Nerds. Nerds EVERYWHERE...

[Skep tickle]

The photos used in Coke's "new milk" campaign are from Jaroslav Wieczorkiewicz's 2014 calendar, "Milky Pinups":

http://aurumlight.com/!galleries!milkypinups

As an ad campaign, presumably the images are aimed at women; this is most explicit in the caption of one that says "Better Milk Looks Good on You".

At any rate, this is a technique Wieczorkiewicz uses, and teaches:
http://abduzeedo.com/milk-liquid-illust ... zorkiewicz
http://blog.aurumlight.com/2014/04/28/s ... nes-video/

[Aneris]

Does anyone know how it comes that these terms appear to be conflated often (my impression) and appear to denote the same type of conflict, even though they refer to vastly different things?

nature vs nurture
nature vs culture
genes vs environment
inherit vs learned

I just note that when Postmodernist types refer to whatever is opposite of nature or genes they usually mean blue toys, gender roles of their parents, how kids are parented. That is they decidedly mean what is best described as culture. Whereas nature vs nurture can be an entirely biological conflict that has little or nothing to do culture. Here the opposite of side of nature means the stress level of homrones in the womb, epigenetics, and maybe very early parenting patterns, but certainly not "kid watches mom, emulates behaviour" kind of stuff.

Can anyone shed some light on the situation?

Somebody - it might even have been Dawkins - made an analogy that 'nature vs nurture' is like arguing over what contributes more to a cake - the ingredients or the baking process?

A cake isn't the same thing as flour and eggs, and baking a potato won't turn it into a cake.

There's no such thing as a human outside culture and there's no human free of biology.

Shatterface

Good one. Here is an interesting and perhaps interesting snipped...

[…] there is all sorts of nutty counter-intuitive things going on where earrings are totally heritable and number of fingers are not

[…] What this means, by definition the way experiments are set up make things nice and clearn and interpretable, scientist typically remove environmental variability – scientists typically have artificially boosted up the seeming heritability of a trait. What does that tell you is that the more different environments you study a trait in, the lower the heritability is going to be. Because you are giving more and more opportunities for things to be different; you are giving more and more opportunities to say ‘it depends’; it depends on which environment […]

The more environments you study a genetically influenced trait, the less interesting and important the genes are going to be in answering what does this gene have to do with whatever. […]

Ultimately, it winds up being meaningless asking what a gene does. Ultimately, the only really truly scientific way you can answer a question like that is ‘what does this gene do in this particular environment’

[…] That quote from Paul Erlich and his department that I put on the hand-out which is great to summarizes this entire point: ‘asking what the gene or the environment have more to do with some trait is akin to asking whether height or length have more to do with the volume of a rectangle’” — Robert Sapolsky, Behavioral Genetics II

Now that sounds counter-intuitive at first. A lot of other analogies come to mind. I think about wall paint which you can conceptualize as some ideal colour. You always paint the same room and see how it looks like. However, what you ignore is that the room is lit in a specific way. Counter-intuitively, you don't see the light. You just see the well-lit room and the nice colours there unless you conciously make yourself aware that what you see is light bouncing off the walls. As soon as you test out different light situations, with moonlight, with sunlight at 5pm, with candle-light you get an awareness that its a major factor and that your previous idea that the wall paint is everything was false. It becomes clear that it is impossible ot think of the wall colour without also thinking of what kind of light shines on it.

Another example could be a squiggle on a sheet of paper. Again, we fool ourself to think the paper is empty and kind of invisible (isn't that the problem that makes people stumble over the universe from nothing?) We think as the squiggle as something that almost exist in a void. As soon as you have to work with less ideal papers, package paper, old newspaper (different environments for little squiggle) that bring their own texture the illusion that the background is invisble will cease and you can have the situation that foreground and background interact in unpredictable ways. Again, it's easy to imagine the squiggle without the surface on which it is drawn, but in reality you can't have a squiggle without a surface where it is painted onto, there are no foregrounds without backgrounds.

That's just one way to tank the dichotomies. Another is by way of dissolving the categories that make up the dichotomy: there is no place where some cause-and-effect chain replaces its own label. There is no place where nature turns into culture, or nurture. And the nature vs culture dualism carries some historical baggage.

[Old_ones]

As much as I respect Nugent for his tenacity, I think peezis already knows that his behavior has consequences. He's gotten plenty of backlash that has done damage to his public reputation, and in some respects the pit itself is a consequence of the way he handled elevatorgate.

IMO the problem is that peezis will never acknowledge that the response he gets is in any way justified. If you don't agree with peezis on something you are a bad person, and if you dare to actually criticize his actions you are an evil heretic. The more Nugent persists, the more peezis will cite Nugent's persistance as a character flaw, and a reason to dismiss all of his criticisms.

