OK, I normally don't come to this forum, but I have a concern to share.

As of lately, I see more and more open source including a code of conduct, sometimes due to external pressure, sometimes from their own accord. I can agree that sometimes it's useful to set out a few guidelines for contributing in a project, forum, or whatnot. Although most people tend to behave, making a few rules explicit isn't always a bad thing. And when written correctly, such a guideline could help encourage people to contribute.

However, after researching a bit, I have come to the conclusion that most of these codes of conduct, and escpecially the rather popular contributor covenant code of conduct as written by Coraline Ada, (https://github.com/ContributorCovenant/contributor_covenant) is not written with the best interests of FLOSS developers in mind. Rather, it seems to be a sneaky trojan horse that will be used against us at a more appropriate time for political reasons.

While the contents of the covenant itself are a mixed bag, with some good and some bad in it, the thing that tipped me off is that an actual USA lawer (https://www.quora.com/Is-a-Code-of-Conduct-a-legal-document) who informally confirmed that this code of conduct is a legaly binding document on the part of the contributors.

This means means that if you implement this, any idiot who feels offended can come in, trap you with a situation where you are unable to formulate a timely response, complain that you are not following the code to which you legally bound yourself, and sue you for damages. Furthermore I fear that this particular code of conduct was most likely written with the hidden intent of enabling this scenario. That why I would recommend that none of you implement this particular code of conduct for your FLOSS projects.

Furthermore if you do accept or devise yourself a code of conduct, then it seems advisable to add a prominent disclaimer that participation in your project is at the own risk of the participant. I may be getting a bit too suspicious, but I have seen what happens to those who aren't so. I wish I we lived in a world where such disclaimers weren't necessary, but I fear that that is not at all the case any more.

I've been 100% against CoC since I first saw them. They're absolutely a political push that is corrupting what has been a utopia of free thought and experimentation.

If you pay attention, the people who push for CoC (and things like that), are almost never pioneers. They're always people who see someone else's hard work, and then try to control it through guilt and emotions. They don't invent. They latch on to other people's work like a parasite, and then try to steer it in a direction they want.

Any large organization attracts those kind of people. "Nesters." People who don't care about driving the mission further, they only care about making a comfortable space to socialize in. And because nobody can agree on what comfortable is, they invariably inject an atmosphere of toxicity into the whole organization. There is no clear hierarchy (who is more "progressive?", who is more "inclusive?", I AM!), so the war is always on to get more people on their side so they can do things like exclude someone they hate by doing something passive aggressive like not inviting ONE person out to lunch when everyone else goes. It's highschool clicks in the adult world. Childish, pettiness, masquerading as "justice" and "progress."

But the fact you're saying those are legally binding? That's actually shocking. That means you're handing anyone with a political agenda a gun, and saying "Please don't use this on me." It's like willingly signing a Chilling Effect contract.

This is also why they hate Meritocracy. Why? Because in a proper organization, the people who are smartest and doing the most work steer the organization. They don't want to do work. They just want to use guilt as a fast-pass into the control room. They're either too lazy, or too incompetent to compete AND THEN steer the world, so instead they say "competing is wrong. So let me jump straight to control and influence."

Github was already infected with these hive-minded emocratic cultists:
http://theralphretort.com/github-censors-gamergate/

That Github will hire an obvious troublemaker like that Coraline Ada is a bad sign for the organization. It's unbelievable to me that the usually intelligent people that work in open source can't see that this woman is a cult member who wants to drag everyone else into her crazy world.

@Chris: I knew I'm not the only one, thanks for confirming that . I think it borders on iditic that contemporary feminist criticise meritocracy simply because some organisations claim to be meritocratic but are nt so in reality . That's like saying democracy is bad because the Democratic Republic of Congo is not really democratic.

@Tothu: Github is a big organisation and as such more prone to pressure from such groups. The fact that Coaline Ada was hired by Github and other incients point a sort of appeasement strategy on their part.

Of course I'd be surprised if she does anything useful there. Basically many of these shitstorms seem to have the ulterior motive of getting certain people well paid jobs in which they essentialy have can continue their political struggle without doing anything useful. Or to allow them to continue to be guest speakers at certain events for 20k $ a pop.

I can understand why Github attempts an appeasement strategy. For such an organisation it's hard to stand up and say no. The bad point is that they got infiltrated with these kind of people, though. For the time being, I am stil making use of Github for their open source hosting. But if the day ever comes that they try to force a legally binding document on my projects, then I will probably be forced to most my projects myself on some hired VM.

I think Coralin Ada's behavior on the Opal project speaks for itself. Let's think for one moment here: My friend sees a comment that offends them on Twitter by someone involved in an open source project. As a reasonable adult, what is my reaction? The first thing in my mind would be to simply ignore it, and tell my friend to cool down. After all, the internet swarms with people with different opinions, . If the comment sounded especially wrong to me, I may make a comment about it, or in the worst case write an article about it. Never in my mind would it occur to me to attack the person who wrote the comment and try to get him banned from his own project! The ability to disagree civilly even on controversial topics is one of the pillars of western civilisation.

Edit: Oh my, maybe my attempts to try to salvage the Coc for it's stated purpose in stead of the bludgeon it is now are not falling into good earth:

https://github.com/ContributorCovenant/contributor_covenant/issues/41#issuecomment-232145279
(archive:)
http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fweb.archive.org%2Fweb%2F20160712191145%2Fhttps%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2FContributorCovenant%2Fcontributor_covenant%2Fissues%2F41&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNF5unzIbbyMSHVdaDp82PWUVJERpg

Well, maybe there is no talking to these people, but at least I tried.

Edit 2: Interesting how I'm accused of being unwelcoming, but a supporter of theirs who is equally dismissive isn't. Oh well... I doubt my esteemed adversary will take up the challenge I raised.

Perhaps I'm out of the loop, but I fail to see how this has a place at all in Open Source software. If the code is worth committing, accept the pull request. If it isn't good, ignore the pull request. I honestly don't care what kind of person committed it.

If someone is a misogynistic asshole, I'd encourage them to go fornicate with themselves. I don't like religious dogmatists, new-wave feminists, racists, or a handful of other groups that I think are oppressive. I fail to see how this affects their code contributions, though. Thanks for the bugfix, you've done the world a service. You're still an asshole though.

Well I'd ignore a pull request from Linus Torvalds, for example. And then I'd use my new lucid powers to great effect... until I wake up.

Such is life.

Is... is that some kind of super-class sarcasm, or would you really ignore a request from Torvalds?

Wow.

Please see: in your dreams (idiom), lucid dreaming, sleep, dreaming.

While a code of conduct like this seems a little overkill, I really can't say I disagree with anything in the document itself... but yeah.. it's a good code of conduct to follow. [Edit] .. the allegro.cc agreement is a legally binding document too!

Did you read it?
http://contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/

Basically, you can be booted from the project if some decides to "take offense" to something you said. Or if you criticize the views of a team member that see this document as a weapon for their own political agenda (which is exactly what it is).

This implies to me that modifications are allowed, but I can't find the text describing how you're expected to go about it. I assume because of the MIT license that modifications can be freely made just as you would with source code. You can't claim to have the Contributor Covenant at that point, but the document still says it's adapted from it. You might be able to have some fun with that by adapting from it a contradictory CoC. Just a thought.

Append:

The well established hacker, Eric Raymond, past maintainer of the hacker jargon file and author of fetchmail, for example, has blogged on the topic and I feel he's expressed it better than we probably would if we tried: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6918. None of the social justice issues matter to the software. In particular, it doesn't matter to the project if you're a racist rapist as long as your contributions to the project are good. What you do in your own time doesn't reflect the projects you contribute to, nor should it. It's completely irrelevant.

It doesn't say that explicitly, which line?

I'd need to see an example, as that is not in the document itself. Is there a specific situation where this happened, or are you being hypothetical?

Some people are just too crass for working as part of a team, and this document would get rid of them.

[edit]
Just to clarify, almost every workplace here in Canada has similar codes of conduct.

Without specifically defining all of the wrongdoings they're completely open to interpretation which means that telling somebody they're wrong could be misconstrued as harassment. Essentially, the document doesn't actually do anything to keep the community safe or civil: no document is needed for that because moderators of project spaces always have the freedom to correct behavior that they find inappropriate (and they did long before SJWs complained). The only thing the document does do is potentially make the project liable to damages if somebody decides they've been wronged by the project's community and don't feel that the "leadership" personnel acted appropriately to protect them from it. It essentially puts the project at risk by outsiders by making a legal claim that wrongdoings must be dealt with.

That said, keep in mind that it's a living document. It used to have far more worrisome wording in previous revisions. The latest (at least the one that I just read) doesn't seem so bad except for failing to precisely define the wrongdoings and guaranteeing action by the project.

Legally, no. Do you have any proof from the document to support this claim?

That's why I said it's overkill for most projects, this is just an outline of how to be a decent person.

How does it "make" it that way? They're liable for these types of things without the document. The Internet is just horribly policed.

The following things are illegal to do:

The two lines that are not necessarily covered directly by law and are open to interpretation:

.. but is it those lines that are the concern?

The OP already referenced a comment by an alleged lawyer stating that the document could be considered a legally binding contract depending on how the project adopts it.

As for the wrongdoings being open to interpretation unless they are defined exactly, they're just words obviously open to interpretation. They have different definitions by different groups. For example, a Feminist group would consider a man they aren't attracted to giving them a compliment as harassment. It's not a criminal matter so criminal law doesn't really matter. It would be up to the two plaintiffs in a civil court to make their case either way and it would be up to the judge to make a decision.

The point is, ordinarily there is no expectation for places to be free of these things. As long as no criminal laws are broken the law doesn't care. This could change that. Even if a judge finds you not liable, it could still take thousands of dollars in court fees to arrive there..

Generally, no. Sexualized language and imagery are not illegal in themselves. It could be determined that they were given context, but as a rule it's not illegal (and certainly not worth the time and money to punish it most of the time).

Unwelcome sexual attention or advances are generally not illegal either. Certainly sexual assault is illegal, but it's generally open to interpretation again what that exactly is. Some would argue kissing a girl that didn't want to be kissed is sexual assault. And maybe they're right. At the same time, sexual advances typically aren't preceded by explicit consent, in large part because women tend to find that unattractive and expect men to take risks.

Whether or not it's assault would generally hinge on whether or not the accused ought to have known the attention or advances were unwanted or if the accused was persistent after being told no. It's a very gray area of law because it's impossible to keep everybody happy as well as impossible to keep everybody safe without contradicting human nature.

There's a difference online. In person you generally don't have the ability to reasonably escape from it and there's typically no reason you should have to. When it comes to online harassment you always have a choice. Simply walk away from the computer.

SJW's complain that harassment is systemic online, but it's not true that everywhere you go people are being intentionally harmful. The SJW's are just hypersensitive and just have too strict of a definition. Certain spaces "online" are traditionally a "boy's club" and boys behave in different ways than girls. That's not wrong. Just different. If girl's want to come into the clubhouse the boys don't have to change the rules to suit the girls. The girls have to accept that the boy's club isn't a girl's club and deal with it or leave. They tend to have a hard time understanding that.

Legitimate harassment is a serious problem and should be dealt with by police. Having your anonymous "avatar" called names by somebody on the Internet is not harassment. You can usually mute or ignore them, report them to moderators, and if none of that is available or suitable then it probably indicates that your presence is a privilege, not a right, and you should simply leave if you don't like it. You can create your own space for like-minded people.

Physical addresses are public information (i.e., typically phone books contain them, not to mention the outside of mail, the unsecured side). Similarly, electronic addresses (e.g., email addresses and IP addresses) are not private information. They are routinely shared across the entire Web in forwarding chains.

Again, privacy laws might restrict businesses and organizations that are collecting your information, but that wouldn't typically affect individuals.

It's really the hidden intention of the document that's the concern. The author of it has tried to have a regular contributor to a project exiled for what he said online unrelated to the project. Arguably she tried to bully/harass him because she didn't agree with what he said. Given her actions and the lack of an apology or admissions of guilt I have to conclude that she thinks that's reasonable behavior. I have to assume that her intention behind creating this document is to make that easier to do in the future. That should never be done so I definitely don't want them to make it easier to do it. The open source community is run by some of the smartest people in the world. Very open minded people. It's absolute bullshit to accuse them of blatant ismses when in reality they're probably some of the most willing people to change their mind when they're found to be wrong. I find this entire thing to be an attack on open source by people that don't care about software. That aren't welcome because they don't want to be there, not because of prejudice.

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/02/25/github-hires-notorious-social-justice-warrior-to-work-on-anti-harassment/

And it was speculation..... If you actually read it it's not very conclusive, suggests that you would need to post a notice to accompany the document, and does not reference any concerns in particular, cites no references, and has no basis in reality.

I doubt it.

As a general rule, this is sexual harassment. Just because it's often unpoliced doesn't mean you can sexually harass fellow contributors if you don't adopt this code.

The law states there is not.

We disagree here. Just because a person is anonymous does not mean you have the right to harass them Are you serious here?

Again, not legally. You can make it public, but your address is private information until you explicitly share it with the public, such as by allowing companies to publish in the white pages.

Do they have any success stories with their intention? Has anyone actually been sued or is this just what you think could happen to some jerk on the internet?

[edit]
That Breitbart article was a good read, but those two examples aren't really good examples of misuse or unintended use of the code or abuse of censorship. If you're going to associate yourself and your account on a network with a project and post hateful remarks, then wouldn't that project maintainer want to remove you? You're not following the code, you just shouldn't be there if you hold those kinds of opinions about other people and make them public on that network. Post them anonymously like all the other rejects if you have something hateful to say.

One of several issues with this is that it covers way more than what most sane people would consider to be "hateful remarks". This is more like the authoritarian left's version of blasphemy.

Which part? Work places typically have similar policies (that are also legally binding).

Take off your blinders, man. Do you even know what the term "social justice warrior" means? Do you really want to risk being booted from a project because you told a joke that the most incompetent person on the team "found offensive", and then proceeded to use that opportunity to take their misery out on someone else?

It's a pejorative, which some would categorize as falling under hate speech, heh.

Yes, precicely

Well according to one "social justice warrior" feminist, if you lie, get caught, and are told daily by people that you are a liar,even though it is true; it is harassment. The legal definition also is so vague that literally anything can be considered harassment lately.

Well, this ideology (which was created and is perpetuated by Western feminists in the academia in the US) is the religion of the stupid, the incompetent, the uninformed, the weak, and the useless. If they lived in an Islamic country, none of them would do anything at all. They would just shut up and suffer in silence. Which makes it even more insane that, in their world, muslims is a protected class that needs to have their religious views unchallenged. But in the West, these feminists have the freedom to be crybullies, and to spread their insane, hateful ideology.

Just look at what they have done to many European countries, like Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, or Belgium. Or the UK. Or to Canada, which now has a complete idiot as a prime minister. It's unbelieveable.

Legal advice is always speculation. Either there's a precedent set that matches it exactly and the advice is concrete, or there's related precedent that leads the expert to his conclusions and it's a best guess, or they have no fucking idea and can only guess what a judge will say based on their experiences with related matters in court. Ultimately there are no guarantees. Judges can even break from precedent where they feel it's appropriate. It would have to go to court and have a judge make a decision. And again and again until we were really sure of much of anything. That's a potentially expensive and damaging way to get an answer.

Oh, well now I feel better! Derezo doubts it!

Clearly you haven't seen any of the "cat calling" videos made by the Feminists for YouTube.

I was unaware of the OHRC until you posted that link so I had to do some research. Dear, god, how the fuck are these people funded by the tax payers? Fuck them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Tribunal_of_Ontario#Controversial_decisions

It's essentially a SJW arm of the government. Their description of harassment is mostly reasonable, except for...

It's good that it specifies the part about "known or ought to be known to be unwelcome." However, note that this is entirely subjective. Different people will have different lines to cross at different times. And "unwelcome" is simply too permissive. Some people would find criticism of their ideas or work "unwelcome". That shouldn't make it harassment, but obviously if the definition is so vague anything is possible.

It's also worth noting the terminology used...

"Annoying?" That's pretty open ended. Essentially, the definition is vague enough so that anything could be considered harassment. A SJW might insist that it's annoying that you wear socks and sandals. Maybe she gets very upset at the sight of it. That would technically fit the definition. If she makes this known to you are you required to not wear socks and sandals? Is it really causing her any harm? Is it really any of her business? The problem with "harassment" is that it's so incredibly subjective. I've already explained that. This doesn't change that.

Holy Christ, lack of money!? That's a terribly ironic example for this particular case. Could a woman that works part time make a harassment claim because she is only earning part-time pay and it's distressing that she can't afford her bills?!

Fuck it, can I make that same claim working full-time because I'm struggling to pay mine?

Wow, now confusing somebody or thwarting their plans fits the definition too! This is getting incredibly relaxed. Better be careful interacting with women and minority groups in the work place! Maybe it would be best to avoid them entirely!

The law is referring to legitimate harassment. Merely being called a name is not something the police will worry about. In fact, a man could call a woman a name in the street in front of a police officer and he probably wouldn't even flinch 9 times out of 10 (and that 10th time he was probably going to flinch anyway). Now if he threatens her or goes too far with it then the policeperson might intervene, depending on their own sensitivities, but there's a blurry, wide line between legal and illegal. Again it's subjective, but typically, the kinds of things that happen online that girls and women complain about are not criminal. We know this because alongside them are other girls and women and other minority group members that are enjoying in the fun.

Again, harassment is a serious charge. Merely calling somebody a name is not harassment. For example, when somebody posts an idea to the Linux kernel mailing list that Linus disagrees with it is not harassment when Linus replies back calling that person an idiot. It's simply communication. The idea is so bad that Linus is insulting your intelligence. It's not that big of a deal. Linus is not a criminal for it.

I suspect that this is highly specific to jurisdictions. From what I can tell it's regulated how government and private companies use and distribute your private information, but not individuals. Nothing I've found defined your home address as private information. On the contrary, they all said it's public information.

I'm uncertain. "OpalGate" is what started it all and is essentially a precursor to the Contributor Covenant. It was created after the fact to presumably make this easier in the future, and in particular to make projects required to do it.

Here's a well reasoned discussion about this in relation to that:

http://paul-m-jones.com/archives/6214

Perhaps a better question is, have contributions to projects adopting the CoC changed since its adoption, and for the better or worse. I seriously doubt that much of anything has changed. If anything productivity has probably gone down with the distraction and divisive politics.

I think that a read through this issue thread for Ruby's adoption helps to signal their intention pretty clearly: https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/12004. They aren't satisfied unless there's required "enforcement" built into the "contract". Fortunately the BDFL of Ruby appears to be a smart person so it doesn't sound like he wants to adopt anything of that nature for obvious reasons.

There's also this issue thread, which has since allegedly been deleted without notice by GitHub staff, in which a social justice warrior angry that his pull request with the Contributor Covenant was rejected accuses the project of discrimination, asserting that the project lead doesn't understand because he's white (despite not being white, with the SJW even retorting that he sure looks white...), ultimately ending with the duplicate issue being closed and the SJW attempting to intimidate him into compliance by reporting it to the non-profit organization that oversees development of the project:

https://archive.is/dgilk

They hadn't even adopted it yet, but already the BDFL was being threatened with it. I think that's all the evidence any reasonable person needs.

How is it so difficult to explain that you should not approach another human being with foul intent?

