You know, I have to say, that's the part of this I really dislike the most. I have never heard of the GNAA, I have been blissfully ignorant of that breed of trolls...and now I'm not, I'm very sad about this.

To be fair, my post only makes sense in context, since what I quoted and what I wrote does not explicitly mention the subject. (Though I think one of the link titles is pretty explicit) Also, it's not like those links actually prove racism is non existent.

To me the one about media framing, or research framing, is the most apropos; given the back and forth on objectivity earlier. It's another example of a fundamental issue which is a conscious or subconscious dismissal of truth. Note: dismissal does not imply lying, just ignoring the obvious, lying by omission at most.

Another couple of examples I read recently, the ethics in journalism of the lady that wrote the UVa gang rape story, the ethics in journalism of the AP in the middle east. It's not like gaming is even the best example. Though one of the Brad Wardell quotes is right on the money, about how the fact Sarkeesian is the standard bearer for feminism in gaming is by itself full of meaning.

Sure, but only an idiot would claim that racism is non-existent. That'd be like claiming that murder is non-existent. But by the same token, it doesn't make sense to treat racism as an epidemic when the evidence says that it's not, just as it wouldn't make sense to treat murder as an epidemic.

Also, the links provide context that the intellectually dishonest would rather ignore, such as the "interesting coincidence" that while "black people are twice as likely to be arrested for drug use as their self-reports suggest" they are also "twice as likely to fail to self-report their drug use".

Really, it's an interesting read. So much so that I ordered a copy of The Myth of a Racist Criminal Justice System, so thanks for dropping the links.

You're welcome. That site is full of good stuff, and the guy posts like crazy. Worth revisiting.

I've been poking at twitter as I noticed some people being rather...crass about hearing TotalBiscuit winning an award at the Game Awards. Honestly I don't know what to say, what I saw wasn't humanity, it was fairly disgusting. And the worst of it is, even if you try to blow it off that it's just an awards show...that doesn't make it any better, that makes it WORSE. I don't know, I'm just left to question where the real anger and rage seems to be coming from, it's pretty disappointing and saddening.

Identity politics. Isn't it obvious?

Ok, I feel this deserves in depth reply. I debated with myself to PM or post publically, I think I'm justified in seeing some community value in leaving this in the open. Please don't take it too personally mate.

I see two topics: Your ethics, and ethics in journalism. The definition of bad, the reasons you are antiGG: that's about your ethics. Journalism's mission, censorship of free exchange of ideas: that's ethics in journalism.


You

Let me try to make this as impersonal and objective as possible. The obvious disclaimer being: no offense intended.

Let's start by owning up. After rereading this thread, it's clear you did not bring misogyny into the discussion at all. Fair enough. Per your own admission, the GG harassment you see, and oppose, is directed at journalists (of irrelevant gender for the purpose of this argument). This does ressonate with other arguments we had, so I'm more than happy to walk back on that rethoric. Sorry for the mischaracterization. It's a perfect example of my belief both sides apply guilt by association.

I see that leaves two questions to consider, in evaluating your ethics:
A) Are you conflating the bad part of gamergate, with the whole of gamergate? Bad here being the harassment of journalists. This is the guilt by association thing.
B) Are you 'shifting the goalposts' in defining bad in such a way that you minimize responsibility for applying guilt by association?

I believe the answer is yes to both, and that would indicate you are not acting ethically in these particulars. For whatever reason which is irrelevant. In fact I'm super happy to say flat out: your intentions are ethically pure.


On A) I will not quote extensively. As I've alluded earlier, the number of people that "jumped on you" for the comparison of ISIS to GG is clear. You have (in different words) expressed later that the comparison was not intended to "poison the well", rather to describe similar group dynamics in open membership groups. At a minimum I'd say the following: Even believing you did not consciously want to poison the well, in actuality, that's what you did, by implication as a minimum. To inject a somewhat personal element here, I would probably feel more inclined to believe your statement of intent fully (I do to some extent) if it wasn't for ...


