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 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Yeah, I figured that's the kind of response I would get from you, Peregrine.

I think I'm about done with you. Whatever it is.

What else do you expect when you arrogantly declare your mistaken assumptions about me, accusing me of lying in the process? And now, instead of apologizing for falsely accusing me of lying, you're going to ragequit and handwave the whole thing away with some nonsense about "that's what I expected".

 Manchu wrote:
People who argue others can't know because of who they are, do you ever wonder how much you yourself can't know if that line of thinking is true?

I don't know, the last I checked humans were capable of empathy. I can at least empathize with someone, when I'm talking to that 'someone'. I'd rather it not be from a self-appointed representative that isn't one of them but speaks on their behalf.

This isn't snark, but a legitimate statement.

 Manchu wrote:
People who argue others can't know because of who they are, do you ever wonder how much you yourself can't know if that line of thinking is true?

Of course there are things I can't know because I haven't had first-hand experience of it. For example, I will never truly understand what it's like to have PTSD from war, and I would be a if I refused to listen to someone who had that experience and insisted that I knew everything about how it all works and it's not really a problem.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
The list has citations and links to the relevant posts. Do you have any evidence that any of what it shows is untrue?

Lets use wikipedia instead then, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy

Ha!

That article is false from the first sentence.

And do you know the history of the #GG wiki article? The amount of times that anything not anti-GG was deleted from that page? The fact that one of the people "protecting" the page against any pro-GG content was eventually disciplined himself for being too militant in his edits?

Wikipedia is not a resource for topics such as this, not when anything that one side doesn't like can simply be deleted with a few key strokes.

 Peregrine wrote:
What else do you expect when you arrogantly declare your mistaken assumptions about me, accusing me of lying in the process? And now, instead of apologizing for falsely accusing me of lying, you're going to ragequit and handwave the whole thing away with some nonsense about "that's what I expected".

Haven't you learned that demanding apologies and calling names doesn't work out too well for you, Peregrine?

What I meant was, "I can't believe I expected Peregrine to understand another perspective other than his own. I can't believe I expected him to have any sort of conversation without name-calling, flaming, or trolling."

You know, I really need to start lowering my expectations.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Haven't you learned that demanding apologies and calling names doesn't work out too well for you, Peregrine?

I have learned that even when you lie, make false accusations, etc, you will never apologize for your bad behavior. So yeah, that's not working out as well as I like, but I want it made clear to everyone else here that you are proudly making false accusations and doubling down on your bad behavior when you are called on it.

What I meant was, "I can't believe I expected Peregrine to understand another perspective other than his own. I can't believe I expected him to have any sort of conversation without name-calling, flaming, or trolling."

And you arrogantly declared that the perspective in question is one other than my own, accusing me of lying about it being personal experience. Don't try to change this after the fact and weasel out of what you said, your exact words are there for everyone to read.

 Peregrine wrote:
I have learned that even when you lie, make false accusations, etc, you will never apologize for your bad behavior. So yeah, that's not working out as well as I like, but I want it made clear to everyone else here that you are proudly making false accusations and doubling down on your bad behavior when you are called on it.

Keep going, tell us what you really think. Put on the show.

 Peregrine wrote:
And you arrogantly declared that the perspective in question is one other than my own, accusing me of lying about it being personal experience. Don't try to change this after the fact and weasel out of what you said, your exact words are there for everyone to read.

So by all means, Peregrine- tell us what you are. Prove to me I'm wrong for mistaking you for something you're not.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Prove to me I'm wrong for mistaking you for something you're not.

I'd rather not have some things in a public forum associated with this name (which I use elsewhere on the internet), so no. And I don't owe you proof just because you came up with arrogant assumptions about me and declared them to be true.

 Peregrine wrote:
I'd rather not have some things in a public forum associated with this name (which I use elsewhere on the internet), so no. And I don't owe you proof just because you came up with arrogant assumptions about me and declared them to be true.

That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

So, not the slightest tinge of guilt here, Peregrine. After all, you're doing a fine job of assuming peoples' identity as well.

If it helps- I don't really care who or what you are. You're just a bit volatile, and by my standards that's saying something.

I am wary of reducing first hand experience to an appeal to authority. In any event, there seems to be basic agreement that pragmatic and even cynical logic is the principal driving force rather than ideological sincerity. I can also agree that ancillary positive outcomes sometimes result anyhow. I just don't see a cause and effect relationship there; to me, the emphasis should be on the "ancillary" nature of these outcomes because there are also negative outcomes.

