Valsuelm

So much irrational dislike for a nation that hasn't invaded anyone since before anyone currently living was born.

one wonders if you would be able to do so if were teaching in oakland... or if you were speaking at a pta meeting. HA! Good Fun! I get a surprising amount of Asian slurs in my area, although in 7th grade it is still pretty innocent. For many years the students referred to the three different levels of math at our school as white math (low) Chinese math (regular) and Indian math (advanced). It was hard not to chuckle a bit at the fact that the white kids were our low performers. Please explain the comedic element of that.

Oh it probably started out that way. The thread title is either certainly meant to incite or was written by a genuine racist. I'd wager the former is true. But just about any trolling attempt can be circumvented with reasonable discussion.

'CIS' is short for 'cisgender', an insanity driven label revolving around the world of the 'transgendered'. It's new on the landscape of words, and was created by 'sociologists' and the like. 'Kaffir' is basically the South African equivalent of the word '****' ('n' word). Much like that word, it started off as a neutral term to describe something, and didn't have the 'racist' label it does today. I do not know if it still is accepted as a neutral term to describe something like '****' is in parts of the world, but I suspect that it is. Not everyone let's pop culture or politics define their vocabulary. I'm surprised that anyone who teaches African history is not familiar with this word. Aside from coming across it in essays and books on Africa, It's a word that definitely reared it's head in U.S. movie culture from time to time. ie: It's been a long while since I've seen them, but I'm near positive the word is used in 'Lethal Weapon 2', and 'Cry Freedom', and am certain it was brought up in general discussions on TV here in the 80s when apartheid was being discussed in the news.

I'm against using the words white, CIS, popcorn and clown None of those words are offensive, to any people if at all, and therefore its not relevant to see them in the same way n**r is used. So I don't get your comparison or point ? Au contraire. 'White' and 'clown' most definitely are considered offensive words by some. In fact 'clown' is more often used as a pejorative than in any other way in my experience. These days finding someone to take offense at just about anything isn't hard. Context, of course, is of paramount importance. Insofar as the 'n' word. That's a stigma that's been reinforced in main stream media for a long time now. The divide and conquer agenda as pushed by the mainstream media has been largely successful in many segments of the populace. People have become so incredibly ignorant in modern times that even words like 'negro' or 'oriental' are considered 'racist' words these days by some (ie: the Bundy fiasco last year). Of course they aren't, no word is. But even taken in context, these words are just about never used as pejoratives, historically or today. You can still go to many places in the US (generally the mid-west especially) as well as some other nations and the 'n' word is a word that is often used in a non-pejorative manner by people of all colors and people of all colors take no offense upon hearing it, but you will just about never see or hear anything about this in the media, as you will almost never see or hear anything in the mainstream media about many other facets of US culture that doesn't jive with the PC narrative pushed in popular media . What's wrong with what we see in the video from SAE isn't that a certain word was uttered, it's the sentiment of the people saying what they're saying and the context in which all of the words are used. No individual word is evil, the word police however are.

You're speaking for all of South Africa now? Well for the majority of reasonable people it is known in South Africa that in public certain words are intolerable Are people still insensitive and use offensive words? Yes but there is no credible debate that tries to make allowances for the usage of historically unacceptable words I imagine that excepting those who live under rocks or are genuinely mentally disabled in some manner, 100% of the reasonable and unreasonable people are aware that some words are not acceptable in many public atmospheres. Profane and other tabooish words in culture X generally are known to all within that culture after a young age. As for there being a credible debate or not. Credibility with such things would be in the eye of the beholder. For you, I imagine that if Piers Morgan had a debate of such things on his show, or Obama said we should have a debate on such things, etc, they would be credible.

Indeed. Insert 'Black', 'Gay', 'Yellow', etc in place of 'White' in the thread title, and some people (likely many of the same folks who are bothered by the 'N' word) would be freaking out, and the mods would likely have already have done something. Yee ole double standard is still strong. Seriously, super poor judgement on the thread title there OP.

You're speaking for all of South Africa now?

Like some other words that are used to label people as 'haters' such as 'homophobe'. it's a misused word. The vast majority of the people who use such words to label others however don't think that deep, even though we're talking about a level just below the superficial. It's not a product of christian mythology, it's a product of 'cultural Marxist' or 'progressive' mythology. Propaganda. They're marginalization tools, and work well for those with short attention spans. I agree with regards to labels in an abstract sense, but I'm not sure what you're getting at with this reply. Antisemitism (the attitude) predates the word by several centuries at least. Are you suggesting that prejudices in general do not in fact exist and are a fabrication of progressive ideologues? No, I'm not suggesting that. Prejudices of course exist. The word 'Antisemitism' as it is commonly used these days, is misused. Look up what a Semite is, and you'll see why. As a related aside. I cannot recommend enough for everyone reading this to find and watch the documentary 'Defamation' if one has not already seen it.

Like some other words that are used to label people as 'haters' such as 'homophobe'. it's a misused word. The vast majority of the people who use such words to label others however don't think that deep, even though we're talking about a level just below the superficial. It's not a product of christian mythology, it's a product of 'cultural Marxist' or 'progressive' mythology. Propaganda. They're marginalization tools, and work well for those with short attention spans.

How does one get a backer to buy one the game?

Before I initially replied to this thread I took to youtube and watched the video of the student judicial meeting, as well as a couple of short news presentations and an interview with Mr. Baral. If you haven't already done so, I recommend doing so. Watching the actual footage is just about always superior to reading an article about that footage. Baral is either a moron or very disingenuous (I'll wager a combination of both, as those are generally the qualifications of people who seek to be president of things like student judicial boards). And if you didn't know, the probability that he's Jewish himself is extremely high as both his first and last names are Jewish names. Chances are it's him that tried to make a mountain out of a molehill that wasn't really there to begin with.

