1421

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: US Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Gay Marriage

« on: July 07, 2015, 05:18:28 PM »

Ooh, such a big mean atheist. You realise that your kind only make up about 10% of the planetary population, right? And that only that ten percent are convinced by the thoroughly illogical arguments against G-d's existence?

Ooh, such a big mean Jew. You realise that your kind only make up about 0.2% of the planetary population, right? And that only that point two percent are convinced by the thoroughly illogical arguments favoring Judaism?

Srsly tho you're super smart.

1422

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag

« on: July 07, 2015, 05:10:46 PM »

In what sense is the Confederate Flag being banned?

1423

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: US Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Gay Marriage

« on: July 04, 2015, 04:53:12 AM »

I don't understand how permitting same-sex marriages to receive the same federal marriage benefits as traditional marriages is paying people to be gay.

As I understand it, dependency exemptions are a subset of federal marriage benefits that only extend to married couples who have children.  If I get traditional-married and don't have any children, I'll receive all of the federal marriage benefits (and tax deductions) except for the ones related to actually having a child.

In that regard, my traditional marriage isn't any different than a same-sex marriage.  I get some benefits related to being married, but none for the children I don't have.  I don't get why same-sex couples are less deserving of the benefits related to marriage or why they shouldn't receive the same adoption benefits.

It's still 1850, right?

No.

1424

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: US Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Gay Marriage

« on: July 04, 2015, 03:18:26 AM »

why

Because DOMA's exclusion of same-sex marriage does not further an important government interest by means that are substantially related to that interest. 

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2181517

To be clear, biology is and has been relevant to establishing and recognizing parenthood and family status. Moreover, one could argue plausibly that historically the government sought to channel childbearing and childrearing into marital relationships. Advocates of biological primacy, however, totalize this history and ignore counternarratives demonstrating that family formation and recognition have not been limited to families comprised of only biologically related members.

[...]This analysis reveals that in a vast array of federal benefits programs, eligibility is not conditioned on a child’s biological connection with his or her parent(s). Instead, Congress long has both implicitly and explicitly extended benefits to biologically unrelated children.

First, many biologically unrelated children are implicitly included as beneficiaries of federal family-based benefits by virtue of Congress’s incorporation of state family law as an eligibility standard. As the Supreme Court recently explained, biology is not and has not been a prerequisite to legal parentage under state law. Second, and even more persuasively, in these and other federal family-based benefits programs, Congress explicitly and deliberately included as potential beneficiaries two classes of children known to be biologically unrelated to their parents: stepchildren and adopted children. Congress did so despite the fact that even today, stepchildren are entitled to relatively little protection under state family law.

Congress therefore was not obligated to extend protections to these biologically unrelated children and in fact bucked the trend by doing so. Moreover, Congress took swift and decisive actions to “correct” attempts by executive officials and agencies to limit the scope of protections for stepchildren and adopted children. This history undermines responsible procreation, which is premised on the notion that the federal government long sought to limit federal family-based benefits to only families with biologically related children.

The history uncovered in this Article is both timely and important, as the Supreme Court will weigh on the validity of Section 3 in the near future. With such a decision looming, it is particularly important to take responsible procreation seriously and subject it to careful scrutiny. Even under rational basis review, a permissible classification must at least “find some footing in the realities of the subject addressed by the legislation.” Given that responsible procreation is founded on a mythical and inaccurate history of federal policy, the argument fails even this basic test.

And also for the same entirely reasonable warrants you've already been given.

1425

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: US Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Gay Marriage

« on: June 30, 2015, 08:20:38 PM »

But that would reward all of the struggling single mothers who got knocked up at a young age, and we don't really care about them. We want stable nuclear families.

Why don't we care about struggling single mothers?

1426

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Confederate Flag in the Mississippi State flag

« on: June 27, 2015, 04:14:42 PM »

http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/declarationofcauses.html

The seceding states themselves made it abundantly clear that the potential abolition of slavery was one of the primary motivating factors for leaving the Union.

