Quote from: TristramEvansWhy is this group not going after Fox News if they're really concerned about ethics in journalism, a news source that actually impacts society? This all smacks of slactivism again to me.

Quote from: Premier;793620That logic cuts both ways. All those SJW's who are hijacking gaming media (sad and corrupt as it is) and using it as a platform for the their crusade and who are haranguing about sexism in gaming and by gamers... if they're really concerned about sexism, why aren't they going after some genuinely large issue that actually impacts society? Like misogyny in American professional sports? Going after the small fry of gaming doesn't so much smack as reeks of slactivism. To me and to anyone with a brain.

I think that logic is flawed in both cases.

GamerGaters are reacting to gaming journalism because that's what they are close to. Likewise, gamers who are concerned with sexism react to sexism in their own personal sphere.

For example, if the clerk at my corner store is staring at and catcalling young women, I may react to that and take effort to do something about it. He argues back that they shoot girls for getting an education in Pakistan - why aren't I doing anything about that? That's a specious argument. I'm doing something about what is in front of me.

I agree that there are some genuine slacktivists, but just because someone is acting locally doesn't mean they are a slacktivist.

Quote from: Piestrio;790978I'm very liberal in nearly every facet of my life. I'm pro-labor, I've been a member of 3 labor unions, sat on the board of one and worked for another. I've attended rallies, protests, meetings etc... since I was in high school. I've knocked on doors for ballot initiatives and candidates.

So I say this from a position of utmost love.

Modern leftism, as is expressed and carried out online, is broken. It's come full circle to be an amazingly anti-liberal force. Basically every tenet of liberalism is violently attacked and denounced by online leftists.

It makes me very sad to see my fellow travellers burning down everything we're supposed to be fighting for.

At this point I've basically stopped talking about it online because anyone who raises an objection, no matter how small, to the glorious crusade will be cast out of the tribe and likely face harassment for their effort.

I still keep in contact with some of my old activist buddies and more than a few have done basically the same thing. It's gotten so toxic and wrong-headed we want basically nothing to do with it anymore.

What's really funny is that the more strident the Left becomes, the less it accomplishes on a national level.

JG

Quote from: CRKrueger;793556"Journalistic Ethics" is not just "AAA titles don't get lower then a 8 because otherwise they would get no access."  It's also "A group of SJW using the success and popularity of Indie Games to collectively push a joint political agenda and collude to attack their own audience despite being supposed competitors."

Forget the gaming scene.  The fact that many of us would prefer to get our news from Stephen Colbert and Andrew Sullivan is evidence that "journalistic ethics" is a phrase that ranks right up there with "pregnant virgin."

JG

Something I noticed lately is that the frustration of the anti-GG side, as well as the continued opportunism exploiting both sides, reveals that what is going on is that GG has become an insurgency. The chaos created that allows people to play both sides for their own ends, the utter failure of the insurgents' enemies to comprehend the insurgency (and therefore doom their own side), and shows of asymmetric (social and political, rather than paramilitary) operations scoring successes in contravention to the narrative told- no, not Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iraq, but this thing we're talking about here and now.

Insurgencies arise when a population experiences a foreign invasion in force, sees that it lacks the means to confront it conventionally (or that is cannot do so and win), and instead switches to an entirely different mode of engagement contingent on destroy the foreigners' will to continue the adventure. Operations target alliances (reducing the invaders' ability to continue), as well as the ones seen to provide for or benefit from the adventure ("hearts & minds", reducing the support for the adventure).

This is how the pro-GG side operates; they're targeting advertisers and exposing links in how the enemy's operations actually work and revealing intentions that the anti-GG side wants concealed (for whatever reason). The anti-GG side operates as a typical formalized institution acting in an imperial manner, especially in its delusion that both sides are playing the same game, and if no one on that side wakes up and starts leading their side to an effective anti-insurgency strategy soon they will find that their defeat in inevitable. Soon they will find that their allies and support base will desert them to save their own skins or preserve ideological purity.

And yes, there are known ways to break an insurgency. The anti-GG side, at this time, is too ignorant and incompetent to properly employ them.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;793672Something I noticed lately is that the frustration of the anti-GG side, as well as the continued opportunism exploiting both sides, reveals that what is going on is that GG has become an insurgency. The chaos created that allows people to play both sides for their own ends, the utter failure of the insurgents' enemies to comprehend the insurgency (and therefore doom their own side), and shows of asymmetric (social and political, rather than paramilitary) operations scoring successes in contravention to the narrative told- no, not Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iraq, but this thing we're talking about here and now.