I am perfectly willing to accept for the sake of discussion that people are who they claim they are. Obviously making such a claim the basis for one's argument carries the risk that it won't be as convincing.

 Manchu wrote:
I am wary of reducing first hand experience to an appeal to authority. In any event, there seems to be basic agreement that pragmatic and even cyncial logic is the principal driving force rather than ideological sincerity. I can also agree that ancillary positive outcomes sometimes result anyhow. I just don't see a cause and effect relationship there; to me, the emphasis should be on the "ancillary" nature of these outcomes because there are also negative outcomes.

A theory a friend of mine had, in relation to comics, is that the 'virtue signalling' is not even genuine. It's a protective shield. It means that if, for any reason, your product flops, flounders, or fails to perform as expected and comes under harsh criticism- you can assert that the criticism is based on 'bigotry' and point to the evil heterosexual white male devil- which is, of course, usually always the primary consumer and will often be the primary critic because of this.

I think inviting Ms. Sarkeesian as a Guest of Honor is absolutely a protective, defensive, preemptive, whatever you want to call it, tactic.

GenCon, and the industry it serves as a profitabl trade show, trends very white and very male.

Lucky me, I can always say that I'm not white but hispanic... it does not matter I'm from Spain and not mexico, is not like people from USA knows the difference.

 Manchu wrote:
I think inviting Ms. Sarkeesian as a Guest of Honor is absolutely a protective, defensive, preemptive, whatever you want to call it, tactic.

GenCon, and the industry it serves as a profitabl trade show, trends very white and very male.

Yeah, but at this point... it's a moot point. If you believe the hype, you're already certain GenCon is a 'liberal feminist SJW con' (which it's not really). I mean, I don't think the speakers at the con are the primary thing.

Ms. Sarkeesian has pretty pricey speaking roles, as I recall. I'm not sure what the purpose of the panel is going to be... but considering the guy that made Roll20 kind of pissed off a lot of people on Twitter (he said he'd ban mens' gaming groups but not womens')- they might be gearing up for an ideological fight. For what reason, I don't know.

 Manchu wrote:
I am wary of reducing first hand experience to an appeal to authority.

That isn't an appeal to authority. An appeal to authority is "X says so, therefore Y is true" where the authority isn't relevant and/or X's argument for truth isn't explained. But when the question is "what is first-hand experience like" then statements of first-hand experience are the ultimate authority, and citing them is not a fallacy.

In any event, there seems to be basic agreement that pragmatic and even cyncial logic is the principal driving force rather than ideological sincerity.

Well, somewhat. I believe, based on statements by the creators, that there is genuine belief that they are doing the right thing, but obviously it all operates within the limits of a for-profit business.

I just don't see a cause and effect relationship there; to me, the emphasis should be on the "ancillary" nature of these outcomes because there are also negative outcomes.

And, again, I suspect this is something where you just have to have first-hand experience of the situation to see the cause and effect relationship (or at least trust the people who do have first-hand experience). Something that might seem trivial as an outsider can matter significantly to people who are more directly involved. The outcomes are very much a real thing for many of us, if it's "ancillary" it's only because the number of people potentially having a personal stake in it is smaller than the majority who don't.

As for the negative outcomes, what outcomes are those? What is lost by having a more diverse range of characters represented in fiction?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
A theory a friend of mine had, in relation to comics, is that the 'virtue signalling' is not even genuine. It's a protective shield. It means that if, for any reason, your product flops, flounders, or fails to perform as expected and comes under harsh criticism- you can assert that the criticism is based on 'bigotry' and point to the evil heterosexual white male devil- which is, of course, usually always the primary consumer and will often be the primary critic because of this.

That's a nonsense theory that contradicts itself. If the primary customer is straight white men then accusing them of bigotry is hardly a winning strategy in the long run. Sure, you can make that excuse to shareholders as long as they don't care enough to pay attention, but it's sacrificing long-term profits for short-term ability to protect their own jobs. And eventually, if you aren't producing a good product, you're going to lose that job anyway.

 Peregrine wrote:
That's a nonsense theory that contradicts itself. If the primary customer is straight white men then accusing them of bigotry is hardly a winning strategy in the long run. Sure, you can make that excuse to shareholders as long as they don't care enough to pay attention, but it's sacrificing long-term profits for short-term ability to protect their own jobs. And eventually, if you aren't producing a good product, you're going to lose that job anyway.

Don't care, Peregrine.

 Peregrine wrote:

A private company exercising its right to decide who they wish to do business with is not a "penalty". You don't have a right to Steam's service as a business partner. Those porn game producers are free to take their business elsewhere, including selling directly to their customers, if they wish to do so.

