"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[Bjorn]

If you don't mind me asking, what class?

It's a class about interactive media and the ways that different types of media intersect.

[JonCole]

I feel like everything that's been said in the past two pages aligns pretty well with something I've been observing for months as I've become more involved in learning about feminism. Namely, the whole #notallmen thing that annoys the ever-living shit out of me. Without expounding on it too much, there's a never-ending torrent of comments from female feminists about men in general that inevitably get the attention of a man who feels he's being unfairly treated and needs to speak up about it. To me, this #notallmen attitude reveals that if you're the kind of person who feels they should be offended by statements describing the horrible things men in general do to women, then you're the exact kind of man that woman is talking about. If you're not that kind of man, then the comment should be no skin off your back.

 

Similarly, I honestly feel like a Gater who is truly arguing in good faith should be unscathed by comments ridiculing Gaters who make irrational arguments. The whole tone policing thing is protecting a group of people who are not arguing in good faith, they are people who you envision to be eventual allies to be swayed that are so wavering in their conviction that the slightest nudge can rouse them for a fight.

 

In recent years I've tried to come around to a more rational approach to argument, where the only way you can convince anyone of anything is by convincing them first that you want to have a two-way discussion with compassion. No climate change denier will consider anything you're saying if they perceive your contempt for them. When I argue with some of my Christian family members about gay marriage, I really try to empathize with the fact that their guiding moral compass is telling them something I disagree with and that convincing them to change their mind is also asking them to doubt something they potentially believe wholeheartedly.

 

That being said, I think that it's really, really unfair to expect or even ask anyone else to uphold this manner of argument in all circumstances. Not only is it extremely draining in terms of personal energy, but in the spirit of the method you also have to let people argue in their own ways and potentially recognize that empathy and compassion are critical tools in truly reaching someone. I also think that the method really only has efficacy in one-on-one interactions. I think it's unfairly demanding to ask that people sympathize with Gaters in general while acknowledging that a good percentage of them are not arguing in good faith.

 

I leave it to people to engage with Gaters however they'd like. I only ask that if you find yourself talking to the unicorn that is a Gater who seems actually receptive to reason, you try to put aside your initial contempt and consider that they can easily be a person who was convinced to take the GG side due to tribal thinking or because they earnestly felt that their hobby was under some kind of assault that seems unhealthy in their minds. Shit, the gaming community is so divisive and tribal that I've found myself on the wrong side of thinking as many times as I haven't. I still feel under some kind perpetual judgement from places like these forums for liking free-to-play games with variable-ratio schedules and systems tied up in energy systems. I just try to keep thinking that some people feel that their kinds of games are under assault by games like these, where other systems seem more favorable because that's how it's always worked.

[Justin Leego]

I wish love and kindness could always win the day, but people only have two cheeks to turn.

 

Four cheeks, surely?

.

[Denial]

Thinking about it -- Wouldn't the premise that any mocking or vilification of GGers merely sets them in their ways, taken to its logical conclusion, suggest that we should never disagree with them at all?

 

Yep! That would be precisely the necessary approach. 

 

The problem being, of course, that if you calibrate your responses entirely on the presumption that people are moral children driven entirely by their tender feelings, it's pretty much impossible actually to have a grown-up conversation. I think, ultimately, you just have to take the risk that some people are not going to be able to cope with feeling slighted, and, while acknowledging that this is very sad, concern yourself primarily with minimizing the damage caused by their acting out rather than trying to predict and shape your discourse to what might offend emotionally fragile people.

[sclpls]

Does anyone else find it extremely troubling that TotalBiscuit's (typically self-important) statement on Dodger contains the words "legitimate harassment"? Tell me if I'm being oversensitive: to me, that sounds like a means of disavowing the experiences of those with whom he isn't personally friendly that have been harassed; like dog whistle language to tell the GamerGate reader of his Twitter feed that this single occasion of misogynistic abuse is as it seems and not a false flag perpetuated by the professional victim. It also has some fairly disturbing Todd Akin echoes, to my ears.

