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[JC Sera]

Yeah I guess I missed that but I hope it's just prominent assholes like IA and Richard Dawkins have problems with feminism, have only seen the crap around IA since this blew up. How in the hell did these two groups start beefing? Please tell me it isn't some variant on a tired 'gender roles are determined by genetics' canard?

No more "quit whinging you obviously don't have it as bad as this religion's women"
He later apologized for it on the bright side
theres that at least

ETA:

Stems from a few years ago. Kind of a similar story as GG, actually. A woman speaker gave a talk about how she was uncomfortable at skeptic's conferences after being hit on / followed and it just kind of erupted from there with some agreeing the community had problems and others saying it was no big deal, including prominent people like Dawkins. Probably a key moment in why we see prominent Atheist youtubers like AngryAthiest and Thunderf00t so focused on feminism today.

I never thought of it that way. Hopefully people will learn finally this time round //unrealistic optimism

 

[Orayn]

I wonder why, since they are far from being mutually exclusive.

I blame a lot of it on the libertarian right. People leave religious conservative backgrounds, but keep a lot of their regressive social stances and try to justify them in a new framework.

 

[TheBaronOfNA]

Yeah, this is pretty good and gets at the broader problem of reactionaries encountering diverse cultural perspectives for the first time.

Dunno if I will call his point of view truly diverse...

Another quote:

Funny stuff about that, some of the persons that championed this games where people with a long history and tastes with old guard games. So dunno if I would say there is "no old guard' merit involved.

 

[plagiarize]

Well quite frankly, I'd there's a huge overlap between people who were on top of the Geoff Keighly Doritos thing (I'm presuming that's what you mean by "Doritos nonsense") and the core supporter's of GG. I would even say the Doritos thing was a necessary precursor to make this happen. My guess is that it's more focused on indie games because the people in this haven't had faith in AAA devs in years anyway and the big publishers have their own means of marketing while indies rely more heavily on things like articles and game competitions. That's just my perception of it though.

What is the Blizzard-Gamespot controversy by the way?

JSchrier brought it to my attention earlier today. Blizzard invited a Gamespot journalist to host their event unveiling their new World Of Warcraft add on expansion. He was on stage pimping it for them despite not having played it.

That's a much bigger issue than 'two years ago on Kotaku a female said something nice about her girlfriend's game without mentioning it was a game her girlfriend made'.

 

[Corpekata]

The bots things are so stupid. It's "assisted" in the way that every popular hashtag is co-opted by them because they want to sell you something. It's even being done to Gamergate itself now.
http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAct...isis_bots_are_leaking_into_gamergate_do_your/

Of course, there's a couple people suggesting they were paid off by SGG2014 to put it in there. Of course. I just wanna shake people sometimes.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

Yeah that one, it was called "Five Guys Saga" or something to that effect.

Right. Well, to be perfectly honest my assessment is that the video doesn't merit a thoughtful response and that InternetAristocrat -- to put it as nicely as possible -- is not a good person.

 

[cian]

I wonder why, since they are far from being mutually exclusive.

I think a lot of it has to do with the rise of sort of "fedora" culture (sorry if that was a cringey thing to say). A large portion of young male atheists on the internet, particularly reddit, are also fairly conservative/libertarian and this group tends to be quite against feminism and (if the stereotype is to be believed) have problems with women in real life. This is all very general though, I really don't think most atheists are anything like this, I just think it's a small but growing group.

 

[QuantumZebra]

I think a lot of it has to do with the rise of sort of "fedora" culture (sorry if that was a cringey thing to say). A large portion of young male atheists on the internet, particularly reddit, are also fairly conservative/libertarian and this group tends to be quite against feminism and (if the stereotype is to be believed) have problems with women in real life. This is all very general though, I really don't think most atheists are anything like this, I just think it's a small but growing group.

Angry young white males who think libertarianism is some sort of anti-feminist anarchism fighting to keep women suppressed.

So many conflicting ideologies it makes my head spin... yet here we are.

