The Escapist's General Manager and Adam Baldwin support GG, attack the entire political left

[WhiteNachos]

GG has talked a big game about keeping agendas out of games, but how do you explain this, when not only one of your biggest supporters but the General Manager of this very website openly goes against social justice and condemns the entire left political spectrum?

Have you ever heard of the guilt by association fallacy?

That's what you're doing right now. You're assuming that because these right wingers support gamergate then gamergate must be a right wing organization.

Hitler was anti-smoking, but that those not make anti smoking campaigns Nazi-ish.

 

[Laser Priest]

Well I'm glad that you don't think my position sounds crazy. I'm not sure how one could come to this conclusion based on the usage of a few phrases like "collateral damage" or "part of the enemy", comparing the movement to a fight or a war, but I'm glad you don't think it makes it sound crazy.

Well, yes, that's exactly the point. Comparing this to a war makes your position sound absolutely insane.

A [Christian/Atheist/Muslim] [Democrat/Republican/Libertarian] goes on a killing spree. He is found to primarily enjoy [Books/Movies/Games/TV/Sports] and frequents [4chan/Escapist/NeoGAF/Reddit]

Would you say this guy is everything wrong with his religion, with his political slant, with fans of that medium of entertainment, or with the community of that site?

If his motivation for killing is based in his religion, political slant, entertainment or community, yes. If it's just something he happens to enjoy, then this argument is false equivalence to a ridiculous level.

But your post is saying that anybody who opposes Gamergate at all apparently deserves the harassment they get and I don't care what good thing you think you represent, but when you harass anyone - especially just because they disagree with your cause - you are awful.

 

[WhiteNachos]

Social Justice is about creating equality and ending bigotry?

Yeah, that's what social justice means. But I'm not surprised you didn't know that; right wing movements and social groups often start their campaigns of fear and hate mongering by "redefining" what these words actually mean.

Like how certain self proclaimed "social justice" folks try to redefine sexism, racism and misandry.

[
As for any "SJWs" who may have had some strong words for you; well that's what happens when you treat people like dirt and constantly attack them because you're too fucking stupid to realize that standing against justice makes you the bad guy. To say nothing of what it says about you that you bought into those lies in the first place. I hate to break it to you, but GamerGate supporters are just another group in a long, long line of right-wing puppets being manipulated by lies for goals you don't even understand.

Yeah like the political right has a large stake in video games. Suuuure.

 

[dragoongfa]

-trying to deflect the point-

LW? I'm talking about Zoe Quinn. But then I'm not surprised you GamerGate puppets would try to distance yourselves from that embarrassment.

In case you didn't notice it before, GamerGate has moved beyond Literally Who (aka Zoe Quinn) for the last month and a half.

You tried to bash GG by pointing out how it started. I provided the facts as to why people started asking questions about why the press didn't report any of her other wrong doings, wrong doings which you immediately brushed aside as a deflection.Then the 12 'Gamers are Dead' articles happened and the rest is history.

 

[dragoongfa]

You can't "move beyond" the crimes of your past. I made reference to the trope "moral event horizon" in a previous post, and it is exactly true. You can talk about moving on all you want, but you crossed a line and there is no going back. Now as far as those "gamers are dead" articles, as a gamer who was there for the founding of that term; gamers are dead. This thing that you are, you're not a gamer. I'm a gamer. Movie Bob is a gamer. We were the ones there when that term was created, and it was created in reference to US not to YOU. Gamer has it has always been defined is dead, and to us old-school, old-guard, founding-fathers gamers the culture we nurtured and created has been hijacked, corrupted, and brutally murdered by a bunch of angry, entitled, spoiled brats and social media terrorists. Gamers are dead, you're just wearing our skin.

Overly aggressive for some reason but I will bite...

What makes me and every pro-GG a non gamer that hijacked the identity and killed it?

BTW, I am in my late 20s and a lot of the pro-GGs are well past their 30s.

 

[dragoongfa]

This is going to be interesting...