Opal gate is one measly foul mouthed developer among hundreds of thousands of Open Source developers. I need at least a minimum of 10 names before I will even consider this to be any sort of serious witch hunt. Two measly right wing articles and a bunch of pejorative name calling isn't going to convince me that the people who follow this code and are welcoming in this way are not better people than those who do less to accept others.

I'm sorry. Nothing in this thread is convincing that the other side is better. It sounds like you want an excuse to be a bad person. These organizations don't want you to contribute to their projects. Get over it.

You are one big fucking strawman, dude.

I fear most of those complaining about codes of conduct, in this thread, don't even contribute to projects that would have codes of conduct (e.g., projects with many contributors), and thus are complaining just to complain...

Yes, I keep forgetting, we live in an age where you have to be connected to the thing you are complaining about in order to have an positive or negative opinion on it. Not like you can't see things happen around you and form an opinion due to it...like seeing a programmer permanently removed from a project for violating the code of conduct because a female contributor was "triggered" by a variable name in the code he wrote. Was the word really triggering? Don't know, when I heard about it they never revealed what the terrible word was. I'd have to look, but I think Randi Harper was on her Twitter account bragging about getting a guy removed from BSD over a false CoC claim. Of course Harper is a bully that likes to play the victim while actually bragging about people she bullied..real piece of work, that one.

I was making a jab at you lot bitching on the forums about non-existent issues, while never going on to do anything reasonable with the same time otherwise.

So you are jabbing at yourself too? Seeing as you spend your time bitching about our bitching. Seems you are just as counter-productive as "us lot".

People on Twitter bragging about using CoCs to remove people they don't like from projects they are working on is a non-existent problem? Way to have those blinders on, round of applause!

There's a gross difference in the time you spend on this and the time I do.

What I can't understand is why liberals care so much about CoC.

What's the benefit? What proof do we have of them actually producing quality products? If the world's greatest open source product, the Linux Kernel, was created before CoC (or feminists even knew what open source was), do we really need it?

You see, I can 100% relate to the experience of a good project being ruined by nesters. People who want control because their ego demands power, control, and/or acknowledgement of achievement. A war of people who want to debate what color to make the bicycle shed.

So there appear to be two sides here:

- People who are worried that a legal document forged by feminism could be used to destroy good projects, or at least smear them. [Case in damn point. Someone's twitter has no bearing on their professional capabilities. The definition of a professional requires someone who can keep their personal and work lives separate anyway--so no code of conduct is required other than "be professional" which is already an implied requirement.] Their emotions stem from a rational, experienced fear, of manipulation of projects by politics.

- There are people, who for the life of me, I cannot understand. They think the Code of Conduct should be enforced and are extremely emotional... but why? What's the emotion coming from? Do they think without a CoC people are going to be excluded? People are going to be shamed? And, let's assume those things DO happen, what's the horrific end result? Someone is either discouraged and doesn't contribute. Or, someone says "Screw you" and forks the repo anyway and makes their own contributions.

Other than silly, childish, petty edge case of "they don't like me and said something MEAN TO ME!" what is the freaking downside, and why can't feminists here (or anywhere else) actually qualify the downside and the actual, tangible benefits of a CoC? And why can't they admit that adding a legally binding document to an OPEN-SOURCE community is a dangerous attack on the freedom of ideas that has produced some of the greatest software ever designed.

It's entirely possible for an open-source project to be run by aggressive personalities, and yet be the greatest software ever because in their war of ideas the only ones that stand the flames are the good ones. That's not the ONLY way to collaborate on a project. But feminism and CoC are literally saying that there is only one way to collaborate and that feminists should decide it. That's insane on the face of it and that exact mindset is why our schools in the USA are such trash. Large, far away, political organizations deciding what can and can't be said, HOW things can and can't be taught, by adding rules for the sake of rules, only for them all to be abused (Zero Tolerance anyone?) and the end result is a complete trash of an education system.

So it makes perfect sense for anarchists and "hacker culture" to be weary of outside forces deciding when and how they can act, collaborate, and create.

We can talk about making every one "Feel good" all we want. But in the real world, the people who actually produce are going to be the ones who lead. And they're not going to care about our silly changing-with-the-wind mentalities about the best way to collaborate.

And even if you don't care about end productivity, it's an insane thing to want to control other people's projects. If they're productive, it's none of your damn business how they achieve that productivity. So Aaron, to use your own logic against you, you have no right to complain about people who don't like CoC because they're happy and productive without your meddling and they've been productive decades longer than any project with a feminist-decided CoC has.

Finally, to quote the Opalgate, where-in feminists literally attempted to attack a valid, productive project over complete pettiness:

I think if the CoC was designed by conservatives in 1995, and "offensive" included any mention of being gay or trans (something that was "obviously illegal and wrong" to our culture in 1995.), it'd be pretty darn clear to liberals how broken the CoC is.

Here's one guy's take on how this comes about:

It's perfectly fine for them not to adopt the CoC as well.

One reason to adopt this type of code, as you said there was no benefit, is to protect your brand. Imagine if there were a group of aggressive, socially loud developers who started to associate your project with some sort of negative publicity related to something that would be a violation in this code. Other companies may choose not to adopt your project based on the bad publicity or the affiliation of it and it may conflict with their own policies.

I really don't think it's a big deal, myself. I would sure hope that a contributor who has contributed a great deal to a project would have a fair shake in the judgement process of the project that he's on. That type of atmosphere is not directly related to this code though..

I 100% get your point. The problem is that when the majority of all monopolistic tech firms endorse this kind of thinking, then minority developers have no choice but to follow them unless they want to pay the price (which is sometimes prohibitively expensive).

- Github has a CoC. They WILL take down things they see as offensive. (Google it for plenty of examples.)

That means the BIGGEST website that is known throughout all levels of the tech community and has tons of social networking, and job / resume building applications cannot be used if you go outside of their CoC.

The majority of developers cannot afford to run a cloud-backed-up server to host their little javascript applets.

- Facebook takes down conservative viewpoints.

Imagine how terrible YouTube would be if they (and Google) acted the same way? Where they banned you from using Google Groups, Google Docs, and so on if you merely use their product, not for clearly illegal things like actual harassment, child porn, and so on, but merely to voice to non-majority opinions?

Well, then you'd have Twitter.

AND, it gets even worse. Because Reddit last year went through this whole SJW onslaught and everyone kept saying over and over, "If you don't like it, leave." Well, guess what happened? People DID leave and made a site called Voat, and what happened to Voat? Feminists DDoS'd it into the ground for months in order to keep people from leaving and enjoying their own independent community. They also sent the ISP letters that the site was a "known pedophilia ring."

Apparently, you can either get with the majority, or enjoy being DDoS, SWAT'ed, and accused of being a child molester.

And lastly, if SJW thinking is such a good thing, why are these companies that are enacting SJW idealogies such crappy places to work?

https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/21/reddit-is-still-in-turmoil/

Apparently Reddit, the angel of morality which even banned negotiating for pay raises ("Because it hurts teh womyns!"), is full of toxic people, full of sexism, full of sexual harassment complaints against BOTH men and women. It's also full of fear of being suddenly fired.

Some liberal utopia! Turns out you can't legislate respect for your fellow human beings. You have to actually lead, reward merit, and hire professional people. People who produce, not people who want to control. You know... a meritocracy.

Here's a company that only hired women. (100% "diversity"!) It did not go well.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1168182/Catfights-handbags-tears-toilets-When-producer-launched-women-TV-company-thought-shed-kissed-goodbye-conflict-.html

Lastly, I know that CoC seems progressive. But let's think about a topic that is MORE progressive than current progressives and therefor will seem like "being gay" did in the 90's. Polygamy should be legal. That's not my preference, I'm not personally arguing for it, but if the ONLY metric is "between consenting adults" then why should it be restricted to two adults? Why isn't Polygamy in the CoC and supported among the roof-tops among progressives? Because they're not actually critical thinkers. They learned their ideology. That's all they know, it's how the world "should be", and moving further progressive seems insane.

I bet you money, Github and et al would ban pro-polygamy projects, discussions, and groups. Because it's not about morality. It's about following an ideology. A set of liberal defined rules and rights and wrongs. Not "all right and wrong", just the ones they care about.

Super super lastly, check out this insane idea of the NCoC. (No Code Of Conduct.) Based solely on the idea that people are expected to behave like adults, and contributions matter only based on merit.

https://github.com/domgetter/NCoC

Could you imagine a world where Academic Papers were rejected solely because the authors had opinions the liberal majority didn't like? How many papers throughout history would be burned Fahrenheit-451-style? Should we throw away Edison's, Newton's, and other scientists' accomplishments because they don't agree with the current political zeitgeist?

If you believe Facebook or GitHub is in the wrong when they take down a project or page they feel is against their code of conduct, the only options you have, assuming they don't listen, are some variations of not using the service.

You wouldn't tolerate me coming into your property and being rude or voicing my far-left views, regardless of whether your property is your home or a business or something else. You barring me from your property, however, is perfectly acceptable.

In this case, GitHub's website is essentially their property. The same goes for universities, etc.

Freedom of speech is only a mechanism to protect you from government overreach. By no means can you voice your views wherever and however, regardless of what they are. There is no obligation for anyone to listen to you, and similarly, there is no obligation for a private entity (people or organizations) to support you.

I think you're missing the part where these are private companies making organizational decisions that are designed to exclude people who poison the well. To be honest, it looks like It's Super Effective!

Reddit and Github are privately owned companies. They're not the worst of them by any stretch of the imagination.

I would hope I could invest in the turmoil! Alphabet falls under a bit of a different umbrella and is a much bigger cog in the machine -- because it is a public company, not a private one. If they truly did make a bad move I would hope to profit from it.

Public companies Twitter and Facebook have different reasons for enacting their censorship as well.

I don't really agree with a lot of things Facebook does and they do far more extreme things than what people are complaining about in this thread. They censor on a much further level than this and that is a whole other discussion. I do still use it, but I use it within limits and understand it's failures enough to avoid them as much as I can. I also realize that I am in no way forced to do so (I don't actually use Twitter and care little about celebrities, famous people, or generally other people's opinions ).

Our job market is one of the best job markets to be in right now. There is such high demand and the pay is increasing. If they pay their employees poorly and treat them poorly, they're going to go elsewhere and there is a hell of a lot of elsewhere to go.

Instead of bending over and trying to appease this vocal minority of extremists we should be raising our voices and pushing back against their attempts to police thought. Every time somebody loses their job for matters outside of the business we should be calmly hushing the mob and reminding them that the actions of an employee in his spare time do not represent the company. There's absolutely no reason to hold the company accountable for that, and I think that if more companies just stood against it they'd quickly find that ... business goes on as usual.

For an open source project it makes even less sense to bend over to this abuse of society. The project probably isn't being funded by anyone. The developers are doing this for fun and their own personal gains. If a company doesn't want to use software because it's partially developed by a person with unpopular ideas then that's their loss. Redeveloping that software or finding a replacement will probably cost way more than $0. It doesn't hurt the project in the least unless they're offering paid support contracts or something (e.g., the Mercurial project is open source, but Selenium was created as a consulting firm to provide support and to contract feature development).

Even still, you're opening the flood gates by giving these kinds of ideas any merit. It would blow over in a week or so if you just ignored it, but if you bow down to it not only are you on the PC shit-list already (because presumably your team is mostly male and there's no coming back for you), but you're also going to anger the free thinking hacker community. You'll lose credibility with the people that arguably should matter to you.

What's more is that you're asserting that a project needs a CoC in place in order to "fire" a contributor for bad behavior. You don't need anything. The BDFL or the leadership team or the owning company or whoever owns the project controls the project. They can get rid of anybody they want for any reason whatsoever. Especially if the contributor isn't a paid employee. You can fire them for being black. You can fire them for eating chicken on Tuesday. You can fire them for bleeding from their vagina. You can fire them for voicing shitty ideas. I don't think you should do any of these things, but you can.

@bamccaig
But remember? These are non-existent issues! I love when I see people say that line, as I've dealt with them for two years now and the scenario has been the exact same.

Blinder: Those are non-existent issues!
Me: Here is links to where the non-existent issue happened.
Blinder: Those are just remote cases.
Me: Yes, but remote cases of abuse encourages others to abuse the system to their favor.
Blinder: Still a non issue.

Look at gaming. Gamers were worried feminists attacking games would result in companies not porting games to the US. Critics, like MovieBob, said feminists weren't trying to take games. Yet several Japanese games have pulled US releases due to the "controversy over female representation". Critics still said it was a non-issue. Then when PlayAsia released those games to the US, the non-issue critics attacked them for making it available to US gamers. Even after they attacked PlayAsia, they still claimed they weren't trying to take games and that it was a non-issue.

Amazing how 'non-issues' can escalate to being an issue by those claiming it isn't an issue.

Hmmm....must be another non-issue.

It's not new for games produced in Japan and released in the United States to have been modified for the Western audiences when it comes to content...

This goes back to the NES at least.

I am ignoring it.

Interesting you changed the topic from "Japanese developers announcing they weren't releasing in the US due to the feminists attacks on female representation and not wanting to deal with that mob" to "localization".

If localization includes reducing sexual content, violence, etc, then yes, I suppose I did.

So you are one of THOSE people that want walking simulators and games like these and a games based off this.

Remove sexual content, violence, etc. and you might as well just go to an aunt or grandparents house and listen to them piss and moan about their life because it will be about as boring as the games made for that criteria.

Where did I say games must be censored?

I just pointed out game censorship to appeal to 'Western sensibilities' is a decades old phenomena. By no means did I indicate games should not have sexual content or violence.

Developers censoring their games (at their own behest, or that of their publisher) to maximize profit is no different than movies being edited to hit a target rating in order to maximize profit.

Frankly I don't care whether or not incredibly violent games, or games with gratuitous sexual content, exist and whether or not others play them. It's like mushrooms: I find them incredibly repulsive, but that just means I won't eat them and I don't care if someone else does.

For the record, I enjoy games like Bloodborne/Demon's Souls (albeit I found Dark Souls a bit unsatisfying in comparison), Eternal Darkness, Uncharted, etc. How are these games like "watching grass simulator" or Barbie games ?

One way of explaining why this document sucks is that it's a case of the old solution looking for a problem.

Anyway, I just came across this video of a girl that used to be an SJW. She talks a bit about the whole madness works, and why it's bad for the people that take part in it:

I'm not talking censorship, though there are feminist groups that are calling for older games be 'fixed' to remove gore, tone down violence, and cover up cases of sexualized women. Hell Anita Sarkeesian and her business partner had a fit over the E3 Fallout 4 and Doom trailers because the room erupted in applause. They think all those games should be boo'ed and gone completely.

No, I mean "THOSE people" that don't want new games to have violence, sexual content, gore, etc. at all. They want games like Home Alone, Freshman Year, Witness, etc. One anti-game feminist actually told me he would have liked Resident Evil franchise more if they removed the zombies, remove the guns and fights, and just made it nothing but the puzzles to unravel the story line. I'm talking about the ones that want games to not have any of that as part of the design process.

Feminists have blamed all mass shootings on video games. They blame them for "toxic masculinity". They even have their own "researchers" that publish papers claiming games do cause men to be violent, sexist, or whatever the buzzword of the month is. Yet they ignore that men have been violent back before even electricity was utilized in homes. They ignore that while game popularity continues to increase, crime is decreasing. They act like all games are designed for 10 year old and younger when talking about games that clearly are marked 17+ or 18+ depending on region.

This all blew up when game sites published opinion pieces attacking its reader base and then acting like it was some sort of misunderstanding when gamers got pissed.

CoC just adds icing to the top of the Feminist cake as it gives them easier leverage to make false claims in order to get people they don't like or disagree with off a project.

Yes, I know you want to keep saying this is a non-existent issue even though men have been removed from projects by women claiming CoC violations that didn't exist. Just like people still claim women falsely accusing men of rape is a non-existent issue while ignoring the UVA fiasco or the lacrosse player fiasco.

OR

You have incredibly poor reading comprehension skills and create whimsical ideas of what I believe to pin me in the feminist boogeyman trope of yours for some bizarre reason. Why?

I don't think the argument is that these problems are non-existant, but rather that it's worth these minor costs to make an effort in that direction for the projects that would adopt it. It's not happening on a wide scale, these are isolated incidents (and not necessarily unjustified from what I've read).

I wonder if you'd consider it a minor cost if you were the one being kicked out because some crybully got offended that you don't believe everything that they do.

[edit]

Perfect Ph.D. that hits to the crux of my earlier questions. What is it that neo-liberals are basing their entire thought-process on?

"Care."

Care for "victim groups."

And the sacralization of those victim groups.

And how when you sacralize something, that means there are "no trade offs" and you're willing to violate the other liberal tenets of “fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority, sanctity" if you need to.

All of it from a liberal Ph.D. Jew from NYU.

Just to chime in with my 2c, what is it with all the liberal labeling? Isn't that just a dirty word for democrat? I'm a democrat, and I consider myself liberal, in the sense that I am for change, but I am not what you might call a "bleeding heart liberal" in the same derogatory sense as everyone else here seems to be using it. </2c>.

Well Democrats were the ones that wanted to pass bills that ban the sells of violent games to kids which would negate the whole point of the ESRB. The whole point of the ESRB is to rate games so retailers won't sell any games rated M to kids younger than 17 years of age. I'm Republican, but Democrats are the kings of making issues out of non-existent problems or side step the real issue to blame others (like mass shootings). Instead of focusing on mental health they want to blame the guns and gun manufacturers. Does that mean we need to blame pressure cooker companies for the Boston Marathon Bombers? Then of course it is also Democrats that say blaming mental health is a cop-out. No person of stable mind would think killing another human being was good.

This article brings up an important point. Games are an art form like any other and if developers are made to censor their work by cutting down violence, sexual content, etc. where will it stop? If you censor one type of art, then they will start calling for censorship of art, literature, et. al. Second article about the Sanders, Clinton, and Trump being anti-game.

Feminists have, in fact, called for censorship of games, comics, music, television, movies, and more. Two years ago they gave the exact same stance Aaron did about reducing them, but now, because some devs caved to them, they have become rabid and demanding complete removal of tropes they don't like, violence, sexual objectification, et. al. that "triggers" them.

Feminists have blatant double standards, they threw a fit over a Spider Woman art cover due to the stance she was in; screaming it was sexist, but they didn't see any issue with Spider-Man who has been drawn in the same stance for decades. Feminists get people fired for bullshit reasons and it is fine, but when a feminist is fired from their job for legit reasons they start claiming the company is sexist, racist, misogynist, or whatever label/buzzword they can throw at it trying to pressure them into hiring the person back.

How about the latest trend of Feminists claiming women can't be sexist and minorities can't be racist. If you say they can, they give the line "Reverse sexism and reverse racism doesn't exist." They are right, they don't because it is simply sexist and racist and they can go both ways.

How about when gamers started pointing out corruption in 2014 and was met with feminist critics publishing a slew of anti-gamer articles on gamer oriented sites? There were even archived instances where anti-gamer feminists would offer game codes for Smash Bros or other popular games if they would tweet sexist or racist things under a certain hashtag, but the media ignored that to sell gamers as sexist hate mobs that lived in their parent's basement with no lives or girlfriends.

Yes, I've seen everyone claim that while others were being removed from a project, but it becomes a completely different story when you are the one that is being removed due to false allegations of breaking CoC.

People have become so freaking babied that they apparently can't handle variable names now.

History shows us how minor issues, when ignored, grow to become huge issues, but why learn from history since it seems everyone is happy trying to relive it.