 

[TheBaronOfNA]

JSchrier brought it to my attention earlier today. Blizzard invited a Gamespot journalist to host their event unveiling their new World Of Warcraft add on expansion. He was on stage pimping it for them despite not having played it.

That's a much bigger issue than 'two years ago on Kotaku a female said something nice about her girlfriend's game without mentioning it was a game her girlfriend made'.

I think both are bad to an extent. Not crimes against humanity bad but given that they are two prominent voices...

 

[Corpekata]

I should say it's not really Atheists in general but the "atheist community." As in the type of person to show up to a skeptic's conferences, which is probably a small percentage of people. They just tend to be the most vocal.

 

[Riposte]

Sorry if this was posted already, I don't have the patience to dig through the thread, it's moving too quickly. It paints with a broad brush, and is maybe a little too neat and tidy in its summations, but it gets the cultural shift. Sadly I don't agree with the "GG is over bar the shouting" sentiment, not yet anyway.

http://tiedtiger.com/post/100118529581/what-lies-beyond-gamergate-the-new-games

A few tl;dr quotes:

After reading the whole thing, I'm pretty okay with being a "meritocrat". (And I say this as someone who's seen a lot of "cultural criticism"/exposed to other perspectives.)

Of course, don't really agree with his ideology (especially the incredibly nebulous attempt to separate "masterworks" from "art", and other contrasts) nor most of his description of what has been and what will be, but my conclusion is that "elevating games because they are good" doesn't need to (and isn't likely to, despite the self-feeding optimism of the piece) die out, but instead solidify into a form of art criticism, ideally free of the buyer's guide nature of published review sites.

 

[TheBaronOfNA]

I should say it's not really Atheists in general but the "atheist community." As in the type of person to show up to a skeptic's conferences, which is probably a small percentage of people. They just tend to be the most vocal.

I know that feeling bro...

 

[Fhtagn]

Athiest community has pretty big problems with feminism.

Speaking as both an atheist and a feminist, I feel it should be noted that a lot of feminists are atheists; it's the capital a Atheist community that there is often drama involving feminists, not feminists having problems with the concept of atheism itself. Bill Maher for example, does not have a good track record on gender issues. Richard Dawkins puts his foot in his mouth pretty regularly. I see a fair number of "ugh, wish those guys would shut up" tweets from other atheists I know.

It's similar to the fact that I haven't eaten meat in 20+ years but certain outspoken animal rights organizations (*cough*PETA*cough*) drive me nuts. I agree with the ends, largely, but their means are often asinine.

 

[Anton Sugar]

Huh--I had no idea there was such an issue with atheists and feminism. I'd think that atheists are generally more liberal and more accepting of feminism, but that's not really based on anything.

 

[Neoriceisgood]

You make some good points and it's definitely been true that the conspiracy aspects of it had gotten a little out of hand sometimes. It does seem like the greatest victim in the discussion has been truth and I can't deny that GG supporters are very eager to support unsubstantiated claims if they re-enforce their narrative. I mean you still see posts claiming as a fact that Zoe Quinn slept around for good reviews, despite the fact that their were no actual reviews, just fluff pieces that gave her some attention. At the same time though, they have been given some material to form conspiracies from, especially with bizarre cases of extreme moderation where normally fairly hands-off boards like r/gaming and /v/ just completely nuked discussion of it.

Do you understand how the general support of conspriacy theories & unsubstantiated claims can directly lead to extremely negative consequences regardless if that is the primary motivation or not?

For example:

Anti vaccination movement:
1. primary goal: to fight vaccines causing autism.
2. primary achievement: people dying from diseases we had nearly eliminated due to no longer being vaccinated/herd immunity being weakened.

When you include the somewhat relevant fact that vaccines don't actually cause autism what do you have left?

A conspiratorial movement that literally kills people.


This is why people call GG misogynistic. Once you recognise the conspiratorial nature behind a movement and how their facts are in error, all you can judge a movement on is the direct consequences of their shoddy research and conspiratorial information.


In the case of GG their horribly research painting many feminists (many female) as evil lying manipulative corrupt people has lead to a clear and undeniable increase in harassment.

