Has liberalism always had this issue? It feels like selling liberal thought to young people (even white/cis/etc) shouldn’t be hard.
Liberalism right now is more about identifying and solving social issues than it is anything else. Or at least that’s the public facing face of it. It’s neccsary work but not exactly inspirational stuff. That and the right stole our thunder on being cool and edgy.
Has liberalism always had this issue? It feels like selling liberal thought to young people (even white/cis/etc) shouldn’t be hard.
Libertarianism is a far easier sell to people who don't want limits placed on their behavior.
The Alt-right isn't burdened by trying to sell a coherent plan for governance that will actually benefit the working class in the long run. They're not playing the same game.
Has liberalism always had this issue? It feels like selling liberal thought to young people (even white/cis/etc) shouldn’t be hard.
It isn't. The alt-right are a small minority. They are just dangerous and violent.
Yeah, it's not like Nazis have great approval numbers. That they have outsized influence on the internet is part of the frustration; that a handful of companies could cut their legs off with a TOS update is the other part.
Has liberalism always had this issue? It feels like selling liberal thought to young people (even white/cis/etc) shouldn’t be hard.
Libertarianism is a far easier sell to people who don't want limits placed on their behavior.
The Alt-right isn't burdened by trying to sell a coherent plan for governance that will actually benefit the working class in the long run. They're not playing the same game.
If that’s your thought process you’ve already lost. That’s the worst marketing pitch in the history of marketing. Liberalism is about much more than just the boring stuff. Wrap your message in something juicy! Stop trying to give everyone the hard sell!
Your ideology has plenty in it that you can sell. And if it doesn’t, well, at least you know why you’re losing hearts and minds.
Has liberalism always had this issue? It feels like selling liberal thought to young people (even white/cis/etc) shouldn’t be hard.
Libertarianism is a far easier sell to people who don't want limits placed on their behavior.
The Alt-right isn't burdened by trying to sell a coherent plan for governance that will actually benefit the working class in the long run. They're not playing the same game.
If that’s your thought process you’ve already lost. That’s the worst marketing pitch in the history of marketing. Liberalism is about much more than just the boring stuff. Wrap your message in something juicy! Stop trying to give everyone the hard sell!
Your ideology has plenty in it that you can sell. And if it doesn’t, well, at least you know why you’re losing hearts and minds.
Eh, the left is doing alright overall. Left vs Right is not the chief concern here.
I don't care if little Johnny Galt fancies himself an ubermench. I care that there's a pocket of extremists infesting his internet that want to convince him he needs to shoot up a mosque/synagogue/church/school/IHOP to finally take ownership of his brow-sweat.
Has liberalism always had this issue? It feels like selling liberal thought to young people (even white/cis/etc) shouldn’t be hard.
Libertarianism is a far easier sell to people who don't want limits placed on their behavior.
The Alt-right isn't burdened by trying to sell a coherent plan for governance that will actually benefit the working class in the long run. They're not playing the same game.
If that’s your thought process you’ve already lost. That’s the worst marketing pitch in the history of marketing. Liberalism is about much more than just the boring stuff. Wrap your message in something juicy! Stop trying to give everyone the hard sell!
Your ideology has plenty in it that you can sell. And if it doesn’t, well, at least you know why you’re losing hearts and minds.
Liberalism is the cultural default now. It is impossible for it to be edgy. It was edgy to say "the peasants deserve a voice" to the European Monarchs, but Liberalism got everything it wanted, to the point that now authoritarianism is edgy. All that is left is making sure some marginalized groups' rights are protected, and keeping the government and economy running as well as it can be.
The edgy Left consists of the tankies and the revolutionary anarchists. The ones that want to violently overthrow the government instead of reforming it. You don't want that kind of edge from the Democrats.
Edit: This is what the non-revolutionary left sounds like when they're trying to be edgy:
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
0
Options
MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
A new piece by Adam Serwer (author of "The Cruelty is the Point"): Nazis Have Always Been Trolls. He discusses the original Nazis and the modern alt-right variants and how their methods are functionally the same. A few choice quotes:
Many of the ideological descendants of the Third Reich have raised the banners of liberal principles in their defense. They say they are defending free speech, or due process, or democracy—but their only purpose is to empty these concepts of meaning, to make them as contemptible to their ideological opponents as they are to them. In this, too, they resemble their ideological forebears.