I do not think advocates of pressuring private companies to their political ideology instead of allowing the market to regulate itself have the right to call for free market.

It is clear the symbiotic nature of these companies existed for a long time and people who did not like them and could not change them went for the wallet, typical tactic.

In the example of Tentacle Bento, the negative outcome was Kickstarter unprecedentedly canceling Ninja Division's project. And that is the kind of non-hypotheticl and non-trivial outcome a lot of folks ITT are concerned about. If Ms. Sarkeesian is the Guest of Honor at GenCon, what kind of products can be traded there?

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
I do not think advocates of pressuring private companies to their political ideology instead of allowing the market to regulate itself have the right to call for free market.

No, you just don't understand what a free market is. The market is regulating itself, because the market includes things like private citizens commenting on companies and their products. Please do not confuse "free market" and "guaranteed profit and immunity to anything that could disrupt it".

It is clear the symbiotic nature of these companies existed for a long time and people who did not like them and could not change them went for the wallet, typical tactic.

Typical, and apparently effective. Fortunately, if you believe in a free market this is not a problem. Poorly run businesses over-invested in a relationship that is known to be vulnerable to a particular tactic, and had no backup plan for what they would do if their business partner decided to stop doing business with them. These poorly-run companies failed because they made ineffective business choices while their competition continued to make lots of profit, exactly as the free market dictates. What you seem to be advocating is going against the principles of a free market, and intervening to force Steam/YouTube/etc to continue doing business with the failing companies because you don't like the consequences of their failures.

 Manchu wrote:
In the example of Tentacle Bento, the negative outcome was Kickstarter unprecedentedly canceling Ninja Division's project. And that is the kind of non-hypotheticl and non-trivial outcome a lot of folks ITT are concerned about. If Ms. Sarkeesian is the Guest of Honor at GenCon, what kind of products can be traded there?

I would, though- point out that I think if it's an 'all ages' event they may not allow adult material on the show floor.

I have been to comic conventions where Image titles and Heavy Metal wasn't allowed.

 Manchu wrote:
In the example of Tentacle Bento, the negative outcome was Kickstarter unprecedentedly canceling Ninja Division's project. And that is the kind of non-hypotheticl and non-trivial outcome a lot of folks ITT are concerned about. If Ms. Sarkeesian is the Guest of Honor at GenCon, what kind of products can be traded there?

Why is this an outcome we should be concerned about? If GenCon decides not to do business with particular companies then that is their choice in the free market. They will either succeed or fail, based on relative demand from various market segments. And the companies excluded by GenCon will either succeed without it because there is a market for their product, or fail because their market is too small to sustain itself without third parties helping to promote and distribute their product. Which goes back to what I was saying earlier to AD: this isn't about fear of censorship, it's about fear by fans of certain games that their market is too small and irrelevant to survive.

To clarify, there was nothing at all explicit in the art or even backstory of Tentacle Bento.

 Manchu wrote:
To clarify, there was nothing at all explicit in the art or even backstory of Tentacle Bento.

...Really? Was that the game they said was 'Anime Tentacles' just to specifically see who'd have an outrage about it without looking into it?

As I recall, it was pretty low quality, too.

But I could be mistaken.

In the actual event, Tentacle Bento was a KS project - and KS is a platform ostensibly designed (.as in, according to its own marketing) to fund products that would struggle to get to market via traditional routes. At the time it was unilaterally canceled by the host vendor, the project had met and surpassed its funding goal. Some commenters who self-admittedly knew nothing about either anime or tabletop gaming demanded that it be read as trivialization and even, in some abstract (but nonetheless very real and dangerous) sense, justification of rape specifically and misogyny generally.

Extortion is not a market correction but rather a market distortion. Don't confuse capitalism with its radical subversion. Don't mistake Saul Alinksy for Adam Smith. I mean, this kind of false equivalency is straight out of Alinksy's (literal) handbook.

If this is the future of mainstream gaming then there will be a value loss. I think the long term outcome will be loss of faith in GenCon, much as movie critics have lost a lot of credibility in the past few years. But in the meantime, there will be casualties in terms of game development/sales.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Was that the game they said was 'Anime Tentacles' just to specifically see who'd have an outrage about it without looking into it?

If by 'they' you mean certain feminist bloggers with no interest in either anime or tabletop gaming then yes.

As I recall, it was pretty low quality, too.

It was only ever a cheeky filler game. The art was pretty nice, IMO. Having played it, my impression was it's a sufficiently diverting little game probably best enjoyed by the people who like anime.