There's a reason parents can get legally charged for trying to heal children by praying for them, "good intentions" don't fix spreading incredibly harmful misinformation that has an unmistakable negative effect on others.

Huh--I had no idea there was such an issue with atheists and feminism. I'd think that atheists are generally more liberal and more accepting of feminism, but that's not really based on anything.

A lot of atheists fall into the same 4chan-esque "FREE SPEECH IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYTHING"-trap.

It's actually ironic how similar the discussions regarding atheism and feminism were to the GG talking points, "feminism/politics doesn't belong in atheism".

 

[Watch Da Birdie]

The "Five Guys" nickname for the whole debacle was really confusing because it was around the time "Five Nights at Freddy's" was really big, so I kept seeing the two and thinking they were related.

Also made me think of the restaurant, which I guess was the point...maybe?

 

[L Thammy]

Actually, thinking about it now, I think there's a lot of anti-feminist sentiment in North American culture, apart from any group. I'm remembering in high school where it seemed like all of the students were against feminism. Plenty of women saying it too. They didn't know any feminists and they didn't really know what feminists were, but they somehow got the idea that radical feminists are the only ones that exist.

Anyway, this may have derailed the topic. Sorry about that.

Huh--I had no idea there was such an issue with atheists and feminism. I'd think that atheists are generally more liberal and more accepting of feminism, but that's not really based on anything.

Well, depends on which religion you're talking about, too. Catholics have historically been a bit more open to women due to veneration of Mary and female saints. I think Eastern Orthodox as well; there were a few empresses of the Byzantine. Of course, these things can just as easily have become more conservative over time in certain ways. And people are all individual.

 

[FF Seraphim]

Right. Well, to be perfectly honest my assessment is that the video doesn't merit a thoughtful response and that InternetAristocrat -- to put it as nicely as possible -- is not a good person.

I am only quoting this so someone can explain to me who the hell the Internet Aristocrat actually is. I seen my friends reference him a couple times and from what I gathered from here thats not a good thing.

 

[danm999]

Huh--I had no idea there was such an issue with atheists and feminism. I'd think that atheists are generally more liberal and more accepting of feminism, but that's not really based on anything.

There's a vocal subculture of atheists who are very pro-MRA, Libertarian, conspiracy advocacy, etc.

 

[NoCryingUntilTheEnd]

The "Five Guys" nickname for the whole debacle was really confusing because it was around the time "Five Nights at Freddy's" was really big, so I kept seeing the two and thinking they were related.

Also made me think of the restaurant, which I guess was the point...maybe?

It was splendid advertising on 4chan's part as it did make me go out and buy Five Guys the weekend after this debacle kicked off.

 

[Orayn]

I am only quoting this so someone can explain to me who the hell the Internet Aristocrat actually is. I seen my friends reference him a couple times and from what I gathered from here thats not a good thing.

GG's favorite source for conspiracy videos about Anita, Zoe, "SJWs," and everything else. His body of work is is to GamerGate as Loose Change is to 9/11 truthers.

 

[FF Seraphim]

GG's favorite source for conspiracy videos about Anita, Zoe, "SJWs," and everything else. His body of work is is to GamerGate as Loose Change is to 9/11 truthers.

So utter bullshit made to appease a certain audience. Got it.

 

[shootfast]

Its about intervention orders (a.k.a restraining orders) for stalking
the behaviour and harassment he has exhibited towards her counts

Just so you know the referenced law for stalking from the article got repealed in 2008 . There is a new law, not that it's that much different.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/consol_act/psioa2010409/

It is a nice way to show the meanings of harassment and stalking are different. Harassment must be physical as I've always argued. Stalking has the offensive material line is still there, but the prosecution has to show intent to harm from the defendant. Which is why I wanted a link to eron gronj latest actions because the blog alone could be argued as a tell all. People write tell all books all the time, it's the follow up that determines the intent.

So, now you know the law again?

At this hearing, the Court in many jurisdictions will offer a defendant the following options:

Agree to the Restraining Order with no findings that abuse has occurred;
Proceed to an evidentiary hearing to Contest the Allegations.

