Clarkson gone!

[Greyblades]

[Husar]

A few f-bombs in that one and I only watched the first four minutes.
I think this asks for a really sophisticated philosopher who can tackle the gender issues in an intellectual way.

[Greyblades]

You dissapoint me Husar.

[Husar]

You dissapoint me Husar.

A man does what he can, but sometimes it may not be enough.



Your guy and my guy are apparently friends, so why can't we?



I really enjoy the constant flashing of that "Sargon logo" in this video while they talk about improving channels, it's classy and absolutely not irritating at all.

[Greyblades]

A man does what he can, but sometimes it may not be enough.

Your guy and my guy are apparently friends, so why can't we?

We talked about this the night before I posted that video and you said in sarkeesian's defense to the effect of: "if it is a nazi that says the sky is blue, being a nazi doesnt make him wrong".

Then you pull this.

Again husar you dissapoint me.

[Husar]

We talked about this the night before I posted that video and you said in sarkeesian's defense to the effect of: "if it is a nazi that says the sky is blue, being a nazi doesnt make him wrong".

Then you pull this.

Again husar you dissapoint me.

It's not that they are friends that makes them wrong, it's that I generally don't buy a lot of the "oh, but we men are also victims"-story.
Even if there is also some merit to it, and in some cases there is, it does not invalidate the point of anyone else, or make feminism superfluous as a whole. The idea that a man is seriously angry about the topic is already grounds for me to take him less seriously. And the equivalent example would be a nazi telling me that the sky is deep purple the entire day. The title "feminism is the establishment" already sets the tone and makes me roll my eyes a little.

Here's a loosely related video on "gender war" that I can mostly agree with:

[Viking]

From one Armenian to another.

[Greyblades]

It's not that they are friends that makes them wrong, it's that I generally don't buy a lot of the "oh, but we men are also victims"-story.

Which is largely the problem, people treat the "oh but we men are also victims" as were nothing more than a bid for attention even when it is a legitimate complaint. Even beyond the general Tumblr idiotry who hates everything white, straight and male, British and American society has become in places tipped against men. There is a trend of trivialisation of female on male rape especially statutory rape of young boys by women. Courts are overwhelmingly favouring women in child custody battles. False rape claims against women are non existant while men are being made pariahs by an overzealous media at the faintest hint of them raping a woman, innocent before proven guilty be damned.

We walk in fear of a random woman brushing us when they pass and shouting "he groped me". We steer clear of areas frequented by chldren in case we are accused of being potential predators. We look at marriage as a trap where one wrong move will get us stripped of all our money belongings and even children at the word of a disgruntled partner. We fear because we are told again and again stories of these things happening and every time it is clear that men cannot truly win, ever. Legitimate or not these fears are real and permiate our day to day lives and colour our thinking.

These are problems that are constantly overlooked and denied by the mainstream regardless of evidence and men are expected to shut up and take it while everyone else is free to complain about problems. Even while we deal with a suicide rate 3 times larger than that of women.

Even if there is also some merit to it, and in some cases there is, it does not invalidate the point of anyone else, or make feminism superfluous as a whole. The idea that a man is seriously angry about the topic is already grounds for me to take him less seriously. And the equivalent example would be a nazi telling me that the sky is deep purple the entire day. The title "feminism is the establishment" already sets the tone and makes me roll my eyes a little.

He is angry, his rhetoric is harsh, abrasive, he uses terminology alien to those unfamiliar to the subject, his personal narritive has devolved into an Us vs Them mentality and he is clearly frustrated. This is common among protestors who are being ignored and trivialized, which you are doing, and history tells us they dont go away with time.

His logic is largely sound and his points are sourced, he is not saying the sky is deep purple, he's saying its overcast in spite of your protestations of a clear sky. If you keep dismissing him, turning off his videos 4 minutes in due to something so petty as swearing, he and his fellows are going to turn to the only people who will listen, the MRA and the actual nazis. Some of them are already beginning to, as you have shown.

Oh, another thing.

I really enjoy the constant flashing of that "Sargon logo" in this video while they talk about improving channels, it's classy and absolutely not irritating at all.

The flashing of the logo is a part of the format he uses. He has several videos where he converses with other people, both on his and the opposing side of his topics, and many of them do not have a video stream. They instead have thier logos show up when they talk and it is supposed to let the watcher differentiate between voices that are not distinct.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

It's not that they are friends that makes them wrong, it's that I generally don't buy a lot of the "oh, but we men are also victims"-story.
Even if there is also some merit to it, and in some cases there is, it does not invalidate the point of anyone else, or make feminism superfluous as a whole. The idea that a man is seriously angry about the topic is already grounds for me to take him less seriously. And the equivalent example would be a nazi telling me that the sky is deep purple the entire day. The title "feminism is the establishment" already sets the tone and makes me roll my eyes a little.

Here's a loosely related video on "gender war" that I can mostly agree with:

Invalid, that level of manspreading is the result of too-tight jeans or non-cotton underwear, both of which are themselves unmanly.

Having said that, crushed bollocks are not a matter of "comfort".

[Husar]

Which is largely the problem, people treat the "oh but we men are also victims" as were nothing more than a bid for attention even when it is a legitimate complaint. Even beyond the general Tumblr idiotry who hates everything white, straight and male, British and American society has become in places tipped against men. There is a trend of trivialisation of female on male rape especially statutory rape of young boys by women. Courts are overwhelmingly favouring women in child custody battles. False rape claims against women are non existant while men are being made pariahs by an overzealous media at the faintest hint of them raping a woman, innocent before proven guilty be damned.

Yeah, that's a general problem, not one that only men who are accused of rape have. Remember how that American girl who was accused of murder in Italy was guilty for almost everyone because of her "cold eyes"? The courts haven't found sufficient evidence and people largely still consider her guilty, what happened to "innocent until proven guilty" in that case? The reverse where people assume that a woman is making up a rape charge because they like the guy or dislike the woman also happens quite often.

We walk in fear of a random woman brushing us when they pass and shouting "he groped me". We steer clear of areas frequented by chldren in case we are accused of being potential predators. We look at marriage as a trap where one wrong move will get us stripped of all our money belongings and even children at the word of a disgruntled partner. We fear because we are told again and again stories of these things happening and every time it is clear that men cannot truly win, ever. Legitimate or not these fears are real and permiate our day to day lives and colour our thinking.

