Mike Glyer announces the incipient publication of There Will Be War Vol. X on Monday. SJWs at File 770 respond accordingly:
CORA: from my West European POV, listing the military ranks of several of the contributors along with their names looks very weird. But I guess the target audience expects that sort of thing.
JERRY POURNELLE: Military ranks are shown for military contributors of non-fiction. i can think of no reason why they should not be.
SANDDORN: Aren’t you leaving out several Dr. or PhDs, you know, real titles?
As opposed to fake titles like LtCol, Col., Lt. Col., and CDR? Unbelievable. SJWs are even more despicable than you probably imagined.
But that tells you everything you need to know about SJWs. All that matters to them is sitting obediently in a classroom, regurgitating information like a good and properly programmed little girl.
The reason military titles are used for the non-fiction contributors, and are not used for the fiction contributors (some of whom happen to possess them), is that if one is writing on the subject of, say, modifying the U.S. Navy’s fleet composition, one tends to have just a little more credibility on the subject if one is, in fact, an officer in the U.S. Navy intimately familiar with the pros and cons of the current composition.
This doesn’t mean that military rank is the only credential worth taking seriously; the fact that the U.S. Marines think so highly of a certain contributor that they have a terrain feature on their training grounds named after him is arguably even more indicative of someone whose opinion you would do well to at least grant serious consideration. And if another contributor’s work is declared to be doctrine by an armed force, well, then, you simply shut up, read, and learn.
But neither a general’s stars nor a doctorate means a damn thing when it comes to writing fiction. There, the work must stand alone.