Insurgencies arise when a population experiences a foreign invasion in force, sees that it lacks the means to confront it conventionally (or that is cannot do so and win), and instead switches to an entirely different mode of engagement contingent on destroy the foreigners' will to continue the adventure. Operations target alliances (reducing the invaders' ability to continue), as well as the ones seen to provide for or benefit from the adventure ("hearts & minds", reducing the support for the adventure).

This is how the pro-GG side operates; they're targeting advertisers and exposing links in how the enemy's operations actually work and revealing intentions that the anti-GG side wants concealed (for whatever reason). The anti-GG side operates as a typical formalized institution acting in an imperial manner, especially in its delusion that both sides are playing the same game, and if no one on that side wakes up and starts leading their side to an effective anti-insurgency strategy soon they will find that their defeat in inevitable. Soon they will find that their allies and support base will desert them to save their own skins or preserve ideological purity.

And yes, there are known ways to break an insurgency. The anti-GG side, at this time, is too ignorant and incompetent to properly employ them.

Again, I find this disturbingly parallel to the Left's cluelessness in general.

JG

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;793672And yes, there are known ways to break an insurgency. The anti-GG side, at this time, is too ignorant and incompetent to properly employ them.

I'd add arrogant to that list. They've been told their whole life that they're not only special snowflakes, but that they're always right, so they can't conceive that everyone won't agree with them and put down the insurgency, pat them on the head and say "good job", and give them a cookie and a participation trophy.

Of course, the cookie and trophy is only the start. What they really want is access to the control panel of society so they can tell everyone else how to behave. For our own good, of course...

This is a new low...


Seriously? SERIOUSLY?!?
You want to stop people donating to a charity, to people in actual need, because you think the opposition is "weaponizing charity"?

The mental gymnastics to get to this point... :banghead:

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;793672Something I noticed lately is that the frustration of the anti-GG side, as well as the continued opportunism exploiting both sides, reveals that what is going on is that GG has become an insurgency. The chaos created that allows people to play both sides for their own ends, the utter failure of the insurgents' enemies to comprehend the insurgency (and therefore doom their own side), and shows of asymmetric (social and political, rather than paramilitary) operations scoring successes in contravention to the narrative told- no, not Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iraq, but this thing we're talking about here and now.

Insurgencies arise when a population experiences a foreign invasion in force, sees that it lacks the means to confront it conventionally (or that is cannot do so and win), and instead switches to an entirely different mode of engagement contingent on destroy the foreigners' will to continue the adventure. Operations target alliances (reducing the invaders' ability to continue), as well as the ones seen to provide for or benefit from the adventure ("hearts & minds", reducing the support for the adventure).

This is how the pro-GG side operates; they're targeting advertisers and exposing links in how the enemy's operations actually work and revealing intentions that the anti-GG side wants concealed (for whatever reason). The anti-GG side operates as a typical formalized institution acting in an imperial manner, especially in its delusion that both sides are playing the same game, and if no one on that side wakes up and starts leading their side to an effective anti-insurgency strategy soon they will find that their defeat in inevitable. Soon they will find that their allies and support base will desert them to save their own skins or preserve ideological purity.

And yes, there are known ways to break an insurgency. The anti-GG side, at this time, is too ignorant and incompetent to properly employ them.

I dunno.  From where I'm sitting, it looks like anti-GG is winning.  Diving deep into Google, I have found some excellent blogs and youtube videos making excellent points for the pro-GG view, not least being that Jack Thompson got the same kind of over-the-top threats and harassment as Sarkeesian et al have claimed to receive, suggesting that that's less about misogyny than it is 14-year olds and douchebros spouting off from behind the safety of a monitor.

But aside from Breitbarts, which I always feel a little grimy after visiting, and David Auerbach's stuff on Slate, no news source that I've seen has given GamerGate any credit at all.  At best, lip service is paid to claims of concern for game journalism.  Sometimes they talk about a culture war.  More often than not, it's described as an organized campaign of harassment of women in gaming.  There's no nuance, no engagement with public figures associated with GamerGate, such as TotalBiscuit.  If some types "gamergate" into a Google News search, the anti-GG articles far, far outnumber the positive ones.  (Naturally, a good deal of that is due to anti-GG coverage by the gaming journalism sites that are GG's primary targets.)

Insurgencies work because generally there's reluctance to cause mass collateral damage to those who are not part of the insurgency.  The anti-GG side doesn't worry about that.  All that have to say is, "Do you despise misogyny, harassment, and Internet trolling?  Then be against GamerGate."  Intel pulls ads from Gamasutra because of an article that contemptuously stereotypes "gamers"?  "Intel throws its hat in with GamerGate."  Adobe pulls its adds from Gawker because of tweets in praise of the bullying of nerds?  Literal headline: "Adobe walks into Gamergate, staggers around confusedly."