This episode will have been worth Nugent's effort IMO if it provides some insight into the deficient character of peezis to a/s people who haven't already seen it elsewhere. On the other hand I hope Nugent isn't holding out much hope that he will get an apology from peezis or induce him to change his behavior in some significant way.

I think he knows PZ won't apologise and is happy to forensically grind Peez's reputation as a thinker and commentator into the dust. Nugent started off by saying Myer's approach was hurting atheism. If it won't change then he will help make him irrelevant on the wider stage.

That's the nature of the consequences. Velvet fist.

Yeah, you're probably right. The alternative to operating as though peezis might back down or apologize would probably be ham handed denunciation and Nugent is smart to avoid that path. It allows him to draw a clear contrast between his own approach to criticism and that of peezis.

[Aneris]

10 min in and so far I just see a white dudebro mansplaining. ;)

It clicks good at about the 30 minute mark.

I enjoyed & learned from the whole thing. Aneris, thanks for posting that! And for your cogent analyses posted not only here but in various threads at Nugent's, and at WEIT which are for me often aha-moments.

Thank you for the kind words :)

...and to not leave this entirely empty, since I looked him up and there is a kind of Human Biology topic going now. Here is an older talk by Robert Sapolsky that I think wasn't yet shared. It appears to be a shortened talk (~32mins) of the one below, which I did post.

Start of the Talk, 5mins in

[youtube]hrCVu25wQ5s[/youtube]

... and the long version... (~86mins)

[youtube]YWZAL64E0DI[/youtube]

[Old_ones]

[youtube]lfhseUDFI04[/youtube]

So has this founce be brought up?

Huh. Maybe I just haven't been paying enough attention, but I've never been that disappointed with #gamergate. I mean, it didn't end SJW crazy, or even its incursion into the gaming industry, but I haven't noticed the SJWs getting a backlash that stiff in any other arena so far. I never expected it to be more than an outpouring of anger, because it wasn't an organized movement, it was a bunch of people being angry about similar things at the same time.

The SJWs are a difficult target because they are good at baiting the media with all this high minded talk about equality and harassment, and manage to use that to distract from how insane they are. IMO its going to take more of them overreaching on people like Matt Taylor and shouting their crazy rhetoric in public, and demanding control of peoples' hobbies and artwork before the public really gets wise to them. I'm just glad to see them getting a backlash.

[katamari Damassi]

A couple of the comments from one of Ophelia's latest, a post about sexist advertising of some new milk-based drink. Rowan isn't fooled for a second, sees right through the thinly veiled metaphor for what it really is - a stealth-bukkake-ad.

http://i.imgur.com/C7JOQqC.jpg

Ophie should stay out of the Korova Milk Bar. I can't wait to try this new vellocet.

[katamari Damassi]

Barn Owl should've punched the marshal in the face and grabbed for the gun. She's white so nothing bad would've happened to her.

Marshal was Hispanic so I'm not sure who'd win the Oppression Olympics event.

Probably he had the right to shoot me because I'm a white, middle-aged academic, which trumps the XX, and therefore I'm the oppressor. Or something.

Btw I was sitting in my IKEA chair knitting peacefully when he knocked on my door.

The Poang makes everything better.

[katamari Damassi]

Barn Owl should've punched the marshal in the face and grabbed for the gun. She's white so nothing bad would've happened to her.

Marshal was Hispanic so I'm not sure who'd win the Oppression Olympics event.

Probably he had the right to shoot me because I'm a white, middle-aged academic, which trumps the XX, and therefore I'm the oppressor. Or something.

Btw I was sitting in my IKEA chair knitting peacefully when he knocked on my door.

But he's a cop, member of the patriarchy.

I'd say you are more oppressed. Um, did he look gay to you?

Did gay hispanic cop leave his phone number with you by any chance? And can we use your Poang chair for a little while?

[Brive1987]

I was appalled to see Lousy fall off his month long wagon and actually make a post - simply to shill for gamer-gate victim points.

When you fail, fail in style please sir.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Brive, I just wanted to say that the Batfleck picture looks very promising. I'm sure he'll be a perfect Bruce Wayne.

[Brive1987]

Brive, I just wanted to say that the Batfleck picture looks very promising. I'm sure he'll be a perfect Bruce Wayne.

Mate, even with a codpiece he would still shit all over superman. ;)

But what the world really needs is a Batman vs Predator franchise.

[Skep tickle]

I was appalled to see Lousy fall off his month long wagon and actually make a post - simply to shill for gamer-gate victim points.

