alanschu

Because human beings do a better job of displaying that they don't let violent media make them violent, while they don't seem to do as well with not taking ideas and imagery and disassociating them. I also feel that violence is better socialized against in other ways. Because you don't understand the terms. Rape culture is NOT "all men are rapists." Rape culture is a term to describe a culture in which prevalent attitudes and practices normalize, excuse, tolerate, and even condone rape. This is from the very first line in the wikipedia article. The second sentence is this: "Examples of behaviors commonly associated with rape culture include victim blaming, sexual objectification, and trivializing rape." For instance, someone suggesting "rape victims should just not make a big deal out of it because it gives power to the rapist" is an example of victim blaming, as well as rape trivialization. IIRC, this is what you actually said to me. It's not up to you, or me, or anyone else to tell someone how they should or should not deal with an assault like that. So yes, I consider a statement like that to be one that contributes to rape culture. No, I do not consider you a rapist. Some extra reading from a place like here. One thing they point out is how rape culture is a culture that feels rape is inevitable. Think about some people getting upset because what a woman was wearing and where she was walking was focused on during a rape, and how she shouldn't be there and certainly not wearing that? How many people go "well yeah, of course she's taking a risk." Soon it becomes her fault that she was raped. As for other examples of rape culture: Look up Stubenville. Some high school boys raped a girl. Adults obstruct justice to protect the boys and the school's football program, and there's a healthy degree of focus on how this is tragic for the boys because they had promising football careers and how they may not even get into college now if a conviction is made. There's another case of Raeteah Parsons from Nova Scotia. Very similar to Stubenville in that boys raped a girl and took videos/photos, and the girl was the one ostracized for it by her peers (she tried NOT coming out with an accusation to start too). She was bullied out of school and harassed by other boys that wanted to have sex with her. The family tried moving, but the bullying eventually caught up with them again thanks to social media... and the girl was driven to suicide. Saratoga High School had a similar thing, which some consider worse than Stubenville, where again guys took advantage of a drunk woman, took dozens of pictures of her being abused, and would share it with the student body. There's an article here in Rolling Stone. Harvard's Crimson posted an editorial from a Havard Student (kudos to the Crimson doing this... I consider that a positive thing). Until 1983, in Canada it wasn't possible for a husband to rape his wife. That doesn't mean that all husbands raped their wife. It did mean that society's codified laws meant that it was not something seen as possible (which is absurd as far as I'm concerned. If a spouse isn't interested in having sex, forcing that spouse, man or woman, same sex or otherwise, it's absolutely rape). That's rape culture. (rectifying this by altering the laws is an example of eroding that culture, which is something that I support) But there's still issues: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/how-canadas-sex-assault-laws-violate-rape-victims/article14705289/?page=all * Most judges now attend courses to become more sensitive, but still hand out sentences, Prof. Boyle of UBC says, that suggest victims invited trouble by how they acted or dressed while out on a date, or with those closest to them. * For example, in October, 2009, the Ontario Court of Appeal imposed a 10-year sentence on a man convicted of assaulting a woman who was working a night shift at a convenience store. The same month, it ruled on a man who had tied his wife to a bed, covered her mouth with duct tape, punched her in the face, cut off her underwear with a knife and threatening to slash her vagina before trying to rape her. Only on appeal was his sentencing increased to 21 months – and even then the sentence was conditional, so the man, by this time out of jail, didn’t have to go back. The man fitting the "typical" image of a rapist: 10 years. The atypical rapist... 21 month conditional sentence. I don't believe this is endemic to only Canada, however. Here's a cartoonist's take on the discussions regarding sexual harassment I was going to go into your misunderstanding of the term patriarchy too, but I've been writing this for a while and have to go soon. I did point out a study in a different thread of the male and female researchers BOTH critiquing an equivalently qualified woman candidate in a study (only the name was changed) more aggressively than a man. There's *some* reason for this type of assessment, and the idea that society (somehow) has us believe that women are less capable at the physical sciences is one possible assessment. This is the idea of "the patriarchy," which is more of a nebulous, abstract concept of institutionalized ways to reinforce a specific set of gender roles. It's important to note that men can be affected by the patriarchy too, in that they are ostracized if not displaying a suitably masculine image. Men are biased against in custody battles. They are biased against in adoption. I don't know this for certain, but I certainly perceive that they are more likely to be ostracized for being homosexual. (despite Volo's declarations, feminism has nothing to do with acting feminine - although feminism is more of an umbrella that has a variety of perspectives now). I find it troubling that you call out someone for "having a different idea of what feminism is than what is actuallly happening" because it doesn't seem like you actually understand the terms being used. But I'm not sure if it's the other people that suffer from cognitive dissonance on this topic. How many people on this forum point out that the extreme people are just that, extreme? How many people on this forum actually espouse those extreme views? Yet in a thread that I was taking part in, not long after I let it be known that I was a feminist, you post some hateful diatribe of what feminism is. I think you're mistaken about what feminism is. I think there may be some bias in your sampling if you think that feminism is as extreme that you think it is. I actually enjoyed reading a comment from a developer on a RPS talk regarding Manveer's talk at GDC. In response to all the people crying out against compromising artistic integrity, he shared how he knows all too well how much that's affected, as character designs he makes are white washed and altered to appeal to specific demographics. Artistic integrity indeed! But fans don't typically see that sort of stuff so it doesn't happen I guess. Perhaps they should stop compromising their artistic vision based on what the marketing department tells them. As a lead on a AAA game (Sudeki) who was forced to make a black character whiter, for “sales in target demographics (Japan)” I can promise you, the words “compromised artistic vision” ring loud and clear across the whole industry. If it’s made for profit, the artistic vision has already been compromised. Fact. (In response to someone asking why designers should compromise their artistic vision to appease sexual minorities). Super Smash Bros had an example of the designer literally NOT doing what was concepted, at all yet this is what was delivered. Artistic integrity! As for bull**** trivialization and fundamental misunderstandings: Magnificently put! I think for a lot of people, it's mere existence comes across as forced. In ME3, Steve made a casual reference to his husband that passed on. My reaction: "WHOA! He's gay!" I make that reaction because, well, it's not something I'm used to see. But I'll remember that... Makes a casual reference to his wife passing on? Do I even blink an eye? (I actually love Shepard's response to that line, given that it unphases Shepard in the slightest). I'll take this as preemptive support of this post. Thanks!