 

 

 

While it obviously isn't true that if GamerGate takes an action it absolves its targets from blame for that same action (and make no mistake: those are the sides of this issue; not "us versus them" - a hate group and its victims, direct and indirect), you talk as if every platform GamerGate uses hasn't been a means to dehumanize, harangue, and conspire against those whom they consider enemies. To call a series of innocuous lightbulb jokes "antagonistic bullshit" in the face of what people have actually undergone during the past several months is incredibly myopic in its attempt to police the response to harassment by the harassed rather than those who are actually actively engaging in structured, rigorous professional sabotage and criminal acts. What on Earth do you imagine would be accomplished by singularly changing this forum thread?

 

Good eye, I didn't catch that phrase, and yeah that is definitely a gross weasel phrase. You also sometimes see right-wing politicians talk about "legitimate rape" so there is a history to the use of the term legitimate as a qualifier when describing the subjugation of women's bodies. Thinking about it for even half a second really does expose how awful the concept is.

[Dewar]

Oh, totally different topic, my daughter gave her gamergate presentation in class today, and no one stood up to say, "Actually, it's about..."   She actually thought it went really well. 

 

Oh good, I'm glad it went well. I was hoping you'd get back to us with an update.

[your name here]

Where are all the "moderate" gamergaterors? Those who are just concerned with journalistic ethics? I keep being told that they exist, but it mostly seems to be about anti-feminism. I don't think they see a difference between the two. "Feminist", to them, is just another word for "corrupt journalist." Like, it doesn't seem at all odd to them that the works of anita sarkeesian are somehow related to journalistic ethics. And, also that simultaneously these views are expressed:"Anita is a professional victim and wasn't actually harassed" and "We don't support harassment against our enemies. Other people did that."
It also seems to be commonly accepted that anita made up the fact that she plays video games. It takes a certain amount of conspiratorial thinking to believe that everything she says about her personal life is whole cloth lies, and all the information about games that she has is fed to her by a male colleague.

[Blambo]

People who were legitimately concerned about journalistic ethics probably accidentally joined and fled gamergate in the same way people who would be concerned about neighborhood cleanliness accidentally join and flee neo-nazi "neighborhood cleanliness" organizations.

[Smart Jason]

Where are all the "moderate" gamergaterors? Those who are just concerned with journalistic ethics? I keep being told that they exist, but it mostly seems to be about anti-feminism. I don't think they see a difference between the two. "Feminist", to them, is just another word for "corrupt journalist." Like, it doesn't seem at all odd to them that the works of anita sarkeesian are somehow related to journalistic ethics. And, also that simultaneously these views are expressed:"Anita is a professional victim and wasn't actually harassed" and "We don't support harassment against our enemies. Other people did that."

It also seems to be commonly accepted that anita made up the fact that she plays video games. It takes a certain amount of conspiratorial thinking to believe that everything she says about her personal life is whole cloth lies, and all the information about games that she has is fed to her by a male colleague.

 

Not to put too fine a point upon it, but this goes back to my post from a few pages ago - I genuinely believe that GamerGate is abandoning en masse its pretense that the movement is about ethics in game journalism (perhaps because they're tired of being confronted with the double standards of which industry issues they'll actually spotlight depending on whether or not women are focal to them) and moving toward a greater goal of undermining and undoing the feminist creep of modern history which has only serendipitously taken foothold within this very fertile ground of gamers, The goal of detecting and alerting the community to "agenda"-driven media, because the Marxist feminist academics are brainwashing the populace at large through opinionated in a way that is different from me censorship. I've seen posts of theirs which dictate their refusal to be classified as a movement, but rather a consumer advocacy force, as though the latter will be less transient in history.

[Bjorn]

Oh good, I'm glad it went well. I was hoping you'd get back to us with an update.