When you fail, fail in style please sir.

Post is titled: "Enjoying problematic video games" - https://archive.today/MfZ8M

It's TL;DR for me, except to notice that latsot shows up in the comments

Re the time lag since his last blog post - this is his first one in almost 6 weeks (not shown in the above archived link, but last prior post was October 22).

FWIW, Oct 22 was also the most recent update post about FTBCon3, here: http://ftbcon.org/

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Brive, I just wanted to say that the Batfleck picture looks very promising. I'm sure he'll be a perfect Bruce Wayne.

Mate, even with a codpiece he would still shit all over superman. ;)

But what the world really needs is a Batman vs Predator franchise.

As shameful as it may seem to admit it, I am a Ben Affleck fan. I love his work both as an actor and director. His brother is not half bad either.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Ok, I'll just go ahead and say it: I enjoyed Daredevil.


Sorry, humankind.

[Tribble]

First of all, holy shit at the complete lack of self-awareness. You know you have it good when one of your primary challenges in life is convincing MMO guilds that you can kill imaginary scripted AI cartoon bosses with 24 other people. The fucking horror! Over in Africa, some militia is forcing a teenage boy to rape his own mother at machete-point, but over here female gamers are forced to submit DPS logs while applying to guilds. The injustice, the humanity.

Translation: "Anita Sarkeesian sucks and can't DPS for shit. Go back to Raid Finder, noob."

Besides, honey, once you get into a guild, a male player is more likely to get kicked from raiding if he underperforms than a female player. I swear to God, I saw this enough times on WoW: a guy is threatened to "change your spec to the flavor of the week or REPLACED!" even if he hates it (not everybody likes to press just 2 buttons to win, shithead), while the girls can fuck up mechanics and stand of the fucking fire and the raid leader will complain about the healers who aren't healing fast enough.

What I've noticed in MMOs is that women, regardless of the MMO, always end up getting the most breaks. Once the guys find out that player X is a girl, they all end up on the best behavior and bend-over-backwards to befriend/support her.

Women are are much more likely to get great hand-outs from other players. They're given more breaks for poor play. They're more likely to get into guilds. They're more likely to get invited to events, raids, etc. They're more likely to get put into positions of leadership.

And it's the guys pushing/doing it not the women being manipulative. It was like this in EQ2. It was like this in LOTRO. It was like this in DDO. It was like this in Fallen Earth. It was like this in Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. It was like this in Mabinogi. It was like this in Eve:Online.

I can't think of a single MMO, that I've played, that women weren't a protected group and given more breaks. So whenever I read/listen to this crap, it's clear the people who are talking are just making stuff up. Lying for Jesus as it were.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

My brother's wife is (as well as him) an avid WoW player. She doesn't take kindly to players who threat her differently because she's a woman.

I, myself, totally loath MMos, especially the PvP bullshit. I don't think there's many other things that can raise my blood pressure like a PvP session. Save for SJWs, of course.

[jimthepleb]

Tribble you play Eve?

[Brive1987]

Ok, I'll just go ahead and say it: I enjoyed Daredevil.


Sorry, humankind.

Never be ashamed of being one of the "thirteen percenters"

http://i.imgur.com/jF5smDh.jpg

[Tapir]

From Oafie's assmilk thread:

tiko says

December 2, 2014 at 3:39 pm

I’m sick to death of seeing objectified images of women to sell anything and everything.
Well, I’m sure someone defending these ad’s has already come up with the old chesnut that is ‘ sex sells’.
Yeah right! They can’t seem to get their heads round the fact that sex is an act between two people (in this case men and women) and not something that a man does to a woman. I mean constant images of sexualised women to appeal to men is sex because we all know that women arn’t really bothered about sex ,right? (probably something to do with nuts and berries)
After the ‘sex sells’ might come the ‘you’re just a prude’. They seem to think that saying ‘I want to be recognized as a sexual being’ one day and ‘ I don’t want to be sexually objectified’ the next day is hypocrisy.

Ok I admit that the above is rambling but I think you get the gist and I think you’ll know the sorts of people that come under ‘they’.

Shorter Ophie....."Would somebody pleeease objectify me!"

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Ok, I'll just go ahead and say it: I enjoyed Daredevil.


Sorry, humankind.

Never be ashamed of being one of the "thirteen percenters"

http://i.imgur.com/jF5smDh.jpg

Yeah, don't push it. Even I have my limits.

On the other hand, I might be the only guy alive who actually cries when he watches Jersey Girl.

