More Fun To Compute
Member
What are you trying to do man. You sound like some sort of politician character from a comic book for 13 year olds.
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"GamerGate is the monster that the industry created" - Anita Sarkeesian
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What are you trying to do man. You sound like some sort of politician character from a comic book for 13 year olds.
SpideySenses
Member
Looking over the last few pages, I can't help but wonder if a problem is equating western culture and US society as the same thing. Between the Birmingham Gamergate meet up and that poster that was just banned talking about a lack of rape culture growing up in the UK, I never really thought that perhaps the broad strokes people are using being a factor. When I see American colleges with fraternities and hazing, it's just so foreign to me, well quite literally, if we have a problem this side of the pond, it's not masculinity but class in our schooling. Generally speaking these idiots don't need motivation for their bullshit but at the same time, it's likely some people actually have been caught up in the journalism angle and one size fits all arguments about western culture might spurn them on.
SuperBanana
Banned
I'm completely against GG and think what they've done is disgusting and a some of the very worst I'm sure are literally dangerous people but that's a ridiculous comparison. Saying that all GG'ers are "serial-killer-material" and comparing to genocidal maniacs is way out of the ballpark. You can't say if people don't 100% agree with your opinion then they must secretly support the other side or are "enabling". It's a bullying tactic of debating to try and force people onto your side rather than give reason and cause to join it which honestly weakens your side if you need to resort to it. Let's keep things grounded here.
DICKS AHOY
Banned
I don't think calling everybody in GG 'serial-killer material' and raising the stakes that quickly is particularly helpful.
Context, man:
-> If you know someone to be a Gater, be suspicious, there is a chance they are sending death threats. If they do, report them.
In the very least, they are sympathizing and affiliated with the people who are sending those threats, so I think suspicion is appropriate.
The whole US college male fraternity thing just seems utterly bonkers to me. UK universities are very different, even if we have our own problems with inequality in higher education. I wonder if it's down to students being able to go and drink in town, and so the worst behaviour tends to fall foul of the police rather than just the university security staff. Doesn't mean we don't have our own problems with sexism etc in various spheres though.
I'm not saying don't be a reasonable human being. Yes, if you know of something going down, report it if you can (since it's tough to report online harassment when it isn't happening to you), but can we get back to my point this is unhelpful extremism:
His entire basis on this is having gone to where the worst people online congregate to conspire to do all the worst things to other people and extrapolated that to absolutely everyone in the movement for a college writing assignment.
Even after all your rationalizations, it still sounds like you are enabling them to me.
I'll reiterate my argument once more: If you see somebody building a bomb, do you just give them the benefit of the doubt? No, you do everything in your power to prevent them from building the bomb and having due justice passed onto them.
You are implying that I would be friends with anybody that associates themselves with Gamergate. I wouldn't. All of the 16 people I have cut ties with, 5 of which I considered to be good friends, turned out to be psychotic terrorists, and I am glad that I will never hear from them again for the rest of my life.
Again, if you know anybody who supports Gamergate, trust me, you will not miss a single one of these vile creatures. Disassociating myself from these abusers has been the best choice I have made in years.
This may be a little bit off-topic, but I find it quite offensive that you think you can just refer to me with the pronoun "his." The correct pronoun for a person whose gender is unknown to you is "they."
By the way, yes, I am a man biologically speaking, but being this ignorant to gender questions is not something I take lightly.
(Lots of people defend Von Braun)
Interficium
Banned
Your average gamergater is the type of person who votes EA the worst company in america, above companies that destroy ecologies, operate third world sweatshops, or profiteer off of war.
Most 'em think publishers (and a lot of developers) are greedy, cartoon-like supervillains scheming to screw over the humble gamer at every turn. With that in mind, what makes people think that Gamergaters will listen and then modify their behavior if pubs take a hard stance against Gamergate?
These people can't be reasoned with.
I don't consider advocating for nuance and proportional response to be enabling. And I don't particularly give much credence to your anecdotes because they are just that: anecdotes that you're extrapolating to an extreme degree. Clearly we don't see eye to eye, so I'm gonna let this go here. I've explained my position clearly enough to not need to keep defending it to you.
Do you also think there are reasonable voices in Nazism and the KKK?
Again, Gamergate is literally founded on the hatred of women and minorities. This is their mission statement. How can you defend anybody that is willing to associate with such a movement? Is it because you have relatives or friends that are pro-Gamergate? If that is the case, please don't let that cloud your judgment and disassociate from them.
If I found out somebody I was close to was a rapist or a murderer, they would be dead to me that exact moment. Terrible human beings do not deserve a second chance.
