So I wrote this "history of gamergate" thing on my site here (if that link doesn't work, it's because my server hates me some days), but I'm aware that I probably missed some of the drama that the anti-side was subjected to. If any of you people I've been arguing with over the past few days see anything missing, I'd appreciate it if you told me. I want it to reflect the actual thing and not just one side of it.

Also, it's over 4000 words long, so I'm going to go lie down now and think about my life choices.

EDIT: Wow, it immediately broke. Talk about timing. Okay, here's an archived version.

Yup. I guess another angle is to say we are both agreeing bigger =/= stronger. Most of the examples you guys were discussing had to do with muscle size, not actual strength. You just kind of muddied the waters by then referring to those large folks as strong, when they clearly weren't. If we just say muscle strength is not linear with muscle volume (maybe it's about density, maybe it's about some more functional aspect), then this kind of goes away. You are saying smaller sometimes is stronger, and past a certain volume strength actually goes down. I'm saying stronger for fighting is almost always better.

Then talking about smarts compensating for strength, sure in particular situations, and one can say military science is all about trying to make smarts more relevant, ambush, surprise, etc... We humans are unique in smarts compared to other animals, it's only natural we tend to see that as more important than it is as a form of arrogance (or of insecurity, if you happen to be weaker than most). Still on average... you know...

As for generalising. I see your point, but I'm a meta level guy. Induction is science. It just needs to be done methodically, fasifiably, etc... so yeah, generalizing can be good, or bad. Depends. Much like being stronger and on avergae coming out of shit more often, being right I think brings benefits to humans, and generalizations are a huge part of how we think.

Well, the big thing about talking strength is you're talking about something that's harder to quantify, what kind of strength do you mean? The strength to lift heavy weight is generally tied to muscle, which is what I was trying to get at. Strength as in the power of attack, and you have to break it into exactly what you're looking at. Power in that regard is speed, how fast you can attack, how much force you can put into it. And that force doesn't always have to do with raw mass, there's the spin kicks which use that spinning motion to generate more power.

Look at it this way, a bullet doesn't travel slow, it travels at high speeds that give it the power to pierce flesh. The larger the size of the bullet, the larger the gun in general. A cannonball doesn't do the same amount of damage as a bullet to the human body, despite being a larger piece of metal. And the larger the size, the more you have to exert to get it to go at a high speed to generate the same amount of force.

There's also a matter of technique, where you hit, how you hit. It's the problem with quantifying strength, there's so many variables, including the strength of self to not get drawn into fights. You're gonna have to give me something to go on here. Strength is a very generalized term and thus it's pretty hard to present something that doesn't dance around.

Trans women on hormonal substitution therapy tends to lose half the upper muscle mass and a third of the legs muscle mass, and the same differences are present in non-trans women (but here the hip structure alleviate most difference in lifting.)

The mean strength for women will be a bit lower because of that, but it isn't enough to prevent women to do hard work, and doesn't prevent any individual at a given time to be stronger than most if not all men.

And as a sidenote to the bullet example: A big and strong fist often has a harder time getting the punching force inside the object in front of him. If you punch something straight, the force spreads outwards in ripples with the contact point as the center, if you twist your arm (and ideally your whole body) while delivering the punch and while making contact, the force goes straight inside like a drill. If you do this to vital spots, the difference is extreme. Thats why a small fist with less muscle mass in the arm behind it to slow down the movement but all the small muscles and sinews properly trained for this is usually more lethal and in fighting with sharp weapons (which is what usually is shown in games with those sword swinging hulks), everything that slows you down is a big no-no. I had a harder time with it when I was still more of a muscle mountain.
Of course it is easier for men to build up muscles (even the small ones), but this has more often than people think to do with the diet. Modern women try to be skinny, which makes the difference more extreme while it wouldn't be so much of a difference in the lower part of the body as it usually is.

Again you are only looking at one factor here.
Those people are usually on a diet making them more skinny to be able to seem more female, of course this costs a lot of power including the lower body half.

Uh ?

I never said that women weren't capable fighters. They had to compensate some biological differences by using their strength differently, but that all. Hips are at advantage in kicking, but doesn't compensate the differences in running. They have less arm strength, so longer range weapons where often their choice as the ones used by south-asian women.

Most asian societies had women soldiers, young mongol women where trained to use short bows while horse riding and where deadly with it.

Viking women where raiding too, noble European women where given the task to defend their domain, and did so by leading their troop in battle and fighting in plate and chainmail.

I cited Princess Khutulun, a descendant of Gengis Khan, because if the accounts are true, she was probably the best wrestler and one of the strongest warrior of her time, regardless of sex.

I probably said it badly, but the fast kicking / punching woman doing a ridiculously low amount of dommage, and the man giving incredibly strong but slow punches in videogames are based on false assumptions - a strong punch is fast.

Nerve wiring is important, but size gives some advantages because of both torque and the conservation of momentum, so even a capable martial artist will think twice before attacking a bigger untrained adversary.