1427

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Is mainstream feminism/social justice authoritarian?

« on: June 27, 2015, 04:10:39 PM »

I'm going with the definition of the word as described by Oxford, Cambridge and Merriam-Webster. You're trying to use something else which is currently unspecified.

In particular, our disagreement appears to stem from the fact that you (needlessly, in my view) restrict the definition of authoritarian beliefs to require an underlying regime and/or the need for enforcement of authority. The words doesn't necessarily mean that, and any belief that others should submit to a particular group's views are generally authoritarian regardless of their power to actually realise those beliefs.

I do believe you're misusing the word here, but at least now I understand why you'd disagree with my assessment.

I would tend to agree with you in another context, like literature, where authoritarian can have a looser definition for the purposes of narrative and metaphor.¹  In the context of public policy, however, I think your definition is much too broad to be of any practical use.  If we don't include in the definition the use of force to achieve compliance of obedience to a viewpoint, then any and every "ought" claim is authoritarian by definition.  All of ethics and all of public policy is authoritarian on your view because they all assert actions and behaviors that some or all people "should" do. I think it's important to be able to differentiate between "Actor x should (voluntarily) choose action y," and "Actor x should be forced to choose action y."  I think that this distinction literally is the difference between libertarianism and authoritarianism.  I think you've demonstrated more examples of libertarian feminism than authoritarianism.

Here are some examples of what I mean:

http://kotaku.com/stop-preordering-video-games-1713802537  This article expresses the belief that others (people who like preordering video games) should submit to his viewpoint of not preordering video games.  And he's definitely aligning himself as a member of the group of people who decry early release/preorders/shitty video game sales practices/etc.  "But when it comes down to it, preorders suck. They’re a shitty practice, and they exist not to serve you, but to serve the people who sell video games. Participating in a shitty practice helps propagate that shitty practice. So stop participating."  Is this an authoritarian position?

When Parsifal tells me in IRC that I should ditch Windows and use OpenBSD, is he being authoritarian?  He's a member of a group of opensource enthusiasts, and he's advocating that I (voluntarily) submit to their views about the benefits of its customization, security features, and unique learning opportunities.  I don't know this for a fact, but I bet Parsifal would agree that his motivation for even bringing it up is that he thinks everyone (or everyone who can) should switch to OpenBSD for their OS because [reasons].  Not by force, obviously, but voluntarily.  Doesn't that make a difference?

Going back to the emoji example: how is it authoritarian to advocate for private firms (the people who create emoji) to take a private, voluntary action (make all of them black)?  Is such a position really indistinguishable to you from advocating that obedience to it should be mandatory?

Most importantly, your claim that "There are some advocates of feminism who are authoritarian and should be resisted..." is then necessarily authoritarian according to your understanding of the word.  Aren't you and other like-minded anti-mainstream-feminists of the belief that feminists should change their behavior according to your viewpoint?  How is that not "[a] belief that others should submit to a particular group's views"?

: Favouring or enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom: the transition from an authoritarian to a democratic regime
: Showing a lack of concern for the wishes or opinions of others; dictatorial: he had an authoritarian and at times belligerent manner
: expecting or requiring people to obey rules or laws
: not allowing personal freedom
: of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority <had authoritarian parents>
: of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people <an authoritarian regime>
: demanding that people obey completely and refusing to allow them freedom to act as they wish: an authoritarian regime/government/ruler

You posted these as if they support your definition of "any belief that others should submit to a particular group's views are generally authoritarian regardless of their power to actually realise those beliefs."  I don't think that they do.  They all describe "obedience to authority," "requiring," "not allowing," "submission to authority," "power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people," "refusing to allow them freedom to act as they wish."  To me, advocating voluntary action does not meet those definitions.  "Expecting...people to obey rules..." is the closest, but it's a secondary definition, and I think it has much more value as a description of personality than public policy.  All public policy involves rules, and your definitions specifically distinguishes between authoritarian and democratic regimes of making rules.