RichiRamjag
Member
It feels as if you're constantly trying to reference historical extremist groups to back (force) people into siding with your opinion. Because no one wants to publicly be associated with nazis or the KKK, right?
There are better ways to argue your point rather than use extreme examples such as rape or murder and the constant association to nazis (a group that slaughtered millions of people) is sickening and trivializes the holocaust to begin with. I get it, GG are bad people, many of them have done some terrible things, but come on now. Punishment and judgement should be proportional to the crime and it's unwise to paint every person who disagrees with such a brush.
This is literally the same argument people use to defend Nazis. If you weren't aware, a majority of the Nazis (which was pretty much all of the Third-Reich) never killed or harmed people themselves, but they were still complicit with their brethren enacting a genocide upon the groups they opposed to and even supported them financially or otherwise.
How hard is this to understand?
Edit: Also, are you actually implying the people who helped Gamergate grow as big as it is today are not rapists and murderers?
Even if some of them only wrote threats and never acted on it, do you think they are not rapists and murderers just because we prevented them from doing it?
There's a difference between ostracising people who've spent months spouting bigoted nonsense, and cutting off contact with a friend who retweeted a couple of things that seemed reasonable on the surface to them without understanding what was behind it.
Lots of my friends (and myself) have changed their opinions on lots of things over the years, as we've grown older. If I cut off contact every time one of them said something stupid after a couple of pints in the pub, I wouldn't have many left. It's easy to be so hardline about everything, but more rewarding to watch your friends grow and change over the years, with opinions that are nothing more than growing pains for them, trying out various ideas to see if they agree with them.
If someone proved themselves a consistent bigot, I'd want nothing more to do with them- I've done it a couple of times. But when it's someone who I know to be a fundamentally decent person, and they say something crap in an isolated incident, I think it's my job as their pal to call them on it rather than say 'the most adult thing to do is we should never speak again!'
Lots of my friends (and myself) have changed their opinions on lots of things over the years, as we've grown older. If I cut off contact every time one of them said something stupid after a couple of pints in the pub, I wouldn't have many left. It's easy to be so hardline about everything, but more rewarding to watch your friends grow and change over the years, with opinions that are nothing more than growing pains for them, trying out various ideas to see if they agree with them.
If someone proved themselves a consistent bigot, I'd want nothing more to do with them- I've done it a couple of times. But when it's someone who I know to be a fundamentally decent person, and they say something crap in an isolated incident, I think it's my job as their pal to call them on it rather than say 'the most adult thing to do is we should never speak again!'
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
Come on... you are being unreasonable here.
Although yes, this is off topic.
What is hard to understand that you are directly comparing the severity of GamerGate to Nazis. I mean, what? They're not even in the same universe.
Given the chance, I sincerely believe Gamergate would wage a genocide on their opponents. Do you disagree? The Nazis only gained as much traction as they did because they smothered their opposition. Do you want to allow Gamergate to do the same?
Doctor_Thomas
Member
I think you need to read up on the entire Nazi regime a bit more. You either joined the party, sang songs or you were a target for the SS. Many people supported them out of fear once Hitler took power because the punishment for not was far worse. The Nazis only came into power because of how financially devastated Germany was after World War I and through various "chance" events. Many soldiers, once they realised the extent of what happened in the Concentration Camps, were devastated because they never had direct contact with it, most of the German population didn't and most weren't aware. Outside of the Nazis even, there's a reason soldiers are rarely held as war criminals while their superior officers were because soldiers are just following orders.
Gamer Gate is nothing like the Nazis or the KKK or whatever other group you want to compare it to. It has no central order, it has no political or religious ideology. Comparing them to the KKK and Nazis, groups who carried out attrocities, is ridiculous and offensive.
You are misunderstanding; I am talking about people defending Nazis nowadays. Of course I am aware that the dynamics were quite different back then. I live in Austria. I think I know quite a bit about how the Nazis operated.
RichiRamjag
Member
I don't think you do, or you wouldn't keep comparing the two. And I'm not buying the "nowadays" argument when you just mentioned the Third-Reich in your response to me. It's ridiculous and I find the comparison extremely insulting if we're being honest.
Also, in response to your earlier edit, no, I do not consider someone who hasn't raped or murdered someone, a rapist or a murderer. They may be terrible people or have the potential and those who make such threats should be fully punished, but until any act is commited, I can't call them that and I'd hope the law acts on such threats and punished the offender before any person (man or women) ever had to suffer such a tragedy. On this note, I'll iust take my leave.
