Wow, this thing went seriously off-topic. I suppose I'll dip my toe in if only to say that "SJW" seem to have been primarily used around here to differentiate between those actually interested in equality and the shark-types who piggyback off of well-meaning people and causes to turn a profit. The term seems to have widened to include people who buy into the same ideology of said sharks and thus diluted it a bit, but I don't think it's necessarily malicious.

Still, I wish people would start using "offendatron," instead. Such an awesome word.

I don't want to rush anything, either.

But seriously, let's elope. SUDDEN DECISIONS ARE ALWAYS GOOD DECISIONS. DON'T FACT CHECK THAT.

Correction: If you believe in a god, you are not an atheist.

I am an atheist, therefore I do not believe in any god.

I don't think you got the point there. You're saying anyone who believes in a certain idea is a believer of a certain ideology. Ie, you believe in God/s; you are a Christian.

Anyhow, the form of internet social justice is not even equality or minority welfare related as much as its is just an ideology based around worshiping certain traits such as skin color or sexual orientation. Then the belief in vindictive hateful ideas like collective ancestral responsibility and hatred of majority groups. Kinda like racial socialism(???) or some weird shit.

And I still get no response from anyone regarding the validity of their beliefs, only more criticism of me for questioning them.

Reality is not that black and white :)

Firstly, the whole disagreement that is underneath is what rights and protections should be equal. For example, I don't believe in a right to not be offended (what I mean is I think enforcing such a right does more bad than good of course), but I do agree on equal right to free speech (what I mean is that enforcing such a right does more good than bad of course)... Note the assumption: politics is fundamentally defined by the application of coercive force.

Hence social justice type 1, versus social justice type 2. Though I will admit I am not too sure which is your model, other than what I can assume by your focus on minorities in this question's premise. *


Secondly, underage children's rights are limited. Convicted felons rights are limited. Etc... etc... different classes / groups defined almost arbitrarily can easily be found where I'm sure you will actually be perfectly fine with inequality of rights and protections in disfavor of the minority. **


But all this is a tangent. The main point remains that there is a logical leap from disagreeing on what social justice is, to assigning bigotry as intent to the outgroup.

I would insist you are the one that should offer your definition and some evidence or proof to the "mostly guarantee" assertion. And don't take this wrong: if your answer is "In my experience mostly all the individuals that etc etc etc were bigots" that is perfectly valid. I am all for empiricism. But it is hugely subjective and something more is needed for the implicit universal generalization that you made to be accepted - by me at least, because that's the kind of person I am. YMMV

This is the fundamental disconnect I see currently over GG by the way. GG insists it's about specific concerns. aGG insists those are false, rather than just wrong. Lies, not just mistakes...


* I respect that perspective, but I take it to the logical extreme of the individual "minority" (the word kind of loses its meaning) versus society. Certainly my universals are: do not kill, do not steal, do not lie, and I'm 99.9% sure we all agree on those. The devil is in the details because even getting these 3 right is freaking difficult socially... the one I usually find is run over is "do not steal" which gets corroded in the name of other goals. Good goals I mostly share, but which should be pursued via better methods IMO. So that we stay "classy"... or rather civilized, which is a much more appropriate word, again just IMO.

** Are the "rich" a minority?

Did it? Because we are a gaming community, the examples we gravitate toward are... well, the obvious ones. Keeping to the meta level while there are strong attractors at the phenomena / object level is very difficult.

And some perceive trying to keep the discussion at the meta level as evidence of malicious intent - proof that one is not the "right kind of person", ergo, literally of the wrong class. I won't make it more obvious than that really. :)

If there is one thing I perhaps take more pleasure than I should is subtly highlighting such contracts and parallels.

Let's just point out that many bigots do "believe that minorities should get equal rights and protections under the law" in the sense that these omg oppressive governmental laws should be replaced by the gloriously libertarian rule of the jungle. By this perspective, the minimalist governmental intrusion (instrusion is evil, government is evil) applies the same way to everybody, without "favouring" the dominated at the expense of the dominant. Everybody has the same right to crush his neighbour, and the ethic of social darwinism ensures that everything ends up perfectly moral.