Show, don't tell. Show me those non-authoritarian opinion pieces (or whatever else you think is relevant here) by feminists. Give me links. Don't talk about how they totally exist or about how you totally already showed them to me. Just give me the links. Show. Don't tell. To clarify: I'd like to be shown and not told. I'd like to see the evidence rather than be told that it certainly exists. For the avoidance of doubt: my request here is that you show me some evidence rather than talk about how it exists.

As I've said before, I'm arguing that you haven't proven yourself right in the first place.  You're the one who posted the proposition.  It's as if you posted a bag of marbles in the OP and declared that you're certain that there are precisely 73 marbles in the bag, and you're sure of it because you eyeballed it.  I don't need to count the marbles myself to have good reason to be skeptical of your claim.  The methodological flaw is enough to make your argument unpersuasive. 

That said, I'll genuinely try and oblige.  You remarked that The Guardian counts as a feminist source, so I'll go on that for now.  I did a search of their opinion pieces for the word "feminism" and found the following headlines on the first page of results sorted by relevance:

"Feminism is for everyone – even men and Tories: The F-word describes anyone who believes men and women are equals. It’s a shame David Cameron doesn’t get it." (literally the number one result)
"Feminism is in danger of becoming toxic: Instead of worrying about the Rosetta scientist wearing an ‘offensive’ shirt, or Dapper Laughs, or Julien Blanc, we should be tackling the root causes of inequality."
"The biggest threat to feminism? It’s not just the patriarchy: Of course, we have to combat a power structure based on male supremacy. But more insidious is ‘choice feminism’ – applying the language of liberation to dating or makeup."
"Ten things feminism has ruined for me: Bras, bikes and Thomas the Tank Engine... Emer O’Toole mourns some of life’s simpler pleasures."
"Feminists don't care if you like hot pink, eat salads or shave your crotch: There is no grand feminist overlord policing women’s personal choices. But if you need to declare yourself a “hot feminist”, you might be stuck in the past."
"'Feminism lite' is letting down the women who need it the most: I’ve hesitated to write about gender, worried that I’ll be slammed for daring to speak out. But we all benefit from gender equality, and therefore must give feminism some tough love"
"When everyone is a feminist, is anyone?: It’s suddenly cool to be a feminist. But what does that mean for feminism as a movement?"
"Why do we never worry about men's childlessness and infertility?: Older dads are more likely to have children with mental health and developmental problems. Yet they rarely face the scare tactics women do."

This looks to me a solid list of opinions from a broad range of perspectives on, by, and about feminism.  Some of it is critical.  Some of it is praising.  Some say feminism demands and costs too much.  Some of it even says that feminism isn't demanding enough.  The positions are nuanced and robust.  They're far from identical.  I have a hard time seeing the authoritarianism in these pieces, latent or otherwise.

To me, advocating social change via voluntary action and persuasion is a libertarian methodology toward problems.  It's the opposite of authoritarian, at least so far as we have a definition of authoritarian that allows us to distinguish between figures like Vladimir Lenin and Martin Luther King Jr.  They both advocated for a set rules.  Only one of them was an authoritarian.

¹If you genuinely mean to describe feminists as authoritarian in the narrative/personality descriptor/metaphorical sense (like describing someone's personality as "bossy," for instance), then we can certainly end the discussion on agreement.  It's undoubtedly true that many feminist figures in popular news media have assertive personalities that could be described in this manner.

1428

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Is mainstream feminism/social justice authoritarian?

« on: June 25, 2015, 02:56:19 AM »

Okay. I guess that's that for giving you the benefit of the doubt. You're obviously not interested in that.

The Thought Catalog article is indeed satirical, but that doesn't make it less relevant in any way. It illustrates the point I'm trying to make rather well. You seem to grill me for restricting my set of examples too strongly while simultaneously advocating that I restrict it more. Could you please choose one façade to hide behind and stick to it?

