Support NeoGAF

[Hudo]

Someone should check whether that is also specified in their EULA.

 

[Acidizer]

Satire?

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

As an aside, why on earth would any single individual use the pronoun 'they'?

It's third person plural.

Is this simply because they don't want to use the term 'it'. Or are they passing themselves off as multiple individuals?

I think it's because they're not important on their own, and they know it.

 

[Al Abaster]

Humanity will be fine. It's the democratic West that's screwed.

I think you're right. Nobody in history ever really liked pure democracy, it always led to cultural suicide after a long and unhappy period of mob rule. Generally transitioning into some kind of horrid despotism or totalitarian intermediate phase. The American Founders and other overly romantic intellectuals of the West thought they could make it work using representation instead of the straight dope.

But it looks like democracy, in whatever dosage, is invariably fatal. Doesn't take a degree in rocket surgery, it seems to me, to figure out why. The majority can barely tie their own shoelaces.

Looking back down the millenia, it seems to me that constitutional monarchy was by far the best system humankind ever devised. We owe George an apology. Having discarded and burned the whole model though, don't think there's any going back.

 

[Al Abaster]

It might be wrong but when i learned english they told me the pronoun "they" was also used as a gender neutral term. This was like 15 years ago, so no SJW nonsense involved.

The word "gender" is itself SJW nonsense. If you use that word, and believe it is a real word, you're already co-opted by the movement. When I learned English (over a half-century ago) there was no such word as "gender" being used anywhere. There was only the proper word, "sex."

The word "gender" and the assumptions behind it are part of the psychological conditioning public education inflicts on people in order to mold them properly for the brave new world.

 

[DTU]

If you forced on me a choice of curing leukemia or playing this game to completion, I'd have to think really hard about it.

 

[strange headache]

Remember when the standard of bigotry was how the victim felt about it? Now we have to respect the feelings of a videogame character as a proxy for the group of developers who made it.

It is indeed exactly how you say:

According to the mod, FL4K was created by a "non-binary" person and by their insane logic "misgendering" that person's fictional creation is to be considered transphobic. The only thing I'd like to know is, since when do the personal rights of the creator extend to their fictional creations? How can you "misgender" a fantasy character that, by any stretch of the imagination, has no autonomous capacity to be offended or capable of making use of its rights?

I'm amused at how the mod is citing UK law for a fictional character where it does not apply. This is nothing more than a creator infusing xir's (am I doing this right?) own personality into a character in order to be outraged by proxy. No creator has the right to dictate, since interpretative work is done by the audience.

If somebody writes a book or makes a movie, it is not their right to dictate how I should be viewing their work. Sure they can be part of the discussion and formulate suggestions, but it is still my right to interpret their work however I see fit. Part of the pleasure about engaging with literature is coming to my own conclusions about the author's work. You don't get to dictate how I'm supposed to think about your story only because you're the one who created it.

If that were the case, then you'd need to get rid of a vast body of Hollywood movies that are based on the re-imagination of a popular book, you also couldn't have things like female Thor, gay Iceman, Nazi Captain America or black Spiderman because that's not how they were envisioned by their original creators. Heck, most of the "creative" output by the social justice militants is nothing more than a radical departure from a popular fictional character's original identity.

Creators create, they are not there to dictate how you're supposed to think about it, that's still your responsibility and your liberty.

 

[ThatGamingDude]

I dont understand, why cant the robot be called he?

Since english is not my primary language i never understood the use of they instead of him/her

Regardless between this and Ion Fury, this is really starting to getting out of hand imo.

English is overly complicated for no reason, mainly because there's typically more exceptions to the rules than the rules themselves.

They would be the plural form for a group of people, but since they can include both men and women, it's considered gender neutral.
However, depending on the dialect/region, they could be used as meaning a singular person, but it technically isn't proper English.

Gender pronouns weighs a little more heavy in English (Even excluding current western politics) as we don't do a whole ton of conjugation in our language, and often leads to misunderstandings since the referenced noun/noun phrase can be confused/forgotten/lost/etc.

At least here in the USA, we've always held gender differences close to home, and for a time we poked a good amount of fun at it and seemed like we were really comfortable with understanding the differences. Though, that was the past. The world over has changed vastly since the rate of information exchange with the internet has sky rocketed; like minded individuals can find each other faster now, so things change pretty quickly.

Mistaking a man for a woman or vice versa, in our culture, typically implies that you think that person looks more feminine or masculine, and with people holding their femininity/masculinity close to heart, it's usually insulting

Ya know, instead of that person making a mistake or being stupid, something to laugh at. Or ignoring because you understood what the person was trying to communicate, which is the point of spoken language.

