ThenElection
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User ID: 622
ThenElection
23d ago
If we want to discuss the hypothesis seriously, not necessarily. Is it merely the presence of melanin? Absolute sunlight exposure? Excess exposure to sunlight modulated by level of presence of melanin? Which hypothesis do you want to debate?
ThenElection
25d ago
Being glad that you're not the subject of someone is not the same as impropriety on the part of the person, though.
I'm reminded of Michael Crichton. He wrote a book that was critical of global warming hysteria. An editor of the New Republic stridently criticized it for that. In his next book, Crichton featured a (minor) character with the same name as the editor, with the same education and occupation. And he had that character be a pedophile with an extraordinarily small dick, whose only real characterization is someone who feels an urge to rape his fiance's infant child. Crichton points out that, despite the character's cosmically small dick, he managed to cause severe anal tearing in the infant child. Naturally, the editor sharing the character's name threw a hissy fit.
It's fair to say that this is much less sympathetic than the situation in the OP, maximally so, with clearly no literary value and just a way for Crichton to lash out at a critical review. But did Crichton deserve legal sanction for this? No. The only relevant critique is a literary one: did this help the story? It didn't, but to have good fiction, we need to reserve the space for authors to be petty assholes.
ThenElection
25d ago
The "it made him kill himself!" sympathy mongering drives me mad. I don't take a strict view here--I think people can bear moral blame for someone else's suicide. But in this particular case, based on what we know and plausible inferences, his (hypothetical) suicide is all on him. Maybe if the story was published, and all his family and friends and workplace spontaneously disowned him, there'd be moral blame to share around. (Mostly on those people, though, not the story writer.) But that seems unlikely to be the case.
ThenElection
25d ago
How can it be biased? It's a work of fiction; it either speaks to the reader or doesn't, and the characters' level of realism either works or it doesn't. How the author decides to market it is irrelevant.
I read it at the time, and it seemed serviceable, but not amazing. It probably did take off because it was constructed to be in-tune with the times, but I don't see why that matters. The author made every effort for it to not be treated as anything real (and parts, particularly the last couple lines, rang so false that I don't see how anyone thought it could be real).
If the guy did kill himself and did it because of the story... well, hate to be an asshole, but that's on him. His sense of self-worth shouldn't be dependent on whether the New Yorker publishes a story very loosely inspired by an event in his life, when everyone involved knows it didn't go down as portrayed.
What, concretely, bothers you about this? (Are you a height-challenged guy?)
Is it that he seems to hold a belief that shorter guys compensate for a lack of height by choosing scientific occupations? I'm not sure about this, but I'm almost curious enough to pull NLSY data on height and major to find out.
Or is it that you object to the idea that occupational groups show differences in their anthropometric measurements at all? If so, these are very well-attested in the literature: managers, professionals, and especially politicians are all taller than average.
Or is it just that he's not treating possible discrimination in a very somber, serious tone? If so, whenever Obama dies, will you be posting here about how he made fun of Buttigieg and said he could never become President because he's too short?
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