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words,” wrote Jean-Paul Sartre in his 1946 essay “Anti-Semite and Jew.” “The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors.”
Ultimately, as with the New Zealand shooter, every joke, every pithy reference, every pretend gesture toward the moral standards of liberal democracy has the same punch line: We are going to kill you. There is nothing more profound to unearth from their ideas, or from them.
Has liberalism always had this issue? It feels like selling liberal thought to young people (even white/cis/etc) shouldn’t be hard.
Libertarianism is a far easier sell to people who don't want limits placed on their behavior.
The Alt-right isn't burdened by trying to sell a coherent plan for governance that will actually benefit the working class in the long run. They're not playing the same game.
If that’s your thought process you’ve already lost. That’s the worst marketing pitch in the history of marketing. Liberalism is about much more than just the boring stuff. Wrap your message in something juicy! Stop trying to give everyone the hard sell!
Your ideology has plenty in it that you can sell. And if it doesn’t, well, at least you know why you’re losing hearts and minds.
Liberalism is the cultural default now. It is impossible for it to be edgy. It was edgy to say "the peasants deserve a voice" to the European Monarchs, but Liberalism got everything it wanted, to the point that now authoritarianism is edgy. All that is left is making sure some marginalized groups' rights are protected, and keeping the government and economy running as well as it can be.
The edgy Left consists of the tankies and the revolutionary anarchists. The ones that want to violently overthrow the government instead of reforming it. You don't want that kind of edge from the Democrats.
Edit: This is what the non-revolutionary left sounds like when they're trying to be edgy:
Nah, there are still plenty of things that liberals want like free healthcare, free higher education, climate change policy, higher taxes on the wealthy, less funding for military and more for science, an end to the war on drugs, more relaxed immigration policy, tighter regulations on the financial industry, just to name a few. I don't know why we're concerned with a nebulous concept like "edgy" but some of that stuff should be easy to pitch! Like, somewhere on another forum the alt-right is having this exact same discussion but about how to sway young people away from cool, edgy "socialists" like Bernie and AOC.
Has liberalism always had this issue? It feels like selling liberal thought to young people (even white/cis/etc) shouldn’t be hard.
Libertarianism is a far easier sell to people who don't want limits placed on their behavior.
The Alt-right isn't burdened by trying to sell a coherent plan for governance that will actually benefit the working class in the long run. They're not playing the same game.
If that’s your thought process you’ve already lost. That’s the worst marketing pitch in the history of marketing. Liberalism is about much more than just the boring stuff. Wrap your message in something juicy! Stop trying to give everyone the hard sell!
Your ideology has plenty in it that you can sell. And if it doesn’t, well, at least you know why you’re losing hearts and minds.
Liberalism is the cultural default now. It is impossible for it to be edgy. It was edgy to say "the peasants deserve a voice" to the European Monarchs, but Liberalism got everything it wanted, to the point that now authoritarianism is edgy. All that is left is making sure some marginalized groups' rights are protected, and keeping the government and economy running as well as it can be.
The edgy Left consists of the tankies and the revolutionary anarchists. The ones that want to violently overthrow the government instead of reforming it. You don't want that kind of edge from the Democrats.
Edit: This is what the non-revolutionary left sounds like when they're trying to be edgy:
Its just quaint these days.
Nah, there are still plenty of things that liberals want like free healthcare, free higher education, climate change policy, higher taxes on the wealthy, less funding for military and more for science, an end to the war on drugs, more relaxed immigration policy, tighter regulations on the financial industry, just to name a few. I don't know why we're concerned with a nebulous concept like "edgy" but some of that stuff should be easy to pitch! Like, somewhere on another forum the alt-right is having this exact same discussion but about how to sway young people away from cool, edgy "socialists" like Bernie and AOC.
Its about as exciting as "its cool to stay in school." Its dry stuff that makes sense to do.
Its not exciting like, expel the invading hordes, or overthrow capitalism.
Also, when you use revolutionary theming like Obama did, while only delivering milquetoast economic policy, it calls into question the legitimacy of politics. Obama campaigned on Hope and Change, Trump campaigned on Make America Great Again, neither delivered or are going to deliver. The revolution through legitimate politics fails and that leaves the illegitimate politics.