[Brive1987]

I would too. If forced to watch. :)

[Whiskey Tango]

Besides, honey, once you get into a guild, a male player is more likely to get kicked from raiding if he underperforms than a female player. I swear to God, I saw this enough times on WoW: a guy is threatened to "change your spec to the flavor of the week or REPLACED!" even if he hates it (not everybody likes to press just 2 buttons to win, shithead), while the girls can fuck up mechanics and stand of the fucking fire and the raid leader will complain about the healers who aren't healing fast enough.

THIS. And also what Tribble said.

I cannot tell you how many times bad players were allowed to continue raiding because they were girls, especially girls who like to jump on Vent and flirt with people. And yes, female players are often showered with gear, gold, preferential raid spots, etc.

What I've noticed in MMOs is that women, regardless of the MMO, always end up getting the most breaks. Once the guys find out that player X is a girl, they all end up on the best behavior and bend-over-backwards to befriend/support her.

Again, totally typical of everyone's experiences online.

I have not seen people calling women cunts or getting aggressive with them, especially in persistent games where social reputation has real consequences for a player. Maybe in text chat, where everyone's an asshole, but certainly not in guilds or Vent channels. More likely, if someone calls out a female player, the White Knights ride in, ready to gallantly assist.

What I HAVE seen is an absurd amount of racism. I don't know if it's because I'm an East Coaster who used to play on a West Coast server, or if this is typical of online games, but the amount of casual racism in WoW and Rift was astounding. In STO you get none of those things, but perhaps that's because Star Trek is inherently about unity and the majority of players are ST fans first and MMO players second. I haven't played in years, so this is a sort of outdated opinion, but I don't see any reason why people would become arbitrarily less racist.

[Shatterface as Guest]

Has this been covered here?

Shia Labeouf on being raped by a woman:

One woman who came with her boyfriend, who was outside the door when this happened, whipped my legs for 10 minutes and then stripped my clothing and proceeded to rape me.

http://time.com/3609444/shia-labeouf-sa ... t-project/

Shatterface

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

I would too. If forced to watch. :)

Kevin Smith fan here. I'm never 'forced' to watch his movies. BTW, Red State is one hell of a great ride.

[Brive1987]

I would too. If forced to watch. :)

Kevin Smith fan here. I'm never 'forced' to watch his movies. BTW, Red State is one hell of a great ride.

I have a self preservation radar dating back to when I was sucker-punched into Steel Magnolia.

So when I read:

After his career is sidelined from an unexpected tragedy and a personal blowup, a single man must take care of his precocious daughter.

I get twitchy. But you say it is "man food"?

Ok. I see an opportunity here for cheap brownie points by suggesting this out of the blue to the wife.

But if you've stiffed me ........

[Pitchguest]

I just watched Jonathan McIntosh's latest failure, and having read what PZ has to say about it, it hit me.

They are the sexist ones. Why would it automatically be more credible because it's by men? On what evidence do they draw this assumption? And PZ just up and says it. "That makes it more credible, doesn't it?" Does it, PZ? Does it?

[SoylentAtheist]

My brother's wife is (as well as him) an avid WoW player. She doesn't take kindly to players who threat her differently because she's a woman.

I would never threat your brother's wife differently. Trampolines for all!

I, myself, totally loath MMos, especially the PvP bullshit. I don't think there's many other things that can raise my blood pressure like a PvP session. Save for SJWs, of course.

I tend not to play a lot of PvP games since I just want to sit down and enjoy some game play, not dedicate all my free time to ensure some 12 year old doesn't kick my ass non-stop every time I step onto the field.

[SoylentAtheist]

Has this been covered here?
Shia Labeouf on being raped by a woman:

One woman who came with her boyfriend, who was outside the door when this happened, whipped my legs for 10 minutes and then stripped my clothing and proceeded to rape me.

http://time.com/3609444/shia-labeouf-sa ... t-project/
Shatterface

Not covered here yet.

Odd case. I personally would not call it rape, but it would fit the SJWer standard if he didn't have a penis.

His whole performance art schtick was to sit there and not say a word as people came in and gave him shit.

So a woman comes in and "rapes" him. If he wasn't so in love with his performance art schtick he could have, you know maybe called for help, stood up and left the room, called for security. But instead, he just sat there and let it happen. He could have stopped it at any time.

So the next time we hear people going off on how a woman just can't be bothered to say no when they are not interested, we can point them to this case and tell them that we now understand exactly what they mean.

And as an additional side note, since his story has made national news, I have yet to hear a single person corroborate his story. His girlfriend was there, a long line of people waiting at the door. You would think someone would say 'Yeah, I was there.'

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

I would too. If forced to watch. :)

Kevin Smith fan here. I'm never 'forced' to watch his movies. BTW, Red State is one hell of a great ride.

