BruceVC

I'm not sure what you mean by mess? The AC games are very stable and have a huge following. For example I have played every AC game except for Black Flag

No Monte despite what you think and how you see yourself when I raise issues of social justice its not about me at all. I am a white, heterosexual male. My life is great and I generally don't get discriminated against

Not sure I get your point, I think Jews are a minority group that also gets discriminated against because they are Jewish. Not because they are white males I'm not surprised, Bruce. You seldom get the point because the more open-minded you try to be, the more it closes. Intellectual curiosity is seldom a feature of the liberal Left, it tends to get in the way of prefabricated ideological certainties. My point is that there are more metrics to 'diversity' than gender. Or race. Or religion. Or sexuality. You say 'white men' are traditionally not discriminated against. What if that white man happens to possess another metric that opens him up to discrimination? Of course, this leads to a politically-correct game of top trumps where we can all compare our diversity scores (You're Jewish! Yay! Gay too? thats FIVE POINTS! I'm white. Shame, take away four points). I've seen otherwise sensible, well-educated people wander off down the blind alley of gender and identity politics far too often. We can all be discriminated against, and that discrimination can be for trivial things with profound circumstances. I remember once losing out an amazing career opportunity because a female colleague was a die-hard fan of the same soccer team as the boss. They went to games together and spoke of little else. I got on fine with them both but found soccer dull. My female colleague was nowhere near as experienced as me, nor suited for the assignment she was given. She still jumped on the opportunity like Tom on Jerry, totally oblivious to the obvious nepotism at play. It wasn't sexist or racist or soccer-ist. It was Life. I manned-up (see what I did there?) and got on with it. This is your First World dilemma, wandering around in circles crying about boob-plate and Anita whatever she's called. Meanwhile bastards kidnap girls and sell them into slavery due to their gender and religion and you still wander around in circles crying about boob-plate and Anita whatever she's called. There are millions of women who would love to have nothing more urgent to worry about that their depiction in video games that cost six months salary in their countries. * sigh * I'm sorry you have had such a tough life Monte and been the victim of discrimination, because it was unfair how you lost out on that job and I would be very annoyed if it happened to me. But maybe thats why you can't empathize with the issues I raise, you are jaded and refuse to identify with them. But this doesn't make them any less relevant Also nice Strawman with the insinuation that I don't care about "real world" issues like the Boko Haram kidnapping. You have no idea what I have done in my personal capacity to raise awareness around this appalling development. I did create the thread in the Off Topic section to stimulate debate but thats only what I have done on these forums and not what I have done outside of these forums

Got a b-day dinner tonight at a really popular and funky restaurant called Licorish Bistro. Check out the menu, I am definetely going to order something with Bone Marrow http://www.licorish.co.za/

Thats not a bad post of one definition of an RPG but I want to add to it. An RPG must allow you do adopt a certain playing style of your choice. How could you Role Play if the game doesn't allow this? You can call them that even when playing a preset role. You always have limitations imposed on who your character is and what they would do. Especially in older RPGs that didn't allow for major character alteration and offered no meaningful choices. Okay good points. But many of the older RPG always didn't allow meaningful choices as you said so what is the more accurate definition of an RPG?

Thats not a bad post of one definition of an RPG but I want to add to it. An RPG must allow you do adopt a certain playing style of your choice. How could you Role Play if the game doesn't allow this? Also Romance must be included to be a real RPG ( Thats a joke )

I finished Deus Ex : HR last night. Its a good game, A solid 68/100 on the much respected " BruceVC gaming rating barometer" Its a good story and I liked the various augmentations. I particularly enjoyed hacking and turning the various robots against enemies. I bought Spec Ops : The Line this week so I start on that today

Not sure I get your point, I think Jews are a minority group that also gets discriminated against because they are Jewish. Not because they are white males

y'know, that is one o' the real tragedies concerning shockley. the guy was freaking brilliant, and his initial research had value. african-american kids did indeed have iq scores that were averaging 15 points lower than caucasian counterparts. coulda' gone a dozen different directions form that start point. unfortunate, America called shockley a bigot, and shockley seemed to almost revel in being cast in the role of Villain. what a waste. HA! Good Fun! Thats an interesting research statistic, what was the main reason given for the difference in IQ scores?

