I'm mad at the mere suggestion that I should side against a OWS guy, especially when there are NYPD in the frame.
The preload gets my 5.

Oh yeah, all those 13 year old girls! All the Quinns and Sarkeesians! The Cucharas and the Chungs! They're all totally 13 year old girls! What an argument you've put forth!

Moron.

A social activist friend of mine (ex-EMT) provided emergency medical care in Ferguson. On his way back to the east coast, a state trooper pulled him and his friend over just to let them know that *they* know he was there. He wanted to go back to Ferguson anyway, because people there desperately needed emergency medical care.

Basically what I'm saying is that you should shut the fuck up.

Your friend should start a Patreon to get some free money from people.

Despite having been beaten, brutalized, and raped, he still helps people. For free.

The fact that you're taking a moment out of your day to piss on people like him would tick me off, if it didn't serve as a reminder of just how important people like him are. No matter how hard you try, they'll still be there, trying their hardest to help anyone and everyone who needs it.

But it's okay. Go on and keep being a shitheel. No matter how hard you try, all your shitty behavior will never negate the good they're doing.

I'm starting to suspect that this friend of yours doesn't really exist.

"Go start a Patreon, SWJ!"

"Now, let me go over to the Twitter feeds of that one guy who's kickstarting a book about how much SJWs suck and click on all the ads for my favorite GG blogs and donate to that one guy who keeps posting those cartoons of Anita traced from anti-semetic cartoons from WWII..."

I actually have a number of friends like that. If I didn't, I probably wouldn't be alive today.

The fact that you don't believe they exist doesn't surprise me; you don't seem to be the sort of person who believes in people.

Hey, I'd be dead if it weren't for a fictional character, too!

You sad sack of shit. You'd rather accuse him of lying that admitting that there are honest-to-God altruists in this world? It's a documented fact that they exist, you know. Accusing him of lying just makes you look like a douchebag. Well, even more of a douchebag.

I'll never understand how anyone can get angry at voluntary donation websites. It's like a "mah tax dollllerrrs!" tantrum but dumber, because literally all of the money the person is getting is through honest, 100% voluntary donations.

"People are spending money on things I don't like! It must be stopped! Those SJW's are taking away our freedoms!"

@magnesium, the trouble is that there are donation scams and even if you haven't witnessed one first hand it's still a consideration.

But unfortunately for people like Caminante, it becomes indignant paranoia.

TIME FOR THE TONE POLICE!!

Never use the word rape! It's very inflammatory!

But YOU just said it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_hlMK7tCks

What's up with you lately, Mr Hippo? You seem totes on edge, and are lashing out at people left and right. Is there anything I can do to help?

It's not fair that I'm getting treated like the bad guy just for exercising a healthy level of skepticism.

You people are way too credulous for your own good.

EvilHomer: You're aware that I find you to be creepy and condescending. Despite being aware of this, you're asking me if there's anything you can do to help.

Yes, there is something you can do to help: Don't ask people who tell you they think you are creepy and condescending if there's anything you can do to help. That just makes you even *more* creepy and condescending.

Unless you're trying to creep me out on purpose, in which case -- again -- fuck you.

No, I'm trying to be nice to you. I am trying to *help* you, because I am an *altruist*. There's no need for you to keep trying to bait me into an e-fight; I think you'll find that I'm one of the friendliest and most forgiving people here.

Frankly, your behavior has been completely inappropriate these last couple days, what with all this carrying on like a creepy asshole and blowing up on random poesters for no good reason. But that's OK! People don't act the way you're acting- online OR in meatspace - unless there is something going on behind the scenes.I don't know your full story, so I won't take it personally. I'm worried about you, man.

You don't have to talk to us, but just know that we're on your side.

@The Great Hippo

Oh yeah?

Well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_hlMK7tCks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_hlMK7tCks

To YOU!!

@Everyone else

I had an ex-EMT help me move. He couldn't really lift anything really big due to previous injuries, but he was big enough to be intimidating towards what we thought was a house full of dangerous people. He was also a guy who got used pretty badly in a relationship yet still had the balls to help people in need.

Which begs me to ask the question, which I have no doubt would turn into rabid indignation, but have you ever had a bad relationship, Caminante?

EvilHomer: I've spent my life dealing with people who are all about violating trust. I revealed something personal, here; that I have a loved one who's been abused, sexually and otherwise, but still helps people -- and the result was that I was accused of lying.