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Has liberalism always had this issue? It feels like selling liberal thought to young people (even white/cis/etc) shouldn’t be hard.
Liberalism right now is more about identifying and solving social issues than it is anything else. Or at least that’s the public facing face of it. It’s neccsary work but not exactly inspirational stuff. That and the right stole our thunder on being cool and edgy.
I feel like people are forgetting David Hogg, Greta Thunberg, and all the groups of young people protesting for gun regulation and global warming. It seems like "surviving our school years and having an earth to live in" are pretty motivational topics after all.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Has liberalism always had this issue? It feels like selling liberal thought to young people (even white/cis/etc) shouldn’t be hard.
Libertarianism is a far easier sell to people who don't want limits placed on their behavior.
The Alt-right isn't burdened by trying to sell a coherent plan for governance that will actually benefit the working class in the long run. They're not playing the same game.
At the risk of making some made. I'd argue libertarianism primary issue is that it's an ideology of the immature because it's grounded in this this idea that their shouldn't be a set of rules that one has to follow. It is ill equipped for the concept of society and community, where there is a need for common rules. This is also why it's a gateway because a fair number of young men, mostly cis white one, take offense at the idea that they shouldn't treat women or those they deem beneath them, like people that have the same rights.
It's hard to fight the altright bullshit because the game is very much "memememememememememememememme fuckoff mememememememememmemememememe." Sadly some people are really hardwired into being selfish asshats, while many others are still kind of tilted towards being the selfish asshole.
Liberalism right now has to deal with the fact society has really reinforced selfishness and shunning the idea of putting thought into fixing problems, while insisting that all problems are easy to solve. Problem is society needs people to be team players in order to work. Also that many problems are not easy to solve, they are easy to spot, but by no means easy to address. A good example of this is traffic problems, it's easy to spot where those exist, but good luck on getting half the fixes in because there is always various groups that will oppose every solution purely on purely self serving grounds, while also often getting a fair number of people that oppose every solution on grounds that are purely self serving. For every 5 NIMBY asshats, you get one person where they can point out that moving isn't exactly a reasonable solution for them.
So to get this back to shitty alt righters. For many of them, it's far easier to be a smart ass making shitty memes making fun of problems and those that are trying to solve them. Then to you know try be proactive, understanding and not an asshole.
KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
The craziest thing to me on the topic of libertarianism is that the current concepts are actually labeled "right-libertarianism". The original movement (pre-mid 20th century) embraced different set of ideals:
Traditionally, libertarianism was a term for a form of left-wing politics. Such left-libertarian ideologies seek to abolish capitalism and private ownership of the means of production, or else to restrict their purview or effects, in favor of common or cooperative ownership and management, viewing private property as a barrier to freedom and liberty. Classical libertarian ideologies include—but are not limited to—anarcho-communism, anarcho-syndicalism, mutualism and egoism, alongside many other anti-paternalist, New Left schools of thought centered around economic egalitarianism.
Thanks to Wikipedia for that. Basically, what slightly harder lefties pitch now is what libertarianism was before the term was co-opted by the right.
But that's completely off topic from the issues at hand. I do think legislation is required, which I realize doesn't sit well with Frankie because they are obviously very distrustful of government. But I also think there's no other way to hold the companies of social media to account; there's no reason to listen to customers if they don't care who they attract, social media especially cares more about engagement than it does bodies and eyeballs, and there's basically no downside for almost all of these folks to operate as they have been. That doesn't mean we hand entire control over to our corporate or governmental "overlords", that'd be silly. And we can, as consumers of games, use our buying power to limited effect on gaming companies.
I'm mainly trying to think of there's some way to legally encourage companies to deplatform Nazis et al. I feel like that may be a part of a solution. I think it's going to have to be moderation, legislation, and public pressure that shifts things, but I hardly feel like we're united to do the last. If there's one talent the alt-right seems to have, it's a unified tactical plan, even if that plan is "memememe fuckoff memememe", and meanwhile we can't even agree on if legislation would theoretically be feasible, or how to encourage companies to, y'know, not harbor fascist ideology on their platforms.
