General CBS

[FlowerSunRain]

On a side note, Tait is a perfect example of a very misinformed, hypocritical, "white knight mansplainer" as the internet says. You know, the feminist guy that tells females that they're wrong if they don't support women the way he does. That kind of hypocrite.

I really hope none of you guys are as crazy as Tait. I love you all too much.

Stain on humanity is too kind. Reading that made me awful about having opinions that might seem superficially similar to his. I sort of want to shame a slut while she is leaving the house that she owns on her way to vote just to make myself feel distant from him.

 

[DreamPaint]

That guy is tryin way too hard to get laid.

 

[GenericZero]

I get that he feels women have had it rough, but there are points he makes that just sound ridiculous. Were the medieval times tough? Yea. For everyone. Women got raped, kids were made slaves, men were brutally tortured & murdered. Those times weren't hard specifically for women. They were hard for everyone. I mean I agree that women haven't been treated equal in the past, but that wage gap shit is actually a myth. In fact, women in most first world countries are treated amazingly well. Better than a lot of minorities where I grew up. While most minorities are still fighting to get out of poverty, some women have it so nice that they make livings just by being extremely critical of women's representation in pop culture & making videos about it. It sucks that these same women aren't more actively trying to help women in other countries rather than worrying about pop culture nonsense. Women in the middle east are still getting slaughtered over dumb radical religious bullocks. Groups of savages with big weapons just fucking up everyone's day. There's a lot of problems in the world, but I don't think "the portrayal & treatment of women in first world nations" is #1. Especially when so much of what they usually spout is basically fiction.

To be clear, I'm all for feminism if it means equality. Like Emma Watson/Christina Sommers feminism. Not this "internal misogyny" & "privilege police" crap.

 

[CML]

Has anyone seen Geordie Tait's complete outburst at SCG on FB? Probably one of the funniest/most horrifying thing I've seen come out of an angry MTG player.

I'd link it, but I'm still on a shitty mobile device. Google searching it should bring it up. Or just go to his actual FB page?

lol

 

[Lucre]

I really like it when I'm playing the green black graveyard deck and I have the Scavenging Ooze. You almost feel like you're deck will do what it's supposed to!

 

[Jonas]

Geordie Tait sure likes to write a lot. But I can't really fault people that think that gamergaters are scum.

 

[Diakonov]

I am so sick of hearing about GamerGate. I was sick of it from the minute I heard it.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I like that this thread is blowing up. I'm not really sure what we're talking about, but let's keep doing it.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

On a side note, Tait is a perfect example of a very misinformed, hypocritical, "white knight mansplainer" as the internet says. You know, the feminist guy that tells females that they're wrong if they don't support women the way he does. That kind of hypocrite.

I really hope none of you guys are as crazy as Tait. I love you all too much.

Wow. I mean, the guy has a point, but it's buried beneath a load of offensive jammering and the very, very misguided notion that it is OK to wish people into a concentration camp just because you disagree (however vehemently). I'm pretty sure it wouldn't convince me had I been a "GamerGating" misogynist.

 

[Lucre]

can someone link me to tait offensive material whenever I google him it is only a bunch of redditors calling him an epic ragequit white knight and that tends to be the sort of thing that puts me into a person's corner.

 

[Eric Chan]

it feels to me that he's almost the equivalent of the worst gamergate trolls, except that he bats for the other team
but i'm sure the irony would be lost on him

 

[Onderzeeboot]

can someone link me to tait offensive material whenever I google him it is only a bunch of redditors calling him an epic ragequit white knight and that tends to be the sort of thing that puts me into a person's corner.

For the lazy

I don't know the last time I've read "eat shit and die" and I play dota every week. What did scg even do, slap his wrist for saying "#gamergate is stupid" in an article?

 

[Lucre]

God that was impossible to read. And those comments are atrocious.
All that said I think I'm more likely to fall on his side than that of the vulgar rabble in this case. I'm just annoyed gamergate has gotten as big as it is. Like public death and assault threats? Really? I really hate juvenile internet culture.
I don't particularly think anita or zoey are great people or making great contributions to culture or pop politics, and I dislike how they are quickly becomming the face of criticism and beset moral authority but god do I respect their right to do their thang without having to put up with this shit and boy do I like them more than I like their opposition.