"Between the strong and the weak, between the rich and the poor, between the master and the servant, it is freedom which oppresses, and law which liberates" (stated a 19th century left-wing dominican, omg the categories). It's true, depending on the perspective. But for a conservative bigot, for whom the Traditional Social Order is to be glorified and preserved as the Way Things Are And Should Be, the important thing is to preserve the freedom of the strong rich master, against the oppression of the weak poor servant, especially when this oppression translates into a restriction of the freedom to oppress.

Ordinary everyday relations of power are deemed normal, natural and saint, when not downright invisibilized. They are not oppressive from the dominant's standpoint. It's when governmental laws start to interfer with them, trying to rebalance social relations and structural power differentials, that the empowerment of the dominated is perceived as an active (and unnatural) constraint, and as a handicap unduly inflicted upon the legitimate dominants. Restrictions to sociocultural "bullying" are seen as state "bullying" in itself, because emerging asymetries are compensated by asymetrical actions (a society that has been spontaneously drifting starboard is reoriented by propellers pushing port, which allow the starboard fans to complain about propellers in general or one-sided propellers).

In short, people can easily "believe that minorities should get equal rights and protections under the law (compared to the majority)" while being strongly opposed to "social justice". After all, a law that demands to pay a fortune in order to access to education is "the same for everyone", while a law that reduces the fees for the poor is a law that "applies inequally to different people"...

In my experience with other "best forum evah" places, it's not the influx of new uncouth heatens that ruined them, but the core members leaving or turning increasingly hostile to everyone else; thinking that because they've been there for a few years they can act as if they run the place and that everyone should conform to their whims.

I'm not saying Gog is at that stage yet, but the increasingly more common "that dude must come from Steam" remarks to newcomers are not a good sign.

Speaking truth on theoretical possibility... intelligent as usual. Just exaggerating on the demonization, therefore falling into the usual trap of the righteous crusader: moral arrogance.

Except that you use race or gender as an identifier instead of social class. Not all non-white people in the world are poor; and nor are the only poor people non white.

You can apply it to many categories of implicit dominance and (material/symbolic) power differentials. For instance, dominant discourses and representations on the others (say, a colonial society imposes a "common sense" stereotyped image about the natives, while the natives have barely any weight on these discourses, be it in education, mass medias, fictions, political speeches, etc)...

The stake doesn't have to be money. It isn't, for instance, when quotas try to compensate the over-representation of "white people" in audiovisual medias (and to break the vicious circle that it induces), when people of different phenotypes constitute a large part of "real life" society.

But such kind of stomping doesn't exist today. I still don't see your point.

It's necessarily malicious and you've already given a good handful of reasons why! I've supplied another handful in this very thread already – "SJW" has such a massively widened meaning that it essentially only means "people whose opinions I don't want to listen to". In its most acceptable variant, it is entirely meaningless.

One of the very few things Brasas has made clear in this thread is that social justice in itself, as the major part of the term, isn't the problem; and as I have made clear countless times, the gamergater supporters are fighting for their own kind of social justice (which just happens to make shitty stories, shitty games and, among many other things, shitty forums).

What some people perceive as the actual problem with "SJW" is in fact half of what identifies gamergate supporters. I won't dig up the longer post on the matter, as I'm too sick and tired right now, but it was probably two or three months ago in the gamergate thread. It hasn't helped waking people up, unsurprisingly (by default, it wasn't understood).

"SJW" is a malicious term, created as such and used almost, if not entirely exclusively in a derogatory sense on this forum. And that usage really isn't debatable, in my opinion - particularly not by the people active in said crappiest thread on the forum, who are repeating it like broken records, definitely in its vilest possible interpretation! That we are now debating a possible positive interpretation and meaning is therefore doubly insulting. It's the aforementioned level 0.0 of the discussion that we are rapidly approaching again, quite purposefully so.