 

Yeah, I wish I had something more interesting to say about it (like an interesting discussion was started or something). But it was just a pretty standard undergrad presentation. I'm glad she didn't have to deal with any bullshit, so it's overall a positive.

Sarkeesian wrote an op-ed in the NY Times, continuing with the theme that gamer as a cultural label is functionally dead and that the self-appointed gatekeepers of gaming have already lost.

[Gormongous]

I feel like everything that's been said in the past two pages aligns pretty well with something I've been observing for months as I've become more involved in learning about feminism. Namely, the whole #notallmen thing that annoys the ever-living shit out of me. Without expounding on it too much, there's a never-ending torrent of comments from female feminists about men in general that inevitably get the attention of a man who feels he's being unfairly treated and needs to speak up about it. To me, this #notallmen attitude reveals that if you're the kind of person who feels they should be offended by statements describing the horrible things men in general do to women, then you're the exact kind of man that woman is talking about. If you're not that kind of man, then the comment should be no skin off your back.

 

Similarly, I honestly feel like a Gater who is truly arguing in good faith should be unscathed by comments ridiculing Gaters who make irrational arguments. The whole tone policing thing is protecting a group of people who are not arguing in good faith, they are people who you envision to be eventual allies to be swayed that are so wavering in their conviction that the slightest nudge can rouse them for a fight.

 

Thank you for putting it more lucidly than I managed, Jon. I may come off as uncharitable here, but my interactions with #GamerGate as a movement and as individuals have not led me to believe that there is a significant percentage of them willing to consider their opponents' criticisms, just so long as those criticisms are delivered nonconfrontationally and with due consideration to their personal circumstances. Even if there is such a percentage, those people are not allies of social justice and never can be, not without substantive change on their part. They are, at best, a group that we can persuaded to stay neutral if we spend the effort to cater to their sensibilities -- a neutrality that's liable to vanish upon even a whiff of criticism. In many situations, no criticism is even necessary beyond the absence of total agreement. Accordingly, if we're determined to achieve positive social change by propitiating the reactionary elements of society, we're picking the longest, hardest, and most exhausting road for it.

 

It sucks that some members of #GamerGate feel attacked and that those feelings might lead them to radicalize, but I don't know how we can avoid that when criticisms on the movement are regularly construed as attacks on its constituents, not besides hiding our light under a bushel so that our criticisms don't appear as such on the face of it. I definitely don't think that Gerstmann points a way forward for anyone, because he was criticized by #GamerGate for not supporting their movement and by #GamerGate's opponents for his fallacious arguments to moderation. History might vindicate him, like it might vindicate Obama's conciliatory centrism, but I don't think so for either.

[Bjorn]

GamerGate makes for some weird bedfellows.  One of the sites who has ended up backing gg, and being backed in return, is Christ Centered Gamer. Seems to be for two main reasons.  First, CCG has fully embraced the narrative that this is about ethics. Second, CCG splits it's reviews into basically two scores, one for the technical/game elements of a game and the other is its "Morality Score". gg heralds this as the innovation games journalism was looking for, and a move towards the mythical objective review. gg has worked to try and get CCG onto Metacritic and to get a verified Twitter account. A majority of people in the threads I read through seem to agree that because you completely understand that CCG is coming from the Christian perspective, that it's totally fine.

What. The. Fuck. Everyone knows Polygon is progressive, Chris Grant has identified Polygon as being a progressive site. It's literally one of the reasons that the site exists, and it consistently shows in the pieces they run. But Polygon is routinely condemned for its progressive content. So it's fine to be biased, as long as you're biased in the right way. I guess.

I don't care about people writing about games from a Christian perspective. I kind of agree with Tom Chick's comments on CCG from a few years ago that he was disappointed that the reviews didn't delve more into viewing games through a Christian cultural lens.  A poly-religious review site that looked at games through the lens of multiple beliefs would be FUCKING FASCINATING!

