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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

#271

Post by jMyles »

theevocater wrote: post #259
hga wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great. Then the relatively physically weak, the infirm, the elderly, the women , will be at the mercy of the strong. A short look at mass shootings in Western Europe in the lat few decades, which are both more numerous and more deadly, suggests that intermediate restrictions won't do any good at best. History prior to that tells what government can easily do to disarmed untermensch . I'll take an occasional mass shoo…

shout out to your casual misogyny: > Great. Then the relatively physically weak, the infirm, the elderly, the women, will be at the mercy of the strong as if women are somehow magically incapable defending themselves.

It's not magic: Given a large, random sample of self-identified 'men' and 'women', pitting them against each other in one-to-one unarmed combat, the men will win an overwhelming majority of the time.

I enjoy working with women who are trained in self-defense - I have a female friend who has a devastatingly strong and quick round kick to the jaw. However, as with most people, most women aren't.

This is a great organization mobilizing around this topic (although their website is sorta crap): http://www.2asisters.org/

Re: Feminist video-games talk pulled after massacre threat

#272

Post by kmfrk »

jMyles wrote: post #267
kmfrk wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep; it was not the massacre threat but the refusal to deny concealed carry that prompted Anita to cancel her event. The title implies a wrong causality like that. I can't imagine attending an event where people could carry concealed weapon, even as completely average dude.

In what country do you live? In the US, I assume that 10-15% of adults are carrying a handgun wherever I go, and I feel perfectly safe with it. In some states, like New Hampshire, I think it's probably more like 1/3.

I live in Europe, so I'm a pearl-clutching sort of guy. :)

Re: Feminist video-games talk pulled after massacre threat

#273

Post by jMyles »

pjc50 wrote: post #65
idlewords wrote: post #16

Before this was cancelled, Utah State University police announced "enhanced security measures will now be in place, which include prohibiting backpacks and any large bags." But anyone who had a permit to carry a concealed firearm would be allowed to bring it to the venue. I guess the theory is that anyone targeting Ms. Sarkeesian would have gone down in a hail of patriot bullets, but she wisely decided not to test th…

Apparently Utah law would make it illegal for them to prevent people from bringing concealed firearms, which is basically a law to maximise casualties from campus shootings.

Is there evidence to support this claim? Many of the worst mass shootings have happened in regulatory environments of the opposite nature: where firearms are prohibited altogether. I suspect that complete prohibition is the formula for maximum casualties for a single, isolated event with a small number of sufficiently armed shooters.

Re: Feminist video-games talk pulled after massacre threat

#274

Post by jMyles »

kmfrk wrote: post #272
jMyles wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what country do you live? In the US, I assume that 10-15% of adults are carrying a handgun wherever I go, and I feel perfectly safe with it. In some states, like New Hampshire, I think it's probably more like 1/3.

I live in Europe, so I'm a pearl-clutching sort of guy. :)

If you come to USA, I strongly suggest attending this festival:

http://porcfest.com/

It's full of the warmest, most incredible energy. Lots of people hacking on incredible projects outside in the sun or under gazebos. Awesome local food. And lots and lots of guns.

Re: Feminist video-games talk pulled after massacre threat

#275

Post by hga »

theevocater wrote: post #259
hga wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great. Then the relatively physically weak, the infirm, the elderly, the women , will be at the mercy of the strong. A short look at mass shootings in Western Europe in the lat few decades, which are both more numerous and more deadly, suggests that intermediate restrictions won't do any good at best. History prior to that tells what government can easily do to disarmed untermensch . I'll take an occasional mass shoo…

shout out to your casual misogyny: > Great. Then the relatively physically weak, the infirm, the elderly, the women, will be at the mercy of the strong as if women are somehow magically incapable defending themselves.

There's "misogyny", and then there's gross ignorance of human physiology. Unless you deny that compared to men, women have substantially less muscle mass and therefore in combat are severely disadvantaged, "relatively" less "strong", when denied a weapon that doesn't depend on that?

Which all things being equal, if you care about effectiveness, is limited to a firearm.

Re: Feminist video-games talk pulled after massacre threat

#276

Post by ben0x539 »

byerley wrote: post #186
idlewords wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it your contention that the large number of death threats, rape threats etc. being posted online are manufactured by the speaker for her own benefit?

