Ok maybe not. John over at SF Signal has a great post in regards to this post from Matthew Sanborn Smith.

I think there should be something said about getting upset regarding negative commentary and discourse. I also believe that there's another issue to be considered here: fandom. The realm of fandom is not really the place to be looking for consistently intelligent and level-headed discussion. Fandom is the house of rants and raves, bickering and flaming; it's not where one goes to get intellectual discussion on a particular, genre-focused topic.

Granted, one also has to keep in mind that going the route of incendiary posts is setting oneself up for such flames and bickering. Keep things on the level; keep things from getting out of hand.

Secondly, I'd like to make a comment about genre (or short stories, or robots, or whatever topic you'd like) being dead. People still buy anthologies; people still write genre fiction; and people still wonder not only about the future but about science and technology and how they affect us. The genre may change, but it's never dead.

More importantly - and the meat of this thread - is the response to this:

The field is in decline, we say, and what’s more, it’s the fault of the writers. The jargon’s too thick, the gateways aren’t there, no one is writing real Hard SF anymore, Mundane is a stupid idea, Fantasy is taking over, where’s the sensawunda, no one has any new ideas.

Say what? There are plenty of authors that have come out in the last few years who are crafting new things, crafting intriguing things. Verner Vinge? John Scalzi? Much of the work in the Solaris Book of New Science Fiction (volumes one and two)? The world around us is changing and how we view it changes. To say that works out to be like those from the "Golden Age" is to say that we ought to view the world in that way still. We have so many other things that inspire us, and there are plenty of authors who are giving us their new view of the future. Another problem is that there is a host of new fiction being put out in small presses that's wonderfully insightful.

Science Fiction isn't dead. Fantasy isn't "taking over". And as much as Harry Potter has inundated our society, one must give it credit for bringing an entire generation into genre fiction.