OK, you would like a longer answer? Here goes...

Yes it is easier to be civil when these difficult subjects are avoided. Not all the time everywhere in the world. But here in an anonymous online gaming forum, yes. Political and religious matters are not just ideas. They are personal. People have skin in the game. There is context and history. Your call for objectivity is not the answer. The answer is to have such discussions in the right environments, with the right agreed-upon rules, with skiiled moderation by people with agreed-upon authority. There are such places in the world, even on the internet. This is not one of them. People find peace with each other when they get personal with each other, when they begin to have compassion for each other, when they begin to depend on each other, when they seek the good of the other - it's not automatic, it can go wrong, it takes a lot of work and commitment to get it right - but this is how it happens. It does not happen when everyone stays anonymous, treats everything as if it were an impersonal idea, and feels free to disparage one another without consequence.

And no, our common love of video games is not going to get us past these deep-seated differences. Video games are a much less important thing to have in common.

So, my answer? Appeal to people's desire to have a good time here on the forum. Mostly by talking about video games and funny things and goofing around and being generally nice to each other and by mostly not debating ideologies, religions and gamergate.

Aha, I knew it! This explains why you're apparently incapable of understanding what racism is and what it isn't. To you, racism is just a term to throw around whenever you want to convince everyone just how liberal and tolerant etc you are, or believe you are. Which is about once a day at the very least. It's an accessory to make yourself look good the same way some rich ladies carry around a Chihuahua.
It's just inconvenient that not quite everyone is buying it, and that people like me are "cramping your style" here. But you do ask for it.

Regarding racism, I haven't been physically attacked but I've experienced verbal racism when I was a kid. Unless being called a nigger, black dwarf and other niceties don't count as racism. And yet I never drew the racist card on an "attacker" because drawing the racist card is what people of low self-esteem do, plus there are way more creative ways to make a verbal comeback and hurt them where it has actual impact.
And as I already explained to you elsewhere, drawing the racism card to defend someone else (e.g. the Congolese people in Tintin in the Congo which btw is a fictional comic book...) does not automatically make you a good person of virtue, it simply outs you as a bleeding heart wannabe Liberal, wannabe because you're not upholding liberal values where it really counts and only when it's safe for you to (pretend to) do so. Meaning that in the end, it's all about you and how good you want to feel about yourself.

*a wild SVP cretin appears* (it's a me, awalterj!)

How may I serve you today?

I'm not actually a member of the SVP or any party for that matter but I have considered joining the SVP to balance out at least some of the nonsense and damage done by your side over the last couple years and to see the funny expression on the faces of overly politically correct fellows like you. The latter reason being of lesser importance, consider it a perk.

Regarding my olive oil comment, I thought that would provoke you but I didn't know it would work so well and with such lasting effect (taking notes for future reference). Did I hit a particularly sensitive nerve there?

To roll things back, you were bragging loudly how much anti-militarism you were. I's all about how good -you- look, after all.
Now it is historically accurate that my Indian ancestors who practiced Jainism were in fact more into the non-violence principle (ahimsa) than your Greek ancestors. It's also known that in ancient Greece, olive oil was used as a lubricant in male homosexual practices which were widespread, in particular between older guys and young guys.

Why are you so upset? You wouldn't by any chance be a homophobe? You do realize that would be very anti-liberal, close minded and intolerant etc?

Which means you basically got paid to find racists and racism everywhere, and now it's still a favorite hobby. How noble and altruistic of you.

The kind of policies you support tear an even wider gap between people than there already is so you are basically achieving the opposite effect of what you set out to do - but not realizing this because you automatically expect only right-wing politics to be capable of creating that effect.
Your problem is that you expect to simply get people to think like you by trying to shame them if they don't, by calling them backwards imbeciles and racists and so on. Not a very sensitive (nor scientific) approach because you're ignoring that humans are by nature tribal, I've pointed this out many times and you as an anthropologist should know that. You can't simply indoctrinate people to not be tribal and see all humans as part of one family despite evidence to the contrary. First off, as nice as that would be if we all thought of each other as one family and equals, it would require everyone to simultaneously bypass their natural instincts which are mainly: ensuring the best resources for their own offspring and for themselves.
Simultaneously is the keyword. There are enough resources on this planet for everyone but fair distribution is a pipe dream, same as everyone getting rid of all their nuclear weapons.
"But why can't we, it would be so nice?" - sure, if we evolve to a better species. You can't bypass evolutionary steps and the demands the far left has from people are expecting exactly that. It has worked in small isolated communities - for short periods of time - but never on a larger and sustained scale. Overruled by human nature.