I can tell you what it means to be anti-GG.  I can't tell you what it means to be pro-GG.  Is it for game journalism ethics?  Is it against overwrought social justice criticism?  Is it against Third Wave Feminism?  Any or all of the above?

Unfortunately, the "charity" thing can be used to excuse bad behavior--it's an easy way to make any criticism or refusal of accepting the charitable donations a way to make the people refusing the donation or criticize the organization  look bad.

It reminds me when the ME3 "Retaker" movement tried to donate to child's play and they were refused, and the PA guys pretty much summed up

http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2012/03/22/childs-play-and-retake-mass-effect

It's a sort of PR move by controversial organizations to try to deflect criticism of their bad behavior.  And I think charities should refuse to get involved in such political games.  People should donate to charities because they believe in the charity, they should try to make it a PR move for their own organizations.

Quote from: JRT;793689Unfortunately, the "charity" thing can be used to excuse bad behavior--it's an easy way to make any criticism or refusal of accepting the charitable donations a way to make the people refusing the donation or criticize the organization  look bad.

Yes, I imagine it does make it difficult to describe a group as a misogynistic hate group, when they donate to Anti-Bullying & World Hunger charities, and fund non-profit organizations looking to promote female developrs. Especially where your only "proof" of bad behavior is random anons.

QuoteIt reminds me when the ME3 "Retaker" movement tried to donate to child's play and they were refused, and the PA guys pretty much summed up

http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2012/03/22/childs-play-and-retake-mass-effect

Maybe I'm not reading that right, but it looks more like a problem that people didn't realize they were donating to a charity; they seem to have thought they were contributing to programming to add a new ending to ME3 (which I still haven't finished... :mad: )

QuoteIt's a sort of PR move by controversial organizations to try to deflect criticism of their bad behavior.  And I think charities should refuse to get involved in such political games.  People should donate to charities because they believe in the charity, they should try to make it a PR move for their own organizations.

I don't care if the KKK gives to UNICEF; hell, if anything, it means they have less money for their actual hateful activities, and someone starving gets to eat, or get an immunization that saves lives.

And fuck, dude. I don't think GamerGate, even at their worst, could ever be called the KKK, much less ISIS (though that doesn't stop the anti-GG's!). Amount of people who have died over GamerGate? Zero.
(and I'd like to keep it that way!)

Quote from: Iosue;793685I can tell you what it means to be anti-GG.  I can't tell you what it means to be pro-GG.  Is it for game journalism ethics?  Is it against overwrought social justice criticism?  Is it against Third Wave Feminism?  Any or all of the above?

This is what I'm talking about when I explained that the anti-GG side doesn't get that they're in an insurgency, and don't see that they're not playing the same game. This concept of narrative warfare is not how the pro-GG side wages war.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;793703This is what I'm talking about when I explained that the anti-GG side doesn't get that they're in an insurgency, and don't see that they're not playing the same game. This concept of narrative warfare is not how the pro-GG side wages war.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;793703This is what I'm talking about when I explained that the anti-GG side doesn't get that they're in an insurgency, and don't see that they're not playing the same game. This concept of narrative warfare is not how the pro-GG side wages war.

Ultimately, though, I can see them winning the battle but losing the war.  It's unclear what the goals are, and if that's the case, mainstream "civilians" will most likely see the group by its worst elements.  

If you're talking about the boycotts, if they are successful, I see journalism in gaming actually becoming worse due to the following.

If they force media outlets to be less forthcoming with opinions, you end up with an organization that becomes fearful to do one thing journalists should do--challenge their audience, sometimes telling people what they don't want to hear.

If they get advertisers to pull based on pressure, you are actually increasing the possibility of corrupting the process further.  Because the biggest corruption complaints in the past were about advertisers pressuring people to give their games good reviews.  I can't fathom why people think doing this is going to help journalism.

And the biggest concern I have is that people in gaming are going to start doing what too many people do nowadays--read only the news they like.  News that doesn't challenge them, opinions that are exactly the same with their worldviews.  I see a lot of attacking the messenger--everybody who doesn't agree with me is corrupt, biased, etc.  There's little self-awareness now--if 90% of people are negative towards an ideology--perhaps it's not everybody else, perhaps its you.  One thing I always did and still do is go to sites that are different or opposed from my political viewpoints--I remember reading a paper in the 90s with both liberal and conservative commentators.  And while I disagreed with the party opposite from mine about 80% of the time, 20% of the time I agreed or felt they were on the right track.  That kind of introspective analysis tends to be lacking today.  Right now, the SOP is to not just dislike alternate opinions, it's to demonize them and make them go away.  And I think we will all suffer if that type of thing increases.