Oh I could go on for a while, but in the end there is one primary difference; you?ve turned ?gamer? into a weapon. You?ve taken something that has only ever been about joy and community, about coming together and sharing the simple pleasure of games and gaming in ALL its forms, and turned it into a rallying cry. You use gamer as a focus to gather your own warriors and sick them like a pack of wild dogs on anyone and anything that you so much as disagree with. And it is completely unnecessary. GamerGate is unnecessary.

I am sorry but Gamer is not a weapon...

Gamer is an identity, an identity that has been attacked since it's birth. Remember the D&D scare at the 80s? Jack Thompson? The constant negative press whenever a shooting happened? The Gamer identity has been attacked for decades. I have been gaming most of my life, from the NES era till now. Gaming has shaped me into an adult and helped me into some really tough shit in my life. I am a Greek heterosexual male but you know what other identity I call myself as well?

I am a Gamer, I play games and I am enthusiastic about them, I try to show their glory to others and when something is wrong with gaming I call it out.

Now you say that we gathered our warriors and sicked them at someone, who exactly are Pro-GG attacking here and what are we disagreeing about?

Our rallying cry is honest, unbiased reporting of games and some respect. It's our right as Gamers, as consumers and human beings to want this.

As ?gamers? we are a stronger and larger group then we ever had been in the past, and our habits can shape the market and guide the mainstream. Just look at how poorly the XBone is doing compared to the PS4; we did that. And we didn?t do it with threats, DDoSing, Hacks, or circulating nude photos; we did by just deciding not to support a company doing something questionable. That is our greatest strength, and our greatest weapon. You don?t need to attack, you just need to withdraw your support. That is far, far more effective anyway. Especially since it doesn?t make us look like a bunch of basement dwelling, anti-social psychopaths to the rest of the culture.

It seems that you have some facts wrong. GamerGate supporters openly condemn all harassment, threats and illegal activities. This is something that we have been doing since the hashtag was born.

We are a consumer revolt and our greatest victories have come from exactly what you advocate. We stopped visiting the sites that offended us and we emailed the advertisers about our decisions. We exercised our basic consumer rights and we are winning.

But you and yours have taken the culture and hardened it into a cudgel, and you use it to mercilessly and unjustifiably bludgeon anyone even suspected of doing something you disagree with. And in doing so you?ve just reaffirmed every negative stereotype gamers have been fighting against for two decades. That is the real tragedy of all this; movements like GamerGate ultimately do nothing but prove assholes like Jack Thomson right. You might think you?re doing good, might think you?re rooting out corruption, but in the long term all you?re doing is giving ammunition to the people who really want to destroy us. And I promise you, as soon as the next big election starts to ebb closer we?re going to see the evils of gaming rise in the media again, and the treatment of people like Quinn and Sarkeesian will be used as examples. And because of the actions of groups like GamerGate, this time, the Thomsons of the world might just win.

What exactly has GamerGate done that reaffirms the false negative Stereotypes of the Gamer identity? We are a consumer revolt and we have our share of assholes, we police ourselves and we try to speak with facts and reason only to be constantly attacked by gaming journalists.

But GamerGate is a consumer revolt and we have spoken with consumer actions and our money:

GamerGate successfully funded a feminist campaign to bring more women devs into gaming, a campaign that ZQ actively tried to destroy btw:

https://twitter.com/TFYCapitalists/status/515729943712768000
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-fine-young-capitalists--2

GamerGate donated to a depression charity:

https://www.crowdrise.com/NSHGamers/fundraiser/loping

GamerGate sent condolences and flowers to a grieving feminist who spoke with facts:

https://twitter.com/CHSommers/status/519978273837973505

I ask you, are we the real bad guys here?

 

[Nirallus]

As for any "SJWs" who may have had some strong words for you; well that's what happens when you treat people like dirt and constantly attack them because you're too fucking stupid to realize that standing against justice makes you the bad guy. To say nothing of what it says about you that you bought into those lies in the first place. I hate to break it to you, but GamerGate supporters are just another group in a long, long line of right-wing puppets being manipulated by lies for goals you don't even understand.

