
Too much time on his hands - michael_nielsen
http://boingboing.net/2002/02/03/too-much-time-on-his.html
======
BrandonM
> The next time you meet some person who is utterly captivated by some
> undertaking that completely mystifies you, give him the benefit of the
> doubt.

Why not try to understand him? Everyone (and I truly mean this) would be much
happier if we threw out our ridiculous preconceptions and actually tried to
understand people.

There have been a few times where I've been in the perfect frame of mind where
I'm 100% focused on a person and on my interaction with that person, with
absolutely no distractions. It's almost crazy how easy it is to understand
someone's way of thinking. Even complete strangers can't help but be intrigued
by someone who seems completely consumed by them, even if only for a moment.

So don't file it away to try to figure out on your own later; that makes no
sense. Talk to him _right now_ , really listen, and share a part of the human
experience that you previously had no knowledge of.

~~~
powrtoch
Agreed. I think part of the venomous nature of the remark that the author is
getting at is that it automatically assumes you've understood him completely:
"I have looked on your works, and the only worthwhile conclusion is that your
passions are stupid". Seeing something different and declaring "that's just
stupid" feels like you've summed it all up and are ready to move on (and that
anyone who disagrees should expect a similar appraisal).

My dad was always fond of saying "Knowing is a barrier which prevents
learning". I'm sure he stole it from somewhere...

------
neutronicus
I don't think it's as insulting as the author implies, more of a ritual
placeholder response, an admission that "I have nothing intelligent to say
about your work, but social graces demand a response and I refuse to default
to sycophantic praise simply because what you did took effort."

~~~
KeithMajhor
I am frequently offended by the things people say out of convention.

~~~
CodeMage
Were you ever irked by a polite, yet completely groundless compliment, offered
out of convention? For example, when someone who is completely unqualified to
judge your work tells you "Great job!"

In a situation like that, I often feel two simultaneous reactions, one being
"How would you know?" and the other "I appreciate the sentiment." Guess which
one I choose to act upon?

Just as "great job" from someone who doesn't know anything about it is not
such a big deal because it was simply a nice gesture, so can "too much time on
his hands" be (sometimes) considered to be no big deal because there was no
specific malice behind it.

In other words, while I agree with the sentiment, people sometimes need to
grow a skin bit thicker than they have.

~~~
powrtoch
I'm usually irked by socially-automatic remarks in general. I can't tell you
how sick I am of someone at work answering "How are you?" with "Well, I'm here
(frown/shrug)", or "It's Monday (frown/shrug)".

~~~
robryan
And the social required "How are you?" question in the first place when the
person asking really doesn't care and equally on the other side the person
doesn't want to truthfully answer anyway,

------
CodeMage
Sorry, but I disagree. A lot. For example, the author claims that _"the slur
brooks no possibility that the speaker has failed to appreciate some valuable,
fulfilling element of the subject's hobby."_

Here the Author claims that the Speaker failed to appreciate some element in
what the Enthusiast produced. It could just as easily be interpreted as the
Enthusiast's failure to produce something the Speaker could appreciate.

In condemnation of the phrase he hates, the Author ascribes malicious
intentions to the Speaker who uses it. That's a misrepresentation. "Too much
time on his hands" usually implies that the Enthusiast produced something for
which the Speaker sees no use, which prompts the Speaker to imply that it
would be better to apply the Enthusiast's energies and passions on something
the Speaker finds useful. Along with passing judgment on Enthusiast's work
(something that upsets the Author), the Speaker also recognized the
Enthusiast's passion.

 _Of course, some of this stuff will surely be relegated to the scrapheap of
history._

Let's face it, _most_ of the "fringey" stuff is relegated to the scrapheap of
history. For every misunderstood genius, you have many more harmless nuts who
invent and patent "Method and apparatus for automatically exercising a curious
animal"[1]. What changed is our ability to perceive them globally, or, to be
more precise, their ability to broadcast to a wider public.

Having more freedom to direct your thoughts and opinions to a wider audience
than before, does not mean you're somehow _entitled_ to have those thoughts
and opinions respected.

[1] <http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6701872.html>

~~~
nollidge
> It could just as easily be interpreted as the Enthusiast's failure to
> produce something the Speaker could appreciate.