And we also can't sleep our way up in companies as often as women can, the world is really unfair.
Have you ever heard stories of women actually being sexually assaulted, groped, have men beat them at home etc.?
I'm pretty sure these problems for women are quite numerous while you can probably count the incidents where a woman shouts "he groped me" for no good reason on one hand. Maybe the reason it colours your thinking is in your own head. I've accidentally touched plenty of women in areas one might consider inappropriate while dancing or moving about and not once have I been accused of anything. I also live next to a kindergarten and not once has anyone sent the police here.

These are problems that are constantly overlooked and denied by the mainstream regardless of evidence and men are expected to shut up and take it while everyone else is free to complain about problems. Even while we deal with a suicide rate 3 times larger than that of women.

The problem is that the men often come across as though they think they actually have more or bigger problems than the women do, which is simply not the case. Of course there are some injustices against men

He is angry, his rhetoric is harsh, abrasive, he uses terminology alien to those unfamiliar to the subject, his personal narritive has devolved into an Us vs Them mentality and he is clearly frustrated. This is common among protestors who are being ignored and trivialized, which you are doing, and history tells us they dont go away with time.

And Osama protested in the streets but became sad when America didn't listen, I assume that makes his little outbursts okay.
Oh I know, can't compare that, because words ain't bombs, but it's still just a lazy excuse. There are plenty of people who go through hardships or aren't heard and don't turn into bitter, angry people. I also like how I contribute to the problem now.

His logic is largely sound and his points are sourced, he is not saying the sky is deep purple, he's saying its overcast in spite of your protestations of a clear sky. If you keep dismissing him, turning off his videos 4 minutes in due to something so petty as swearing, he and his fellows are going to turn to the only people who will listen, the MRA and the actual nazis. Some of them are already beginning to, as you have shown.

Wait, what? I don't think Aurini is a nazi, I've just actually listened to some of his thoughts and think he is a complete fool who tries to be a cool philosopher. If you're rating him simply on the way he looks then you shouldn't blame me for watching only 4 minutes in which I didn't just dislike the swearwords but the entire tone of the message and the incredibly annoying and distracting popups of his stupid logo that he uses because he is too afraid to show his face while he has apparently no problem with showing pictures of the people he derides and discredits in his videos.

The flashing of the logo is a part of the format he uses. He has several videos where he converses with other people, both on his and the opposing side of his topics, and many of them do not have a video stream. They instead have thier logos show up when they talk and it is supposed to let the watcher differentiate between voices that are not distinct.

Maybe, in the Aurini interview it seems to flash up every time he breathes out, as though it's automatically linked to his microphone input. That he does not realize how annoying, distracting and silly this "format" is in the respective video does not make him look like a great thinker to me, it's part of the overall impression.

[CrossLOPER]

really sophisticated philosopher who can tackle the gender issues in an intellectual way

[Greyblades]

Yeah, that's a general problem, not one that only men who are accused of rape have. Remember how that American girl who was accused of murder in Italy was guilty for almost everyone because of her "cold eyes"? The courts haven't found sufficient evidence and people largely still consider her guilty, what happened to "innocent until proven guilty" in that case? The reverse where people assume that a woman is making up a rape charge because they like the guy or dislike the woman also happens quite often.

I did not say that women do not have these problems, I am saying that when men complain about these problems they get ignored and frequently derided.

And we also can't sleep our way up in companies as often as women can, the world is really unfair.
Have you ever heard stories of women actually being sexually assaulted, groped, have men beat them at home etc.?
I'm pretty sure these problems for women are quite numerous while you can probably count the incidents where a woman shouts "he groped me" for no good reason on one hand. Maybe the reason it colours your thinking is in your own head. I've accidentally touched plenty of women in areas one might consider inappropriate while dancing or moving about and not once have I been accused of anything. I also live next to a kindergarten and not once has anyone sent the police here.

The problem is that the men often come across as though they think they actually have more or bigger problems than the women do, which is simply not the case. Of course there are some injustices against men

The weight of the problems I described isn't the number, it is the severity of the result and the fact that there is no defense. What do you do if you get that 1 in a million insane person who falsely cries rape? With one word and a headline your life comes crashing down around you.
Then comes the issue of divorce and custody where women are highly favoured, one session in court and we are stripped of all our money, belongings and even children. But when we express any worry about these things it is always responded with "someone else has it worse" which soothes our fears as well as "women might have a 1 in 4 chance of getting raped but there are starving kids in africa" soothes the fears of women.

And Osama protested in the streets but became sad when America didn't listen, I assume that makes his little outbursts okay.
Oh I know, can't compare that, because words ain't bombs, but it's still just a lazy excuse. There are plenty of people who go through hardships or aren't heard and don't turn into bitter, angry people. I also like how I contribute to the problem now.

Why is it whenever I explain causation people assume I condone the outcome? Of course its not ok, but it is absurd to say the USA had nothing to do with the man he became. Extremism rarely starts out extreme, France, Russia and China all saw legitimate discontent exacerbated by a percieved ridicule and denial of relevance by the opposition. Real or not that ridicule and denial repeatedly pushed these historical resistance movments further and further into extremism and I am saying it will here.

I'm saying be the better man. Exhibit the lesson I am slowly trying to learn and understand you arent going to gain any converts by answering legitimate complaints through pointing at the craziest members and saying the entire group is like that, you're just going to reinforce their convictions and drive them further into the fringe.

Wait, what? I don't think Aurini is a nazi, I've just actually listened to some of his thoughts and think he is a complete fool who tries to be a cool philosopher. If you're rating him simply on the way he looks then you shouldn't blame me for watching only 4 minutes in which I didn't just dislike the swearwords but the entire tone of the message and the incredibly annoying and distracting popups of his stupid logo that he uses because he is too afraid to show his face while he has apparently no problem with showing pictures of the people he derides and discredits in his videos.


Maybe, in the Aurini interview it seems to flash up every time he breathes out, as though it's automatically linked to his microphone input. That he does not realize how annoying, distracting and silly this "format" is in the respective video does not make him look like a great thinker to me, it's part of the overall impression.

Implying you think he is a nazi was not my intention, it is my impression that the man is slowly pushing his way further towards the political right.