And then there's the constant refrain from gg that politics has no place in games. And yet CCG is actually giving a Morality Score to games. They are literally making a moral judgment and applying a number to that judgment. And they will dock a game 4 points from it's morality score for:
 

Homosexuality is shown as positive in the game (- 4 pts)

 

Actually, their points guidelines for giving a moral judgment (archive link purely in case it changes in the future) is pretty fascinating, and one would argue that their attitudes towards morality actually indicates that the morality of obeying laws is more importance that the ethics of doing the right thing.
 

Authority (check only one)

___ - No authority issues involved with this game (-0 pts)
___ - Game demeans family respect and authority (-1 pts)
___ - Game portrays rebellion against established cultural norms (-1.5 pts)
___ - Game requires rejecting authority figures or laws (-2 pts)
___ - Game requires active rebellion to play the game (-2.5 pts)

 

A mentality that says the moral decision is always the one that respects and follows authority is...problematic for me.

This is one of the concluduing statements of the Gone Home review:
 

maintain that the praise for this game is political because, were you to change Lonnie into, say, Larry, you're still left with an uninspired high school love story; a story we've heard a hundred times and rolled our eyes at 99 of those times.

Furthermore, the one time Christianity comes up it's just long enough to bash it.

For a game that started with so much potential, for it to fall apart to serve a cliched political end is disappointing.

 

It also has a Moral Warnings section in the sidebar of games:

 

Moral Warnings: Makes alternative lifestyles core to the experience

 

Tell me again about your inclusiveness and anti-political stance gamergate.
 
Somewhere in a comment, I also saw someone say that the site is simply misnamed, and if it was called Socially Conservative Gamer it would be more accurate.  As far as ethics goes, I suspect there's an interesting Christian ethical question about naming your company with the word Christ in it, but only representing a very, very narrow view of the Christian belief spectrum in your Morality Score.  I'm pretty sure I could really easily whip up a #notmychrist campaign opposing the way that CCG presents itself, given some of the really activist minded friends I have who are both Christian and Gay (or greatly support gay rights and marriage equality).

[Professor Video Games]

So I'm playing Wolfenstein: New Order right now which is set in an alternate history where the Nazi's take over the world. Based on that criteria it would be docked 2.5 points for requiring active rebellion (against the Nazi government). Awesome.

[singlespace]

It took literally minutes after her post for Felicia Day to be doxxed. That's not the most stringent data but it's a shitty indicator for sure.

Why would it be an indicator at all, let alone a good one? Assume there is a core element of GG that will attack any high profile person. Say Day's article had some impact in GG and some group of people who are not part of the core decide to not support GG anymore. Does that affect that core group attacking high profile people via criminal acts? No. Say it affects nothing, does that mean Day won't be doxxed? No.

 

I have little else to add except to ask you not to only sympathise with GamerGate, they are people with misguided goals and a persecution complex, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't also sympathise with the people being seriously attacked, threatened and harassed over GG. Sure, GGers will take the jokes as an attack, but that doesn't make it equivalent. It doesn't mean that the attacks by GG are less serious or less legitimate. People attack by GG have an emotional assault on them, people need to cope somehow. We're all humans and even if your way was definitely the best, it's difficult to maintain a visage of treating GG calmly when people that want to push this medium forward are being terrorised by them.

I do, just simply expressed in other places. I don't feel that they're equivalent at all by any means, but it seems contrary to the goal of ending this shittiness to antagonize. I'm not asking anyone to go out of their way to try and reason with them, just that I think that mockery makes it more difficult for those who have a part of their identity tied up in GG to leave.

 

If it is, in all honesty, one of the best ways people can vent, then there's not much that can be done. That's just how things are.

 

Similarly, I honestly feel like a Gater who is truly arguing in good faith should be unscathed by comments ridiculing Gaters who make irrational arguments. The whole tone policing thing is protecting a group of people who are not arguing in good faith, they are people who you envision to be eventual allies to be swayed that are so wavering in their conviction that the slightest nudge can rouse them for a fight.