Now you are asking me in the context of this very same thread -- where that trust has been violated -- to extend more trust, and provide more personal information about myself -- to someone who I've already stated I find to be creepy and condescending. Either you are incredibly, overwhelmingly oblivious, or you are trying to make fun of me. If it's the former, I actually *do* appreciate your attempts at being helpful (as clumsy as they might be) -- but it seems much more likely to me that you just want to make fun of someone on the internet.

Yes, I'm dealing with a lot of shit right now. Like, serious 'people-I-love-might-die' shit. No, I don't want to talk to you about it, because I don't trust you. If you want to earn that trust, that's going to involve a lot of hard work from you -- and I don't think you're interested in putting that work in. I really do think you're just trying to make fun of me, and trying to get a rise out of me.

Which is fine, by the way. Because, despite what you might think, I'm emotionally stable, extraordinarily loving, and incredibly strong. I have my friends and loved ones to thank for that. No matter how hard anyone tries, they're not going to hurt me.

Here, have something I wrote. Maybe it'll make you smile:

http://pastebin.com/RS9J4Uuq

The difference between a Social Justice Warrior and a social justice warrior is that the latter actually makes a tangible effort towards resolving or improving a serious issue, whereas the former actively inhibits our democracy by paying aggressively vitriolic lip service to trivial causes, thereby inhibiting our ability to have a free and open debate.

Social Justice Warriors obsess over language because talking is all they do. They seek the easiest path to the moral high ground without actually getting off the computer, which is usually accusing everyone else of being racist, sexist, homophobic, colonialist, imperialist, cis-normative, rape-normative, and about 30 other epithets based entirely off calling something "fucking cool." They view themselves as the only person in the conversation untainted by bias; everyone else is ignorant, backwards, and unenlightened.

Social Justice Warriors imbue every word and deed made by others with their own personal pet issues. They have conditioned themselves to find bigotry in everything because they actively seek to interpret bigotry in everything. If I call Sarah Palin a dumb bitch, it is because I fear her almighty vagina, not because she is, in fact, a dumb bitch. If I say I am frightened by the black man wearing a Jason mask and Dracula fangs chasing after me with his blood-soaked chainsaw arms, it is because of his race, not his blood-soaked chainsaw arms, that I am frightened.

Social Justice Warriors are to liberalism as the tea party is to conservatism: a self-cannibalizing ideological event horizon that takes an otherwise reasonable premise to absurd conclusions. In attempting to respect all differences, it denies the existence of difference. In attempting to rescue everyone, it becomes enemies with everyone. In attempting to be egalitarian, it becomes hierarchical. To be Open-Minded, you must adopt an incredibly rigid worldview. They restrict the open exchange of ideas by reducing everything to a binary.

Normally, I'd say "fuck these guys," but I'm afraid my gendered language supports rape culture, homophobia, and heteronormativity.

I'm *not* asking you to divulge personal information, I'm just saying that you don't have to be a dick to people, and that we, or at least I, am perfectly willing to be helpful in whatever manner you feel you is appropriate! I guessed that the reason you've been treating me and my friends like shit recently is that you were upset about something occurring in real life (an assumption which turns out to be correct), and with that in mind, I figured that it would be better to turn the other cheek and be nice to you, than to compound your problems by making fun of you. (believe me, if I was making fun of you, you'd know it...!)

That's all. You don't have to "trust me", you don't have to "let me in"; frankly I don't think I'm ready for that level of commitment with you, not after how horrid you've been, and continue to be, towards me. (I have feelings too, you know!) But there's no need to fight, and if there's anything I can do to cheer you up - like reading your PasteBin, or drawing you a silly picture of a hippopotamus - then by all means let me know.

If I've actually made you or anyone else feel bad, I sincerely apologize. I have a temper, and I don't always treat people as well as I should. I don't think I've treated you or your friends _that_ horridly, but maybe I'm wrong. I'm sometimes very socially oblivious myself.

But when I tell you that I find you creepy and condescending, that's only because I do. You've made posts here that have seriously creeped me out. I actually don't want you to ask me how I'm doing or how you can help me; I find that deeply condescending. The fact that you're now trying to offer more ways to "cheer me up" is even creepier, and a little disturbing.

If you want to approach me on my level -- if you _actually_ want to cheer me up -- you could start by saying something like "Well, I'm sorry you find me creepy, can we talk about why?". Or "Okay, but you did x to me, which I thought was really horrid, can you tell me why you thought that was acceptable?".

Basically, stop treating me like a child who needs to be cheered up and start treating me like an adult.

Maybe you just need a nap.