Sargon of Akkad is has the air of the preacher who aims his diatribe at the choir. My impression is that his videos are made less to combat his opponants but to reinforce his side's convictions and this is depressingly common among... well... everything. As you have shown no matter how much truth he might say it will not be heard by anyone who dont already share his opinion.
And yes it has occured to me that the reason I listen to him is because he says what I want to hear: "yeah, you're right, these people say that because I like games I am a horrible sexist, they are indeed full of crap" went through my mind a couple of times.

[a completely inoffensive name]

The manspreading issue wouldn't even exist if the transit authority simply expanded the capacity of their service. But then that would require taxes and proper funding.

Most tax-cutting Republicans are white males, so this policy is not feminism in action but rather blowback from dumb men.

[Husar]

I did not say that women do not have these problems, I am saying that when men complain about these problems they get ignored and frequently derided.
The weight of the problems I described isn't the number, it is the severity of the result and the fact that there is no defense. What do you do if you get that 1 in a million insane person who falsely cries rape? With one word and a headline your life comes crashing down around you.
Then comes the issue of divorce and custody where women are highly favoured, one session in court and we are stripped of all our money, belongings and even children. But when we express any worry about these things it is always responded with "someone else has it worse" which soothes our fears as well as "women might have a 1 in 4 chance of getting raped but there are starving kids in africa" soothes the fears of women.

Why is it whenever I explain causation people assume I condone the outcome?

Maybe because you posted his video (the outcome) here as your argument?

Of course its not ok, but it is absurd to say the USA had nothing to do with the man he became. Extremism rarely starts out extreme, France, Russia and China all saw legitimate discontent exacerbated by a percieved ridicule and denial of relevance by the opposition. Real or not that ridicule and denial repeatedly pushed these historical resistance movments further and further into extremism and I am saying it will here.

Maybe, but just because our secularism may push islamists further into extremism we do not just introduce shariah law. Yes, there are legitimate issues where men draw the short stick, but there are the same for women. If you think the extremism of men is understandable then xsurely you also find the attitude of feminazis understandable because all your arguments apply to them in the same way. My opinion is simply that both extremes are wrong.

I'm saying be the better man. Exhibit the lesson I am slowly trying to learn and understand you arent going to gain any converts by answering legitimate complaints through pointing at the craziest members and saying the entire group is like that, you're just going to reinforce their convictions and drive them further into the fringe.

I didn't say an entire group is like that, you posted a video of a crazy member and I said he's crazy, what did you expect?
Don't you realize that by posting the videos of the craziest members you're pushing me further into the feminist fringe?

Sargon of Akkad is has the air of the preacher who aims his diatribe at the choir. My impression is that his videos are made less to combat his opponants but to reinforce his side's convictions and this is depressingly common among... well... everything. As you have shown no matter how much truth he might say it will not be heard by anyone who dont already share his opinion.

So he basically lacks the means and the will to reach out to the other side, not a positive trait.

And yes it has occured to me that the reason I listen to him is because he says what I want to hear: "yeah, you're right, these people say that because I like games I am a horrible sexist, they are indeed full of crap" went through my mind a couple of times.

That's not exactly the argument though, the argument is more that video games contain sexist things to attract more people and then may make this sexism seem more normal for these people. Or at least that's the more sane part of the argument that has some merit to it.

[Greyblades]

Maybe because you posted his video (the outcome) here as your argument?

I find it somewhat disturbing that a higly educated German believes that a mere series of self confirming commentary videos is the final outcome of this mode of thought.

Maybe, but just because our secularism may push islamists further into extremism we do not just introduce shariah law. Yes, there are legitimate issues where men draw the short stick, but there are the same for women. If you think the extremism of men is understandable then surely you also find the attitude of feminazis understandable because all your arguments apply to them in the same way. My opinion is simply that both extremes are wrong.

I would think you would be sympathetic to islamists, with all the bitching you do about how british imperialism causing all thier problems.

I didn't say an entire group is like that, you posted a video of a crazy member and I said he's crazy, what did you expect?
Don't you realize that by posting the videos of the craziest members you're pushing me further into the feminist fringe?

No, if I responded in such a manner that makes my opponant think I only attack the points I know I could win in while ignored those I cannot, while insulting my opponants language and calling his influences crazy, that would put cement upon your beliefs and push you to look for people who will actually listen to what you have to say.
Considering that it is increasingly evident that the only people who will provide that willing ear are the sort of people that you have been recieving a guilt trip about since 1945, I would think you would be a bit more concerned where these people are going.

So he basically lacks the means and the will to reach out to the other side, not a positive trait.

One shared by the entire board and most of humanity.

That's not exactly the argument though, the argument is more that video games contain sexist things to attract more people and then may make this sexism seem more normal for these people. Or at least that's the more sane part of the argument that has some merit to it.

It would have merit if they didnt shoot whatever credibility they had in the foot by exhibiting a blatant ignorance of the gaming scene. A fault further exacerbated by cherrypicking content so blatantly that even I, ignorant, young and gullible as I am, could call BS upon first watching without it being explained to me.

[Husar]

I find it somewhat disturbing that a higly educated German believes that a mere series of self confirming commentary videos is the final outcome of this mode of thought.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here but maybe that's because I don't have the time to watch all of these videos.

I would think you would be sympathetic to islamists, with all the bitching you do about how british imperialism causing all thier problems.

I find it somewhat disturbing that a highly educated Englander believes that a mere series of self confirming comments is the final outcome of this mode of thought.

No, if I responded in such a manner that makes my opponant think I only attack the points I know I could win in while ignored those I cannot, while insulting my opponants language and calling his influences crazy, that would put cement upon your beliefs and push you to look for people who will actually listen to what you have to say.
Considering that it is increasingly evident that the only people who will provide that willing ear are the sort of people that you have been recieving a guilt trip about since 1945, I would think you would be a bit more concerned where these people are going.

Who are you to tell me what would cement my opinions?
And I'm not very worried about a few men joining the nazis to fight female oppression because a buddy of their uncle's best friend told their niece a story about the friend of their buddies' grandmothers' uncle that he heard from the wife of his priest about how a woman once screamed she was groped when the friend of her aunt's baby's father once walked casually through the city.
By the same type of argument our justice system also works purely in favor of criminals.

One shared by the entire board and most of humanity.

That might be why we have all these problems in the first place.
And how does that lead you to expect me to understand the guy in the first place?