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
Companies aren't going to deplatform these fuckers unless there's solid proof of what they are, and even then, if they're bringing in the views and the money and the attention, even then it's not a sure thing.
I mean, hell, look at all the evidence against PewDiePie. The man admitted he paid the sign guys to hold up a racist sign, and there's so much more evidence of who he hangs out with, clips of him being racist, but YouTube stands behind him 100% because he puts views on videos and draws traffic to the site- i.e., he puts butts in seats, to use an old phrase, and they might be afraid of what might happen to them economically and how it might affect their stock price if they kicked him to the curb. I mean, there are either people or bots going around pushing the whole "subscribe to PDP" bullshit trying to frame it as "one man versus a corporation that doesn't represent small YouTubers, so subscribe to PDP because herpaderp".
He doesn't need YouTube; YouTube needs him because they don't want to lose all that glorious advertising $$$ his followers generate, and they'll follow him wherever he might go if they kill his channel, taking all those views and money with them.
I agree with the theory that as long as social media companies care about engagement above all else, they will never be incentivized sufficiently to do something about the current problem.
That really is just another way of saying, though, that the problem is companies that make *money* off of social media, right? Like, Facebook, YouTube, etc, all make money off advertisements and selling user data, which is why they are incentivized to get as much interaction from as many people as possible.
Does it work to somehow prevent monetization of social media? Like pass laws saying you can't have advertisement on social media platforms at all? You aren't restricting free speech (to avoid conflict with the free speech thread here lol) but if social media was paid for by other means, like subscription plans, then the company suddenly cares more about how many people they have on the platform than engagement, and as such they have an incentive not to have users driven away by hate speech? (I'm leaving out the purely ideal scenario of a totally free social media platform because realistically it would have to be paid for *some*how...)
I mean, even PA is technically not "free" free. It's paid for indirectly by the PA fans spending money on merchandise, PAX, etc, right? So in a perverse alternate reality where we didn't have the awesome mods we have today, PA would still have an incentive to keep the forums safe, because the alternative drives people away from the community, which drives them away also from spending money that funnels back through PA, right?
ETA: Bringing this more back to games, because you'd think the fact that you have to pay for a game would thus create the same sort of incentive to keep the gaming space for said game safe...so why doesn't it? Is it because the games in question are already aimed more towards young white males so they are in effect doing exactly that: keeping the paid space of the game "safe" for their target audience, it just happens that that target audience is alt-right-leaning white males? And that still doesn't explain Valve's lackluster response on Steam.... so apparently my theory/proposal isn't a good one, although I'm at a loss to explain why...
Mathew Burrack on
"Let's take a look at the scores! The girls are at the square root of Pi, while the boys are still at a crudely drawn picture of a duck. Clearly, it's anybody's game!"
I have a real philosophical problem with companies that *make money* off of X content then turning around and claiming they're not in any way responsible for X content. And I'm not talking about unmoderated comments or voice chats here, but the basic content they're hosting.
YouTube is no longer a social experiment running out of someone's garage; if it ever was. If proactive human pre-approval isn't feasible, then you'd better have a damn good "flag & review/remove" moderation system. But NO moderation system is going to work if the principles of the company itself are sympathetic to the messages the rest of us would like to see removed, or are free speech absolutist.
Senna1 on
+23
Options
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I honestly think it's about time we stopped letting the idea that anything government as inherently bad and evil, mixed in with gross incompetence to be the default unchallenged idea. Yes, government regulation is frequently more heavy handed, usually has a lot of negatives and does a lot of damage to the idea of free enterprise. On the other hand, pretending that companies like Facebook/Youtube are somehow the "Little guy" in this sort of argument fighting for peoples freedom of speech is fucking laughable. They've done absolutely nothing to curb extremists gathering together, outside of when they got together with the government and actually did so to remove ISIS. We're at the point where I absolutely agree with Senna1 and others, where these platforms are no longer grand experiments in democracy but are now festering with recruitment for Neo-NAZI, far right and other ideals. We've built algorithms that create our next brand of terrorists, while seriously trying to argue that government regulation and stepping in would be bad.
No.
Youtube, Facebook et al., they had their god damned chance to do something about it without any government interference. They chose to do nothing and may reap the consequences of that, which will prove to be infinitely more damaging to their business than if they had done it themselves in the first place.