'Turning the other cheek' isn't, by the way, going "Well, if you're going to treat me horridly, I'm going to offer to draw silly hippo pictures for you :)". It's "If you're going to treat me horridly, I'm going to let you continue to treat me horridly".

But I don't actually _want_ to treat people horridly. If I'm doing it, I want to stop. If you want me to own up to my horridness, I'm willing to listen.

But not if that conversation consists of you 'cheering me up' on account of me being at the mercy of my emotional circumstances. You have no idea what my emotional state currently is, and it's pretty frigging arrogant of you to presume that it is the primary reason I've been behaving the way I've been behaving. This is, again, a violation of trust; it's what I mean by being unwilling to offer information up to you -- because the moment I do, it gets used against me ('okay, you're clearly upset about that, I was right, that's why you're being so horrid, so really the problem here is that I need to cheer you up!').

I've been responding aggressively to what I see as horrid things people have said. Maybe I'm wrong about those things being so horrid; maybe I've been acting horridly myself. Maybe I owe you and others an apology. I'm willing to recognize that -- but if you aren't willing to do the same -- then I'm out.

If you can't even understand how offering to draw me silly hippo pictures after I revealed to you that I'm dealing with potentially life-and-death issues -- *after* I clarified to you that I find you creepy and condescending -- is seriously fucked up? I don't know. Are you fucking with me, here? Maybe not. Okay. But if you're really that oblivious, I don't know what to do. I'm just another mook on the internet with *way* too much time on his hands.

Sexy Duck Cop: "a self-cannibalizing ideological event horizon that takes an otherwise reasonable premise to absurd conclusions" earns you stars, except that would be promoting an ableist narrative.

The Great Hippo: hope things are going better for you soon. (For whatever it's worth, I suspect that's basically where EvilHomer is too.)

"Social Justice Warriors" is a wide wide category, and it contains not only feminists and LGBT proponents, but the likes of Suey Park of #CancelColbert fame with her laundry list of dubious causes. The basic complaint against SJWs is that they tend to be flakes who are about word policing and tone policing on the Internet, without really doing much discernable real-world good.

The negative response to SJWs sort of follows a matching trajectory: you've got legitimate complaints about SJWs (such as how Suey Park trying to get Colbert canceled just provided cover for Dan Snyder of the Redskins), but then you've got your InternetAristocrats, Thunderf00ts, and so forth who take the additional step into proving that they are assholes with very limited interest in actual real-world problems.

It's basically the 'angry white male' from the 90s, only even younger and even angrier.

They're very very angry that while they're still pretty much getting the same life where they don't have to do anything and get to have everything that their fathers and grandfathers had before them, women and minorities have the gall to try and make them feel even just a little bit bad about that fact, or even worse, share their toys with them.

Be sure not to neglect the "Social" in "Social Justice Warriors": it's got everything to do with the social media campaigns, with a side effect of making social media louder and generally worse. Found this interesting article that discusses the noisy mess:

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2014/03/29/stephen-colbert-raci sm-and-the-weaponized-hashtag/

"Which is what has brought us to a moment where a directive can go out — “trend this” — and ten thousand users will jump into the pool at once, causing a mighty enough splash to draw further attention from onlookers. Once something has been labeled as evil, exploitative or wrong, any attempts to provide counterpoint are defined as a symbol of “internalized racism/sexism/homophobia” or “tone policing” or “respectability politics” on the part of the critic. Voices without a multitude of retweeters behind them are often cowed or bullied into silence. Factual errors and sourcing mistakes are frequently swept under the rug. Sweeping rhetoric and grandiose statements — the better to draw attention by — become the primary stuff of dialogue. The lurking trolls of the Internet are magnetically drawn to these loud and colorful gestures and respond with disgusting, personal and often pornographic or violent rejoinders, which both further fuel the firestorm and provide a kind of validation for the campaign’s leadership: We must be hitting a nerve because the enemy is attacking us in force."

Twitter is a shitty mob of irrelevant shouting morons. It will be the death of our democracy.

I think that there are people who believe in and promote women's rights and do good and then there are the total bullshit types who practically live on Tumblr and require trigger warnings for real life. I'm not going to watch this video (because it sounds mad stupid), so I have no idea whether or not this guy makes that distinction or even cares to.

http://imgur.com/8GCIHXw

Try your best to ignore the title... and comments.

"SJW" used to refer to the well-meaning, but over-reactive activist types you see on Tumblr and the like... but now it's come to encompass anyone who gives a shit. Think the use of scantily-clad women to sell things is tasteless? SJW. Put off by the use of homophobic language? SJW. Tired of video games that use white males with short brown hair as their protagonists? SJW.

