SuperBiasedMan

Ho boy, here we go. *cracks my vegan knuckles* I'm glad you covered the good reasons for being vegetarian the moral - which is personal and totally debatable the health - which is a little debatable but overall seems to be of benefit particularly as a change from common western diets and the environmental - which is a not at all debatable waste of resources for types of food that are not particularly more beneficial than plant food. The latter is certainly one of the big ones. I think inertia more than anything else makes people reluctant. Convenience is impacted by being veg*n, which is a way that can interrupt a specific attempt to strictly shift your diet. If you go into it feeling like you need to make a strict change but then when you go out to eat and all they offer is meat, it might shake your resolve to continue at all. I think also a very strong point is that other animals can't advocate for their own fair treatment. Humans could advocate for them, but when a human tells you the story of Gertrude the cow, it does just come off as quite laughable. When you hear the heartbreaking story of a black woman and her struggle you can feel closer to her as a human that you could of the poor cow that is essentially in slavery. People do make the argument that animals are just not as intelligent. That totally depends on your definition of intelligence, and it's worth noting that often intelligence was used as a justification for the subjugation of indigenous people by European empires. Intelligence is also ill defined for humans, let alone other animals. Also would you realistically say that humans who are less intelligent are undeserving of life? What if they were brain dead? I personally don't see that as a good reason to give up though, and also people don't need to see non human animals as equals to us to want to lessen unnecessary suffering of them. EDIT: This last note is unrelated to the quote above, which I just quoted and edited a little. Final annoying pedant note: Humans are animals. If you want to be totally correct you'd have to refer to all other animals as nonhuman animals. But now that I've said that most people can just be aware of the distinction and continue to use the technically incorrect term but recognise the difference

Make sure you catch the Thumbs reference.

I feel entirely like this too! I'm kind of just prodding at a point, but I feel very similar to a lot of what you said and to me that leads to the conclusion that it doesn't seem like online abuse makes a massive difference to humans, it's just a tool that can crowdsource anything, which does include harassment. If that harassment could manifest as physical as easily as real life, I would outright say it's worse. But since that's a big barrier to cross online I feel like they take different forms but not enough that humanity is being eroded so much as people are grouping together more, whether those groups are good or bad is irrelevant. The groups grow and perpetuate the ideas they entail to their members. We just need to find the right tools to foster groups that are positive and productive, and to limit the negative outcomes.

I think if the mistake was made in an article explicitly about the imposed limitations on the game, then it would absolutely matter. But in a general review that mostly says I liked/disliked this game it's not that big a deal to later just amend when it's pointed out. It feels equivalent to giving the wrong name of a new gun in CoD or something.

I have listened, it's basically like QI lite and balanced slightly more towards the knowledge than humour. They still have the dynamic of the show itself, just a bit less funny. When I first heard they were starting it I hoped that they might go into the background on the stuff they're discussing, but it does largely mirror the show in terms of just throwing out things that are interesting to know and then often a light explanation for context. I do recommend it. I'd say it's more on the comedy end than you might expect, if you're anything like me anyway. I'll also re-recommend How Did This Get Made. It's the only other comedy focused podcast I listen to. For some reason any other one I've tried felt a bit like they were trying too hard to make the jokes and it felt more like a bunch of zingers than really a podcast with good jokes in it. I guess I like podcasts to feel like a conversation or something. Though I also have the really dumb thing where if a host laughs at their own joke that I didn't find funny, I almost always think the joke is even less funny for it. I have no idea if this is common behaviour or not but it constantly grates on me when I try to listen to a new comedycast that's not doing it for me.

This is a non rhetorical question because I actually don't know your exact identity very well but do you think this is partially a product of privilege? In my real life I feel the same as you, that I generally don't get any random abuse although I have had very occasional shit thrown at me over what seem like simple disagreements. But when I look at something like GamerGate, I remind myself that this is not behaviour that is only attributed to that hashtag nor is it purely an online concept. Harassment of certain groups is something that society just has, if you're unfortunate enough to be targeted as one of those groups. I could imagine that privilege is less visible online, so people can make assumptions about the kind of person you are and decide you're someone that they can harass. None of this is me speaking from authority, particularly as I'm not in a position to debate the idea of online vs. offline abuse. I'm just trying to suggest a reason why there might not be such a difference for other people as for you.

We're weirdly very euromericaustralicentric here on Idle Thumbs. Also dibs, why did you leave me?

I don't think you can expect the reviewer to care more than they do. If the reviewer cared they'd do more research and rigorous fact checking. The semantics aren't going to massively misrepresent the game. (though I'm not entirely sure what the wrong facts were, maybe there was something that was actually off?) Online reviewers aren't that well paid, they're mostly doing it because they like games as a medium. They're going to inevitably discuss what does or doesn't capture them in the game rather than looking into exact details of stuff that they just glossed over.

This depends on who you're reading as Person A. I read that as if A was someone who didn't condone the attacks but still thought CH's cartoons were racist and causing real issues, not that A was one of the terrorists involved.