You're complaining about right wingers and their politics preventing harmony from happening while completely ignoring that the higher ups in the left wing parties are just as much hypocrites as their right wing counterparts.
On one side, you have some right wingers who complain about illegal immigrants but then hire illegal immigrants so they don't have to hire expensive domestic employees and on the other hand you have left wing politicians who are literally doing the exact opposite of what they are preaching their base members to do. Hypocrisy all around - which is the main reason I haven't joined any party yet as even the SVP is affected by it on some level. Don't underestimate the intellect of the "unwashed masses". They aren't quite as unobservant as is commonly assumed.
Meaning that if you "preach water but drink wine", no one is going to take you seriously, no matter how lofty your message.
Sure, you can indoctrinate kids at school which is what the far left is trying to do all the time but that only causes more conflict because it upsets many parents - who will then get miffed and will vote right wing at the next election even if they hadn't before. And the gap widens, and everyone complains and blames the other side. You can already see this in the microcosm of you and me. I guarantee that both you and I were more centrist in the past but now you mostly blame the right wing and I mostly blame the left wing and nothing good is coming of it.

(continued below, because I know it makes you happy)

In other words:
"My morals should be everybody's ethics because my morals are more ethical than yours, because I accuse someone or something of racism at least once a day."

Exactly. Because people like you have eroded, devalued and discredited those terms through overuse in unwarranted cases too many times. Sometimes, you even open with accusations without bringing any hard evidence.
The simple act of accusing someone of racism has been used the same way that accusations of pedophilia are going to end any teacher's career, regardless of whether the accusations turn out to be true.

In other words, you have weaponized political correctness. And contrary to your expectations, the effect isn't getting stronger but weaker as those accused of racism or growing numb and blasé about it. Meaning you are achieving the exact opposite of your goals. And incapable of admitting that, you continue to blame and blame with gratuitousness beyond compare. And lesser and lesser effect. Then you complain about how people are becoming more and more racist, not realizing that you contributed to the reduced sensitivity to racism.

If you had ever personally experienced racism, you wouldn't be so darn careless about it as if it was some limitless magic power to throw around with. Shame on you, if you had any introspective abilities.

I agree. Now if you were even remotely consistent, you'd have to apply what you just said to Islam in those instances where it's being intolerant (in teaching and practice)
But that's an are you won't touch, immediately throwing into the air the full array of racist card, xenophobia card, islamophobia card, and so on.
If I was to apply your logic, I'd say your tolerance of intolerance effectively makes you a misogynist, homophobe and anti-semite, and we could throw cards at each other all day long until we both feel sufficiently satisfied that we filled our daily quota of being righteous...

I can turn this around 180 degrees and say that the far left wing is doing even worse in terms of obliterating relativist questioning. And stigmatizing the most important freedom, freedom of opinion. That's the nastiest kind of dictatorship and you know it.
Again, nothing productive coming out of accusing the other side as I've explained earlier.

If I build on that, the logical conclusion is that you are a hypocrite of the finest order because anyone not having your leftist views gets immediately stigmatized by you as a racist which is a harmful label that has caused people to lose their jobs even if the accusations were not substantiated.
You're probably used to people quickly withdrawing whenever you throw around the racist card which explains why you're upset when your favorite one-trick pony parlor magic doesn't work.

Obviously, you see yourself as the anti-racist and you've told yourself that so many times that you believe it by now.
I think I've sufficiently uncovered that you A) don't understand what racism really is and B) are just trying to make yourself look good, which makes matters twice as tragic

I think you put too many things together, in your post.

Firstly, the discussion was about attitudes, about being polite, tolerant, respectuous, friendly with everybody. That's a question of feeling and attitude. But it's different from the questions of coercion. Of course, there are laws against racism (more or less applied), and there is some symbolic coercion in the peer pressure supposed to shame racism (although nowadays any ideology can find a validating community). But there is still some space between "not being friends" with a racist, or not liking him, and putting him in jail. The dislike, I argue, is completely legitimate (unlike, say, the dislike of a foreigner because he is foreign). The insult and the mockery too, I argue. But, just as for the criticism of sexism in videogames, neither awareness and contempt, nor the hope that it ceases to exist, necessarily goes through appeals to murder, imprisonment or whatnot.

