Quote from: GeekyBugle;1141222How much blood was spilled getting Creationism out of schools?

Take a page (or a dozen) from the Atheist playbook. They paint BLM on the street (doesn't matter if it's taxpayer or private money)? Well now the city has made it part of the public square, so they should allow you to paint All Lives Matter in the same street right next to their dogma.

Demand public funds don't go to schools that teach the non theistic religion of intersectionality/grievance studies/critical "theory".

If they insist it is science, then they have the burden of proof to show exactly how their BS can be falsified. And until they do demand a moratorium on all such courses.

Take their articles and spread them far and wide, take their vids and do debunk after debunk video, make fun of them make them look as the hateful idiots they are.

Of course if some antifart idiot tries to start some BS then all bets are off and you defend yourself.

What got creationism out of schools was not debate, but relentless mockery triggering an emotional response to make it stop, plus blacklisting anyone out of education who didn't conform

Whenever opposed, the opposition must be taken as they are.  Not as they "should".  Debate is what many people think "should" work.  Because that's what would work to convince the person making the statement.  It's also the approach taken by the losing side in a conflict, in most historical conflicts

Conflict is emotion.  It is not reason.  Reason does not defuse conflict, except if the emotion driving it is resolved first.

Reason definitely does not work with a 3rd party as persuasion when two different parties are appealing to the 3rd party, and one is using emotion primarily in a situation of some emotional leverage.  Everyone, if they think back on their own individual interpersonal experiences, should know this to be true based on your own outcomes where reason failed to move the needle.

That's a good point, but I will note that "Internet debates", while directly pointless, sometimes work sideways. You typically can't convince someone whose mind is already set, but you can make a good case for third parties, who might be persuaded. For this reason, it is not always as much of a waste as it can sometimes appear. Play for the crowd, not the other guy in the ring. Especially if that guy cheats or fights dirty, which is usually the case with SJW types.

Nearly everyone on both sides is responding to emotion, even if framing in reason.  You can directly trace the stridency in opposition to the other sides arguments with how close to home they began to hit.  None of these progressive talking points are recent or new.  The reaction to them by the other side, however, has changed as they've come threateningly closer to their preferred identities.

Debate away - the reasoning gives cover to the position arrived at subconsciously and emotionally.  It's useful for self.  

My point is that this will not move the needle, even among onlookers, if they've had no emotional reaction themselves.  There's not enough people in the world not driven by their emotions to bother pretending otherwise, and to build strategies around it is to lose in a way that pleases.

Quote from: Melan;1141626You typically can't convince someone whose mind is already set, but you can make a good case for third parties, who might be persuaded.

Exactly! Lurkers outnumber posters by a huge margin.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1141637Exactly! Lurkers outnumber posters by a huge margin.

Pfft, has anyone ever seen a Lurker?

Childrens bedtime stories if you ask me.

Let me perhaps illustrate this in a slightly different way.  Yes, I know many will think it's stupid/not get it.  That's OK.

When Geeky brought up the creationism out of schools, it immediately struck me as to the core problem and weakness in this idea.  The same people that must be depended upon to reject and defeat progressivism are the ones who caved to their principles on creationism in schools, or abandoned the field. This is why what caused them to cave must be honestly looked at and considered; it does no good to anyone to appeal to self-image by reframing the disappearance of creationism from education as an intellectual debate won on points.  Creationists still believe in creationism and are merely absent from those centers of culture; those who compromised and adopted a half-way religion to maintain what they truly held most dear (position, peer-approval, and privilege) are the "religious" who are caving again to this challenge.  Those not strongly believing either way back then, who had previously went along with creationism in schools because that was what society did, may have been won over to removing creationism on intellectual points; but also may have just followed the new cultural tide.  Those who don't strongly believe either way are not going to fight a contested point; they're going to negotiate.

Put it in rock-paper-scissors perspective.  Progressivism is rock; the pre-WW2 cultural mores is paper; the in-between who like the increasing acceptance of "anything goes" in society over the past 100 years and just want everyone to do their own thing, are scissors.  Scissors were the weapon against paper; it wasn't rock.  Those who gave in or left the field on the creationism question didn't do it because of rock; they did it because of scissors.  It is scissors that weakens the paper ideologically disposed to fight to the last breath against rock.  Scissors can't fight rock like that.  It isn't in scissor's nature - the entire point is that they're conflict-averse, and want to talk it out or negotiate half of what currently exists, away.  It is this very quality that makes it effective against paper, and woefully inadequate against rock.  Scissors cutting paper into shreds is a situation that plays into rock's long-term strategy.  

That's the conundrum for scissors.  It didn't like the world paper lived in, and destroyed it, but it can't stop the world rock will impose and will like that even less.  The very excuses it gave for destroying the world that paper built will now be adopted by rock to finish the job.  Scissors wanted to retain the parts of the world paper built that it liked, and only get rid of the parts it found chafing; rock won't stop at that, and will use the same rhetoric scissors did earlier as its own justification.  And scissors can do nothing to stop it because the plaintive wail of "but this will destroy what we wanted to reserve of the civilization paper built" is met with an enthusiastic "exactly, now you're getting it!".  

Scissors can not itself build; it can only cut.  It can either choose to live in rock-world or paper-world.  There will never be a scissors world that is anything but a transition to rock world.  This is the very reason rock beat scissors into existence from itself in the first place.

EOTB is right about the power of emotions. We're emotional creatures. All of our art and entertainment moves us via emotions. Not a big surprise our approach to politics and culture would also be emotional, but the whole point of education (in the past) was to teach people why and how we use Reason. But in 2020, the leading Presidential candidate declared "we choose Truth over Facts"!

