anthonyRichard

I think most of them are saying "Scooooops!", which sounds like booing. [Edit:] Beaten. So anyway, a silver lining is that with all this intense scrutiny on the games press these past few weeks, there hasn't been any confirmed incidents of corruption unearthed. I think this raises some other disappointing problems with them, but anyone who wasn't already sure can now rest easy that corruption probably isn't something to worry about in the games press. Doesn't really seem worth it, though, like finding a dollar in a bucket of shit.

"It's cool guys, in response to your concerns we've banned our writers from supporting people they like, and now have 'full disclosure' of the most trifling bullshit imaginable", meanwhile the person who is bearing the brunt of the attack, who should be the least able to do so, does actual investigative reporting & exposes the real conspiracy. Cool, cooool [edit:] That's not actually fair of me. The enthusiast press doesn't have apparatus to do investigative reporting. It's not in their remit as it actually practiced, so it's not really fair to judge them for failing to do any. It's still massively disappointing, though.

That was in relation to fantasy settings that use history at set-dressing, picking & choosing which particular elements of history they want to use in their version, but always 'coincidentally' picking the elements that happen to be sexist or where white people are the most powerful. If we are talking about a setting that is supposed to be the literal real world, then I don't think that's an appropriate argument to use. The 'this is how it actually is' argument is perfectly valid in the context of a story set in the real world. You might use a different argument, like 88% is not 100% and that's still plenty of room for a minority protagonist. However, I don't think that developers should be expected to write minority protagonists for every single game until the representation problem is completely solved (this point is not directed at you, tegan), that seems like a naive understanding of the underlying problem & the plausible potential solutions to it. It's a problem if that's all a particular dev ever does, but I think it's obvious that's not the case here.

I appreciate the sentiment, but boy do they have a track-record to overcome.

I have reached a point now where I can only feel sad for these people. My anger has all burned up for this thing and now whenever I see some new idiocy I just feel a sharp pang of sadness.

I almost didn't read the other books in the series after reading this one, I just assumed they weren't going to be for me. I'm really glad I kept going. This is the weakest book in the Culture series, by far. Don't be afraid of jumping around a bit, these books aren't really serialized, they are mostly standalone books that happen to occur in the same universe. Read Use of Weapons.

That doesn't seem like that big a deal? A community where anyone, regardless of actual expertise, felt like they could take critical discourse seriously and engage with it without fear or anger actually seems like a huge step forward from where we are now. I wish that were the big problem we had to solve.

There is a part of me that thinks that if we were more able to be visibly critical of whatever aspects of Sarkeesians videos we disagreed with, while still visibly & explicitly supporting her, then some portion of these people would see that it's actually okay to disagree with her while still supporting what she is doing. That you don't need to internalize absolutely everything she is saying 100% uncritically and still be able to think she is doing something valuable and admirable. The other, more cynical, part of me thinks that this could never work & people would misinterpret any kind of disagreement or criticism as endorsement of their harassment & permission to continue shut her down however they can.

Disappointing, though not surprising, I suppose. I guess he decided to go back to ranting about abortion.

Richard Dawkins retweeted someone supporting Sarkeesian/linking to that polygon article about her death-threats. We live in a weird world. What is going on.

Yeah, I agree. Personally I think disclosure of Patron funding is silly, but probably necessary for pragmatic reasons, seeing how many people seem to have concerns with it. But a blanket ban? Crazy. Bullshit, even.

I've noticed more girl avatars than guys, but it's probably indiscriminate. I think I just remember more girl avatars because of the extra mental effort of 'wait, is this a girl saying this misogynist shit? oh, wait, right'

@MadJackalope Ignoring the appallingly tasteless & off-base Ferguson analogy and the comment that 'OF COURSE' Patreon is an investment, as though that were settled or uncontroversial, you just think that there should be more disclosure? How much more? Polygon & Kotaku have already updated their policies in regards to Patreon, the Kotaku one in particular being pretty stringent. Is that enough now, or are you insinuating something else going on?

Great episode. I appreciate the head-on discussion of the horrible shit that is going on. It's a pity Danielle wasn't here this week.

As an aside, I was unaware of the FYC until this whole thing, but that these have quickly become the public faces of the 'reasonable gamer' push-back against the corrupting SJW influence is just ... I lack the words to describe how incredibly perfect it is. Sometimes caricatures are real, folks.