Quote from: Shipyard Locked;839985Don't go sounding any victory fanfares yet, the "GG = unspeakable terrorist nazi, SJW = innocent pedestal-mounted martyr" narrative is still going and still the lens through which the mainstream perceives that issue. As one pro-GG guy put it, "Victory will be when neutral fence-sitters look at GG, then look at SJWs and declare both sides to be insufferable opinionated assholes."

There's truth to this, but I also think GG was intended by many of the people involved to stay scoped to the video game industry, and within that space the social justice bullies have been wedgied.  Their stuff doesn't sell, their mouthpieces are co-opted for free advertising to sell stuff that mocks them, and the AAA types who may have been worried about socjus compliance have been given ample evidence that it's needless.  Socjus infiltrators in the indie scene have been stripped of their capacity to exercise much in the way of coercive influence, and the idea that they're "on the right side of history" has been painfully disproven.

Now.. I'm of a mind that it's not just a video game industry thing and we should really wreck American academia and progressive news outlets for this bullshit.  What I'm not willing to do is try to drag people who just want to get back to their escapist pursuits into politics; that's precisely what the socjus thing was all about.  That means respecting their boundaries and ideas of what GG should or should not be.  I don't think it prevents me speaking to the importance of long term political action against authoritarian-progressives, but I shouldn't try to say "GG has to be about more than video games" either, I should say "GG was worth doing, and these causes over here are similarly worthy".

The middle called.  It feels lonely because everybody's excluding it.

Quote from: Old Geezer;840013The middle called.  It feels lonely because everybody's excluding it.

You can't engage with the perpetually outraged.

They are never happy with victory.

They. never. stop.

They're text-book totalitarians.

Quote from: Piestrio;839651Jesus fucking Christ.

+1, or is "ditto" more appropriate?

Quote from: Old Geezer;840013The middle called.  It feels lonely because everybody's excluding it.

So many people these days want to claim they're in the middle, that really both crowds are behind them pretty much.  It's kinda sad.  I get that "the middle" is pretty much Joe Zoloft, who follows lots of television series and takes his pills when he starts feeling too much, but I still hope for more.

Quote from: Alathon;839978If you're a fan of the genre, better hope that other people ignore it too, and that the companies who make the stuff you want have the fortitude to tune out HuffPo/NYT running hit pieces on them.  Things got pretty far in videogameland before the social justice bigots got slaughtered by GG, and that took a lot of people standing up.

Well, he's saying wargames should give up military fetishism. And basically said anyone who is rightwing politically is evil. lol. I don't think he has any idea of the audience for, history, or point of wargames. This won't go anywhere.

This sort of bollocks appears every so often on wargames websites, and usually gets a good kicking from both male and female wargamers.

It's true that far fewer women wargame than men, but I don't buy for a second that it's a more sexist environment than those other dens of iniquity, RPGs, comics, SF&F geekdom in general, where women are far more active.

Maybe ask some women or something?

The Sealed Knot and other historical societies have a good mix of male and female re-enactors (although the Sealed Knot in particular used to have something of a reputation for being a partner-swapping scene :eek:).

When the London Salute wargames show invited along some SS re-enactors a few years back, there was a huge backlash from gamers.  Anecdotally, wargames shows are VERY family friendly these days - I'm seeing a lot more mum+dad+kids than ten or fifteen years ago.

So this?  Fuck right off.

"The reason there aren't many women doing it isn't because they're not interested, or because they can't, it's because of the environment that we've either created or have allowed to form, excluding them." Yes! This must be true because I know that it's the awful/excluding behavior of the women in the scrapbooking hobby that has kept me from following my dream.

Then again, maybe a lot of this person's views formed after a few cursory visits to The Miniature's Page... which IS a gutter full of the elements he decries.

Quote from: Simlasa;840243"The reason there aren't many women doing it isn't because they're not interested, or because they can't, it's because of the environment that we've either created or have allowed to form, excluding them." Yes! This must be true because I know that it's the awful/excluding behavior of the women in the scrapbooking hobby that has kept me from following my dream.

Then again, maybe a lot of this person's views formed after a few cursory visits to The Miniature's Page... which IS a gutter full of the elements he decries.

Hence my comment about the middle.

There ARE people with such attitudes, and places where those attitudes predominate.