I agree with the theory that as long as social media companies care about engagement above all else, they will never be incentivized sufficiently to do something about the current problem.
That really is just another way of saying, though, that the problem is companies that make *money* off of social media, right? Like, Facebook, YouTube, etc, all make money off advertisements and selling user data, which is why they are incentivized to get as much interaction from as many people as possible.
Does it work to somehow prevent monetization of social media? Like pass laws saying you can't have advertisement on social media platforms at all? You aren't restricting free speech (to avoid conflict with the free speech thread here lol) but if social media was paid for by other means, like subscription plans, then the company suddenly cares more about how many people they have on the platform than engagement, and as such they have an incentive not to have users driven away by hate speech? (I'm leaving out the purely ideal scenario of a totally free social media platform because realistically it would have to be paid for *some*how...)
I mean, even PA is technically not "free" free. It's paid for indirectly by the PA fans spending money on merchandise, PAX, etc, right? So in a perverse alternate reality where we didn't have the awesome mods we have today, PA would still have an incentive to keep the forums safe, because the alternative drives people away from the community, which drives them away also from spending money that funnels back through PA, right?
ETA: Bringing this more back to games, because you'd think the fact that you have to pay for a game would thus create the same sort of incentive to keep the gaming space for said game safe...so why doesn't it? Is it because the games in question are already aimed more towards young white males so they are in effect doing exactly that: keeping the paid space of the game "safe" for their target audience, it just happens that that target audience is alt-right-leaning white males? And that still doesn't explain Valve's lackluster response on Steam.... so apparently my theory/proposal isn't a good one, although I'm at a loss to explain why...
People aren't generally driven off YouTube or Facebook by Nazis, though. Either they curate their experience as best they can, or they get radicalized and stick around for that.
Also, as was pointed out earlier in the thread, forcing a subscription model fucks the poor.
Bringing this back up in light of recent events, the games subreddit closed for April Fools to try to make a point about misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of hate speech. There’s an album of examples attached to their thread; it’s pretty much what you’d expect.
Ars Technica already has a story on it. Judging by the first few comments, it was immediately hit by trolls who were then cleaned up by the Ars mods.
Shadowhope on
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
100% agree that government needs to step in and regulate social media to some extent - Facebook/Twitter/YouTube/Reddit/etc. They need to be responsible for moderation of their platform and not allowing hate groups of any kind. It's a tricky subject though because it's so morality-driven and that changes per administration. I don't expect the GOP to do a single thing about it, but I don't want the Dems to be too heavy handed either. We'll see if the next administration is motivated to fix this to prevent another 2016.
Bringing this back up in light of recent events, the games subreddit closed for April Fools to try to make a point about misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of hate speech. There’s an album of examples attached to their thread; it’s pretty much what you’d expect.
Ars Technica already has a story on it. Judging by the first few comments, it was immediately hit by trolls who were then cleaned up by the Ars mods.
My favourite part here is the way they call out that it's not a matter of just moderating some troublemakers:
At r/Games, our community is becoming increasingly responsible for perpetuating a significant amount of these combative and derogatory schools of thought. We remove those comments, we ban the perpetrators, but the issue still persists at a fundamental level: the notion that it’s okay or acceptable to ridicule and demonize traditionally disenfranchised and marginalized members in the gaming community. This is not just an issue in r/Games or on Reddit alone; this is an issue deeply embedded in the ranging depths of the internet, frequently in communities that center around the discussion of games.
They point out it's a persistent cultural problem with this kind of community. Good on them. That's what needs to be hammered over and over again.
April Fools is an odd day to make that stand. "April fools, we don't actually care, subreddit is back!" Today is a bad day for any announcments on the interwebs.
April Fools is an odd day to make that stand. "April fools, we don't actually care, subreddit is back!" Today is a bad day for any announcments on the interwebs.
Actually, today has pretty insane traffic to that page due to it being the premiere spot to track April fools gags. Good move, page view wise
Bringing this back up in light of recent events, the games subreddit closed for April Fools to try to make a point about misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of hate speech. There’s an album of examples attached to their thread; it’s pretty much what you’d expect.