It would have merit if they didnt shoot whatever credibility they had in the foot by exhibiting a blatant ignorance of the gaming scene. A fault further exacerbated by cherrypicking content so blatantly that even I, ignorant, young and gullible as I am, could call BS upon first watching without it being explained to me.

How does that not apply to a lot of the commentary you get about feminism? They cherry-pick a few "feminazis" and extrapolate that to feminism as a whole, claiming that men suffer oh so much as well and are really the ones who can't do anything anymore. When you say men just have to take it nowadays I can only roll my eyes. The only chance for you to be right is if this is a purely british problem but then you can hardly expect me to have made the same experiences since I do not live in Britain. every time you claim that men "have to be" afraid of this or that I can think of a few things that women "have to be" afraid of, which are in many cases actually more likely to happen to them and therefore might just take precedence in terms of what we should deal with first/faster as a society.

[Greyblades]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here but maybe that's because I don't have the time to watch all of these videos.

I mean producing these videos are at the start not the end of radicalization.

I find it somewhat disturbing that a highly educated Englander believes that a mere series of self confirming comments is the final outcome of this mode of thought.

Not even sure what you mean here.

Who are you to tell me what would cement my opinions?

I am a human beaing. I work under the assume that human beings have similar reaction to the same stimuli. The result of the stimuli you exposed me to was to devalue what doubt had formed in my mind of the correctness of my position. Thus I assume the same thing would happen to you. Do you need any more?

And I'm not very worried about a few men joining the nazis to fight female oppression because a buddy of their uncle's best friend told their niece a story about the friend of their buddies' grandmothers' uncle that he heard from the wife of his priest about how a woman once screamed she was groped when the friend of her aunt's baby's father once walked casually through the city.

You might not be worried but your government is. Golden Dawn. BNP. The National Front. Ukip These far right nationalistic groups are growing in numbers by the day and they do not grow on thier own. They grow by recruiting those who are disillusioned, dissaffected, ignorant and scared.

Now, I assume as a german you are well versed in what happens when these movments gets too much power, correct? It seems that it would be in your best interests to counter act these. So what do you do?
Do you endeavour to reassure those with doubts?
Do you attempt to teach, disprove the misconceptions that they hold?
Do you even try to assure them that thier fears are unfounded?

No.

As I said you responded in such a manner that makes your opponant think you ignore their points because you dont want to admit they are right.
You dismiss the sources of thier distress as crazy or irrelevant while giving the impression that you have no idea what you are talking about.

These people believe they are being oppressed and responses like yours does nothing but confirm thier beliefs.

Oh and before you say something along the lines of "It's not my job to baby them" if you are not willing to do something that might actually make things better in the long run, please refrain from doing things to make it worse.

By the same type of argument our justice system also works purely in favor of criminals.

Gonna have to explain that one

That might be why we have all these problems in the first place.
And how does that lead you to expect me to understand the guy in the first place?

It doesnt. It leads me to realize that if I react to them as you react to me I never will. So I endeavour to do better in the future. I can only hope I can persuade others to do the same.

How does that not apply to a lot of the commentary you get about feminism? They cherry-pick a few "feminazis" and extrapolate that to feminism as a whole, claiming that men suffer oh so much as well and are really the ones who can't do anything anymore.

Yeah, if you havent noticed I had been having doubts about the femenism thing since post 38. Since then my posts have been about how counterproductive your efforts to persuade me are.

When you say men just have to take it nowadays I can only roll my eyes. The only chance for you to be right is if this is a purely british problem but then you can hardly expect me to have made the same experiences since I do not live in Britain. every time you claim that men "have to be" afraid of this or that I can think of a few things that women "have to be" afraid of, which are in many cases actually more likely to happen to them and therefore might just take precedence in terms of what we should deal with first/faster as a society.

I didnt say "have to be", I said "are". Yes, look at the numbers and much of the fears of society come up as extremely unlikely, but unlike women a man who expresses thier fears in public gets variations on your reaction. I tell you, right now, it's not going to persuade any of them that thier fears and insecurities are unfounded.

Nor is the current trend on the internet to respond to any complaints with crap like this. But I have greater hope of changing the public and intellectual response to men's complaints than the GIFT one.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Obviously, you people don't want to indulge my sudden exploration of Marxism by constructing this scenario as class warfare... go ahead with your lame gender warfare.

[Husar]

I mean producing these videos are at the start not the end of radicalization.

Not even sure what you mean here.

Neither was I. You need to relax a little.

I am a human beaing. I work under the assume that human beings have similar reaction to the same stimuli. The result of the stimuli you exposed me to was to devalue what doubt had formed in my mind of the correctness of my position. Thus I assume the same thing would happen to you. Do you need any more?

I can assure you that the reactions to similar stimuli can vary a lot because the current state of mind is also influenced by all previous stimuli. So unless all previous stimuli led to a similar state of mind, reactions can vary a whole lot.

These people believe they are being oppressed and responses like yours does nothing but confirm thier beliefs.

I'm responding to you here, not him, unless you're saying that you're about to join the BNP if I make fun of Sargon, I think we are relatively safe for now.

Oh and before you say something along the lines of "It's not my job to baby them" if you are not willing to do something that might actually make things better in the long run, please refrain from doing things to make it worse.

So we should stop making videos that call feminists crazy because it might make the extreme feminists more radical?

Gonna have to explain that one

Plenty of people are afraid that if they ever need to defend themselves from a criminal, the criminal is going to be declared the victim in court while they will be punished.

It doesnt. It leads me to realize that if I react to them as you react to me I never will. So I endeavour to do better in the future. I can only hope I can persuade others to do the same.

You could try to persuade the video guy to stop radicalizing feminists with his aggressive videos.

Yeah, if you havent noticed I had been having doubts about the femenism thing since post 38. Since then my posts have been about how counterproductive your efforts to persuade me are.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "feminism thing", I thought you had doubts about feminism since quite a while, or does "feminism thing" refer to the things Sargon of Akkad says about feminism in his videos? In the latter case I would have really missed it, in the former case I'm not sure what I would have missed since we're arguing about that the entire time.

I didnt say "have to be", I said "are". Yes, look at the numbers and much of the fears of society come up as extremely unlikely, but unlike women a man who expresses thier fears in public gets variations on your reaction. I tell you, right now, it's not going to persuade any of them that thier fears and insecurities are unfounded.

Again, I'm not arguing with "them" right now unless we are actually talking about you.