No need for a false allegation (I just noticed the irony of allegation, anybody else?). You can be legitimately "wrong" by the wording of the CoC and have done nothing definitively wrong. That's the problem with it. Political correctness is not a universal law that we discovered in the universe. It's just some group of ideas that the popular kids in class have decided are popular right now. Not just popular, but powerful. Not right. Just popular. Do I need to go over other popular ideas? Note, if you live in the USA "evolution" isn't one of them. Even if you don't, popular ideas aren't particularly good.

It's an easy snake oil to sell. "You believe female humans deserve not to be beaten to death with a steel penis, don't you? THEN YOU'RE ONE OF US, HERE'S YOUR STICKER AND BALLOON!"

There no room for, "Yes, but..." in the discussion. You're either "in" or you're out (it's much easier to be out than in, and much easier to become out than in, but I'm digressing). The problem with the Contributor Covenant as it stands is that its primary focus seems to be on required enforcement by law. In other words, if somebody can be argued to have breached the Contributor Covenant adopted by a project then the project may be subject to litigation to determine if the project acted appropriately in punishing that person. It doesn't even matter if you punish them. Presumably, they can target you even if they aren't satisfied with your punishment. I.e., if you didn't tie them to a wooden cross surrounded in firewood and ignited while chanting "girl power" then you failed to meet the requirements.

Again there's no need for a CoC to enforce rules in a community. Projects have existed for decades without a "Contributor Covenant" and have enforced rules. Surely anybody here that isn't completely new to the Internet has had the experience of coming to a new community, an enthusiastic virgin only to be scorned for poor behavior and reluctantly directed towards the FAQ or rules or whatever. No SJW's necessary to not be an asshole. Best yet, no overly sensitive people welcome either. Nobody on the Internet cares if your uterus is purging its lining from a failed cycle of receptivity. Have good ideas and respond in the appropriate format or be prepared to weather the beating. That's not an unreasonable expectation from volunteers whose time is very valuable. Fortunately there are typically various "tiers" of communication channels to give beginners a "safe space" to ask stupid questions. No Feminism required.

Our "industry", profession, and hobby houses some of the most rational minds on the planet by virtue of it's traditionally required secret handshake of being able to understand logic. Closed minds are unwelcome.

That's not to say that there aren't plenty of "professionals" in the industry that can't do the handshake, but strictly speaking you don't need to be in the club to start a business. Being a "professional" doesn't entitle you to membership. It's unfortunate that these people continue to fill contracts and it's arguably a failure of the industry that they don't wither and die.

From personal experience in gaming spheres, typically the "safe feeling" of sensitive groups comes at the expense of my freedom. In other words, the boy's club is no longer a boy's club. You can't tell a sexist, FUNNY joke because somebody might be offended. You can't use swear words because somebody might believe that spook will torture them for hearing it. Essentially take all of the fun out of games for non-neutered males. While they're at it they will try to police user content to be G-rated while playing a "mature" game. It's OK for their 7 year old to "headshot" a police officer, but Heaven forbid you say or type "damn" just in case they're playing.

What if the situation was reversed? What if I insisted that a hair salon play rap music and its stylists joke about murder and rape? That's essentially what is being done, but in reverse. I challenge you to qualify without subjective ideals why one is more legitimate than the other.

Boys tend to be a bit more "raunchy" than girls. Nobody is paying the girls to show up to the gaming scene. If they decide to play the boy's games they have no privilege, right, or special power to change it. We have just as much say as they do. If there's more of us then we can just say, NO. We like it how it is. Very much. It is a boy's club. If you want to join then you better like that too or at least deal with it. If you don't then feel free to create your own group. Let the two compete and see where the majority of players prefer to play. Based on personal experiences I suspect the result won't be the PC one.

There are plenty of female gamers that embrace the "raunchy" community. They [appear to] love it the way it is. The few SJWers that are kicking around are hated and muted and only tolerated insofar as they can't hurt us once they're muted, but if they realize their ineffectiveness and try to hack us they are instantly banned...

I can only speak from my experience in recent years with SJWs and I don't think there are many projects that adopt CoC that won't be subjected to SJW manipulation. The GamerGate controversy showcases their determination to ruin everything just to run their ideology.

Most people ignored the GamerGate controversy or blindly believed the press that claimed it was a hate mob. Now with the DNC Leak and the press trying to cover it up I'm hoping it makes some people re-evaluate the articles about the revolt and see that they are grossly one-sided and always arguing in favor of the feminist arguments. I've been pro-GG from day one. A lot of people stated that it was all just paranoia, that nothing was going to come from this new wave of people hating on games...

Proposed education curriculum for Juniors and Seniors in high school, sounds rather anti-male.
Gamespot has already had a game review that docked points for "offensive language" and "blatantly objectifies women".

Game journalists are so full of themselves that they truly believe they control the game industry. Last year I saw a series of tweets that made me wonder if they really do. After all the controversy around GamerGate, a games journalist tweeted to the hashtag with a series of tweets that basically stated "Who cares if what we said about you wasn't 'true'. In the court of public opinion you're [gamers are] ruined. We won." Then you have developers like Tim Schafer who took a shot at GamerGate during the GDC event by basically claiming all of the upset gamers were just a few people with sock puppet accounts.

The glimmer of hope is that more and more developers like Bethesda are starting to blacklist the very game sites that published the ~18 anti-gamer articles and even more are ignoring or refusing to make comments to them due to their unethical and untrustworthy behavior.
This article is the first one I recall that didn't attack gamers.
Quite a few articles talk about the effect of feminism on gaming.
Brianna Wu and some feminists have actually talked about burning the industry to the ground and rebuilding it the way they want it to be [more women, fewer men]. Some meant it figuratively, others meant it literally.

Was Googling and found that feminists LOVE CoC...Found a few links.

Though, while doing that I stumbled upon this and died laughing: C+=, A new language for feminists.

People all for CoC.
People against CoC.
Blog about why one person doesn't want CoC.

The first link highlighted why CoC is potentially bad. Over the years, beginners asking the same question over and over got to where the veteran Allegro users replied with "RTFM". According to the CoC that would be viewed as talking down or treating lesser experienced programmers poorly. So if Allegro.cc had a CoC and you replied to a beginner question with "RTFM" it could be grounds to remove you from the site or place restrictions upon you. Instead you would have to either ignore the question or bring yourself to answering it as politely as possible or, in several cases, hold their hands through the entire process. For some on here, that is a Herculean task.

For your viewing pleasure on Feminists and Google's Anti-Harassment campaign. It starts over at the mid way point because the backup uploader starts posting pictures of other data to support the Youtuber's claims.

I prefer junglists.

Basically, this is how the SJW's think society works...
{"name":"job-privilege-comic.png","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/0\/f\/0f4482bf31ad7a0a92ff6334db93c1bf.png","w":1160,"h":420,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/0\/f\/0f4482bf31ad7a0a92ff6334db93c1bf"}
http://redpanels.com/200/

Watch that video I posted. Over 40% of liberals outright admitted they would discriminate against new hires who were openly conservative.

The group whose biggest mandate is "elimination of discrimination" openly discriminates. And they justify it as "Well, those people are 'bad people (xenophobe/bigot/racist/backwards/stupid)' therefor, it's okay."

AND I'M NOT EVEN A CONSERVATIVE. I'm anti-lying. I'm anti-cheating. I'm anti-bullying--no matter WHO the victims and attackers are. I'm what a liberal should be: fair.

Liberals believe conservatives [are racist/bigoted/xenophobic], damn those liberal crybabies!

I'm also leftish and relatively liberal. Might be interesting to see where people fall on The Political Compass.

This is my result from a while ago:
{"name":"610473","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/f\/8\/f865362a94303d3b8dd8ed8c4c8f50a4.png","w":480,"h":400,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/f\/8\/f865362a94303d3b8dd8ed8c4c8f50a4"}

I'm somewhere around (-8, -9).

It's only a marginally less useless metric than the one-dimensional 'left-right' scale.

Hm, that would make you basically an anarchist?

No. Although leftist anarchists would fall in the same area as I do, I believe the state is a necessary buffer to prevent chaos, and very well could always be necessary in spirit, if not practice, regardless of technological advances.

Well, suddenly a lot of discussion which I appreciate.

I took a fe smaller actions for myself. I wrote my own alternative to a code of conduct, a text name WELCOME, which contains an invitation to anyone to conribute, some basic rules (no spam, behave like an adult, don't try to argue aout the project's goals) and a prominent disclaimer that no, you can't sue me for me failing to let you contribute my project or if I don't follow my own rules. And I moved my active github repositories to gitlab.com which seems to have somewhat more reasonable policies. I hope they don't DDOS that too... :p

It's hard to believe people have rights if everything we do is expected to be directed by the government. I'm just waiting for the asshole law that dictates a fine or jail time for a person being an asshole.

Wanting the government to control everything is just a new form of dictatorship. Instead of having one single person until their death, you get to elect in your dictator.

HEGVA to talk at DNC: http://higheredgames.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/HEVGA-2016-DNC-Press-Release.pdf

The comedy that is Anita Sarkeesian:
{"name":"CoZRCOIUAAAxJsW.jpg","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/8\/a\/8a1230c143d59bcde02535dc76ceb9a6.jpg","w":594,"h":378,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/8\/a\/8a1230c143d59bcde02535dc76ceb9a6"}
If you do this, she will make a video or tweet attacking you for making them either too sexualized or not fleshed out enough for the game. You can't win with them.

Feminists have become so disconnected from reality that they are fighting for fictional women instead of real women. That is how much of a joke Feminism has become.

Just wanted to call you out on this. This is a very broad statement, with zero evidence given to support it.

So arms manufacturers are not responsible for what people do with their products? What about nuclear bombs? What about chemical weapons? What about assault rifles? These are not civilian weapons we're talking about. These are weapons of war. Do we really want people to have weapons capable of such massive destruction in the hands of Mr. Joe public? That's exactly the reason why the shooting in Orlando was possible, because assault style weapons were legal. You're trying to take the blame away from the people causing the problem by blaming it on mental health issues. It's not possible to track every person with mental health problems. There will always be people with mental health issues. But what is possible is to ban high power, high capacity, high ROF assault rifles that have no business being in the hands of the public. You don't need an M-16 or a Sig Sauer to go hunting.

http://www.denverpost.com/2016/06/12/the-gun-used-in-the-orlando-nightclub-shooting-is-becoming-mass-shooters-weapon-of-choice/

If you read the article I just linked, it clearly points out how many different attacks over the years were carried out with completely legal weapons. Tell me the law is not at fault and I'll tell you you're full of it.

There will always be persons with mental health issues. But we don't have to legally arm them with assault rifles. Those are only made for one thing. Killing lots of people at a time, and doing it quickly.

I have schizophrenia. Do you think I should be legally prevented from obtaining a firearm to defend my own home? I am a responsible law abiding citizen, but you would take away my right to defend myself (reasonably, with a reasonable weapon).

And don't give me some argument about how we need to form citizen militias. Because no one is invading our country, and our government isn't a dictatorship.

Needs more dimensions!

One of my favorite things from that video I linked. According to liberal ideology, they SHOULD be the ones who are against abortion.

After all, liberals are the ones that are supposed to care about unprotected / disenfranchised, and are willing to curb other's liberties in order to protect them. (Including even animals, but laughably not 6-month old fetuses.)

And Ayn Rand, who wrote Atlas Shrugged, the GOP Bible? She was in SUPPORT of abortion because it exemplified a woman's freedom of personal choice--a very conservative notion. The freedom to smoke, drink, and damage ones body.

Of course, conservatives are insane too and don't bother extending personal freedom to "illegal drugs", but smoking and drinking are somehow the embodiment of Patriotism.

Also, super-hilariously. Feminists no longer believe in choice... unless it's choosing to have an abortion. Feminists no longer believe it's okay to work as a sex worker, or as a porn star because even if it's empowering for you, it's damaging to women overall therefor you're a bad person if you enjoy having sex for money. You're also a piece of shit if you choose to be a mother and enjoy staying home with the kids, or pick a job field like nursing that's typical for women (you know, because you like it, you cislord scumbag.) Also, if you make a "choice" that feminists don't like, it's secretly because you're being "subconsciously pressured by the Patriarchy" into doing it (you stupid brain slave!).

http://theconversation.com/no-feminism-is-not-about-choice-40896

Talk about a sharp contrast to the true liberation of the 60's. Now it's all about taking sides and proving your loyalty to large groups. Because large groups always ensure the best for your individual creativity and unique desires!

In my state the answer is yes, wife has a cousin who is married to a guy that is paranoid schizophrenic (thinks everyone is out to get him) and he is red flagged and unable to buy guns due to mental health.

So which is it, are they weapons of war or tools for self protection?

Every time I see a mass shooting I see someone using tools of protection as their tool of destruction. Go ahead, pass laws to restrict guns, but don't be surprised when it has zero impact on mass murder as there are more weapons of mass murder. A guy in Florida was arrest last year by an undercover FBI agent because he told him how to build a bomb with intent of doing an attack on the 14th anniversary of 9/11.

Want to sue gun manufacturers and hold them accountable because someone used the guns for murder instead of protection? Then let's sue every company that makes products that are used for bomb making instead of cleaning. Let's sue knife manufacturers for every person that kills another person with a knife. We are no longer putting blame on the person for the crime, rather the creator of the tools.

@Chris Katko
Yeah, Anita Sarkeesian, currently considered the Queen of Feminism, appeared at a panel where she pulled some Butterfly Effect shit about women like you stated; the whole personal choice affects women as a whole. Then went on to say "Everything is sexist. Everything is racist. Everything is homophobic. And it is your job to point it all out." With that view of the world you are seeking confirmation bias because you see things as sexist, racist, et. al. even when it isn't.

Assault style rifles are weapons of war. Handguns are small arms. There's a big difference. And no, people shouldn't be allowed to have clips with 17 rounds in it. But they are legal, and they've been used, as the article I linked to states.

I believe we should keep weapons of war out of the hands of the public. This includes assault rifles such as are the typical weapon of choice in mass shootings. I'm not talking about small arms. I'm talking about semi-auto assault style rifles with huge clips and high accuracy. Those belong in the hands of soldiers, not civilians, which should be clear to anyone with any sanity at all. This isn't about protecting your second amendment right, it's about protecting the first amendment right, the right to liberty, freedom, and equality. The right to live a life free of fear of being gunned down by weapons that don't belong in the hands of the public.

Yes, I want to sue them, when the products that they produce are made for one thing and one thing only, mass murder. And we do regulate bomb making chemicals. Are are you unaware of that fact? Ever heard of fertilizer bombs? Oklahoma Federal Building? Ring a bell?

As well he should have been arrested. What do you expect? That people with plans to bomb people should be let go scott free? Of course not.

I have undifferentiated schizophrenia. Basically, it's a bunch of excess negative thoughts. They do not control me, and my medication controls my symptoms. Do I not have the right to defend myself?

I generally agree that assault-weaponry should be prohibited among the civilian and law enforcement population. Very few law enforcement agents would be qualified to possess or wield such weaponry and they too should require special training and licensing to do so. Extensive training.

Of course, you should absolutely also consider disarming your armed forces. Or at least, significantly restricting their access to armament. For the past 15 years they've been declaring war on whoever is politically advantageous and going to town sending kids barely out of diapers overseas to terrorize alternative cultures. Not only is it doing significant harm to the psychiatric health of your own men and women, it's also doing significant harm to the psychiatric health of the oppressed populations you terrorize in the name of "anti-terrorism" and fueling the "terrorist" "soldier" factory machinery while you're at it. And on top of all of that, your own law enforcement and armed forces can be considered a viable threat to your own population.

If the US government decides that it doesn't like the American people waking the fuck up then it's likely going to do whatever it has to to remain in power. I don't think it's a significant reach to say that they'll use military power against their own. We essentially already saw this happen with Boston occupation for the marathon bombers. An entire city was placed under martial law to find 2 or 3 guys who were bad boys! That's insane. If there's an argument for the American people to be armed with assault rifles it's to have a fighting chance to stand against that kind of tyranny. Of course, assault rifles don't do much against surface-to-surface missiles and armored tanks. Ultimately, there's no point having assault rifles for that because you're significant outmatched. On the other hand, destructive weaponry would destroy the very land they aim to control... And there's more of you than there is of them, at least until your brethren sellout to be on the winning side (it's all they know).

I think that the only sane course of action is to slowly dismantle your military entirely. That would send the message to the world that you aim to adopt this "foreign" concept of "peace". It would also strip certain physical power from your government. Obviously your government itself will require refactoring (and mine does too, believe me, and I'm doing what I can to enact those changes).

America cannot change overnight. It will probably take a century at best. But it's better to get started sooner than later. The planet is facing some pretty big hurdles and we're going to need everybody cooperating. We can't very well do that when one of the largest and most aggressive military powers is still being guided by the voices in its head.

In any case, I forget how we got steered from the Contributor Covenant to gun rights. I don't normally mind thread derailments when a particular conversation is over, but I don't feel like the COC discussion is over (plus the gun one beats a whole old unresolvable beaten dead horse).

That is incorrect. Maybe you meant to say semi-automatic long rifle? I've said it many times before, but "assault weapon" is a meaningless political bogeyman that endlessly morphs to suit whatever set of features the left wants to focus on. Too many people conflate that made up term with "assault rifle" (which has a specific definition).

Facts are that hand guns are used in more gun deaths, and the vast majority of the gun deaths in this country are suicides. The anti-gun politicians would love to claim they aren't going to take away the public's guns, they are just going to ban all the most popular types of guns, magazines and ammunition. If that happens to take peoples' guns away, they don't give a damn.

Are you serious or are you putting on some kind of ridiculous persona right now? If you are serious, put aside your misconceptions and study the issue with a clear mind instead of buying into the anti-gun hysteria.

Entirely the point of the second amendment.

Sad part is that historians and constitutional scholars can't even agree on how the second amendment is supposed to be translated. One group says it means all firearms can be bought by citizens while another group claims it only applies to militia members. There could be a second Civil War if Dems try to take guns after so long of using the former.

CoC is a roller coaster because you can easily find people for and against it.

Feminist logic via Twitter:

Ò¿Ó¬ When games make more than movies and music and has actors jumping to voice them I think it is as respected as any form can get. Of course, these arguments are coming from people that think trash is great modern art.

@Chris Katko
Found the video I was talking about (UPDATE: Found one that covers all her claims I stated in an earlier post and then some):

That point is already moot because (a) Boston occupation; your people had their chance and took it in the ass without lube instead of resisting; and (b) they have fucking tanks and planes and missiles and armor and grenades and tactical training and you're fucked even if you all have AKs and were trained to use them.

Case in point, the "enemy" in Afghanistan and Iraq had guns and explosives and it appears to have been pretty much like fishing with dynamite for the Western forces. If you really want a fighting chance against your government then disarm your government.

Bodily autonomy for the living is more important than bodily autonomy for the not-yet-living.

The issue has quite a bit more to do with bodily autonomy, and power over one's body, than it does about a baby. That's why abortion isn't generally allowed in late-stages regardless, because the baby is now viable (i.e., its organs are fully functional and can live, even if it requires more support than usual, outside the womb).

Think of it like this:

Using drugs, or possessing drugs, isn't bad. Using drugs is at best a health problem when an addiction develops or you overdose. However, selling drugs--that's a problem, because generally it often involves things like trafficking, smuggling, violence--even murder, rape, slavery. So even for dangerous drugs (e.g., meth, cocaine; not marijuana or LSD or others so much), ideally, possession/usage shouldn't be illegal, but selling should be. For not-so-dangerous drugs, selling shouldn't be illegal, either.