Addendum (since I missed it): A third good point to actually bring up is that the site's marketing "ban bossy" is misleading and leads to confusion. Malcador did point this out though, IIRC. And it's a good thing to say and it's a debating point whether or not exposure like that is useful because it gets people thinking, or it just makes people assume the wrong things.

I honestly cannot say that I have ever seen someone so thoroughly fail to grasp what comes across as such a straight forward and simple assertion. You're right that bossy and leader aren't the same... so tick one on failure at critical thinking. The thesis provided is that boys will do a particular act (whatever that act is) and be called a leader for it, while a girl doing that exact same act will more likely be called bossy. You're right that people you would consider bossy aren't always leaders. So tick two on failure for understanding the message being presented. As stated, the argument being presented in the link is that the girls are more likely to be called bossy while a boy doing the exact same behaviour will be called a leader. What you think is a good leader (or bossy) is actually not relevant to the discussion. Tick three. What you should be asking is "what are the actions being described?" Because what Hiro Protagonist considers to be bossy/leader is irrelevant. Because, and I'll peel away those evil words since you seem to be struggling with them: when little boys behave in a particular way they are being presented with a more positive label than when little girls behave in the same way. I hope you're still with me here? I'm feeling generous, so I'm going to list "things you shouldn't do" (they weaken your argument and typically waste people's time) coupled with "things you should do" (they demonstrate sound criticisms and things to keep in mind that can be applied more universally than just these topic even!) Things you shouldn't do because they're irrelevant and demonstrate a failure of understanding what is being presented, coupled with utterly abysmal debating skills: 1) Say that you know boys that are bossy, and question why they aren't brought up. The thesis (argument, if you will, or some other synonym since you used the word synonym I can have a reasonable assurance that you know what that word means...) put forward is that FOR THE SAME BEHAVIOUR (hint: applying what you THINK they are referring to is irrelevant. I recognize based on past experience that you have fundamental deficiencies in recognizing this reality, but in the hopes of educating you here's what you need to do: find out specifically what behaviours they are referring to, so you can have an actual informed opinion on the topic, rather than stumbling around rambling irrelevant anecdotes). TL;DR "Cool story, bro" 2) Share an anecdote and assume that it means anything. Because they typically don't, because few things like this speak in absolutes. No one is asserting that ALL people call ALL girls bossy when they would ALL call ALL boys leaders. That you think this is *wrong.* Please be less wrong in the future. Now granted, most people here are just like everywhere else and will overemphasize their own life experience. But since you had "no idea" about what was going on on the site, hopefully this helps! TL;DR "Cool story, bro" (again) 3) When you have no idea about something (which you've made exceptionally clear), you invalidate your assertions. Given that you have no idea why bossy and female are linked on the site (and I believe you when you say that), I *strongly* encourage you take the time to get SOME sort of idea before commenting, lest you do what you did in this thread and post several posts that demonstrate that you don't actually understand what's going on. Here's a helpful reminder: "if you ever use the phrase 'no idea' when assessing your understanding of something... don't chime in." TL;DR "Best to not share your thoughts on something that you have no idea about." Now for some meaningful questions that are actually related to the site at hand. First, and a pretty strong argument to open up with right out of the gate: "Are little girls actually more likely to be called bossy for the same actions that little boys do?" Here's the biggest, most blatant issue with the link in the OP: Is the reality it is asserting actually a problem? Now there's a degree of critical thinking here: Is the issue *really* the use of a particular word (it's not). 