Put me down for another point in the "Who gives a shit whether Islam is a race" column.
Meanwhile, if no one minds my necromancing points that were brought up back when this thread was in the single digits or so...
When the hell did Cracked Magazine - Cracked-Fucking-Magazine! - become so insightful? That has to be one of the, if not the, most poignant and (in my experience and estimation) spot-on articles I've read about why the internet is engendering antisocial and (perhaps) sociopathic behavior. It nails the subject of this thread right to the wall. Thanks for the link.
Read his
Monkeysphere article too - it's the other piece of his I find myself going back to again and again.
Agreed. Gaming night at NAMBLA would be right up there with putting my arm into a meat grinder. :eek:
I dunno, is it really that different? I mean, as long as pedophilia doesn't ever come up I don't see how playing with NAMBLA members
per se is that different from anyone else. (That said, given the stigma of even being associated with such people I'd probably decline the offer - but if I'm in a game and the guy next to me turns out to be one of
them I'll just shrug and keep going.)
*Unlike Hindus, most Jews seem to have a suicidal commitment to multiculturalism. Even the Jewish neocons combine "Invade the World" with "Invite the World" in their ideology. Which I think is a real shame because I'm pro-Jewish and I don't want to see them being wiped out or persecuted again, as seems likely will happen.
Given the history of the Jewish diaspora I wouldn't call it "suicidal" exactly. I mean, this is a culture that has spent the vast bulk of its modern history as a -
the - distinct ethnic minority that the majority blames for its problems. Unless there's some huge worldwide Jewish movement to all move
back to Israel or some other crazy whatnot, I can't help but see a good bit of rational self-interest (in the best sense) in favouring multicultural policies.
As for my experience... well, first off as both a West Coast urbanite and a Canadian talking about how much Bush sucks is about as safe a talking point as discussing the weather.
More hot-button are Islamophobia (compared with which the respondents in that WOE video are quite tame) and abortion - which I know well enough when to shut up about, or at least agree that the act is bad and frame my honest beliefs in enough small-government terms not to set off alarm bells.
I've probably gotten into far more nasty arguments and falling-outs with liberals than with conservatives, simply because there's no unspoken "agree to disagree" social contract when dealing with the former.
Not much for gaming, though, since everyone I've played anything resembling an RPG with is either apolitical or well left of Obama. That said, I used to play the Infiltration UT mod a lot, and the forums were, save for a few commies and apparently apolitical people, about a notch right of the Bush Administration.
In theory, though, I'd never knowingly game - or socialize - with someone who did not believe spousal rape is possible, or has no shame in holding a sexual double-standard based on gender, or unironically uses the word "slut", or believes a man can only be a "faggot" if he is penetrated, or thinks a woman who got raped was "asking for it" by the way she dressed, or otherwise casually treated women as men's property. I freely admit to harbouring the vilest and most intolerant bigotry against that sort of culture that spreads such ideas: I've known people of both genders who buy this sort of shit, but none whose presence I'd been happy to tolerate for any amount of time.
EDIT: Come to think of it, I'm not sure I'd game with a creationist either. The very thought of such creatures (heh) makes me slightly ill, frankly.