Ars Technica already has a story on it. Judging by the first few comments, it was immediately hit by trolls who were then cleaned up by the Ars mods.
My favourite part here is the way they call out that it's not a matter of just moderating some troublemakers:
At r/Games, our community is becoming increasingly responsible for perpetuating a significant amount of these combative and derogatory schools of thought. We remove those comments, we ban the perpetrators, but the issue still persists at a fundamental level: the notion that it’s okay or acceptable to ridicule and demonize traditionally disenfranchised and marginalized members in the gaming community. This is not just an issue in r/Games or on Reddit alone; this is an issue deeply embedded in the ranging depths of the internet, frequently in communities that center around the discussion of games.
They point out it's a persistent cultural problem with this kind of community. Good on them. That's what needs to be hammered over and over again.
A particular bit that calls my attention is how they call everybody else degenerates while being terrorist cheerleaders and pedophile "is anime so it doesn't count" apologists. But it comes from the same people that claim to be Christian paladins while being PUA jock sniffers.
April Fools is an odd day to make that stand. "April fools, we don't actually care, subreddit is back!" Today is a bad day for any announcments on the interwebs.
Actually, today has pretty insane traffic to that page due to it being the premiere spot to track April fools gags. Good move, page view wise
Plus it functionally deprives people of one day to celebrate inappropriate humor
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
I do appreciate that they are doing this. But of course the question is going to be tomorrow, and the day after. They just drew a big bullseye on /r/games and the mod staff specifically for daring to take away someone's rightful hangout (in their eyes). So we'll see if they can get the community closer to PA's standards.
Of course, /r/games is just one subreddit. And that's part of the problem - reddit, by design, is not consistent in their moderation policies.
I do appreciate that they are doing this. But of course the question is going to be tomorrow, and the day after. They just drew a big bullseye on /r/games and the mod staff specifically for daring to take away someone's rightful hangout (in their eyes). So we'll see if they can get the community closer to PA's standards.
Of course, /r/games is just one subreddit. And that's part of the problem - reddit, by design, is not consistent in their moderation policies.
Obviously there will be problems, nothing worth doing doesn't have its issues. But if this leads to a better community than it will be worth the problems.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I do appreciate that they are doing this. But of course the question is going to be tomorrow, and the day after. They just drew a big bullseye on /r/games and the mod staff specifically for daring to take away someone's rightful hangout (in their eyes). So we'll see if they can get the community closer to PA's standards.
Of course, /r/games is just one subreddit. And that's part of the problem - reddit, by design, is not consistent in their moderation policies.
Obviously there will be problems, nothing worth doing doesn't have its issues. But if this leads to a better community than it will be worth the problems.
I didn't mean it to read like I felt it wasn't worth doing. Holy cow, it's about time someone took up a stand. After seeing a week of news on the SWATting trials, I just.. I hate that my hobby is so associated with violence and hate.
I do appreciate that they are doing this. But of course the question is going to be tomorrow, and the day after. They just drew a big bullseye on /r/games and the mod staff specifically for daring to take away someone's rightful hangout (in their eyes). So we'll see if they can get the community closer to PA's standards.
Of course, /r/games is just one subreddit. And that's part of the problem - reddit, by design, is not consistent in their moderation policies.
Obviously there will be problems, nothing worth doing doesn't have its issues. But if this leads to a better community than it will be worth the problems.
I didn't mean it to read like I felt it wasn't worth doing. Holy cow, it's about time someone took up a stand. After seeing a week of news on the SWATting trials, I just.. I hate that my hobby is so associated with violence and hate.
It didn't don't worry, but at times what holds up progress is the futility in doing anything, so I was talking more in general.
I mean honestly if any of those redditors are upset about this notice maybe they should take a look around their community and wonder what they can do to improve it beyond just contributing to it.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
The tough thing about dealing with the alt-right in gaming scenarios (or online at all) is understanding whether the person you are engaging with is just an idiot or an actual "Nazi" (by which I mean roughly anyone who emits any form of authentic, violent enthonationalist ethos). Both of those cases call for different tactical responses. The latter is (somewhat obviously) deserving of head on confrontation, exclusion, censorship, and other forceful posturing. The former is trickier, because several of the more provocative cultural segments that flirt with this stuff use tactics that feel innocuous to impressionable idiots (or young people, period).