37 seconds on the site makes it clear that it's referring to issues that young girls have in terms of self-esteem/confidence, and being willing to put themselves out there to be leaders and vision holders. Now I understand the simple, lazy thing to do is to just look at "Ban Bossy." But, as we've established earlier... best to have some idea, rather than no idea, about the discussion before talking about it! So to give you some live ammunition, rather than the blanks/duds you've been using: point out that they actually don't provide any support that their assertion is true. That's super useful! I tried looking for some, but unfortunately all I really came up with is more references to this movement... which isn't very helpful. Without evidence, the thesis is actually just a hypothesis! Supplemental: by framing the statement they way they did, they exercised the "begging the question" logical fallacy, which is where the conclusion of the thesis is assumed to be true by the statement. It's completely valid to question whether the thesis is correct. TL;DR "It's useful to simply ask, is the thesis put forward accurate? Is there any empirical study that (dis)proves the hypothesis. (WARNING: always remember that a single study is useful, but it's possible that unanticipated variables things. So always be open that the study's conclusion *may* be not be accurate) Another very important thing to do, if you are still stuck on the use of the words bossy and leader: Find out what behaviours the study is talking about. Some more live ammo for you: they don't really talk about this... the site more talks about various strategies for helping young girls build confidence... which in and of itself isn't a bad thing, but it doesn't really help us understand what behaviours they are talking about. Are they talking about being loud? Telling other people what to do? Coaching people? I don't know what the answer is to this question, and that is a major failing of the idea! These are the knockout punches you have available to you. Not "well I know some boys and they were bossy" or "bossy isn't the same as leader" with further explanations that reinforce that you have no idea what's going on. TL;DR "Clarify what actions the group is talking about. Words like 'bossy' and 'leader' are not entirely clear. They may be misusing the word and it's immeasureably useful to know that so that you can have better than no idea what is going on." Take these and practice them. Forget about using points 1-3 of the stuff you shouldn't do. It undermines your position and shows you're not prepared to actually discuss the topic. Anecdotes, while interesting, are often meaningless. If you do have to use an anecdote, it's useful to acknowledge that it's an anecdote because by doing so, you're making it clear that you understand that your experiences may not actually be applied more generally.

You fail to grasp the tenets of modern feminism, I'll help you. Women are perfect, if a woman has a flaw the fault lies with the Patriarchy. A woman can do anything a man does but does not need to do it or be capable of doing it and should regardless be considered equal. All men are rapists and oppressors, therefore men cannot be considered to suffer of anything a woman can because of their privilege. Are you getting the picture? Well, I suppose that's one way of looking at it. (Successful troll attempt though, since reading it literally pissed me off! \o/) Well here's a tip for you. The site is putting forward the idea that it is applied more commonly to girls for the same behaviour than boys would be considered leaders (a trait with more positive connotations). Glad I could clear that up for you. You're welcome to disagree with that assertion (as Oerwinde does in the post above this one).

Titanfallllllllllllllllll.

I finally had a chance to read the link a bit more thoroughly: Is it just me, or is this thread an entirely irrelevant semantic argument given that the link in the original post doesn't actually have anything to do with removing the word "bossy" from our vernacular, but to instead examine the context with which it is used when discerning similar behaviours between young boys and young girls and how one is considered a pejorative and to make us think about why that happens? I mean, I guess you can disagree with the thesis (which is what I think Amentep tried to do in post 16). I see "It is about the word" and how "we should treat the problem not the symptom" when, at least to me, the entire point of the website is that the use of the term bossy for young women that behave the same way as young boys who are instead called leaders. One term has a negative connotation, and the point of the website is to illustrate that disparity. For *some* reason, it's considered unappealing for a young girl to behave that way so we ascribe a negative word (whatever that word may be - I'm intentionally using the term "negative word" instead of "bossy" here). To me it seems pretty clear that the thesis is "young girls are treated differently than young men in these situations, and are looked down upon it for doing so." Not "lets remove bossy from our vocabular." Now, some of hinted that they disagree with this thesis outright (same Amentep post), though to be honest I'm so far removed from being a young child that I certainly cannot provide any anecdotes that would or would not support the idea that young girls were more likely to be called bossy and to deal with the stigma of having that label. Distilling away the "does this divide actually happen" I do ask, assuming this distinction is true, do people here feel it's a problem? If not, why not? Is asking this question truly "treating a symptom" or does (should?) it cause people to wonder WHY a campaign like this even starts up? I'm definitely in the latter.

