BruceVC

Where would this "private matters " apply in a society. Where do the rules of equality not matter....Hades, Forgotten Realms maybe? Oh is this where you get those religious cult groups that live in remote parts of the country and where incest and pedophilia is practiced? Those are private matters.... If someone is prejudiced against LGTB, he should be allowed as long as they don't break the law. Legislation shouldn't be used to deny rights to either side of the fence and that means the right to freedom of speech. This is what some feminists and rights activists seem unable to comprehend, they assume their position to be the correct one and therefore enforcing it is a righteous act. I agree about the LGTB part but what if that person goes to a website and starts being homophobic? Websites have their forum rules, unfortunately that means that depending on the place honest dissent that is voiced politely can be perceived as a harmful speech and blocked. You can customize your web experience so that you're never exposed to other perspectives (and Google helps that a lot with search algorithms) Internet forums are often like gated communities, if there is a dominant view it will be the one that's enforced. Short answer is that moderators will take care of it based on the community rules/biases/ideology. For example, we don't tolerate bots. Sorry for the belated response, I was away for the weekend and only returned late last night. I'll just summarize my point. People keep saying " you can't say you live in country that allows free speech if you also say that certain words are not allowed to be used. This is a contradiction" But in the UK for example they prosecute people for using certain words and offensive descriptions on Twitter, yet they live in a Democracy that does practice free speech. I'm sure that in all other Western countries there are similar cases of people being charged for using certain words through social media in a way that is considered socially unacceptable This does not mean the country doesn't allow free speech. Thats my point. I don't think he meant it in that way, I think he meant acting homophobic on the website. Yes that is exactly what I meant, I surprised that such a simple point could be so misunderstood by some people

Where would this "private matters " apply in a society. Where do the rules of equality not matter....Hades, Forgotten Realms maybe? Oh is this where you get those religious cult groups that live in remote parts of the country and where incest and pedophilia is practiced? Those are private matters.... If someone is prejudiced against LGTB, he should be allowed as long as they don't break the law. Legislation shouldn't be used to deny rights to either side of the fence and that means the right to freedom of speech. This is what some feminists and rights activists seem unable to comprehend, they assume their position to be the correct one and therefore enforcing it is a righteous act. I agree about the LGTB part but what if that person goes to a website and starts being homophobic?

Monte I don't like conspiracy theories to get in the way of the greater good

Where would this "private matters " apply in a society. Where do the rules of equality not matter....Hades, Forgotten Realms maybe? Oh is this where you get those religious cult groups that live in remote parts of the country and where incest and pedophilia is practiced? Those are private matters....

Thats an impressive list, nice one

Thats harsh, I don't believe anything like the desciption below "Orwellian" is an adjective describing the situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free and open society. It connotes an attitude and a brutal policy of draconian control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past, including the "unperson" — a person whose past existence is expunged from the public record and memory, practiced by modern repressive governments. Often, this includes the circumstances depicted in his novels, particularly Nineteen Eighty-Four.[1]

What do you think of Putin Malc?

Sadly this is the necessary state we find ourselves in, many governments are forced to do this as some people need to dragged to the table where we discuss how gender equality is here to stay and be implemented by legislation if necessary. I fail to see how addressing an obvious failure of equality is fascist ?

Whats your defintion of "Stratagems" in the context of this discussion

I am enjoying this new trend we are seeing on some websites where the developers are prepared to answer certain questions directly through threads like this. It really allows you to identify with people on a personal level and expeditiously get relevant feedback , yes you can argue that PoE is fan funded so there is a greater expectation from fans of more interaction but many KS campaigns just rely on KS updates to get there message across. So good effort Obsidian Of course I imagine the negative to this type of communication is the deluge of questions a particular person may receive and maybe how people expect an answer. But I think this has been managed well

I had a really good date last night, there is this girl I've been trying to see for ages and we went for dinner at a nice Sushi restaurant. She use to have a problem with drugs and has been clean for 45 days so she doesn't drink alcohol but that didn't effect the conversation or mood. It was great to see her again and will definitely be seeing her again

It is insulting to both men and women, anyone who thinks for themselves really. I know more than a few women who are insulted and disgusted by modern feminism. What parts are they disgusted with exactly ?

I know you know thats not relevant .....but it was funny

You know what Volo, I'm going to rephrase what I said due to your post. So thanks Gender equality is NOT feminism, I was mistaken. Feminism is a route to achieve true gender equality. If you guys think that men are unequal compared to women please give me 3 examples that I'll investigate and we can campaign together on?

