"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[Deadpan]

The Escapist has closed its GG megathread and has instead created a subforum for discussing "games industry issues" with the intent of breaking the conversation into manageable threads and reintroducing some amount of moderation.

 

So there's another place to nip potential conspiracy theories in the bud, and it might be interesting if, while GG scratches its head trying to work out if they still trust the site, somebody created discussions about actual games industry issues, like crunch, conflict minerals, unsustainable pay for art and criticism, app store censorship (Phone Story and such), etc.

[Merus]

sounds like a job for someone fond of getting in fights with windmills

 

because if there's one thing we should be aware of by now, it's that GamerGate actually don't give a shit about ethics in journalism

[Deadpan]

The idea wasn't to engage them in conversation so much as to drown out their meaningless babble about conspiracies and agendas.

[Reyturner]

I don't think you can out sea lion the sea lions

[JonCole]

KiA - "let's punish Ellen Pao for being a bad woman who hurts Reddit by boycotting Reddit Gold"

Everyone else - "don't worry, here's some Reddit gold lololololol"

KiA - "FUCK YOU DON'T BUY ME GOLD"

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/31n4si/proposal_stop_buying_reddit_gold_until_ellen_pao/

[Twig]

Haha that's pretty good. I mean I think Reddit Gold is dumb, but I appreciate any trolling of these idiots, even if it's through dumb methods.

[Merus]

I like this: http://www.salon.com/2015/04/06/sci_fis_right_wing_backlash_never_doubt_that_a_small_group_of_deranged_trolls_can_ruin_anything_even_the_hugo_awards/

 

I like any essay that has a really great point as part of its setup, because it's going straight to Interestingtown for a sea change.

 

 

The problem with democracy in general isn’t so much that people are “stupid” or “evil” or the other nasty things that people who rag on democracy like to throw out, it’s that there’s a ton of decisions to make and people are busy. The “vote” doesn’t end up being among everyone but among the tiny subset of people who really care about that question, which isn’t necessarily correlated with being right about that question–often, in fact, it’s the opposite.

 

Expressed better than I ever could: the case for compulsory voting in Australia. (As later comments make clear, it's not a panacea.)

[Twig]

As someone who regularly doesn't vote (I know I'm terrible I know), I'd be all for mandatory voting. One big problem I guess again lies in the poorer subset of the population, that can't afford to leave their day job to actually vote. There are, of course, solutions to this problem.

 

I'm really ignorant so I think I'll just stop there.

[Gormongous]

As someone who regularly doesn't vote (I know I'm terrible I know), I'd be all for mandatory voting. One big problem I guess again lies in the poorer subset of the population, that can't afford to leave their day job to actually vote. There are, of course, solutions to this problem.

 

I've only really seen mandatory voting while I was in Greece for half a year and, at least with the neighborhood in which I lived, it mostly served as an excuse to round up the poor and indigent, either for not voting or not having a valid license with which to vote, in order to squeeze a little more money out of them. Oh, and also as an excuse for fringe groups to act with even more certainty that their election to office represented some kind of mandate. There are, of course, solutions to that problem too, but I'm not certain that the US government would be interested in them

[Twig]

Yeah, I'm ignorant. ):

That's both terrible and not at all surprising. Eesh.

[Merus]

Yeah, in Australia voting's on a Saturday, there's a cultural acceptance that as an employer you gotta give people the opportunity to go vote, and you don't need identification to vote. Voter fraud is, in practice, not a particularly big deal.

 

I've only really seen mandatory voting while I was in Greece for half a year and, at least with the neighborhood in which I lived, it mostly served as an excuse to round up the poor and indigent, either for not voting or not having a valid license with which to vote, in order to squeeze a little more money out of them.

 

I'm not sure it's fair to lay this at the feet of mandatory voting - after all, with voluntary voting, the poor and indigent still don't get any control over the system even though they're supposedly entitled to it.

 

Oh, and also as an excuse for fringe groups to act with even more certainty that their election to office represented some kind of mandate.

 

This is a problem with every democratically elected official, I think.

[Gormongous]

I'm not sure it's fair to lay this at the feet of mandatory voting - after all, with voluntary voting, the poor and indigent still don't get any control over the system even though they're supposedly entitled to it.

 

I agree with you, insofar as I think that the problems with mandatory voting are the same as those with voluntary voting, only brought to a head. Being effectively denied your rights through socioeconomic forces is just farther down the same continuum from the denial of those rights being used to put you further under the control of those socioeconomic forces, if that makes sense.

 

It was really interesting to watch the good and the bad of a similar process while serving on jury duty last week. The juries drawn from both pools of which I was a part were almost entirely drawn from lower-class minorities, paid a paltry eighteen dollars a day if they were selected, while the largely middle- and upper-class white members of the pool not only avoided selection through their higher levels of personal education and political awareness, but were usually compensated generously by their places of work for jury duty anyway. It's yet another political system that's good in theory, but...

