Quote from: Opaopajr;814256That BadgerPod dog avatar used is so cute! Squee! :teehee:

Yes! That was my first thought too! That dog is adorable.

Quote from: Doctor Jest;814260I agree there's a chilling effect to this kind of rhetoric, but after a point it's Boy Who Cried Wolf. When everyone's racist, no one is.

This is arguably what happened with gamergate. They made too many sweeping attacks against too many interconnected groups. Perfectly decent people who had always tried to be considerate and normally would never have questioned the victim story found themselves thinking, "Hold on a sec, how am I the villain now!?" Then the outrage brigade doubled down with publicly conflating these average people with the vilest sort of misogynists and Klansmen and such at every opportunity.

It was disturbing, really, to realize that even talking about your actual experiences in a moderately skeptical manner could get you permanently smeared out of some venues. Even saying what I just said was a crime: "think of all the women being threatened with death you insensitive prick", as if I implicitly approved of that horrible harassment!

While gamergate will (has?) faded, it was still a crucial eye-opening experience for a lot of people who had always assumed the boy who cried wolf was on the level. This conversation is only heating up. It's starting to hit the op-ed pages of the NYT for instance.

A pity this is going down in such a manner, a lot of women and minorities who are really suffering from injustice are going to get lost in the shuffle.

I was there when it was live and participated in the chatroom. Not that anyone here would be surprised, but my supplemental information on the tabletop RPG scene vis-a-vis SocJus cultists did catch some folks off-guard. (Can't blame them; folks tend to ignore what's not in their face or known to be in their interests.) At least one of the Badgers did dig into Fred Hicks' flipping out over Gamergate, so there may be further tabletop RPG talk in future podcasts.

What's the difference between GamerGate and fundamentalist Islam?  Liberals will give Muslims the benefit of the doubt.

JG

Quote from: James Gillen;814273What's the difference between GamerGate and fundamentalist Islam?  Liberals will give Muslims the benefit of the doubt.

JG

Also if you're a Radical Islamic Terrorist, you're not actually Islamic, you're an individual, but if you're a card-carrying member of Stormfront/MRA sites you're considered the default Gamergater, not a radical outsider.

Also Gamergaters have done a lot more to identify and call out the virtual bombthrowers in their midst, than moderate muslims have done to the real bombthrowers in theirs.

Quote from: CRKrueger;814276Also if you're a Radical Islamic Terrorist, you're not actually Islamic, you're an individual, but if you're a card-carrying member of Stormfront/MRA sites you're considered the default Gamergater, not a radical outsider.

Also Gamergaters have done a lot more to identify and call out the virtual bombthrowers in their midst, than moderate muslims have done to the real bombthrowers in theirs.

Well, no.  Islam is obviously a larger movement.  So there's a lot MORE Muslims who have called out the literal bombthrowers but in media terms they seem like a drop in the bucket.
By the same token, in media terms, GamerGate would be a tempest in a teapot if the targets in the media weren't so personally offended by the accusations.  Which gets back to my point: The real issue is not that certain people in a group do X, it's that the actions are interpreted differently by people with an agenda.

JG

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;814270It was disturbing, really, to realize that even talking about your actual experiences in a moderately skeptical manner could get you permanently smeared out of some venues. Even saying what I just said was a crime: "think of all the women being threatened with death you insensitive prick", as if I implicitly approved of that horrible harassment!

While gamergate will (has?) faded, it was still a crucial eye-opening experience for a lot of people who had always assumed the boy who cried wolf was on the level. This conversation is only heating up. It's starting to hit the op-ed pages of the NYT for instance.

In some ways, encouraging these ersatz feminists would be the best way to undo them. Their reach is beginning to exceed their grasp. The more they tighten their grip, the more star systems will slip through their fingers.

If I wanted to make a concentrated effort to destroy the movement, I'd go undercover as one of the most radical and outspoken members they ever had.