In the case of prostitution, selling sex is like the drug trade: it's rife with despicable things, even if the simple idea (consenting adults making a transaction) isn't necessarily despicable. Human trafficking is still a major problem in places where prostitution is legal. Furthermore, prostitution is often only viable a job where there is no better options and therefore is taken out of desperation more so than a willing interest, even when it's legal. You can see this reflected in poor communities with strip clubs, for example.

To be absolutely clear, I think prostitution is more of a moral dilemma; by buying sex from traditional avenues (red district when it's illegal, brothel when it's not), you are supporting an industry that most often is incredibly evil, regardless of its legality. I think having prostitution on an individual level legal, while buying sex in a non-personal sense and/or having a third-party organizing prostitution should be illegal, is the best compromise at the moment.

Yes. Definitely yes.

That is hardly the best example as Massachusetts is already one of the least gun friendly states. If they tried that in Texas, it would not have gone down the same way.

That is a good argument, but I don't believe enough of the military is corrupt enough for the government to establish a dictatorship. Too many service men and women are real patriots.

A fetus that has life signs can die. How is that not categorizable as being alive? Conditions of viability outside the womb being required for a person to be considered alive have more basis in politics than science.

Unfortunately you and them might have different ideas of "patriot". If the government tells them it's best for the people, who are they going to stand with? The government or the resistance?

In Iraq they knew something was wrong when they were over there. The information they were getting was bad. Every time. ZOMG, WMD are heres! Every time, there's nothing, and the CIA isn't that incompetent. Still, how many said fuck this and came home in chains? How many picked up a gun and shot men, woman, and children that they couldn't understand instead?

Mosquitoes, spiders, and mice are alive too. We don't mind killing them arbitrarily. What sets the fetus apart from humans is that it's not an intelligent life form with feelings. You can terminate it at a relatively early stage (IIUC, abortion is only typically allowed in the first 3 months) before it has developed into anything resembling intelligent life.

It's beside the point, but we also readily allow the brutal slaughter of intelligent lifeforms of all kinds that can feel the brutality for reasons ranging from sport to cuisine to inconvenience to ignorance.

Append:

Although I'm not sure why I'm referencing other animal species when society as a whole, though not necessarily me, also tolerate the murder of men, women, and children. For example, see Iraq War.

So maybe I don't have the specific terms down, but I clearly stated what I was talking about : "high power, high capacity, high ROF". Assault rifles shouldn't be in the hands of the public either.

Gun control != Gun ban. Get real. Try to be a little less hysterical about how we're going to take all your guns away, and maybe I'll believe you are responsible enough to own one.

The only one getting hysterical here is you. It's a simple honest truth. Guns are only good for one thing. Killing people and animals and life in all its forms. That's what they were made for, that's what they do best.

So I don't deserve the right to defend myself? What gives you the right as a chronic drug user to defend yourself either? Marijuana causes psychosis, and it's probably one of the reasons I have schizophrenia to begin with. I used to be a giant pothead just like you. One day you're gonna end up being me if you're not careful.

Okay...let's not get into the abortion debate (I'm anti-abortion for the record).

Are you anti-prostitution?

They said that about cigarettes too.

Nope.

So you believe prostitution should be legal, but abortion should be illegal? Is this right? Or do you believe prostitution is moral, but abortion is immoral?

If yes to either, how can you form a consistent worldview in which abortion is wrong but prostitution is not?

The only consistent worldview with these two positions I can possibly think of is a socially liberal worldview in which you also value all sentient life--i.e., life that can have subjective experiences although not necessarily have developed higher cognitive functions like selfhood. This means you'd be have to be a vegetarian or think vegetarianism is ideally better than being a carnivore/omnivore, at the very least. So I guess I might also ask: do you think vegetarianism is better than being a carnivore/omnivore, or are you a vegetarian?

edit: ok I should be done thinking of and then asking further questions until a response.

Where did I say I thought either was immoral?

According to women the only argument they can ever give for abortion is "my body, my choice". Choosing to have sex without protection falls under "my body, my choice". Pregnancy is the consequence of having sex. Abortion is not and should not be a get out of responsibility free card. In my view, there are only three situation in which abortion should be legal 1) the pregnancy puts the woman's health in danger; 2) the couple did practice safe sex (condoms & birth control) and still got pregnant; 3) the pregnancy was a result of rape. Putting the child up for adoption is also a choice. So yes I think abortion should be illegal because too many women use it as a way to erase them not thinking in the heat of passion to avoid having to be adults for their actions.

Men that helped create the baby should obviously be tagged to give financial support.

They should help raise the child since they helped create him/her. That doesn't mean they need to get married or anything crazy like that. The responsibility, in my view, always fall on both for their single night of lust. There are too many people trying to avoid responsibility for their actions.

Let's not forget that feminists are claiming that a woman can revoke consent the next day and charge the guy with rape if she regrets it. So feminists aren't the best for arguing for abortion either right now.

You said you were anti-abortion. What am I to take from that? Anti- generally means 'opposed' and wouldn't be used if you simply don't like something. In your case, it seems abortion is acceptable in arbitrary situations, so you're not 'anti-abortion' so much as you are against the completely arbitrary distinction of having an abortion after sex without protection.

If you are having sex for recreation, and do not want a baby, then carrying a pregnancy should not be a consequence of sex, regardless of the protection used. Do you think people who, say, ride a bicycle without a helmet should not receive medical care if they are in an accident? Should rugby players not receive medical care, since unlike the similar sport of American football, they don't use any protective gear? Etc, etc, etc...

If you think so: your simple views of consequence are juvenile at best and are not respectable.

There is no reason to expect a women to carry to term if she does not want the child, because it is a clear violation of her right to bodily autonomy. By arguing otherwise, you are simply creating arbitrary exceptions to the idea of bodily autonomy. You--and only you--should have the final choice when it comes to your body.

If you have unwanted growths, or some part of your body is making you sick, or whatever--you have the right to remove those parts of your body. And up until the fetus is no longer depending on the women--i.e., it is out of her body--it is her right to decide what is done with it.

edit: and of course you have to add some bullshit feminazi boogeyman crap. Why not?

You know, anti-feminists want to legislate wombs! Anti-feminists want to punish women! That's it, anti-feminists hate women, simple as that! By making generalizations about an incredibly broad group of people, you are no better than those you decry! And if you aren't aware, that is an example of your hypocrisy from the feminist caricature you constantly reference, not views I actually hold about the 'anti-feminist' group.

edit 2: Ok, look, you're a programmer. Do you think it's fair that programmers are often represented as socially inept and introverted? And often enough, creepy or unhygienic or obsessed? Surely not! Do you feel the need to call out lazy programmers who build crappy software, whenever someone says so? Surely not!

By saying 'feminists are X' or 'feminists do X' or 'feminists believe X', you are no better than those who would say programmers are socially inept, they are creepy, or they are lazy, or whatever else.

You are aware that many states actually have laws in place to fine people who don't wear helmets? Sure they can get medical aid, but they still suffer the consequences of not having the helmet (injury and fine). Same with sports, some sports have laws in place to where if the player isn't wearing the proper gear they can be legally penalized.

So a transgender feminist saying you can retroactively revoke consent is a boogeyman? Are you transphobic?

I see you watch too much feminist propaganda while ignoring the feminists that interrupt meetings about men's health. While ignoring that anyone that disagrees with a feminist is labeled sexist, MRA, and fems can't even agree between their own groups about what feminism is. They are SO about supremacy...err...I mean equality!

Sorry, that made me laugh. Seeing as I've watched feminists say just that about gamers for two fucking years now.

Until you address some problems, there is no point whatsoever in discussions with you, because it will be so incredibly repetitious. Do you know why?

You're ignorant.

You lack the means to critically examine your own beliefs, let alone arguments and statements made by others.

You are quick to reject anything that does not agree with your existing, and all together, dissonant worldview, while you are quick to accept anything that does agree with it.

You think you're an independent thinker unlike the rest because you listen to independent YouTubers and read independent journalist's articles on independent websites, while in fact you are being spoon-fed opinions via the persuasive methods used by these biased YouTubers and biased journalists and biased websites.

You lack the reading comprehension skills to identify the appeal to emotion used to prey on you and exploit your bias, and you lack the critical thinking skills to examine the argument and verify credibility of any data presented.

You don't recognize these failings and project them on others who disagree with you.

And best of all, you are going to say no, it is I who am guilty of all the above, not you! So!

I am ignorant! There is a great lot I don't know. I work towards reducing my ignorance, but it's a monumental task that requires a great amount of time! Over the past couple years I have greatly refined my views, and I'd say a good few are sound, but there's so many that are still questionable! It's a never ending task, since the only thing I definitely know is that we can't be absolutely (i.e., 100% flat; 99.999999% is not absolute!) certain of anything!

I don't have a hard time critically examining my beliefs! It's something I do whenever my beliefs are called into question. It's something I do whenever I find a belief of mine unsatisfactory, or when some new information contradicts it. Am I perfect? Definitely not! I have made mistakes and will continue to do so. But I learn, and will come closer to a sound worldview over time!

I reject ideas I have found wrong with great certainty! I don't re-examine evidence for the theory of evolution by natural selection whenever I encounter a faulty argument. But if I have a belief, and a reasoned and supported argument is made contrary, I will examine the belief! Similarly, if I hold a belief, and a poorly-reasoned argument is made in favor, I reject the argument, because coming to the right conclusion the wrong way means the conclusion is little better than chance!

I'm not guilty of falling for the idea that media doesn't influence me! That's why I use a various of news sources for non-scholarly things! That's why I eliminate all-around negative influences of the media when possible, such as advertisements! But for things that require evidence, and data--I go to the author or journal articles, I read the article, and I examine the data if possible! I don't read the editorialized summary by a some media rag and accept it!

I can say I don't have poor reading comprehension skills! I usually spend about a couple hours (i.e., two hours) a week reading dense works--poetry and prose! I've memorized some poetry--like T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" in the past two? three? months--and always work towards expanding, with Ozymandias by Percy Shelley next! Recently I read a few transcendentalist works, and I've been reading Paradise Lost when I can! When I read a post, I take the time to carefully ensure I understand, and if not, I ask for clarification rather than making assumptions!

So I do recognize my failings! But that's the nice thing: I don't necessarily have to be know the answer or be right to recognize when someone is wrong. How nice!

How nice!!

So you insult me and then spend the rest of the post bragging about how you are better? Are you insecure? Are you needing praise for not being able to handle opinions different than yours without insults to ones intellect? Do I need to do feminist snaps to not offend you further?

You guys seem to be just vomiting from the keyboard without making any sense.

Aaron, you talk a big game of "data" and "references", but if you actually attempt to verify your references they don't back your claim. You also do a terrible job of citing them. I digress. In other words, you're no better, except your arguments also don't make sense (to me at least). It appears to be only in your mind that you're doing actual, hardcore research with references and data to make claims. The few times you do post data or references they just don't support your ideas.

Specter, you've actually impressed me lately. I hate to say it, but I've found you actually making meaningful contributions to the discussion! Arguing that "abortion" is wrong when sex is unprotected just makes you look jealous of people having sex though... Seriously. Abortion is always good. In fact, abortion is especially good for men that wanted casual sex for fun and don't want to pay for the baby. The only real problem with "abortion" is that women are granted full reproductive power. We need to give men equal power over the decision to abort, keep, support, give up, or raise a baby. You can give men the right to opt out without forcing the woman to risk her body or health. You made the argument that it's OK to have an abortion where protection is used, but unless you plan to implant all vaginas with surveillance systems we won't know whether they did or not (you might think that's a great idea, but I've seen those angles and they're really not...). Ultimately, you sound like you do support abortion, but you're somehow convinced you have to be against it because of religion or blue balls or who the fuck knows. It sort of hurts your credibility in this entire debate to be so confused and wrong, and you were doing so well! Well, in my opinion on all counts. Others are welcome to their own.

I think we need to take a break. Things are getting monotonous in here. Maybe this will help to lighten the mood...

Being unwilling to turn against and attack the citizens of one's own country, despite orders from commanding officers, is one litmus test I'd use for being a patriot.

Those are easily considered pest species. At the very least, mosquitoes and mice are known for spreading some of the major communicable diseases that plague humans.

Neither are people in comas or in vegetative states, but they are still granted a right to live.

They generally aren't. Homicides in the US committed with assault rifles almost never happen. Keep in mind if a gun cannot fire more than one bullet per pull of the trigger, it is not an assault rifle.

Naive.

Wrong. It really is amazing you can't see the content of your own posts. Guns aren't made for the purpose of mass murder like you knowingly lied about. They are made to fire bullets, and can be used for various legitimate uses including self defense, hunting and sport.

I probably will never agree with this viewpoint. If a fetus was just another part of the woman's body, it would have the woman's DNA but it does not. Even if steps were taken to prevent pregnancy, sex between a man and a women is procreation. That has always been the primary biological purpose of sex (recreation being secondary). Choosing to do what feels good instead of what is right is a big part of what's wrong with humanity.

I find this is a reasonable step forward for actual equality (what feminism claims to strive for). Men are required to pay child support entirely on the mother's whim about whether to keep the baby or not.

They will never make it illegal, I know that, but it doesn't change my view of thinking it should be illegal.

As for religion, those who use that as an excuse for it being illegal do so by using the same line: "It's a sin against God!" I'm not exactly on a talking basis with God so I don't stress over that aspect.

A person suffering from blue balls; I would imagine they would be all for abortion and starting to line up any woman that would have sex with them from 18 years of age to ~50 years of age.

As for why I'm anti-abortion, it's because I'm a father and I would have spent the rest of my life depressed wondering what the baby would have grown up to be if my wife aborted him. I've met a couple of women whom had abortions and grew up regretting it. I've read stories for anti-abortion about how some women told about their abortions in high school, deciding to have kids later and have bouts of depression due to wondering about the kind of person the aborted baby would have grown up to be. Because of those experiences, I just can't wrap my head around how people can have abortions and never look back.

People don't like my view on it and I am fine with that. That is the whole point of freedom of speech. It's just my opinion on the matter as a father and husband. I'm not a politician and I have zero pull to have any bills passed so I'm no threat to people that are gung-ho for abortion.

That is also why I didn't care that Aaron attacked my intellect over my opinions. He may view me as ignorant, but I feel it is more damaging to go on the attack over differing views.

I don't need a gun to defend myself thanks - and being stoned isn't the same as being schizophrenic, so stop talking arse.

I really don't think you have ever spent the time reading my sources at length. In fact, I don't think you know how to perform any sort of research. You levied fantastical criticisms against them that would be eliminated by reviewing the study methodology from the organizations themselves.

Your fantastical response built to my introductory post in your quarterly anti-feminist thread--that showed me there was no point in continuing, so I didn't. There is no point in discussing anything with you, or Spectre Phoenix, or the few others like you, because you are indoctrinated by the echo chamber you've constructed--even on this forum!

To anyone not in the 'feminists are ruining the world echo-chamber'--pretty much everyone else--you're nonsensical when you post your quarterly bullshit threads about how feminists are controlling the world and making everyone's life worse.

Look, I disagree with raynebc or Edgar or various others, but I don't think any of the things I suggested about Spectre Phoenix apply in any great deal to them any more than do to me so I value their participation, and even though they have [some/many/most] views that are pretty much the opposite of mine I can respect their views. However, my criticisms I levied against Specter Phoenix apply to you as well, I'm sorry to say.

Could we please keep this thread on topic? A debate about guns or abortion or whatnot might be interesting, but I'd appreciate it if you moved such debates to different threads. Let's focus on codes of conduct and related issues.

It seems on topic to me

Aren't these people against the CoC because they want to behave this way? I don't get it...

Yep, I'm in an echo chamber, that is why I block all feminists on my social media...oh wait that's right I've never blocked anyone that has an opposing view from mine. While feminists have block bots with over 10k users blocked simply for disagreeing with them. Hell feminist Jonathan McIntosh blocked me for simply asking him to clarify his stance on if he wanted violent games banned or not. He would flip flop, claim they should be banned due to "toxic masculinity", but then claim only governments can ban something (which the latter isn't true). Target in Australia pulled GTA; pulling a game from your shelves is banning it from your store.

I don't need an echo chamber when feminists claim they about equality and then go online telling people that men can't be feminists, only allies and that the allies aren't doing it right. You can find youtube videos of men meeting to talk men's health (prostate cancer I believe was one of the topics) and one video shows a feminist proudly getting in a man's face telling him he is scum. Videos of feminists pulling fire alarms at other such meeting to disrupt it. Videos of a red haired woman sounding like Vickie Guerrero from WWE claiming feminism is about equality and ending patriarchy while calling a guy "fuck face" and yelling over him to keep him from talking. You can even find youtube videos of women giving the reason for no longer being feminist as the movement has become increasingly anti-male.

"Feminism is about equality and empowerment". Feminists ad calling for the ban of words like bossy (that can be applied to men and women) because it is hurtful to girls and women. Men trying to explain something to a woman? You shouldn't do that, it's man-splaining. The feminist shaming campaign for man spreading. Gamer identity is a white cis male identifier that should stop being used because girls play games too. Emma Watson speaks in front of UN for HeForShe campaign imploring men to help and fight for women in 3rd world countries that don't have rights, 1st world feminists attacked her for daring to say women needed a man's help.

Anita Sarkeesian makes a video condemning Damsel in Distress trope saying it is sexist and then runs to social media and news because anonymous trolls said mean things. She became the very trope she said was sexist. According to her, a woman kissing the man that saved her is sexist; guess she never saw the footage of hostage negotiations or police rescues as every woman ends up hugging and kissing the officers that save them.

A feminist like Christina Hoff Sommers starts pointing out that feminism is becoming increasingly anti-male and feminists mark her anti-feminist.

Feminism is SO great that only 18% of Americans identify as Feminist.

Let's not forget that feminism also claims more women need to go to college because men are out numbering them. Usually about the time they complain about this invisible patriarchy and female oppression holding women back.
{"name":"Coh9zTWUMAAGBjY.jpg","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/b\/7\/b72274a93bf87ae4a36571e4ed5bf8a5.jpg","w":1200,"h":755,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/b\/7\/b72274a93bf87ae4a36571e4ed5bf8a5"}
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/03/06/womens-college-enrollment-gains-leave-men-behind/

I believe we covered all this in the last thread with videos and links, but since you assumed no one would bother looking at the evidence you would provide and therefore didn't provide anything; I'm going to assume you exercised the same logic and didn't actually look at any of the links or videos posted before going on your pro-feminist arguments.

Last video for you to not look at:

Thank you! I find myself relating more and more to my elders than the younger people every day.

The REASON gun control is such a hot button issue for conservatives is that THEY KNOW that if you give a liberal an inch, they will take a mile. They will not be satisfied. They will want more and more.

THAT is the current political climate in the USA. It cannot be debated. You ask any congressman, any political analyst, they will all tell you that we have one of the (if not THE) most opposed congress we've ever had in the history of the USA. Both sides are out only for themselves and the American people are secondary concerns.

There are TONS of conservatives who are for taking guns away from the bad people. The problem is that liberals:

- Don't know anything about guns and are elitist morons. (Coming from Bill Maher himself.)

- If liberals are given an inch, they will take a mile.

- Liberals' solutions for guns are feel good measures that won't protect anyone, but will hurt innocent, law-abiding citizens. The Assault Weapon Ban did nothing to stop crime.

Here's a woman who didn't even understand what was in her own bill:

But still felt it was okay to take away the rights of law-abiding Americans.