SuperBanana
Banned
Umm, yes? I'm pretty sure 99% gamergaters(or ANYONE) would bail out if the group started hoarding people onto trains to concentration camps where they'd be horrifically tortured, experimented on, and killed. Jesus dude, how did this go from video games and Anita to Nazi level genocide?
Missile Defense
Banned
The insane thing is that people should respect her for being brave enough to call out this issue knowing that it would paint her as a target. The fact that she is attacked proves her point.
Some seem to think she is stupid and shouldn't complain about the attacks because she did it to herself. It seems to me that many are just missing the point.
The only counter argument I would give to this whole thing is that in entertainment there is room for all kinds of fantasy, just ask the porn industry. But that doesn't excuse any personal attacks, that's the difference.
Some seem to think she is stupid and shouldn't complain about the attacks because she did it to herself. It seems to me that many are just missing the point.
The only counter argument I would give to this whole thing is that in entertainment there is room for all kinds of fantasy, just ask the porn industry. But that doesn't excuse any personal attacks, that's the difference.
Yeah I think that can be an issue. It's probably most notable in discussions about the representation of different races in the media where a lot of people act like all European countries have the same demographics as America.
Missile Defense
Banned
It would be unfair to group American society all together. Cultures vary from street to street, state to state and region to region. This is a big country, trust me I've been all over.
I think that's an issue that comes from American media generalising when discussing American society though, which then doesn't help when people from other countries are far more easily exposed to media sources than the diversity on the ground. We kind of get the same with some UK papers being London-centric, or in the case of the Daily Mail etc, very Home-counties centric, when the ethnic makeup of London's population (or some other cities like Birmingham and Bradford) is very different from towns barely twenty miles away.
Missile Defense
Banned
Yes I think you are right on. Even "small" countries are culturally different from one city to the next and from one neighborhood to the next. I think that on the internet in particular people forget how divided people really are. They often make the mistake that if 300 people post negatively in a thread that there must be 300 million "real" people out there who feel the same and then suddenly something that very well might be a relatively small problem gets painted as a sign of the end of society. Sometimes the media makes a big thing out of small problems. Even in this case, it seems like people can't agree whether or not this is a big problem or a small one, and some seem to think there is no problem at all except for Anita Sarkeesian.
It would be truly funny if it turned out that all Anita actually did was get the attention of just a few hundred truly misogynistic guys who are now sparking the hate. Maybe she uncovered it all and brought it to the surface. I never considered games to be misogynistic but its hard to argue with it when people are attacking her. Its like I was just completely unaware and didn't think twice about any of the innuendo in games and such. My first reaction was "wow, no way, it has never been like that", but then I watched her videos and was like "OK I see that point for sure, and that one, OK that one too, OK maybe there is a problem here but I'm not 100% sure its real..." and then the death threats come from all over the web and then I'm like "OK she was totally right these guys are crazy and we could use some better female characters in games".
And now I'm not 100% what the argument is about? Surely when faced with evidence we can all agree that she has a point right? But nope, it seems like the actual problem is that she's actually right.
I agree entirely. It's a shame that any real discussion of her points got lost amid the venom as such viciousness can only polarise discussion with a goal of muddying the waters. I watched her videos and probably agreed with around 75% of her points, and really wanted to talk about a few minor things I disagreed with, as often I thought her broader point was good but the example poorly chosen compared to another that sprang to mind. But I was put off from discussing (and maybe even developing) the subject because of all the tossers who couldn't argue the point without veering into something something feminism sucks. The great thing about youtube is it offers a platform for opinion, but the sensible critiques of her project are outnumbered a hundred to one by those that just can't get past the fact that it's Anita saying it. Play the ball, not the, er, woman.
If anything, I think it shows that if a guy had made the same argument, it wouldn't have had the same response, which is pretty foul. I occasionally read shockingly awful critiques about various industries by male hacks in the Guardian (British leftie newspaper) all the time, but I don't see online movements lining up to threaten to rape them, cut their nuts off and accuse them of being part of a grand social justice conspiracy for daring to have an opinion that's left of centre. Well, maybe their nemesis, the Mail, does the last one
llAuburnll
Banned
I don't keep up with this at all. Trying to read these threads to inform myself is very confusing and weird.
However, can we please stop bringing up Nazis and the KKK? They are on a completely different level. I personally know people who lost half their families to the Holocaust. My wife's grandfather is the only survivor of his siblings because he got out of the country. Many of us know people who lived through the civil rights movement. Please stop bringing these heinous evil groups down to the level of "gamergaters". It's insincere and stupid. People were murdered. Genocide....do you realize the horrific reality we are talking about here?