The off topic direction the thread has veered into is of course intentional. The only meaning fixed about "SJW" is the insult; by questioning that, we are questioning that simply unacceptable insults are routinely hurled at random people instead of talking about the factual fascists and abusers in the gamergate thread.

Just the usual smoke screen.

I completely agree with you.


To see things form another angle and to be fully sincere (what I'm about to say won't win me any fans), the biggest problems I had on this forum came straight from unbelievably obnoxious old timers thinking they could dictate how things should be organized and which topics should be discussed, mostly confusing their own opinions with dogmas (the usual flame wars revolving around "GOG SHOULD GET ONLY GOOD OLD GAMES, I GET THE REST ELSEWHERE!!11!!!ELEVEN!" being an iconic example).
Aside from this, I also have never been harassed by noobs, but I had a few issues with some pre-2012 users; in general, excluding pathologic cases like blatant trolls, scammers and alt accounts, I see much more hostility coming from older users rather than new ones -and I think a quick glance to any heated thread might give an adequate idea of how things go.

I didn't have much time to know well some old users that do not show up here any more, yet by the interactions I had with them I got the distinct feeling that many of those people I'm talking about have never been much popular here in the first place. When the “good guys” left, they suddenly started to act like landlords (or better: the wanted to, failing miserably and being collectively bashed for this, complaining later in threads similar to this one).
Also, back when I was new (that was probably my sin :P) here, they have never let me feel welcome -quite the contrary, actually. Too bad many of those members that made this place great are now gone; imo, as Avogadro6 correctly noticed, the atmosphere crumbled mainly due to the lack of their positive influence.

Everyone has their own meanings that may or may not completely overlap but may be similar. I use it as a semi-derogatory term like people use the word ''bastard'' in trash talking. Other people have more serious meanings and others just treat it like as a substitute for a place of origin tag like ''goon'' or ''redditor''. I don't see the fuzz here. You called yourself that a few months ago. Like, what exactly is the problem here as far as personal attacking goes? Is ''SJW'' worse than ''rapist'' or ''racist''?

Anyhow, the internet meaning roughly bring ''people who believe in radical change in social systems and media in favor inclusiveness and what ideas they percieve as inclusive'' isn't very offensive, right?

Well, if you see social justice as an organized movement within a society to create and perpetuate changes in a field, all activism is social justice. As a tangent, I trust by ''shitty stories'' you mean stories that don't align with your ideology, correct?

I didn't read your post, but you may have confused fact based activism which gamergate does and assumption based activism of radical social justice and then went on to claim both do take it up to too high above 11 so gg is not good. Well, when people try to enforce rules based on subjective factors, other people tend to try to debunk them. Is it really hard to hold a debate if you believe that your side also has facts? Because I've seen neither facts nor debate and just claims as to the nature of gg.

As to it being used in the vilest interpretation on the gg thread, no. You interpret the word as highly insulting irrespective of the meaning others are using it in. The nature in which they say it and you interpret it is different, but you still insist its some ultra-offensive term because you claim some ''worst possible interpretation'' is used. What do you understand this interpretation to be and is it similar to mine I typed a few lines above? And about non escalating discussions; please break into self awareness. You have been on the same thing for the last three posts without even a chance of giving word on any other topic anyone has brought up. Do see that at least?

I don't know, you say SJW is the vilest insult alive then call everyone opposed to your views racist and sexist and ultra right wing. Then you claim while you can call people all that in the name of questioning ''factual fascists'' and ''abusers'', them calling you an improperly defined and openly frequently differently interpreted word some sort of hate crime.

And what concept do you have of ''abuse''? You're thin skinned, just admit it. Also of fascists. It means ultra authoritarian. So either you interpret debunking dogmas and demanding for their removal as authoritarian or you don't know what it means.

Finally, some sort of ''smokescreen''? Lol do you even understand you taking this to that level is like ggers claiming there is a leftist marxist conspiracy to take over the world? You're attaching meaning to facts that you feel are somehow linked. Don't get yourself in the tin foil hat territory.