[Vainamoinen]

As someone who regularly doesn't vote (I know I'm terrible I know), I'd be all for mandatory voting. One big problem I guess again lies in the poorer subset of the population, that can't afford to leave their day job to actually vote. There are, of course, solutions to this problem.

 

I'm really ignorant so I think I'll just stop there.

 

I find that quite often the best informed people choose not to vote. That non voter stigma has to go, really. You're neither ignorant nor terrible.

 

If voting means eating one among five pieces of shit, why would you ever do that? And if you can only choose from two, well... why even get up for that. 

[Merus]

That non voter stigma has to go, really. You're neither ignorant nor terrible.

 

So you believe you have the right, but not the responsibility, to vote?

 

I think it's a fallacy to say that because the best informed people choose not to vote, then not voting means you are informed, or that informed people choose not to vote because of that information and not, for instance, that they are incapable of choosing between acceptable options. As Chu points out, the most invested in a particular issue are often wrong, and violently so.

 

If voting means eating one among five pieces of shit, why would you ever do that?

 

This isn't exactly a problem with voting. If none of the choices are genuinely of any value, then the problem is with the system. If the system disenfranchises the oppressed, if it fails to reflect popular demographics, if it fails to capture actual preferences or encourages strategic voting, if candidates for issues that enjoy popular support don't even get a look in then democracy is not seving its intended purpose, and therefore it must be changed.

 

And there are organisations that currently campaign on these issues! Use your 'vote' to lend them your support, instead of sitting back and expecting, in a thoroughly bourgeois fashion, that because you are more discerning, then you are entitled to wait until someone delivers an acceptable political option to you.

[Gaizokubanou]

If voting means eating one among five pieces of shit, why would you ever do that? And if you can only choose from two, well... why even get up for that. 

Because one of the five pieces of shit will be force fed to you whether you vote or not.

 

So why not pick the smallest and least foul option?

[Problem Machine]

Also there's the question of whether they could get away with feeding us quite so much shit if the people who voted about it could taste the difference.

[Merus]

I just realised this is the toxic right-wingers thread and not one about voting. We probably have a thread about voting somewhere.

[Vainamoinen]

So you believe you have the right, but not the responsibility, to vote?

 

Absolutely. I do vote, but increasingly do not see how any party in my country would ever 'deserve' that vote. Nor do I perceive a 'least crappy' one. Do I vote strongly in favor of total surveillance, or strongly in favor of Putin asskissing? Whatever I do in the voting booth, I just walk away with guilt. There really is no reason to make the people who choose not to vote feel guilty as well.

 

I think it's a fallacy to say that because the best informed people choose not to vote, then not voting means you are informed, [...]

 

Yes, that would be a fallacy. Thank god no one said that.

[syntheticgerbil]

I think if they figured out how to making online voting happen without all of this outcry of hackers or whatever the fuck, I would be extremely happy. I vote in a lot of local elections as well as the major ones, but sometimes getting out to wherever they have the ballot is a hassle or you just miss the date.

[JonCole]

Maybe we should have a civics/politics thread, particularly with American presidential politics season just starting up. Where am I gonna complain about Rand Paul to fellow thumbs?!

[Twig]

 

Do I vote strongly in favor of total surveillance, or strongly in favor of Putin asskissing? Whatever I do in the voting booth, I just walk away with guilt.

 

Haha, this is basically why I don't vote, and:

 

I find that quite often the best informed people choose not to vote. That non voter stigma has to go, really. You're neither ignorant nor terrible.

 

To an extent I agree with you. But I also feel guilty for not voting. It's kind of a lose lose situation. There are degrees of bad, though, at least for me. At some point I should probably make a decision and commit to it. But it all just feels so pointless. Eh. I'm terrible!

 

That said, my ignorance comment was in regards to compulsory voting and its implications, and less so about my lack of voting.

[Dewar]

I think if they figured out how to making online voting happen without all of this outcry of hackers or whatever the fuck, I would be extremely happy. I vote in a lot of local elections as well as the major ones, but sometimes getting out to wherever they have the ballot is a hassle or you just miss the date.

 

My part of Washington does everything via mail now. There are drop boxes at every public library that take the ballots for free, or you can just slap a stamp on them and mail them anywhere. That way you have a couple of weeks to decide, which gives me time to read up a bit of folks for lower positions that I don't really think about day to day.

[twmac]

Voting is about a month away here in England and, at the age of 35, I am going to vote for the first time.

 

With all the dismay over UKIP it has polarised me to vote for someone, anyone, other than them. It is still going to be a pain in the arse to sort out but I have an understanding boss.

[Mangela Lansbury]

To an extent I agree with you. But I also feel guilty for not voting. It's kind of a lose lose situation. There are degrees of bad, though, at least for me. At some point I should probably make a decision and commit to it. But it all just feels so pointless. Eh. I'm terrible!

Depending on where you live, it might be pointless to vote anyway! I didn't vote one year when I lived in a very, very red district because what would the point even be. Gerrymandering rendered me mute regardless.

[Twig]

Yeah there's definitely that issue, too.

 

Voting sucks. Bring back the monarchy!