You can feel whatever you want about gun control, but there is ZERO excuse for not even understanding your own bill that is poised to effect law-abiding citizens.

Here's another guy who has no idea what he's talking about.

I'm not arguing to change liberal's opinions. I am explaining WHY conservatives oppose you.

Would anyone vote for a conservative anti-birth control bill if they didn't even know how birth control works? If they thought pills work like "little abortions?" Hardly.

p.s. One more for fun, oh man, these are hilarious (skip to #2 at 0:56):

p.p.s. Out of respect for Beoran, I won't reply any more non-CoC related posts. But I felt like I had to explain it since so many people are apparently oblivious to how anyone could hold an opposing opinion. ("They're not just against me because they're dumb or mean?!")

[edit] One last thing I forgot to mention. Banning guns if you're on the terrorist watch list. Can NOBODY see the problem with banning the ability to protect yourself if "the government" decides to put you on a list that has no due process, no judge, no jury, and extremely effective consequences?

Certainly liberals would have no problem with an arbitray list that curbs your civil liberties. Oh wait, the ACLU hates the No Fly List.

https://www.aclu.org/infographic/grounded-life-no-fly-list

So how is the right to travel on a plane worth protecting, but not the right to self-defense? Because "guns are icky."

Guns should only be given to cops. Oh wait, they're the ones killing all the black people.

This is a key reason conservatives, myself included, realize that such "watch list" gun control legislation is unconstitutional and overall just a bad idea.

Found this article from January of this year.

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Source: http://redpanels.com/97/

Okay, I won't lie, that made me laugh.

Reminded me of this:

Yeh, the current cultural climate in the USA seems to be ... outrageaous. Almost every movement in history that isn't based on reason has the tendency to grow until it is a tragic parody of itself. Feminism used to demanding that men and women have equal legal rights. Now it seems to be about making women afraid of men and vice versa. It makes me suspect a divide and conquer is going on for the benefit of the truly privileged 0.001%.

Of course in such a climate documents such as the CCCoC are likely to rear their ugly heads. While I think a few simple explicit rules can be beneficial, they have to be carefully written to avoid any legal problems. On the same note, that is why I don't like the GPL as a project license. The GPL might be useful, but it has a clear political goal. Although it does have a disclaimer and was checked by lawyers to avoid the risk of litigation against developers, I still don't like how it is implicitly about trying to force all software to be free/libre. With the GPL3, the FSF has jumped the shark even more.

While I may be in favour of changing our economic system, I find it dishonest to first give away software and then try to use that software to try and achieve this. The CCCoC also implicit has political goals which is even more detrimental to developers and not even the security of a disclaimer. That is why we have to either not use a CoC or write a better one ourselves for our projects.

I think that it's incredibly sick and ignorant to compare the "Contributor Covenant" with the GPL. The GPL's stated goal is copyleft. Modifications are welcome, and sharing modifications are welcome! The only thing they ask in return is that you make your modified copies available as well. It's not like they're going to kick your door down for changing GPL software, compiling it, and running it on your own machine without telling anyone. It's more for cases where somebody does something cool, tells people about it, and now everybody wants that cooler modified version. Except allowing this person that "tweaked" it to change the license would allow them to actually make the software non-free since now the new feature is "necessary". The copyleft forces them to make their source changes libre (NOT gratis!) as well under the same terms so that it's possible to keep the entire thing free without all of the people that don't understand software freedom jumping ship... The GPL will not "trap" the developer, and it doesn't even "trap" a client. The LGPL is made for allowing free software libraries to be linked into non-free software. Anybody that takes a hard stance against the GPL without taking an even harder stance against proprietary software should be diagnosed as clinically retarded... Seriously. Stop with the ignorant GPL hate already. Nobody is forcing you to use it, and if you don't care that your software remains libre then don't, but don't spread misinformation about it making it sound like the Boogeyman when it has clearly defined intentions.

If CoC came about because of programmers being terrible to each other on projects there would have been little blow back to it. Problem is that the CoC goes out of its way to show it is a feminist angled crock of shit.

In the sane world a person being racist is racism no matter what their race. In feminist world minorities can't be racist because they are oppressed. Feminists coined the reverse bullshit and then said it doesn't exist. Reverse racism is the concept African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics making racist comments toward White people, feminists coined the term and then said it doesn't exist.

In the sane world men and women can be sexist to each other. In feminist world, women can't be sexist again due to oppression. Oh, and the "evil patriarchy". Reverse sexism is the concept of women making sexist remarks toward men.

The start of the CoC makes it sound like it is fair and equal, but the lower half makes it clear that it is aimed more at white men than anyone else. In other words, women saying a man is sexist, or a minority saying a white person is being racist will have consequences, but since it can't be the other way around, they won't bother looking at it.

What other group has seen feminist try to make things one sided I wonder.
Have your job because you are skilled and have the experience? That is a bad thing!
How about a woman tell why she is not a feminist...

I'm not convenant at all.

Shitty code is shitty, no matter how you call it. Replace 'code' by whatever you want, it still works.

Let's call things by their real name, would we ?
Like, an asshole IS an asshole, a fucking racist/homophobe IS a f.u.c.k.i.n.g racist/homophobe.

All that CoC sounds like stories for the care bears.
Except that we are in the real world, and care bears aren't real.

Feminist equality in action everyone:

Very interesting to hear peoples' thoughts on this.

I've recently found myself comparing GitHub and the Allegro project in general (I know they are two very different beasts but still)... I see all of the manipulation, grumpiness, Sheldonism and ego massage in so much of the FLOSS on GitHub, and it freaks me out a bit.

Since I was 13, I've found Allegro and Allegro.cc to be very welcoming, tolerant and fun. If I joined the average large GitHub project at 13, I honestly think the culture would have a very good chance of turning me into an incredibly shitty person - at least online, if not IRL.

Allegro appears to have dodged this toxic culture and it seems like it's still as chilled as it ever was.

We live in the toxic for so long that it isn't toxic anymore. Only here.

The FSF's stated goal is to promote computer user freedom. While this is not at all a bad goal, it does remain a political goal, which is sometimes at the detriment of the developer's freedom.

Unfortunately, the GPL makes it often hard for me as a developer who is forced to work on commercial software. As long as we have our current economic system, closed source software will remain an unfortunate necessity. If an open source project, especially a library is liberally licensed, then as a developer, then I have the freedom to use it on the job lessening the amount of closed source software needed in the whole of the project. With GPL licensed libraries, I don't have that freedom, and I have to look for more liberally licensed alternatives, or even closed source libraries (shudder).

I do think that copyleft licences are fine for programs (not libraries), as they do seem to prevent needless forks. Linux is a good example of this. but look at libreadline, they had to develop more liberally licensed alternatives just because it can't be used in many places due to the GPL. That is a huge waste, I feel, which is largely due to trying to use the GPL to promote the aforementioned political goal, but it ends up backfiring in cases of libraries.

So you take issue with the GPL on the grounds that the volunteers and activists who develop software with it aren't giving you the freedom to extend your proprietary software directly with their works? You can certainly be annoyed that you can't utilize their hard work and save yourself time, but it's not them you should be angry at. It's the industry and employer that is forcing you to develop proprietary software that is incompatible with the GPL.

You also can't use proprietary software to extend yours (unless you strike a deal, usually for a ridiculous price). In fact, I can't use the proprietary software that you develop to freely extend my software! Nor can you with the proprietary software I'm enslaved to develop. That's far worse than the GPL. Not only can you not use it in proprietary works, you can't use it at all without express permission, usually in the form of a 3 to 7 figure annual fee. And when you can use it, you often can't modify it or even know how it works.

It seems that because readline is explicitly part of GNU they are opting to keep it copyleft. The wiki article explains that CLISP, a Common Lisp implementation, is an example of software that changed its license as a result of readline being GPL. Which is already a win for free software.

Most users of proprietary software won't even be familiar with readline so they won't miss it. Those of us that use both, forced or otherwise, will appreciate why the copyleft isn't compatible with proprietary software.

That said, most non-GNU GPL software authors would likely be willing to consider a custom license for your proprietary software if you wanted to make them an offer to license it differently. As the copyright owners they have the power and freedom to relicense the work under special terms for you. Just because the software is GPL doesn't mean that you have no chance of using it. You just might have to pay for it like you would for proprietary software, and perhaps meet other terms (i.e., don't modify it) to prevent you from "competing" with the project on its own back.

I figured it out...feminists, radical feminists, sjws, whatever you want to call them appear to be suffering from Munchausen syndrome.

I've lost track of how many times feminists use the claim of having PTSD because of disagreements online. I recall the backlash over a feminist arguing with a soldier on if she had PTSD and then she threatened to go to his commanding officer. The CoC is just a new tool to cater to their disorder.

I have to say, I think your diagnosis nails it completely for lots of these modern "femenists". People aren't so emotionally frail as some of them pretend to be unless they are mentally unwell overall.

Replacing "Cis/het/white/male" with "Jew" in SJW posts http://imgur.com/a/8anj7

No thread is complete without Hitler

I don't blame developers for using a certain licence, but I dislike more what the FSF is trying to do with the GPL. In particular, while I think their intentions are good, I don't like the means they are using to achieve this. And that is trying to use software and developers for an ulterior goal.

Also, many developers adopt the GPL without thinking about the repercussions, much like they seem to do with the CCoC.

Yes, I don't like proprietary software, and the whole corporate world is silly if not insane, but we have to live with it as it is for now. And most managers would rather shell out tons of cash for proprietary libraries than try to comply with the GPL. I never saw them pay for a special license to GPL software. The net result then, of the GPL is that in the corporate world, this results in less FLOSS being used, not more.

While libreadline is only one example, to me, the CLISP case is an example of how the GPL was used to force developers into doing into doing something they normally wouldn't have done. The GPL was used to advance the goals of the FSF. Now, while in this case, the result was beneficial to the public at large, it is still an example of using software for an ulterior goal.

It is that point that the makers of the CCoC have understood well: you can use software and unsuspecting developers to advance your own agenda. And that is what they are trying to do. Of course, their goals leave much to be desired compared to the FSF's. And, at least, the FSF is honest and upfront about their goals, which can't really be said about the authors of the CCoC. But in essence FSF and the SJW's are trying to use the same means towards their goals.

And it's that type of means that I thoroughly dislike no matter what the goal may be. I think that the means are not necessarily justified by the goal.

Those things aren't congruent. Just because there are feminists who behave like this does not reflect the whole group. There are insecure attention seeking people in every group, not just feminists.

This behavior is encouraged by gender studies professors and the likes, they are basically taking advantage of gullible people to give their insane ideology power. It's kind of like ISIS for priviliged Western kids with low IQ

Yet feminists and other media painted the #GamerGate consumer revolt as a hate mob due to a few that were being assholes. Funny how that works. Feminists set there and say, "oh, don't judge the group because of a few bad apples" yet there are articles that still come out blaming GamerGate as a hate mob based on anonymous threats made by random assholes using the tag. Seems we are getting into "no true Scotsman" territory with that claim though.

The media double standard is astounding:
"Don't judge feminists based on a few bad apples."
"GamerGate is a hate mob of misogynistic gamers based solely on a hand full of anonymous trolls."
"Black Lives Matter shouldn't be judge due to all the people praising the men that went on police killing sprees."

Even better question..why are people obsessed with a "Rape Culture" that doesn't exist? Even way back in 2012: http://critdamage.blogspot.com/2012/05/quit-pretending-there-isnt-videogame.html

It is sad when people do that, and I'm glad you see that and can now admit your mistake.

In ... .. what way?

Mistake? I was pointing out your argument fails to resonate. You set there saying not to paint feminists based on a few (even though I've posted several videos of women stating they quit being feminists for it being anti-male) while ignoring that feminists have painted all gamers as misogynists, transphobic, homophobic, sexist, et. al. and the media has taken that angle and ran with it. I was pointing out the irony of saying someone is falsely labeling all feminists while ignoring that feminists are falsely labeling people in order to silence them.

Feminists attacked a scientist for his freaking shirt and completely negated the huge accomplishment him and his team did. Making him cry and apologize for wearing a shirt a woman made for him.

Feminists went after Kaley Cuoco for saying she wasn't feminist and that she loved being a housewife. After that she had to apologize to feminists for her personal preferences.

Feminists lied about Tim Hunt.

Feminists and SJWs went after movies, music, comics, games, and novels in 2014 claiming they were "problematic".

Only 18% (last I looked) of Americans identified as feminist. More and more women are denouncing feminism and saying they are egalitarian. This is leaving the volatile ones in the movement which gives us all these childish attacks on things they are offended by expecting everyone to change it just for them.

You could find more, too... and it still wouldn't make you any less wrong

You immediately go back to it. What is the deal with that? Why do you think this is true? I know plenty of feminists who have not done this. You're just wrong

That's because you only know feminists, and not "feminists."

#NotAllFeminists

So your rebuttal is: "It isn't true because I haven't personally seen it."

You are stepping ever so closer to the "No true Scotsman" fallacy with that rebuttal.

No, I've seen what you're talking about in this thread, even in real life, and I've watched (parts) of most of the videos, and I don't even disagree that behaving in this way is inappropriate or a problem.

What I'm saying is that this is not representative of the group. I could find much more that would be much better material for you argument. 18% is a huge number, that's 59 million people. That many people do not behave this way, obviously. Is it 18% of feminists that behave this way? That's still pretty high. I'm going to wager that it's more about 3% of that 18% (probably still high) which is approximately 1.8 million people in the United States. That doesn't seem all that unreasonable that there are 1.8 million people in the US, primarily women, who are anti-men.

Would that even be a surprise? What's the concern here?

I have met women who are very forth bearing with the fact that they are a feminist, and typically that is a "problem case". ie. someone comes up to you and says they're a feminist without asking and within a couple sentences. That's a problem no matter what though, people sometimes come up to me and talk about Jesus in the same way, or some other fixation. Sometimes people who hold those types of fixations get very irrational because it's so important to their identity. Often they've had trauma associated with it. That's not at all exclusive to feminism (as this thread shows, there are other topics people identify with and get irrational about).

My rebuttal was that "It is true, I have seen it." -- I have seen people who identify as Feminists who do not represent the broad brush strokes you've made in any fashion. Very few who do. You have provided very few examples (18%, remember). Therefore your assertion is incorrect.

There are plenty of feminists who do not behave poorly, but going on an attack like this is your demonstration of completely misunderstanding it, and that is about it.

So you and your #NotAllFeminist friends are advocating for women's rights in the Middle East and other 3rd world countries where they have none?

Or are you instead following the feminist crowd of claiming women still aren't equal in the US (even though just a year or two ago Ted Talks stated women made up over half of the manager positions), even though women are in music and movies, even though women are equally paid (since it is ILLEGAL to pay a woman less than a man due to the EQUAL PAY ACT). Can you accept that most women just aren't interested in programming? Do you sit and argue for fictional representation in games/comics while women are being murdered or raped if they voice their opinion in some countries?

Feminism in the US is done. When you start advocating for fictional women instead of real women, you movement is circling the drain.

Cosmopolitan shows they are all about equality:
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This is getting exhausting. I don't think that Derezo's mind is open to hearing anything other than his own opinion. There is overwhelming evidence that the Feminist movement is disingenuous and generally harmful. The fact that many people consider themselves Feminists and are completely harmless doesn't change that. Those people aren't the ones making noise, forcing changes upon society that frankly are imbalanced and unequal. I think most anti-Feminists support an "equalism" movement whereby we literally aim to treat everybody equally. That comes with the understanding that rights are associated with responsibilities in society and you can't have one without the other. That's something that Feminists are especially oblivious to.

For your viewing pleasure, a well known vlogger woman enrolled in a university "gender studies" course with the aim of outing all of the ridiculous bullshit they were taught. She planned on doing a series, but after one of the other students realized who she was and reported it to the professor they told her she wasn't allowed to participate in the class if she discussed it outside of class... So she basically just shut up and waited until the end and gave us a summary. It's not like you really need an entire video series to recognize the invalidity of the course.

That is what Feminism is, and that's why so many people are opposed to it. Feminism isn't just bad for men and children. It's bad for any woman that disagrees with what the Feminist "majority" think. It wouldn't be a problem if not for women being such special snowflakes in society. They actually have a lot of extra power simply because we try to take care of them so when they start banding together and claiming something is a problem we tend to try to "fix" it without thinking too hard about who is hurt by it or whether it's actually reasonable. This is resulting in lots of harmful changes.

The movement wasn't all bad, but modern day "wave" is absolutely extremist. Any "Feminist" that isn't extreme probably only calls themselves a Feminist because they don't pay very much attention to the movement and generally believe that female human beings are people. That's probably what about 80% of the "membership" consists of. People that are not actively participating just claiming to be a member because they assume it's like an "I'm not a racist" sort of club. The active participants are generally extremist lunatics.

The exception would be the small group of people from previous waves (e.g., Christina Hoff Sommers) that still call themselves Feminists, but don't really believe in the current dogma being preached and work to be a sensible voice within the movement. I imagine the only reason that they don't abandon the title is because it is more powerful to be one than to say you aren't one (and Hell, it was their title first). In this day and age, saying you're not a Feminist sounds like "I beat my wife" to most people. I cannot count the number of times I've been called misogynistic or chauvinistic at the drop of a thought that doesn't treat women as special snowflakes. No rational conversation needed. Simply because people are "dumb, panicky, dangerous creatures":

Very few people actually care to learn about something. Most people just prefer to think they already know.

Hello Mr Pot, please meet my good friend Mr Kettle.

Hmmm, I'd say there remain a few points where women could be treated more fairly in western society. For example in sports, certain sports for men gets way more media attention than the equivalent for women. Just think about soccer, bike racing, etc...

Or I do think there could be more women in IT and science? But the root cause isn't the bullsshit that is no wstated, that women are supposedly being scrared away by the big bad "bro"grammers. The issue is that it's still culturally difficult to get girls interested in science and IT from an early age on, which is essential, really. You really need to get interested into these things as a child to make any headway. What I see in my own daughter (sample of one, I know) is that she is quite perfectionist, but also easily frustrated. But in science and IT you need patience and the ability to correct your own mistakes... I have my work cut out it seems.

I can think of a few other similar problems, but nothing really dramatic. Many USA feminists tough seem to be focusing on making mountains out of mole hills on non-issues.

So yeah, there are games with sexy female characters for men to enjoy. It's called "entertainment". Likewise there are games with sexy male characters as well. Ok, admittedly, we do need more of those, but I think the ladies should rather try to join in and have fun as well. And Cosmo, that's in essence a soft porn magazine for women, with fashion and gossip mixed in for good measure...

It's normal that in every movement the followers are far less extreme then the leaders. I think that's that what Derezo is seeing. But to see where a movement is going you have to see what the leaders are doing... and at least in the USA it looks like most feminist "leaders" have really jumped the shark. And that's of course where such nonsense as the CCoC is coming from.

The other problem is that feminists are constantly trying to redefine words and trivialize them. Like so:

I won't even get into the Twitter Feminists that proclaimed that pedophilia wasn't a bad thing.

Did anyone else notice the feminist attack on video games coincided with the ESA 2014 report that 49% of gamers were female?

Can't find it now, but there was an article where feminists were saying women needed to be forced into programming and tech fields even if they didn't want to be in those fields.

Does STEM need more women? Sure. I don't think the problem is getting them young though. Studies show that girls excel at math and science in high school, but for whatever reason they choose other fields for college. Look at Mercedes Carrera, she worked for 7 years in STEM, but quit to be a porn star. Women can do the job, but some may find it boring and quit or seek other jobs.