There are, on these gog forum, a grand total of two (2) forumers that completely humanly despise, and occasionally insult. One of them is the swiss UDC/SVP moron that we already mentionned [edit : coming back to this half-written post i realise he already cemented a couple of textwalls here, sweet], the other is a creepy greek antisemitic homophobe who fantasizes about beating up homosexuals in a videogame. My contempt for the latter one reaches such spectacular scales that I (brace yourself) downrepped one of his posts. Secretely, I even kinda wished he was being moderated (this didn't go as far as reporting his post or asking for it to happen, but still, it would not have bothered me if it had happened). So, this gives you a sense of the shocking oppressive violence I am capable of against the worst people. Seriously, that's what we're talking about, with the right to not feel friendly to some people because of their "opinions".

Also, defining what amounts to racism/sexism isn't straightforward (even in cases of physical agressions : you can very well have a fight, or a one-sided attack, between peple of different origins, without these origins to be a factor in it). While racists and sexists are prone to dismiss any accusation ("the word racism is badly connoted, and my worldview is mine, therefore the word cannot apply to it"), usually by trying to restrict the word to some more extreme action ("racism is when you burn them, I only insulted them"), it doesn't mean that every each case that is brought up as a strawman exemple is necessarily valid, or warrants any drastic action. Even though they are most often at least warranting attention and awareness (awareness of the outdated racist/sexist content of an older work, for instance, doesn't always ruin the pleasure, it can sometimes even add a cheesy charm to it, but not even being aware of that content is where it gets a tad creepy).

So, generally speaking, the questions of individual instances of (possible?) racism, and of the proper reaction to it, is a case-by-case matter, which is distinct from the general issue of what can or cannot be "forgiven" or "overlooked" at a personal level. Love, in my eyes, is never undonditionnal - and shouldn't be. Even when determined by conventions (family) it can be revoked. And when it's more generally interpersonal (friends, sentimental involvement, etc), well, the reasons why you came to love a person did exist just as well as the reasons who you'd dislike them could have existed. Beyond the default open stance, love and respect are, in my eyes, is earned by what an individual is. That is, dependant on it. It can be reinforced or shattered by actions, stances, evolutions, etc. I don't think that every individual deserves it.

And again, I find that giving your "love" to the perpetrators of certain actions (or the proud co-builders of certain situations) is turning your back on those who unfairly suffer from it. I'm not claiming that all should be logically articulated : the irrational flexibility of humans is part of their richness, and often saves them. Still, I appreciate some level of entirety, and I think that some contradictory endorsement come from our capacity to not look at certain things whenever convenient. And sometimes, looking at them, measuring their consequences, is a moral duty. Even if the price is disgust of a fellow human.

Considering that the original post was so well articulated I find this outburst shocking in the literal sense.

Now calling threads ghetto threads is not a nice style. Especially since ghetto is already related to much more severe things.

In truth, and this thread maybe proves this best, on the GOG communicty forum you can talk about everything as long as you find others willing to talk with you.

Thanks, I guess I disagree with you on methodologies.

I rem when the Brad Wardell sexual harassment case happened, which must have been 4 years ago? I rem the discussions about RPS articles lacking professionalism and that goes back at least 2 years. And of course Fem Freq...

Whatever your opinions on those topics, for me, as an individual which is passionate about gaming and about liberty, it was obvious that politics were coming into gaming. You may call that gaming maturing, but in your own words, that means individuals chose to NOT focus on the fun and games. That was bound to touch GOG. No human is an island...

Since avoidance, or denial, therefore seems to be wholly unrealistic as a tactic, I think my appeal, or others of the sort, is worthwhile. I agree it won't make the differences go away, but when I think of diversity and plurality and democracy, I do not picture some homogeneous blob as the ideal, I rather see disagreements and differences, but done right. Objectivity is the glue for diverse subjectivity, so to speak.

Now, I do agree other paths are available. Other methods... I just find them worse than tolerance. In my OP I wrote with purpose that we all accept policing. But I will never think forms of paternalistic moderation are superior (morally and pragmatically) to objective self-moderation. And again, I'm not saying this is black or white. Here in GOG I'm not worried about authoritarianism, I worry about that in most other places... here in GOG I'm worried the passions have gotten so high we see the start of competing mobs, punishing their opposing numbers.