I have a self preservation radar dating back to when I was sucker-punched into Steel Magnolia.

So when I read:

After his career is sidelined from an unexpected tragedy and a personal blowup, a single man must take care of his precocious daughter.

I get twitchy. But you say it is "man food"?

Ok. I see an opportunity here for cheap brownie points by suggesting this out of the blue to the wife.

But if you've stiffed me ........

Don't go out of your way to watch it (Jersey girl). It's mostly a rom-com but it has very good moments, like, every time George Carlin appears.

As for red State, it's a must-watch. To know that WBS picketed the premier on Smith's invitation is an added bonus.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

There is a short scene in Jersey Girl that I find very poignant: Liv Tyler plays a video store clerk, and Ben Affleck's character comes in to rent some porn movies. Unbeknownst to the quite judgmental Tyler is that Affleck lost his wife in childbirth and has to take care of his daughter all by himself (with the girl's grandpa's help, Carlin). He has zero time to find a date, let alone a steady relationship.

This part gets me every time.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Oh, [spoiler alert]

[JackSkeptic]

On the Gamergate thing the SJW issue is almost a non-issue. Gaming is so widespread and so many people know the facts people like Sarkeesian are only credible to non gamer SJW's and people trying to push an agenda, such as gaming sites who few take seriously anyway and people like Myers. The only thing I care about is the fact these clowns have access to the mainstream media who soak it all up for hits. But they are only hurting themselves for short term gain. Gaming itself will not be affected one bit. It is already highly gender neutral and represents minorities very well. It has been for years. If anything females get an advantage in online gaming, which I am fine about.

Anyway the SJW gaming lies are very easy to spot even without help. Gamers are now fully aware of their tricks so Gamersgate has done its job. The A/S community is in a worse position as it seems to be infested with far left authoritarian types and is not as politically, racially, socially and gender diverse as gaming is. This is one of the symptoms of a highly politicized and religious nation, namely the US, which associates a political belief with religious belief for some bizarre reason (I know why but it is still bizarre in the 21st Century) That is why Myers' insistence that atheism= far left wing politics is asinine to many and comes across as naive, parochial and foolish.

I'm very impressed with the way Nugent has dealt with Myers and others like him. We need more of this from other leaders. It is a shame that many are either wrapped up in the same ideology already or cowards who stop attacking when they get the usual torrent of abuse.

[Tribble]

Tribble you play Eve?

Used to. Not anymore.

[another lurker]

When I played EQ I met a nice gay guy who had to make sure that everyone knew that he was gay so that he could cry about discrimination.

[Pitchguest]

I was appalled to see Lousy fall off his month long wagon and actually make a post - simply to shill for gamer-gate victim points.

When you fail, fail in style please sir.

Post is titled: "Enjoying problematic video games" - https://archive.today/MfZ8M

It's TL;DR for me, except to notice that latsot shows up in the comments

Re the time lag since his last blog post - this is his first one in almost 6 weeks (not shown in the above archived link, but last prior post was October 22).

FWIW, Oct 22 was also the most recent update post about FTBCon3, here: http://ftbcon.org/

It's not like it takes a genius to understand what Gamergate is all about. It's about better ethical standards in games journalism. That's it.

Why this is so bloody difficult to comprehend I'll never know. Of course even on subjects that he ought to be more in tune with, Lousy is an idiot who can't even get the simplest of concepts. Oh, and if it wasn't obvious enough to his readers that he's a gamer, he makes the argument that the Final Fantasy franchise helped him to become an atheist. Jesus wept. Anyway.

He opens up by linking to one of his own articles. Yeah. I'm not going to relay what it says because let's face it, who has time for that? Besides, even in that thread he gets Gamergate wrong, so I suppose in this instance he gets it wrong about Gamergate again. He then goes off claiming Gamergate is a consumer revolt (right) against "shills of so-called triple A studios." Wrong. It's a consumer revolt against bad games journalism. If you read a summary about Gamergate and it doesn't mention anything about ethics in games journalism, or that it's not its main purpose, then you can be sure they have it wrong. If there's a revolt against "shills of so-called triple A studios" that might be a seperate faction, but it's got nothing to do with Gamergate.

Well, since he's already got it wrong he keeps going. He continues to talk about the supposed goal of Gamergate and describes how "shills" are defined (according to his idea of Gamergate) as "anyone who criticises games from a Social Justice Warrior perspective, irrespective of these critics' actual targets" - which, again, is a bunch of bullshit. Then he steers onto the right track ("about the morality of getting positive game reviews in exchange for favours") but loses the plot soon after, since he mentions how Gamergate has apparently turned a "blind eye" to YouTube critic TotalBiscuit (who's supportive of Gamergate) because he did a positive review of a game he provided voice acting for. Except that Gamergate has been very clear on that point: that it's not about refusing critics to make positive reviews on things they are personally invested in, just that they disclose to the public if they are. Which TotalBiscuit did. Simple as that.