I don't believe they are arguing in good faith, nor do I believe that they will be eventual allies, but I do believe that they can be given the tools necessary to realize that what they're doing is wrong and that they should stop, but condescensions and slights make it much more difficult.

 

In recent years I've tried to come around to a more rational approach to argument, where the only way you can convince anyone of anything is by convincing them first that you want to have a two-way discussion with compassion. No climate change denier will consider anything you're saying if they perceive your contempt for them. When I argue with some of my Christian family members about gay marriage, I really try to empathize with the fact that their guiding moral compass is telling them something I disagree with and that convincing them to change their mind is also asking them to doubt something they potentially believe wholeheartedly.

 

That being said, I think that it's really, really unfair to expect or even ask anyone else to uphold this manner of argument in all circumstances. Not only is it extremely draining in terms of personal energy, but in the spirit of the method you also have to let people argue in their own ways and potentially recognize that empathy and compassion are critical tools in truly reaching someone. I also think that the method really only has efficacy in one-on-one interactions. I think it's unfairly demanding to ask that people sympathize with Gaters in general while acknowledging that a good percentage of them are not arguing in good faith.

It isn't fair, but if we want this to end as fast as possible then it is in our best interests to at least not go out of our way to make the process more protracted and difficult. I have a hard time believing that refraining from such things as Actual Ethics is equivalent to establishing a meaningful dialog with those who are very different in their fundamental beliefs.

[Problem Machine]

I think your reasoning is naive and your critique reductive, dismissive, and insulting. That's the last I'll say on it.

[singlespace]

Look, I get it. You made some jokes and I'm just some stranger who walks into a place that's kind of like your home and is critical of the jokes being made: it's kind of a dick thing to do. But I doubt you'll find much modern research suggesting that facts, that pointing out the flaws in arguments, especially via mechanisms like jokes, or satire, is at all effective in changing vastly differing opinions. You will find that researchers, political advocates, scientific outreach coordinators, and more have found over the last decade that the opposite is in fact true: such measures only serve to harden and galvanize the resolve of those you would like to change the most.

 

Mocking someone's beliefs, no matter how poorly those beliefs correlate with reality, no matter how much you disagree with them, is not effective. It does the opposite of what you would hope. There is a decade of research backing this up now and I gave you two very good places to begin reading about it.

 

The line of reasoning presented by others that even if everyone agreed that mockery wasn't a good idea, that it is perhaps too much to ask of someone to conduct themselves in such a fashion in all public outlets, I can buy, but it is such a terrible thing to consider that these jokes and emotional, instead of rational, shots at GG could be causing more harm than good?

[sclpls]

Look, I get it. You made some jokes and I'm just some stranger who walks into a place that's kind of like your home and is critical of the jokes being made: it's kind of a dick thing to do. But I doubt you'll find much modern research suggesting that facts, that pointing out the flaws in arguments, especially via mechanisms like jokes, or satire, is at all effective in changing vastly differing opinions. You will find that researchers, political advocates, scientific outreach coordinators, and more have found over the last decade that the opposite is in fact true: such measures only serve to harden and galvanize the resolve of those you would like to change the most.

 

Mocking someone's beliefs, no matter how poorly those beliefs correlate with reality, no matter how much you disagree with them, is not effective. It does the opposite of what you would hope. There is a decade of research backing this up now and I gave you two very good places to begin reading about it.

 

The line of reasoning presented by others that even if everyone agreed that mockery wasn't a good idea, that it is perhaps too much to ask of someone to conduct themselves in such a fashion in all public outlets, I can buy, but it is such a terrible thing to consider that these jokes and emotional, instead of rational, shots at GG could be causing more harm than good?

 

And you are doing what exactly?

[SuperBiasedMan]

singlespace is hardly mocking, they're taking issue with how most of us are discussing GamerGate and the members involved.

[singlespace]

Do I come across as mocking? If so, then I apologize because that was not at all the intent.

