Trying again, and trying to be a bit more reasonable:

I agree very much with Gilliel about the first paragraph of James’s comment—I hated it—but the second paragraph sorta seems to take some of it back. The first para is an “on the one hand” thing, and the second is explicitly the “on the other hand” part:

On the other hand, I think it is important to note that many people attending Skepticon see it as a rare opportunity to spend time with people of a similar view, and really need that. And it seems churlish to begrudge them that opportunity.

(I think rereading only the quoted first part set me off on an ill-considered rant, since mercifully deleted, because I’d come back to the thread after a delay, and forgotten that James’s whole comment was significantly more balanced on the whole.)

I still disagree (I think) with James about the first para—I do not think it’s “fair” at all to judge people’s commitment to their principles by their very public displays of do-gooding in unusual circumstances, where their time is especially precious and expensive.

I especially don’t think it’s “fair” at all to compare amounts of time spent, when one group’s time is far more precious expensive than the other’s—the con attendees have a rare opportunity to socialize and do con things, with travel and lodging expenses and so on, while the local volunteer group’s time is presumably much less precious and expensive—they can get together more easily, cheaply, and often.

IMO, the unfairness of that comparison doesn’t depend at all on what you see as the purpose of the con. Even if it were a just gathering of volunteer workers to discuss, plan, and promote volunteer work, it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect them to actually do a lot of volunteer work at that event—presumably they’d go home and do their volunteer work locally, spending less precious time, and more of it. Prioritizing things that way would just be good planning, nothing to comment about in any moralistic terms at all.

I don’t think James’s second para really does enough to “take that back”—or just not clearly enough for my taste or Gilliel’s; maybe James can clarify.

I do think a certain amount of such do-gooding at a con is a good thing, but not because not doing so would actually be morally hypocritical at all, or anything like that—it is not reasonable to use much precious time on something very time-intensive, when you have less time-intensive things on the agenda.

Sadly, I think that one of the better reasons to do it is for somewhat cynical PR purposes, in a way that’s uncomfortably like ostentatiously praying in public—so that we’re less vulnerable to very bad arguments that we’re hypocritical.

There are other good reasons, too. One is to model good behavior for the attendees at the con, so that they’re more likely to do it again when they get back home—they may realize that it’s less onerous and more rewarding than they thought, or it may just make the option more memorable and salient. Another reason is of course that it’s actually a good thing to do, even if it is a rather bad time to do it.

Even so, there are difficult issues of prioritizing people’s precious and expensive time, such that IMO any moralizing about whether a few hours is enough is ridiculous.

The bottom line for me is that the stuff in James’s second paragraph isn’t really just an “other other hand” counterweight that partly balances out the stuff the first paragraph—it completely undermines the first para, rendering such arguments irrelevant.

(Maybe James thinks something like that, too—the part about it being “churlish to begrudge them that opportunity”—may mean pretty much that, and be his bottom line assessment.)

Done, Paul, and thanks. Don’t beat yourself up over it, please.

I should not have let old differences with James bug me so much, and make me respond so unfairly to his post here in the first place.

Then I shouldn’t have ragged on James more, just to show I wasn’t ragging on him for nothing, or just confusing him with Stedman. He did not deserve that, and it wasn’t appropriate stuff to drag into this thread.

Stephanie, feel free to delete my posts, and I guess I’d prefer it if you did.

Again, I apologize to James, and to you and your readers.

I’m sorry.

[Comment was in response to another comment removed at the request of the commenter. –SZ]

[Comment was in response to another comment removed at the request of the commenter. –SZ]

[Comment was in response to another comment removed at the request of the commenter. –SZ]