Aleck
4381
Synth, I don’t know where you live (or whether you have kids), but living in a highly mixed race suburban area, I had that discussion with my kids really early – like around 4 or 5. It was around that time that I introduced them to antisemitism (which applies to them directly), and racism, which applies to most of their friends. It’s almost never too early to introduce your kids to the ideas that all people are people, and to vilify those historical figures that have forgotten that simple truism.
The Babar books are a great opportunity to talk about historical changes, racism, and how important context is/can be. Hell, I was doing the same thing regarding the passover story with my 5 year old earlier today.
Nesrie
4382
The first racial slur I ever heard directed at me, that I remember, was in kindergarten by another kid. You can be certain children begin to learn to hate at a pretty early age.
LMN8R
4383
Not really? Milo is personally responsible for doxxing and severe harassment of people whose only “crime” was dare talk about games as critics instead of mindless consumers.
You might not consider that worthy of being called “destroying someone’s life”, but for the actual people being driven from their homes, getting death threats constantly, and being forced into silence if they don’t want the same to happen to their friends and family? Seems like a pedantic point to argue that my vocabulary is “hyperbolic”.
I’m not saying Kuchera is the sharpest knife in the drawer. He’s quite a blowhard and has done plenty of things to deserve the lack of professional respect he has in certain circles. But in this case he’s not wrong about Milo.
LMN8R
4384
It’s odd that you and Desslock still cannot comprehend that people can destroy others’ lives without literally being a murderous dictator.
And you two pretend like you have empathy for the victims of online harassment, death threats, rape threats, and being driven from their homes. For fuck’s sake.
No, you’re the one pretending. Pretending that Milo is responsible for any of that, or “destroyed lives” - that’s ridiculous.
Kuchera is the one who seems like an unhinged nutcase trying to harm people.
No. I don’t like him (from our forum interactions on Ars, where he acted unprofessionally several times), but he’s really not in the same category as Milo. I suggest you google him…it’s a bit of a morass, look at it that way. (And he’s not a gamer, I remind you, unlike Kuchera, he’s in this out of opportunism)
Desslock - Oh my!
Quaro
4387
http://www.zenofdesign.com/why-diversity-will-win-the-geek-culture-wars/
Why Diversity Will Win the Geek Culture Wars
And therein lies the rub. It’s quite one thing to say that its okay for a game with a Porky’s attitude towards sexuality combined with a Vallejo sensibility towards what women should look like. It’s quite another to visual realize that it seems to many women that that’s the only thing that’s available on the shelves. It’s not just games – witness the sudden realization one father had when he took his daughter to the comic book store.
The truth of the matter is that the champions of diversity are going to win for one simple reason – money. As technology advances, the cost of creating the content for your average video game is simply going to keep going up, faster than the size of the audience that will buy that game. It’s not just games – Joss Whedon doesn’t get $220 Million to make the Avengers unless he can figure out how to put women and children butts in those seats as well.
Quaro - Eh. There’s niche publishing in movies, books, etc.
Softcore porn ebooks (Harlequin Romance, etc.) sell almost entirely to women, for instance*.
But nobody these days really gets worked up about them. Oh, they get mentioned and discussed, which is where we’ll be in a few decades with games. And the new media on the bloc will be accused of the same old things.
Remember “Video Killed the Radio Star”?
(*And ironically, they’ve been a great driver for eReader sales, since you can’t then see the cover - to the degree that Harlequin went ebook only!)
LMN8R
4389
Ben Kuchera is destroying lives?
What an odd thing.
Milo going out of his way to doxx, harass, and torment people? driving them from their homes out of fear? Nah, just ignore him.
Ben simply calling it as it is, asking not to be associated with Milo? HARASSMENT!
No, we just recognize adolescent melodrama when we see it.
LMN8R
4391
Ahh yes. adolescent melodrama. I remember my days as an adolescent getting death threats all the time for which the FBI recommended I temporarily leave my home for the safety of my friendly and me.
Wow, we have a pretty big disconnect on this one. Kuchera repeatedly contacts employers to try to get them to fire people who he politically disagrees with - i.e. actually screw up people’s lives. That EA guy said nothing but positive things about Kuchera (or what he wrote) and still Kuchera tried to get him fired.
Milo is a narcissist and, in my opinion, is pretty insufferable and smug, but it’s ridiculous to suggest he’s done anything to harm anyone, let alone actually harmed anyone, unless you’re such a delicate flower that your life is “destroyed” by encountering disagreement.
LMN8R
4393
I read everything Kuchera wrote on Twitter. He, quite clearly, is not trying to get him fired.
Of course he is – why else would he repeatedly send messages to EA’s attention, and expressly ask all his followers to repeat the messages, suggesting that their director of communications is being blocked because he’s one of “those who threaten to kill us” and is part of a “hate mob” and “hate group” etc. – all because the dude retweeted an article about…chess…not gamergate, and said some favorable…not negative…things about something Kuchera wrote.
Leading to his followers sending stuff like this to EA: https://archive.today/JImb0
Listen up @EA: if you don’t fire the bigoted misogynist Chris Mancil for supporting the terror group #GamerGate, there will be consequences.
Not exactly nuanced.
And Kuchera has done before, several times- this whole chain here is wretched:
and again: http://www.somethingawful.com/video-game-article/king-ben-kuchera/
He’s a complete sociopath.
ShivaX
4395
We all know that that label is reserved for the truly evil. Like Obama.
Alstein
4396
It’s not the first time Kuchera’s trying to get someone fired. I know a few weeks ago he went after some Gamestop employee. I knew this employee from online stuff 10 years ago, and that employee was a piece of garbage then (and his feed was full of gator garbage, so he’s probably still a piece of crap) , but my opinion of Kuchera isn’t any better.
From the sounds of what others are saying, it’s probably not the second or third either. I don’t understand why you’d want to get most people fired. It’s hard enough in society unless you have a ton of wealth. It’s a really shitty thing to do in all but the rarest of circumstances.
Teiman
4397
what the fuck I just read:
The truth of the matter is that the champions of diversity are going to win for one simple reason – money. As technology advances, the cost of creating the content for your average video game is simply going to keep going up, faster than the size of the audience that will buy that game. It’s not just games – Joss Whedon doesn’t get $220 Million to make the Avengers unless he can figure out how to put women and children butts in those seats as well.
wind trough broken glass
the smell of napalm in the morning
diversity mandatory class
i wish I knew how to make a haiku
regular length, coordinate syllabus
the snow of lies is now avalanche
would corporations save us
from the disonance of multiple voices
with a single atonal difference?
The truth of the matter is
that the champions of diversity are going to win
for one simple reason – money
Quaro
4398
I’m not sure I follow how that connects to the article. It’d be like going to a book store and finding only Harlequin Romance novels? Or that many current games will look like romance novels from the perspective of the future, appealing to a niche?
People don’t generally get wound up about Harlequin Romances. Because books are a mature medium, and people are willing to admit that they’re only one aspect of the book industry, and there’s no reason to censor or block them.
Games…will get there. #GG hasn’t helped, but it’s a matter of gamers getting older and not giving up their hobby.
LMN8R
4400
Thank you.
Sorry, I didn’t realize he’s actually gone that far, so often. Ugh. I knew he was a blowhard, but didn’t realize he was actually a vindictive asshole.