I've always said it was a mistake to call people "Social Justice Warriors", and this right here is why. It uses that movement's own terminology, its own clever branding. It really is as simple as saying you're "pro-Justice", which makes anyone you disagree with a bad guy by default because he's "anti-Justice". It seems almost too simple to work, but apparently it works beautifully. Disagree with our opinions and you're a scumbag, so much for diversity.

It turns out there are many valid objections to the methods and goals of that movement. Some of them come from the right wing, which renders all such criticism invalid, #amirite? But many people on the center and even the left despise this idea of the victim mentality (which is incidentally why I think MRAs and radical feminists deserve each other). It's being pushed by identity politics hucksters, as well as elements of the left-wing fringe. Anyone who tries to make you believe "you are a victim" and "you need special treatment" is condescending to you, and is (perhaps not unwittingly) trying to make you sabotage yourself and your group. These people are not true friends to women and minority groups, they are actively damaging them. Want to know why the term "White Knight" is used? Because they're riding to the rescue of damsels in distress.

The other major objection is that they really seem to believe the adage that "rights end where feelings begin". Which is horseshit, and a conflict much older than video games.

More to the point, there are legitimate reasons to oppose one ideology becoming dominant in video games and the gaming press. Corruption in journalism comes in different forms. There's the old one we're all familiar with: Publishers offer payola so that journalists will give them good reviews. We've fought that one for a long time, to the point that we feel almost powerless to stop it. But another form is ideological: Publishers toe the party line so that journalists will give them good reviews. Side effects may include tokenism, but at worst may cause developers to stop writing human stories entirely. That "chilling effect" may well come to pass, if they feel they can do no right by the people who control the public narrative. If they don't actively preach what the identity ideologues want them to, they're not doing their part in the fight for social "justice". And never forget that only the converted enjoy being preached to.

The only thing worse than that is for mainstream developers to turn gaming into just another medium #signalboosting the same ideology, the same narrative, the same politics.

This became a rant, so let's run with it. Since some of our detractors have compared us to ISIS, I'll return the favor: Christopher Hitchens, speaking at the time about militant Islam, used to decry the "horrifying trio" of self-hatred, self-righteousness, and self-pity. I put it to you that our most vocal detractors exhibit all three.

 

[dragoongfa]

You GamerGate supporters don't get it; it doesn't matter if the assholes were just a minority and you condemn them. It doesn't matter what you believe. The narrative is set. Those people spoke for you too long and too loudly, so to the popular consciousness that is what GamerGate is. It doesn't matter if its a false assumptions; it is what it is. You can't change it. History has spoken. Look around; does anyone give a shit about the German solider who only served under Hitler because he feared for his own life? Do we care about those that just stood guard outside of banks and never even fired a shot? Do we care about those who aligned with the Nazi party because of the reasonable economic ideas Hitler started his campaign with?

Hell no! We only care that they are Nazis, and Nazis are universally evil and irredeemable. The narrative is set and history has spoken. Nobody remembers the poor students that endure bullying and try to turn the school around with awareness drives; we remember the shooters. The killers. The terrorists. And too many terrorists threw up your hashtag in those early days, and you can't escape what they did. Yes you are being punished for it. Yes you are guilty by association. You're going to have to accept that and figure out how you want to move on from there, because once again; the narrative is set and history has spoken. GamerGate is the bad guy. You can't change that now; that ship has sailed and any positive action you try to take now is too little, too late. You might not like it, but grow up; this is how the world works. Reality isn't as important as the narrative pushed into people's minds by the six o'clock news.

Goldwin's law in action...

As for the rest, I have been with GamerGate from the the 29th of August and what you say is just plain wrong. The trolls were never the loudest voice. Our voice was always one of reason and fact checking and yet here you are pushing a false narrative that was never the truth to begin with...

 

[WhiteNachos]

So, the people who fought for women to vote, Social Security, Medicare, ending child labor, safe workplaces, safe food, clean air and water, civil rights, interracial marriage, equal pay, and gay marriage are forces of evil.

