Tuesday, May 22, 2012

To take Scalzi's metaphor one step further, I'd like to point out: Up up down down left right left right B A is easily accessible by 6' 7" straight white guys.
Posted by at

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, maybe if I went to the Webb School like Scalzi, I'd think being a white straight male was the easiest difficulty setting too.

Not so easy when you have one parent who works 3 jobs, and you're in a class with the children of doctors and lawyers who are Indian, Asian, Jews, etc.

That was way back when...now you have to pay for an unpaid internship, women make up more than 50% of college students, etc,

The hardest setting now would be Asian Male Homosexual.

3:22 PM
Anonymous said...

Webb School

Full Boarding, Grades 7-12: $39,600

"95% of the Class of 2012 will be attending a college ranked in the top 10% in the nation (based on data from The College Board, Fiske Guide to Colleges, and U.S. News & World Report on 1600 accredited 4-year colleges and universities in the U.S.)."

Yes, I will make sure to tell the mustachioed unemployed machinists at the local tavern that they simply misplayed their straight white male cards incorrectly: proof is that they did not get into the Webb School.

Or it might have been the Skynard. Too much Skynard has been linked to poverty.

3:31 PM
Chaon said...

Scalzi lived in a trailer when he went to Webb, and his mom made less annually than the tuition at the time. I assumed he was a scholarship student.

4:43 PM
Cincinnatus said...

I like Scalzi and I enjoy most of his SF work, but he does tend to come up with "deep thoughts" that ain't so deep.

His political commentary has struck me as pretty shallow.

3:52 AM
Anonymous said...

So he is a scholarship student. Since they are not handing those out to every straight white male, AFAICT, that means maybe its not quite as easy as he seems to want to claim for every other straight white male.

I get his point, maybe if applied to SMART straight white males but even then its not as if you go to Calculus class and say "hey, I'm white, so I don't have to worry about the Asian kids. Society has my back and since I'm playing on easy, I get an extra hour for tests, and +10 to my score. Plus unlimited leads in my mechanical pencil"

5:09 AM
Chaon said...

Your logic is doing the thing that you want it to do. He is not saying that all straight white males have it easy. Some people can lose a game even on the easiest level, through bad luck or lack of intelligence.

He says he left out 'rich', because being rich is not an intrinsic property that we start the game with. I'm not sure I agree with that. But his metaphor works, and it works well. The only thing he is missing is height- *tall* straight white males are playing the game on an even easier level. This is so obvious and self-evident that I do not understand how there is any discussion about it. Nobody is asserting that because of this fact, we should give all the East Asian Lesbians all our tax money. (Although I *do* assert that we should send all the East Asian Lesbians to my house)

I’m probably biased on Scalzi because before I read this, I read his piece on what it’s like to be poor. Check it out if you have time. I had forgotten the shame of being on the school free-lunch program, and how you have to try to get into the cafeteria very first or very last to avoid getting crucified by the other kids. The man knows poor.

9:13 AM
Chaon said...

Robin, what political commentary that you disagree with do you *not* find shallow?

9:30 AM
Anonymous said...

Yeah, I had free school lunches too. I was under the poverty line too.

That was a good article, but I didn't feel as much shame as he did. Maybe I got lucky in my draw of classmates because it wasn't a big deal.

And again, playing on easy vs. normal level in a video game just seems too much of a jump.

Also, maybe in FL white people have a big advantage, but in California, I think its different. You can't figure out WTF race people are half the time, and poor white trash are just as prevalent as other scumbags.

I don't think a white guy in biker regalia gets a better deal from the bank then some ethnic blend who's wearing dockers and a button down shirt.

I give him points for making me think about it though.

Another obvious factor he left out: good looks.

11:04 AM
Chaon said...

I already covered good looks in my comments about being tall. All tall people are astonishingly good looking.

11:25 AM
Cincinnatus said...

Karl, Megan McArdle used to write some stuff about financial policy that I disagreed with but challenged me to explain why to myself.

Who was the skinny guy who used to debate William F. Buckley? I used to respect his stuff but haven't seen it in years.

11:49 AM
Cincinnatus said...

Kinsley?

11:53 AM
Chaon said...

Michael Kingsley?

12:55 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)