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Feminist video-games talk pulled after massacre threat

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Re: Feminist video-games talk pulled after massacre threat

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bunch of things thrown together in a carefully calculated scheme to cover up an organized harassment campaign targeting women in the videogames industry . I appreciate that there's some decent people getting mixed up in a 4chan project with no ill intentions of their own, but that's not where the whole thing started.

From what I've seen it's a giant mess and not intentionally organized that way at all. And yeah it started off in the worst way possible, so 'giant mess' is an improvement but not very good.

From the beginning it has been an astroturfing op "orchestrated" by some geniuses at 4chan. An irc channel central to the movement is named after a sexist catchphrase from the rant of the bitter ex-boyfriend of their first target. Logs from that channel have been publicly posted. There's no doubts about this.

Re: Feminist video-games talk pulled after massacre threat

#162
post #87

I don't understand these people that hate her so much, even if you disagree with her. All she has done is create a series of videos pointing out what she thinks is wrong with the gaming industry and she gets death threats. Why is no one allowed to be critical of video games? If anything, they are just proving her point by responding with violence.

>Why is no one allowed to be critical of video games?

There's a lot of vitriol going back and forth by both sides of this latest iteration of the 'Battle of the Sexes'. I think abstracting back, a lot of very good points are being brought up that need to be discussed (lots of bad ones too, in the interest of intellectual honesty). It's not until you get a bit more granular that ugly heads start to rear up and we ultimately end up with this.

We're at an unfortunate point right now that dissent is a tacit admission of complicity with the various social ills that people like Sarkesian are trying to explicate on a large scale at best, and treated as an existential threat to 'progress' at worst. No, that's not an indictment of the entire movement of feminism, but it's also not hard to find for anyone who goes and looks for it.

I used to care about this, a lot. Now? I prefer to just sit back and let both sides of screaming ninnies tire themselves out so that the people who are willing to reach across the table, admit that their movements have baggage and are mature enough to look past that baggage can have a melding of the minds to get things accomplished.

Re: Feminist video-games talk pulled after massacre threat

#163
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, there's more than a bit of history with this, and it's never come to pass. For example, of all the recent mass shooting events, only one didn't happen in an ironically official "No Gun Zone", the Arizona congresswoman shooting. Turns out a concealed carrier showed up just as the shooter was getting wrestled to the ground. Surprise, surprise, he didn't shoot. So you're just libeling people like me. Who you c…

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/06/concealed_w... http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/03/us-usa-guncontrol-... I'd say the lack of basic gun safety skill among concealed weapons holders is sufficient evidence to be concerned. This is just in the last 3-4 months with a quick google search. If I can't trust people with guns to reliably follow basic safety procedures [e.g. Both of these sound like someo…

Many very popular types of guns do not have "safeties" in the sense that you are likely thinking. They do not have a switch that can be toggled between "safe" and "fire". Glocks are one prominent example (they lack some sort of safety switch, although they have other sorts of safety features.)

Truly mechanically induced accidents are nevertheless exceptionally rare. The guns only fire when the trigger is pulled, which is why gun owners stress the importance of trigger discipline.

Re: Feminist video-games talk pulled after massacre threat

#164
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, there's more than a bit of history with this, and it's never come to pass. For example, of all the recent mass shooting events, only one didn't happen in an ironically official "No Gun Zone", the Arizona congresswoman shooting. Turns out a concealed carrier showed up just as the shooter was getting wrestled to the ground. Surprise, surprise, he didn't shoot. So you're just libeling people like me. Who you c…

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/06/concealed_w... http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/03/us-usa-guncontrol-... I'd say the lack of basic gun safety skill among concealed weapons holders is sufficient evidence to be concerned. This is just in the last 3-4 months with a quick google search. If I can't trust people with guns to reliably follow basic safety procedures [e.g. Both of these sound like someo…

Out of 8 million licensees, plus anyone who wants to with a clean record in Vermont, Alaska, Whyoming, and Arizona, there's going to be people who screw up. Police do at a much higher rate, in my observation over the years (there are, after all, a lot less of them).