Nor is the current trend on the internet to respond to any complaints with crap like this. But I have greater hope of changing the public and intellectual response to men's complaints than the GIFT one.

I would consider myself largely as cisgender if it means what I just looked up and it has to be a very special subculture where such things are posted. You will always have very special subcultures though. I don't think we can get rid of nazis and islamists by being much nicer to them either. What do they want? That politicians declare a commitment to the safety of straight men from persecution or something like that?

[Ironside]

It would have merit if they didnt shoot whatever credibility they had in the foot by exhibiting a blatant ignorance of the gaming scene. A fault further exacerbated by cherrypicking content so blatantly that even I, ignorant, young and gullible as I am, could call BS upon first watching without it being explained to me.

Now I'm curious. Is this what you call cherrypicking, taking examples that contain the thing in question, rather than making a random sample? Because taking the two examples in history isn't a trend, taking 30 AAA titles from the last 10 years is showing a trend on the other hand.

[Greyblades]

Now I'm curious. Is this what you call cherrypicking, taking examples that contain the thing in question, rather than making a random sample? Because taking the two examples in history isn't a trend, taking 30 AAA titles from the last 10 years is showing a trend on the other hand.

No I mean taking footage of people using the freedom of the games to do violent things to women as an example of the game encouraging and rewarding misogyny is cherry picking.

For example: You can beat up hookers and steal thier money in GTA, You can use the takedown system in Deus Ex human revolution to brutalize a streetwalker. In her videos she shows both to be included in her argument that games are promoting sexism. But she neglects to mention that you can do that to anyone in the game, man or women, you can brutalized cops, firemen, soldiers, buisnessmen, anyone of any gender or occupation in those games can be targets of a player's beatdown. So why did feminist Frequency not mention that?

That was the part that convinced me personally that this was not a reasonable critique of gaming and that ms sarkeesian was not acting in good faith. But it was only the tip of the iceberg of how wrong her videos turned out, and looking back over a year later I feel that her misteps may have caused damage far beyond causing herself to look stupid.
Any critique of the gaming industry would make the community defensive, we have put up with so many attacks from outsiders calling us racist, homophobic, calling our hobbies murder simulators and all that good stuff that it has become instinct to question any criticism. But what Sarkeesian did was what jack thompson did: It got major attention while being blatantly wrong and selfserving and it gave legitimacy to anyone who wanted to dismiss the critique.
If femenist frequency was a reasonable analysis of the gaming scene from someone a part of the community with proper fact checking (and gained the same media attention as FF. as FF is criticized as owing its fame to sensationalizing that would be unlikely, but still...) it might have gained traction. Instead it was yet another outsider with a moralising agenda taking a cursory glance at gaming, declaring it bad in one way or another, and dismissing all criticism as trolling.

Their actions have poisoned the well for anyone who wants to tackle the issue in the future because, regardless of legitimacy of the argument, all the detractors need to do is point at the last guy who tried and claim any new information is the same.

Obviously, you people don't want to indulge my sudden exploration of Marxism by constructing this scenario as class warfare... go ahead with your lame gender warfare.

[Ironside]

No I mean taking footage of people using the freedom of the games to do violent things to women as an example of the game encouraging and rewarding misogyny is cherry picking.

For example: You can beat up hookers and steal thier money in GTA, You can use the takedown system in Deus Ex human revolution to brutalize a streetwalker. In her videos she shows both to be included in her argument that games are promoting sexism. But she neglects to mention that you can do that to anyone in the game, man or women, you can brutalized cops, firemen, soldiers, buisnessmen, anyone of any gender or occupation in those games can be targets of a player's beatdown. So why did feminist Frequency not mention that?

IIRC the thing was that you can beat up the hookers you just payed for sex and get your money back. Free of charge healing. You also have the sex+shoot interaction, while the rest of the NPC:s only got shoot interaction.

Typically all the non-essential characters in sandbox style games are killable, but it’s the sexualized women whose instrumentality and brutalization is gendered and eroticized in ways that men never are. The visual language attached to male NPCs is very different since they are rarely designed to be sexually inviting or arousing, and they are not coded to interact with the player in ways meant to reaffirm a heterosexual fantasy about being a stud.

Firemen aren't in, buissnessmen are fairly generic, police I grant you (even if they're also enemies sometimes) and military are often the enemy.

If you want to be picky, it's the fact that they are a sort of background side effect is sort of the point that the producer never sat down and thought about it. It's too ingrained to think about it.

That was the part that convinced me personally that this was not a reasonable critique of gaming and that ms sarkeesian was not acting in good faith. But it was only the tip of the iceberg of how wrong her videos turned out, and looking back over a year later I feel that her misteps may have caused damage far beyond causing herself to look stupid.

It's around being a woman and saying anything critical of video games. Or being a woman and having to do with sex (the origin of GG or Quinnspiracy that it was called then).

The videos aren't flawless, but it is notable that the counter critics are doing as sort "that example aren't a good one, thus all other ones are invalid", in particular when the argument are about trends (which means that you'll have golden examples mixed with partial matches).

Any critique of the gaming industry would make the community defensive, we have put up with so many attacks from outsiders calling us racist, homophobic, calling our hobbies murder simulators and all that good stuff that it has become instinct to question any criticism. But what Sarkeesian did was what jack thompson did: It got major attention while being blatantly wrong and selfserving and it gave legitimacy to anyone who wanted to dismiss the critique.

That is sort of a thing. With video games being as general and common as movies, getting similar criticism is sort of expected.

She got major attention because of the response. That's slightly different from jack thompson, unless his fame was from being threatened with rape and murder by a lot of people. And that while most people are sort of wondering exactly what would trigger such a harsh response.

If femenist frequency was a reasonable analysis of the gaming scene from someone a part of the community with proper fact checking (and gained the same media attention as FF. as FF is criticized as owing its fame to sensationalizing that would be unlikely, but still...) it might have gained traction. Instead it was yet another outsider with a moralising agenda taking a cursory glance at gaming, declaring it bad in one way or another, and dismissing all criticism as trolling.

Their actions have poisoned the well for anyone who wants to tackle the issue in the future because, regardless of legitimacy of the argument, all the detractors need to do is point at the last guy who tried and claim any new information is the same.

