caesarbear: This is why people lose patience with you and justifiably so. You still haven't even acknowledged that a disparity exists. You sound like you may have interesting things to add to a debate on the issues but you seem unwilling to talk about something that's measurable and provable before interjecting your personal feelings. There's a time for personal anecdotes in a conversation about social issues, but that's never before the facts. If you can't talk about the facts first, then that makes you the equivalent of a denier. You don't even dispute the data or the methodology, you are dismissing the entire idea that we can assess something factually. Someone who denies facts is obviously not arguing in good faith. The fault is your own if people are abrupt or dismissive of your arguments because you've refused a common ground based on the information that is verifiable.
This honestly is a loss, both yours and to the wider discussion because you've put yourself in a glass cage, to borrow a phrase, and can't contribute. I'm only posting here because I care about the GOG community and want to show that there are voices that disagree with the gamergate movement. If you have a specific question and not some more scripted sequences please ask me, but I'm not very interested in playing debate games or trying to score internet points. I'll say this to create a better understanding and not as an attempt to hurt your feelings, but from what I've read of your posts you sound very self absorbed. Your thoughts just aren't that precious. No one has a right to be understood. It takes hard work to achieve that (as I'm sure someone now will gladly tell to me.)
Sure but I'm not trying to use them to defend my argument.
Nor have I ever said they should be free from criticism, just harassment, like having the personal details of their family members posted by gamergaters.
You know what? You're right, I'm not special, my thoughts are my own, my life is my own. I've fucked up, fallen, given up, and outright failed with no one to blame or excuse except myself. I've walked a path of being scared of people, and I've walked downcast in the rain. And you know what? It's liberating, I stopped caring what people thought of me, and how people understand me. Those that want to are willing to sit and BS and argue with me, those that don't are welcome to fuck off. I learned to laugh and dance in the rain, I've learned to understand my failures and accept that I gave up and no one held me down. And hell, I've pissed off one of my heroes, more then once too! To the point where she didn't talk to me for months...but we sat down and hashed things out. But I'll stop, because this seems to aggrivate you.
Now, as far as facts go, you gave me no facts when you talked about either, so I didn't really feel obligated to do the same. But since you were disturbed by my lack of facts you'll forgive me for the questions, I need to see the bigger picture. The Drug example, what are the percentages? What's the number of people in general that get jailed for drugs, what were their living conditions, their jobs, the drugs they did, where did they do these drugs, is it a specific area for a specific drug (Say, designer drugs done in clubs and rave parties). There's a ton of variables that you didn't explain there. You gave me no numbers to even work with or try to understand. The police in these places, how lax are they with everyday laws, what kind of areas are we talking about and doing, are they blacks in inner city areas and whites in suburbs? Or are they both from inner city areas? Their drug habits, was it heavy doses in certain areas and lighter in the others? What time of day did these arrests occur? Lots of variables there, it's going to be hard to give you a definitive answer to it being actually problematic. Where those arrests due to other factors, pulled over for speeding while basically filling the car with smoke, etc.
And then let's talk about the Patriarchy for a moment. What's the factual evidence that this exists? Is it a person making laws? A bunch of controlling old people? A set of laws that were made in secret? How do we know that this is something that exists and isn't just a fallacy to excuse failing? Has there been people in power who discuss using such a thing? What are the controls to this? Does this also flow into something like Hollywood and Reality TV where Women tend to be remembered more? What about music? Where were the studies done? What kind of peer reviewing was done for them?
Honestly, I find both ideas to be the result of people failing, and wondering why they failed. Failure is like your virginity, you do it once, and nothing changes in you significantly. Less pleasure, more disappointment, but physically you're still the same person, hell with failure you even come out stronger. But you have to learn to accept it, it's a failing society has but doesn't really like to admit it, although if you ask successful people about failure then they'll tell you a similar thing, doesn't matter that you try and fail, what matters is you keep trying and learn from the experience.
But since we're on the fact train...Mrs. Sommers, you said she's an anti-feminist and that others support them...what notable feminists? Did they do published work? Where was it published, was it self published? What about the peer reviewing for that?
htown mentioned an experiment about black and white names, so I have a few questions for there in general. What was the control like? Were the applications physically handed in, or emailed? If they were handed in, were they handed in seperately or were both applications handed in by the same person? Were both resumes EXACTLY alike or where there differences? Was this done in a controlled lab or was it done in the wild?
The harassment is a lot harder to talk about. Harassment is painful to watch people deal with, and by harassment I go to the legal definition here. But a lot of people jump into conversations, and when proven wrong they turtle up and cry harassment, this is also a fact of life. There's also a degree of power that the person who is dealing with these people have. Block them, report them, hell make your profile private when dealing with a lot, a lot of trolls will leave if they don't think you're an easy or worthwhile target. Trolls and assholes tend to go for low hanging fruit, and they aren't very creative, but if they think they've gotten to you then it's a nightmare to be rid of them.
The problem however that *I* have with all of this is that games journalists are basically hiding behind these women, basically letting them be a target instead of actually fixing their shit, and let me be blunt, they are dirty. Here's a quote from a recent interview with AAA developer Christian Allen
NG: How often do gaming publications (big and small) collude with developers for review scores, or exclusives? Is this more common than the public could ever foresee?
Allen: I have personally sat in negotiations where a publisher negotiated a higher review score for a game in exchange for an exclusive cover or assets for a separate upcoming game. It is common, especially with previews. This is why you often see glowing previews of bad games, or pre-release reviews that have to be revised post-launch.
The complaining about not enough women in the industry, or that they don't like certain characters, makes me roll my eyes. I'm pragmatic in that regard, find a solution or quit your bitching. Quit bitching and moaning about the lack of female devs and talk up the ones who are there so that women know that there are opportunities there. THAT is what's going to hold women back from joining the industry. Hell the industry was naturally heading that way anyway, and no one gave a fuck! Imagine that, Gamers have what the rest of the world needs, we don't care about your gender, the color of your skin, your sexual preference, whatever. We care about your enjoyment of gaming and the content of your character. Maybe it wasn't going fast enough for some people, but guess what? You can't force things, that's when people get pissed off, especially since they can see the world changing, not everyone lives at break neck speed. And quite frankly, some things don't go fast, evolution is slow, smallpox is fast.