 

[andymcc]

There's a vocal subculture of atheists who are very pro-MRA, Libertarian, conspiracy advocacy, etc.

Nearly every vocal atheist I know in real life are all of the above.

 

[plagiarize]

Nearly every vocal atheist I know in real life are all of the above.

Hi. Vocal atheist here. I think most atheists aren't vocal because they don't want to be associated with all the dick bags who are vocally atheist as a kind of peacocking. They're the equivalent of drunks in the street who are constantly trying to pick fights with strangers for looking at them "HAVE YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH ME MATE?" etc.

I'm still trying to get my head around the insanity I just went through on twitter.

 

[plagiarize]

I think both are bad to an extent. Not crimes against humanity bad but given that they are two prominent voices...

Both are bad to varying degrees. One is current and not about women. So naturally GamerGate don't talk about it. There agenda is clear. They've just been telling me what it is. They're against 'politics being inserted into games and games coverage'. In other words, they're against games containing messages like 'Women aren't just eye candy'.

 

[Watch Da Birdie]

Internet Atheists tend to be so not out of deep moral inspection, but as a form of rebellion, and a way to curb their feelings of being marginalized.

The popular kids in High School, who the Internet Atheist likely felt jealously towards---and rejection from the girls---tend to be strongly Christian, at least on the outside, due to societal expectations.

So, the Internet Atheist's hate is not so much directed at Christianity, but at the Christian girls who rejected them, and the Christian guys who dated the girls they wanted.

That's why I think so many Internet Atheists have a low opinion towards women.

 

[axisofweevils]

Can anyone tell me what the hashtag #gamerfruit is or how it came to be? I'm seeing it a lot on my timeline and it seems to be related to this.

 

[andymcc]

Hi. Vocal atheist here. I think most atheists aren't vocal because they don't want to be associated with all the dick bags who are vocally atheist as a kind of peacocking. They're the equivalent of drunks in the street who are constantly trying to pick fights with strangers for looking at them "HAVE YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH ME MATE?" etc.

I'm still trying to get my head around the insanity I just went through on twitter.

I know lots of atheists in person that aren't like that (myself included) but the ones that are vocal EVERYWHERE (esp. the ones that pick Facebook fights 24/7) tend to be THAT way.

 

[Goon Boon]

Can anyone tell me what the hashtag #gamerfruit is or how it came to be? I'm seeing it a lot on my timeline.

Brianna Wu tweeted a european fruit/produce company named DICE thinking they were DICE the game company, then the fruit/produce company started tweeting in favor of gamergate even though they were pretty much inactive (like no posts, not made specifically to spite Wu) before Wu's tweets.

 

[L Thammy]

Brianna Wu tweeted a european fruit/produce company named DICE thinking they were DICE the game company, then the fruit/produce company started tweeting in favor of gamergate even though they were pretty much inactive (like no posts, not made specifically to spite Wu) before Wu's tweets.

I'm sure this has been said hundred times by now, but:
what the fuck

 

[cian]

JSchrier brought it to my attention earlier today. Blizzard invited a Gamespot journalist to host their event unveiling their new World Of Warcraft add on expansion. He was on stage pimping it for them despite not having played it.

That's a much bigger issue than 'two years ago on Kotaku a female said something nice about her girlfriend's game without mentioning it was a game her girlfriend made'.

You're right, that's some hardline bullshit right there on Gamespot's part and I'm surprised I haven't heard about it before now. My only guess for why it mightn't have caused a big ruckus would be that Gamespot's credibility was already very low since the Gerstmann firing.

At the same time though, do you think that while the Hernandez thing was less of a problem, that it was at least still a problem? I know nothing about the behind-the-scenes indie world apart from hearsay but it does kind of strike me that if it's not a meritocracy and the people getting the most attention are the ones with the connections that it may be hurting other indie devs and that's why people are more upset about it.

I should say it's not really Atheists in general but the "atheist community." As in the type of person to show up to a skeptic's conferences, which is probably a small percentage of people. They just tend to be the most vocal.