This is why people mock Conservatives like Adam Baldwin.

No that's not what was said, they're saying a lot of the modern day people who claim to fight for social justice are jerks.

And fighting for gay marriage doesn't automatically mean you can't be a bigot or an asshole.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Hate to butt in here, but...

You GamerGate supporters don't get it; it doesn't matter if the assholes were just a minority and you condemn them. It doesn't matter what you believe. The narrative is set. Those people spoke for you too long and too loudly, so to the popular consciousness that is what GamerGate is. It doesn't matter if its a false assumptions; it is what it is. You can't change it. History has spoken. Look around; does anyone give a shit about the German solider who only served under Hitler because he feared for his own life? Do we care about those that just stood guard outside of banks and never even fired a shot? Do we care about those who aligned with the Nazi party because of the reasonable economic ideas Hitler started his campaign with?

Hell no! We only care that they are Nazis, and Nazis are universally evil and irredeemable. The narrative is set and history has spoken. Nobody remembers the poor students that endure bullying and try to turn the school around with awareness drives; we remember the shooters. The killers. The terrorists. And too many terrorists threw up your hashtag in those early days, and you can't escape what they did. Yes you are being punished for it. Yes you are guilty by association. You're going to have to accept that and figure out how you want to move on from there, because once again; the narrative is set and history has spoken. GamerGate is the bad guy. You can't change that now; that ship has sailed and any positive action you try to take now is too little, too late. You might not like it, but grow up; this is how the world works. Reality isn't as important as the narrative pushed into people's minds by the six o'clock news.

You say that like it's a good thing...

I despise guilt by association. It's intellectually lazy at best and malicious demonizing at worst. Am I going to feel guilty as a white male for the slave trade and Jim Crow laws? Should I flagellate myself as a Christian over the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition (believe it or not, someone actually tried this particular guilt trip on me once)? Hell no. I had nothing to do with any of that, so why should I take the blame?

If history does indeed end up demonizing the #GamerGate movement (which I doubt), it will be because of people like you insisting that it does. Would you condemn an innocent man on trial because he has friends who are criminals? Would you ruin his life for the sake of "the narrative?" History is not set in stone. It is permeable and mutable, with new insights and education continually updating how we view our past.

And for the record, your Nazi analogy doesn't really hold much water when you factor in the Marshall Plan and Germany's role in the United Nations and EU. If people really felt all Germans were irredeemable Nazis, I don't think they would have allowed such things to happen.

 

[WhiteNachos]

-snip-

The ironic thing about all that is that the term SJW was created by the people attacking SJWs.

Yeah, it's a mocking term. It's meant to mock their notion of themselsves as warirors. It predates gamergate by years though.

Same thing here, a year ago I was just a gamer who sometimes rolled my eyes at the way certain groups are depicted in game and occasionally posted an agreement when someone typed up a thread about how it would be cool to have more diversity in games. But now I'm a SJW not because I chose to be, but because that label was given to me by some asshole who didn't like one of my agreement posts, and decided to attack me for it.

Oh god don't act like your some innocent person who simply wants more divresity in games. You're not. A couple posts ago you were calling a black person a pawn for disagreeing with you.

So that's the truth of the matter; SJWs were created by groups like GamerGate so they have someone to blame and yell at.

No they came about as a way to mock tumblr feminists. The term's origins have jack shit to do with video games.

 

[WhiteNachos]

but how do you explain this, when not only one of your biggest supporters but the General Manager of this very website openly goes against social justice and condemns the entire left political spectrum?

Considering most normal people on both the left and right hate "social justice", that's pretty good. Please don't confuse social justice a typical stance of the left. Not everyone invokes terror onto people in order to force them into submission, especially the enormous amount of good natured people on the left. A vocal minority of internet extremists does not speak for Democrats. Many, including myself, believe arguments can actually be won with reason and words, and we don't have to resort to bullying tactics in order to shut down discussions.

