Daniel Dvorkin
For the WISP (work in some progress) I'm fiddling with #population growth models, and considering rolling my own to justify the numbers I want. I guess that makes me a rather finicky #Watsonian. But maybe it's like Tolkien coming up with several complete languages before writing any actual plot!
Mar 8 at 9:30pmWeb
Show threadDaniel DvorkinMar 8
This was a pretty mild expression of my opinion on the matter. “I don’t care” is practically never something you should feel the need to say, unless someone asks you directly. And when it comes to fan debates, let the people who *do* care have their fun.
Show threadJonMar 9
@medigoth the flip side is when the fan explainers come in to discussions about fiction having nothing to do with these sorts of mechanics to insist that the writers have to see things their way or... they will post a great deal more about it.
Show threadDaniel DvorkinMar 9
@oddhack Oh yeah, I'm not a fan of that either, to be sure.
Show threadJonMar 9

@medigoth I believe the original motivation for spacebattles.com was exactly to let people have these deeply detailed and inherently undefined arguments ("Who would win, Enterprise-D or Imperial Star Destroyer?").

These days the moderators clamp down pretty hard on threads where fanfics are posted to avoid the readers falling into this sort of squabbling, but the "versus" forums are still quite active, I think.

Show threadmillennial fulcrumMar 9

@medigoth love it! I take from it that:

doylians = cynics
watsonians = logicians
moriartians = nihilists

and for my own enjoyment I offer
holmsians = analysts

who evaluate both the doylian and watsonian perspectives (and the moriartian perspective, were it to offer anything useful, which it cannot) and who settle on the most plausible explanation of the two.