However, can we please stop bringing up Nazis and the KKK? They are on a completely different level. I personally know people who lost half their families to the Holocaust. My wife's grandfather is the only survivor of his siblings because he got out of the country. Many of us know people who lived through the civil rights movement. Please stop bringing these heinous evil groups down to the level of "gamergaters". It's insincere and stupid. People were murdered. Genocide....do you realize the horrific reality we are talking about here?
Why do you think "gaming interests are correlated with being a geek/nerd"? Do you think this happened naturally? Why only male geeks and nerds?
The current state of game culture was fostered and directed by game companies marketing executives since all the way back in the 1980s. Women were actively driven away from videogames, and computer science in general, by the industry's almost exclusive focus on the young male demographic.
The industry created GamerGate a long time ago, and it's done less than nothing to try and stop it.
UK Universities have massive problems with rape and sexual assault, largely fueld by our laddish drinking culture. We don't have the insane US Fraternity hazing rituals, instead we have "5 Jagerbombs for a fiver" nights and women getting date raped.
Wow. Admittedly my knowledge is about 15 years out of date and tempered by my own personal experience, apologies if I trivialised anything.
Huh. Correlation is no Causation obviously but it's certainly interesting that female interest in comp sci cratered around the time that videogames became 'mainstream'. Before that comp sci was just another engineering type job.
I think though this has far more to do with the rise of the 'started from a garage'/Silicon Valley style of software development that happened with Apple, Microsoft etc. in which there is no work life balance. Chugging coffee and coding for 24 hours straight is the kind of unhealthy obsessive work expectation that generally only young men really seem to embrace and it kind of became the image of comp sci rather than the 9 to 5 kind of engineering jobs that these previously were.
Edit: I guess you could say that chugging Red Bull and playing games all day/all night is an echo of the pioneers of computer science and is also something that seems to be generally a male thing.
I think though this has far more to do with the rise of the 'started from a garage'/Silicon Valley style of software development that happened with Apple, Microsoft etc. in which there is no work life balance. Chugging coffee and coding for 24 hours straight is the kind of unhealthy obsessive work expectation that generally only young men really seem to embrace and it kind of became the image of comp sci rather than the 9 to 5 kind of engineering jobs that these previously were.
Edit: I guess you could say that chugging Red Bull and playing games all day/all night is an echo of the pioneers of computer science and is also something that seems to be generally a male thing.
Yoshi
Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
Keep in mind these statistics only compare relative interest. This graph cannot be used to show an increase or decrease of males / females in the field, but only an increase / decrease relative to the other sex. So for instance, it could be that the number of females studying cs was growing strictly monotonic for the whole time displayed, but the number of males studying cs was growing even faster.
Moreover it is important to keep in mind that combined studies grew in importance and may not be counted as cs majors in there. For instance, at my university, we have the major komedia, which is cognition- and media sciences, a combination of cs and psychology with a bit of economics. This is super popular with females. Also we have techno-mathematics, a combination of mathematics and computer science, which is also very popular with females - strangely so, because pure mathematics and pure computer sciences are very unpopular with females. Of course this is only anecdotal, but these very same statistics could very well be true for my university, too, if you do not count komedia and techno-mathematics, although that would probably not tell you enough about the situation.
If they're concerned about journalism, then they jumped on the worst bandwagon.
One of my favourite quotes from Community is Britta saying "If I had no self-awareness, I think I'd know about it." That's GG to a tee.
Missile Defense
Banned
Reminds me of that part in the bible, "I am that I am". A powerful statement, probably the most powerful of all.
Something I had not considered is that this issue may very well be a sort of runaway train. If females have been alienated by the industry and there aren't enough to market to now for the required profits then what can be done other than to appeal a bit more to females in games traditionally targeted for males in an attempt to capture both audiences?
I point this out because I have heard some say that "the feminists are ruining our games with girly stuff". But not targeting females is leaving out half the market so it only makes sense.
I was recently playing Battletoads Arcade via Rare Replay. This is a game clearly targeted for teenage boys and grown men. Its all kinds of potty humor and over the top violence combined with one major questionable female portrayal in the Dark Queen. She's super hot in that leather and lace kind of way and there is stage where she appears as an apparition of sorts overlooking a boss battle. As you combo the boss, she makes an interesting gesture where I swear she appears to be throating an imaginary object with one hand while stroking another. Honestly I thought it was hilarious, clearly they knew what they were doing and while this doesn't offend me personally I was like "oh snap!! Wow, they got away with that in the arcades!?". Another thing in this game are the puking and crapping rats, but also the giant half man bulls that are so big you defeat them by grabbing their packages and punching them. Yes, I know. Awesome. (In that shocking oh snap! kind of way)
Interestingly enough, I have not seen anything like that in recent games. Perhaps that game was before the ESRB.