You included the satire piece in a list with the heading, "Here are some examples of modern feminist or otherwise social-justice-warriory behaviour that also happens to be authoritarian."  That is it in fact satire seems pretty relevant since this particular piece is a satire piece mocking "social-justice-warriory behaviour that also happens to be authoritarian."  How does a piece that is intended to satirize and mock Bahar Mustafa and her ideology support your claim that Mustafa's brand of feminism is the mainstream view?

Of course it's non-random. As specified previously, I'm targeting a specific sub-group of feminists. If you think it's 2small4u, I can happily keep posting links.

And most of them come from independent contributors who don't have a long-standing connection with the Guardian. Your point? How does the choice of platform affect the validity and diversity of their claims?

Also, part of the reason I chose the Guardian as one of my more prominent examples is because it's a feminist source. I thought it would be better to take the mainstream feminists' word for what mainstream feminism is instead of linking you to a bunch of Daily Mail articles. I'm happy to diversify it even more if that's what you're after.

Yes, I don't consider things which are out of scope for this discussion. If you'd like to bring them in, please, provide examples. I'm happy to be proven wrong, but shouting in my ear about how I'm terrible and wrong won't do that. Show me the evidence you'd like me to see. Show, don't tell.

Yes, hence my continuous insistence on differentiating between mainstream feminism (or your Tea Party) and feminism as a whole (or libertarians as a whole). No matter how hard you try to ignore it, I'll keep correcting you on that.

Mainstream feminists - those with an actual impact on the political debate. But okay, if this is not an adequate sample, then what is? Again, show me the evidence you'd like me to see, don't just whine about it.

I agree that modern media have a lot of problems of their own. Unfortunately, it's difficult for me to believe that they're suddenly not serious about this when they were serious about things like: giving money to women in academia because they're women, offering preferential entry requirements to women willing to enter academia, or institutionalising the relevance of one's genitals when being elected to positions. With that precedent in place: yes, it's possible that everything they wrote is just hilarious banter and/or a provocation. It's just very unlikely when you consider reality.

I should have been clearer and said that the population of mainstream feminist thought extends far beyond TIME's readership.  My point is that I think it extends far beyond the readership of news and opinion outlets.  News and opinion outlets don't accurately summarize the beliefs of the population of feminists who have influence or leverage over culture and public policy, like those writing literature, making laws, lobbying, creating art, publishing journals, composing songs, etc. 

As you described, you're advancing the argument that, "There are some advocates of feminism who are authoritarian and should be resisted, are not resisted, and they're currently the dominant faction within the 'progressive' movement."  I'm expressing skepticism of your methodology.  I think it's important to consider a much wider diversity of sources beyond news/opinion because I think news outlets are neither especially representative of the people with political leverage who identify with the 'progressive' movement.

I didn't suggest that "everything they wrote is just hilarious banter and/or provocation."  I suggested that, in general, news outlets have a positive incentive to publish things that attract attention and readership.  To me that makes it a necessarily inaccurate representation of the opinions of even its own opinion writers.  Like all media personalities, opinions writers have a positive incentive to exaggerate their opinions, and news outlets have a positive incentive to hire people who do that naturally/well.

Yes, it's a very diverse set of opinions about one subject. I'd count that as an asset rather than a negative factor. From my view, a platform that's willing to discuss all points of view is far superior to an echo chamber.

Could you name some examples of those "meek thoughts or topics of general agreement"?

I already have: "But which do you think is more likely to draw readers to an opinion piece in a news magazine: "Let's Get Rid of White Emojis," or...literally anything else?"  An example of the 'literally anything else' could be, "Using Black Emoji Could Be Beneficial."  It just wouldn't surprise me at all that someone whose job depends on readership would express the former opinion while genuinely believing the latter.

