The great GamerGate discussion. (Stuff and things)

@Derpy Whooves  
Agreed. I personally don’t give a shit about the gender of said fictional character.  
But the way anyone made a HUGE deal over something that nobody would even make a slight chirp about in the previous decade is STUPID. Especially when anyone has to push out draconian NEWSPEAK level rules like this.

@Selaphiel  
Yeah, it’s stupid. It’s possible that moderator just got too “proactive” about the UK stuff, and once it was out of the bag it just all became a giant crap festival.
 
… wow … that sounded a lot less bitter in my head.

Those who call for RL standards for fiction are obviously lost on the purpose of what fiction was created for in the first place. Escape from reality. I get the impression these people simply cannot make the split like the overgrown children they are. The ability is lost to them. They themselves have their minds constantly in their own little fictional world that they think everything in it is real to them.

@Selaphiel  
Right? I mean, if you apply IRL standards to discussions and treatment of characters, then murder a planet full of them or blow some of them up or have them raped or whatever .. it’s just insane.
 
What it looks like to me, with my VERY limited view of what is going on, is that they wanted to make sure that “racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic” shit was not happening in the forums, but because the author of that character is also apparently non-binary, like the character, things got tangled.
 
Thus: Spaghetti. Spaghetti EVERYWHERE.
 

 
This is the kind of mess that usually only gets cleaned up with the moderator being “publicly corrected” or some sort of public messaging statement from the company. But they have to figure out how to do that and not get into even deeper shit with the UK stuff, and American legislators saying that games are responsible for mass shootings.
 
BBL - going to go make some spaghetti. That sounds good right now.

@The Frowning Pony  

 
I completely agree with this sentiment. I see it happen all the time. Banning people for being jerks is a completely reasonable stance, and Fl4k’s gender neutrality will absolutely draw in the trolls. Making a statement about this will probably goad people into doing this even more, but that’s probably considered a good thing by Gearbox and their SJW staff, who get to smite those evil transphobes for brownie points.
 
But my god, BL3 can’t stop with the bad press before release. It’s amazing how incompetent their PR is.

Kotaku tries to cluches pearls over anime boobs.
 
Do you think Greyson is just frustrated about not being allowed to play these games given the crowd he’s in?
 
Just sayin’

@Cyborg_pony  
Why are 90% of the things linked here monetized 12-17 minute YT videos of people commenting about other people’s content. Is it really so hard to link the sources? To list the issues in a discreet, to the point way? If you’re not using an ad-blocker, what you get is a 30 second ad followed by a 20 second ad followed by a guy… ranting about someone’s editorial posts on a blog?
 
Do you all really not realize you’re just larding up the wallets of people that just sit at their computers and rant angrily about things they actually don’t care about for the ideal amount of time per YT’s algorithms. You’re consuming 30 seconds of information (at best) as 12-17 minutes of YT bloat, your anger, justified or not, is being exploited by these talking heads for their personal financial gain, and they’re sensationalizing everything as much as possible to keep you hooked on anger and rage and disgust and the feeling of righteousness.

@The Frowning Pony  
Well, I’m not linking to Kotaku to lard theirs.

@Cyborg_pony  
Then no one gets larded and it’s entirely pointless.
 
At least a point could be made by linking to Kotaku that it’s the source rather than a second-hand reaction.

@The Frowning Pony  
Which is why we used to archive their pages before we link to them. Not giving the clicks but still able to access them. But then I remember the service went to shit some while back.

@Kamikakushi  
Was never a problem before why now?

@The Frowning Pony  
I fully agree. This is why I’m rarely even lurk threads like this. When only video of some ranter is provided and often that video have no link sources in description.  
Better to just find revelant info on other sites (KYM or 4chan).
 
Also most people linked I’m getting sick off or already hate

@Cyborg_pony  
Or, maybe nobody actually said anything before? Considering most of the discussion in this thread, at least recently, has ignored content and talked about the provocative headline, I’m guessing most people probably just saw the title and got angry on its behalf.

@Selaphiel  
Fiction isn’t the opposite of reality but a metaphorical mirror image
 
Like how a schizophrenic delusions are reflective of inner troubles(at least from a Freudian viewpoint also Freud did nothing wrong bite me), fiction reflects real life struggles and issues

@Commune  
It’s still not real. Part of being a proper functioning human is being able to make the split.

@Selaphiel  
It should be important to distinguish what fiction is meant to remain fiction, and what fiction is meant to be an attempt to influence reality. There’s a reason propaganda exists; despite the characters in those old WW2 posters being (mostly) fiction, they represent a real people and are meant to affect real things and actions.

@The Frowning Pony  
Except those propaganda posters were made deliberately to influence the population of their respective nations. They were not considered fictional in the least. Everyone knew they depicted either racist caricatures of the opposite side OR were depicting possible scenarios that could happen. You know full well that they weren’t considered fictional at the time.

@The Frowning Pony  
How individuals interpret said materials is all on them.

@Ainz Ooal Gown  
So you’re saying something like, I dunno, Wolfenstein, isn’t in any way trying to tell people “nazis are bad”? That Schindler’s List was just pure entertainment and not trying to influence people into realizing the horrors of fascism?
 
 
@Selaphiel  
…  
OK. But can you understand the implication that propaganda using fiction exists, has existed for a very, very long time, and at a large scale, so clearly some people do think fiction can influence reality?
 
And can you understand that just because person A has the mental fortitude and independence to chose to not be influenced does not mean that person B does, and that person B won’t then negatively influence person A? Because, like, everyone is different, and a whole lot of people are… stupid?
 
 
Like, listen. I get it, fiction is fiction, and a lot of people take caring about what fiction depicts way too damn far. But it’s absurd to believe that fiction can’t be made with the intention of influencing people, or that it can do so out of carelessness. A whole lot could be said about the topic, but can we please not pretend it’s just a black and white “fiction is reality” vs “nothing depicted in fiction can have any effect whatsoever on reality”?

@The Frowning Pony  
STUPID people will always exist. But that doesn’t mean we should punish the smart ones.

@Selaphiel  
Stupid people existing is why you need a drivers license to operate a vehicle. Sure, all the smart people can probably manage just fine without, but it just takes one stupid person to drive into a restaurant and kill all the smarties inside.

@The Frowning Pony  
This is why we can’t have nice things…

@The Frowning Pony  
[cough cough]
 

 
Sometimes I wonder if we should require a license to operate books.

@Derpy Whooves  
“Licenses” are tools abused by the establishments to gatekeep industries.
 
As soon as we require license for “free speech”, it’s Game Over.

@Selaphiel  
“Licenses” are a tool to keep assholes with no skills from doing brain surgery, and idiots who can’t be trusted to not drive drunk off of the road.
 
As soon as we require “no licenses” for anything because of some over inflated need for “free speech no matter the consequences”, it’s Game Over.