I will reply to Walter later, I expect that will take a while, he's more prolific than me and that's saying something, ill just say he's far from a forum crazy and I now remember how it saddened me that the two of you got to that level of disagreement. This doesn't take away from what I've said earlier: It was a nasty comment of his, and his saying now he's going to keep that in mind for the future is even nastier imo. I hope he rethinks that, as it didn't strike me as a joke.

If you'll forgive for resorting to authorial intent, you're right about my OP being about "tone" but only insofar as you close your eyes to the underlying implications. Misteryo got to them, as I've just made explicit in the reply to them.

Now, I am not blind to the several individuals in this community that resort to personal attacks at the drop of a hat. The fact you interpreted my OP as directed at your side (simplifying hugely) rather than at them was to me the most pressing point to discuss with you, and though I'm glad we're now more productive, I'm still saddened that there is this apparent suspicion of my good faith. But enough of non sequiturs of a more personal nature. Back to the underlying fundamentals:

I agree love is never unconditional, just like we are never perfectly objective. The actual disagreement is whether we accept those ideals as ethical guidelines or not.

I disagree human emotions are zero sum. Heck, I even disagree economy is zero sum, but will avoid temptation on going there. Ill expand a bit here, cos it highlights where our views of ownership and responsibility differ. I will use caricatures, for ease of reading: Walter hates telika and telika hates Walter, brasas loves both. Therefore telika hates brasas, and Walter... we'll see how he feels after I reply to him directly. Who is responsible for the status of the telika/brasas relationship? Have you no agency? Why punish me for trying to live up to my ideal? And let me remind you - in this particular I have already stated I agree with you Walter was nasty. You just expect more from me, conditional love indeed... I'm not turning my back from you at all, I'm not victim blaming... It's you, in your understandable hurt, that are being over defensive. The thing is, if we ask Walter he's going to say how you hurt him... or maybe he's not really able to express that, but I can see it anyway.

Moving farther to the core. I don't really know if that's what you'd prefer, but anyway... of course there's going to be disagreement over what misogyny or DRM is. If one of the sides refuses to grant legitimacy to the other in their definitions then nothing else will work the way I want it to. If folks want to defeat an enemy rather than gain a friend the tone may or not get nasty, but the discussion is hopeless from the start, not in the sense of impossible to find agreement (I don't even aim that high) but already in the sense of impossible to understand each other.

Now I don't reject conflict, but my passion for conflict comes into play around topics of coercion. As defined by me, obviously. I don't really know how to engage you on institutional racism... here in Europe most of what is usually described as racism (and it is racism, also) is rather economical or religious in nature, the racial aspect is imo a correlation rather than a substantial cause. The U.S. is a whole different dynamic, where demagoguery is constant from both sides. In the rest of the world (which we collectively ignore) you'll find actual, fundamental, racial driven animus. Though even there I suspect economic nuances. I mean, dislike of others and xenophobia are not synonyms with racism. But you tell me. I'm not really sure where we disagree or not on racism, it's your contribution to the thread to have put that on the table, and I think you are strawmanning somewhat. Not in the sense of attributing to me positions I don't hold, but in the sense of arguing with imaginary opponents.

I'm not strawmanning when I say the following: a conception of humanity where respect must be earned is much closer to dehumanization than an universal ethic of tolerance. If you want to pretend we don't know where that road ends up, carry on, I won't coerce you. Until you actually cross specific lines in the sand, I might dislike you (which I don't, despite substantial disagreements) but I will tolerate you. Obviously.

At this point, I've just glimpsed at your posts walter, I also went back to the olive oil remark to jog my memory.
It was funny. I probably laughed before I got melancholy about it... not sure I remember. I did see it almost instantly as a bit below the belt, in how it leveraged ethnic stereotypes to make telika's ancestry the punchline of the joke. I know you (or think I do) enough to not go to the point of accusing you of racism or homophobia over it, but I see how someone can use that as evidence for it. It would take ignoring a lot of context, but still... taking things out of context is something I'm sure we've all experienced right?

Speaking of which, a detour. The type of reply breaking up quotes as you do, is a mild form of taking things out of context. The way anyone doing it chooses to elide, or choose the breakpoints might in itself be "problematic". :) I don't like it when htown does it to me, and I don't like when I see others do it to each other. Even if they think they're doing the right thing, as I'm sure you do. It's harder to distill and understand, it's easier to dissect.