Personally, I hope there is movement to help improve the quality of games coverage...but I don't think this particular movement is the one that will accomplish it.

Eventually gamergate will win in the end.  It might take the collapse of the game industry for it to happen.  With little money going in the parasites will leave to find a new media to feed off with only die hards to keep up the crusade of shit.  By that time all gamers will wise up and just ignore them to focus on making games.  Eventually a new video game media will emerge from the wreckage of the old and it will remember what killed the last media.

One thing to bear in mind, and I'm not saying it flippantly. In the new "PC" era of warm fuzzy feelings and "if you're not with us, you're against us" activism, there's one angle to this that the Sarkeesians and Quinns of the world might just be missing....

In their protected little shells of academia, where they were taught that their feelings can overcome all, they were never challenged. Their nascent worldviews were shaped and reinforced by a squishy anti-establishment mentality, honed to a flubbery edge, then released into the world to wreak their terrible justice on the oppressors. Their main weapon? Shame - the knowledge that anyone who dared to broach a view opposing them could be shouted down, cowed, and made into pariahs in the name of "fairness", or "equality", when in fact what they preach is a total societal inversion - "the Man" laid bare and impotent on  the altar of Political Correctness.

However, they're going against people whose worldview is shaped by "conflict" - who are used to doggedly, stubbornly, aspergerly defying obstacles and re-re-re-retrying the same level 42 times until they overcome. People who will NOT lose, people who WILL relentlessly poke and prod and blast and note, in obsessive detail, the tactics of their enemies! They will adjust their strategy, and post endless FAQ's and playthroughs to overcome any challenge.

I think, this time, the forces of the SJWs have met their match.

At least, that's my hope....

Fly, video-game warriors! This is the greatest challenge you shall ever face and, in fact, may be the greatest challenge WE have ever faced. Stop the razor-bladed, laser-guided, dripping titanium-fanged Beasts From Beyond the Edge of Reality before they devour us all!

(again, this isn't necessarily sarcastic - in fact, hardly at all... really...)

Quote from: jhkim;793632I think that logic is flawed in both cases.

GamerGaters are reacting to gaming journalism because that's what they are close to. Likewise, gamers who are concerned with sexism react to sexism in their own personal sphere.  

Well yeah, everyone's cause is ultimately about whats important to them. But that doesn't mean it has to remain focused like that passed adolesence. And I'd say for most people it doesn't. But with GG I can't see how so many people could take videogame magazines that seriously...

But otoh, I also dont see that looking for sexist enemies in gamers (of any variety) is seriously an attempt to make the world a better place (at least not to the extremes Ive seen it taken). Yes many gamers are socially ackward and dont know much about how to make girls happy (or basic etiquette as it were), and maybe that scantily clad elf picture or pixelboobed token videogame character is not for everyone, and yes the internet has TROLLS (its been infested since the beginning and the topical creames don't help); but to portray that as evil or wrapped up in some conspiracy to "keep women down" is such an exaggerated stance that it not only comes off as extreme, but its being proliferated by people who are Angry! and have thier own social akwardness issues. And theyre targeting a form of escapism that is dear to many hobbyists hearts, warts and all. But is still silly. Wayway wayyy to silly for the amount of anger its produced.

So I dont really see the reason to either side. Both side have extremists and both sides are characterizing the other by the small but very vocal minority of extremists. Its like none of them actually know anything about people and thus have no reasonable amount of empathy towards each other. And then Trolls. Trolls with bombs, trolls that cuss and call you bad names, trolls that make fun of you on the internet. Trolls doing what trolls do because they feed on the inevitable outcome. Using a troll's behaviour to hold up as a representation of society is like treating all dogs like they have rabies.

QuoteFor example, if the clerk at my corner store is staring at and catcalling young women, I may react to that and take effort to do something about it. He argues back that they shoot girls for getting an education in Pakistan - why aren't I doing anything about that? That's a specious argument. I'm doing something about what is in front of me.

I agree that there are some genuine slacktivists, but just because someone is acting locally doesn't mean they are a slacktivist.

I'm ultimately not seeing the logic. I really cant take it that seriously. Not the journalistic ethics in gaming mags, not the brainwashing videogame tropes, not the rpg art that helps transmography our boyfolk into rapists. Its entertainment. Childish entertainment (I'm not saying that derrogatorily). I'd have the same reaction to political stances for or against Cosmo or Tigerbeat (shall we discuss the patriarchal and racist implications of Goofus & Gallant?)