I didn't suggest that there was anything 'negative' about the diversity of opinions published by TIME.  I was offering its diversity of opinions as a demonstration that TIME, for instance, publishes many opinions about feminism (and by feminists), and only a small number of them expresses "authoritarianism."  Only selecting the ones that do and ignoring the many counter-examples is a selection bias.

Right, it seems that you misunderstood my intent. These opinion pieces aren't about feminism. They're opinion pieces by feminists about what should be done. They're not authoritarian because they said "we're (not) authoritarian", but because they directly and explicitly propose or engage in actions which are authoritarian.  Articles where feminists talk about how feminism is great are not particularly relevant to this discussion. What actually matters here is their actions, not words. What they advocate for and what they do is what will ultimately determine how outsiders see them.

A person can express left-wing or right-wing views without discussing public policy. A person can also express libertarian or authoritarian views without discussing public policy.

We definitely have a big disagreement over what authoritarianism is.  I don't think private actors can be authoritarian (towards one another, that is).  Surely they can support authoritarian action by the state, but expressing opinions about voluntary actions by private folks isn't what I understand as authoritarianism.  To keep using the emoji example, advocating a legal ban on white emoji would be an authoritarian position.  Advocating that people stop using white emoji, or even advocating that emoji makers (is that a thing?) stop making them, isn't an authoritarian position to me.  Any advocacy that people act or be or think a certain way isn't authoritarianism to me unless you're advocating the use of force against them.

I don't think libertarianism or authoritarianism make much sense outside of the context of state action.

1429

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Is mainstream feminism/social justice authoritarian?

« on: June 22, 2015, 04:07:01 PM »

I also just don't think that a smattering of opinion columns from a narrowly restrained set of sources is very convincing evidence that the idea you say is endemic is indeed endemic.  It's just some opinion articles produced by firms that have a negative incentive to write about people being reasonable.  "Reasonable Feminist Holds Exceedingly Reasonable Beliefs" just isn't ever going to be written by a news outlet.

I take a massive issue with you considering my set of sources to be narrowly restrained. I deliberately provided a cross-section of sources from all sides of the discussion and several countries. I deliberately chose to not restrict myself to either opinion pieces or news stories. It baffles me that you'd suggest that TIME, the Guardian, and the Telegraph have a "negative incentive to write about people being reasonable", given that them writing about people being reasonable and having level-headed discussions about things is the majority of their opinion pieces altogether. I don't really know what else I could say. Given our past discussions, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you're not doing this out of dishonesty, but I must say that I'm baffled.

lol how magnanimous of you.¹  This is simply an instance of brevity intersecting poor word choice.  I think your set of articles is narrowly restrained because it's a tiny and non-random sample of the population of feminist thought.  There is not very much diversity of source material.  26% of the links in the OP come the Guardian alone.  The rest are also news/opinion sources.  You don't consider academic works, literature, public policy research and writing, art, polling data, etc.  I'm sure you would agree that the population of feminist thought extends far beyond TIME's readership.

Using TIME as an example, I did a search of their opinion pieces for the term "feminism."  Sorted by relevance, here are a bunch of headlines that come up:

Sorry, Camille Paglia: Feminism Is the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Men
Flawless: 5 Lessons in Modern Feminism From Beyoncé
Viewpoint: Pro-Life and Feminism Aren’t Mutually Exclusive
It’s a Man’s World, and It Always Will Be
How Feminism Begat Intensive Mothering
Let’s Face It: Michelle Obama Is a Feminist Cop Out

All of the opinion pieces definitely have the quality of generating interest through forceful opinions on controversial topics, not meek thoughts on topics of general agreement.  That's what I mean about sample bias/selection bias/constrained sources.  I don't think a handful of opinion pieces represents an adequate sample of the population of feminist thought (or people who call themselves feminists).