My issue with GFWL was that it's actual online support features (for MP or whatever) typically gave me issues while Steam and Origin did not.

If you are only vaguely aware of USAPATRIOT, then you may be more qualified to speak about it that the people who voted it into law. http://books.google.com/books?id=Y_Ej_RA5Bf0C&pg=PA66&lpg=PA66#v=onepage&q&f=false That's some healthy lawmaking, right there. Unfortunately I have an aversion to anything associated with Michael Moore....

I have heard that the original builds of Dragon Age didn't actually have a dragon! (I think Uldred was the main villain) Though this is all looooooong before my time, so it's just hearsay at this point.

Actually I have to rethink my position. Seeing people come into this thread and take up defense against the various blasphemous opinions has actually become rather entertaining.

Jill's point was that the women ARE documented, and that our failure to educate on them is a problem with us now, now recording them back then. So this statement is actually in agreement with her, though your hostile tone seems to indicate that you think you're refuting her statement....

I remember some of my university professors bringing up the point that, in a lot of cases, the problem isn't only that women's contributions weren't included in the historical record, and more that we today often overlook those parts of the historical record that involve women's experiences. In other words, in many cases, we today, and not historians in the past, are the ones making women's contributions invisible. Fair enough. Occasionally I see the "famous women you probably haven't heard of but probably should have" posts that go around social media from time to time. Clearly their contributions are documented, but it's true that despite their contributions in similar fields such as physics/astronomy and the like, but male names are easier to recall (at least personally speaking).

Cool thanks.

Is part of this perspective also from the standpoint of him basically going "peace out, yo" and leaving the country? In other words, by doing that (with apparently a verbal resignation), you're suggesting that parliament has recourse to replace him since he effectively abandoned his post?

I do agree that Jack's romance has problematic elements for sure. But yeah, this forum is smaller with a bit of a leaning towards a game style/writing of a KOTOR 2 and whatnot. Gromnir is one of a few that speaks in character, just as a heads up.

Reading that, the defensive of gravity rush is the fairly typical "there's story reasons for her to have silly outfits" combined with some "it's just what her character likes to wear." I have seen people justify some of the even more extreme outfits of League of Legends with phrases like this. I still find both of those defenses problematic. Stating that she has magical powers that enable her to wear a particular type of clothing is still pretty hamfisted way to toss the character into a school girl outfit. Then to say "it's just the way the character likes to dress, who are we to say otherwise." But if the selection of that particular attire is arbitrary (i.e. chosen by a human being just because), it's not like that decision is made in a vacuum. It's important to still recognize that Kat isn't actually a real human being. Does wearing that outfit serve the character in any way? I find it a bit pedantic, because it's actually not really addressing the issues with the character's presentation and whether or not it's accurate, but rather attempting to discredit by poking holes in the statement. On a final note: I'm not sure the statement of a destroider is necessarily accurate. http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/12/historically-authentic-sexism-in-fantasy-lets-unpack-that Food for thought, though it's difficult to confirm/deny how common the omission/irrelevance of women contributions in history was. First you need to believe that it's possible that that happened, and then also believe that it happened regularly enough to skew our perception of history.

I'm not sure I'd agree, especially given you picked Garrus and I don't recall feeling the same way (and extending into ME3, he's probably one of my favourite "friend characters" in a lot of gaming).

Playing "waiting for Titanfall"

I'm not sure if I could handle another game where I spend more time at the ammo crafting bench than anywhere else!!! (FONV) (This is a statement of endearment as I gobbled up that crafting aspect)

Right now... nothing. Because Titanfall soon!

You're presumably long gone, but I'm curious how you define alpha? We tend to define it as feature complete (all features we want to be in the game exist in some capacity) but I think other places apply the term earlier than we do.

Yeah that's sort of what I am expecting as well. I just preloaded and am good to go with a few friends of mine, so I can come back with my findings when I get a chance to play it.

