rodney and zelenka, the ideal narrative format for pseudoscience both sciencefictional and academic

[cimorene]

isilya: a momentary functional condensation of the SPACE
isilya: use that in a sga story!
cim: i keep THINKING about rodney
cim: doesn't that sound like sga pseudoscience?

ZELENKA: what the mobile phone does is actually alter the traditional spatial division as we know it!
RODNEY: see, traditionally, space is divided into centres and peripheries--
ZELENKA:--but by making a call on their mobile phone, mobile phone users ACTUALLY CREATE a momentary functional condensation of the space!
RODNEY: movement and functional condensation haven't created distinct forms for USE of mobile phones!  instead they've become part of the prevalent urban culture themselves!*

...i'm afraid i'm always going to hear social science bullshit narrated by rodney and zelenka now.  i can't decide whether this is a good thing or not.



*this is practically word-for-word from the actual book.    "mobile phones alter the traditional spatial division of space into centres and peripheries. making a call on their phone, mobile phone users create a momentary functional condensation of the space.  movement and functional condensation have not created distinct forms for use of mobile phones, they have instead become part of the prevalent urban culture."

Comments

[neery.livejournal.com]

Eew, "bullshit" is the right word for that. Do these people deliberately write their books in a way that makes no sense until the third read-through, and then stops making sense again once you've actually thought about it some?

Hearing it narrated by Zelenka and Rodney should be a vast improvement, I'd think.

[cimness.livejournal.com]

i suspect they write it incomprehensible on purpose because it's trendy in certain postmodernism-digging circles of the social sciences. "let's apply heuristics to real life instead of actual texts!" "okay!22!" OTOH it is translated from finnish and i suspect the translator wasn't a native speaker anyway. not saying i give him any points for that, but it's possible it makes more sense in finnish...