Gender equality is feminism and his entire post was based on this. I fail to see how you cannot think his post wasn't around a view of modern gender equality? Oh wait its suppose to be a joke....thats right I forgot. Let me know when it gets to the funny part No Bruce, feminism is supporting the advancement of one gender, gender equality is support of equality between both genders. If you honestly believe that you can achieve gender equality by focusing on the issues of one out of the two, you are a deluded nutjob. Orogun's post was neither a troll attempt or taking a **** on gender equality. Feminism : http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/feminism?q=feminism Gender Equality : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_equality Unless you can explain to me all the examples of how poor men are discriminated against in society and are not really seen as equal to women I reject your definition. We don't have campaigns about " equality for men" because basically the issue doesn't exist for men. But please do tell me how hard your life has been being a man and what you demand changes so you are equal to women ...I really want to hear this one

Do I think that girls are treated differently than boys at the macro-societal level? Yes. We have studies that indicate subtle factors in education (some even mentioned in the BanBossy material) can lead girls away from achievement in areas of math and science.1 Do I think there is value in discouraging bossy behavior in children? Yes. There's a real tendency in modern thought to feel that negative reinforcement is valueless and I'm not convinced it is. Bossy behavior should be discouraged - boy or girl. Note I disagree with the precept of the BanBossy campaign that the same action in a boy called "leadership" is called "bossy" in a girl. "Bossy" is a very specific set of negative behaviors and if people are using the word incorrectly it is not the fault of the word (again, treating the symptom - missuse of a word - rather than treating the reason why people might be misusing that word or even attempting to spread understanding about the word, its meaning and how that relates to negative behaviors we don't want to encourage and to positive behaviors we very much want to encourage). Studies over the years have shown that as boys and girls develop, girls develop verbal ability much quicker than boys. This will lead to a tendency for girls to interact with their social world through words more so than boys (which is why boys will demonstrate more physical aggression while girls will demonstrate more relational aggression, typically). This is, probably, the reason why there is a perception of girls being labeled as "bossy" more than boys (as boys will be trying to assert their will over their peers through their physicality, not having the verbal acuity to attempt imposing their will through verbal methods).2 Ideally, though, I think we'd want to discourage both forms of aggression and channel those efforts towards something constructive. Having said that, plenty of boys will be bossy during their development (just likely hitting it at a later stage of development) and if we feel that this attitude/action set is to be discouraged than we need to be able to "call it out", otherwise we'll either be transferring the bossy label to another word (as the negative traits would still need to be distinguished) or encouraging the behavior to continue (if we drop any concept of the "bossy" traits being negative for fear of discouraging "leadership"). Which gets back to the campaign; if the campaign is really about encouraging girls to be leaders and/or to not be discouraged from pursuing being positively assertive I'd argue they'd be better off campaigning positively than negatively (and while I'm sure they think they're being a positive campaign, I see any campaign that stacks itself against3 something to be inherently negative). If the goal of the campaign is to establish that women have fine leadership skills that can be nurtured and grown - which I think it is - I think they're going about it entirely the wrong way. Because what people are going to take away from the campaign isn't going to be the positive message they're trying to deliver but the negative one they are delivering (even if it is unintentionally, as I think it is). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1There's also a devaluing of education as important - somehow - in high school that leads boys away from education which is why our college populations in many schools are overwhelmingly female - outside of the STEM majors. Sometime in the 1980s women overtook men in higher education. The question we in higher education face is "how do we encourage men to pursue college degrees" and "how do we encourage women to consider STEM majors as viable options for them". Anecdotally, I can't tell you the number of times that I've talked to a young woman who has shifted away from a medical/pharmacological/dental major to "nursing" either because of factors OTHER than the challenge of the coursework. And similarly men who place no value on education, soon to drop out because making money now if more important than making more money years from now. 2Note though that while I agree that boys and girls learn differently and learn at different rates, I do reject the notion that men or women taken as enormous groups (as opposed to individual vs individual) can't compete equally in education - unless there are some other cognitive factors at play (like dyscalculia). Experience teaches us otherwise. The problem in the educational system is that, honestly, it tends to be "one size fits all" which IMO is a terrible way to operate if your goal is to identify individual talent, skill and/or proclivity. 3Unfortunately society has embraced the idea that if you're not against something you are for nothing. So its not surprising that the "net meme" summation of the campaign is negative - #BanBossy Thats an excellent, thoughtful and relevant post. Nice one. You have positioned the debate in a way that is easy to understand and even though you disagree with the campaign you have given, IMO, a better solution. Let the campaign be a positive one as I agree that even though BANBOSSY is intended to be positive the perception of it is negative and that means the message is wasted. I learnt a very insightful view today about an important topic, thanks

Gender equality is feminism and his entire post was based on this. I fail to see how you cannot think his post wasn't around a view of modern gender equality? Oh wait its suppose to be a joke....thats right I forgot. Let me know when it gets to the funny part