So basically, Garriott should have paid himself less and Origin was still bankrupt? You are describing a company that saw mismanagement and are assuming "well it just needed to be a bit different and it would have been better" as though that's a relatively trivial thing to do. How many people sell their companies while they are growing hand over fist, mitigating any future earnings that they will ever get from that company ever again, only to continue working for that same company? If Garriott was interested in only in leeching the money and getting out with a big payday. Although I guess if he was still overpaid by EA.... You stated "most of the companies EA obtained and cannibalized were not in the position of be obtained or die" and then gave me a detailed recount of how Richard Garriott basically put the company in a position of "be obtained or die." It really seems like your beef is with Garriott for putting the company in that position, not with Electronic Arts. Even then, things like Britannia Manor were built before 1988, which is still several years before the purchase. I was around, though I was young (I remember the Square, Circle, and Triangle though I never saw anyone refer to them as ECA before... I always called them Electronic Arts and they were listed as Electronic Arts from the software wholesalers my Dad's computer company used and I remember when Origin Systems stopped existing and Ultima VII was now under Electronic Arts). I may be biased because I was a part of the "EA explosion" when they decided to start making console titles, which in 1991 and 1992 had become where they get the majority of their revenues. I never considered Origin to be larger than EA though, so I did some poking around and came across this article: http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/electronic-arts-inc-history/ It lists EA's revenue in 1991 as $131 million. In 1992 it was $175 million. It mentions during the buyout of Origin that Origin's revenues in 1992 were $121 million. Unfortunately I don't know what the cashflows/profits or anything like that were. So to be honest, they were a much larger studio in terms of revenues than I thought they were. The Escapist article also mentions that people like Chris Roberts also commanded a hefty salary as well, and while there may be huge hits it also points out that Garriott was of the mindset to not reuse any code from previous Ultima games going forward. The article also points out that a difference between them and a studio like Lucasarts, was that they decided what they wanted to do and then tried to make it work (including creating custom memory managers like the Voodoo memory system for Ultima VII), while Lucasarts would look at what was possible and would design around that. It doesn't come across as far fetched that the development process for Origin's games end up being higher by a non-trivial amount compared to a lot of other game developers at the time. Coupled with games mired in development hell, like Strike Commander (Over 1 million man hours), a perfect storm of badness happened and Origin had no money. But none of that is EA's fault, and to state that a bankrupt company was not in the position to be purchased is incorrect (regardless of how said company got into that state), while then excusing it as a "well if they had just done things differently" comes across more as moving the goalposts. How many companies would still be around today if they didn't have mismanagement and excessive spending on things that they didn't need, and had just done some things a little bit differently instead? It wouldn't be the first time that a creative person struggled with the actual economics of running a business, nor will it be the last (look at something like Broken Age, for example). Although I do find it interesting how often people will, for example, rail on EA for exploiting its employees while remaining blissfully unaware of how things were at a place like Origin or BioWare when they were still owned entirely by their founders. Origin was large, as was Westwood (I assume this is the one you mean for "at its prime?"). How big was Bullfrog really, prior to the EA buyout? At the time the only game I remember hearing of was Syndicate (and only because it had cool boxart), while it was easier to come up with Origin games. Maxis was a studio that basically went 4-5 years with not releasing anything of substance after SimCity 2000 before they were finally bought. Which ones were bought against their will? How much of it is "I really liked these companies" and how much of it is us believing "there's no way they could have been in financial problems" simply because we liked their games, their games were popular, but we had zero clue how things were actually being run behind the scenes?

Fringe elements are unfortunate because I find they tend to be overrepresented due to the nature of their extreme views. This goes for both sides (and for a lot more topics than just feminism). The extreme nature tends to have the effect of pushing me away from various perspectives, which probably isn't fair to the discussion as a whole. I have seen this too. The idea that unless you're a part of the group that is oppressed, you can never truly understand the challenges that that group faces. I'm not sure I agree with it, even if I concede that I'm likely ignorant to the challenges that a lot of groups may have by virtue of not being a part of said group. Saying that those are only "allies" I think is mostly a semantics thing. To me they're still pushing for similar goals. Most of my experience with people that identify as "feminists," however, are people that feel that there are, in general, unnecessary gender roles that compromise both men and women. Meaning that while they feel women, in general, are disadvantaged, they point out that there are circumstances where men get the shaft too. Some of it being places like jobs that are traditionally for women (i.e. nursing, clerical), as well as bigger issues such as the deference to the mother for child custody based on assumptions that the mother is innately better at child rearing.

My epic finale found here (Playlist included). Beware... I laugh *a lot* ^_^