TV, social media and 30+ years of Marxist indoctrination in academia have degraded the use and understanding of Reason, leaving us more and more driven by emotion as society.

The whole "Black people are Orcs!" is utterly insane and can't be debated, only mocked. Those aligned to such racist idiocy can't be turned, but the value for pushback is lurkers are heartened to read they're not alone.

In the past few months, we have been treated to a nearly daily cascade of truly bizarrely racist decrees from leftists, both in and out gaming, because there has been no mass pushback. Like out of control toddlers, they have been coddled and given their way instead of getting the spanking they need. The end result will be more stupidity and once leftists get capitulation, they always come back for more, and more and more.

Quote from: EOTB;1141639Put it in rock-paper-scissors perspective.  Progressivism is rock; the pre-WW2 cultural mores is paper; the in-between who like the increasing acceptance of "anything goes" in society over the past 100 years and just want everyone to do their own thing, are scissors.

Excellent, truthful and grim analogy. And now we're at the end game of Rock/Paper/Scissors. Paper is shredded, and Rock is smashing Scissors while the shreds cry out from the dustbin.

Our only consolation is no one can control how we play RPGs at our own table in our own home. As long as we can gather 3-4 Paper shreds and snapped Scissors willing to show up with snacks and dice, we can enjoy our hobby in our own manner outside of whatever cultural shithole is created by Rock, at least for a few hours. And as long as there are un-moderated corners of the internet, we can gather to make noise at each other.

I'll raise the first tequila shot to the dying of the light.

I was adressing how to approach 3rd parties earlier.

Look, there were not any recent debates over whether Orcs are racist.  There was a twitter post that started a pile on.  If anybody questioned they were directed to one of few pretty poor essays people had written years ago on the web that were treated as if they were scientific proofs.  

The way to convince 3rd parties is not to be defensive.  That's the game they want you to play.  They want you to be the person who tries to defend racism.  You need to get them to reveal that what they mean by racism is not what most people think racism means.  The more you get them to unpack their  assumptions the more ridiculous they are going to look.  A lot of them have a mental model in which marginalised people (or people in general perhaps) are ridiculously frail (watch Jonathan Haidt has called "safetyism", so get them to unpack the negative effects they feel will follow so that people can see that.

Quote from: GhostmakerIt should be noted that the strength cap didn't survive the jump to 2E, so clearly people looked at it and said 'Look, this is stupid, let's delete this' and agreed to do so...

Weapons vs armor and demons, devils, assassins, and half-orcs didn't survive the jump either. 2e is very much not a wargame, it is much more oriented toward storytelling and not offending anyone.

Quote from: EOTBWhat got creationism out of schools was not debate, but relentless mockery triggering an emotional response to make it stop, plus blacklisting anyone out of education who didn't conform...

That is how women attack each other. Radical feminism, which is composed of Atheists and goddess-worshipers, took over the education programs at the universities a long time ago, and since then they have fanned out into the school systems, from kindergarten on up, turning them into centers of indoctrination for cultural Marxism. Those that are now attacking RPGs, and other aspects of culture, are a direct result of these schools.

Debate is something that men do, and men are "toxic", meaning they are not women. Men are interested in the process of discovery, whereas women are more concerned with feelings and harmonious coexistence, which works when taking care of babies and toddlers, but it doesn't work out in the world. Any sort of vigorous debate, anything that would make babies cry, is castigated as "hate speech" and immediately shut down and banned.

On a positive note, the fact-free lockdown hysteria is likely to accelerate the collapse of the public school system and colleges, thereby depriving radical activists of their most important breeding grounds. High school diplomas and many college degrees are now attainable online.

Quote from: Mercurius;1141143One person brought up the author's white-maleness.

Everybody here probably already knows that's an ad hominem argument. Truth is truth and false is false no matter who's lips speak it.

And dismissing it because he's a white male is discrimination.

No one is as sexist as a feminist and no one is as racist as an SJW.

Quote from: EOTB;1141639Scissors can not itself build; it can only cut.  It can either choose to live in rock-world or paper-world.  There will never be a scissors world that is anything but a transition to rock world.  This is the very reason rock beat scissors into existence from itself in the first place.

Finally, somebody gets it. These are my thoughts exactly.

Quote from: TJS;1141642The way to convince 3rd parties is not to be defensive.  That's the game they want you to play.  They want you to be the person who tries to defend racism.

Everybody is racist to a certain degree. It's inescapable and natural. If you still position it as the ultimate sin, then you will be destroyed ultimately.

You're still playing by their rules.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1141222How much blood was spilled getting Creationism out of schools?

How much was spilt getting it back in the schools? None. But they used whatever means short of violence (that I am aware of) to get it put back and that included cult level brainwashing under the guise of "deprobramming" the poor brainwashed evolutionist. Remember that these are the same sorts who had a childrens show where they taught kids its ok to steal someones game books and destroy them.

And odds are that there has been violence and blood. Just quietly swept under the rug and hush-hush.

Quote from: EOTB;1141630Nearly everyone on both sides is responding to emotion, even if framing in reason.  You can directly trace the stridency in opposition to the other sides arguments with how close to home they began to hit.

Actually its more often the intensity of the opposition to these cultists is on proportion to how tired someone is of being attacked. Or having something they like attacked. Or progressively ruined.

Its more the age old factor of what happens when you attack a persons community, home, vocation, or family. Sooner or later you will trip over the threshold where they start fighting back.

Quote from: Cloyer Bulse;1141678Weapons vs armor and demons, devils, assassins, and half-orcs didn't survive the jump either. 2e is very much not a wargame, it is much more oriented toward storytelling and not offending anyone.

2e was on several levels very much bending knee to the previous iteration of these loons. And a few other complainers rather than the majority of players.