 

[angelic]

 

[MiguelItUp]

Jesus Christ, this is absurd. It's a fictional character for Christ's sake! Not only that, it's a robot, lmao.

How is this not a joke?!

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

It is indeed exactly how you say:

According to the mod, FL4K was created by a "non-binary" person and by their insane logic "misgendering" that person's fictional creation is to be considered transphobic. The only thing I'd like to know is, since when do the personal rights of the creator extend to their fictional creations? How can you "misgender" a fantasy character that, by any stretch of the imagination, has no autonomous capacity to be offended or capable of making use of its rights?

I'm amused at how the mod is citing UK law for a fictional character where it does not apply. This is nothing more than a creator infusing xir's (am I doing this right?) own personality into a character in order to be outraged by proxy. No creator has the right to dictate, since interpretative work is done by the audience.

If somebody writes a book or makes a movie, it is not their right to dictate how I should be viewing their work. Sure they can be part of the discussion and formulate suggestions, but it is still my right to interpret their work however I see fit. Part of the pleasure about engaging with literature is coming to my own conclusions about the author's work. You don't get to dictate how I'm supposed to think about your story only because you're the one who created it.

If that were the case, then you'd need to get rid of a vast body of Hollywood movies that are based on the re-imagination of a popular book, you also couldn't have things like female Thor, gay Iceman, Nazi Captain America or black Spiderman because that's not how they were envisioned by their original creators. Heck, most of the "creative" output by the social justice militants is nothing more than a radical departure from a popular fictional character's original identity.

Creators create, they are not there to dictate how you're supposed to think about it, that's still your responsibility and your liberty.

Goodness, that phrase right there at the end... good find, by the way.

"someone who is non-binary themselves and as such has the right, as their creator, to dictate".

This excuse never flew when game creators wanted the main character to be a White Male™. This excuse was never brought up to crack down on fanfiction. It's such a bizarre world we live in where this is considered a reasonable standpoint. Are they trying to poison entertainment? Maybe it's not on purpose, but that will be the result.

As you said, It is not at the artist's sole discretion to dictate how their product should be received by the audience. They can have an opinion, they can express their standpoint, they can explain their own thought-process, but once it is out in the wild the customers have just as much of a say.

 

[Xaero Gravity]

We need a real life Ra's Al Ghul

 

[off duty ninja]

Good thing I am not buying this steaming pile of garbage. Fuck that little fucking rat fuck character and whatever gender they want to dictate we call it.

I was seriously on the fence with this game to begin with but this bullshit sealed it for me. That's an easy $60 saved.

 

[Paradicia]

 

[Ar¢tos]

I guess the game won't have any localisations besides English, since many other languages are strictly gendered and require gender for "they", at least grammatical gender.

 

[strange headache]

Word of god, eh?

"We will not ban you for misgendering our fictional character, but we will 'take formal action', i.e. ban you if you misgender our fictional character."

We didn't ban you, but flagged your comment, hid your post and silenced your voice. You know, at this point I'd much rather cop a simple and straightforward ban.

Uh oh, I hope their QA tester won't be sent to the Gearbox mandatory sensitivity gulag. Gearbox can't even keep their own lore straight.

 

[zeorhymer]

FL4K is a dude...he flirts with women all the time. Besides, once the artist's creation has been completed, they no longer have control of the meaning. These people should read "The Death of the Author."

 

[Hendrick's]

Since english is not my primary language i never understood the use of they instead of him/her

English IS my primary language and I don't understand it either.

 

[lukilladog]

These white knighters are absolutely ridiculous. Transgenders, gays and lesbians can handle hostile people by themselves just fine.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

UH OH strange, looks like Gearbox is gonna have to send the whole team to "sensitivity training" over that QA tester.

 

[thief183]

Am I the only one thinking this is a joke?

 

[Contica]

I'm calling it it. Frakking toaster.

 

[strange headache]

UH OH strange, looks like Gearbox is gonna have to send the whole team to "sensitivity training" over that QA tester.

So offense, outrage and transphobia "by proxy" is an official Gearbox moderation policy now.
Yeah... I think I'm done reading through that forum thread. I've seen enough, I'll take the "sensitivity training"... by proxy too.

 

[The Cartographer]

''Purposeful harassment and discrimination to a group of individuals by proxy''.