Years, as in the wave of "shall issue" concealed carry regimes started with Florida in 1987, and now includes 43 states and most of the population. Every time a state goes shall issue the usual suspects scream "blood in the streets", yet it never comes to pass, as they mean it. Here you're stretching quite a bit to go form "normal" accidents to postulated future bad actions in a shooting event, because you can't find any of the latter. (You can't because there aren't any, at least that I've learned about since the early '70s and my readings of prior modern history.)

There are going to have to be a lot more, and much more worse screwups, before the toll is a fraction of the massacres in NewSpeak "Gun Free" zones.

Re: Feminist video-games talk pulled after massacre threat

#165
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cause the death threats are so real...

Even if they aren't real at all, how is that an appropriate response?

Because lying about death threats causes more problems. I honestly can't believe people take this woman so seriously. As I have commented before she has been shown to be a liar. Nothing she says has any credibility.

Re: Feminist video-games talk pulled after massacre threat

#166
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Even trained police officers often hurt bystanders when firing their weapons: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/nyregion/bystanders-shooti... If a trained cop does it, I think it is legitimate to be concerned about a member of the public firing their weapon, no matter what their intent.

NYPD gang members also purposely ride horses into pedestrians. Should we thus infer that private equestrians cause greater mayhem?

No, we should talk about the topic at hand and stop trying to make nonsensical comparisons.

Re: Feminist video-games talk pulled after massacre threat

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bunch of things thrown together in a carefully calculated scheme to cover up an organized harassment campaign targeting women in the videogames industry . I appreciate that there's some decent people getting mixed up in a 4chan project with no ill intentions of their own, but that's not where the whole thing started.

From what I've seen it's a giant mess and not intentionally organized that way at all. And yeah it started off in the worst way possible, so 'giant mess' is an improvement but not very good.

Look at this post in the subreddit, that seems organized to me:

https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2jb6q5/boyc...

Contains: a promotional poster of "boycott of the day", a pastebin full of "sample letters to use", a list of email addresses and twitter names to contact and talkint points when attempting to make Blizzard stop advertising at Kotaku, a site which is apparently "anti-gamer-gate".

Re: Feminist video-games talk pulled after massacre threat

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, more guns is a good thing - that is why we call the police. I think you mean more "skilled"/"trained" gun operators.

I prefer the model where nobody has guns, including the police. Maybe specialist armed units, but your average street cop shouldn't have a firearm: they aren't well trained enough. It is a proven model. It works. Plus even if you argue "people can just use knives instead," it still stops mass shootings.

It's a nice idea, but absolutely impossible to implement in the US for political and practical reasons. We may as well discuss my plan to tear up all railways and replace them with canals deep enough for container ships. (Think about it; you could kayak to anywhere in the country!)

Re: Feminist video-games talk pulled after massacre threat

#169
post #13

Her video series, which you can see on YouTube, is actually quite good and well-researched. You might disagree with her conclusions (I agree with them) but even if you disagree, you have to admit she's done a lot of legwork.

I disagree. Her videos have been shown to cherry pick. She is also a liar and has no interest in video gaming. This has been shown in older videos of herself. Its a money making scam.

Re: Feminist video-games talk pulled after massacre threat

#170
post #131

"But on Tuesday, the director of the centre and others received an email threatening a "massacre style attack" if the talk proceeded." There is an inherit sexism even in the response to this. If this was an email threat targeting say, a kindergarden, or a presidential visit, there would be federal law inforcement coming down hard looking for the source of the email. The specter of "terrorism" would be most certainly…

Aren't most kindergarden workers female? Would there be no law enforcement if the president was female? I do not see any hint of the sexism you describe here.

>> I do not see any hint of the sexism you describe here. Okay, more simply, in other cases of mass murder/"terrorist" threats, regardless of targets, the federal government gets involved at the drop of a hat. Not so in this case.
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