Topic B) where your evasions border on the malicious (I do attribute a lot of it to your sleep deprivation - what time was it you went to sleep mate?). The two meanings of bad came up in post #985. Let me quote from the context up to that point.

This here was all on guilt by association... obviously we're talking about being guilty of being unskillful at something, rather than morally guilty. :) That's why you discuss skill at decapitation right?

Is this the first actual mention of bad? Whatever... bombing, abortion and dehumanizing techniques. Clearly nothing to do with morals...

As a firm believer in objectivity, I left for context the quote where you explicitly deny intending to poison the well with guilt by association, per point A) higher. Of course "that is a separate issue".

I could leave the quoting here to be honest, but let's go all the way. Scientifically, exhaustively.

You poisoned the well. So what that you didn't actually stab the person? Still homicide (character assassination). Regardless of planning or intention (manslaughter? murder? premeditated?). Whatever, sorry, that's point A) let me move on... I love my smartass analogies too much...

Why don't you reread this now (particularly my post #981 to you), and contemplate how your shifting the goalpoasts (about the meaning of bad) in reply #985 is being "perceived" subjectively by me, in light of the above objective facts and context.

There was still a couple more short posts though.

Here we have Nazism, good person, bad parts of GG... and then we get to #985


Bottom line. Humans find it so easy to conflate, either action or inaction, with morality that we often do it without conscious awareness. I think that's mostly what happened with you. But well, this is to show why I at least am insisting on calling you out on it. It's loaded language, and that's bad "journalism". You are one of the most reasonbale anti-GG around here, so to inject a personal element, it was somewhat disapointing to see. :(


Journalism

I'll give this a break, and go run some chores. This stuff takes time...


Edited for typos, formatting, readability.

See, I was under the impression that people's goal was to END Sexism of any kind and Racism of any kind. I don't think how Identify Politics are going to do this because it requires you to hang onto those kinds of aspects so damn much that you basically will end up seeing a RISE in it. That's the logical path I see that going down, things are already happening, yes we have our moments but it's because people drag race into everything (IMO).

umm… that's not why i think #gg is bad. You are the only person who talked about "harassers" - post 981. I haven't mentioned that once.

I don't know that #gg has been involved in any harassment at all. Nor do I really care. Sure some people who support #gg may well harass journalists, but that is not the reason I don't like #gg.

I am yet to meet a #gg'er who hasn't conflated a lack of journalistic integrity with holding values that are considered SJW values. That is primarily what I think is "bad" about the movement - again not morally.

Well, if you reread my quote, you'll see I didn't compare GG to ISIS at all.

227 drew an analogy between Muslims and #gg. Was he suggesting Muslims were like #gg? No he obviously wasn't. He was using that analogy to explain why, just as you cannot paint all Muslims with the one brush, you can't paint all of #gg with one brush. My point was that that was, in my view, a bad analogy. In that analogy, I said gamers were the equivalent of Muslims and #gg would be the equivalent of a smaller group of Muslims. I named that hypothetical smaller group of Muslims ISIS (as a joke). I expressly said I was not trying to suggest that #gg'ers were anything like ISIS.

Now the fact that many supporters of #gg, including yourself, missed the nuance between a hypothetical group which I had named ISIS and the actual ISIS and a comparison and an analogy really just furthered in my head, the issues that I have with #gg in general. It was also illustrated in the response to the "Gamers are Dead" articles. Now this might be because they are young or english isn't their first language or just not exposed to people who use language to express things in anything other than absolutes, but whatever the reason is, it is this inability to grasp the subtleties, see the grey areas, understand nuance which I find both interesting and repulsive.

You keep referring to my use of the word "bad". In those previous paragraphs I was not discussing #gg, I was discussing my hypothetic Muslim extremists and the hypothetical anti-abortion group. Yes, in that context I was using bad in a moral sense.

But when did I say #gg was bad? You quoted me directly but you seem to have completely missed it "Now, arguments can be had about whether #gg has done anything bad at all, but that is a separate issue."

What do you think I meant by that? Was that perhaps suggesting that, the previous points I made were not made on the basis that #gg was necessarily bad (in a moral sense)? Why do you ignore that sentence?