[quote=Peregrine 758032 1001

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
A theory a friend of mine had, in relation to comics, is that the 'virtue signalling' is not even genuine. It's a protective shield. It means that if, for any reason, your product flops, flounders, or fails to perform as expected and comes under harsh criticism- you can assert that the criticism is based on 'bigotry' and point to the evil heterosexual white male devil- which is, of course, usually always the primary consumer and will often be the primary critic because of this.

That's a nonsense theory that contradicts itself. If the primary customer is straight white men then accusing them of bigotry is hardly a winning strategy in the long run. Sure, you can make that excuse to shareholders as long as they don't care enough to pay attention, but it's sacrificing long-term profits for short-term ability to protect their own jobs. And eventually, if you aren't producing a good product, you're going to lose that job anyway.

And yet that is actually what is happening. In case you've been asleep or under a rock for the past several months, you may have noticed that legitimate criticisms of movies and comic books, i.e. pointing out things that don't make sense, useless characters that don't advance a story (actually regressing the story), characters acting in irrational ways, or tearing down much loved characters; has been met with responses of "you feel that way because you're racist, misogynistic, sexist, x-phobic, and a privileged cis white male. But never engaging the paying fans with any reasonable response otherwise.

xraytango wrote:
And yet that is actually what is happening. In case you've been asleep or under a rock for the past several months, you may have noticed that legitimate criticisms of movies and comic books, i.e. pointing out things that don't make sense, useless characters that don't advance a story (actually regressing the story), characters acting in irrational ways, or tearing down much loved characters; has been met with responses of "you feel that way because you're racist, misogynistic, sexist, x-phobic, and a privileged c is white male. But never engaging the paying fans with any reasonable response otherwise.

That's a serious misrepresentation of the situation. You're taking quotes specifically about anti-SJW s ranting about how they don't like "diversity" and acting like they're aimed at people who have legitimate criticism about poor writing.

xraytango wrote:
And yet that is actually what is happening. In case you've been asleep or under a rock for the past several months, you may have noticed that legitimate criticisms of movies and comic books, i.e. pointing out things that don't make sense, useless characters that don't advance a story (actually regressing the story), characters acting in irrational ways, or tearing down much loved characters; has been met with responses of "you feel that way because you're racist, misogynistic, sexist, x-phobic, and a privileged c is white male. But never engaging the paying fans with any reasonable response otherwise.

I was accused of the very thing twice in this thread.

The idea that it'll 'drive away' the audience is only half-right. It's kind of doing that, to some degree. But more commonly (at least it seems), people are more inclined to just not want to be shamed as some kind of bigot and stay quiet.

Who would want to be lynched on social media?

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
But more commonly (at least it seems), people are more inclined to just not want to be shamed as some kind of bigot and stay quiet.

That doesn't mean they're going to keep buying, so it's still a self-destructive strategy that makes no sense.

Extortion generally works best on individual targets as opposed to a broad section of society. KS didn't want to deal with being called a supporter of "rape culture." But Sony's Ghostbusters remake was a financial loss despite Sony's attempt to brand people who didn't like it as womenhating racists. When it comes to the tabletop game industry, as opposed to perhaps the video game industry, I expect extortion tactics will be more successful because the pressure points are so much more vulnerable.

 Peregrine wrote:

xraytango wrote:
And yet that is actually what is happening. In case you've been asleep or under a rock for the past several months, you may have noticed that legitimate criticisms of movies and comic books, i.e. pointing out things that don't make sense, useless characters that don't advance a story (actually regressing the story), characters acting in irrational ways, or tearing down much loved characters; has been met with responses of "you feel that way because you're racist, misogynistic, sexist, x-phobic, and a privileged c is white male. But never engaging the paying fans with any reasonable response otherwise.

That's a serious misrepresentation of the situation. You're taking quotes specifically about anti-SJW s ranting about how they don't like "diversity" and acting like they're aimed at people who have legitimate criticism about poor writing.

So tell me how I am misrepresenting the situation, when JJ Abrams calls everyone that disliked TLJ a "sexist" or that people that felt the character of Rose was pointless, were called, "sexist" and "racist", or pointing out the incompetence of the Lucasfilm president is, "misogynistic", when commentators have never once said anything disparaging about race, gender, or sexuality. The few troll that have said stupid things like that aren't part of this discussion as they are a) doing it for shock value, b) not really fans of civilized humanity, c) have no real contribution to any discussion; so those are right out of this conversation and are not to be used as an example.