The statement "It's OK to be white," is a prime example. People familiar with the history of racial violence in the American South see that shit and know immediately what kind of dog whistle is being blown, and where that sort of rhetoric is often designed to lead. People without that context (i.e. young, ignorant people, which isn't exactly abnormal for gamers) see that statement and think "There's nothing wrong with me as a byproduct of my race. Seems legit." If you're dealing with someone in that predicament, if you react too forcefully then you risk exacerbating the climate that made that rhetoric effective on them in the first place. They start to think, "Wow, progressive people really DO hate me, and for no reason!" They're wrong, of course, but they don't understand that. Then they end up slowly boiling in an ever-warming pot of crazy because the youtube algorithm is so shitty about this.
My guess is the number of people in the "idiot" camp is higher than we think, and that will require proactive engagement to counteract.
Just because someone is open to influence does not mean they are open to all influence.
Alt-Right has a very specific message.
You are the hero.
You are in the right.
You do not need to change.
You are the one persecuted.
Alt-Right offers an enticing, and empowering message, that benefits from the listener not having to change anything about themselves.
Everyone is the hero of their story. If we aren’t selling something that allows them to be we’re dumb.
Ok, go on, frame me a story we can sell to people to compete with fascists.
The obvious one but a dangerous one:
The villains are out there. They want your friends dead and you in chains. Fight back.
Of course, maybe we don't want to inspire a generation of would-be BJ Blazkowicz that actually goes out and perpetuates the idea in its literal fashion because that gives the other side and the mainstream ammo like the Reichstag fire started by a German Socialist.
The reason why I am bringing it up is basically it's kind of just a mirrored version of what the alt-right uses and how hard it is to make a message that would recruit folks on their level without instilling damaging values. I do believe some folks honestly believe the above and do want to at least do defensive actions in the spirit of it.
Kadoken on
0
Options
ApogeeLancks In Every Game EverRegistered Userregular
The statement "It's OK to be white," is a prime example. People familiar with the history of racial violence in the American South see that shit and know immediately what kind of dog whistle is being blown, and where that sort of rhetoric is often designed to lead. People without that context (i.e. young, ignorant people, which isn't exactly abnormal for gamers) see that statement and think "There's nothing wrong with me as a byproduct of my race. Seems legit." If you're dealing with someone in that predicament, if you react too forcefully then you risk exacerbating the climate that made that rhetoric effective on them in the first place. They start to think, "Wow, progressive people really DO hate me, and for no reason!" They're wrong, of course, but they don't understand that. Then they end up slowly boiling in an ever-warming pot of crazy because the youtube algorithm is so shitty about this.
This is exactly where it starts. I've seen so many people fall into this hole - I'd include myself, if briefly while I was younger and stupider. It's a train of thought that is very difficult to get out, since absent any context those kind of statements are, technically, OK. But context is everything, and bringing that context people is impossible en mass. You simply can't deliver the same message to everyone and expect to get through.
For example, the whole 'men can be better' ads that Gillette ran fell flat with people who are in both the 'idiot' and 'sexist' camp, and mainly just pissed them off judging by the social media backlash. Anyone who feels they are being targeted as 'the bad guy' will inevitably respond poorly to the message, regardless what the issue is (sexism, racism, environmentalism, LGTB, whatever). No one likes to be the bad guy, and they really hate it if they perceive that they are being painted as one, rightly or wrongly.
My issue with the "no one wants to be the bad guy" is that it also lets people be pretty terrible because no one feels safe to call them out so the behavior festers.
Like the Gilette ad was pretty "don't be an asshole" as far as moral lessons and yet people got so upset about it that it felt like "no I won't change, you change!"
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
ApogeeLancks In Every Game EverRegistered Userregular
I just don't think that kind of intervention can happen on a mass scale. I'm not sure how it can be done better, though. Generally birds of feather flock together, so you're unlikely to get a lot of pushback if all of your friends are on the same bus to Crazytown.
Maybe the best option is to get non-stupid people to do the intervention (friends and family), but then that creates an us-vs-them mindset... argh. It's a hell of a problem to fix.