Eh not really. There's enough raw misogyny among a sub group of gamers to poison any well about this. Even if Women as Background Decoration contains parts that can be controversial, the nature and amount of the previous criticism (or threats) on things that are really basic and mostly very obvious, is sort of showing that it's not a fair debate, but something more vicious. I mean, you are aware that

Nor is the current trend on the internet to respond to any complaints with crap like this. But I have greater hope of changing the public and intellectual response to men's complaints than the GIFT one.

is a parody of a lot (most) of the "criticism" against outspoken women and minorities?

Men's issues has the problem that misogynous MRA:s jumps on those and infect the whole issue, since they don't really care about the issues, but rather want to "score" against women, making the women aggressive in response, since they're familiar with the arguments being used as a distraction or an attack.

Have that misogynous core and combine it with the category that takes criticism of anything they like as a personal attack and are a bit touchy about it (partly because they will fill up on having been attacked or been perceived as being attacked more than once). Then you'll get a nice explosion, with the right triggers.

[Greyblades]

IIRC the thing was that you can beat up the hookers you just payed for sex and get your money back. Free of charge healing. You also have the sex+shoot interaction, while the rest of the NPC:s only got shoot interaction.

That's a side effect of the game tracking how much money each character has on them, if you shoot a man who just came from an ATM he will drop more money than if you shot him before.
You also get free of charge healing if you buy a bunch of food items, eat them, then rob the food store to get your money back.

Firemen aren't in, buissnessmen are fairly generic, police I grant you (even if they're also enemies sometimes) and military are often the enemy.

Have you played these games? Because firemen are most certainly in the game, as are paramedics, lawyers, deli owners, grannies, drug dealers and pigeons and you can shoot them all, the only thing you cant find in these games that you couldnt find in a real city are children.

And the choice is all the players, you can shoot them, you can run them over, you can set them on fire or you can just let them go on with thier lives; Even the enemies will leave you alone if you leave them alone. It's all the player's choice and the game would suffer if such a range of choice was lessened to soothe the feelings of those who aren't even playing it.

If you want to be picky, it's the fact that they are a sort of background side effect is sort of the point that the producer never sat down and thought about it. It's too ingrained to think about it.

Except signs point to them actually thinking about it and deciding the players would enjoy the amount of detail they put in. They probably knew that the only people who would refuse to buy a GTA game because of that feature werent going to buy the games in teh first place and thus werent worth pandering to.

Actually why are we arguing about GTA's implications? The entire premise of video games affecting people's behavior is long disproven.



If you want to talk about the sexism in the gamer community that's fine, but leave the games themselves out of it.

It's around being a woman and saying anything critical of video games. Or being a woman and having to do with sex (the origin of GG or Quinnspiracy that it was called then).

What is?

The videos aren't flawless, but it is notable that the counter critics are doing as sort "that example aren't a good one, thus all other ones are invalid", in particular when the argument are about trends (which means that you'll have golden examples mixed with partial matches).

Yeah, as I said that's what happens when the complaints are done so incompetently. Why is it whenever I explain causation people assume I like the outcome?

That is sort of a thing. With video games being as general and common as movies, getting similar criticism is sort of expected.

Yeah, and when gamers look at the examples of TV, Films and comic books they see periods where the criticisms of moral guardians results in rampant censorship that takes decades shake off, they fear the same thing happening to thier hobby, and when her videos failed to prove these fears wrong it is Sarkeesian's responsibility.

She got major attention because of the response. That's slightly different from jack thompson, unless his fame was from being threatened with rape and murder by a lot of people. And that while most people are sort of wondering exactly what would trigger such a harsh response.

The differing methods of thier ascend to mainstream is rather irrelevant to my point. They got attention but any legitimate point or message they might have wanted to impart to gamers overshadowed by an ignorance of the community they were commentating on. The end result is that now any attempt to press that message is lumped in with the crazy.

Eh not really. There's enough raw misogyny among a sub group of gamers to poison any well about this.up.

Ironside I am not blind, the group we call gamers encompass a good chunk of the entire world, the chances of us having no mysogynists is nil but to say that there is enough poison to make the rest of the community immune to the arguments of feminists is frankly wrong.
You and Husar are testiment to that if nothing else.
However when sarkeesian came along with such a shoddy video series that reek of ignorance and laziness, tells us the things we like are sexist and then gets declared as the face of feminism in gaming, it just gave fodder to her movment's detractors.

If Sakeesian couldnt do enough research to not so easily proven wrong then she shouldnt have tried at all, because in doing so she did more damage to the idea of feminist gaming than a thousand 4chan trolls.

Even if Women as Background Decoration contains parts that can be controversial, the nature and amount of the previous criticism (or threats) on things that are really basic and mostly very obvious, is sort of showing that it's not a fair debate, but something more vicious. I mean, you are aware that
is a parody of a lot (most) of the "criticism" against outspoken women and minorities?

You're gonna have to prove that one, cause while most of them are long gone this one is still here and there is no indication that it was all made up.

I mean if you're going to claim all those are fake and not provide proof then I will just as easily claim the MRA's you refer to are just 4chan trolls.

Though rhetoric aside I am fairly convinced that a lot of them are.

[Greyblades]

Oh and I forgot to mention Hitman Absolution, Sarkeesian blatantly lies:

Edit: for some reason I cant get it to load at a specific time so skip to 2:30 exactly if you dont want to listen to this guy go on.

[Ironside]

I'll do a proper response when I got time, but the quick response was about lack of firemen in DE:HR (from memory I admit) since you took it up, rather then the general genre.

Oh and I forgot to mention Hitman Absolution, Sarkeesian blatantly lies:

Eh no. Her narrative, that she does take time to explain is more or less that people are encouraged to explore/exploit the game. Basically, if something is possible in the game, it's encouraged by the producers to the players to do it, even if most people don't. To reverse the point, what is the point of having even the possibility to do this in the game? Does it add something important? (apparently no, it's quite possible it is to satisfy "that" producer guy). Then why have the possibility? To have the freedom to be the guy Sarkeesian describes?

You can disagree with this construction, but she doesn't lie. Which are an example on the nature of the criticism. Its base assumption is that she lies, rather than being consistent with a position you might disagree with.

[Kralizec]

Eh no. Her narrative, that she does take time to explain is more or less that people are encouraged to explore/exploit the game. Basically, if something is possible in the game, it's encouraged by the producers to the players to do it, even if most people don't. To reverse the point, what is the point of having even the possibility to do this in the game? Does it add something important? (apparently no, it's quite possible it is to satisfy "that" producer guy). Then why have the possibility? To have the freedom to be the guy Sarkeesian describes?

