aluminiumtrioxid

Going out and actually reading some Lovecraft would be a tremendous help in dispelling such misconceptions.

You know, I'm biased as I'm making a game on Lovecraft, but these are ridiculous standards to hold to. I'm sick of people shredding their creativity in order to stay on the "tradition" route. Not to mention that in the original cthulhu story, Call of Cthulhu, the supposedly-invincible Great Old One was defeated by essentially being ran over with a ship. End can totally be about the player besting the villain (and then spending their life in an insane asylum, haunted by horrible nightmares). Meh, problem is, a great and uncaring universe devoid of a benevolent God was a frankly horrifying prospect in the 1920s, but nowadays it's more like the baseline of how people think about their place in the world. The "Lovecraftian purist" approach has little resonance in our age. It simply isn't scary anymore.

That video is a load of horse****. Thankfully I don't have to waste my time arguing with it, 'cause some dude has already did it.

Well, that problem is most elegantly solved by using that power to "do anything to change the world and you" to grant yourself omniscience, and then act, isn't it? Would I be correct to assume that you'd keep your current body out of sentimentality, then? I mean, you already possess most of the beneficial side-effects - or so it seems to me.

Ah, yes, that's reasonable. Notable difference, though: in Exalted, you're pretty much expected to be able to throttle gods right from the beginning (I mean, your previous incarnations have slain titans of such immense scope that their death-throes have fundamentally broken the concept of death itself, so that's really more of a minimum expected capacity than anything else), while in D&D, even threatening one god might be the endpoint of an entire chronicle.

I am talking about not understanding science at best or discarding hard science at worst. I am talking about forming an opinion/ideal and roll with it, and still roll with it when the science says otherwise. For example, look at the whole Sokal Affair: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair . My point is that the very same ideals stem from these departments in academia that do not care about science to begin with. Meh, those attitudes are a/ hardly exclusive to feminists - if anything, I'd hazard the guess that the anti-science sentiment is maybe even lower among students of gender studies than among students of other liberal arts fields (granted, my perspective may be skewed, 'cause most of my introduction to feminism was by a molecular biologist and a statistician), and b/ they represent more of a hard-line fringe of people who never bothered to get into hard science enough to be able to separate the valid stuff from the bad, and seeing some of the bad stuff being lauded as "proof against feminism" has soured them on the whole deal. Yeah, it's irrational, but hey, when you get down to it, most people are pretty irrational. Preventing a rational debate is a ****ty thing to do, but I'm not sure that "deconstruction of gender, patriarchy and rape culture" would be so bad. I hope you're not claiming that some art, music and literature have instrinsic value over any other? James Joyce and Herman Melville are no better than a amateur rapper from Detroit? How on earth can that be only objectivist in any way? But what has that to do with feminism since there are atleast 3 different 'waves' of it? No, what i am talking about are SJW that only use feminism when it is used against the very things that they hate the most - white men. Well, the thing you quoted was in response to "Only power can change your position or your surrounds, and it cannot be judged on any objective moral standard" - problem is, I've never met a feminist (or "SJW", if you prefer) who espoused this idea. Again, citing actual feminists ("SJWs") saying cartoon evil stuff such as this would go a long way to make the claim credible. What i am talking about is the same SJWs that claim that everything in western culture is a form of oppression, all while turning the blind eye on cultures that have real oppression embedded in their very laws. Often they manage to blame the western world for people oppressing themselves in their warped relativism. Kinda racist really. I'd rather characterize the attitude as "recognizing that enforcing our norms on other cultures is a kinda skeevy thing to do, therefore refraining from it". Especially given the fact that when members of oppressed groups within such cultures get the ability to campaign for some amount of change, they're sometimes prioritizing differently than their would-be white saviors would've done. "Listening to and whenever possible, supporting oppressed people" is desirable to "riding in as their White Savior and forcing them to adopt your norms" in my opinion. It's not moral relativism, it's recognizing cultural blindspots. It's basically a branch of faux-science that seems to exist only to provide validation to people who think the gender norms of the 60s is How The World Was Meant To Be, mostly through the power of crappy research methodology and an ability to jump to bat**** ****ing insane conclusions. Allow me to demonstrate: Not so long ago, a paper come out, in which the researchers interviewed 293 women in college to report on their condom use habits and fill out a Beck Depression Inventory, to find that the women who had unprotected sex have generally reported fewer symptoms of depression. So far, so good; sample size gives us a pretty good confidence in the validity of the findings, so no obviously faulty methodology here. One might think that a sane person would arrive to the conclusion based on this data that the people who are willing to have unprotected sex - therefore expose themselves to the risk of STIs and unwanted pregnancies - are generally more optimistic types, who are less predisposed to experiencing depression. Or that the people who are willing to engage in unprotected sex have a better relationship satisfaction (ie. trust their partners to the extent where they're not worried about STIs and the risk of unwanted pregnancy), which affects their general mood. The conclusion the researchers arrived on? "**** must be a natural antidepressant". That's delightfully ironic

