I would say yes? Because these are intentional neighbourhoods, based supposedly on sexual orientation, but its actually much more complex than that. Why don’t lesbians live in predominately gay areas? Why is it “Boystown” in Toronto? Why is it predominately male and white when the only thing that should “buy you membership” in the 'hood is that you’re gay? I really don’t have answers, I just have a lot of lesbian friends. 
3 Likes
Savage himself doesn’t exactly toe the progressive line in a lot of ways. I could see him and someone like Thiel bonding over their belief that [***] need to stop whining or ankle-biting and fall in line behind them–insert group more marginalized or unpopular than gay men/billionaire libertarians.
Thiel is a toxic asshat (I hold out hope for Savage) who uses his billions to inject himself into conversations that nobody needed or wanted him to be a part of. If he’s behind the Hulk lawsuit, that’s actually a pretty good example of that! But I’m still okay in principle with the basic mechanism of third-party lawsuit funding, even if it’s being used by a toxic asshat.
1 Like
Well, it’s complicated, but I still think the problem is systemic privilege in terms of race and class, not a subordinated “culture,” that is, “gay culture,” whatever that still is.
Agreed. But victorhazzard began with:
misogyny in the gay male community is very real, and it’s not the only problem.
And then went on to say that another problem “in the gay male community” is racism.
Seems to me that the racism rightly under fire here is a structural class- and race-privilege problem more than a “gay male community” problem. If some gay men are racists or mysogynists, let’s blame their structural positions in terms of race and class, not their sexual orientation.
6 Likes
Maybe I’ve just never thought about it, but aren’t sexual orientation, racism, and misogyny orthogonal attributes? That’s what you are saying, right?
3 Likes
I would like to attempt to distill this whole thing to several different things.
On the one hand, you seem to be arguing that Gawker engaged in protected speech and that this is part of a lawfare campaign against protected speech. On the other hand, you’ve said the punishment doesn’t fit the crime with regards to damages. But which is it? Is there a crime? Or are the damages too high? It’s really one or the other, and I could be persuaded in either case, but not the way you’re arguing it. There are two separate arguments. It’s not so much about the potential merits of your argument, just the manner of your argument that I’m taking issue with, because I don’t think you’ve really segregated the different threads well enough.
I’m withholding judgement on whether or not Gawker was wrong. I suspect that they were, but the reality is that it’s a jury trial where there aren’t any published judicial opinions to really look at and rationalize. I would have to read through the entire court transcript, and well… that shit ain’t happening. I’ll wait for a published opinion from a higher court to figure this out.
As for the separate issue of damages, I’m okay with this level of damages in principle. Too often corporations get away with literal murder. I think that the standard for the death penalty for corporations (i.e. bankrupting damages) can and should be fairly low. Journalistic organization or not, Gawker is still a largely unaccountable profit-driven enterprise. If they’re in the wrong, I’m okay with tearing them down. Their identity as a journalistic enterprise as opposed to a chemical enterprise or a healthcare enterprise is irrelevant. There are a lot of genuinely essential enterprises that can do a lot of damage.
Now whether or not Gawker should be subject to this particular level of punishment is yet another issue, which is wholly dependent on the facts and here again we go back to the issue of how I have no intention of reading transcripts.
I have to point this out: Mother Jones won.
3 Likes
his latest cri de couer over Trump contains a healthy defense of elitism.
1 Like
I don’t think we were blaming their sexual orientation, but I also think it is more than just a privilege problem. There’s a feedback loop and barrier to entry also going on… I am bad at words right now so i will go research and return.
3 Likes
I dunno, that sounds sort of, mathematical? and I SUCK at math, gaaah!
But if putting this set of issues in terms of “orthogonal attributes” works for the mathematical and/or spatially inclined, to make the point that we should aim at various social structures or ideologies that account for various forms of subordination, instead of at a (supposedly) independent culture among a certain subordinated population, then, yay!
2 Likes
Gah, work jargon creeping in. 
. Orthogonal as in Completely Unrelated.
1 Like
Thanks for clarifying.
Okay, that seems to work, except, it seems to me, where it leaves out the cruical matter of dominance and subordination, since racism, sexism and heterosexism are not orthogonal attributes. (Did I use it right?)
2 Likes
I’ll have to give that a think. (This may come as a shock, but I don’t know everything 
)
1 Like
I disagree with him from time to time but in general his heart is in the right place (beyond the at-the-time Iraq war support.)
Sully is just your average elitist-colonialist sorta right-winger that gets away with his statements because they’re “so well spoken”. Sadly, he’s apparently the best of the worst.
Thiel is necessarily involved in the conversation about Denton after Denton spite-Outed Thiel. Just because he’s a Trumpoid piece of shit doesn’t mean his privacy needs violating with such glee.
I’d reserve that for a matter of national importance, like any of the gay-hate politicians pushing anti civil rights laws.
think it’s a reference to the tv show “silicon valley” that’s been repurposed, but memes are you know, weird.
ad “journalistic identity threat”
from reddit discussion:
“The GAWKER article was titled “Peter Thiel is totally gay, people” written by Owen Thomas, who justified the article by saying he’s gay himself, and that there’s not enough gay venture capitalists out there and therefore it’s his moral duty to out him.”
1 Like
I think you have just shown your hand, and to be honest? It’s rather gross.
3 Likes
That’s a fair criticism, I think I myself have been trying to figure this issue out while I have been making an argument and have not been completely clear on where my specific opinion or argument lies. So just to clarify, I do not think publishing the Hulk Hogan sex tape video qualifies as protected speech, but I do think that Gawker’s punishment did not fit the crime, and in all honesty the fact that Thiel was secretly behind the lawsuit raised my suspicions.
However I think there is a separate issue of whether or not Hulk Hogan even had merit to sue (as @leidentech kind of brought up earlier) but that is an issue that I haven’t made a decision on yet, I highly recommend you read this ars technica article for a summary on that part of the case.
It’s true they "won" that specific case, but the amount they have had to pay out in court costs could surely be seen as a loss. Also, there is nothing to prevent them from being sued again for a similar reason putting them through millions of dollars of court costs… again! Have they really won? No. They’ve survived a single battle.
1 Like
It was meant to be ironic, but with an element of truth. We know that much of our media has very deep pockets. Even Mother Jones, who I don’t think of as a media conglomerate, chose on principal to spend millions on litigation rather than just pay off the $75,000 suit (they would not have been forced to print a retraction). So how does a Hulk Hogan get his day in court? Gawker probably has more money than Mother Jones.
Pick your poison: individual billionaires or deep-pocketed corporations.
1 Like
This. While there are some good Gawker sites (IO9, Gizmodo, etc.), Gawker itself has made some VERY worrying calls recently, including the outing of the Conde Nast CFO, the Hogan bit, and so on.
A few people at Gawker seems to think that it’s okay to go out of their way to ruin people’s lives.
4 Likes
No? Being okay with Gawker losing this specific case is not supporting billionaires.
They fell on their own sword with the revenge porn leak.