Well your original argument wasn't clear. In any regard, I will grant you that most white people do not face any real harmful behavior because of their whiteness. But males? They get a boatload of it. Men are subjected to a ton of real, actual abuse on a daily basis. In fact, it makes more sense to say that the abuse they receive is precisely because they are men. The problem with modern narratives regarding sexism is that people look at the top and see men. And it is true, there are more men at the top of everything: more men in positions of power, more men in government, more men CEOs, and more men as managers or professors or what have you. But what many people fail to do after looking up is to look down. And in the bottom rungs of society you will find far more men than women. More men in prison, more men die on the job, more men die from treatable illnesses, more men die in combat, etc. The list goes on. It is my belief that a lot of these trends are dictated by our biology and the way we have evolved, since human males evolved to engage in aggressive, risk-taking behavior (thanks, testosterone!). I tend to view our position in society (however great or poor it may be) as an expression of our innate qualities as males, which are determined by hundreds of thousands of years of evolutionary pressure. It is not so easy, then, to just throw that stuff away to conform to the demands of society. Always remember that it is only possible to have these kinds of conversations because the civilizations that allow them were built with the blood of reckless, risk-taking men, most of whom died horribly on the field of battle (or in prison, or were murdered by their governments, etc). And in some sense, they only persist because that same class of male -- the reckless, risk-taking kind -- has been socially coerced into behaving himself by the promise of regular sex (marriage) and a share of the wealth (economic opportunity). Strip that away, and I have a feeling that we would all of us very quickly begin to resemble our wild-west ancestors, settling fights with bloodshed and taking whatever we can grab. In other words, I subscribe to the Robert E. Howard School of Anthropology: Civilization is nothing more than a thin veneer that barely covers humanity's animal traits. Take that veneer away, and we'll be splitting skulls like the our Cimmerian forefathers. Decardo I still don't think you are trying hard enough to not insult the intelligence of people who follow and study the causes and facts around discrimination and bigotry, so thats a D - for lack of effort But lets focus on the topic at hand, are you suggesting that nowadays and historically white, heterosexual males have been equally discriminated against compared to other minority groups? Now in the interests of clarity minority groups include non-whites, women, gays and all other groups that are typically the victim of discrimination ?

Technically though, there are still Christians out there who do take the "God created the earth in six days and rested the 7th" literally. They exist on the fringe, certainly, in the direction of the sort of Christianity where people hide their television because they don't want the neighbours to know they have one. But they still do exist. To be fair if there was an all powerful creator and that creator created time, the Big Bang through life on earth could have taken 6 days AND also lasted millennium since the natural flow/evaluation of time would mean nothing to an entity who could create it and thus manipulate it at will. If time means nothing, constructing infinite complexity would also mean nothing. At least I think so. Easy come, easy go, right. So to an omnipotent creator what would mean something? If I had to guess I would say " the importance of Romance in RPG"....but I may be wrong?

Volo I know you enjoy getting reactions from people with absurd comments but don't you ever get tired by the complete ridiculousness of what you say? By your logic then almost every game is an RPG, because in almost every game you have some kind of protagonist and take a role in the game? Is that really your definition of what an RPG is " a game where you play a role" So is Battlefield an RPG, because in that game I have a role as a soldier/?

I could never align myself mentally with the Orcs, I always had an issue with the fact they kept fellow humans in slavery and treated humans with utter disdain. But I did enjoy working for both sides in Gothic 3 to gain XP until I started killing the various Orc leaders

Nah. They face less discrimination, certainly. But as to who faces "derogatory" and "dehumanizing" treatment? How can you even being to quantify that? "Specific forms" is my real point there. I'm not contesting for a single second that everyone in the world can be the target of terrible things done by other people. But how many forms of derogatory and dehumanizing treatment have specifically targeted the straight white male? Compared to, say, black people, or gay men? That's what I'm getting at. This doesn't really help your argument, though. Every white male who has ever been through US military bootcamp has been dehumanized and faced with derogatory comments. Every white male who has been through high school in the United States has been dehumanized and faced derogatory comments. You keep using these two words, but I think you want to use other words. You're basically saying that white men don't get insulted or treated like ****. Of course they do, and it is usually from other white males. Focusing on this is waste of time and effort. You are actually insulting the intelligence of people who follow and study the issues of sexism and misogyny if you are suggesting that on an average men go through the same amount of abuse, either physical or verbal, that many women are subjected to in real life and the Internet

Thats my view as well. I loved FC2. So this will be a 1 month purchase for me...I always wait 1 month before buying any game to wait for feedback and the first patches to get released

Thats an excellent, honest, evocative and relevant post. Seriously dude...well done I hope Volo takes the time to read and absorb it

That is excellent news, well done villagers !!! But I wonder if special forces were helping them ?

i think its utterly reprehensible that during this particular crisis for these young girls people are spreading anti-American propaganda

Volo has a good point here, why should you feel guilty for what your parents did?

