META: The Problem of Subjectivity

[Martin Phipps]

On Mar 14, 10:32 am, Andrew Burton <tuglyrai... at aol.com> wrote:
> Martin Phipps wrote:
> > Yep.  They make me feel good but they are otherwise useless.  ... I
> > take it back then: one good thing about a long post that goes on about
> > how good something is is that it will encourage other people to read
> > the story.
>
> I totally didn't think I could get you to admit that

Because you think I'm a liar and I won't admit something when it is
true?

> You've essentially given people who read your work three
> choices:
>
> 1. Love me.
>
> 2. Prove me wrong with cold logic.
>
> 3. Shut up.

If you can't say something nice... then at least be able to back it
up. :)

> Second, your world view completely extinguishes the life
> of things like MST3K, Twisted Mego Theater, and like 99% of all web
> comics.  Do you really want to live in a world without MST3K?

MST3K isn't 100% subjective: they actually show the movies they rip
apart.  You can see for yourself what they are laughing at.  And it is
never mean spirited: they would never be given the rights to show the
movies at all if it were.

Similarly, Roger Ebert very, very rarely ever says that he'd "hate
hate hate" a movie and actually has come out and said that he doesn't
like giving a movie "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" and would rather
people listen to what he had to say and made up their own mind whether
the movie was for them: the thumbs up / thumbs down format was imposed
by the original producers of the "Sneak Previews" show on PBS back
before it moved to syndication and became "Siskel and Ebert at the
Movies".

(I just checked wikipedia's Roger Ebert entry to double check: it
could be that the thumbs up / thumbs down format was imposed when they
moved to syndication and not before.)

Martin