The civil war was not ABOUT slavery. Slavery was a major factor, but there was a huge amount of other factors as well. Saying the Civil War was about slavery is as accurate as saying it was about states rights.
The civil war was about economics (and slavery), cultural differences, old resentments, political power, etc… It, like all other wars, was a giant mess.
this ignores the fact that the secession and rebellion by the confederate states was entirely about slavery, specifically fear that the election of lincoln meant an eventual end to slavery.
Mod note: This is not about the American Civil War.
Backing GamerGate because of their stand on games journalism is like adopting Naziism because you like their economic policies.
“This topic has been altered. Pray it isn’t altered further.”
I think I’m just being really dense this morning, but can someone link me to the gamasutra article/editorial/post? For the life of me I can’t find it on their site.
thank you.
Not the first one, anyway. Who knows what’ll cause the second?
I believe it’s this one
Thanks!!
This is what the author of these Breitbart articles was saying today:
A couple weeks ago, he wrote a lengthy blog post about how transgender people are mentally ill and shouldn’t be humored with sex reassignment surgery:
This is the big issue. Many posters have come on these forums to make some posts in support of #gamergate and say that it is a much larger issue than some guy’s vendetta against his ex. But it is hard to get my head around what the larger issue is. If you did a poll of people in this thread who have been arguing that #gamergate is nonsense, and had them rate “Gaming journalism has integrity and is not influenced by money or personal relationships” on a five point scale, I doubt you’d get one rating of “somewhat agree” or “strongly agree.” I’d be shocked if there were more than a few “neither agree nor disagrees.” Basically, if the goal is to convince us that gaming journalism is in a sorry state there is no need - we’re already on board.
I was trying to explain the whole gamergate issue to someone who doesn’t playing games at all and when I said that the supposed cause was corruption in games journalism they said, “Corruption in games journalism, what does that even mean?” I gave an example of someone giving a good review to a game because the company that makes it advertises on their site and their response was something like, “Oh, I guess. But of course they would do that, wouldn’t they?”
This is a normal person’s reaction - a person who knows that sometimes movie reviewers get invited to nice premiers and fed nice dinners, a person who knows that those “news” pieces highlighting a new gadget are just dressed up ads. Dressing that up as “corruption” seems very hyperbolic. Reviewers are just telling us what they like, if we don’t like the same things as they do then we just shouldn’t take their advice.
It is hard for me to believe that more than a few people could be so angry about actual game reviews and game journalism because it is such a fringe issue. Plus, most of us reserve our anger about being lied to for things that have a serious effect on us. I understand that there are a minority of people out there for whom any deception is intolerable, but I would hope these are not the same people who are creating multiple accounts to say the same thing from.
If there is anyone out there who really cares about this issue, my point isn’t to belittle you or say that your opinion doesn’t matter. We all care about the things we care about. And it’s true, if you aren’t participating in personal attacks or threats then you aren’t responsible for them. But we all know that if you fight on behalf of a cause then there is a chance you’ll be stereotyped or included in generalizations. For most of us, it is incomprehensible how an interest in more transparent game journalism could possibly outweigh even the faintest chance that someone would think we support death or rape threats, even if that person is incorrect.
Which brings us back to the hashtag itself. Basically the tag has become offensive to many people because the dominant story associated with it (for those who really can’t understand caring about games journalism) is a story of a woman being harassed and threatened. Which is why people balk at those who defend the hashtag. When you defend the hashtag you are not defending the cause it represents, you are defending a symbol that has been chosen to represent that cause. If you are using a word, a phrase, or a symbol, and lots of people tell you it is offensive or upsetting, and you feel powerfully that you need to defend the use of that word, phrase, or symbol I think it’s time to stop and think about why you care so much about expressing yourself in that particular way.
If I cared about corruption in video game journalism, I’ll tell you what I’d be doing now:
No its not, people who view “gamer” as their identity felt attacked by it and will do anything, even defend the indefensible to protect the view they have of what a gamer is.
Let me clarify this last point, they are not successfully defending the identity they are adopting, they are only defending their self worth by protecting an identity they believe in, and that most other people, certainly not believed here, don’t actually believe in.
Gamers are only a subset of people who play games, they are not inherently evil and they are not innately good. When the NYT or anybody else refers to gamers as a homogenous group of individuals with certain characteristics they are only trying to artificially create a demographic they can sell and or pander to.
When you defend all gamers here, you are doing the same thing, even though its obvious that it can’t possibly be true, but since you prefer to defend “gamer” as identity then all you are doing, and anybody else that joins you, is making the identity real and by extension, the claims made against the identity, at least partially true.
So, whats my point?
You are clearly not interested in #gamergate’s supposed intentions, you can’t be, there’s no goal.
At best, there was an opportunity for conversation I’d love to see the “movement’s” stated goals. Man, the Occupy movement was better organized than this and had clearer motives than this.
This is why I can confidently say that you are more interested in stirring up trouble, because of the results. Intentions be damned, what are the results of #gamergate? Misoginy.
You can continue saying that you want something else, but, are you getting it? Are your goals being met?, What are your goals? does anyone in the “movement” (Hashtag) have any idea of what the conditions for success are?
No.
Are gamers evil? No.
But anybody who is defending their identity as gamer without regard of the results of the actions of the movement they are attached to are just playing a game that cannot be won.
I’m sure just about everybody but the man babies got it.
Actions have consequences.
Hey old people, remember when we just played video games and there weren’t even any books or magazines about video games? Then Nintendo Power came along and ruined everything. Mario poisons everything he touches.
This is a great post and said what I wanted to say, but more eloquently.
I was wondering if that would happen. There are, in my loss at thinking up a better word, passionate people on both sides of the argument and going after the advertisers is an old standard. Surprised it was Intel, though.
But I generally agree with Humabella, here. I don’t think we should entirely let it go but both sides need to let this die down to a level where we can make arguments rationally and with respect.
Interestingly enough, they’ve also done this for any article that has a hint of being pro anything they fear (women).
I would not be surprised if its the same people.
Its like talking to a mirror!
Media reviews are mostly untrustworthy? This is shocking? It is our job, as consumers, to do due diligence in researching what we throw our money at. This should be a given. You balance reading/watching more than one review/article from different sources, and weighing people who have better (subjective) track records higher than random media. We do this with cars, cameras, computers, kitchen sinks, books, movies; so why is expecting this from games so shocking?
Perhaps a bit of my muzziness comes from the inevitable “feminism vs. bro-gamer” topic that seems to have completely paralyzed all games “journalism”… It is almost impossible to separate this, at the moment, from ANYTHING involving games, even the most banal, mundane topics.
I suppose I am old… I don’t get any of it. Play what you want, don’t take anyone’s word for anything, and who the hell cares who wants to join your club? Further, why the hell are we even in a club? I like games, and have been playing them since the C64, and I sure as hell am not in a club. Do we ever have topics about “readers”, or “musicers”, or “tvers”, or “moviers”? You’re consuming media. Thats it. Consume what you enjoy, ignore what you don’t, no special consideration needed. If a (gasp!) girl wants to enjoy or make a game/movie/show/song/book, who the hell cares? If a couple of loud bro-idiots also enjoy reading, how does that effect me? If a bunch of internet feminists don’t like my taste in books, should I care?
