Man, if I could finish that joke then I’d really have something. What, I don’t know, but definitely something.

I blame Super Paper Mario and tvtropes.org. I’ve actually had something to write about, but I’ve been sitting on it for nearly a week.

OK, so last Tuesday it was nice and balmy here. I walked around the entire day in T-shirt and jeans and was totally comfortable.

Wednesday morning I was heading up to Columbia for some shopping. It was a bit chilly out, but I was OK in a T-shirt and my jacket.

Wednesday afternoon was a little drizzly, but not noticeably colder when I went into the mall.

An hour later, though, I came back out and it was friggin’ snowing!

From toasty to (literally) freezing in under 24 hours. I know they say, “Don’t like the weather? Wait five minutes” in every geographical area, but here I think they really mean it.

If you are at all interested in popular entertainment, do not by any means ever consider clicking though on a link pointing to tvtropes.org. It’s even more full of “ooh, that looks like an interesting article!” blossoming than Wikipedia itself.

I currently have (…pauses to count…) forty-friggin’-five tabs from that site open, all because last night I followed a single, seemingly innocent link from Slacktivist last night.

Beware, my friends, beware.

No, seriously. They are.

I wonder what the Mormons think? Will they be mollified if it can be explained away as prelminary research into a method for making gay worms go straight?

You know, these posts full of variables always work so much better when they’re being written than when they’re being read. Let me try again.

Let’s say Alex and Bob are subscribed to Bricklayers-L, a discussion list for people who are bricklayers or who are considering bricklaying as a career.

One day they are discussing a third member, Zed, who has a reputation for being contentious and brusque in his postings on Bricklayer-L.

Alex: Zed’s behavior is unacceptable in a professional discussion forum.

Bob: If you spend some time reading the forums hosted by Architectural Considerations, you’ll see that behavior like Zed’s is demonstrated by many of the most respected participants.

Alex: I’ve never thought that bad behavior in one arena excused bad behavior in another.

Bob: …

Some needed context here is that bricklaying is considered an allied field with architecture and that many bricklayers, including Alex, feel that bricklayers should receive the same respect and professional status as architects. Architectural Considerations is the premier news and commentary journal for architecture, and its forums are the best-known online gathering place for architects.

The dialog above reveals two completely different approaches to the concept of appropriateness, one that I think may make further dialog impossible.

For Alex, the notion of “appropriate behavior in a professional forum” is decided externally, determined independently of the actual existence of any professional forums. Behavior like Zed’s in inherently unacceptable.

For Bob, that same notion is determined by actual practice. Since Zed-like behavior is acceptable and often celebrated in the preeminent forum for people in a related field, Bob believes that such behavior must not be inherently unacceptable.

Alex’s and Bob’s positions on Zed both proceed rationally from deeply held principles concerning standards of evidence and determination of appropriateness. Breaking the discussion down to a debate over those principles would be fruitless, as several millenia of civilization haven’t cracked those particular nuts.

The problem is that no middle ground is possible. A list culture that is accepting of Zed’s behavior is abhorrent to Alex, while a list culture that rejects Zed’s behavior is repellent to Bob. What, then, can be done?

(I hope this is less headache-inducing than the first go. I swear, the original version didn’t seem as much a dog’s breakfast when I wrote it.)

I’d very much enjoyed the previous episodes, but I was concerned because they were carried almost entirely by the strong direction, performances, charm. It all worked well, but I was afraid it wouldn’t last in the long run because, well, charm and acting and directing can only go so far. The format–a wacky weekly murder mystery, a lopsided love triangle–looked like the sort of thing that would delight for a few months and then become tiresome.

With this week’s episode, and I don’t know exactly what’s being done differently, the creatives have found a way to make the formula not only satisfy but actually work. The wackiness and whimsy is still there, but the story underneath it seems more solid than usual. If they can keep this up, they may have something great for the long run.

I’d seen them mentioned here and there for a while, but I’d never actually heard them. They were on Austin City Limits last week, though, and I recorded the program and am just now watching.

So, they’re basically a Pixies cover band who decided to tweak the lyrics, yeah? Not bad, but Floppy Hair Boy ain’t no Black Francis, and Dulcimer Chick sure as hell ain’t no Kim Deal. I’m told they’re from Canada, though, so they have a lot to overcome.

I’ve bee wanting to do a bit of writing on Nice Guys for a while, but I’ve been stymied by my own inherent laziness and by the knowledge that first I’d have to do a post introducing and defining the concept. As some of you may have noticed, I’m not very good at taking complicated and abstract subjects and making them less complicated and abstract.

Fortunately, in a completely unrelated essay, I found the perfect, succinct definition. This is Shaenon K. Garrity on Nice Guys:

Cranky female bloggers often rant about the phenomenon of Nice Guys[tm], hangdog, nerdy men who complain endlessly about how women don’t appreciate them enough. In their minds, all other men in the world, especially the good-looking ones, are abusive date-rapists, and therefore women are idiots for going out with those jerks instead of a Nice Guy like themselves. Nice Guys have a huge sense of entitlement where women are concerned; they don’t think they need to be attractive, intelligent, witty, or even polite, as long as they’re “nice.� They’re also incapable of seeing themselves as anything other than Nice Guys, so they never take the blame for anything that goes wrong in a relationship. It’s always the woman’s fault; she’s a bitch who didn’t appreciate him.

And now I just have to follow up.

Alex: Behavior B is antithetical to the purpose of arenas such as forum F.

Bob: If you look at forum F1, which is an established and respected arena for persons in a field similar and allied to ours, you will find that behavior B is commonplace and unremarkable.

Alex: I’ve never thought that bad behavior in one arena excused bad behavior in another.

Bob: …
____________________________________________________

That’s it in a nutshell, and as near as I can tell it’s uncrackable. Alex and Bob might as well be speaking different languages. They proceed from incommensurable sets of values and assumptions, a rough situation made impossible by the fact that many common words signify completely different things to the two of them.

For Alex, behavior B is inherently in opposition to Fness. His criteria, whatever they may be, are formed independently of his experience in any member of F

Bob, on the other hand, believes that if B is part of the culture of an exemplary member of F then it must not be in conflict with Fness in and of itself.

When Bob points to F1, he makes sure that Alex realizes the forum is highly regarded as a member of F and that, Fness aside, it shares many salient commonalities with F2.

When Bob shows that B is be part and parcel of F1, he believes it adequately demonstrated that B is not necessarily damaging to the Fness of F2. When he receives Alex’s response, then, his head goes a-splodey.

This is where it gets interesting, and very very frustrating.

From Alex’s position, Bob’s demonstration of B in F1 is irrelevant and possibly offensive. Note that this is not Alex’s opinion, it is the ineluctable conclusion resulting from the premises resident in Alex’s head. It is a perfectly logical, perfectly rational response.

From Bob’s position, Alex’s reaction is incoherent and possibly childish. Note that this is not Bob’s opinion, it is the ineluctable conclusion resulting from the premises resident in Bob’s head. It is a perfectly logical, perfectly rational response.

Alex’s and Bob’s premises are irreconcilable; there is no possibility of finding a middle ground on the acceptability of B in F2. Worse, though, is that there is no possibility of further discussion of the matter between the two fellows. The only thing that could be debated is the set of unspoken premises, and these are the things that several millennia of Western civilization haven’t been able to work out.

An F2 that accepts B is repellent to Alex, while an F2 that frowns on B is abhorrent to Bob. There can be no agreeing to disagree, as this is a question of F2’s fundamental nature. So, what can be done?

Or, I suppose, something else entirely.

Which do you say, and where are you from?