I'm really not sure how trustworthy poll results would be in regards to this kind of thing. Each fan-base has something called a "vocal minority" -- a small group of people who make a big fuss about their tastes and opinions, and often end up looking like they represent the overall opinion of the larger audience when in fact they don't. For BioWare, the fans who like romances are obviously such a vocal minority. In fact, I expect that most people who play their games will either roll their eyes, chuckle (heheheh boobs!) or just skip and ignore any romance sub-plot they come across. But the moment you slap "Advanced Integrated Romance System!" on the box as one of the game's main features, you'll lose a large chunk of those people as customers. Because it's just not what they want out of the game. Because they have always been optional... So people can just ignore them if they're not interested in them. Making them an integral part of the game on the same level as race, class and skill selection would make them mandatory which, trust me, a lot of people would not like. Okay but do you honesty think people wouldn't buy a major RPG just because there was mandatory but well written Romance? Are people that opposed to the idea of Romance which would only be a small part of the RPG experience anyway? In a word, yes. In more words, it doesn't matter how well a romance is written, it's impossible to make a character that appeals to everyone. A mandatory romance assumes everyone will react the same way to a given character, which is nothing but pure folly. I have quit games outright after being presented by an unpalatable forced decision or characterisation. With foreknowledge I would not have purchased the game at all, but it's hard to discover the nature of said events without spoiling the game. Foreknowledge that romances are mandatory, on the other hand, will be easy, and consign the game to the do-not-play list. P.S. Oh god, imagine ME2 had a forced Miranda romance. That's the worst example I can think of, of a case where the developers completely misanticipated the player reaction to their headline character. Okay you guys have made a good argument, my objective would never be to make something in a RPG that causes people specifically not to purchase it. So integrated/mandatory Romance is maybe not such a prudent suggestion

Okay but do you honesty think people wouldn't buy a major RPG just because there was mandatory but well written Romance? Are people that opposed to the idea of Romance which would only be a small part of the RPG experience anyway?

Well, I suppose that's one way of looking at it. (Successful troll attempt though, since reading it literally pissed me off! \o/) Heh, why is that a 'troll attempt' and not just his opinion ? And really, there are feminists out there that believe that stuff (not a large amount, but for some reason, like everywhere else, the yahoos are the ones broadcasting) If its not a Troll attempt then it demonstrates a completely dismissive and exaggerated view of the issue of gender equality and is equally annoying.

That's all very nice, but he did make some pretty solid counterpoints to your suggestion... Especially regarding this part of it: Because, really, making something that is traditionally optional, and not necessarily all that well liked by everyone in your target audience, mandatory is a very effective way of swiftly losing a large chunk of that audience. In fact, your entire suggestion seems based around the assumption that most people will simply be OK with having romance forced on them as an integral part of the game, which is completely unrealistic. You've made some good points, there have been several polls that highlighted that the majority of fans want some form of well written Romance. If Romance was integrated into the RPG then there would only be a minority of people opposed to them. So I don't see this as a major issue. Besides I have never heard anyone say " I won't play game xx because of Romance". People seem to not want to play certain RPG for other reasons?

You haven't watched the videos I linked earlier have you? No I haven't, I don't think videos carry that much credibility. I prefer links with references like that link you provided about effectiveness of sanctions against South Africa

Well, I suppose one way to end a debate is to make something mandatory. It's also a way to stop people buying your product. Bruce you are as mad as a box of frogs. On LSD. So if I don't like mustard on my sandwich, my views on mustard would be void if all sandwiches came with mustard? Can't you see how delightfully deluded you are in your desperation? As ever, your arguments turn on compulsion, which is why you'd have made a great Khmer Rouge re-education officer. "They would have to do this. You'd get judged on it." In your dotty world-view everyone would love stuff if only they were MADE TO DO IT. No, we really don't. Huh? It might improve yours, Bruce. But you, as I have established beyond doubt, are mad. Please look again at my mustard analogy. Monte please bugger off !!! I'm just joking Monte, I don't mean that at all Unlike you I don't feel the need to tell people that they shouldn't comment on certain topics just because they annoy me or I disagree with them I would rather ignore a person or debate what they are saying. I see telling someone to "bugger off" as a form of censorship and betrayal of the principle of free speech which I support unless the words the person uses are words of discrimination or bigotry.

I know Gromnir didn't think that it was a valid suggestion but integrated Romance would be one irrefutable way to end this debate around the "role of Romance in RPG". I would support it for a number of reasons. Firstly I know many people will say " but I don't like Romance, why subject me to me something I don't like". But that view wouldn't really exist if Romance was mandatory. It would be no more strange than choosing a different race, a class or a selection of spells. Secondly this would put more attention on the developers creating more meaningful Romance that would appeal to the fanbase. They would have to do this as now Romance is part of the game and whether you can complete it and they would get judged on that. Finally I think most of us agree a well written Romance does enhance the RPG experience and improve interaction in your party so logically wouldn't integrated Romance improve the overall entertainment of your RPG journey in a particular game?

Whoa, whoa...what? I'm pretty sure *anyone* can have problems of the sort that you just mentioned, regardless of gender...myself as an example who is also a guy who has felt pretty directionless and not very confident since the day I was born... (e: your post after this sounds less extreme than what I quoted, where you just said there are generally NO cases where a guy could have problems of this sort...so I'll forgive you, Bruce, so long as you don't go to such extremes again, . That's not to say I necessarily agree, but again, as always, I try to maintain a position of neutrality, because really, I just can't say I know one way or another...so I don't disagree either. ) @Valsuelm: no problem. Barti, neutrality is fine and yes I agree that young boys can have confidence problems and also not apply for certain jobs because of it. But I doubt the main reason for this lack of confidence is due to them believing it's because of there gender and the result of this is they believe they won't get a certain job or be able to have a certain role in society