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That Which Pushes My Buttons
Sep. 19th, 2014 08:26 amEverybody has at least one something that gets them very irritated, perhaps even irrationally so. In my case, one of those things is when somebody makes an argument that either ignores objective facts or attempts to use facts when they don’t exist. This is what I think drives me bugnuts about the “who’s the better-selling SF writer” or “fake New York Times bestseller list” kerfluffle.
See, if you tell me “I hate Jones’ writing with the passion of a thousand suns,” I’m okay with that statement. Tastes vary, and that’s a subjective statement. But if you tell me “Jones really didn’t sell all those books he claimed to have,” well, that’s an objective fact. Either he sold X number of books or he didn’t, and there exists an accounting of how many books were or were not sold.
What frustrates me further about this argument is we don’t know how many books Jones sold! There is no publicly-available data source that captures raw sales. Even the best available source, Neilsen Bookscan, only gets 70% of the market – and it’s not publicly available. So, there is absolutely no way for somebody to say Jones did or did not sell X books.
Another one of my buttons is claiming “fraud” or “lies.” This is I think because it’s the lazy man’s way out. “You’re lying!” or “that’s a fraud!” means that the speaker doesn’t have to actually address the claim at hand – they can dismiss it. Frequently these accusations are made with no facts (there’s that word again) offered in support of the accusation. So it’s a two-fer – slander and ignorant of the facts.
Facts matter. You can't run a society without facts.
See, if you tell me “I hate Jones’ writing with the passion of a thousand suns,” I’m okay with that statement. Tastes vary, and that’s a subjective statement. But if you tell me “Jones really didn’t sell all those books he claimed to have,” well, that’s an objective fact. Either he sold X number of books or he didn’t, and there exists an accounting of how many books were or were not sold.
What frustrates me further about this argument is we don’t know how many books Jones sold! There is no publicly-available data source that captures raw sales. Even the best available source, Neilsen Bookscan, only gets 70% of the market – and it’s not publicly available. So, there is absolutely no way for somebody to say Jones did or did not sell X books.
Another one of my buttons is claiming “fraud” or “lies.” This is I think because it’s the lazy man’s way out. “You’re lying!” or “that’s a fraud!” means that the speaker doesn’t have to actually address the claim at hand – they can dismiss it. Frequently these accusations are made with no facts (there’s that word again) offered in support of the accusation. So it’s a two-fer – slander and ignorant of the facts.
Facts matter. You can't run a society without facts.
