Jake

Idle Thumbs 173: Ridonkulous Rift

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Can we declare a moratorium on the term 'doxxing' already? I die a little inside every time I see it.

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I had no idea what Big Dog shirts were until I looked them up after this episode, and had completely forgotten about this particular KC Green comic. So good.

 

Man, you're lucky. I think they were coming into some sort of popularity when I was in elementary school, and even back then I thought of them as the stupid-ass shirts worn by people I didn't like.

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I notice the article, for example, doesn't mention how they raised $17 000+ for charity. 

 

The subreddit that's been fawning over the most recent batch of leaked private celebrity photos donated a great deal of money to prostrate cancer research. At this point 'donate a lot of money to prove we're not terrible' is part of the Internet's playbook. There appears to be a belief in America that donating large sums of money to charity says something about the values of the person doing it, and that's never really been true.

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I don't want to get into the debate over whether or not it's ethical for a charity to accept donations from 4chan users, and I think 4chan as an entity isn't as collectively hateful as they are often portrayed, but it's fairly well documented that the Vivian character was originally created for the purpose of trolling/frustrating the social justice movement.

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The subreddit that's been fawning over the most recent batch of leaked private celebrity photos donated a great deal of money to prostrate cancer research. At this point 'donate a lot of money to prove we're not terrible' is part of the Internet's playbook. There appears to be a belief in America that donating large sums of money to charity says something about the values of the person doing it, and that's never really been true.

In the UK over the past few years we've had a couple of instances of celebrities who have done a lot of work for charity actually using that work as an opportunity to sexually abuse and assault children/staff at, for example, hospitals. An extreme example, yes, but it demonstrates that people are complex creatures and it is possible both to do a lot of work for charity and be a total scumbag. I feel like this isn't particularly a revelation but maybe for some people it is...

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I don't wanna dredge up this topic of conversation again, but I saw a news article that directly ties into something I was saying earlier.

 

So judging by this recent sample, half of the viking remains we've been digging up have been female. We just always assumed they were male because they were buried with their weapons and never bothered to check.

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I don't wanna dredge up this topic of conversation again, but I saw a news article that directly ties into something I was saying earlier.

 

So judging by this recent sample, half of the viking remains we've been digging up have been female. We just always assumed they were male because they were buried with their weapons and never bothered to check.

 

I was just going to post the same thing from the source article at USA Today. In the interest of fairness, archaeology's long been a discipline where lots of conjecture is needed for even the most basic conclusions, but this small study shows that at least some of that conjecture is predicated on outdated and/or inaccurate cultural assumptions.

 

Also, it's really nice to have something that directly contradicts the sizable minority of Norse scholars (I was going to type "Nordicists," but apparently that's a white supremacy term) who have insisted that shieldmaidens are an entirely fictional invention of the skalds. Really nice.

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This is mentioned in Women Have Always Fought, by the way.

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I was just going to post the same thing from the source article at USA Today. In the interest of fairness, archaeology's long been a discipline where lots of conjecture is needed for even the most basic conclusions, but this small study shows that at least some of that conjecture is predicated on outdated and/or inaccurate cultural assumptions.

 

Also, it's really nice to have something that directly contradicts the sizable minority of Norse scholars (I was going to type "Nordicists," but apparently that's a white supremacy term) who have insisted that shieldmaidens are an entirely fictional invention of the skalds. Really nice.

 

Here's hoping the next Banner Saga game absorbs this finding, and we see women characters besides archers!

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Here's hoping the next Banner Saga game absorbs this finding, and we see women characters besides archers!

 

TBS seemed quite sensitive about gender roles and sexism in their fictional society, and let the player and other characters have agency over how women were treated and what role they took in the defense of the caravan.  In game, that is a society in upheaval.  I'm hoping that they continue to explore that going into the next game, including showing women taking more combat and leadership roles.  It seems like a natural extension of what they were doing in the first game. 

 

Also, spoilered as it is a major plot point/twist late game:

 

It does look like you've actually been fighting an entirely female race of enemies the entire game, so there's that. You just don't know it through the first half, in part because you assume that the enemy force is going to be either male or without sex/gender (robots).

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There appears to be a belief in America that donating large sums of money to charity says something about the values of the person doing it, and that's never really been true.

It's a bit like medieval people buying indulgences (although looking that up it appears those weren't the straight-forward absolutions I was lead to believe they were).

Or a product of capitalism: everything can be bought, even good character.

Not that I think that the end result is bad; merely that it doesn't demonstrate anything especially good about the donators. Character isn't a simple formula where you put more into one side than the other and come out A-OK. I mean, we should all give to charity if we can. Doing so doesn't make us angels.

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The VR Wii emulator is actually amazing.  

 

So you can look 'behind the scenes' at stuff you shouldn't be seeing.  Maybe something is about to happen and the game starts assembling NPCs 'off screen' -- you see them blink into existence.  It's like watching a play where scenery gets rolled off stage and as the audience you can still see it during the other scenes. 

 

Just an example I saw someone else post of this:

 

WxS7dgT.png

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https://storify.com/strictmachine/gameovergate

 

It is amazing how a group of people can get together and be really shitty.

 

The manifesto was pulled out of one of the logs:

 

 

 

"-Eliminate piss poor games "journalism" topics ranging from race

relations to sex/gender issues. video games are not real life and should

not be treated as such.

-Eliminate cronyism amongst game developers and journalist. Shit like

paid reviews, promotions (mountain dewritos), and the promise of free

games for positive press (or a 10/10 score) is dishonest and hurts

gamers. Imagine being that kid who read all the fantastic press about

superman 64 only to buy and realize the harsh reality.

-Hold developers accountable for all types of dishonesty. Bullshots,

pre-rendered trailers, running games on different hardware during

preview, removing features from the final product and general bait and

switch tactics.

-Prevent censorship. If your game is fucking shit I will tell you and

you will take that criticism like an adult instead of deleting it.

Likewise, developers should be allowed to make the games they want

without worry of censorship from outside forces. (SJWs)

*stretch goal*
-Stop corporate greed: yearly sequels with marginal changes, high price

DLC for minimal content that should have been in the final product.

Paid early access for broken messes of a game. Microtransactions. Paid

online "services".

-Have fun and enjoy video games."

 

How wrong and conceited can you be?

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funny how they never even once did ANYTHING about their issues with AAA developers and console manufacturers and focused all their efforts on a handful of journalists and a one-person developer.

 

 

 

also, we all remember those great scores superman 64 got

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That's the reason I posted that manifesto - it is massively misguided, gross and big-headed.

 

It reads like 'fuck these people over, and if we get the chance actually try and challenge the establishment but that is totally a side project'

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funny how they never even once did ANYTHING about their issues with AAA developers and console manufacturers and focused all their efforts on a handful of journalists and a one-person developer.

 

 

 

also, we all remember those great scores superman 64 got

Even the people who wanted to discuss journalism legitimately were doing a bad job of talking about AAA development and the shit it pulls for review scores. I was firing point-blank examples at people, only to have it brushed aside because oh man I heard this one chick had sex one time.

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Likewise, developers should be allowed to make the games they want

without worry of censorship from outside forces. (SJWs)

 

This in particular pisses me off; What happened to Quinn was the most violent form of censorship, but none of them gave a shit about that. Presumably this is a reference to Feminist Frequency, and confusing Anita's critique with a call for censorship. The lack of awareness is staggering.

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Yes, point to a game a "SJW" has censored.

I mean hell, point to a game anyone has censored (besides the German or Australian governments).

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