Also, since it's Lousy, predictably he finds a way to cram misogyny in there and how Gamergate is entirely defined by its alleged anti-feminist views. :doh:

Once again, he proves himself to be an absolute twat, who can't do research for shit. No wonder he blogs at FtB. He ends the blog post with this little morsel.

You self-proclaimed “gamers”, to whom entire industries cater at their own expense, complaining that feminists are silencing you — you sweet children of summer — sound to my ears just like world-renowned multimillionaire Richard Dawkins when he compains that he feels silenced by feminists who dare critique him, despite the fact that he continues to be a well known author with books and frequent speaking engagements out the ass. Would that we could all be so silenced as you!

But isn't that exactly the same thing that people like Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu, and Rebecca Watson, have been saying on their blogs and in the media? Always with the double standards.

[Southern]

Ok, I'll just go ahead and say it: I enjoyed Daredevil.


Sorry, humankind.

Fuck off!

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Ok, I'll just go ahead and say it: I enjoyed Daredevil.


Sorry, humankind.

Fuck off!

Yeah, I know, I know. That was a bit too much, even by Pit standards. My bad.

[Richard Dworkins]

Besides, honey, once you get into a guild, a male player is more likely to get kicked from raiding if he underperforms than a female player. I swear to God, I saw this enough times on WoW: a guy is threatened to "change your spec to the flavor of the week or REPLACED!" even if he hates it (not everybody likes to press just 2 buttons to win, shithead), while the girls can fuck up mechanics and stand of the fucking fire and the raid leader will complain about the healers who aren't healing fast enough.

THIS. And also what Tribble said.

I cannot tell you how many times bad players were allowed to continue raiding because they were girls, especially girls who like to jump on Vent and flirt with people. And yes, female players are often showered with gear, gold, preferential raid spots, etc.

What I've noticed in MMOs is that women, regardless of the MMO, always end up getting the most breaks. Once the guys find out that player X is a girl, they all end up on the best behavior and bend-over-backwards to befriend/support her.

Again, totally typical of everyone's experiences online.

I have not seen people calling women cunts or getting aggressive with them, especially in persistent games where social reputation has real consequences for a player. Maybe in text chat, where everyone's an asshole, but certainly not in guilds or Vent channels. More likely, if someone calls out a female player, the White Knights ride in, ready to gallantly assist.

What I HAVE seen is an absurd amount of racism. I don't know if it's because I'm an East Coaster who used to play on a West Coast server, or if this is typical of online games, but the amount of casual racism in WoW and Rift was astounding. In STO you get none of those things, but perhaps that's because Star Trek is inherently about unity and the majority of players are ST fans first and MMO players second. I haven't played in years, so this is a sort of outdated opinion, but I don't see any reason why people would become arbitrarily less racist.

I agree with most of what's being said but my wife played WoW and was a Tank raid leader from Vanilla until WOTLK. The amount of abuse, that she, and three other women in their guild used to get was pathetic. Mostly juveniles but there were a couple of creeps. My wife is no shrinking violet and would call them out on it an expose them. Same on Guild Wars 2, where she tells me it's worse, in that it is more vehement and obnoxious. As I say my wife remarks upon it, doesn't bother with it, reports it and moves on.

However she is not a 14 year old girl who's into fantasy and games and decides to try out an MMO for the first time, perhaps a nerdy girl with low self esteem who comes on to listen to people abusing her. It could be seen as hostile and turn her away.

Now, the problem is that this is not solely an issue for women. Anyone who knows more than an inkling about games knows that public channels, chat etc are filled with obnoxious idiots. You tube is filled with little brats raging at people. Christ the aforementioned Eve online has had serious problems with the behaviour of some of their players too. However as always context is necessary.

Just the other night I got a message from some random who I kept killing in The Crucible PVP in Destiny. "I'm gonna chok U w my dick."

Was that a sexual assault threat, should I go full Sarkeesian and nervously pick up the phone and contact the cops P.R. insinuates within media? I thought not, perhaps the guy was just venting in frustration. It also occurred was that what was more likely was that he was just spouting angry threatening nonsense in a way many of us might to to friends. I don't know how many times I've threatened to "beast" my pals or the conversation has become filled with obscenity and comedic threats. That's fine with pals but in the public sphere it can be somewhat different. However what it a lot of the "abuse" is little more than that kind of banter from people who don't grasp the difference between public and private conversations?