But are people really complaining that we can't have games with crude stuff in it anymore? I guess we lost all that long ago with the ESRB so there shouldn't be very many blatant examples like that anymore.
Hello? This is Hailun!
Member
Do not blame me. The current backlash against "SJW culture" has the exact same racist, sexist, and reactionary overtones and far Right Wing associations that the racist, sexist, and reactionary elements from the 20s to the 70s had when butting heads with historical Progressive movements.
In decades past it was always a Jewish, Black Militant, Feminist, and/or Left Wing conspiracy to ruin "American Culture".
llAuburnll
Banned
This is the same bull crap garbage being spewed elsewhere in the thread that's extremely disrespectful and incredibly out of touch. Please just stop.
It's hard to believe your posts are serious.
QuantumZebra
Member
People need a scapegoat to blame their fear and paranoia on. In this case it is shut-in sociopaths who want to take their irrelevancy and anger out on women/minorities in high profile positions within the game industry, demonizing them as the ones trying to "take away video game culture".
partyphone
Banned
these are people who write for stormfront, draw Anita as a Jew and constantly complain about cultural Marxism. gamergate is teeming with right wing shitheads.
llAuburnll
Banned
I should have just stopped reading this thread when gamergate was being equated with Nazis and the kkk. Please..
partyphone
Banned
not equated to. people in gamergate are literal nazis and white supremecists. that's an important distinction to make.
edit: and not a small number of people. also there are MRAs and pedophiles. these are people who use and defend 8chan.
I don't know what else to tell you. gamergaters are pieces of shit.
Perhaps GG should stop using imagery and methods that invite those comparisons.
But with the number of white supremacists in their ranks, those comparisons are likely an honor.
scoobidoo112
Member
I don't know what's more offensive at this point. Calling GG'ers Nazi's, naming MRA's and pedophiles in the same breath as if they are comparable, calling everyone from GG pieces of shit...
At some point people like you MUST gain some perspective and come back down to the realm of sane discussions right? Do you really think you're being better than any of them?
Or is this no longer a discussion thread, but rather one where people pile on with insane comparisons, name calling and condemning?
llAuburnll
Banned
Yeah I have no problem calling GG'ers crap and terrible people. They are idiots. The harassing and hate is just not called for, on either side, but GG'ers have been pretty bad.
But they are not on the same level as literal Nazis or the kkk. Again, like I said earlier, that's incredibly disrespectful to what actually happened with those groups. I thought it was the extreme fringe making these comparisons, but you can see the posts above and below mine. I mean really.
I'm with you, kept waiting on some form of perspective to come back around.
Hello? This is Hailun!
Member
What is there left to discuss?
You can assert that GG is mischaracterized, but considering the very public faces of it are without a doubt some of the most vilest of people in the world, you have to come to the conclusion that GG isn't what you would like for it to be.
You are willingly ignoring what we are telling you. GG is literally full of Nazis. It has the full support of Storm Front. It has the full support of Breitbart.com.
If you don't think this is what should represent GG, I ask you to take a second and realize that if this isn't you, then GG doesn't represent you.
It is a fair complaint if you feel that Gamer Gate has been hijacked by these people. But you can't deny that it hasn't, and you shouldn't pretend that it doesn't represent their interests.
partyphone
Banned
the comparisons are not insane. I am simply describing the prominent members of gamergate. it's an organized harassment campaign. trying to remain neutral and detached is disgusting and erases the real harm they have caused and will continue to cause.
llAuburnll
Banned
Are they really though? The worst people in the world? Really?
Hello? This is Hailun!
Member
Roosh V literally wants to be able to legally rape women.
Yes, he's one of the worst people in the world.
partyphone
Banned
I'm not saying they are all Hilters and organized harassment is exaclty the same as genocide. jesus christ.
there are people in gamergate who are self described nazis. that's it. they're white supremecists. I am not comparing them to anything. they put swastikas on everything and complain about white genocide when they're not harassing people who criticize games for not being diverse.
there are people in gamergate who are self described nazis. that's it. they're white supremecists. I am not comparing them to anything. they put swastikas on everything and complain about white genocide when they're not harassing people who criticize games for not being diverse.
partyphone
Banned
he's also an admitted rapist who sells rape manuals and actively tries to rape women all the time.
is he worse than some ISIS warlord? obviously not. but he's way up there on the list of awful people.
Yes, but are YOU better than him. Can you really say that you are a better person???
Yes. Yes, you can.
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