One of my first great disappointments in life was realizing that the myth that people at universities are smarter is just that, a myth. In particular the ones that are supposed to be the best, like Harvard, MIT, et al. That is not to say that there are not intelligent people at these places. There are. And due to the nature of these places being institutions of learning, you will generally find a higher ratio of intelligent people to morons than you will in most other places in the world. But that ratio isn't that much higher. There are oodles of morons on any given campus. Oodles. Idiots still make up the majority, even at places like Harvard, Cambridge, et al. And college campus or not, when you have a society that not only has come to tolerate doublespeak, doublethink, PC, and other crap that shackles the mind, but actually has a lot of people that have been duped into thinking it's a good idea, you all too often end up with the intellectually lowest common denominator ruling the dialogue. ie: the situation that spawned this thread.

Nothing to see here other than perhaps some of the insanity that one can find in many if not most student judicial boards at University X. Certainly not racism. A student applying/running for a position on the judicial board, with an affiliation to some organizations, is being questioned in regards to how she'd handle a situation that arose where she might have to make a judgement that would involve those organizations. Pretty much a standard question for such a position. It so happens she's Jewish, and at least some of the organizations she's apart of are Jewish, so some are freaking out with the 'race card' (even though Jew isn't a race). The correct answer of course is that she would recuse herself from judging a situation where there's a real of readily perceivable conflict of interest. However, from what I've personally seen on many campuses as well as read about on others, conflicts of interest are the norm on student judicial boards. Perhaps the one at UCLA is actually attempting to avoid such things (as any good judicial board anywhere would do). Unfortunate for them, some idiots are attempting to cry foul and play the race card. An all too common thing these days on campuses. I imagine Abe Foxman is yumming this one up.

Aye. I find it amusing that some actually think getting waylaid like we did in Baldur's Gate was annoying. Games like Nethack (a game I'm currently playing again right now), Legend of Zelda 2, or Final Fantasy 1-8 (I stopped playing after 8 so I dunno if they still do random encounters), all great games, would be like Guantanamo for these folks. The whole random encounter thing was a fundamental aspect of AD&D gameplay, which was the ruleset that all of the IE games were based on (even 3rd edition had random encounter tables). Not to mention the other PnP games I played back in the day (notably Palladium games) also had random encounter tables, based on location as you suggest. Seriously, if I don't get waylaid randomly at least a couple of times during my PoE adventure I'm going to be disappointed. Even more seriously. Who in their right mind doesn't like getting waylaid? Far better than all that romantic crap some people want, just skip to the good part. Get waylaid. Perhaps there should be an option in the menu next to the violence setting, on whether one wants to get waylaid or not withing the game.

You win the thread. This is awesome!

Never played KotOR2 so I can't speak to it, but I agree and would add that I think BG1's crafting system was just as awesome as BG2s.

I love that you have that gold medallion yet are drinking worse than well. You could have bought a lot of cases of great beer or a few of some good wine. But no, IE was invoked and you heeded the call. Even if it meant you had to suffer Fosters. Good man.

If Obsidian didn't hire the narrator from Baldur's Gate to tell me I'm waylaid from time to time I think they dropped the ball. If I never get waylaid in PoE then I'd say they didn't just drop the ball, they lost it.

Ah yes. Because I wasn't raped last night, makes the fact that I got robbed at gun point so much better.

Troll! Indeed. Gifted is guilty more than any other moderator I've seen of being exactly what a moderator shouldn't be: an immature troll.

I don't think its just common on these forums, I think its common on the internet. Discussion go off on tangents that have little to do with what started them. Oh, I don't mind tangents (there's a point where they can become super far off topic though and it's best to just make another thread (ie: discussions of why some like Fifty Shades of Grey)). This is a tangent itself. It's the taking things out of context, arguing just to argue, and the hypersensitivity that lowers the conversation level. It's fairly common on the internet these days yes. But it's not overly common on the forums I've frequented in the last decade (some are gaming forums, some are not) or the ones I frequent now (most of which are semi-private). If this forum had better moderation I'd say it wouldn't be frequent here either. But some of the moderators on this forum are guilty (in other threads, not this one) of what I mention, and trolling is not only allowed on this forum it's seemingly encouraged by some of the moderators (as some are guilty of it). Which more than anything else methinks, lowers the quality of many of the conversations found on this forum, as while hypersensitivity, taking things out of context, or arguing just to argue isn't necessarily trolling, I've noted that most of the people who are on these forums who engage in these things often troll elsewhere. It's the incredibly immature mindset that is a prerequisite for trolling that more often than not is also a prerequisite for these other behaviors. In other words, don't tolerate trolling, like most respectable forums don't, and set good examples (especially if you're a moderator) and you won't have all that much of this other bad stuff. I brought this up in hopes that at least a couple of the guilty look in the mirror and change their ways. Unlikely, I know, but it does happen from time to time.

The hypersensitivity of some and the propensity of others to take things out of context or argue just to argue really poops on my desire to even read these boards. In other words some of you are seriously immature, which really poops on the ability of others here to have an even semi-intelligent discussion. I just mentioned Bioware, didn't say I liked them, didn't say I didn't like them, and some people take what I said out of context and others freak out simply because the word was mentioned. Note: this phenomenon isn't unique to this thread. In fact it's quite common on these forums. But this is probably the most ridiculous and obvious example of it I've seen in awhile.

Beautiful art. Thanks for introducing me to her. Love the Ghibli influence. I immediately wanted to make something she did my wallpaper, but alas, I couldn't find anything big enough.