Ineth

What's with the spitefulness Kaine, it's not like you. As for fighting side-by-side with the US in a war, that's both a weird criteria to apply in and of itself, and also kinda unfair to apply to a country that didn't exist yet at the time of WW2 and was only 2 years old (recovering from its own war of independence and still poor and barely functioning itself) at the time of the Korean war. (Nonetheless, it did support the South Korean side both diplomatically and with humanitarian aid.) Regarding the Gulf War, as Wrath already mentioned, Israel stayed out of it at the request of the US. As for the remaining wars, the only countries that fought side-by-side with the US even though the war in question didn't directly concern themselves, were the UK and Australia I think. Not surprisingly those are also seen as the closest allies. But that doesn't mean that they should be considered the only allies. "vicious nation" You should use more strongly biased hyperbole, that would really bolster your argument. /s "attacks" Israel's military campaigns were all defensive reactions to prior aggressions directed against it. It has no interest in conquering anyone, only in protecting its own citizens - proven by the fact that it made peace with any neighbor willing to do so (Egypt, Jordan) and had no qualms about returning territories (Sinai) to those countries which it only needed to capture in order to have a safety zone around its populated areas while said countries were still hostile. Israel routinely faces threats to its very existence like no other country in the world, so it's no surprise it has to do things which other countries don't. Judging countries' actions according to fair and moral criteria includes taking into account the different circumstance. Demanding that Israel must be no more violent than, say, a country like the Netherlands which is surrounded by peaceful allies, is a double standard. "genocide" Which genocide would that be? The Palestinians, who thanks to UN/EU and Israeli aid are growing faster, and have better nutrition and healthcare, than most Arab populations? If that's a genocide, it's got to be the most incompetently executed one in history.

O wow, I hadn't heard that song in ages.

Not much of a surprise really. I don't see why she even bothered writing a letter about it. It's not like her pro-Israel stance is some kinda mystery. It's one of the few topics where I agree with her. Why do you guys have a problem with it? It shouldn't be controversial when a politician is in favour of continuing to support a close ally, and condemns the racist "BDS" hate movement directed against its citizens.

Authoritarian groups do. But the similarities between the two specific groups he compared, also go further than that. He named the use of a particular set of coded language, as an example. So to recap, if a Czech developer makes a game: 0% black characters = exclusionary = racist 100% black characters = appropriative = racist What would be the exact politically correct percentage? --- Unrelated but funny:

The Surprisingly Strong Progressive Case For Donald Trump Made me chuckle.

...which is in no small part caused by the US war on drugs.

Nonsense, there is no causal link between overnutrition/wastefulness in the 1st world, and starvation in the 3rd world. If 1stworlders were more frugal with food, the consequence would not be more food on the tables in Africa, it would be more money left in the pockets of the 1stworders for other things (and less food getting produced in the first place). Hunger in the 3rd world is a consequence of: lack of infrastructure and technology which would be needed to produce enough food locally (irrigation etc.) lack of infrastructure which would be needed to live off non-local food (roads & transportation, supermarkets, non-corrupt authorities) lack of protection against natural disasters civil war and displacement governments that fail to protect property rights, and prevent the poor from having access to the market economy the success of the 1st world eco movement in banning and/or sabotaging GMO enhanced crops that could dramatically increase the productivity of poor farmers

An outdoor activity that the whole town can enjoy together, ties into a 1000 year old tradition, and provides food. Not bad! Speak for yourself. To me, they look like fish... According to Wikipedia, it's not a very commercial thing, as the whale meat is not exported - it goes directly to local households and restaurants. They do this because the terrain of their island does not allow much farming, and importing food to an island is expensive. According to the same wiki page, they kill about 0.1% of the population each year, which is most likely sustainable.

Yeah, how dare those plebs use their own reasoning and moral intuition to discuss things, and assume that the burden is on the accuser to bring across the meaning of his/her accusation. Don't they know that when accused with a fancy made-up word, they're supposed to duck and nod and go quietly read the Marxist sociologist elite's treatises on the topic and Listen And Believe™...

Very much so. When dealing with police officers or certain employers (traditional industries), whites are somewhat privileged. On liberal arts college campuses or when dealing with with certain other employers (e.g. in the entertainment/media sector), minorities are somewhat privileged. All things taken together though, any racial privilege that may exist is dwarfed (by leaps and bound) by the advantages that being financially well off brings compared to being poor. "Rich privilege" is the only truly pervasive privilege in modern society.