But the biggest selection bias is in the literal selection of articles.  Looking at the TIME search of "feminism," I'm seeing lots of opinion pieces that take the view that feminism is authoritarian/unnecessary/whathaveyou.  The OP is, literally, a list of opinion pieces that support your argument culled from a larger list of opinion pieces with many that don't.

Another good example of this is the first link in the OP about white emojis.  You have to take at face value that she's being completely genuine and not just trying to advocate an intentionally controversial position because that gets more readers.  She doesn't have to be making it up, just sensationalizing it.  For instance, maybe she is of the totally reasonable opinion that if more white people voluntarily chose to represent themselves with black emoji, then it would be beneficial to their overall outlook on whatever blah blah.  Nothing authoritarian about that.  But which do you think is more likely to draw readers to an opinion piece in a news magazine: "Let's Get Rid of White Emojis," or...literally anything else?

Is the underlying argument of the OP closer to "There are some advocates of feminism who are authoritarian and should be resisted," or "Feminism is inherently authoritarian and should rejected entirely"?

I specifically used the term "mainstream feminism" to avoid this doubt. There exist some feminists who are pretty cool. They're currently not in the mainstream. As such, the underlying argument is "There are some advocates of feminism who are authoritarian and should be resisted, are not resisted, and they're currently the dominant faction within the 'progressive' movement".

Whether or not it's mainstream is what's at issue.  I'm still not seeing good evidence that what you're describing is the mainstream opinion among people who call themselves feminists.  You've established beyond a doubt that such radicals exist, but not that their ideology is dominant.

I also take issue with your use of the word 'authoritarian.'  Most of the opinion pieces you posted describe private actors and private actions.  Only a couple of them are even about matters of public policy.  Emma Watson tweeting things you think are annoying isn't authoritarianism.

¹Ok for real you do the exact same thing all the time.  I'll give you an example from the OP: the article from Thought Catalog is obviously satire.  Like really really obviously satire.  It's actually making fun of Bahar Mustafa.  And yet you chose to use it as an example as a genuine belief.  Why?  Because you are.....intellectually dishonest?!?!?!?! *gasp*.  No.  It's probably just that it's really terrible satire, and it would be easy to think that it was genuine if you just read the headline/nut graph and moved on.

1430

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Is mainstream feminism/social justice authoritarian?

« on: June 21, 2015, 05:48:50 PM »

Is the underlying argument of the OP closer to "There are some advocates of feminism who are authoritarian and should be resisted," or "Feminism is inherently authoritarian and should rejected entirely"?

For instance, I consider myself a feminist because I believe that men and women ought to have equal opportunity of access to civic society.  My political proclivities are already Libertarian, so I tend to view that proposition though a Libertarian lens.  People with more authoritarian bents might come up with entirely different sets of public policy based on the same proposition.  Why am I as a feminist responsible for that?  And in what sense is it fair to say that feminism is to blame?

Your overall negative bias toward feminism is to me no different than if one were to reject Libertarianism because its dominant ideologues are Tea Partiers (gross).  Even if that were true (and of course it isn't), it wouldn't be a very good reason to roundly reject the really excellent ideas coming from the minority of entirely reasonable and intelligent Libertarians.

I also just don't think that a smattering of opinion columns from a narrowly restrained set of sources is very convincing evidence that the idea you say is endemic is indeed endemic.  It's just some opinion articles produced by firms that have a negative incentive to write about people being reasonable.  "Reasonable Feminist Holds Exceedingly Reasonable Beliefs" just isn't ever going to be written by a news outlet.

1431

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: When will this **** stop?

« on: June 21, 2015, 04:32:30 AM »

inb4 insimultaneousto another TFES race war

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/black-americans-are-killed-at-12-times-the-rate-of-people-in-other-developed-countries/

What is more interesting is that the vast majority of black Americans are killed by other black Americans. Black men represent 50% of all homicides, but only 7% of the total population of the US.