Then you have women like this who points out what I pointed out in a blog entry:
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Blog entry: https://gamergateportal.wordpress.com/2015/11/05/gamergate_rant/

Uhh, I am not a feminist and don't follow these "Darker Sides of Feminists" or whatever, so I don't really see this stuff outside of the Allegro.cc Off Topic forum.

Sure, it's me that's closed.

The initial purpose of feminism, which was to bring attention to the rights problem back in the mid 20th century, has been successful and accomplished a great deal for womens rights -- that is true. That it is over is not true. Although women do share equal legal rights, they are still subject to more discrimination and targetting of crime than are men. It's not true of everywhere and everyone, but statistically crimes like rape, harassment, and household homicide have higher rates towards women. Women do not yet share an equal quality of life with men. Some of this really is due to social norms present in our culture, regardless of the arguments in this thread that are to the contrary.

I'm not "following the feminist crowd", I'm a man in Canada and I don't even personally identify as a feminist... but I don't have issues with the movement like you do.

I don't see or experience the problem either, but that doesn't mean that women don't currently face them more so than men do.

However, that's a whole new segment of the topic and one I don't care to get into.

Derezo, I think you might have fallen for the feminist narrative here. There are a lot of statistics showing ways in which men are worse off than women. I don't see men's rights activists starting a "gender war", telling lies, and encouraging men to view themselves as victims over that. Feminists (and the Western media, in general) are giving people are very skewed view of reality. Most feminist activist groups seem to care more about their own narrative than reality, and are also actively denying the relevant biologal gender differences. At least they do here in Norway.

A lot of this seems to come from the quasi religious crap that is going on in gender studies, sociology, etc. They don't start with facts, but with more or less wacky theories about how people and societies works. There is much less pressure to adjust their views to match reality than there is in the natural sciences. And that probably affects what kind of people are drawn to those subjects, too. Ideological worldviews and leftist activism is not so big in the physics departments. There is a difference between wanting to understand the world, and wanting to change it. The latter should be based on the former. But sometimes there is a disconnect...

You're focusing on a specific group of extremists. Mainstream feminist organizations have merit and are important to maintaining equal rights. Denying that there are not gender related problems, and that these problems are not primarily experienced by women, is to ignore the reality that many women face.

So most feminists are extremists, and we should just pretend that they aren't the ones driving the movement? "Maintaining equal rights" for women in a Western contry? Really?

APPEND:
And you live in Canada, where this happened, and lots of people don't seem to understand why this is a bad sign. It's fine if something like this happens naturally, but this just seems misguided...

I have a track record of changing my mind and adjusting my ideas when presented with new evidence. It happens rarely, but it does happen. My reputation comes from talking about controversial subjects and taking the unpopular side of debates. For example, this one. I maintain that I'm right to be on it until presented with reliable evidence to the contrary.

Any kind of sport is entertainment. If women aren't as entertaining to watch then it makes sense there would be less media attention given to them simply because fewer people, men or women, are going to tune in to watch them and follow them. Women are mostly watched for their bodies. Nice asses. Etc. In terms of athletic performance men will usually dominate them so naturally if you want to watch the most exciting sports it will often be the men's group. That's not discrimination and nothing needs to change for it. Men's sports are not some kind of government protected career opportunity. Where there is money and therefore media involved it's because of consumers.

The minds of girls and women are simply different than boys. Even when girls are good at math and science, they usually choose a field in social sciences, care-giving, or teaching. They just have different interests than boys and men do. There are exceptions, but there's absolutely no evidence-based reason we should expect to get gender parity in all jobs. They make a big deal about STEM fields because they're well paid and well respected. They don't fuss about miners or sewer maintenance. While men dominate some of the best jobs, they have a monopoly on the worst jobs and feminists don't seem to mind.

Being frustrated is natural. It's about what you do with it that matters. Whether you persevere or give up. But that's more of a character thing than anything. That said, I don't think that you should expect your daughter to pursue a STEM field unless it's something that she's really passionate about. It might make you happy, but even if she's good at it, it might make her miserable. That's for her to decide. You shouldn't feel like it's the only desirable path in life.

Why do we need more games with sexy male characters? Is the target market for those games women? Markets decide content better than activists or governments do. When they say 50% of the video game industry is women they mean 50 year olds playing Candy Crush on their tablets. They don't mean Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto and Lara Croft. Lots of women play those too, don't get me wrong, but far far fewer than men. And most of the women that do play it aren't offended by it. Most girls that play Counter-Strike have a sick sense of humor and enjoy making jokes and teasing the boys. They are not discriminated against any more than boys (i.e., if you suck, you're going to get told you suck, and nobody is going to care about your "feels").

Append:

I'd also like to point out that male characters in video games are sexy. You won't find many obese blobs with stained T-shirts and 3-day old underwear. They're physically fit, often exaggerated beyond conceivable reality, and often times their physical features are visible for the viewer to enjoy (or ignore). What a lazy interpretation misses is that women and men find different things sexy. Women are naturally drawn to "bad boys", strong men, guys that don't take no for an answer and get things done. Guys with money. Guys that seem like they would be good providers and protectors. Most male video game characters fit this model exactly because (surprise!) the boys and men that are fantasizing about being these male characters want to have the desirable traits that girls find sexy!

The women that are complaining about "sexy" girls in video games are complaining because the boys like it and they think that it is going to hurt their chances with boys. They're oblivious to the fact that the men that don't want to date them are either not attracted to their bodies or not attracted to their minds (or both). If they want to change things they need to change the thing that they can control: themselves.

Well said.

I'm really confused because your position in this discussion seems to be heavily in support of Feminism. You sound like you associate with Feminists and support their cause. Now you're telling us you aren't even a Feminist. Here I was thinking you were getting a cut of their profits. So which is it? Friends, girlfriends, anybody is a Feminist activist? Otherwise, how the fuck do you claim to know what the movement is about if you aren't involved and don't pay attention?

[Citation needed]

Men are far more likely to be the victim of violent crime. If you include rape statistics in prison men will likely outnumber women too. Of course, the law typically doesn't consider sexual assault or sexual harassment against men as a "thing" unless it's extreme so we may not really know just how frequent it occurs in the wild (i.e., perpetrated by girls or women). Men are also more likely to be harassed, but when they are they don't cry about it. Most of the time they have nobody to cry to. They're expected by society to take it and remain silent.

[Citation needed]

Western women enjoy every quality of life that men do, and then some. And they typically don't have to work as hard to get it. You didn't really elaborate so I look forward to you breaking it down into examples.

So then what makes you believe there is a problem at all? Shouldn't you at least question whether there is one until you've seen the evidence?

Well said too. You won't generally find "Feminists" in the hard sciences because the facts simply don't support the Feminist narrative and science has no room for "feelings".

That's ultimately what it comes down to. Girls and women are far more sensitive, emotional beings than boys and men. An innocent "no" could feel like abuse to them if you let their imaginations run wild with it. And that's exactly what is happening in society with the Feminist movement going unchecked. They're making claims that are difficult to prove and instead of assuming "innocent until proven guilty," because they're female and get special privileges in society, we assume "guilty until proven innocent," and make changes willy-nilly without the knowledge or experience to understand the long-term affects not only the system as a whole and the unprivileged groups being held back, but also on the girls and women.

Feminism is not science. That's why it's dogma. That's why you shouldn't give it any credence until you've seen reliable science to support it. There's a reason the "social sciences" are separated from the "real" sciences. You can't easily test social sciences. You can literally say just about anything and offer subjective evidence and it's nearly impossible to prove it wrong (just like religion). It's only problematic when you give it the same credibility as actual science.

You're not a feminist and you just called fighting for women's rights in 3rd world countries where they have no rights the "Darker sides of feminists"? Are you just trolling at this point?
Do you think it is fair that this feminist tried to ruin a man's life because he disagreed with her on Twitter?

That is because statistically men don't report rapes. Look at the reactions to the man in Chicago that was raped at gun point or the case of the African man raped at gun point by three women. People poked fun at how ugly the assailants must have been or laughed because they don't view men being raped to be real. Men are viewed as wimps for being raped by a woman. Let's not forget that according to feminists, women can't be sexist, and minorities can't be racist (which made it into the CoC). So it should be no surprise that they don't think women can rape a man because in their mind if a man gets aroused then he is wanting it.

On the note of rape, look at all the false claims of rape by women. When it is revealed they were false (like the UVA false rape) feminists claim it is the patriarchy holding women back and went ape shit over it. Yet when a porn star is raped by three people at gunpoint while her husband and children are there too, feminists are dead quiet.

As for harassment, depends on your definition as feminists have tried to redefine that term too. Pew Research Center did a study on online harassment:
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http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/

Household homicide (filed under domestic homicide) you have a point, women made up 58% of spouses or girlfriends murdered.

Ultimately, this begs only one question:
What does those three things have to do with women's rights? Rape, harassment, and murder have laws in place. You can't make laws to "predict" who will and won't do them. Those crimes also have nothing to do with victim and everything to do with the criminal. You do realize that psychiatrists think a lot of men that attack women do so because they have issues with their mothers?

Yet women have a life expectancy of 79 years of age compared to men's 72 years of age. Seems the quality of life is the other way around.

I actually thought I was quoting Specter Phoenix, not you. My apologies.

edit:

The quality of one's life is not determined by it's length.

I've already said I know many feminists and I do pay attention. We just pay attention to different things

I simply disagree with you and that's that.

There are honestly a great deal of things in this thread that I just simply don't agree with and I don't agree that the sources for the claims are bipartisan.

[edit]
I should say, I soon as I read "You're not a feminist and you just called fighting for women's rights in 3rd world countries where they have no rights the "Darker sides of feminists"?" I was like wtf is this guy going on about..? How did he manage to stick those words in my posts?

And yet if the roles were reversed and men typically lived longer, you can bet your bottom dollar that modern feminists would decry the existence of a "life span gap" and demand that the field of medicine rectifies it under threat of being considered a misogynistic system.

No, it's the other way around. "Quality of life is the standard of health, comfort, and happiness of an individual or group."

A study showed women had a better quality of life in 2008. Another study from 2013 that shows women are happier than men.

I didn't stick those words in your post. That was your reply to me asking if you and your feminist friends were fighting for women's rights in 3rd world countries where women have no rights.
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An article I found does say that out of all men and women that live to be 100 32% of men are healthy while only 15% of women are healthy. So they could pull that claim if they want.

100 is an extreme though. Assuming Wikipedia stats are accurate, only about .022% of Americans live to be 100.

Did you see the olympic bike race for women? I did and I think it was it was just as intense and interesting as the race for men, really. I think it's a a predjudice that a women's athletic prestations are less intense or entertaining then those of men.

It reminds me of when I wanted to buy a certain PS2 game in my country, but it wasn't distributed here. I called the distributor and they said it was because no one bought the game in my country. And I thought, "of course, no one will buy it if you don't distribute it, dumbasses". So I just imported the game.

Let's be clear, to me "markets" are a mere abstraction that doesn't quite describe reality. In reality there are merely buyers and sellers. And in many cases, the sellers are completely clueless about what the buyers want, and the buyers are also clueless about what they would really enjoy. I think prejudice plays a negative role into that.

Everybody, every child has their own temperament, yes, and every child thinks differently. But it's important to realise that children are extremely quick to absorb culture. My daughter changed quite a bit just from starting to go to kindergarten, where she absorbed the prevalent children's culture. And suddenly she started to like pink. And when she spends some time in the country of her mother, suddenly she becomes much more like people from that country, because she absorbs that country's culture. And it lessens again when she is back here. So I wouldn't be so quick to say that it's due to nature. I think it's wise not to underestimate the impact of culture.

I would say in western countries people in general have varying qualities of life depending on many factors outside gender. Actual equality of everybody may seem desirable, but if you think deeply it's actually a very bad idea. Equality before the law is a much better approach. One thing that irks me about the CCoC and other such initiatives is that it is an attempt to create a "law" though a legally binding document that has a far lower standard than any actual law does.

Well we are talking about a movement that claims their is a wage gap (which is illegal under the Equal Pay Act), claim that 1 in 5 (or 1 in 7) women are sexually assaulted on campus (while government numbers show it is actually 1 in 52 or 53), and claim that holding a door for a woman is sexist. So I wouldn't be surprised to see them use that as a proof of sexism or some other ridiculous claim.

I concede that there are a few people that are feminists that are calm, collected, logical, and fighting for women's rights where it is actually needed. The problem is that feminism is suffering the same image problem that Black Lives Matter is facing. The calm, rational, people in the groups are being quiet as mice while all the volatile people are getting camera time with their hate speeches, calls for violent or vile actions, and even sexist or racist remarks.

Do you realize it is extremely easy to find proof after proof of feminists being anti-male, sexist, racist, et. al., but almost impossible to find anything that modern feminism has actually done for women?

When I pointed this out on one of my social media, I had one person (seriously, only one person) point to safe spaces as what modern feminists have given women. That is the big accomplishment! Feminists have given privileged kids a space where they don't get their views of the world challenged, but are instead coddled and nurtured for four years to where they come out of college the same way they came in; 18-20 year old mentality with the concept that the world is holding them back due to gender.

Look at how messed up this is; feminists are saying Hillary Clinton is making history by running for President. They are declaring it breaking the patriarchy. That is spitting in the face of the 104 women that hold seats in Congress, Sarah Palin who ran for VP, Carly Fiorina who ran for President in the Republican primaries, etc. Same goes for the game industry. I see feminists yelling that the game industry is sexist because there aren't more female programmers. That too is spitting in the face of the hundreds of women that are in or were in the industry; like Carol Shaw (programmed River Raid), Roberta Williams, Amy Hennig, Jade Raymond, Mari Shimazaki, and many more amazingly talented women.

The vocal feminist movement the world gets to see is the one that no longer builds women up, but rather tear men down and claim it is about equality. The logical ones are taking a back seat, watching, and ultimately denouncing the movement to declare they are egalitarian because the vocal ones have ruined the image of the movement. I base this off the facts I've seen that say that during second wave feminism about 36% of Americans said they were feminists compared to third wave feminism being at 18%.

This is more for entertainment purposes:

This is what I'm trying to say -- it is a small group of noisy individuals, not the group as a whole.

It's not almost impossible at all. Even browsing feminist.org you can find success stories, and current issues facing women in the US. There are many movements making impacts in Africa and the middle east, as you've touched on, and that is still feminism.

She really is "Making History" by becoming president (which seems pretty inevitable if Trump remains in the race). She would be the first female POTUS in history, thus "making history". There have been plenty of government officials and people trying to run, but she will be the first.

I really do take a back seat to this myself and I am also more of an egalitarian in my views -- and have had that discussion with friends who share similar views... and I still don't think the CoC is really such a terrifying document. I realize that some people may get slighted by some of the wording, and possibly by poor project managers. I still think it is overkill.

This is an improvement on the format of B telling you what A supposedly is, which is the majority of the videos you backlashers have posted. Hell, That guy with the goofy face said that some supposedly liberal English rag said that Brexit was responsible for the attack in Nice. On screen was a quote of... some conservative claiming that on Twitter. Not a quote from, oh, I don't know, the magazine. This C telling you what B is telling you what A supposedly is, and both B and C are known to have agendas against A. Great! Still might be true, but if you aren't bias, this should pop out to you as shoddy at best.

Back to the latest video.

Opening: This is just a jerk being a jerk.

1: Yes, boys and girls have differences in brains. But individual differences dwarf gender differences. Societal differences also outweigh gender differences. Male protagonists still outnumber female characters by two to one in children’s picture books. Very few children aren't in an environment that instantly tells them what boys and girls are into.
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More than 3/4 of children's authors are men, so they're probably just relating experiences more like theirs. Still, this stuff affects children and making it out like it's primarily about physical differences is 1950's thought, if not centuries before.

In actual reality, it seems like a confidence problem that needs to be addressed. I don't see large gender disparities as inherently a giant problem, though it does make workplaces and school somewhat awkward for the minority.

2: Based on actual evidence. Good. The only person I'm hearing making these "feminist" claims is that guy, so I don't know how many people or if anyone really said them. More A telling me what B supposedly is. People believing domestic violence is equally distributed in society, if there are any, aren't tied to the idea of feminism in any way. The fact is, his initial statement sounded bad out of context and it's not surprising when people take a bad sounding statement the wrong way. I'm not seeing how this is somehow destroying feminists because I'm not hearing any feminist arguments and it sounds like typical political misunderstanding. The last part is partially political bias. About half of feminists are conservative (at least among young people, I'm not sure about older). The rest of that issue probably has more to do with how people generally think crime is rising, when it's mostly been the opposite.

What I do like here is the way that the guy talks back with information to an attempt to make a subject taboo.

3: Now, the last part lacked feminism but this is guns. Maybe they're tangentially related or indistinguishable as SJW to a bias brain, I don't know.

I think you are thinking about this the wrong way. Individual differences do not "cancel out" statistics. Societal differences largely build on intrinsic gender differences, I think it's misleading to say that they "outweigh" them. Society and culture can emphasize or de-emphasize certain traits, and often suppresses individual differences to a certain degree. More liberal societies let individual differences come into play more, obviously. Most places are not Saudia-Arabia, thankfully.

Here's a good article with lots of references Specific Toy Preferences: Learned or Innate?

And this, Female Developer's view on Norwegian Gender Paradox:

There are differences between boys and girls and these are going to end up making different proportions of gender in different fields. But I think it's unreasonable to ignore the influence of media on children. They pick up on gender roles pretty fast.

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Also, girls are funneled a little bit more by it, into more nurturing roles. But it need to be noted that just as the Bichdel Test still shows heavy bias in media for men, a lot of the things you are complaining about are a direct result of the psychology field going all to women, and teaching remaining so (to my limited knowledge or what the distribution was in the past). It's less than 20% for male masters degrees. This wasn't always the case. The story I'm reading there is that the men psychologists went more toward medicine for treatment and women moved into the talking side.

So when I hear about programs trying to lessen gender divides, I think that's a good thing. If it's only about trying to get more women in STEM, then that's a shame. I've been running on the idea that I hear more about that because it's my kind of interest. I know my sister has said there are programs trying to get more men interested in teaching.

I think it's incredibly sexist to assert that girls and women are so feeble that their entires lives are decided for them by their environment. The girls' isle looks the way it does because that's what sells, and it sells because girls like it. Bright colors, dolls with shopping malls and changes of clothes, babies with diapers and bottles, kitchens and tea sets, etc. The apple doesn't fall far from their mothers.

There's little evidence that this is entirely environmental. On the contrary, there's plenty of evidence that it's at least partially natural. It stands to reason that millions of years of evolution would cause the brains of men and women to differ to better serve the roles required of them to survive.

Don't bother making an absurd claim that it would somehow be a good thing for there to be more women surgeons and men nurses unless you're also going to say that there should be more women sewer workers and men daycare workers.

Hell, you can't have more men daycare workers until society stops discriminating against men. Most of them today would probably be suspected of being some kind of a pervert. That's probably part of why male teachers are declining. Working with children in 2016 is a dangerous career choice for a man.

Experiments have shown that a man taking pictures at a park or a beach will quickly be identified by the crowd as a pervert and confronted. Meanwhile, a woman doing the exact same thing isn't even noticed. Sexism exists, but it's sexist in itself to believe it mainly affects women.

Women have had encouragement and opportunity for decades. Their behavior isn't changing. Take a hint. They now dominate college and university graduates, but they're graduating in "female" fields, often with useless degrees that won't even translate into a career.