You sound very guilty about something Nonek, what have you done? Have you offended another lady gamer in the armour thread ......tell me all about it. There is no judgment here my son

That would be pretty much the definition of bias and prejudice when those "ideas and values" are based on skintone or gender or sexuality or any other superficial irrelevant trait or set of traits. (As I've mentioned before, the reasoning can be seen but that doesn't mean it's not faulty.) "Privilege" is more the concept that certain groups are inherently advantaged in terms of societal prejudices and systemic bias. (That doesn't mean that members of those groups cannot be disadvantaged in other ways, most commonly economically. The standard way of describing it is: In the majority of instances, all other things being equal, someone of the privileged group/s will fare better in the same situation than someone of a disadvantaged group.) [For most areas of the West, such disadvantaged groups include: non-white people, individuals that are LGBTQIA, women, and those that are disabled. A short but by no means comprehensive list.] I wouldn't think anyone could reasonably argue that prejudice and bias don't exist, or are not things which most people perpetrate without being aware of, nor that socioeconomic and political/legal systems tend to be apply in a rather unequal manner. I think that anyone can tell people are different from each and tend to band together for different reasons, superficial or no. But is it even a bad thing? You cannot force people to love each other, it has to come evolve from each individual, and neither can it be reason with, since love, well, isn't not that reasonable to begin with. I am not asking for isolation or to live through the eyes of fear, i am simply asking for freedom of association. Do you wish to undermine it? And how can you expect to deconstruct power-structures without seriously hindering it? Just curious. Hmm. See, this is where my personal and ethical views can diverge. Personally, I wouldn't mind isolating/ostracising/exiling the more extreme sort of bigots. I tend to consider them beyond redemption, because very little will convince someone that was raised from birth to believe xyz things and has their peer group and authority figures reinforcing those views and has no personal motivation (other than possibly a sense of ethical rightfulness?) to actually change their behaviour. That said, I do believe that those that are simply naive/ignorant are more than capable of learning and adapting. ( You see thats where I have no issue locking away extreme irredeemable bigots. Just remove them from society, some people on these forums have called me an authoritarian and dictator because of this perspective of mine. But I think I could sleep fine in the evening knowing certain people weren't able to negatively impact society

Wow thats an unnecessarily rude and dismissive comment Drowsy This whole thread is basically about social justice issues. If you really have an issue with someone indirectly responding to you than rather don't comment at all. You do have the rest of forum to discuss what you want. But on this thread we don't have an issue where someone challengers our opinion What's wrong with being rude and dismissive ? You're that way plenty of times - see the Ukraine thread. Malc thats it, I'm tired of your cheekiness. I'm sorry to do this but you but you are forcing me to send you to your bedroom with no dessert !!! Hopefully you will learn your lesson the next time !!!

Polonium 210 is an alpha emitter, and as such it will not radiate from a person since even skin is enough to stop it. You want a nice beta or even better gamma emitter for your simile. Now that this vital information has been disbursed I return you to the eternal debate: misogyny vs misterogyny, which is worse and why? Neither is good, both are equally bad and a form of bigotry. But I do believe misogyny is more widespread, practiced and acceptable in some places in the world.

Trust me I think Mods have a very difficult job and I wouldn't want to do it, But I don't see how you can think Drowsy's comment was polite or constructive in anyway. Especially after Paradox spent time making a detailed post I've been on the internet long enough to not to mentally register posts that are rude or not constructive. You will learn as well, trust me Fair enough, I just believe in posting etiquette in the interests of healthy debate. Surly the least we should try to do if someone spends time making a longish post is respond without being completely dismissive. I'm not saying you have to agree but to reject the principle of the post is unhelpful?