I think this is probably a reflection of the fact that US cities are extremely segregated.  As the article mentions, that's not the case if you control for proximity: you're much more likely to be murdered by someone you know than by a stranger, regardless of race.  When controlling for proximity, blacks are more likely to be murdered by whites when the parties involved are strangers.  Apparently.  The article doesn't cite source for those claims.

1432

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Chess

« on: June 21, 2015, 04:24:11 AM »

I prefer Backgammon.  Chess doesn't have enough variance.

1433

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: When will this **** stop?

« on: June 19, 2015, 01:50:29 PM »

inb4 insimultaneousto another TFES race war

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/black-americans-are-killed-at-12-times-the-rate-of-people-in-other-developed-countries/

1434

Technology & Information / Re: My computer is a slut...

« on: June 17, 2015, 11:43:27 PM »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESET_NOD32

or

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avira

1435

Arts & Entertainment / Re: The Super Epic FES Smash Bros. Mii Fighter Extravaganza Extraordinaire

« on: June 16, 2015, 04:46:53 AM »

http://www.miisearch.com/mii-creator.html?avatar=000800670061007200790067007200650065006e0000000080807f5fc242899805804e00118028a2688c0c60634888ae0089008a250400670061007200790067007200650065006e0000

I want to be a sneaky Jap.  Whatever fits that criterion for the other stuff, go nuts.

1436

Arts & Entertainment / Re: The Witcher Series

« on: June 15, 2015, 06:27:48 PM »

So from a realistic stand point, there aren't going to be blacks in Northern Europe Medieval land and from an in-universe standpoint, they just have different races.

Just to clarify, I definitely don't think that it's weird for a game not to deal with race issues.  I only think it's odd for a game not to depict people of color (to the extent that people are represented at all in the game), and I think it's odd that so many games make that choice.  Depicting or representing as much of your potential customer base as possible has many benefits and virtually no opportunity cost.

I guess my whole thought on it is that perfect fidelity to either the history or mythology of the people living in early Medieval Poland is neither possible nor desirable, and I don't really understand what the opportunity cost is.  As in, I don't see what difference it would make to break from reality in that way.¹  Fantasy stories already lose complete fidelity with history (there aren't going to be any elves, dwarves, dragons, or witchers in Slavic Medieval Europe), and Witcher as a series already doesn't maintain much fidelity with either Slavic history or Slavic mythology.

¹It's unlikely that there were no people of color in Medieval Slavic Europe.  The Slavic states were trading as far away as modern-day Serbia as far back as 5000 BC (link), and by the tenth century there was a robust trade network between the Slavs and the Islamic world (link).  This network included both Islamic and Slavic slaves, and Islamic slave ships would sail as far as the Baltic Sea to acquire Slavic slaves.  Muslims, Mongols, North Africans, and Spanish probably weren't uncommon inhabitants of Medieval Europe.

1437

Arts & Entertainment / Re: The Witcher Series

« on: June 14, 2015, 03:11:42 PM »

But yes, the game is very story oriented so if you can't get into the story or characters you'll likely not enjoy it.

I enjoy the game immensely; I only don't think it's in the conversation for Greatest of All Time, that's all.  Basically I'm saying that Witcher is the Toni Kukoč of RPGs.  _{holy shit that's a brilliant analogy}

Open-world-ness

I probably think it feels just-slightly-less-than-totally-open-world because the last high fantasy RPG I really got down on was Skyrim, and one of the things I love most about TES is that they let me pretty much go wherever I want and do whatever I want right from the start of the game.  None of the quests are off limits to me, and I can just roam the map like Scooby Doo looking for mysteries to solve and dudebros to murder.

Don't get me wrong, Witcher is really open-world.  It's a far, far cry from a game like Mass Effect or Deus Ex.  Personally, though, I think I'd enjoy it more if it scaled everything to the player's level like TES.  You mentioned on IRC that all the zones have plenty of low level quests, so my opinion of this could change as I play more.

Let's talk about the lack of people of color in the game.