Here is my response when you asked me if #gg was bad "I don't know that any of GG are bad in a moral sense. Is GG bad in the same sense that the Philadelphia 76ers are bad? I would say yes, but that is very different :)"

I've asked you twice previously. What do you think I meant by this? Did you think I meant the 76ers were bad in a moral sense? Do you think the 76ers harass journalists? Why do you keep ignoring this? This is the only time I have said #gg is bad. 76ers are now 1-18. Do you think that is because they are bad in a moral sense? Or do you just not understand that sentence?

I know you REALLY REALLY REALLY want me to think that all of #gg is morally bad. You can think that if it helps you sleep at night, but its not true. I think there are people in #gg who are morally bad, there are people in anti-gg who are morally bad, there are people everywhere who are morally bad, but I don't think #gg is.

I think #gg is an movement full of intellectual lightweights who conflate journalistic integrity with anti-SJWism, who seem unable to understand subtleties and nuance, who think readers should be able to tell journalists what to say, who on the one hand are against conflicts of interest with indie developers, but ignore potential conflicts of interest with AAA companies and use the potential conflict of interest with advertisers to further their goals (I could go on).

p.s. I actually quite like the 76ers. Their coach coached in Australia for a long time. They are a terrible team but I think the players at least try. I guess that pretty much sums of #gg for me.

Tell me about it; I didn't know what SJW, MRA, GNAA, GG, or any of these million other acronyms meant before this all started. So much Googling. So much darkness.

As a side note, it's interesting how our preconceived notions about GG informed our analogies. I paralleled GG with normal Muslims and the harassers with extremists to make my point that you can't judge a whole based on its radical fringe (and also to create some cognitive dissonance since many of our most vicious dissenters are the same ones who jumped on Bill Maher for his anti-Muslim comments that painted them all with one brush) whereas you went more broadly and paralleled GG with those extremist elements to make a point that GG doesn't reflect on all of gaming.

Of course, I still prefer my analogy since I'm inclined to think of GG as a neutral-to-good group of people rather than a radical fringe, especially given the absence of any kind of momentum in counter-hashtags like #stopgamergate2014 but I can at least see how you got there.

That is an interesting point. I also informed my analogy by the fact that I was trying to defend Ryan's assertion, that, if there are bad eggs in #gg they are making everyone else look bad and the others should leave or kick them out. Like I said, the biggest problem with my analogy is that #gg isn't an organisation that has memberships that you can revoke, etc.

I also used my group because, I thought being a gamer is more like being a member of a religion (we can't help it, thats who we are, its what we believe/worship :)), whereas being a member of #gg is more like being in a "sect" or a subset of the gaming religion. You can join that subset if you like or leave it if you don't (like a few prominent members appear to have recently).

I guess the only real reason I prefer my analogy is because I see there being 3 groups

My analogy
All-People (gamers and non-gamers) = All-People (of all religions)
Gamers = Muslims
#gg = my controversially named hypothetical evil group of muslims.

Your analogy
All-People (gamers and non-gamers) = ??
Gamers = People
#gg = muslims

Edit: When I said your analogy was "bad", I didn't mean it was morally bad… :) Or even that bad at all, I just think mine is better. I usually think stuff I come up with is better than everyone else's stuff...

How so? The one article that addressed the numbers admits that there is a strong racial bias.

Ah, I see the confusion. Mine is more like "all people are all people, gamers are the collective religious (the combined group of Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, etcetera), and GG are the Muslims—or really, any one particular religion—who have chosen that belief system because it speaks to them."

Exactly. Social media and a culture of people looking for their fifteen minutes of fame or notoriety means that we have to be skeptical of everything and demand proof. Otherwise we're just setting ourselves up to have our blind faith abused.

The problem is also how people react, the reactions are almost a complete willingness to destroy someone's life based on an accusation. Last time I checked, there was that 'Innocent until Proven Guilty' clause of our legal system, but the Court of Public Opinion really doesn't give a fuck, they'll destroy someone's life because of an accusation and then start bitching when there's no actual proof or when the proof doesn't go the way they want it to.