There is no doubt the gaming environment has lots and lots of vile assholes but they are still a tiny minority. This is a problem games companies are well aware of and make (mostly) attempts to combat. To frame it as some kind of Feminist issue is to ignore the wider issue which is about the hostile nature of public discourse on the internet. It is often hysterical shrieking filled with outrageously violent and unreasonable rhetoric and no one group nor subculture is immune from receiving and engaging in it.

Feminists to complain about abuse on the internet while feminists use the internet to abuse people. This is no different from any other group doing the same. All of these groups are each a strand in a rope which will be used to throttle their own voices when Governments listen to them and start making laws regulating speech and benefiting corporate concerns over those of the individual on the internet. They are useful idiots who'll be the first to complain when they get what they want.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

My ex and I used to collaborate in a MMO called Rappelz back in 2008. I introduced her to the game and she loved it. To the point where she met some guy from South-West France in-game and cheated on me with said fellow IRL.

Best. Breakup. Ever!

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Oh, [spoiler alert]

No, dude. You rescued me from 90 minutes of pure agony. I threw up a little in my mouth just reading about that scene.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

My ex and I used to collaborate in a MMO called Rappelz back in 2008. I introduced her to the game and she loved it. To the point where she met some guy from South-West France in-game and cheated on me with said fellow IRL.

Best. Breakup. Ever!

I had a GF leave me for some manlet in her guild. Though, for all intents & purposes, she'd long before left me for EQ.

[Brive1987]

Oh, [spoiler alert]

No, dude. You rescued me from 90 minutes of pure agony. I threw up a little in my mouth just reading about that scene.

But the prospect of this almost makes up for it.

http://i.imgur.com/N08wSY3.jpg

It appears I have learnt one good thing today.

[Tribble]

When I played EQ I met a nice gay guy who had to make sure that everyone knew that he was gay so that he could cry about discrimination.

I've run into that. People with chips on their shoulders who make sure they bring up, repeatedly, whatever it is that they're going to use to lay into you. Or just take innocuous statements and use them to attack you as if you've committed some horrible social error.

It's the SJW/asshole way.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Oh, [spoiler alert]

No, dude. You rescued me from 90 minutes of pure agony. I threw up a little in my mouth just reading about that scene.

But the prospect of this almost makes up for it.

http://i.imgur.com/N08wSY3.jpg

It appears I have learnt one good thing today.

That looks atrocious.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

That looks atrocious.

You are wrong. Plain wrong.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

And that's taking into account the fact that Q. Tarantino, one of the most overrated crap directors in movie history is endorsing the movie.

[fuzzy]

[Hunt]

[youtube]E47-FMmMLy0[/youtube]

Manginasplaining.

[screwtape]

I would too. If forced to watch. :)

Kevin Smith fan here. I'm never 'forced' to watch his movies. BTW, Red State is one hell of a great ride.

Ditto for Dogma. Anyone who hasn't watched it has missed a treat.

[Cliché Guevara]

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/12/new- ... ld-empire/

The politics of the leading New Atheist thinkers are not uniform. Dawkins opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, while Harris and Hitchens were some of its leading apologists. Harris defends torture as an ethical necessity in the “war on terror” while Hitchens, who was voluntarily subjected to waterboarding, did not. Both Hitchens and Harris have been prone to bellicose outbursts of violent, almost bloodthirsty rhetoric, which cannot be said of Dawkins.

Nevertheless, all are united by several common intellectual threads. Each espouses a binary worldview that pits a civilized, cosmopolitan, and progressive West against a barbaric, monistic, and reactionary East. Though varied in their political positions, Harris, Hitchens, and Dawkins have all had very public dalliances with the Right, expressing either overt sympathy for, or enthusiastic endorsement of, some of its most vile and disreputable elements.

Each is outwardly a cultural liberal who primarily addresses liberal audiences — “respectable” to blue-state metropolitans and their equivalents elsewhere in ways Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh never could be — while embracing positions and causes that are manifestly illiberal in the commonly understood sense of the term.

Beneath its many layers of intellectual adornment — the typical New Atheist text is laden with maudlin references to Darwin, Newton, and Galileo — we find a worldview intimately familiar to anyone who has studied the language of empires past: culturally supremacist, essentializing and othering towards the foreign, equal parts patronizing and paternalistic, and legitimating of the violence committed for its own ends.

-snip-

The ways in which the New Atheism serves imperialism are manifold. It bolsters the “clash of civilizations” narrative used to justify ventures like the invasion of Iraq and the need for repressive measures like state surveillance. Moreover, in presenting itself as a disinterested defense of reason, it lends such arguments a credibility they would lack in the hands of commentators from the political or cultural right. Finally, it shifts the focus from the social ills wrought by unjust economic arrangements to an external singularity called “religion.”