Fuck 2014. And fuck cowards like this asshole who fulled the mess.

I like Bort's analysis, in places, but Mr. Bomb nails it. "SJW" is the new "moonbat."

In a lot of places, "SJW" is used to label anyone who not only gives even half a shit, but doesn't actively join in on the five minute hate against women or minorities.

All it means now, with a lot of not terribly useful people, is 'someone I hate because they don't agree with me completely'.

Which is ironic, given that the worst excesses of the most extreme members of the actual SJW crowd covers the same ground, just from the other side of the issue.

The whole anti-social justice thing was a right-wing Fox News phenomenon, partly as a reaction against the erosion of white male power as women and minorities began to make headway towards being recognized as equals both in society and in the eyes of the law, and the general conservative dislike of public spending/efforts to help the poor.

They basically backed off the whole "social justice = commie fascist" stance once they realized they'd eventually need women and minorities to win elections along with the Christian sectors of their party pointing out that social justice has pretty much been something a lot of them have been trying to achieve and that it was a lot of Jesus' message. I think Bill O'Reilly shut up about it when a Catholic Cardinal basically read him the riot act about being such a huge douche regarding social justice.

But for GG, MRA, and other vestiges of rightie-whitie, "SJW" is thrown around with all the consideration they give to "nazi," "commie," and so on. They know they want it to be an epithet, but they very often can't actually elaborate on what the term actually means beyond what they WANT it to mean, which more often than not is some variant of "poopie-head."

"SJW" is the term used now that "politically correct" is old hat. If you are using it unironically you are probably not that good a person.

See above; if you've never so much as set foot in a soup kitchen but love calling people rape-enablers on the Internet, you're a Social Justice Warrior.

"what changed?"

The Internet.



We have on one hand, more entitled manchildren and on the other hand a trend toward commercialization and identity politics in the more mainstream/casual areas of the major progressive social movements. The manchildren are far worse, inexcusably worse in a lot of cases, but that doesn't mean there aren't so-called progressive elements that are basically opportunistically latching themselves on to a growing market, which is why you get things like this editorial discusses:

http://www.thebaffler.com/blog/your-guide-to-fourth-wave-femin ist-underwear/

Or, on a more personal level, stuff like a good friend of mine about 12 years ago having her grass-roots attempts to start a campus-wide recycling program at Mass Art blocked by MassPIRG because they didn't want an actual grass-roots organization cutting in to their market.

It turns out he's done with himself, too.

Bort, this begs the question of whether it's 1 or 5, though. I think you chose poorly.

::facepalm::

D'ohh! This guy pissed me off too much to evaluate properly.

Overzealous liberals?

You mean as compared to the level-headed GamerGate people? Seriously?

Yeah, the internet used to be a land of freedom and opportunity, a romantic golden frontier that promised to liberate the brave and make us all kings. Now it's just a dirty industrial hellscape controlled by Google, where you scream at people and get spied on by your government.

I don't know if I'd agree with his Wild West analogy, however. I do not believe that the Internet is leaving its cowboy phase. On the contrary, I would say that the internet is leaving its Native Peoples phase: the cowboy period, with its rampant violence and rapid encouragement by the creep of establishment, is what we're getting into now. The Wild West phase won't end until the Social-Twitter-Gate settlers have killed off enough of us proud tribals - and each other! - that only one of their shitty Middle-American dystopias remains.

>>You mean as compared to the level-headed GamerGate people? Seriously?

No, I don't mean compared to the GamerGate people. Where the fuck did you get that?

I'm talking about people who make enough of a big deal about a scientist's shirt with pictures of bikini girls to derail a historic moment, and who assume that if you don't support them in this, that means you don't care about women's opportunities for STEM careers. And #CancelColbert.

But no, these people are not by any stretch of the imagination overzealous compared to the intellectually dishonest GamerGaters, who actually seem to think that it has something to do with ethics.

It's safe to write off any social movement that not only isn't coming from a place of compassion, but doesn't exercise compassion in its execution. Nowhere did you see Martin Luther King or his marchers calling anyone shitlords or cispressors.

"Look how that turned out for him. He's dead!" is the worst response to this I've seen on tumblr. Laci Green is one of the most vocal along this line, trying to convince people that MLK was in favor of violent rioting as a means of change.

^ social movement MEMBERS would have been better

"It's safe to write off any social movement that not only isn't coming from a place of compassion, but doesn't exercise compassion in its execution." fucking pleeeeease

Martin Luther King also had a lot of things to say about those who demanded that civil right movements be polite, and take great care not to offend or insult the people who's very actions made them necessary.