I think you hit the nail on the head there. Plenty of people are quietly atheist, but they keep it to themselves because most people don't like discussing religion at all. It's the ones trying to "recruit" who unfortunately end up being the more visible ones, same as with actual religious people.

I am only quoting this so someone can explain to me who the hell the Internet Aristocrat actually is. I seen my friends reference him a couple times and from what I gathered from here thats not a good thing.

He's a guy with a Youtube channel that was mostly dedicated to mocking Tumblr Social Justice Warriors and feminists up until Gamegate got going. He didn't have much of a subscriber base but his videos were getting 100,000+ views. He was sort of just one of many, many channels like this though. Along with MundaneMatt (very similar channel, more openly critical of feminists and more prolific), he was one of the earliest to get onto the Quinnspiracy incident and he's kind of been a figurehead since then. Gamergate started when Adam Baldwin retweeted his 25 minute video about Zoe Quinn.

His voice also sounds bizarrely similar to CGP Grey's.

 

[cian]

Brianna Wu tweeted a european fruit/produce company named DICE thinking they were DICE the game company, then the fruit/produce company started tweeting in favor of gamergate even though they were pretty much inactive (like no posts, not made specifically to spite Wu) before Wu's tweets.

That's actually pretty hilarious.

 

[jim-jam bongs]

Brianna Wu tweeted a european fruit/produce company named DICE thinking they were DICE the game company, then the fruit/produce company started tweeting in favor of gamergate even though they were pretty much inactive (like no posts, not made specifically to spite Wu) before Wu's tweets.

This is actually pretty funny. Like, in the way that Brazil is funny as a darkly farcical take on a dystopian bureaucracy.

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

Athiest community has pretty big problems with feminism.

Who is this atheist community? Reddit? As an atheist and at least something akin to a feminist, I can confidently say they sure as hell don't speak for me.

 

[plagiarize]

At the same time though, do you think that while the Hernandez thing was less of a problem, that it was at least still a problem? I know nothing about the behind-the-scenes indie world apart from hearsay but it does kind of strike me that if it's not a meritocracy and the people getting the most attention are the ones with the connections that it may be hurting other indie devs and that's why people are more upset about it.

I haven't seen anyone in this thread that doesn't think Hernandez shouldn't have disclosed her relationships.

 

[Corpekata]

Who is this atheist community? Reddit? As an atheist and at least something akin to a feminist, I can confidently say they sure as hell don't speak for me.

Already clarified earlier.

 

[partyphone]

Who is this atheist community? Reddit? As an atheist and at least something akin to a feminist, I can confidently say they sure as hell don't speak for me.

the richard dawkins/sam harris/penn jillette crowd. basically privileged white dudes.

their rhetoric actually has a lot in common with gamergate and i suspect there is a lot of crossover in the communities.

 

[GreenTornadoX]

Zoë has given Fuck No Video Games access to her archive of harassment against her, and right now their twitter feed has a full breakdown of how it all started and it's enlightening evidence that it never was about anything BUT ruining a woman's life for daring to have sex. Read it there.

e: Storify version available

Wow. That's horrible

 

[cian]

I haven't seen anyone in this thread that doesn't think Hernandez shouldn't have disclosed her relationships.

Fair enough. I just hopped in today so I don't really know where everyone stands on these older topics.

 

[Galactic Fork]

the richard dawkins/sam harris/penn jillette crowd. basically privileged white dudes.

their rhetoric actually has a lot in common with gamergate and i suspect there is a lot of crossover in the communities.

This is true, there's even a current push to keep social issues out. There was even a recent article: "Atheists Don’t Owe Your Social Justice Agenda a Damn Thing"

 

[Glitchesarecool]

the richard dawkins/sam harris/penn jillette crowd. basically privileged white dudes.

their rhetoric actually has a lot in common with gamergate and i suspect there is a lot of crossover in the communities.

Uh, what? I've never heard Penn say anything near GG in his books or podcasts.