"THEY ARE ALL LIKE THIS" is just as wrong as "THERE ARE ONLY A FEW BAD APPLES."  The truth lies somewhere between "LIVE FREE OR DIE" and "FAMOUS POTATOES."

Quote from: Old Geezer;840259Hence my comment about the middle.

There ARE people with such attitudes, and places where those attitudes predominate.

"THEY ARE ALL LIKE THIS" is just as wrong as "THERE ARE ONLY A FEW BAD APPLES."  The truth lies somewhere between "LIVE FREE OR DIE" and "FAMOUS POTATOES."

"A gun is always loaded" is not a literal fact, but is nonetheless true enough to be worth saying, and worth insisting upon when handling firearms.

Also, the "truth in the middle" idea is a fallacy; sometimes one side is just plain full of shit.  There's no truth in the middle on anti-vaxx, and I'll bet with a little effort we could fish a hundred ideas out of history's dustbin which were heavily debated at one time, but nonetheless unequivocally false.  Running truth in the middle narrative empowers dishonest bargainers, who can use that false assumption to make dishonest opening statements/offers to drive the discussion.. or "push the frame", as it's sometimes called.

In the case of social justice, by going full-SJW at the start, by demanding concessions in twenty places and making every accusation under the sun, they make it emotionally easy to concede just one or two.  It's awful to deal with their baying mobs and their hyperbole and false accusations, giving just a little ground in hopes that they'll ease off starts to seem like a good idea, but do it and you've paid danegeld.  Bullying Tactics 101:  coerce concessions once, and not only is a habit of making concessions established, but everyone who's watching sees dominance established and has to peg the cost of opposition higher than it used to be.

The Miniatures Page? I don't read it regularly but web searches take me there sometimes. I guess I missed the reactionary political stuff. Distinct lack of polemic and a refreshing sense of camaraderie. Are there some offensive miniatures photos over there?

Quote from: Arminius;840448The Miniatures Page? I don't read it regularly but web searches take me there sometimes. I guess I missed the reactionary political stuff. Distinct lack of polemic and a refreshing sense of camaraderie. Are there some offensive miniatures photos over there?

Theres a few random threads about scantily clad female minis. They kind of thing a normal person would chuckle at and dismiss, but an SJW would see as the direct cause of all the rape and domestic violence in the world.

Quote from: Old Geezer;840259Hence my comment about the middle.

There ARE people with such attitudes, and places where those attitudes predominate.


"THEY ARE ALL LIKE THIS" is just as wrong as "THERE ARE ONLY A FEW BAD APPLES."  The truth lies somewhere between "LIVE FREE OR DIE" and "FAMOUS POTATOES."

The excluded middle doesn't sell click-through ad revenue.

TMP: safe for a casual user; internal politics are pretty toxic.  A lot of it is safely hidden in the paying members-only boards, but occasionally it spills over.  Occasional overt racism, and the "cameraderie" may be due to the sheer number of sockpuppets active (including a number belonging to the owner).

There's a 2000-page thread over on Frothers if you're bored.

Quote from: Alathon;840399Also, the "truth in the middle" idea is a fallacy; sometimes one side is just plain full of shit.  There's no truth in the middle on anti-vaxx

Sure, but that doesn't mean there is NEVER a middle.  This particular case is a good example of an excluded middle.  I have no problem telling people that I don't think their "unit filler" of naked female barbarians with boob jobs is funny or clever.  I also have no problem telling people that I don't think cultural appropriation is a big issue in Bob's Mongol-themed Space Marine army.

The real problem here is that people in the middle are unable to comment on these issues without being labeled as extremists.  It's getting as bad as the abortion debate, where saying that you don't like abortion but are glad it's available gets you labelled as both an oppressor of women's bodies and a killer of babies.  

I HATE how a minority of extremists on the internet get to dominate every fucking discussion by labeling people as "SJWs" or "Gamergaters" or whatever term is in vogue to imply that someone's opinion doesn't matter.

QuoteIn the case of social justice, by going full-SJW at the start, by demanding concessions in twenty places and making every accusation under the sun, they make it emotionally easy to concede just one or two.

I disagree.  By arguing a point too strongly, you either tend to entrench people in an opposed position, or discourage moderates from entering the debate at all.  In my experience, when people come out with guns blazing like this, everyone else either starts arguing against every single point or gets the hell out of the way.  The fact that some people in this thread are suggesting that the truth lies in the middle in this case is a rare exception to how these things usually play out.