Games based on medieval times presenting women as weak and limited to an handful of tasks and all people of color as servants or slaves aren't realist. This past never was. Non-white roman soldiers had descendants with lands and social recognition in all Europa, women where working in all fields (carpenters, blacksmiths...) But criticism of the absence of non-white, non-male diversity in game based on medieval times is often met with anti-SJW or anti-feminism resentment.
Wrong. Less testosterone, less muscles. And dieting would make a trans women look less female, as fat distribution is one of the main differences in body shape, even when taking account of the skeleton. No fat, no breasts, no hips.

When debating human strength between genders, why do we always immediately begin discussing the physical kind? Winning a 'who's the toughest person in the room?' argument isn't one women can win, and it's not one men want to win. That question only brings the pain.

Have you ever met a female martial artist with PMS? ;)
Run dude, run! :D

Thankfully no. I found that even the short, normal variety of PMS to be pretty bad. No need to get the ultra sized combo version.

Well, for me, the point is mainly that persons of any gender can win this argument, because there are more differences between individuals than between genders.

Human female and male aren't that different. The reproductive system, ok, but the rest not so much, and limiting the role any individual can have in societies solely based on statistical means of their gender is what people call (or should be calling) sexism.

I think you're missing the point. We tend to base our judgments on each other and ourselves by purely physical means. Is a man a man because he has a penis? Is a man a man because he can physically dominate other people? Is a man a man because he can hold a job, raise his children and be a productive member of society? Is a man a man because he can attain wisdom and overcome the obstacles of nature by his insight and knowledge? Philosophy is a better struggle to determine human quality... certainly a much better one than a boxing ring. If women think that they can become 'better' than men by simply defeating them in physical contests, then I'm afraid they've fallen for the same trap that has snared man for a very long time.

Fuck it, culture demands cultural reference to get anything across any more. So here's Master Yoda, throwing down some major knowledge. If you can't get my point, then listen to the little green frog.

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

How will things get better by confronting the "issues"?

First of all, who makes these threats? The answer is: trolls, people who have anger issues and people who make fake threats.

Trolls thrive on seeing their threats made public and seeing people respond to them. Publishing them only makes trolls send more threats. Ignoring the threats will see trolls give up.

Those who make fake threats (to themselves) do it because they want attention for their cause. These DEFINITELY won't stop by publishing them since they're the ones publishing them (yes, I'm looking at you Brianna "Asshat" Wu) and their fake threats only work if they can convince others they are real and happened.

And then there's the people with anger issues. So what do you do to get them riled up? Publish the threats and basically rile them up some more? Or don't publish them and try to deescalate the issue? The only way to calm these people down, is by treating the core of the issue or at least taking it seriously. The reason so many people are pissed off, is because of all the lies being told by the media and the anti-GG side.

So no, publishing solves NOTHING. The only thing it does, is give ammo to the other side which is exactly why I think many of these threats are either fake or made by trolls.

I'm trying to say there is no point in 'winning' in a gender contest, physical or not. A man being 'better' than a woman at something or the reverse only proves that a single individual was better than another single individual at a given time for a specific thing, nothing else.

And the definition of "man" and "woman" is still an open philosophical question, as biology can only merely frame "male" and "female" when reproduction happens.

Nothing is gained by winning here, everything is to be gained by working together for a better society.

Well if you want we can definitively go into biomechanics. It's not a specialty of mine, but the basic laws are valid.
Momentum is mass times speed. So both matter, mathematically neither is more relevant. Where mass comes in is in how much damage the object carrying the force will suffer, I can assure you that given similar material (muscle, bone, cartilage) equal momentum with lower mass will hurt/damage yourself more. A bullet with momentum x will be wholly fucked, whereas a cannonball with momentum x not. They will at first order do the exact same damage to a target.

Then on what strength is, force is actually changes in momentum, and for what we are talking about both force or momentum could be said to align somewhat with physical strength. If we consider force however, then the target momentum relative to the object with momentum becomes much more relevant, because the delta in momentum will be the difference between them. Again, your mass and speed on the receiving end will both help reduce the force you experience/suffer.

Two points here, this is all static, dynamics further complicate matters, twist, rotation, etc are precisely ways to more efficiently transmit momentum, ergo exert force. Also solid state does play a part as some of the things you mentioned about force over area bring pressure into the picture, which would be another aspect. All the dynamics bring training and technique into play, but they don't change the basics. Just assume equal skill.
Secons, speed, like mass, is a result of your physical strength. Our muscles are involved in all our motion, so how strong your muscles are, in theory you will have more mass and more speed. This is not universal, we already established they can conflict, but actually they only conflict if you make a category mistake that mass = force or momentum, and further define strenght to be about mass rather than the other two.

So basically, I think that gives you enough detail what I am defining as strength, and why muscle power is always good for strength. If you define strength differently, or muscle power differently, you may disagree. Really, I don't think you disagree. Seems to me you both just want to say the smaller guy can be stronger. Sure, but those are exceptions, is that so hard to admit?