[Flynn]

While I haven't been posting jokes in this thread and I'm generally not a fan of memes, it's not because I'm trying to 'convert' anonymous GamerGate readers, should they exist, either.  This is a place to talk about stuff, right?  Should that be a concern?  I'm pretty much down to venting despair over the last two months myself.

[Gormongous]

Look, I get it. You made some jokes and I'm just some stranger who walks into a place that's kind of like your home and is critical of the jokes being made: it's kind of a dick thing to do. But I doubt you'll find much modern research suggesting that facts, that pointing out the flaws in arguments, especially via mechanisms like jokes, or satire, is at all effective in changing vastly differing opinions. You will find that researchers, political advocates, scientific outreach coordinators, and more have found over the last decade that the opposite is in fact true: such measures only serve to harden and galvanize the resolve of those you would like to change the most.

 

Mocking someone's beliefs, no matter how poorly those beliefs correlate with reality, no matter how much you disagree with them, is not effective. It does the opposite of what you would hope. There is a decade of research backing this up now and I gave you two very good places to begin reading about it.

 

The line of reasoning presented by others that even if everyone agreed that mockery wasn't a good idea, that it is perhaps too much to ask of someone to conduct themselves in such a fashion in all public outlets, I can buy, but it is such a terrible thing to consider that these jokes and emotional, instead of rational, shots at GG could be causing more harm than good?

 

I'm not mocking these people to their face. I'm not even really mocking these people. I'm mocking their beliefs, mostly the way they are presented, only within the confines of a small forum among people I can trust after weeks and weeks of enduring an onslaught of hate. Maybe you just don't understand that we're not making these jokes in the interest of disseminating them, but just to keep morale up among people on the front lines of said hate, and that's okay. I've said as much and now you'll understand. But if you're saying that I need to be patient and calm not only when speaking directly to #GamerGate, which I already am, but also among friends and in the privacy of my own head, then I disagree vehemently. That is tone policing at its worst and demands an impossibly saintly standard of behavior for specious outcome.

 

I'm also really not sure why you bring in the false emotional/rational dichotomy at the end there. Nothing about #GamerGate is rational and appeals to rationality have unilaterally failed. Surely those studies that you cite say the same thing, that rationality is utterly incidental to the success of any dialogue. There's no need to denigrate emotional responses to the events of the past two months, even if they are somewhat unpalatable to you personally.

[Bjorn]

Look, I get it. You made some jokes and I'm just some stranger who walks into a place that's kind of like your home and is critical of the jokes being made: it's kind of a dick thing to do. But I doubt you'll find much modern research suggesting that facts, that pointing out the flaws in arguments, especially via mechanisms like jokes, or satire, is at all effective in changing vastly differing opinions. You will find that researchers, political advocates, scientific outreach coordinators, and more have found over the last decade that the opposite is in fact true: such measures only serve to harden and galvanize the resolve of those you would like to change the most.

 

Mocking someone's beliefs, no matter how poorly those beliefs correlate with reality, no matter how much you disagree with them, is not effective. It does the opposite of what you would hope. There is a decade of research backing this up now and I gave you two very good places to begin reading about it.

 

The line of reasoning presented by others that even if everyone agreed that mockery wasn't a good idea, that it is perhaps too much to ask of someone to conduct themselves in such a fashion in all public outlets, I can buy, but it is such a terrible thing to consider that these jokes and emotional, instead of rational, shots at GG could be causing more harm than good?

 

FWIW, I don't disagree with your sentiment, and several pages back you can see me discussing language use and dehumanizing, with examples of how even moderate ggers engage in dehumanizing behavior and concerns that my own way of discussing this stuff might be doing the same thing.  I do worry about how I and others discuss gg.  But I don't have a problem with people venting in this thread, making up some jokes, etc.  People do have a right to be angry about this shit, and to vent that anger, and venting that is not always going to come out in a form that is comfortable or digestible to everyone. 