I don't think it's wrong, but I do think it's weird.

1438

Arts & Entertainment / Re: The Witcher Series

« on: June 14, 2015, 12:34:19 AM »

This is going to be really rambling.

tl;dr version: Witcher 3 is a great game, and I would unequivocally recommend it to anyone who loves RPGs.  I don't think it innovates anything in the RPGs genre, though.  Also I wish it were more open-world than it is.

I have mixed feelings about Witcher 3 that are at least in part caused by the hype surrounding the game.  More than one person expressed to me days after the game launched that it was (in their opinions) the best game they'd ever played.  Innovative, deep, replayable, great story, etc.  I didn't expect to think it was the greatest game I'd ever played, but I guess I was expecting something more unique than it turned out to be.  This is the only Witcher game I've played, and I'm only about 10-15 hours through this one; I'd like to leave open the possibility that the game will blow my tits off as I get deeper into it.

I'll start with what I liked.  It's a great game.  It really is.  The setting is beautiful, the cutscenes are good, and the core mechanic is robust.  I dunno how much detail I really want to go into because every time I think of an example, ten more pop into my head that I think deserve a mention.  So maybe I'll just say that it's good at everything you want a RPG to be good at: there are lots of different character builds; the setting it beautiful and detailed; the fight mechanic is actually engaging; the characters, even the NPCs, are vibrant; it's massive.

Here's what I don't like about the game: I don't really think it innovates anything.  I hesitate to call this a criticism because it certainly isn't required that a game reinvent a genre to be good.  To me, though, the lack of novelty in the game keeps it from being as engaging as I was hoping it would be.  Every element of the game is well-executed, but it's all been done before: protagonist goes from town to town finding jobs on message boards and expanding the map as XP allows.  I guess it just feels like Witcher comes up a little short when I compare it to a series like TES that took the RPG genre and added something new to the underlying architecture.

This could also be because I don't give much of a shit about the story or characters.  It's not that the story and characters are poorly done, just that I don't care about them at all.  The Elder Scrolls suffer from the same problem for me; I really just wind up getting into all the side quests and never really focusing on the primary story.  This is probably because I'm ultimately worn on out the high fantasy RPG.  I'm over it.  I'd kill for pretty much this exact same game in a scifi setting.

I was going to ramble some more, but you get the idea.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: More 100% raccis cops

« on: June 12, 2015, 07:29:22 PM »

This comes with the caveat that 1) I don't know what was happening prior to the start of the video (the police were investigating some party crashers, yeah?), and 2) I don't know how police are trained to deal with this specific situation.  Perhaps this situation was enabled more by police regulations than this particular officer.  I don't know.

This looks to me like a police officer who was frustrated by a bunch of kids and acted like an asshole, and I think his behavior probably exacerbated the situation.  It look like he was getting frustrated by both the lack of cooperation from the people he was detaining, and by the people milling about taunting and insulting him.  He basically says this to the detainees when he starts lecturing them.  I don't blame him for being frustrated at that.  This is probably one of the shittiest things he has to do as police.  He's just trying to do his job, and a bunch of shitty kids are uncooperative and pretty much spitting in his face the whole time (not to mention surrounding him, which would probably trigger some genuine fear).  That would suck a lot.

That said, I still think he's acting like an asshole, and I think a big part of his job is to be the cooler head.  They're being super shitty, but they're just a bunch of kids.  Kids are shitty.  It appears on face to be kids doing what kids do: being places where they shouldn't be, running from authority, and being dicks about it in the process.  No need to flip shit over it.

Ultimately I think he just lost his cool a little bit and probably shouldn't have had to resign.  Police officers are people, and people lose their cool sometimes.  It's understandable.  He probably just needed a vacation.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: State of the US

« on: June 11, 2015, 01:08:42 PM »

I have my own prediction: before the end of 2015, Thork will bid a permanent farewell to TFES because we are not anarcho-capitalists.

Watch it happen.