The biggest wrench in the gears is the historical fact of women throughout history being successful and achieving careers in male dominated fields long before any kind of activism existed.

I hold the belief that the movement is less about activism or human rights and more about the "illuminati", or whatever you'd like to call the "elite" 0.0001%, controlling the population. Would we have been able to comfortably afford a household on one income if not for Feminism? With so much "diversity" and "feels" in society these days why is it that for the first time in history we're projected to fare worse than our parents' generations?

What makes sense to me is increased productivity for the same price. The only way to source extra workers is to convince the non-working demographics that they should be working, and that for some reason they should want to. I honestly can't understand that sell because if I had the opportunity not to I'd probably take it (mind you, I'd find something else to do productive, but freely).

There are also programs trying to get men into assisted living positions and health care.

Yes, but it's not sexist if you include boys, and I do

Relevant (I don't recall if this particular video [series] has been posted in this thread yet):

I'll have to agree to disagree. While there are some natural differences between boys and girls, the cultural influence and differences are far more influential. This is especially easy to see if one's spouse is from a different culture.

But I also can't help but notice that the net effect of feminism has been that now, women in Europe and the USA also have to work outside of the home,whill still having to work at home as well. If you can somehow gradually double the amount of people willing to work like this, then for the employers it means they can gradually halve the wages. A big achievement of the worker's movements in the 19th century was to ensure children and women did not have to work any more. An achievement that for the account of the women demolished again simply by telling women that work is desirable somehow... :p And then came the mass migration of cheap workers into Europe, while in the USA, the black people had that role. And then, when all that didn't boost the profits enough any more, the "elite" relocated and is relocating the factories to low wage countries. All while sending the oil money to our "good friends" in Saudi Arabia. It all fits neatly together.

And you know what the sneaky part of it is? It's all done under the pretext and flag of good intentions. I agree that in the 1950's women were still not legally equal to men, and same went for the black, and their rights needed to be improved. And there was a lot of useless sexual prudery. But what it all amounts to now is spreading mutual fear and distrust between everyone at the bottom rank of the social ladder. Likely to prevent us from making a fist at that 0.0001%... And Gamer "gate" or Atheism plus or now the business of the CCoC all seems to have exactly the same modus operandi. The "elite" doesn't want us to enjoy games (work more), to give away software for free (they can't compete), to disregard religion (it is an is an ideal mind control too, unfortunately). You can have free sex (family bonds are undesirable), but there is a "rape culture" (because actually you shouldn't go out to enjoy sex, but instead work more). Divide and conquer, indeed...

He's totally over-analyzing that quote about us not being apes. We are not the same species as the apes we know. He provided zero evidence to support the implicit idea that women should subject to men through the shared relationship we have with apes.

In any case, this is a bigger topic and isn't really about feminism.

Something that's also in line with what you're against, although it has nothing to do with feminism -- a comedian was ordered to pay a bunch of money because of what he said about a disabled person.

It was a distasteful joke. It sucks for that guy, he had to pay a lot. However, I don't know what that kid and his family went through as a result of this joke so it's not really my place to say. He seems well off enough to mostly shrug it off so I doubt it's causing him any sort of financial hardship. Here's a video you will most likely agree with more than I do, though:

Sort of like Feminism and like-minded individuals have provided zero reliable evidence that women's decisions are predicated on environmental factors instead of just being their natural, personal preference. Of course, in that video he was responding to a Feminist woman that was claiming that we are not apes. Which is not really up for debate. We are. That's what he was saying. He then argued, and reasonably so, that patterns that we observe in other apes could provide insight into our own nature.

It's evident that the natural behaviors of apes is uncomfortable for the Feminist crowd because it casts a ray of doubt on the entire narrative. Of course, you don't need apes to do that. The same behaviors can be observed in people. It's just a bit more difficult to cloud the issue with the apes so they escape into the "fuck science" argument and attempt to appeal to the less intelligent among us by arguing that we obviously aren't apes because reasons and therefore it can't be in our nature to obvious things we all understand as children.

Arguing that we aren't apes pretty much destroys the woman's credibility. And that's really all the video is about. Some woman is expressing stupid ideas that are obviously very politically correct and popular, but obviously not very intelligent or backed by evidence. He enjoys tearing these things apart and does a good job of it.

That's outrageous. It was you that first informed me that we had such things as "human rights tribunals" and this is further evidence that we need to disband them. He's a fucking comedian. To fine him for making a joke is effectively preventing him from doing his job. I am so frustrated to learn about this.

Sounds like a troll trap, but what exactly don't you agree with about a video criticizing the punishment of a comedian for making jokes during a comedy act? That's the whole fucking point of comedy. To make light of things that are not light. To break the tension and let us laugh about it. There's no use for comedy if that isn't so.

When it comes to GamerGate, I've written some things about them and the anti side.
Two year video:

We are not the same species as apes that we observe in nature. That much I know. In what way are you saying that we are apes? In some form of literal sense, or that we are the ancestors of apes? These are not social problems that apes found in nature debate among themselves that we are aware.

He was in no way required to add this disabled individual into his routine, and the plaintiff is in no way required to be subject to such embarrassment.

Derezo, nobody thinks that you are actually this stupid, just give it up

You guys keep arguing this silly points, not me

Quora is always a source of interesting discussions.
Another article I found interesting in regard to GamerGate and 3rd wave feminism.
To show the world has lost their minds and need to get back to reality, TIME ran this:
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When did a "culture critic" become more important in games than a legendary game creator?
This one made me laugh:
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Okay, what the hell?!
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TIME has really lost the plot. Someone posted this article on Facebook a couple of days ago. I'm guessing there was no fact checking done, the journalist probably just gathered a bunch of information that suited the narrative he wanted to portray. While some of what he's saying is true, some of it is misleading, and other parts are just plain wrong. There is no excuse for using dishonest people like Sarkeesian as sources or "experts" when a google search would reveal what she is doing. Media with a strong liberal bias is just as bad as right-wing media outlets when it comes to the lack of interest in facts and objective journalism, and the pure disrespect for their audience.

It appears Youtube reviewers are getting sick of Social Justice Warriors and the like:

People have hit their limits with political correctness and are fighting back. Some are crediting GamerGate as the catalyst because gamers were the first fan base that actually fought back and made a difference. A guy at Gawker even said GamerGate was the most difficult group they ever fought, before quickly going into the media narrative and trying to dismiss them as a hate mob of teenagers (even though majority of the supporters are open about who they are and are mid-20s and older). The narrative against the consumer revolt has pretty much been a comical thing to behold for the past two years.

With Anita, it is amazing how she is getting away with fraud. Her tropes series was backed with almost $160k, claimed her videos would be well researched and released by the end of 2012, but here we are rapidly nearing the end of 2016 and she hasn't even released all the videos that she claimed she would. When pushed for answers, she blames GamerGate, the Twitter hashtag and faceless trolls online that said mean things to her as to why she hasn't finished four years later. Her research? Taking Let's Play footage from Youtubers to help sell her narrative that games are sexist and make gamers sexist even if the footage or game objective proves her claim wrong. Like claiming Hitman encourages killing innocent women while the footage shows a penalty for killing them. Watchdogs she claims you can ignore crimes even though the whole premise of the game is to stop crimes.

The jaw dropping aspect is that if you say she claims games make gamers sexist you get people asking "Where does she specifically state that?!" Apparently her followers can't put two and two together, her videos are pointing sexist tropes and almost every video at some point states games are teaching gamers this, ergo she is saying it without flat out saying it because she knows that blatant accusation will get her laughed at just like Jack Thompson and his games make gamers violent fiasco.

For me, being a GG supporter, the sweet point for the past two years was watching Wu, Quinn, Sarkeesian, Harper, Alexander, and numerous others paint GG as a hate mob that was misogynistic, homophobic, etc. Just for evidence after evidence to show that Quinn and Harper openly take part in bullying people while claiming to be anti-bullying, recently a person working for Quinn's "Anti-harassment group" was just outed as a serial harasser and abuser, they have all come out defending pedophilia, etc. They have shown that they are the terrible people in this debate while their claims of GG and the supporters being terrible hinge on anonymous trolls that said mean things. I've shown several times where antis actually offered free code for Smash Bros and other games to have people tweet racist comments or threats while including the GG hashtag, but like idiots wouldn't delete the original tweet with the offer after the tweet was made by a random guy. Most of the tweets that actually were heinous were from accounts that were just made or had never said anything to the hashtag except the one racist, sexist, or threatening tweet.

The only downside of being a supporter of GamerGate is that I've been flat out told that I will never get a job in the industry due to just supporting it. Yep, been told they will make sure any employer knows I supported GG and make sure that it means I hate women (good old narrative). Guess it is a good thing I gave up working in the industry professionally years before GG happened .

[Append]
Just so you know, everyone that disagrees with anything feminist related will be labeled GG just because. If you don't agree 100% with their accusations of games and gmaers then you are the typical, outdated gamer trope and therefore a secret supporter of GamerGate.

[Append II]
Apparently BLM is getting a GamerGate-esque movement promoting empowerment and just like GG media and writers are labeling them misogynists, et. al. Does that make BLM equivalent to the 3rd wave feminists?
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Yeah, that's GG a debacle as well... Problem is some unsavory online troll and bullying groups like Bapthomet are involved in it and they love to cause mayhem on both sides for their own amusement, and to keep theflames of conflict burning. Not to mention the pro GG camp is being played just as much as the anti one. It's all divide and conquer again.

I'm in favour of respectful discussion and against bullying people online. So what I dislike about GG, though is that people on both sides are callous towards cases where their opponents were bullied. Interestingly enough I was first bullied online on line by two or three ladies way back some time in 2000.... To blame men for online bullying is just absurd, women can be just as insidious.

Nevertheless I find that making games more fun for women and girls also is a valid concern. And I do think that the damsel in distress trope is often quite trite and not really so interesting to use in games, even if the damsel is male. But again it's the means used that I strongly object to. The anti GG camp could make valid points without resorting to lying and paining their opponents as bad people just for disagreeing with them.

All in alll though I think wthe GG name is something to give up on, it's too tainted with that nonsense about Ms. Quinn and harassment claims. Keep the movement, keep the priniples, but change the name. "Gamers for ethics", or something like that. They can't realistically be anti that.

I think an important problem in western society right now is the loss of the ability to disagree respectfully. "I Disapprove of What You Say, But I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say It" -- Evelyn Beatrice Hall. A quote to strive for.

You can't expect to create video games similar to the boy's games that appeal to most girls if most girls just don't like the same video game mechanics. It probably won't happen. Our brains are wired differently. Nothing in particular has stopped girls from playing games for the past 40 years except that most don't enjoy them. Had they enjoyed them too there would already be a market for them.

There are countless female video games. They just aren't respected by "gamers" because "gamers" represent a group that enjoy playing complex, rich, action or adventure games. Most games for girls are casual to the extreme. Drag and drop, intoxicating "points" sounds, stupid easy games with little to no coordination required and mostly just pats on the back for every interaction. There are exceptions. I have countless female Steam friends from Counter-Strike: Source. Mostly because I used to be a single male so I collected them. But countless of them can kick my ass at CS without trying. Girls that like it and are even skilled at it exist. They're even common. Just about every game you're playing with a female, and almost certainly every day. They just aren't there in the same numbers as males.

You can't begin to create games for girls until you can identify the game mechanics that girls generally would enjoy. You won't find anybody willing to try that in such a miss (no pun intended) industry. Most games are flops. As with movies and music, relatively few projects are complete successes. Probably many times more fail than succeed. Who would take a risk on a formula that is completely unproven when in reality most of the industry won't even deviate from the proven patterns that are successful. Except for indie developers you don't see any risk taking at all.

You may not like it, but the damsel in distress trope is popular because it feels good for the target audience (which happens to be the audience most likely to buy games that their designers are interested in and capable of making). Arguably it's such a big part of our society because it has benefited our species. I believe it sends a realistic message that women are weaker and as men we are expected to look out for them. And at the same time, women are expected to appreciate being looked out for. You can only really oppose it when your mind is wrapped up in the absurd idea that women are the same as men and just an oppressed class of people by artificial means at the hands of the Shitlord Patriarchy(tm). You need to be completely irrational to not understand why that exists and why it's popular.

In general I'd say that's a valid idea, except that no matter what name the movement goes by it will always be tainted by trolls and sock puppets. I don't think any name is needed because you don't need group think. You just need good ideas. They can't taint good ideas. The same is true of "Feminism". No matter how well intentioned some activists are, there will always be others to ruin the name. The only thing that can't be ruined by trolls and sock puppets and sociopaths and haters is a good idea that has no affiliation.

Agreed. Though I think that's just the tip of the iceberg. It's not just about agreement or disagreement. It's about control of ideas. And along with that, control of behavior. It's generally about total control.

I'm all for discussion about combating online harassment and bullying. My issue is that 3rd wave feminists are trivializing harassment, bullying, as well as rape. Candace Owens is an African American woman that is making a site called Social Autopsy. She stated it was a employer database for bosses to find if their employees have bullied or harassed people online. According to Owens, who says she has recorded and documented all emails, phone calls, and DMs in Twitter from different journalists claiming they wanted to know more about SA just to turn around and write a pro-Quinn site and attack Owens. The twist is that Quinn contacted Owens site requesting an email directly to Owens, which they did so per Owens approval, but it was a private email that hadn't been doxed and only her associates knew. Apparently Quinn became irate wanting Owens to shutdown the SA plans and when she didn't Owens suddenly got "GamerGate" hate mail to an email that only Quinn had received. Even Owens said she knew it was Quinn and Harper behind it and I believe she even wrote an article or two and appeared on The Ralph Retort live podcast to talk about it. The reason I'm pointing this out is because it appears the ones in the anti-gamergate camp that claim to be anti-harassment, anti-bullying, anti-doxing, are in actuality harassers, doxers, and bullies so any discussion with them is pointless.
Video by feminist group that openly trivializes rape:

Even GamerGate supporters have said they are fine with companies making games aimed at women or making future games more inclusive to women. The problem is that the ones demanding change are demanding existing franchises be changed. Brianna Wu co-authored an article stating that Samus Aran was transgender and tried to use the story of her being half human and half alien (newhalf) as proof by saying that in Japan newhalf was a a trangender term. Apparently, developers can't repurpose a term for a game.

Antis were demanding that Link be made a girl from now on. So when they announced the female character that looked similar to Link they went nuts saying they had won. When it came out that it was a separate character and not a female Link they went ape shit saying it was just a Ms. Male Trope. They claimed there were no strong female characters in movies either, guess they missed the Alien franchise, the Terminator Franchise, Blade Runner, etc. The antis don't want games to be fun, they want more games like Depression Quest and Home Alone and have even stated they enjoy ruining gamers fun.

Even Stan Lee weighed in on the ordeal as it is going on in comics too. He stated "I wouldn’t mind, if Peter Parker had originally been black, a Latino, an Indian or anything else, that he stay that way, but we originally made him white. I don’t see any reason to change that.”

“It has nothing to do with being anti-gay, or anti-black, or anti-Latino, or anything like that. I say create new characters the way you want to.”

"I don’t see any reason to change the sexual proclivities of a character once they’ve already been established.”

I feel this applies to games and movies. Games can always be made specifically aimed at women so these people wanting existing franchises to change by making mainstay character gender swap is ridiculous. Though, after seeing the fiasco with Ghostbusters, I'm going to guess most game companies won't take that same risk.

Not possible. A GamerGate supporter had a panel at SXSW and the panel was called SavePoint. Media instantly labeled it a GamerGate panel because of the people being on it supporting the consumer revolt. The media has made the same argument you have about taking a new name, but every tag they made was instantly connected to GamerGate by the media instead of letting it stand on its own. GG supporters have already come to realize that after two years it isn't possible to change names and instead have continued to fight and start to make their own sites for gamers.

http://deepfreeze.it/ was born from GamerGate being ignored in regards of calling out corruption.

As for bullying, remember according to the media GG is the bad guys that allegedly bullied and harassed:

Then you have an anti-gg indie dev trying to shame a convention, yet GG are the reactionaries that act out of anger:
{"name":"gg1mcap.png","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/5\/a\/5aed7633dd5bdcc424a59408bd64bc62.png","w":600,"h":379,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/5\/a\/5aed7633dd5bdcc424a59408bd64bc62"}
Also, don't forget, it is GG that is the problem, not the media (below is a former Polygon writer whom quit months before GG started):
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One last thing on name changing, every area has groups of fans fed up with feminists trying to tell them to feel bad for what they like. A group formed around the Hugo awards and the media quickly claimed it was just GamerGate trying to stir up trouble in other areas. Media outlets are shitting on the fan base in favor of pushing feminist idealogues and have created GamerGate and its supporters into the ultimate boogeyman in all forms of entertainment. GG was claimed to only be about 20 or 30 people with sockpuppet accounts. Then Harper made the block bot that has a list of 10k and growing users blocked. Now they are blaming GamerGate for ruining the Ghostbuster movie. The media has conflated GG from a small group of "basement dwelling nerds living with their moms" to a insanely massive group able to impact a movie's opening night.

I agree with most of what you said in your post, because the market is primarily men the games are designed to the market. Most games are also developed by men. Issues about story, plot, game design, etc appealing to a male audience are pretty well resolved by that argument -- the market gets what it wants and men do want different things then girls.

I still would say that is why women struggle in that environment. They really don't get treated as equals, when their gender is revealed in online situations, and when few women are in a group of many men, such as this forum, they are singled out and can feel bothered by the extra attention because of their gender.

They have an up-hill battle to climb and that is why they form groups and try to create "aweness of their cause", sometimes in poor ways but they do what they can.

@Derezo
The problem is that I don't see many female gamers actually complaining about the games. Quite the opposite. I see more female gamers pissed about feminists and sjws being offended for them and demanding equality in representation instead of just letting them enjoy the games.

My question is, of all the women that get special attention or unwanted attention on forums and in games how many of them report it to the proper people? On forums it should be reported to site administrators and moderators, in games it should be reported to customer support and community managers. Most games also give the player tools now to mute or even block users that are being jerks. For example, GTA V lets a player mute all users they find annoying. Consoles let you block other users from sending you invites or messages, same with PC game platforms like Steam. Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites also have features to block or silence immature jerks. It's only an uphill climb if they ignore the tools that are in place to help them.

[APPEND] Another video of why feminism has such a negative view among so many people:

I don't know about adult ladies but my girl does seem to enjoy games that have female characters in them more. Of course she plays the casual dress-up games with princess characters. But she even sometimes likes to play RPGs that she is too young to understand quite a bit, walking here and there, just because she likes the female characters in there. From this highly unrepresentative sample of one I'd say that she probably thinks: "These are girls, I am a girl, so this game is for me", no matter if the game is casual or not. That's what I'm talking about, really. I'd like her to play more complex games, but if there are no girl characters she isn't too interested. And that's what is hard to find, more somewhat complex games with girl characters.

As for those anti GG people, they are not gamers, so they aren't really interested in games. It's just something to push their ideology. It's just a way to criticise others without wanting to enjoy yourself really. So, I'm definitely not talking about making games to please them, since there is no pleasing them anyway. And they are not buyers anyway. Wanting to change established characters or series just for ideology is nonsense.

Much like that the CCoC is also for ideology. I barely see any serious open source contributions from the people who edited it.