 

[Motwera]

Don't attack me, this is just my opinion, grabbed straight from my Twitter:
"Every one of you on all sides (including me) have missed what everybody have enjoyed about gaming, for shame to all of you."
I have nothing more to say about this, I am sick and tired of this subject making headlines over and over, if we ever wanted both genders to be equal, we wouldn't be doing all of this, and we wouldn't need attention, instead, we would contribute to critique, not attack each other, and my opinion has nothing to do with either sides.

 

[bonercop]

Nearly every vocal atheist I know in real life are all of the above.

looking at polls, atheists come off as being the most left/liberal-minded demographic imaginable, but I must admit this has also been my experience. Of course it depends on how we define "vocal". I'm not opposed to expressing my opinions on organized religion myself either depending on the context. and i'm definitely not the mra/libertarian type

 

[Galactic Fork]

Don't attack me, this is just my opinion, grabbed straight from my Twitter:
"Every one of you on all sides (including me) have missed what everybody have enjoyed about gaming, for shame to all of you."
I have nothing more to say about this, I am sick and tired of this subject making headlines over and over, if we ever wanted both genders to be equal, we wouldn't be doing all of this, and we wouldn't need attention, instead, we would contribute to critique, not attack each other, and my opinion has nothing to do with either sides.

I'm not attacking you, I'm just not sure what you're saying. Is this just an "all sides are equally bad" statement?

 

[FF Seraphim]

He's a guy with a Youtube channel that was mostly dedicated to mocking Tumblr Social Justice Warriors and feminists up until Gamegate got going. He didn't have much of a subscriber base but his videos were getting 100,000+ views. He was sort of just one of many, many channels like this though. Along with MundaneMatt (very similar channel, more openly critical of feminists and more prolific), he was one of the earliest to get onto the Quinnspiracy incident and he's kind of been a figurehead since then. Gamergate started when Adam Baldwin retweeted his 25 minute video about Zoe Quinn.

His voice also sounds bizarrely similar to CGP Grey's.

Ok so against my better judgement I decided to watch one of his videos. Yeah I can see why people would listen to him, something about his voice just sounds like you want to listen to it... but then you do actually listen to it and you are like what?

 

[Eusis]

Holy mother of God... that's it. Stick a fork on it cause this is done.

Kind of a self fulfilling prophecy, isn't it?

 

[Motwera]

I'm not attacking you, I'm just not sure what you're saying. Is this just an "all sides are equally bad" statement?

Yes, unfortunately, as much as I would like to support the hashtag #StopGamerGate2014 (previously, I did, but now that is all changed), it seems that as what I am reading on the tag feed, it isn't making me feel good, neither the original side I opposed since it appeared..

 

[Brakke]

Don't attack me, this is just my opinion, grabbed straight from my Twitter:
"Every one of you on all sides (including me) have missed what everybody have enjoyed about gaming, for shame to all of you."
I have nothing more to say about this, I am sick and tired of this subject making headlines over and over, if we ever wanted both genders to be equal, we wouldn't be doing all of this, and we wouldn't need attention, instead, we would contribute to critique, not attack each other, and my opinion has nothing to do with either sides.

This is all the way milquetoast. The whole reason any of this is happening in the first place is a lot of people have never really felt welcome to / comfortable in "just enjoying gaming". The status quo was bad before #gamergate started as a backlash against people trying to move the status quo to a happier place where more people could enjoy gaming.

"I'm not taking sides I just want things the way they were" is an inherently conservative position and conservatism is a good way to not make the world better.

 

[danm999]

looking at polls, atheists come off as being the most left/liberal-minded demographic imaginable, but I must admit this has also been my experience. Of course it depends on how we define "vocal". I'm not opposed to expressing my opinions on organized religion myself either depending on the context. and i'm definitely not the mra/libertarian type

This is just personal experience, but the line on defining vocal atheism I've often seen is whether or not they bring up their atheism first, or whether someone they're talking to asks them about their beliefs, then they bring it up.

The second type tend to be the more liberal variety, the first the MRA/libertarian type. Of course, that's totally anecdotal.