Was the Enthusiast even attempting to produce something the Speaker could
appreciate, or was it merely for their own amusement/edification? If it's the
latter, then the Speaker's a Dick for going out of their way to insult the
Enthusiast. The Speaker is not entitled to be enamored with the Enthusiast's
tinkerings.

Saying "you've got too much time on your hands" is telling the person that
they'd be better off spending their time on something else. But who are you to
judge? What entitles you to make a pronouncement like that?

> the Speaker also recognized the Enthusiast's passion.

They're proclaiming that the Enthusiast's passion would be better spent
elsewhere, which I suppose is a recognition of the mere existence of said
passion, but it's hardly a gesture of respect, as you're implying.

> Having more freedom to direct your thoughts and opinions to a wider audience
> than before, does not mean you're somehow entitled to have those thoughts
> and opinions respected.

No, of course not, but neither is anyone entitled to actively _dis_ respect
every flight of fancy they come across.

~~~
CodeMage
_Was the Enthusiast even attempting to produce something the Speaker could
appreciate, or was it merely for their own amusement/edification?_ [...] _What
entitles you to make a pronouncement like that?_

Interesting questions, especially because they don't have only one answer.
Let's say I make a video of a "fringey" hobby I have; pick anything you would
profoundly useless. Let's say I send that video to a group of my friends,
saying "look what I did". If it somehow finds its way to a broader audience on
the Internet, for which it was _not_ intended, and some Joe Schmoe says "this
guy has too much time on his hands", then you could say that he's being a
Dick. You could also say my friends were Dicks for exposing me to Joe Schmoe's
ridicule.

However, if I take that same video, post in on a public site, with no access
controls (such as YouTube ), saying "look what I did", then I'm inviting
people to give their opinions on it. I'm entitling a hypothetical Speaker to
judge my work.

 _They're proclaiming that the Enthusiast's passion would be better spent
elsewhere, which I suppose is a recognition of the mere existence of said
passion, but it's hardly a gesture of respect, as you're implying._

I'm not implying it's a gesture of respect. I'm simply claiming that it's a
recognition of that passion, because the Author's sentiment is that this
passion is not recognized by people who use the phrase "too much time on his
hands". Of course, we could quibble about the word "recognize". To forestall
that, I'll explain that I'm using it in the sense of acknowledging something,
not acclaiming something.

 _No, of course not, but neither is anyone entitled to actively _dis_ respect
every flight of fancy they come across._

In other words: "Either offer a constructive criticism or shut up." That's
okay, I agree with that completely. What I disagree with is reacting out of
proportion to the disrespect. That kind of reaction usually comes from the
false sense of entitlement, a feeling that not only people shouldn't
disrespect your passions, but that they should keep quiet if they disagree.

------
mortenjorck
Beyond any implicit insult, I don't like the logical fallacy upon which "too
much time on his hands" is founded.

There's no way for an outside observer to know how much free time someone has
based only on a viewing of the fruits of their hobby. That guy who built an
ornate castle out of clothes pins may well have a packed schedule, and it was
all he could do to cram the building in a few hours a week.

Actually, remember the guy who built a fully-functioning Daft Punk helmet that
was making the rounds a couple of weeks ago? That took him 18 months. It was a
labor of love for no external gain, but he quite likely had very _little_ free
time for it to take him that long.

~~~
kenjackson
It's not an implicit insult. It's an explicit one. At least when I say it. I
could also say, "I wouldn't have wasted my time doing what that.". And
sometimes I do.

If you don't want to hear my opinion, don't make your ears available to me.

And just because you spend 18 months making a hat, doesn't mean that I have to
like it, appreciate it, defer judgment on it, or anything else.

Is this statement preferred, "That person clearly has different priorities or
available time on their hand that would allow them to, what I would consider,
waste it, on such a frutless effort." I guess I just prefer the shorthand.

------
aplusbi
Nobody ever says to someone watching Law & Order reruns that they have too
much time on their hands.

~~~
roc
I think "Couch Potato" covers it.

If you ask me, I think it's a much further-reaching pejorative.