I don't care to conjecture about the frequency or origination of the threats because I don't think there's enough information and, frankly, it's not that important. I can tell you I'd happily endure electronic harassment for that much money, especially with experts telling me there's no risk of physical harm.

Really? $158k, minus kickstarter's cut, minus a bunch for the physical backer rewards, minus the production costs for the videos, probably minus some more for taxes, seems like that good a deal for a project that's been occupying years of her time already and basically forever ruined her ability to do things online without getting swarmed by abusive trolls?

I think you're understating the effects of continuous harassment and repeated death threats and so on against her, and overstating the certainty with which anyone can say there's no physical danger.

Re: Feminist video-games talk pulled after massacre threat

#277

Post by CocaKoala »

kelvin0 wrote: post #233
CocaKoala wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read your statement objectively. You said that if she had manufactured this crisis, it would be a machiavellian stunt. Can you present even a single shred of evidence that she's manufacturing the crisis? Because until you present that evidence, you're not actually presenting facts that are relevant to the discussion. You might as well say "If she were an alien, this might be part of her plan to take over the world"…

I do not know of any evidence, nor do I wish to investigate if there is any with regards to the 'manufactured' hypothesis. Reading the article, I had a flash of an interesting twist of events (as improbable as it is). This whole debate is not even about her, but how some people could use this scenario to manipulate the public's attention and polarize the discussion. I like considering things from different angles, wh…

http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/15/6983833/stop-gamergate-ga...

The last paragraph explicitly calls out your theory. You can consider things from different angles all you want, but when the angles you're considering are provably fiction, it's hard to see how they have a place in a discussion of facts.

Re: Feminist video-games talk pulled after massacre threat

#278

Post by ben0x539 »

iamdave wrote: post #265
ben0x539 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, there's the gamergate people organizing the harassment of people, posting their victims' private addresses, sending them death threats and all kinds of abuse, bullying people into withdrawing from their online identities, all under a propaganda screen of fabricated pretenses and smear campaigns. Then there's the "feminist" crowd which wants that sort of thing to not happen, and also talk about v…

Your way of putting it implies that these two are equivalent in being "unfortunate and problematic", which in my opinion is a severe misrepresentation of the situation. In your opinion then, what's a better way to present it? I'm trying to look at this as broadly as I possibly can without getting strung up in highlighting granular, "this instance" and "that instance" responses, effectively coming across as a 'single…

It's a 4chan-style raid/social media harassment op. There's not much to it. It's what they do.

Re: Feminist video-games talk pulled after massacre threat

#279

Post by llamataboot »

iamdave wrote: post #265
ben0x539 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, there's the gamergate people organizing the harassment of people, posting their victims' private addresses, sending them death threats and all kinds of abuse, bullying people into withdrawing from their online identities, all under a propaganda screen of fabricated pretenses and smear campaigns. Then there's the "feminist" crowd which wants that sort of thing to not happen, and also talk about v…

Your way of putting it implies that these two are equivalent in being "unfortunate and problematic", which in my opinion is a severe misrepresentation of the situation. In your opinion then, what's a better way to present it? I'm trying to look at this as broadly as I possibly can without getting strung up in highlighting granular, "this instance" and "that instance" responses, effectively coming across as a 'single…

A better way to present it would be, "I don't agree with all the points that people identifying as feminists in these arguments are making, for example XYZ. However, I strongly condemn calls for violence against them and think that the violence and threats of violence discredits any argument the GamerGate people may be making and reinforces the fact that we live in a patriarchal society and a rape culture where violence against women is all too common and normalized. Arguments against the content of arguments and counter examples are fine and okay, however the word of someone claiming they personally are being marginalized and victimized should generally be given more weight than someone else claiming that that person isn't. We can have civil and even enthusiastic discussions about how sexism manifests itself in the videogame industry (or doesn't), but misogynist violence is never okay and de facto reinforces how big of a problem sexism is in tech culture, and the way that both covert and overt violence is used to silence women.

Re: Feminist video-games talk pulled after massacre threat

#280

Post by teamhappy »

ben0x539 wrote: post #268
teamhappy wrote: post #117

The wording of the title sums up the current state of the debate quite good. I (and I'm sure many other as well) stopped reading and writing about it some time ago. There seem to be endemic problems in all activist movements (you can call it something else if you like) such as the glorification/condemnation of certain individuals, participants being more interested in having it their way than finding compromises, and…

You're really reaching if you're trying to paint the representation of women as not a feminist topic.

I didn't.
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