So here I go taking you out of context to make my point. Hypocrisy at its finest ;) You see the main issue I see with your posts, and the quote I left is a perfect example, is that much as I admire your logic, I see there's personal attacks surfacing. You started your replies like that as well. Budhism and the effacement of self might be taking things too far, but there is something to be said for detachment. Well... I actually said so myself in this very thread.

That said, yes, maybe they started it first. But two wrongs don't make a right. Right? I'm not really worried about you, I've blown up much more severely than you so I'd truly be an hypocrite if I dragged this much further. Just beware fighting monsters, etc... Let me now see if we disagree on anything of substance.


Interesting comment on our professional habits altering our personal realities. A bit of an egg and chicken thing though ain't it? He probably went into anthropology and this area of work for reasons; it was who he was already. Still, you're not his psychologist, and until (if) he asks for such insight, it's best kept to ourselves, or suggested gently and indirectly. We don't actually know what's in anyone else's mind. Our own is dificult enough to read, heh? I think you're way off the mark that any of you is becoming happier with the direction this is going. But if both of you want to prove me right by proving me wrong, go right ahead.

Yeah, got to the end and got nothing more... if you don't know it by now, I'll just say we agree on the societal diagnosis pretty much. I just don't see the value in making an example of telika to such degree.

You know... gnostic so far was IMO the only to actually go anywhere near where I intended. Emob as well, but I'll PM him.

I'll say this to you, for you. I sometimes find your posts somewhat naive and idealistic. In the context of this thread however, that's the pot calling the kettle... and it's clear to me how you're a paragon of virtue in this community.

Hmmm... isn't what you're saying almost identical to mysteryo's pov?

I agree that talking about it might inflame things, but honestly if talking about it inflames things I don't think not talking about it will actually resolve anything substantial... and I fundamentally disagree that it is a zero sum game. I see clearly how tolerance would overall be better for everyone. Christians tolerating the existence of christian-hating gays. Gays tolerating the existence of gay-hating christians. Feminists / misogynists, Left / right. Etc... etc... Sure, everyone will be happy if we exterminate the others, but that reduces the pie size... it sure as hell does not increase it, even if the per capita increased for all the survivors. Objectivity and mathemathics... they make things so clear...

Putting it bluntly. Trying to repress hate via coercion is ineffective and repressive. Not being repressive, and being tolerant, is not the same as being supportive. The people that always equal tolerance with active support are precisely who I see as ideological enemies, because they advocate coercion due to what I see as clear conflation. They take intent as equivalent to effect. Motives as being more important than actions. I'm a laissez-faire, laissez passer guy.

The cure to hate speech is more speech, but not more hate speech. It's a slogan, but it gets to the point. If anyone thinks I'm advocating pacifism in the face of violent aggression, or advocating remaining silent in the face of hate speech, then they haven't been paying attention to my actions.

Forgive me if that is too confrontational. I do agree the dynamics you pointed out exist and are powerful. After posting to telika and walter I feel a bit spent and cranky. It's not easy to try and pull people away from the "dark side" so to speak.

Yeah, we disagree on method. You want everybody to talk about gamergate all the freaking time.

Cut it out.

I want to talk about GG all the time? I want to talk about the cesspool that has developed without pointing fingers. I want to spread solutions that allow everyone to be happier, rather than one side to exterminate the other.

I posted 4 paras (5 if you count the thank you). What you quoted was me providing examples of how the political dynamics we both see have been present for years already. I noticed it grow obviously. I assumed you did too, but considering this reply maybe I surprised or shocked you...

The paras you didn't quote amply show my nefarious agenda. They directly respond and explain why the answer I see to those dynamics is kind of different to the answer you suggested earlier. Cool bravery instead of fear and avoidance. Tolerance instead of whatever you're suggesting. Your response to that is to me shocking.

You want me to feel ashamed of my political ideology? Of my being against coercion? Against actual objective opression? Why? Why are you threatened? Why do you want me to shut up? Why will you take these questions as attacks? If someone is hurting I don't mind helping. If someone is hurting and tells me I'm at fault it changes hugely the dynamic. If said person initiates demands that takes it to yet another level :(

Mysteryo, it's the second time you imperatively ask me to shut up or to gtfo...
I won't shut up. You don't own me and I don't owe you anything more than what I'm already giving you.

Then what can people do? Will talking more about it help? How do we ensure talking about it will not open old wounds?