying to do, his approach is a
really, really, _really_ stupid way to do it. As in fabulously stupid.
As in _more_ likely to get him in trouble than simpler solutions like
panhandling and then buying the ticket himself (and then mailing it to
whomever he wants). Regardless of what his goals were, there are far
better ways to do it.
Your goalpost shifting of nonsense about panhandling and difficulty to
get a dollar only just emphasizes the point more: To defend a
ridiculous scenario, you pile up even more ridiculous and clearly
factually ignorant claims.
If your goal was to find out whether _some_ people would accept the
offer to make it plausible for story purposes, insofar as that goes
that's fine. But judging from the responses here, a good percentages of
your readership would encounter that in your plot and say to themselves,
"This is retarded," and stop reading.
If you're okay with that, fine, but the scenario you propose really _is_
that retarded. We're not being difficult; it really is, whether you see
it or not.
> In other cases, I am interested in continuing the conversation for as
> long as it takes to get a productive answer.
Hence the problem.
--
Erik Max Francis && max@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
&& http://www.alcyone.com/max/
San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
Without love, benevolence becomes egotism.
-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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