~~~
sophacles
I don't know, because the couch potatoes are usually the ones delivering the
"too much time" proclamation.

------
dkarl
As I said in the other thread, Cory Doctorow is an editor at Boing Boing and
has a vested interest in other people creating art projects that make web
surfers go "oooh, shiny!" for thirty seconds. It's in his best interest for
people to work weeks or months to produce something that provides a few
seconds of "wonder" for web surfers who then click on a YouTube video and
forget they ever saw the Cylon moose or what-not. I think it's a very bad idea
to assume that something has value just because it attracts clicks and
eyeballs, and I don't think it's a bad idea for people to wonder what else
they could do with their time and energy. But hey, if it's fun, that's a good
enough justification for how someone spends their free time.

~~~
strick
What about the merits of what Doctorow has written? I'm not sure his
background is terribly relevant here. What if PG had written this piece and it
was a defense of someone who invested lots of time and energy reading HN
articles and making comments? Would you then agree "That guy has too much
spare time"?

~~~
dkarl
I think Doctorow assumes a lot about the motivations and the depth of thought
of a person who says, "He has too much time on his hands." The real substitute
for thought is Doctorow's dismissal of critical judgment: "But who can say
what? Who can say which technologies and movements will be the enduring
delights of generations to come, subject of PhD theses and documentary films,
and which ones will be merely charming but obscure footnotes?"

Who can say? We can say. We have to decide what's worth our time and what's
not. We pass judgment on other people's work. We'll be wrong much of the time,
but turning off our critical faculty altogether is worse than being wrong. At
least "too much time on his hands" is a statement that can become the basis
for a conversation, if you give the speaker some credit instead of assuming
his statement is a "substitute for thought." The speaker might be prepared to
expand on his opinion if someone wants to hear it. Anyway, a person who sees
no value in something is irrelevant to its future. Its future depends on
people who do see value in it, not on the open-mindedness or delicate
consideration of people who don't.

Furthermore, it's hypocritical for an editor of an extremely popular,
carefully polished and curated blog to pretend he doesn't discriminate. People
visit Boing Boing because Boing Boing consistently delivers quick nuggets of
feel-good eccentricity whose substance is optional to the experience. Like any
successful blog, it has a consistent and narrow culture. You won't find an
impassioned screed advocating Communist government on Boing Boing, or a
gallery of tattoos commemorating murders committed by the tattooees, or Buffy
incest fanfic, or a patent for a WiMax antenna, or a discussion of why it's a
bad deal for individual investors to buy corn futures.

"The genuinely disruptive, novel artefacts are by definition unpredictable,"
he says. But he chooses items for Boing Boing that have a predictable flavor.
That's okay. The world needs to be organized, and sometimes it has to be
organized by collective or individual taste.

Maybe the whole thing is just a plea to protect the fragile ego of creators.
Express your taste, guys, but do so in the politest terms possible. Bullshit.
If you can't handle a simple "too much time on his hands" comment, then you
shouldn't present your work for public consumption. Hide it away from the
sight of anybody who might accidentally have an opinion about it. _Especially_
if you're bothered by opinions that (per Doctorow's assumption) are vacuous,
because as H.L. Mencken said, injustice is relatively easy to bear; what
stings is justice. If you can't handle thoughtless, vacuous criticism, then
god forbid anybody takes your work seriously; you'll have an aneurysm.

~~~
thrdOriginal
Your ad hominem attacks against Cory Doctorow don't really make his article's
points any less valid. There is a difference between being discriminating and
dismissive, and the arguments made in this article mostly deal with the
latter.

~~~
dkarl
Are you saying it's "dismissive" to express a negative opinion without
supplying a raft of supporting arguments? A person can express an opinion
without giving a dissertation; it does not imply arrogance or vacuousness. To
say they are "dismissive" implies they expect their opinion to hold sway
without discussion.

------
unwind
Why does a Real Author write "pass-time"? Isn't "pastime" the actual word, and
"pass-time" just a weird homonym? Or is it actually "accepted" as a real word?