This shit is like an uppercut to common sense.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

So offense, outrage and transphobia "by proxy" is an official Gearbox moderation policy now.
Yeah... I think I'm done reading through that forum thread. I've seen enough, I'll take the "sensitivity training"... by proxy too.

Thank you for your service so that the rest of us don't have to look.

They literally say "by proxy". My sides.

 

[Mega_Deth]

Another reason why Gearbox is among the worst game developers out there. That's not even mentioning Randy Pitchford's shady antics and the whole aliens colonial marines debacle.

 

[GrayFoxPL]

 

[Riven326]

Fuck Gearbox.

 

[TeamGhobad]

Word of god, eh?

"We will not ban you for misgendering our fictional character, but we will 'take formal action', i.e. ban you if you misgender our fictional character."

We didn't ban you, but flagged your comment, hid your post and silenced your voice. You know, at this point I'd much rather cop a simple and straightforward ban.

Uh oh, I hope their QA tester won't be sent to the Gearbox mandatory sensitivity gulag. Gearbox can't even keep their own lore straight.

No, Daquan was promoted to vice president.

 

[darkangel-212559]

"Neuro divergent"

Hold on, let's not confuse some sort of bullshit SJW problem with actual disability hate speech which unlike SJW crap is a very real historical problem.

I'm autisic myself and I welcome the term neurodiversity to identify myself with. It's a welcome break to be neurodivergent, which expresses my right to be treated as an individual, rather than a lesser person with a disability.

The word retard is very problematic when levied against people with disabilities and I'm glad that word is not as acceptable in society as it once was.

I don't think that's being 'Woke' I think that's just fair enough. The SJW crowd are obsessed with making up any small thing that they can see as offensive. Disability hate speech and or slurs is definitely not close to that crap what so ever.

 

[Petrae]

Fuck Gearbox.

Exactly. Other people will throw their money at Gearbox because MOAR BORDERLANDZ but they— nor Take-Two— are getting any more of my cash, because I consider the whole operation to be a fucking joke. There are plenty of other games I can buy that don’t come from a developer with a truly shitty human being at the helm, whose employees aggressively push their identity politics, and whose publisher has repeatedly employed private investigators to harass people.

In a perfect world, Borderlands 3 tanks, Gearbox folds, and Randy Pitchford has to become a full-time magician pay his bills... but I’m content with sending a FUCK YOU to all involved by not buying or playing this game.

 

[Darrec]

I was never taught that And I have genuinely never encountered an individual person adopting the pronoun. It would be so difficult to maintain in conversation. Language cannot be marshalled like that.

I'm an old boy, so leaned grammar via the joys of Latin and Greek. You're right that 'they' is neutral, in as much as it isn't automatically associated with either male or female. In many ways, it's the plural of 'it'.

They wouldn't be able to use the third person plural in French though, as Ils and Elles do hint at gender. Or maybe they use an other term?

All too complicated for me.

I always thought the use of "they" was perfectly correct because otherwise, how are you supposed to refer to a third person that you don't know it's either a "he" or a "she"?

The word "gender" is itself SJW nonsense. If you use that word, and believe it is a real word, you're already co-opted by the movement. When I learned English (over a half-century ago) there was no such word as "gender" being used anywhere. There was only the proper word, "sex."

The word "gender" and the assumptions behind it are part of the psychological conditioning public education inflicts on people in order to mold them properly for the brave new world.

Semantics. You know exactly what i meant and i don't know why you decided to focus on that specific word of my post when its whole point was about discussing the correct use of the pronoun "they".

 

[spandexmonkey]

Do they dub their games in Spanish? I'd like to hear how they handle that. The subtitles could be interesting too.

 

[iconmaster]

I always thought the use of "they" was perfectly correct because otherwise, how are you supposed to refer to a third person that you don't know it's either a "he" or a "she"?

Historically, the correct choice was always "he." These days that's unacceptable so we have to contort subject-verb agreement into a torturous state to make everyone happy.

 

[J-Roderton]

Bonkers.

 

[Darrec]

Do they dub their games in Spanish? I'd like to hear how they handle that. The subtitles could be interesting too.

I'm sure they'll use "El" since that pronoun is used for anything other than females (male, object, neutral).

Historically, the correct choice was always "he." These days that's unacceptable so we have to contort subject-verb agreement into a torturous state to make everyone happy.

Interesting, it seems like it originally worked pretty much the same as it does in spanish, i genuinely didn't know that. Not like it matters though, i'll get crucified if i try to pull that off nowadays.

 

[DeepEnigma]

It's a fucking virtual robot you disillusioned brainlets.