Pre-order? Hmm, I think I'll wait for the actual release so I can hear reviews about the game and not just buy it cause the previews are praisin it.

Totally a flimsy note, but I remember hearing about a study that found overall women were much more effective negotiators when they were told to negotiate for their friend/colleague compared to when negotiating for themself. I think when you point out any proven disparity it's important to keep in mind that it's not an 'objective explanation' in the sense that it's something inherent or unchangeable. Having concrete numbers just makes it clear it's an issue and means that we should be more vigilant about not letting it happen. (Note I'm not even sure anyone was saying/thinking that, but I just felt like it was worth pointing out because not everyone seems to make that hop from reading such results to fully realising what they mean)

An animation studio followed me on twitter, their current twitter handle is "We're hiring!" They're crewing up across all levels and disciplines... weirdly that makes me feel almost like it's suspiciously aggressive.

I played through DA 1 with a cheat to instant win every fight, I've still racked up over 20 hours and yet to finish.

Well yeah but that's what Ireland has. In Dublin there's a million people so we have a series of postcodes for the regions around the city. But in my home town of Kilkenny there's maybe tens of thousands of people, so I dunno why they'd need postcodes.

Well yeah, but don't post codes handle the vague stuff like county for the most part? They still need to say the Street and house/apartment number as before. I thought it was mostly for sorting purposes, that it was easier by code than words, for some reason. Also I have no idea. I was thinking u already had one so I was fine, but then I remembered there were rumours they'd rehash the whole lot. Bah.

There's talk of it coming in, but as someone who's only ever lived here I don't really get the point of them? Isn't it just awkward writing codes instead of locations? ... Ok maybe that's exactly what a phone number is and I'm used to those so never mind me.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought that we had the capability to collect a mother's breast milk and store it for later use? I could imagine there being downsides of course (discomfort, having to maintain a store of it) but realistically unless I'm way wrong about that then it barely ought to be a real barrier even aside from the points made above. This is also super relevant to any time you're trying to deal with an issue of disparity between different social groups.

This is a recurring thing that us from Ireland must deal with. (or at least, I had to until I moved to Dublin)

That's a fair point but mainly applies if your protagonist barely or never interacts with other humans. If you're going to have interactions that are in any way meaningful or important then race does come in. Uncharted is not a story game but if Drake was black then it plays out differently.

I also have thought about this a lot and come to no clear conclusion. I make a conscious effort to try averaging out the gender numbers of my characters. But that is different in that I interact with so many women in every day life and most of my closest friends happen to be women. It's a topic I have delved deep into with them and with others. I have plenty more to learn but I do feel like I have a strong enough foundation to write women and make a good effort for progressive characterisation. That's not how I feel with groups like non-white minorities. I have friends who aren't white, obviously. But never a close friend where I could have the same kind of deep dive conversations I can easily have with my close female friends. This is entirely on me, and it's up to me to find ways to fix this when I'm writing characters and I'm including real diversity. It's a bit hampering to feel like I shouldn't be trying this unless I've done the research (especially as I'm doing short week by week projects right now) but after reading that link and article it does feel like making an honest effort and taking note when I fail ought to be my approach, given that I'm doing that in other ways already. In terms of practical suggestions, collaboration on a free project could be a good way to work with someone of a minority and learn their view without being exploitative. Also reading what minorities themselves have created would be a useful resource. I wonder if there's anywhere that collects works of underrepresented voices? It'd be a great resource.

I don't know if making a mash up between snake and a rogue-like in simple python for a job interview is a good idea but I guess I'll find out.

This reminds me that buying a CD of Portal 1 was my initial horrible experience with Steam. Download the game I bought a CD for just to be told I need to be constantly online to ever play it, back when my house didn't even have Wifi. Dark days...

I got mine for Super Meat Boy and a bundle of games that came with it when it come out on Mac. I've had the entire Half Life series sitting there since then, only played a few hours into the first one and gotten no further. I figure if Half Life 3 is ever announced I'll use that as my impetus to play through.

Being brave or cowardly seems irrelevant in the grand scheme. They still published and perpetuated harmful works about a minority because they had the privilege to do so. There was nothing noble or useful about the message so it doesn't matter if it was brave of them or not.

I'm not entirely sure where I fall on this because I think those cartoons are totally not acceptable and you have to bear in mind that if this is a magazine in print then they're obviously speaking to people that listen to them and take in their message to some extent. I don't think murder was a response that can be forgiven but it absolutely does not absolve the cartoonists of perpetuating racism with their work. Any artist or media person has a responsibility to consider the effect of their work or at least accept that they're being shitty if they make no effort to consider it. And also, it does matter. These individuals are dead but that doesn't stop media outlets existing that harmfully stereotype people like this at this very moment, with coverage of this footage. The murders helped no one, at least as far as I can imagine. But I still have sympathies for people that can live in a society where they are so openly vilified in media and have no effective form of rebuttal.