I realize natural languages don't have binary contains() functions for words,
it's just something that I tend to stumble over as a non-native speaker.

~~~
stan_rogers
Usage and spelling have regional variants, and Cory is (like myself) Canadian.
We Canadians of a certain vintage (those educated before American spellings
were given the nod in the Canadian Press Manual of Style) have tended to
retain older spellings. "Pass-time" is among them, and it appears in Canadian
writing (with or without the hyphen) far more often than the single-ess
version.

------
akadruid
It doesn't seem strange to me that anything unique enough to be described as a
hobby will have it's detractors. Even massively mainstream activities
frequently attract meaningless dismissives: couch potato, exercise nut, more
money than sense, and so on.

Humans are natural pattern matches and subscribe to a set of ideals; anyone
that does not fit their pattern and forces them to think differently is going
to cause defensiveness in some people; the least of which is simple dismissal.

On the other hand, it's great that society has progressed the stage where
people are being rude about your hobby instead of violent because of your skin
colour.

------
stcredzero
Always be thankful when the carelessly dismissive reveal themselves so cheaply
and easily.

------
packetslave
Probably my favorite quote on this subject is from Dan Wineman at Rogue
Amoeba: "You say 'looks like somebody has too much time on their hands' but
all I hear is 'I'm sad because I don't know what creativity feels like.'"

------
The_Igor
What I realized fairly recently, partly due to growing up and partly due to
reading "The Alchemist" is that most people will simply discourage you.

Be it with remarks such as the one the author rants about. However it takes
many forms.

Just remember: when you do something creative, something you love, something
outside of the mundane you do not have to justify your self to anyone. Chances
are, if what you are creating appears utterly pointless to others, it makes
you happy. Who cares what others think or say?

True art should be made for your self, not for any other critic be it real or
pretend.

------
Groxx
Really? I've traded that line with people before, always followed up with a
grin and genuine interest in what they've been doing. We take it as a
compliment: it's similar to saying you're so motivated and _interested_ in
what you're doing, you've produced something amazing which _shows_ how much
work you've put into it. Too much. Beyond what was necessary to make it work.

Granted, it _could_ be meant as a slur. So could "good job", or "that's f'kin
_amazing_ ", or _anything_. It's all context; _take_ it in context.

------
eavc
Relevant comic strip: <http://wondermark.com/638/>

------
rblion
this is more like it. if only everyone posted essays like this...

~~~
elptacek
Funny, I say this from time to time. Every time, it is meant as an ad-hominem.
Because my schedule is often packed, and it astonishes me what sorts of antics
other people get up to with their resources? No, not really. Typically because
the limitless creativity of the human mind deeply impresses me, but not always
in a good way.

As a college student in DC, I once went out and joined a march on The White
House. As usual, it turned into an opportunity to observe people (since I
really didn't care much about the actual issue driving the protest). The
variety of the intent of the other marchers ranged from people who had
traveled some distance at their own expense, putting their lives on hold
because the issue at hand was quite important to them to what can be described
best as, "Hey! A big group of people making a lot of noise! Wheee! LOOK AT
ME!"

The problem with this rant is that it lacks context or scope. Although, we
should respect each other a la Golden Rule. You might be prompted to dismiss a
person because they disagree with them. You have that right. You even have the
right to insult someone. Of course, when you do this, the corollary is that
you trade away your own passions being taken seriously. I'm pretty comfortable
doing that with people who, from context, appear to be jumping up and down,
waving their arms and making noise to draw attention to themselves. But I
can't not respect that other person who is obviously invested… even if I
disagree with them.

Also, I'm totally happy to watch some jerk fritter away her credibility. If
she can't tell the difference between, "I disagree" and "You have too much
free time," her opinion isn't worth squat.

------
InclinedPlane
Who cares? After the needs of the bill collectors and the tax man are met our
time is our own. To use fruitfully or waste in triviality as we desire. If
other people find our trivialities interesting, so much the better, but
there's no fundamental need for that. Nor is there a fundamental need to
justify trivialities to others. If someone disapproves of how another person
spends their time, they can cuddle up with their puritan sensibilities and cry
about it in the corner.

