While there have been a few reasonable heroes of discourse on both sides of the #gamergate fiasco, overall I feel there are too many horrible people on both sides and too many convoluted nested chains of events for this to be worth taking a stand over (except in the general sense that no one should be threatened and harassed over it, obviously).

That said, for me personally the most interesting thing to come out of it all is the #notyourshield protests, where women and minorities tired of being spoken for raised concern about being used to deflect attention from SJW weak points and malfeasance. I'd been expecting this sort of thing to blow up more and more in online discourse, and now I'm wondering where it's going to go next, if anywhere. What do you all think?



For the record, while I am and remain very socially liberal, I had been feeling increasing discomfort over the way SJW types were using women/minorities prior to #gamergate. I never talk about this in real life because the necessary nuance is difficult to achieve and that can be a professional/social death sentence in New York circles. I'm still nervous bringing it up online.

I think it's telling when you look at a photo of the attendants of the XOXO Fest, "described itself as celebrating creativity and innovation in forms it considered alternative or disruptive to the prevailing social or professional context ("democratizing media and innovation")", and a regional Fighting Game Tournament:


...lot of white guys, with a few token white women, in that first pic. All the colors of the rainbow in the second.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;790898For the record, while I am and remain very socially liberal, I had been feeling increasing discomfort over the way SJW types were using women/minorities prior to #gamergate. I never talk about this in real life because the necessary nuance is difficult to achieve and that can be a professional/social death sentence in New York circles. I'm still nervous bringing it up online.

I'm very liberal in nearly every facet of my life. I'm pro-labor, I've been a member of 3 labor unions, sat on the board of one and worked for another. I've attended rallies, protests, meetings etc... since I was in high school. I've knocked on doors for ballot initiatives and candidates.

So I say this from a position of utmost love.

Modern leftism, as is expressed and carried out online, is broken. It's come full circle to be an amazingly anti-liberal force. Basically every tenet of liberalism is violently attacked and denounced by online leftists.

It makes me very sad to see my fellow travellers burning down everything we're supposed to be fighting for.

At this point I've basically stopped talking about it online because anyone who raises an objection, no matter how small, to the glorious crusade will be cast out of the tribe and likely face harassment for their effort.

I still keep in contact with some of my old activist buddies and more than a few have done basically the same thing. It's gotten so toxic and wrong-headed we want basically nothing to do with it anymore.

it's like I've been saying for years now.  Animal Farm

Quote from: Sacrosanct;790979it's like I've been saying for years now.  Animal Farm

The worst part is you can't get away.

Now I'm a horrible, horrible sexist racist pig because I play Mario and refuse to apologize for it to some self appointed grand poohba of leftism or flagellate myself in front of a crowd.

And any attempt to deny any accusation against you will be taken as definitive proof of your guilt.

You can't play their game, but if you don't you lose anyway

Quote from: Piestrio;790981Now I'm a horrible, horrible sexist racist pig because I play Mario.

I'm ashamed to say the phenomena had to hit me in several of my personal hobbies before I really started to accept intellectually that sometimes constant cries of victimhood really are overreaching.

I started getting put off a few years back when they started talking about freedom of speech as a purely legalistic concept and started mocking the very idea that it could be a value that a private citizen/organization could legitimately uphold.

That whole "freedom of speech only means the GOVERNMENT can't censor you, not that you can't be harassed, fired, blacklisted and banished from society forever, what are some kind of hate monger that actually thinks people shouldn't be punished for speaking their minds?"

And I'M ashamed to admit I bought into that at one point.

I've had to stop reading The Verge and Polygon because of this fiasco. Their coverage has been so downright awful, vicious and one-sided that they are barely above a Murdoch tabloid at this point.

On the other hand, you have TechCrunch publishing what might be the best article about GamerGate so far.

This article from Slate is very relevant too.

I am on gamergate/notyourshield side all the way.  Spent too many years being called a racist and sexist pig by these social justice gaming "journalists" in both of my favorite hobbies.  I am fed up with their bullshit and what is worst they don't have the decency to practice what they shove down our throats.

What makes it painful is that I use to be a liberal and almost quite progressive I might add.  If there is any good that the social justice assholes had done is that I am no longer liberal.  I vote republican on the next election because that is how bad those assholes had done to me.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;790898I never talk about this in real life because the necessary nuance is difficult to achieve and that can be a professional/social death sentence in New York circles. I'm still nervous bringing it up online.

That is a horrible state of affairs.

"Freedom of speech, but no freedom from consequences." A personal bugbear of mine as it seems to be a licence to tantrum rather than engage in debate.

Quote from: JongWK;791013I've had to stop reading The Verge and Polygon because of this fiasco. Their coverage has been so downright awful, vicious and one-sided that they are barely above a Murdoch tabloid at this point.

On the other hand, you have TechCrunch publishing what might be the best article about GamerGate so far.

Good article. I'm a feminist, I agree with many of the same things written up thread, it does look like the left is turning on itself and self destructing. The article points out at the end the main point of what is wrong, specifically about moral crusaders, and if the tactics are wrong, they are wrong no matter which side that uses them.

An example of moral crusading at its worst is the war on drugs, 30 years into it and we still have a drug problem, and the 4th amendment has been so eroded that it has ceased to exist in all but name. The police are becoming so militarized that law enforcement is becoming a RoE and the people are the enemy. This is a threat, this is reality.

Quote from: Piestrio;790978Modern leftism, as is expressed and carried out online, is broken. It's come full circle to be an amazingly anti-liberal force. Basically every tenet of liberalism is violently attacked and denounced by online leftists.

I spend a fair bit of my time keeping tabs on the worst of the conservative, racist and just plain looney parts of society. It amuses me. It amused me far less when I looked at this particular chunk of liberalism and realized not only did they use the same tactics, as far as I could tell they had the same goals. I had a day where I realized I could unironically and utterly seriously ask the question of "Why do you hate freedom?" to people I was in a conversation with who thought of themselves as liberal. Was one of my last days over on the purple.

I don't think I'd mind so much if they spent less time validating the claims of the far right.

Quote from: Snowman0147;791020What makes it painful is that I use to be a liberal and almost quite progressive I might add.  If there is any good that the social justice assholes had done is that I am no longer liberal.  I vote republican on the next election because that is how bad those assholes had done to me.

I don't think you'll find much solace on the right; they're being torn up by their own infighting over purity issues in every possible branch of policy and society.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;791057I don't think you'll find much solace on the right; they're being torn up by their own infighting over purity issues in every possible branch of policy and society.

This is true.  Both the left and the right have been hijacked by ever increasingly narrow echo chamber viewpoints of lunacy.