Social justice is absolutely a typical stance of the left. Gay marriage is the perfect example of how the left has fought for social justice. Just like women's suffrage and civil rights before.

I didn't hear anyone call it social justice for years though. I've only heard the term used by internet feminists (especially the tumblr variety) or people who are talking about said feminists.

 

[AkaDad]

So, the people who fought for women to vote, Social Security, Medicare, ending child labor, safe workplaces, safe food, clean air and water, civil rights, interracial marriage, equal pay, and gay marriage are forces of evil.

This is why people mock Conservatives like Adam Baldwin.

No that's not what was said, they're saying a lot of the modern day people who claim to fight for social justice are jerks.

And fighting for gay marriage doesn't automatically mean you can't be a bigot or an asshole.

I made that comment based on another comment. I read the article and Baldwin didn't call the left a "force of evil." I was wrong. He's still mock-worthy for his tweet about Obama and other tweets he's made.

If he wants to throw out insults and call people jerks and assholes, I could easily say people against gay marriage are jerks and assholes too for treating millions of people like second-class citizens, and that group is a hell of a lot larger than SJW's on Tumblr.

Saying anti-gay bigots fought for gay marriage is like saying racists fought for civil rights.

 

[WhiteNachos]

-trying to deflect the point-

LW? I'm talking about Zoe Quinn. But then I'm not surprised you GamerGate puppets would try to distance yourselves from that embarrassment.

In case you didn't notice it before, GamerGate has moved beyond Literally Who (aka Zoe Quinn) for the last month and a half.

You tried to bash GG by pointing out how it started. I provided the facts as to why people started asking questions about why the press didn't report any of her other wrong doings, wrong doings which you immediately brushed aside as a deflection.Then the 12 'Gamers are Dead' articles happened and the rest is history.

You can't "move beyond" the crimes of your past. I made reference to the trope "moral event horizon" in a previous post, and it is exactly true.

Your whole moral event horizon is guilt by association. Oh no some you did terrible things therefore you're all terrible. That's bullcrap and I can find anti gamegaters or people of almost any side who pull immoral shit. You just a reason to dismiss them all because you disagree and not listening to them is easier than having to examine your positions.

You can talk about moving on all you want, but you crossed a line and there is no going back. Now as far as those "gamers are dead" articles, as a gamer who was there for the founding of that term; gamers are dead. This thing that you are, you're not a gamer. I'm a gamer. Movie Bob is a gamer. We were the ones there when that term was created, and it was created in reference to US not to YOU.

Cut the no scotsman bull crap. And cut the self righteousness, it's obvious as all hell and it's just low.

Gamer has it has always been defined is dead, and to us old-school, old-guard, founding-fathers gamers the culture we nurtured and created has been hijacked, corrupted, and brutally murdered by a bunch of angry, entitled, spoiled brats and social media terrorists. Gamers are dead, you're just wearing our skin.

Love the dramatics but you're not fooling anyone. You just want to be holier than though.

 

[WhiteNachos]

So, the people who fought for women to vote, Social Security, Medicare, ending child labor, safe workplaces, safe food, clean air and water, civil rights, interracial marriage, equal pay, and gay marriage are forces of evil.

This is why people mock Conservatives like Adam Baldwin.

No that's not what was said, they're saying a lot of the modern day people who claim to fight for social justice are jerks.

And fighting for gay marriage doesn't automatically mean you can't be a bigot or an asshole.

I made that comment based on another comment. I read the article and Baldwin didn't call the left a "force of evil." I was wrong. He's still mock-worthy for his tweet about Obama and other tweets he's made.

If he wants to throw out insults and call people jerks and assholes, I could easily say people against gay marriage are jerks and assholes too for treating millions of people like second-class citizens, and that group is a hell of a lot larger than SJW's on Tumblr.

Saying anti-gay bigots fought for gay marriage is like saying racists fought for civil rights.

I meant that just because you're for gay marriage doesn't mean you can't be bigoted in other ways (like racist or sexist). I've seen a lot of feminists/social justice nuts on tumblr who are for gay marriage and openly hate men.