You can disagree with this construction, but she doesn't lie. Which are an example on the nature of the criticism. Its base assumption is that she lies, rather than being consistent with a position you might disagree with.

I haven't followed the rest of the discussion, but the Hitman example is a dishonest one, or at best grossly misinformed. I've only played the previous installments of this series, but what the video shows is pretty standard: you can murder innocent people, but are discouraged to do so in every game (by different means in every installment)
That you can move the bodies around is a game mechanic meant for hiding the bodies, so that other NPC's don't discover them and alarm the guards. Yes, you can move them around for sheer entertainment, but you're not encouraged to do so.

The argument, as far as that segment is concerned, seems to be about that there are scantily clothed women in it which aren't treated differently from any other NPC. Meaning: you can kill them just like anybody else, and toss their bodies around. It's a strip club, which FYI exist in real life. Other places you visit during these games include bars, office buildings, casinos, factories, military installations, et cetera...in every case a background for the target, who usually is a shady character himself.

Come to think of it, in the Hitman games that I've played I think it was not possible to remove clothing from female victims (most NPC's are male, anyway). That function was to enable your character to change disguise, which obviously does not work with the opposite gender.

EDIT: to answer your point, I suppose it would have been possible to make it impossible to harm the strippers specifically, but why? It would only have been a move to prevent criticism from feminist activists. It would be inconsistent with the rest of the game.

[Greyblades]

I'll do a proper response when I got time, but the quick response was about lack of firemen in DE:HR (from memory I admit) since you took it up, rather then the general genre.

I assumed GTA was the main point of contention but in Deus ex human revolution the npcs of all status', races and creeds are all represented. You can help, ignore or kill them at your leisure and noone is excluded from this and the absence of firefighters is irrelevant.

Eh no. Her narrative, that she does take time to explain is more or less that people are encouraged to explore/exploit the game. Basically, if something is possible in the game, it's encouraged by the producers to the players to do it, even if most people don't.

She lied.

She says: "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters"
She said they are "meant to", but this is wrong, it is wrong in GTA, it is wrong in Deus Ex, but it is excruciatingly wrong here for one simple reason: the game explicitly punishes you for killing these women.
She herself neglects to show it but the video I posted shows at 2:59 the game explicitly reducing the score for killing an NPC. Worse, at 3:06 it shows the reduction in score is hugely inflated for civilian deaths, which the women in the game count as.
The only way her statment is true is if the definition of the word meant is now reversed.
It isn't, she lied.

To reverse the point, what is the point of having even the possibility to do this in the game? Does it add something important? (apparently no, it's quite possible it is to satisfy "that" producer guy). Then why have the possibility? To have the freedom to be the guy Sarkeesian describes?

Flippant: because just because you dont like the game doesnt mean that it should be censored to accomidate you.

Serious: Why? Because the gamer is allowed to do it to everyone else. You are a hitman, you are tasked with killing people and you are scored on how clean your kill is. The score goes down every time you kill a person who is not your target and if their bodies are found the game gets harder so the game allows you to hide the body by dragging it by it's foot it to a hiding place.
If women were magically excluded from being dragged around or even killed the game would become inconsistent, and even become unwinnable. You might as well remove the game's women alltogether.
And I know you would like that even less.

Sarkeesian lies.
She has other problems, her narrative is only a swear and a raised voice from being the equivilent of Sargon of Akkad.
But it is her lies that condemn her.

With her lies, her arguments become worthless.

If feminism wants to make any progress with the game industry it cannot be associated with this sort of misdirection. To win they must be able to convert the other side's followers and they cannot do that if they allow this person to be thier face.

As long as people so blatantly manipulative and dishonest as she is are seen as the leaders people will think non-egalitarian feminism deserves to be sidelined and ridiculed.
And if anita truly is the leader, then they will be right to think it.

[Husar]

She herself neglects to show it but the video I posted shows at 2:59 the game explicitly reducing the score for killing an NPC. Worse, at 3:06 it shows the reduction in score is hugely inflated for civilian deaths, which the women in the game count as.

I think that part was a bit unclear in the video since to me it looked like killing a female gave a negative score of 1xx or 2xx while killing the (male) civilian gave a few thousands in negative score. Therefore one could say the women are not valued as highly as other civilians in the game.
I will agree however that her criticism of the game is quite a bit inflated in general and not everything she claims to be incentivized actually is.

[Ironside]

That's a side effect of the game tracking how much money each character has on them, if you shoot a man who just came from an ATM he will drop more money than if you shot him before.
You also get free of charge healing if you buy a bunch of food items, eat them, then rob the food store to get your money back.

I'm curious. Is that as easy and got the penalty as killing a prostitute? I've only played GTA IV, so I'm not familiar with the details.

Actually why are we arguing about GTA's implications? The entire premise of video games affecting people's behavior is long disproven.

That's violence. Which has quite a different mechanisms to follow. Media is one information source and not the strongest one (friends and family are). The problem occurs when it's persistent and aren't balanced by other sources. Do you consider that you're close to reality to determine the odds of car explosions? I don't know if the UK got something similar, but the American dream is almost entirely media driven.

The counter point would be that media never has any influence at anything. Which are fairly ridiculous.

I really don't have time to write another huge post and dig up all the sources, but video games do affect people's thoughts and behaviour, even violence (world perception iirc, people seeing the world as a dark place will see the world as more violent if they consume violent media). Tropes vs. Women do actually spend to explain those concepts when going through them, but I do got the feeling that you reject some of them as a whole and not in the details.

If you want to talk about the sexism in the gamer community that's fine, but leave the games themselves out of it.

And if you have games that actively enforces the sexism within the community? Fighting games are pretty bad on this, even if it's been a diversification on that market.

Yeah, as I said that's what happens when the complaints are done so incompetently. Why is it whenever I explain causation people assume I like the outcome?

Because a competent complaint on the same matter would contain the same thing, only use a better example and explain itself better?

Yeah, and when gamers look at the examples of TV, Films and comic books they see periods where the criticisms of moral guardians results in rampant censorship that takes decades shake off, they fear the same thing happening to thier hobby, and when her videos failed to prove these fears wrong it is Sarkeesian's responsibility.