 

So yeah, I wouldn't roll into KiA or start spamming prominent ggers on Twitter with stuff like this.  But we haven't seen much pro-gg stuff in this thread, and the few who have came in quickly betrayed that there weren't interested in discussing things in good faith (engaged in pretty obvious troll behavior).  While this is technically a public space, it's also a safe place for Thumbs fans to discuss gg and vent when need be. 

[Problem Machine]

Look, I get it.

You don't get it. And your condescending reiterations that you do aren't helping, since the possibility that you don't apparently hasn't occurred to you. If you were actually open to the idea that you don't get it, you would have actually read and parsed my earlier responses, but you've made it clear that you haven't. That apparently is not something you feel to be worth your time. So: Why should I bother?

 

While I agree with everything that Gormongous has said, his rationale is not mine. These are discrete arguments for why these jokes exist. I actually put a lot of work into coming up with jokes that attack rhetoric instead of people, that highlight hypocrisies instead of mocking beliefs. This was with an end-goal of making the GG position visibly and obviously rhetorically unviable, now and in the future. It's not just about stopping GG: It's about stopping future GG's. This is about the fabric and methodology of cultural change, not just convincing one angry person to reconsider. These may seem like grand words for just a few little jokes, but that's the process.

[singlespace]

FWIW, I don't disagree with your sentiment, and several pages back you can see me discussing language use and dehumanizing, with examples of how even moderate ggers engage in dehumanizing behavior and concerns that my own way of discussing this stuff might be doing the same thing.  I do worry about how I and others discuss gg.  But I don't have a problem with people venting in this thread, making up some jokes, etc.  People do have a right to be angry about this shit, and to vent that anger, and venting that is not always going to come out in a form that is comfortable or digestible to everyone. 

 

So yeah, I wouldn't roll into KiA or start spamming prominent ggers on Twitter with stuff like this.  But we haven't seen much pro-gg stuff in this thread, and the few who have came in quickly betrayed that there weren't interested in discussing things in good faith (engaged in pretty obvious troll behavior).  While this is technically a public space, it's also a safe place for Thumbs fans to discuss gg and vent when need be. 

Yeah, I realize that here it isn't a problem from a practical perspective because of how much more private it is, but it easy to see the same venting happening at a much larger scale in much more public spaces from those who have much greater reach. Follow a developer who is activate on Twitter and there is a good chance you'll see the same kind of behaviour except in their case it gets spread all over the place through their social graph or through direct replies.

 

I honestly don't know how to address it other than to bring it up in places like this when the same kind of rhetoric occurs even though the context makes the jokes and such more of a triviality as opposed to something that would have a high likelihood of being consumed by a GGer.

[Bolegium]

There is nothing rational about gg, as much as they may claim to be the 'voice of reason' against the 'emotional' hordes of SJWs. The movement is uncompromising and wilfully changes every aspect of their position and claims to avoid criticism. Rational discourse is only effective when both parties are rational.

 

Anyway all of this is moot. You're taking issue with people using the "actually ethics" meme as a joke, then conflating it with your own personal concern that not engaging with gg on the terms that they want will further solidify their position against decent human behaviour. First of all, everything and anything you can say or do, no matter how 'civil', will only make the divide between gg and everyone else more apparent. Secondly, you need to adjust your priorities if you're sincerely taking issue with people making abstract jokes about the misuse of the word "ethics".

 

Sorry to repeat myself, but try reading the FILM CRIT HULK article again, linked to earlier by Flynn and myself. And here again: http://badassdigest.com/2014/10/27/film-crit-hulk-smash-on-despair-gamergate-and-quitting-the-hulk/

 

I don't know why you name drop FCH earlier to support your claim that people shouldn't make fun of gg-ers (not true anyway, he does), but then ignore him when his arguments run against yours. You keep on claiming that he treats gg-ers like people (implying that others don't), and seem to have ignored that his main argument is that it is impossible to engage in any sort of dialogue with gg, 'rational' or otherwise.