They weren't nice things.

While I agree social movements should come from a place of compassion, I don't see that to mean that anyone who flings an insult toward you has somehow 'written themselves off'. A lot of these issues are deeply important to us. For example, in the US, if you're a transgendered person, your chances of being murdered are *extraordinarily* more likely than if you're a cisgendered person.

So if someone gets a little pissy at you when you whitewash transgendered people -- and throws out an insult -- maybe that's because someone they know who was transgendered got stabbed in the fucking face, and they're a little tired of having to deal with your bullshit.

(I don't mean you, specifically; I mean 'you', generally)

InternetAristocrat is really bad at explaining that he's trying to target con-artists basically. He hates manufactured controversy, and I think sees it in places where it isn't. Those sentiments are hugely resonant, including with me, because at the very least manufactured controversy is in the news on a daily basis.

Some people don't believe class or other power relationships exist. I mean, a lot of people aren't even aware financial inequality is a bad thing. There's also a lot of people who think that the individual is first and foremost to blame for everything that happens to them. InternetAristocrat seems to fall into this camp. There are, as he points out, people on the opposite end.

That's partly why there's been such a huge reaction to a relatively mild feminist critique of video games. We're seeing a huge clash of culture between two different narratives of the world. Not only that, but we're seeing gaming come under criticism, in new mass media, from a position most gamers never hear. And people are actually paying attention because it's a billion dollar industry. Also more and more people spend huge amounts of time online, lots of them young.

So it's a violent collision and it's bringing everyone out, including assholes. InternetAristocrat's most important point is that you have to evaluate arguments, not who someone is.

His last recording (posted above, the Vocaroo link) is actually pretty telling. He doesn't want anyone making any money around the issue of GamerGate vs SJW because I guess he sees the whole thing as not worth it. He basically just wanted to troll SJWs and hope they "fold", which is a strategy, but yeah, not probably gonna work. I sympathize with him being angry about people making money off of the whole controversy, but how serious should one get about the issue? Short of making any money to keep it going? Or is everyone making money to enrich themselves in this arena? I don't buy it. He just got bored grandstanding in an echo chamber of anonymity.

Sorry this stuff is kinda interesting.

@Nominal, so if Coretta Scott King only started a push for gay rights in 1986 and it took her 14 years to consider that as favorable by her husband's beliefs and aspirations, then that would mean the Civil Rights movement should be written off?

It's nice to actually try and listen to the opposition and pick apart their arguments in a way that isn't inherently antagonist or hostile.

But it's really hard to do that when the opposition is intensely antagonist. Even harder when all attempts to de-escalate that antagonism are rebuffed. It's really hard to take a step back and challenge your presumptions -- to apologize when you make mistakes -- to work and avoid antagonistic, hostile, counter-productive language. But it's how you have a positive discussion. Except...

There's this weird thing that happens when someone who is willing to admit their mistakes and challenge their beliefs has a discussion with someone who isn't: The person who isn't starts *using* that willingness against them. They beat the shit out of you with your own apologies. Because obviously, if you're apologizing -- and they aren't -- that means *you* must be wrong.

The Vocaroo link starts with the word 'cunts', which leads me to believe very strongly that any attempt at discussing this with the author would lead to that sort of scenario.

Also, I find this stuff interesting too, largely because I am a complete dweeb.

(above was @PegLegPete)

it's worth noting that IA left shortly after audibly banging his girlfriend during the same google hangout session where one of the other gamergate heads was denying the holocaust.

you're fucking retarded if you think he left the movement because of people trying to profit from it. he probably realized, like most sane people, that gamergate is basically dead in the water and hasn't had a single "victory" since the intel moment (which was reinstated a month ago, haha). leaving now just means he can come back as some prodigal son to the gamer nerds and avoid any fallout if gamergate has any more embarrassing death throes.

anyway ive met a few dumpy white girls whose only apparent passion in life is putting the word 'cis' into every other sentence, and it is pretty fun to troll them so who knows/cares

I basically agree with you Hippo. There are people out there who will see concession and apology as weakness and use it against you. They have audiences who feel the same. If IA is someone like that, then the internet is fortunate not to have him around anymore. But my theory is that trolls don't usually stick around for long because they're mostly cynical, apathetic, and will look for easier targets than someone who's willing to argue with them for a long time.

Sockman: Didn't know that about the livestream, that's pretty disgusting. Yeah, I think he just wanted to troll.

::Slide Whistle::