 

[iconmaster]

I'm sure they'll use "El" since that pronoun is used for anything other than females (male, object, neutral).

THAT WOULD MAKE A LOT OF SENSE

 

[buizel]

 

[shaddam]

Well as a hungarian this is highly troubling. We dont use the der die das stuff, I often using he because I'm used to it

 

[Ogbert]

I always thought the use of "they" was perfectly correct because otherwise, how are you supposed to refer to a third person that you don't know it's either a "he" or a "she"?

You're right that, conventionally, it's correct. That said, I think it's always used as a conversational subsitute rather than a replacement pronoun to withold gender reference. Something like:

'Oh, I caught up with Dan last week.'
'Really, what are they up to these days?'

That's a pretty clunky example and looks silly in print, but they is certainly used as a generic reference. Moreover, it can be used as a pronoun for a collective noun, where the subject is an individual, but could be any individual.

'What would someone do in this instance?'
'They would do the following...'

Grammatically however, you should probably use the Queen's English and say 'one would...'

Fun stuff!

 

[prinz_valium]

My issue with fake or incorrect pronouns is not that people want to refer to themselves with such pronouns, but rather the fact that they think they have the right to force other people to use them. Forced speech is disgusting and enforcing it is draconian.

Exactly. Especially if they want me to use a personal pronoun that is referring to a group for a single individual.

I call you he, she, it or by your name. But I will never call you they, them or whatever.


Also my preferred pronouns are Master, God and Nigger.
Go call me that or is that not okay for you?

 

[Iorv3th]

Hold on, let's not confuse some sort of bullshit SJW problem with actual disability hate speech which unlike SJW crap is a very real historical problem.

I'm autisic myself and I welcome the term neurodiversity to identify myself with. It's a welcome break to be neurodivergent, which expresses my right to be treated as an individual, rather than a lesser person with a disability.

The word retard is very problematic when levied against people with disabilities and I'm glad that word is not as acceptable in society as it once was.

I don't think that's being 'Woke' I think that's just fair enough. The SJW crowd are obsessed with making up any small thing that they can see as offensive. Disability hate speech and or slurs is definitely not close to that crap what so ever.

Retard wasn't a slur at first either. Just wait until kids start calling other kids "neuro diverse" as an insult.

 

[darkangel-212559]

Retard wasn't a slur at first either. Just wait until kids start calling other kids "neuro diverse" as an insult.

It's already been happening with the term autistic and it really pisses me off tbh.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

This has got to be a funny satire? Borderlands is that kind of game. Quirky.

But if its true i wouldn't be surprised.

2k is a heavy moderates board. I remember reading the sports forums way back..... 2k nba and nhl etc... if a gamer just mentioned EA sports or 989 sports (in a comparisoon way) the post would be deleted. And if you did it too much theyd ban you for bringing up competing games in their forum.

Total asses.

 

[Ar¢tos]

I'm sure they'll use "El" since that pronoun is used for anything other than females (male, object, neutral).

Actually.... There are a few situations when "El" is used for female nouns, when referring to a grammatically feminine noun that starts with an "a" so you don't get two "a" sounds together (ex El águila).

 

[Dr. Claus]

Cool, another reason to NOT buy this game. Thank you, Gearbox.

I was super interested in playing FL4K too. He seemed like such a fun character with his abilities. Too bad he will forever go unplayed as I don't have the time to refer to him using such silly pronoun rules pushed by mentally deranged moderators on a power trip.

 

[Mihos]

Welp, off to get my ban... BRB


Hmm... There is also a slap fight over the word 'midget' that they closed the thread on. Maybe I am just old, but when did people start giving a crap if someone was offended.... I mean no one gives a crap when they offend me.

 

[desertdroog]

I'm calling it it. Frakking toaster.

I like this. Fl4k identifies as an attack toaster in my gameplay.

 

[Raven117]

I think you're right. Nobody in history ever really liked pure democracy, it always led to cultural suicide after a long and unhappy period of mob rule. Generally transitioning into some kind of horrid despotism or totalitarian intermediate phase. The American Founders and other overly romantic intellectuals of the West thought they could make it work using representation instead of the straight dope.

But it looks like democracy, in whatever dosage, is invariably fatal. Doesn't take a degree in rocket surgery, it seems to me, to figure out why. The majority can barely tie their own shoelaces.

Looking back down the millenia, it seems to me that constitutional monarchy was by far the best system humankind ever devised. We owe George an apology. Having discarded and burned the whole model though, don't think there's any going back.

This is...ummm...this is weaponized idiocy. Like, eff balls stupid.