The differing methods of thier ascend to mainstream is rather irrelevant to my point. They got attention but any legitimate point or message they might have wanted to impart to gamers overshadowed by an ignorance of the community they were commentating on. The end result is that now any attempt to press that message is lumped in with the crazy.

About the harassment. This is one week twitter harassment for FF. At that point, FF haven't posted anything in a while, so it's low harassment season.

Thing is, that's normal for a woman in the gaming industry daring to have an opinion.

This is what I'm talking about when I mention poison. Any feminist criticism of games, no matter how well done, would create a shitstorm on the net, in particular if made by a woman. And yes it's a huge issue and drowns out any more reasonable discussions, but it's having this in

You're gonna have to prove that one, cause while most of them are long gone this one is still here and there is no indication that it was all made up.

I mean if you're going to claim all those are fake and not provide proof then I will just as easily claim the MRA's you refer to are just 4chan trolls.

Though rhetoric aside I am fairly convinced that a lot of them are.

Can't really prove it, but see above on what happens with people that threatens the norm. It has some parody vibes in the first and second post and the third is certainly a reference to how those internet debates looks like.

Some are trolling. The persistence of a lot there do show something worse.

However when sarkeesian came along with such a shoddy video series that reek of ignorance and laziness, tells us the things we like are sexist and then gets declared as the face of feminism in gaming, it just gave fodder to her movment's detractors.

If Sakeesian couldnt do enough research to not so easily proven wrong then she shouldnt have tried at all, because in doing so she did more damage to the idea of feminist gaming than a thousand 4chan trolls.

The games mentioned are having sexist tropes. Any feminist talking about it, would have to say the same thing. I'll go into more further down, but that the games contains sexualised women (and only women) and allows violence against everyone. As a consequence, you get sexualised violence against (only) women. The reasons and details might need a further discussion, but that is the baseline. How much and how common sexism should be are also debates that are worth taking. Getting zero sexism is sort of hard, as a lot of tropes are meta situation dependent, ok in each individual case, but not ok as a aggregate. Lack of female protagonists are an example of this. And frankly, having some games heavy on it is not much of an issue. Persistence is worse.

You honestly think she's the first woman that thought about the idea? What do you think happened to the others? She got the leading position by endurance.

EDIT: to answer your point, I suppose it would have been possible to make it impossible to harm the strippers specifically, but why? It would only have been a move to prevent criticism from feminist activists. It would be inconsistent with the rest of the game.

It is a side effect of having normal game mechanics applied to sexualised female characters. It's more on how common it is. Having a strip club/prostitutes aren't plot important in any way (DE:HR has one part where prostitutes are getting forced to augment. That's an example on it being really plot important), it's treated as to show that this is a dark world or as background decoration for a setting.

The game wouldn't really lose anything on not having a strip club, correct? It's a critique on every dark game has to have strip club (for the leering, don't pretend otherwise. I admit, sometimes I do like doing that in games), with strippers as background decoration, which you the player are supposed to enjoy. Then add the killing interaction on top of that.

She says: "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters"
She said they are "meant to", but this is wrong, it is wrong in GTA, it is wrong in Deus Ex, but it is excruciatingly wrong here for one simple reason: the game explicitly punishes you for killing these women.
She herself neglects to show it but the video I posted shows at 2:59 the game explicitly reducing the score for killing an NPC. Worse, at 3:06 it shows the reduction in score is hugely inflated for civilian deaths, which the women in the game count as.
The only way her statment is true is if the definition of the word meant is now reversed.
It isn't, she lied.

It's a minor "easter egg" that you have search for if I got it correct. It's certainly made to be meant to you to be able to sneak around strippers. They're also meant to be treated as any NPC (aka killable). So they are both treated not like any NPC (by being sexualised) and like any NPC (killable, but in this game not recommendable for the highest score). And there's so many sandbox games that insists on this. It's a norm for most AAA titles. That is sort of interesting part, since there's no need for that.

It is certainly made as a provokable statement, but anything that is not considered a bug in a game is meant to be possible.

Flippant: because just because you dont like the game doesnt mean that it should be censored to accomidate you.

I say we introduce male on male rape into the TW series, to reach higher realism (it is fairly common in war. But very little spoken about). Or are you one of those censorists? We do that stuff all the time.

If feminism wants to make any progress with the game industry it cannot be associated with this sort of misdirection. To win they must be able to convert the other side's followers and they cannot do that if they allow this person to be their face.

As long as people so blatantly manipulative and dishonest as she is are seen as the leaders people will think non-egalitarian feminism deserves to be sidelined and ridiculed.
And if anita truly is the leader, then they will be right to think it.

It's done more progress in short order compared to what was before. Silence from a weak position often get you nowhere. It's now an open and active issue and the condensate makes it more obvious (I mean watch her videos as an agglomerate, even if some details might be wrong, the sheer number of examples is staggering). More consideration about if mr. Strip Club producer guy should do his pet project. Admittedly, some will give him a larger role and miss the point that sometimes you can fully embrace it as well.

The shock waves of harassment noise that will linger for years could be better though.

[Greyblades]

I think that part was a bit unclear in the video since to me it looked like killing a female gave a negative score of 1xx or 2xx while killing the (male) civilian gave a few thousands in negative score. Therefore one could say the women are not valued as highly as other civilians in the game.

Which is wrong. Here's proof:




These are my own screenshots, I made them just now and as you can see both the stripper and the man in the courtroom lobby lost me a very similar amount of points when I shot them.
You have the game husar, you can check this if you want. It was a falsehood and in 2+ years she has yet to publically acknowledge it.


I am not exactly sure why the game took off less points for killing this random male civillian than the stripper, I think it was something to do with the difficulty modifier, I mean it affected the spotted bit too and that really shouldnt have anything to do with it.

I will agree however that her criticism of the game is quite a bit inflated in general and not everything she claims to be incentivized actually is.

She makes an excessive amount of fuss from mere speculation, like Akkad, but it is specifically the lies that makes her argument unacceptable by the viewers not already biased towards believing her.
It's made worse by the fact that she appeared to be actively avoiding critiscism by disabling the comments.


The feminist movment should have disassociated itself with anita and found a more honest person to be thier figurehead, or at least found a person who was a better liar; I mean hitman had freaking latex nuns, the lowest hanging fruit and she still screwed up?