On the topic of Zelda, what I wouldn't mind is a Zelda where you could play both Link AND Zelda. To keep it in the genre and with the character's personality, Link's route could be more action based with sword fights and Zelda's more puzzle based with bow fights. sometimes they help each other out, and the final battle they fight together. Symbolic of how the sexes should help each other, not fight each other.

On the topic of the damsel in distress trope, it's a subtrope of "saving a person", which according to my literature teacher in high school was one of the 3 trite bases of story, together with "discovering a treasure or secret", and "changing the social order or the government structure". Sure those 3 are very popular, and I see why, but I think it's worth while to try to avoid those 3 as much as possible for a more original approach to a game's plot. In some games series, the overuse of the damsel in distress is ridiculous. I'd almost think that Princess Peach actually prefers Bowser over Mario at the rate she allows herself to be "abducted".

I understand you point, but I don't think the problem is not enough games made for girls, I think the problem is that those games don't get much marketing push. I can recall a lot of the Gamecube games I loved I had never heard of due to limited or almost no marketing for it.

I agree, maybe make her depend on more magic based items and puzzles. I never did play Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon or Zelda's Adventure, but both of those put you as Zelda saving Link after he is kidnapped.

Saying to avoid those and calling for an original approach for the game's plot is easy to say, but it is extremely difficult to come up with an original approach that will be believable to the player. You want to gamer to beat you game and if they are told they have to fight hordes of enemies, sit through puzzles, or get to the final boss just because then it loses their attention pretty fast. There are tons of games that try to be original, but in the end have to fall back on one of those three tropes to keep players locked to the screen and story in order to beat the game. That is just my personal observation though.

I only need to read the first post. Thank you for the insight.

Much of that is because of what you're looking at. It is pretty clear that you follow a lot of anti-feminism type of material that focuses on that type of thing.

Some may, but often there is no proper person -- or it's not clear who that is. The typical response is to leave that community, or to make your gender not apparent any longer.

For me personally I get much more invested in a game that has the promise of female character. It's automatic immersion. That's a motivation that I can appreciate. I suffered through Borderlands and half of Borderlands 2 even though I don't really enjoy the game mechanics very much. The only reason I did it: the mysterious woman that would occasionally appear almost as a ghost to guide the player. Naturally I assumed I would meet her some day.

I think that trying to motivate me to struggle through a game without a female of some kind as a reward would be difficult. It has been done. If I recall correctly, Soldier of Fortune II didn't have one. Of course, it kept you busy with constant gunfights instead. I think for the male demographic those are your primary choices. The female character doesn't have to be a "damsel", but I highly suggest there be one for motivation if you want people to play your game. Otherwise, you better have really clever game mechanics or lots of fun (not too frustrating) action to keep us busy and entertained instead of motivated.

Actually it is from talking to female gamers and even game devs. Most of the devs I talk to say the people that complain are in the minority, but the problem is that now the media is running with the minority claims and making it seem like the majority, putting pressure on them to change their idea of the game.

Political correctness has become such a thorn in the sides of developers that even Elysian Shadows team addressed it on their blog. Found themselves forcing changes on their own work and censoring their ideas due to fearing outrage from SJWs. Developers are supposed to have the freedom to make the games they want, but SJWs are making a minor problem into a major issue and it is compounded by the fact of SJWs being in the industry.

It's funny that you think I only follow anti-feminist when in fact it was following feminists that made me start subscribing to anti-feminists. For example, a feminist blew up over Call of Duty adding women to the online mode saying it promoted women being violent. Feminists demanded Assassin's Creed to add women, when they were added, feminist writers said it wasn't genuine and just an attempt to sell the game to women. My negative view of feminism is because of watching the vocal feminist demand something, get it, and then go completely ape shit over the little flaw they can find in the solution. Let's not forget that on Twitter writers for Polygon, Kotaku, Destructoid, RockPaperShotgun, and a few other sites claim they are feminists and have a history of writing articles attacking gamers, games, and devs for liking and making games they deem wrong, good old wrong think.

After four years, if a person hasn't played Borderlands 2 or hasn't beat it then they aren't going to so I'm going to reply to your spoiler:

You do finally meet Angel, but it is only to kill her per her request in Borderland 2. According to the story, Angel is Handsome Jack's daughter who is a Siren like Lilith. He has trapped her and forced her to trick the characters from Borderlands 1 and she does the same for part of Borderlands 2, but then starts working against her father. You get the Vault Key from her and then she dies.

Nice video about the female characters in video games. That's awesome. Thanks for posting.

That lead me indirectly to this, which isn't entirely on-topic, but broadly related...

Here is another video from a female developer from three years ago:

I just stumbled across this video after the routine YouTube hopscotch. I guess this guy has been compared to Eminem for his rhyming. Too early for me to judge, but I didn't have to shut it off so that's a good sign.

Back on topic, I found the plot of the music video interesting.

Append:

Specter Phoenix, I'm about 83% sure you've already posted that video in this thread...

Well, I'm more into jRPG's, but personally I like games where one or more of the main characters are female, and preferrably not damsels. It's OK if they get into trouble and need help, or even if they self sacrifice, but really the idea of a woman, or a man for that matter, as a reward is not very interesting for me.

Anyway, jRPG's with a female lead character are really old, starting with Phantasy Star, were we get the wonderful character Alys. And in Phantasy Star 2, the game really pulls a "take that" with Nei... Or in the game I'm currently playing, Legend Of Heroes Trails in the Sky (1 & 2) where Estelle Bright really shines.

In the open source Atari 2600 action/RPG I made, Ature, I also implemented a female lead character, but that game has only been played by a few hundred Atari 2600 fans, so the impact was very limited, I'd say.

Indie games can have a great plot, just look at, say Katawa Shoujo, although that's a visual novel, so there's nothing much else BUT plot there. But I have to admit that personally I think you can find the best plot in many less popular but still non-indie commercial games made in Japan.

I've been working for a long time now on making my own RPG at a glacial pace, and I have a great idea for a better story now. It will be controversial, I'm sure, but also, widely ignored since I estimate less than 1000 people will play it. That's also one reason why the CCoC is not suited for me, it prohibits "sexualized language", which is necessary if you make a plot for a game for adults...

No, but Torhu did post her Norwegian Gender Paradox video earlier in the thread.

beoran, I enjoy RPGs too. I've just recently went back to playing FFXI this year and love the classics like Mother (Earthbound on the SNES), Breath of Fire, Final Fantasy, and a few other RPGs on Steam. I even had an RPG planned as my first game idea when I got into programming. Actually, I think I enjoy all kinds of games equally as I also enjoy hidden object games. My favorite hidden object game actually has a damsel in distress story.

Brink of Consciousness: The Dorian Gray Syndrome, in it you are a reporter who is covering a series of serial killings. Your character writes an article that upsets the killer and he kidnaps your girlfriend. You must go to his house and solve puzzles and try to save her before he kills you both. During the game you encounter glass cylinder tubes with his previous victims displayed like art all over his estate.

I've yet to play Brink of Consciousness 2 yet though.

Sorry. That's my bad. I guess I must have just followed Torhu's video on another hopscotch...

The only place you need to be these things is in your mind. As others have stated in this thread, it's trite. You can oppose it for thinking it's un-inventive, boring, storytelling. Also, who says females don't want to play power fantasy games too? Or at least not play dis-empowerment games? To be clear, although it's a mixed bag, I would be surprised if the trope didn't make men generally less sexist in that the goal is basically to wrong injustices against women.

No, it makes them like your part of GG (which is obviously three different groups, the others being sexist and trolls), as you stated. With people focusing on stupid incidents, polluting the name, and ignoring the valid points being made.

Scene 1: Sure, gender identity isn't determined by genitals. And? So the fuck what?

Scene 3: Does this mean you're angry all the time.
Hey pot, meet kettle. What his problem? He seems angry and lashes out at people.

Like that fat woman.

"Hey honey, you should smile more." etc. So women are told how they should look and act in a mildly creepy way in a variety of ways and this gives people a bad image of feminists because a bunch of people have writing on their foreheads? This isn't an argument. Fuck using cancer as the punch line.

Bust up militarism is clearly primarily against militarism. Not joining something you're against is reasonable, though I wish that bill had passed to add pressure to reexamining the draft.

Okay, that ugly transgender troll looking person strikes me as probably a troll of the "How dare anyone out there make fun of Britney" variety. If not, this particular cherry was well picked.

"You're a snitch" looks like a feminists. There's no argument here so I'll just assume every crazy bitch is a feminist. Solid reasoning.

Okay, I'm stopping there. One or two points supporting the claim, most going to show this man as excessively aggressive and freaking out about nothing. How do you watch something like this and think it makes anti-feminist look good? Good arguments can be made against feminism, and these are very far from them. Even if it's not arguments but impressions or feelings, this guy is just an angry jerk.

Eh, one developer on Baldur's Gate 2: Enhanced Edition mentioned that the game was updated for modern sensibilities and included a trans character and expanded on the stories of a woman or two. Shit hit the fan over it. It wasn't a big deal.

Not taking the "illumanati" too literally, I can see that point and I like it. I just think you're misdirected in this anti-SJW focus. It seems like the Democrat/ Republican thing if you get too into it. It's a distraction from the actual problems or how to solve them. I guess I've gotten stuck doing that too. If you want to show that men are getting the short end of the stick, things like this video are more useful (it is possible you've posted it at some point):

Most gamers called them out for pushing social justice issues while the LGBT community called them out for making a token trans character which didn't help their fight for equality. Maybe it wasn't a big deal to you, but the developer came out and apologized for it and promised to do better in future endeavors.

I even made a mock article after seeing the outrage from gamers and LGBT.

If she had said having a vagina doesn't make you a girl or woman I could have excepted that, but she went further and said it doesn't make you female. Female and male are your sex which is determined by your genitals. I'm fine with men identifying as women and vice versa, but this horse shit of more than two genders, binary, non-binary show just how stupid modern radical feminists have become.

Because majority of the televised feminist are screaming, pissed off women or saying extremely anti-male comments. Like the #killallmen or #maletears (which the creators claimed were jokes), but are widely used by Twitter feminists to talk about their distaste for men.

The point of posting that video wasn't his claim of them all being feminists. The point was that that is how most of the populace view feminists because of the vocal minority. Because of the vocal minority the entire movement is tainted.

23 ways feminism made the world better for women.
23 ways feminism made the world better for men.
Now the wack jobs that are most vocal are actually arguing for things that would undo several of those in each list.

Look at the claims the Bud Light company brought up in its feminist push in one commercial...

On average that is true because men buy basic shampoo that just cleans our hair while women have to buy shampoos that have scents, help with shine, bounce, etc., may or may not have special chemicals to protect hair color jobs, and even conditioner. Men, on average, just buy whatever shampoo they know will clean their hair, doesn't require perfumes, special chemicals, etc. and most men don't bother with conditioner.

I couldn't find anything to prove or disprove that, but men pay more in car insurance because women are viewed to be more cautious drivers than men.

It brought up the wage gap, but the flaws in that have been pointed out since the 90s so I'm not going to cover that again.

I've seen it argued that women pay more for health insurance than men. Well of course they do. Women have more procedures that need to be done depending. Having a child requires a lot of doctor visits, special care, and viatmins. Then you have annual checks via Mammogram and Pap smear. Birth control. That is just for healthy women.

Feminists are pushing for body positivity and dviersity. This article happens to be for yoga. Feminists are right, why should we point out the massive health risks of being obese? Let's just be inclusive and let obese people inch closer and closer to diabetes, heart disease, and other medically proven risks of obesity!

What is this obsession with blaming men for women problems? "Women are oppressed because of patriarchy!" Clinton gets caught doing something that endangered national security, and blamed it on Colin Powell, "It was his idea". Though, Clinton is a bad example, as her past shows that when he husband was caught three or four times being a perv, instead of blaming him she tried to ruin the reputation of the women he harassed.

The other thing I'm tired of hearing repeated is the "rape culture" bullshit and the 1 in 5 or whatever they claim now about college rape is. The BJS released the numbers that state it is 1 in 53, which is still bad, but there is no need to lie and increase the severity of it.

In the US, women are equal to men. Women can apply for any job a man can. The problem is that they are trying to nerf the jobs so that the requirements are less for women. They kept claiming that the industry was sexist, but that study came out showing that women aren't discriminated against; rather they were just poor at the interview stage compared to men. That study hadn't been out a whole day before some were calling for interviews to be changed to make it easier for women to get in the industry. There are even feminist sites that go on, in length, about how bad meritocracy is and how it should be removed. Yeah, people shouldn't have their job or gain praise because they can actually do it, that would be chaotic.

Well, recent events makes it appear the eternal victim, Zoe Quinn, may be more of a manipulator than initially thought.

This is hilarious, imo:

I'll just leave this here
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6907

I was trying to find that one a few posts ago. There was even one where I believe around someone attempting to pull that with Linus Torvalds, but I only vaguely recall that one.

Also, something similar just dropped regarding GamerGate, leaked logs that show Quinn, et. al. planned to get notoriety by lying about GG. The logs were verified by former Anti-GG member, Ian Miles Cheong Editor Gameranx. He even went on to pen this aricle:
http://heatst.com/tech/chat-logs-expose-crash-override-network-as-online-bullies/
And this one:
http://heatst.com/tech/ubisoft-game-developer-implicated-in-gamergate-related-doxing/

[APPEND]Found some of the Torvalds articles. Here are the first five articles from the Google search:
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/11/04/feminists-are-trying-to-frame-linus-torvalds-for-sexual-assault-claims-open-source-industry-veteran/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/06/linus_torvalds_targeted_by_honeytraps_says_eric_raymond/
http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/11/05/any-woman-in-tech-could-be-a-false-accusing-feminist-honey-trap-addled-open-source-guru-warns/
https://hacked.com/sjws-trying-frame-linux-creator-linus-torvalds-fake-sexual-assault-charges/
http://www.infoworld.com/article/3001440/linux/are-feminist-sjws-targeting-linus-torvalds-for-sexual-assault-charges.html

[APPEND II]
Wanted to touch on the diversity and inclusiveness that follows the talks of CoC and the different industries...Dan Slott is the writer of Amazing Spider-Man and Silver Surfer who stated this back on the 18th:
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Which prompted a reply, and this was Slott's reply to it:
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Slott is using the GGAutoblocker (which I'm on because I disagreed with Quinn, Anita, Cross, and Harper openly), but I still replied to it:

Everyone is demanding more creative things in all media, but that shows that for some, creative is nothing more than a matter of swapping genders or races and then retelling the same story. People are so busy being outraged over silly things and stressing over diversity that they are sacrificing originality and creativity to do a token gender swap or race swap to appear diverse to minorities. Diversity and inclusiveness are things that have to come naturally and not forced as being forced makes it very obvious. If you make a comic, novel, game, movie, or song and you have to make a character that has to blatantly state their sex, gender identity, or race then, in my opinion, you are making it just a token character. Swapping existing characters sex, gender identity, or race is also just a token gesture and nothing else.They are too busy being offended on behalf of minorities that they are pressing for existing character to be changed instead of creating new characters for said minorities to enjoy and get behind.

The absurdity of the anti-GG/SJW crowd is that they seem to be against the damsel in distress rope, but yet have no qualms in invoking it upon themselves to gain sympathy. I dislike the trope when played straight because of it's triteness, and also, secondarily, because it doesn't give room for the damsel, even if male, to develop as a character. I feel that the fact that these people invoke the trope also betrays their intentions: it's also about keeping women down, to prevent them from developing themselves. They don't want smart followers, but rather fanatics to push around. If you tell women that tech and gaming are terrible places for them, you may succeed in scaring away a lot of them, likely even thosse who would be competent. Leaving more power for elite and more room for the incompetent to interlope again. The will to power strikes again!

This reminds me about a documentary I saw one time about Iran. Those who are incompetent for any other job in that country tend to become members of the religious police, to get paid to harass and take bribes from the competent. If you look at the people involved with the CCoC you'll see that the majority of them isn't contributing much or anything at all even to open, source. They just want a software police job. Which seems to be the job the main author landed at Github ...

As an aside, now I was thinking about a game like Crono Trigger, that has a double person in distress trope done right: First Crono saves Marle, and then, if you play the game right, Marle and Lucca go on and save Crono. In both cases, the characters are developed well and their plight is due to some overwhelming circumstances not some trivial weakness. A tale of friendship and love, from almost 20 years ago now. And with no tokenism whatsoever in sight. I think we need more stories like this.

I agree. I even wrote a rant back in October of 2015.

I also agree about Chrono Trigger. Anita actually said Dying Light was a damsel in distress game just because of one section of the story.

Yeah, I agree with the feeling toi that article.

Twitlonger... as an aside, I do think Twitter is partially to blame for the decay in debate culture. If you only have 150 characters to express yourself it will be without nuance nor . Twitter is fine if you use it for what it originally was intended to be: sort status updates, but it is worse than useless for serious debate.

Also, one more time on the dammsel in distress trope: I have to admit that I used a slight variation of that trope myself in the Atari 2600 game I made named "Ature". The hero is female, and so is the damsel... you decide what that means. Seeing the space limitations of the platform it was utterly impossible to even add any dialoges at all to my action RPG, so I had to make do with something that could be expressed wordlessly. So, I'll admit that simplistic tropes have one advantage: you can use them without even having to use words. Same goes for treasure discovery, etc.

But I'd say that that the fact that I used rather trite "plot" elements doesn't detract from the game simply because, plot isn't really the point of the game. The point was to make an enjoyable a Zelda / Seiken Densetsu style action RPG within the limitations of the system. I think it went rather well, because the limitations helped me stay focused. On contemporary systems my progress is far slower because I tend to get continuously side tracked by al sorts of ideas I like to try out for good measure.

Disparaging a whole game just because you don't like a few plot points here and there is pointless. Same as causing a hullabaloo in an open source project just for the choice of a word such as "slave" or "master". But some people will go out of there way to be offended, or more precisely, to pretend to be offended and get paid by bigger fools to do so! In a sense, the problem is that there are buyers for outrage, or perhaps better said, people who are willing to pay in order to attempt to seem more virtuous, the virtue signallers, who are enabling all this nonsense.

I disagree with the first sentence. Otherwise, yes it is difficult to converse in depth with 140 character limit.

I disagree with the first sentence because it isn't Twitter going around college campuses wanting safe spaces and things changed. The decay in debate culture is due to children going to college thinking it is to nurture and care for them like elementary, middle, and high schools have started doing since the mid to late 90s. They don't view college as a place to challenge your views, rather they see it as a place to baby them and have a walk to a degree. Sadder still is that many colleges are caving to them.

Debate brings around a change of view, and having their view of the world challenged is what social justice warriors and feminists hate the most. What better way to end disagreement than to label them, cut short or even remove any and all debate? Debate culture is dying because millennials don't want their views changed and therefore don't want to debate. I enjoy debate, that is why I don't block anyone on my social media, but anyone that claims to be SJW, Feminists, or a millennial has blocked me flat out because I challenge their views instead letting them sit in their world of "Everything is sexist, racist, homophobic, et. al. And it is your job to point it all out."

Well, I guess a generation of spoiled special snowflakes does the debate culture no good. Perhaps it is logical that they feel attracted to Twitter, a medium in which they can remain shallow. When I was in university, I engaged in long debates over usenet mailing lists. A 150 charater limit would have been enough for just the opening paragraph of most people's mails back then. Though I think that's what happens when people stoart to use technology they don't understand. It all becomes black magic.

I just gave a quick look at that link to the CoC you posted. The word "pledge" put up red flags, as well as "Add email address for CoC violations"! The code nazi's are coming for you! No thanks.