At some points in the article he gets a little incoherent (e.g. the Britney Spears comparison), but overall it's well worth a read. I think he's dead on regarding the ideological heritage of the "progressive" hipster/SJW movement: I was born and lived up to the age of 15 in communist Czechoslovakia, which was occupied by Soviet forces. Like the vast majority of the population, I had no access to computers, tech, Western literature or movies and couldn’t even learn English. My grandfather’s business was confiscated by the communists. We weren’t allowed to travel to the West or even to most of the “friendly” socialist countries. It was ****ty, and the regime treated us like livestock. [...] As someone who experienced at first hand totalitarianism, censorship, lack of freedom and a regime that dictated what people should think, write and create, I utterly abhor any attempt to reintroduce such things in the name of any kind of good intentions. The communist regime also “meant well” and their rhetoric was almost identical to that we hear today from the likes of Jonathan McIntosh and other American progressives. Also, I wonder how our resident SJWs would counter this argument of his: The idea that I would create, for example, a game set in Kenya that the Kenyans would go for is totally inconceivable. Instead, I’d rather create a game about my country and its culture, because that’s what I love, and moreover no one else has yet done it. [...] I dare say even the Kenyans would like it better than some unintentional parody of their country produced by foreigners. [...] The Kenyans will just have to make their own game, just like the Poles and we Czechs. Sure it will take some time before that happens, because we in Europe have a head start. But one day it will happen and I look forward to that moment, because I’m interested in authentic works and narratives about foreign cultures, not multicultural, socially engineered hodgepodges created according to quotas. Et tu, WaPo? Or take this gem from the Washington Post, which reads “Men who harass women online are quite literally losers, new study finds” “Some male players, however — the ones who were less-skilled at the game, and performing worse relative their peers — made frequent, nasty comments to the female gamers,” writes the Washington Post’s Caitlin Dewey. ”In other words, sexist dudes are literally losers.” I’ve read the study. Nowhere does it state that men made “frequent, nasty” comments to anyone. But hey, why not just add that to your post because it sounds better? After all, actual journalism including such difficult things as analysis and reading, is so much less fun than screaming about sexism. Also, Kain's observation that it's the mainstream news outlets who reflexively jumped on the study to mine it for their unprofessional anti-gamer hit pieces, whereas the game journos remained cautious about it, is interesting. Maybe GG has had an effect on the journos after all?

Well, the first post is. The following ones are mostly humorous attempts to derail the thread before it gets locked... But you're right, Oby's attempts to get racist hate speech threads started on this forum, should be clearly called out as such - not just ignored and casually derailed.

Oops, you're right.

Another game dev speaks out:

Hurlshot sounds like a pretty cool teacher...

lol

Are you really that obtuse, or do you simply not want to understand what Gromnir wrote? Constructing the actual warheads is just one part of a nuclear weapons program. Much of it is building up infrastructure, technology, human capital to be able to construct the warheads (and put them straight into missiles without delays). So yes, you can have a nuclear weapons program that prepares and optimises everything else first, and saves the warhead construction for last, so that - with everything optimized - it can be done much quicker. That's what the "Iran is x years/months away from nuclear weapons" reports from Western intelligence services mean: If Iran were to start the warhead construction now (which they aren't, yet) how long would it take them to finish? The more they prepare and optimize the infrastructure, the shorter that time becomes - at some point it may become so short that they can go ahead and do it without anyone being able to stop them anymore, and at that point they probably will do it. (Or why else go through all that trouble?)

Even more to the point is this other article which it links to: Not a Very P.C. Thing to Say -- How the language police are perverting liberalism (by Jonathan Chait) On the historical context: After political correctness burst onto the academic scene in the late ’80s and early ’90s, it went into a long remission. Now it has returned. On the Kafkaesk nature of political correctness / SJWism: If a person who is accused of bias attempts to defend his intentions, he merely compounds his own guilt. (Here one might find oneself accused of man/white/straightsplaining.) It is likewise taboo to request that the accusation be rendered in a less hostile manner. This is called “tone policing.” If you are accused of bias, or “called out,” reflection and apology are the only acceptable response — to dispute a call-out only makes it worse. There is no allowance in p.c. culture for the possibility that the accusation may be erroneous. On liberalism vs the P.C. left: Liberals believe (or ought to believe) that social progress can continue while we maintain our traditional ideal of a free political marketplace where we can reason together as individuals. Political correctness challenges that bedrock liberal ideal. While politically less threatening than conservatism (the far right still commands far more power in American life), the p.c. left is actually more philosophically threatening. It is an undemocratic creed.

That's not very meaningful when comparing completely differently structured economies (e.g. manual labor vs office work; self-employment vs wage labor, etc.)

Hear, hear! She was good in and of herself, but in the context of the plot that character was kinda pointless. You could cut out all her scenes and it would change next to nothing.

Ha, I thought the same thing when he started praising Torment

But wasn't it the whole motivation of that developer team, to make a game about the medieval version of their own home county / villages where they grew up? (Correct me if I'm wrong, I didn't follow that controversy too closely.) If so, then the locale was kinda set in stone. Also, a medieval Central-European "locale and time period" where including people of color would make sense, would be different in other ways too. It would probably have to be a more urban than rural setting, for example. If developers were bound to such a restriction, it would mean that certain settings and stories could simply not be explored in games at all. And for what? Just for an entirely superficial "diversity" bonus? Do you really think that's a way to enrich an art form?

I thought it was great. Maybe even better than the first.

Works fine for Hollywood... Also, what is it that you want them to do? Stop making big-budget games and start making only low-to-medium budget games (where they can take more risks) instead? What exactly would that gain us compared to the risky low-to-medium budget games which, as you've said, already get made thanks to Kickstarter & co? Usually, the SJW criticism of the AAA gaming segment boils down to "[insert demographic here] should have big-budget versions of their favored types of games too, supply-and-demand be damned!". But you seem to have a problem with the concept of the risk-averse big-budget model itself? Which just brings me back to: Why do you care? The fact that AAA publishers create by-the-numbers big-budget games, does not prevent others from creating more varied games on smaller budgets. When they satisfy different audiences, it's not a zero-sum game. Why do you consider the mere existence of the big-budget games a problem?