How many women do you know working in STEM? Is that STEM's fault? Does it need to be anyone's fault in order for it to be recognised as a fact? If we assume that it's solely the effect of culture, we must accept that there's equal distribution of [comsci/engineering/etc] talent between the genders, therefore by culturally priming some of those talented people to choose different fields, humanity as a whole gets deprived of great physicists, engineers, etc. Well, maybe less "deprived" and more "the people who'd have been 100% efficient in a society without gender bias get replaced by people who are only 90% as efficient". I'm not sure I'm buying into the "genius" narrative (by which I mean the idea that truly exceptional people exist whose contribution can change entire fields of culture and science, and whose prowess couldn't have been replicated by anyone else ever).

Who's this clown, anyways?

How many women do you know working in STEM?

I do feel compelled to note that many of the methods of indigenous science work, even though their theoretical underpinnings are absolute horse****. (Traditional Chinese medicine jumps to mind, which has the most ridiculous explanations as to why it works, but that doesn't make it work any less. [Edit: well, the about 20% that does actually work, that is.])

Meh, some writer. Let us know when someone with a useful profession chimes in with outrage on the behalf of other people to show his Social Concern cred. Yeah, I agree. I mean, Alpha Protocol made it perfectly clear that you're not meant to sympathize with those people. "Oh my god, the people who are perfectly willing to torture captured POWs and betray their own agents are the type who'd make fun of the mentally challenged? Color me surprised!"

When the question is asked in the context of a journalistic publication, the answer's obviously "the editor of said publication". Which makes the cries of "censorship!" all the more baffling when said editor decides the answer's "no".

I'd argue that social sciences are overall less rife with absolutely rubbish methodology than the vaunted evopsych crap people like to throw around as "disproving feminism forever", so there's that. Also, Cernovich is pretty much certifiable insane, talking about "virile seminal fluid making women addicted and curing their depression" (would've been an actual quote, but the forum censored it, so I had to edit), so I'm not sure he should be listened to in any context.

Don't get me wrong, I'm in full agreement, I just had to point out that detail.

I asked a question, you responded directly to that question with something totally unrelated (and also completely clueless), I facepalm'd, then you tried to frame it as me avoiding having to present an argument - but when your argument makes about as much sense as creationist babbling, it's hard to respond with anything more than "actually, no, there is pretty much nothing at all that supports the things you're saying, please, at least try to keep things in the realm of possibilities". That's all there is. But okay, I'll humor you. From wikipedia (which can be derided as a source for being shallow, but you've presented that your knowledge of critical theory is at a place where even wikipedia offers significant new information): "Critical theory is a school of thought that stresses the reflective assessment and critique of society and culture by applying knowledge from the social sciences and the humanities." Well, so much for science being discarded, I guess. Personal, lived experience is important for most feminists, but that has less to do with any postmodernist ideology and more with the fact that patronizing **** completely clueless people (usually white men, duh) are so often trying to tell them what their movement is about (*cough*) or how women really work, based on nebulous speculation. You are aware of the fact that SJWs are pretty much the most morally colorblind people in the world, aren't you? "Oppression is always bad" and "I don't care about your advances in science, your shirt is degrading to women" is, if anything, morally absolutist, not the other way around. That sounds more like frothing objectivist tripe - and considering the fact that Ayn Rand is one of the most universally loathed people in social justice circles, I'd say it's probably a safe bet that no SJW has ever uttered those words. If you could cite primary sources on these things (aka actual feminists vocally espousing the views you've described), that would be great.

...Wasn't she perfectly happy (for a time) in a heterosexual relationship? That'd make her bisexual, not gay. Bi people are sadly underrepresented in media (there's John Constantine and... that's all I can think of), so it's an important distinction to make, methinks. Re: seasons, I still think Korra season 3 is pretty much on par quality-wise with ATLA. Or maybe I'm biased because I like having an avatar who brings out the whoop-ass once in a while (magical kungfu happening in a show about magical kungfu is always good), as opposed to Goofy Pacifist 10-yr. Old Kid, whom I've hated.

They're both fantasy games with a penchant for the weird and a dash of pretentiousness, but whereas Planescape is a D&D world* about multiversal industrial London** where belief moves mountains, Exalted is an animistic post-apocalyptical Bronze Age magical kung-fu world about mythical heroes and the morality of power. It's apples and oranges, really. *with all the baggage this entails **tabletop version's a bit more apparent about it than the CRPG)

Speaking of the Immanence Design (the actual play I've mentioned earlier), I've found my favorite part in the whole thing, a story (well, children's tale) within the setting. It just oozes atmosphere and is quite educational.

I also feel obligated to point out that the setting has dinosaurs that pee heroin. A fact that is only made more awesome by them being called Beasts of Resplendent Liquid. Edit: actually, I think the fastest way to get an overall feel for the game's world is to read an Actual Play of it. Thankfully, I've got you covered.