QuoteA pity this is going down in such a manner, a lot of women and minorities who are really suffering from injustice are going to get lost in the shuffle.

Yeah, that's the worst part of extremists like this, that they do their own professed causes more harm than good. That problems exist is true, but their dishonesty about the scope and scale of the problem, their diagnosis of the causes, and their proposed remedies often are so off-putting that it makes people dismiss the premise of social problems entirely. This does no one any good.

Quote from: James Gillen;814277Well, no.  Islam is obviously a larger movement.  So there's a lot MORE Muslims who have called out the literal bombthrowers but in media terms they seem like a drop in the bucket.
By the same token, in media terms, GamerGate would be a tempest in a teapot if the targets in the media weren't so personally offended by the accusations.  Which gets back to my point: The real issue is not that certain people in a group do X, it's that the actions are interpreted differently by people with an agenda.

That reminds me.

Does it not seem odd to any of you that ABC's Nightline, as did The Colbert Report before it, gave significant airtime to Sark and let her go on about her bullshit victim narrative? While there are prosaic motives (mainstream media is as driven by click-bait as videogame media, due to both being ad-revenue dependent), it's so rare to see such attention given to something so trivial outside the scene. (And now? A new episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit will be based on Sark's narrative. Come on.)

Sark, McIntosh, and the other anti-GG figures are all trust-fund babies based out of the SF Bay bubble; they have connections via social and family to the mainstream media, so I'm thinking that there's a certain level of back-scratching going on here that transcends the stupidity of game journalists that sparked this whole thing- that not only is this corruption present at all levels, but that it's inter-laced and self-protecting to a certain degree.

And yes, I do point out in Honey Badger chats that this is the case.

By comparison, dealing with the SocJus cultists in on our own block is easy; we can just (a) point out their hypocrisy, (b) mock them for it, and (c) suggest not engaging in the few ways that their BS narratives can push into our scene (i.e. discouraging Organized Play in favor of home games, esp. w/ the new online tools that allow for playing at a distance; D&D has a category at Twitch, so folks do stream tabletop RPGs now, and this is a great thing.).

Oh, and we can just make our own things that we think are fun and share them. That's a lot easier for us than for the boardgame and videogame scenes, so we should keep at that.

Quote from: James Gillen;814277Well, no.  Islam is obviously a larger movement.  So there's a lot MORE Muslims who have called out the literal bombthrowers but in media terms they seem like a drop in the bucket.
By the same token, in media terms, GamerGate would be a tempest in a teapot if the targets in the media weren't so personally offended by the accusations.  Which gets back to my point: The real issue is not that certain people in a group do X, it's that the actions are interpreted differently by people with an agenda.

JG

You're right in sheer numbers, I meant percentage, the average Gemergater is pretty vocal against the shitlords, the average moderate muslim isn't as vociferous in public.

Quote from: Doctor Jest;814278If I wanted to make a concentrated effort to destroy the movement, I'd go undercover as one of the most radical and outspoken members they ever had.

If it's good enough for the CIA and FBI, it's good enough for us.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;814281If it's good enough for the CIA and FBI, it's good enough for us.

Eh, if we use the CIA for a model, the US would be renamed The Matriarchy of Feministan within 5 years.

Quote from: Doctor Jest;814283Eh, if we use the CIA for a model, the US would be renamed The Matriarchy of Feministan within 5 years.

Instead of the current estimate of 8?

Quote from: Doctor Jest;814260It's people taking them seriously that lets them scare people into silence. Put the big rubber nose on them and that goes away.

Agreed. Humor is the most dangerous weapon against any group that decides it has the monopoly on the Truth.

"Radical feminism is just Patriarchy in lipstick."

Best line in the whole podcast.

Quote from: jeff37923;814335"Radical feminism is just Patriarchy in lipstick."

Best line in the whole podcast.

Its funny, I've seen that basic accusation tossed at different schools of feminism at others for years too. Its definitely not a monolithic movement.