Actually whenever I read anita's scathing, uninterested reviews it kinda reminds me of this bad boy:
http://www.clickhole.com/blogpost/lets-have-open-dialogue-about-sexuality-completely-738

Let’s ask: When it comes to sex, what’s permitted? What’s off-limits? What should stay private? I have specific answers in mind for each of these questions, but until we start framing them in an indignant way that makes it impossible to differ with me, progress cannot and will not happen.

 

[Laz]

Ha ha ha hahahahahahahha.

[Disclosure, I have no idea what the other side of this argument is, I am just taking the post of Geordie Tait as a stand alone thing.]

I have come to hate historical apologism (which, as a word, feels like a piece of pseudo-intellectual...ism), just because it always feels so incredibly disconnected.
"Yes, hundreds of years ago; the people that I now apparently represent because I share some sort of attribute with them; did something that was pretty bad to the people that you represent because of your shared attributes; that we can all; with the benefit of modern moral values which evidently were not held as tightly back at the time of these 'bad events'; condemn as a 'pretty bad thing'. We are sorry for what those people, who are definitely not the sort of people we are now, despite our previously mentioned shared attributes, did to those other people, who are the sort of people you are now, because of those previously mentioned attributes."
How can anyone derive any satisfaction out of that, except by associating yourself very closely with the latter party? Who legitimately feels personal slight for something that happened eons ago, unless they have been explicitly taught from a young age to feel that? Stop teaching kids that 'Bad things happened in the past, and they happened to YOU!'.

 

[GenericZero]

The issue I have with the rape & death threat stuff is that no evidence was ever brought forth & even the police have denied ever being informed of it. But you won't get to read that on most big media sites. Idk why, but probably because no one wants to risk questioning her credibility since they'll immediately be labelled as horrible misogynists.

I'm beginning to think I should keep these opinions to myself though. I don't want to get labelled a sexist jackass in denial. I'm also scared to find out that half my online pals might proudly identify as white knight scum.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

We have a "Zwarte Piet" ("Black Pete") discussion going on in the Netherlands, which has reached quite a heated and unfriendly level, and mirrors the GamerGate discussion in parts. Basically this:

Who legitimately feels personal slight for something that happened eons ago, unless they have been explicitly taught from a young age to feel that? Stop teaching kids that 'Bad things happened in the past, and they happened to YOU!'.

Grown-up colored and white people are arguing whether Zwarte Piet (a historical figure that, for reference, has been around much longer than Santa Claus) is racist or not. I can understand where the group that feels Zwarte Piet is racist is coming from, but I can also guarantee you that not a single child thinks of the concept as racist, unless a grown-up has taught him that. Neither do those kids grow up believing colored people are inferior simply because there's a colored figure in folklore that happens to do a lot of work for an elderly and benevolent white male (Sinterklaas). In fact, Zwarte Piet doesn't register as a colored person at all, he's a character that's defined by his actions after all, not a character that is defined by the color of his skin.

At the same time I will defend anyone's opinion that the concept is racist, even when I don't agree with that point of view, and I think it's appalling that the side I apparently agree with has been lashing out at the protesters with some very racist remarks ("Go home to your own country if you don't like our customs"; their own country would be the Netherlands, you idiot!), instead of trying to get where they're coming from. There's an unwillingness to reach out and understand that baffles me, and if you point out that fact, you are immediately labeled as "one of them" and "against the good cause" (i.e. Against Zwarte Piet, which I am not). Discussing things with an open mind is really hard when everyone is just gut reacting.

It's pretty much the same thing with GamerGate. You can't have a nuanced opinion, even less so when you're a woman. Either you're a White Knight/Whiny Feminist or you are a Misogynist Scumbag/Misguided Sheep. Isn't the truth somewhere in the middle most of the time?

Edit: By now we're probably firmly in GBS territory again, but hey

 

[FlowerSunRain]

I'm beginning to think I should keep these opinions to myself though. I don't want to get labelled a sexist jackass in denial. I'm also scared to find out that half my online pals might proudly identify as white knight scum.

Yeah, I have very strong opinions on these topics and I definitely don't go talking about them. Suffice to say the entire idea of breaking society into arbitrary groups and treating people in a group poorly merely for being in that group is a shitty thing to do.