I'm looking into this ASAP. I was thinking of doing something wacky for this upcoming session... i think i got the notes of an all Malkavian half-written campaign lying around here... Maybe I could salvage that. As for Exalted: I'm looking into this, which edition am I best off getting? Well, the punching people 'til they turn into ducks bit you'll have to wait for until Sidereals comes out (they're the best* Exalted anyways, it's worth the wait). Re:editions, the Third Edition Core is currently in the art & layout phase, I suspect it'll be out in the first quarter of 2015, and you definitely want to wait for it, because a/ earlier editions had horrible systems**, and b/ because it's going to be really frickin' awesome (there was a playtest leak, so it's not just PR talk). If you just want to get to know the world, most of the First Edition will be semi-relevant; I'd recommend the Core for a general overview, The Scavenger Lands for a more detailed picture of the world, and Games of Divinity for the wider cosmology. Also, Masters of Jade from 2E is awesome and was written by the same authors as 3E, so it'll probably remain relevant. *I mean, you get native powers like being able to hide between raindrops and the the minutes of the hour, planting a question into fertile soil that grows into a plant that whispers the answer to that question for you, cutting people up with strands of Fate itself, and dodging so well that the entire neighbourhood teleports with you across half the country, on top of all the funky Martial Arts styles they have. **You've seen how clunky the oWoD core system is - 1st Ed had the same clunkiness with increased bookkeeping, while 2nd Ed was streamlined, but built on a deeply flawed core assumption (sky-high lethality coupled with easily available perfect defenses, leading to a/ characters without perfects being unplayable, shoehorning every character concept into a also being master of fighting, because perfects had really high combat ability requirements, and b/ long combat sequences where both participants just PD-d their opponent's attacks, leading to essentially nothing happening for a long time) and had a very confusing and hard-to-learn initiative system where instead of turns, everyone acted continuously, according to their relative Initiative score compared to that of the fastest actor, and the speed of the action they've taken last time. Also, both systems had a problem with the core engine simply not being able to function at the power level of the game.

...God, just mentioning it made me want to play Exalted so much. I mean, you get to punch people so hard that they turn into a duck. Edit: re:setting, how about The World of Maximum Badass?

So, no argument then. Mine was a simple interjection to the current discussion. You don't happen to be a moderator at a forum of your own, do you? I think I'm hardly at fault for thinking you intended to respond to a question I asked when you're directly replying with a quote to the post where I was asking said question. Also, hard to argue with the assertion that "SJWs are all rabid postmodernists" when I've never met any SJW who even mentioned postmodernism, let alone identified as a follower of it. There's literally zero connection between the two groups of people, as far as I'm aware.

Me: "So there were accusations about games journalists wanting to censor and ban Hatred. I've scoured Kotaku and Gamasutra, the two sites I remembered from the 'Gamers Are Dead' scandal to the best of my ability and didn't find such - actually, quite the opposite. Could you guys who obviously pay more attention to this sort of stuff point me to any articles that were asking for censorship?" You: "SJWs are all evil postmodernists whose raison d'être is to force everybody through direct or indirect coercion to accept that art has no intrinsic value beyond one's personal experiences." Me: "That's all fine and dandy, but it had nothing to do with what I asked :facepalm:" I don't see any particularly passive-aggressive about my response.

I dunno, there have been a number of gunning down people movies. Straw Dogs, Death Wish, Falling Down... Now you can argue that games making the player part of the process makes it different from viewing violence as a spectator, but American culture is facsinated by violence. But I'd also argue that games journalists (as opposed to the weird "I write about games but am not a journalist" crowd) shouldn't be advocating for anything other than better games. Which a good discussion could be had whether Hatred is the right move for the game industry towards that goal, but as far as I can tell that discussion was never had. Interestingly enough, I did some digging, and all the articles I've found at the usual suspects - Kotaku, Gamasutra, y'know, the "SJW sites" - have said "this game is pretty much a desperate attention grab, a cynical attempt at riding controversy in order to avoid the only question that should matter: 'is this game fun?' - but it has every right to be published". Censorship! Bias! They're all book-burning anti-intellectual fascist nazi scum! And that's fine, I was addressing your "the only context where I've even heard (from second-hand accounts, with no direct quotes) of games journalists advocating for stopping a game from being distributed/made is the case of How To Gun Down Unarmed Civilians Begging for Their Lives: The Game" comment, which clearly isn't the reviews you mention above but other reviews (potentially hypothetical, as was my response). Ah, that's fair, I guess. So, I've scoured the "SJW headquarters" and didn't find such articles. Could anyone here point me to any? [snip] By "such articles" I meant ones where games journalists are clamoring for the banning and censorship of Hatred (Also, your understanding of the social justice movement is... spotty, to say the least.)

In my opinion, the problem isn't with the cops being trained to effectively neutralize threats, it's with the fact that no checks exists that ensure such training is indeed only used on actual threats.