Beneath its superficial rationalism, then, the New Atheism amounts to little more than an intellectual defense of empire and a smokescreen for the injustices of global capitalism. It is a parochial universalism whose potency lies in its capacity to appear simultaneously iconoclastic, dissenting, and disinterested, while channeling vulgar prejudices, promoting imperial projects, and dressing up banal truisms as deep insights.

Hitchens, Harris, and Dawkins may masquerade as intellectual insurgents, leading a crusade against the insipid tolerance of liberal politics. But ultimately they are apologists for some of its most destructive tendencies.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

I would too. If forced to watch. :)

Kevin Smith fan here. I'm never 'forced' to watch his movies. BTW, Red State is one hell of a great ride.

Ditto for Dogma. Anyone who hasn't watched it has missed a treat.

Bethany: Wait a minute. Christ. You know Christ?
Rufus: Knew him? Shit, nigga owes me 12 bucks!

[Matt Cavanaugh]

That looks atrocious.

You are wrong. Plain wrong.

You are French. Plain French. I should listen to you about movies?

Coup de Torchon. That was a good French film. I'm wracking my brain trying to come up with another.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

I'd have a drunk Hitchens over a hundred thousand Myers and Friends. For realz!

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

That looks atrocious.

You are wrong. Plain wrong.

You are French. Plain French. I should listen to you about movies?

Coup de Torchon. That was a good French film. I'm wracking my brain trying to come up with another.

La Cage aux Folles? You know, one of those numerous French movies Hollywood ripped off. True lies is another one. Les Miserables also, if you want to get picky.

I've never heard of (or seen) Coup de Torchon.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

I notice the FtB con lanyard still has last year's schedule. They're two months out, and still don't know what they're gonna talk about?

Nobody does a clusterfuck like SJWs.

[Kirbmarc]

Ditto for Dogma. Anyone who hasn't watched it has missed a treat.

Dogma is decent, but it wastes George Carlin by giving a role that's little more than a cameo. That's a capital sin in my book. And Linda Fiorentino is boring.

[Phil_Giordana_FCD]

Ditto for Dogma. Anyone who hasn't watched it has missed a treat.

Dogma is decent, but it wastes George Carlin by giving a role that's little more than a cameo. That's a capital sin in my book. And Linda Fiorentino is boring.

Fiorentino is more than boring, she's a fucking pain in the ass to work with, apparently. Even Smith said he would have chosen another lead if he knew her better (mind you, his other choice was Garofalo. Not exactly a win/win).

[SkepticalCat]

And that's taking into account the fact that Q. Tarantino, one of the most overrated crap directors in movie history is endorsing the movie.

FINALLY! Somebody says it!!! Thank you Phil!!

:clap: :clap: :clap:

[Shatterface as Guest]

I'd have a drunk Hitchens over a hundred thousand Myers and Friends. For realz!

I'm less about ideological purity than the ability to hold an interesting and intelligent conversation, and a willingness to get a round in when it's their turn.

(Mainly the latter.)

Shatterface

[debaser71]

On the Gamergate thing the SJW issue is almost a non-issue. Gaming is so widespread and so many people know the facts people like Sarkeesian are only credible to non gamer SJW's and people trying to push an agenda, such as gaming sites who few take seriously anyway and people like Myers. The only thing I care about is the fact these clowns have access to the mainstream media who soak it all up for hits. But they are only hurting themselves for short term gain. Gaming itself will not be affected one bit. It is already highly gender neutral and represents minorities very well. It has been for years. If anything females get an advantage in online gaming, which I am fine about.

Anyway the SJW gaming lies are very easy to spot even without help. Gamers are now fully aware of their tricks so Gamersgate has done its job. The A/S community is in a worse position as it seems to be infested with far left authoritarian types and is not as politically, racially, socially and gender diverse as gaming is. This is one of the symptoms of a highly politicized and religious nation, namely the US, which associates a political belief with religious belief for some bizarre reason (I know why but it is still bizarre in the 21st Century) That is why Myers' insistence that atheism= far left wing politics is asinine to many and comes across as naive, parochial and foolish.

I'm very impressed with the way Nugent has dealt with Myers and others like him. We need more of this from other leaders. It is a shame that many are either wrapped up in the same ideology already or cowards who stop attacking when they get the usual torrent of abuse.

Find any article on CNN or NBC about women or women's issues and you will find a sentence or two about male gamers sending threats to female game critics and female devs. It's already been established in the mainstream media as a fact other thing refer to to. It's still all about the "war on women". The democrats are really milking this one.