 

[Lucre]

I'm beginning to think I should keep these opinions to myself though. I don't want to get labelled a sexist jackass in denial. I'm also scared to find out that half my online pals might proudly identify as white knight scum.

^yeah you are starting to worry me, usually you only hear white knight scum out of kinda angry, total and relegating personalities. Silly words like white knight, fedora, neckbeard and sjw tend to just not be a hot look if you are trying to seem like a thoughtful and credible individual. I dunno you seem alright most of the time but I remember in the chat you were always a little more internety than I am used to.

As I said I don't particularly like Sarkeesian or agree with everything she says, but I do consider myself a feminist and I don't like the way these conversations are playing out in our social media world. I think I'm usually gonna fall closer to their side than their rather vitriolic detractors. I always seem to be cautioning moderation. Anyway I think there's room for her feminist film/lit theory style criticism in gaming, but I'd really rather she wasn't like the whole face of feminist criticism in games because I think that's kinda doing everyone a disservice.

 

[CML]

in the same way that i no longer get mad about most aspects of magic culture because i have less respect for it than before (i.e., no use in getting angry at hagon's commentary, he'll always be a useless fat fuck), i have come to realize there is no way to engage with GamerGate without getting flecks of everyone else's shit all over my nice outfit.

i like all the terms neckbeard, fedora, sjw, and white knight because they have literary and historical merit, for example white knights are those psychos in novels of chivalry that give rise to Don Quixote, Charles Ryder, Quentin Compson. if the GSW move to san jose they will the SJW. a bunch of wotc employees wear fedoras. i have a neckbeard. this kind of insight, context, memory, etc. is completely alien to the tunnel-vision determinism of people like Tait or Sarkeesian, who, because they are described by a bunch of old books, are not so much real people but jokes that get old pretty quick

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

I'm just bothered by the fact that whenever I sit down and want to invite randos to play some magic with me and people I know, I will now have to confront the fact that they might be gamergate grognards.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I don't really care for the tactics that gamergate people have used, but at the same time I cannot stand Anita Asarkessian, or the way that game journalism has shifted increasingly towards pushing toxic forms of identity politics.

Feminism is fine when it’s about equality, and as gaming continues to grow there does exist a conversation about the portrayal of women in games. However, "tunnel-vision determinism" (aka prejudice) does describe her worldview best (as well as that of a lot of identity advocates): she manages to take a niche hobby, that long catered exclusively to adolescent males, and twist it to a vision of men, driven by 50 year old feminist stereotypes about masculinity, and paint an entire group of people with one broad negative brush.

And that’s a bit alarming.

Also, on the vast majority of forums I would have never posted this, simply because the maturity level would not have been there to allow me to do so. So bravo riptide.

 

[Lucre]

I think I'm okay with a lil misandry. I just find the jokes about it are getting a little old.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

It's a small miracle that we haven't been bashing each other's heads in by now given today's average online environment. Hearing (as in "listening to") other's opinions has never hurt anyone (quite the opposite actually), even if those opinions don't directly sway your worldview. Alas, I fear the world will run out of hearing aids faster than out of people who don't realize this.

 

[Lucre]

I just refuse to hold any of you in too much contempt, and if I seem at all malicious or argumentative I try to be tropey and silly with it and to be quick to apologize. I think CML is right about the cartoonish accessibility of all the caricatures but I think it's not the sort of thing I'd want to use very often on such a removed medium as the interspace, like people irl don't get me lol.

Anyway how do you guys like the idea of a lands theme with like 2x lotus cobra and like sunder (lets talk about magic).

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I'm not much a fan of most landfall cards, though Lotus Cobra is cool, and a lands theme is pretty hard to implement otherwise. There's just not that much support for it. Maybe you could think up some custom cards. I personally liked landstorm (copy this spell for each land card you played this turn), and I also dig those affinity for basic land types golems. There's some design space for colored spells with off-color basic land affinity, like:

Lore from the Loam
Sorcery
Scry 3, then reveal the top card of your library. If it's a land card, put it onto the battlefield. Otherwise, put that card into your hand.
Affinity for Islands.

Apologetic Bolt
Sorcery
Apologetic Bolt deals X damage divided between up to two target creatures, then each of those creature's controllers gains X life.
Affinity for Plains.