It also feels like having good, positive role models or power-figures in gaming helps a lot. I was just at PAX, for instance, and a ton of what was going on there reflected really well on the gaming community. That happens because there was a vertical effort to evolve that convention to be that way. Same with, frankly, these forums. Then you also have certain personalities (i.e. Day9) that push people out of toxicity.
KalnaurI See Rain . . .Centralia, WARegistered Userregular
The worst part of it exists when a well-meaning idiot stumbles into a bad/evil ideology that they feel represents them and yeah, they are the bad guy, because what we've generally taught everyone, and especially men, is that you can't back down and you can't ever be wrong, so unless the person in question is open to reevaluate their belief in that ideology, you're not really going to make headway.
Also, on a mass scale you're up against "but that's the way it's always been!" mentality that allows for the tribalistic/mob mentality thing to thrive. Tradition is difficult to break when it's decades or centuries old, and it almost always pushes the traditionalists into a dangerous frenzy when there's so much as a bump to the social applecart because at this point it's part of their accepted identity. So when society breaks from tradition, you're going to lose some people, and a fraction of those folks are going to find validation in the most toxic pits of backwards thought available.
And the internet allows that to happen in real time with virtually anyone in the world.
So trying to break from tradition is, I think, harder now considering you can go on the internet right now and find several hundred if not several thousand people who all will tell you that those horrible "traditional" misogynist or sexist or racist or whatever views you hold are valid. Instant echo chamber, and now you don't have to budge, hell, these folks might even bring up some new ideas you might not have heard of, and they "seem alright".
That's really the biggest danger, I think, is that there's so many pits for anyone who "doesn't want to hear it" to dive deeper into the muck. And bringing anything like this up at all is basically assured to kick off someone being initially defensive, if not instantly recoiling from even their closest friends and family as if they'd all been taken over by pod people and the intransigent person is really "the only sane one".
I make art things! deviantART:Kalnaur ::: Origin: Kalnaur ::: UPlay: Kalnaur
Posts
It isn't. The alt-right are a small minority. They are just dangerous and violent.
Liberalism right now is more about identifying and solving social issues than it is anything else. Or at least that’s the public facing face of it. It’s neccsary work but not exactly inspirational stuff. That and the right stole our thunder on being cool and edgy.
Libertarianism is a far easier sell to people who don't want limits placed on their behavior.
The Alt-right isn't burdened by trying to sell a coherent plan for governance that will actually benefit the working class in the long run. They're not playing the same game.
Yeah, it's not like Nazis have great approval numbers. That they have outsized influence on the internet is part of the frustration; that a handful of companies could cut their legs off with a TOS update is the other part.
If that’s your thought process you’ve already lost. That’s the worst marketing pitch in the history of marketing. Liberalism is about much more than just the boring stuff. Wrap your message in something juicy! Stop trying to give everyone the hard sell!
Your ideology has plenty in it that you can sell. And if it doesn’t, well, at least you know why you’re losing hearts and minds.
Eh, the left is doing alright overall. Left vs Right is not the chief concern here.
I don't care if little Johnny Galt fancies himself an ubermench. I care that there's a pocket of extremists infesting his internet that want to convince him he needs to shoot up a mosque/synagogue/church/school/IHOP to finally take ownership of his brow-sweat.
Liberalism is the cultural default now. It is impossible for it to be edgy. It was edgy to say "the peasants deserve a voice" to the European Monarchs, but Liberalism got everything it wanted, to the point that now authoritarianism is edgy. All that is left is making sure some marginalized groups' rights are protected, and keeping the government and economy running as well as it can be.
The edgy Left consists of the tankies and the revolutionary anarchists. The ones that want to violently overthrow the government instead of reforming it. You don't want that kind of edge from the Democrats.
Edit: This is what the non-revolutionary left sounds like when they're trying to be edgy:
Its just quaint these days.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Nah, there are still plenty of things that liberals want like free healthcare, free higher education, climate change policy, higher taxes on the wealthy, less funding for military and more for science, an end to the war on drugs, more relaxed immigration policy, tighter regulations on the financial industry, just to name a few. I don't know why we're concerned with a nebulous concept like "edgy" but some of that stuff should be easy to pitch! Like, somewhere on another forum the alt-right is having this exact same discussion but about how to sway young people away from cool, edgy "socialists" like Bernie and AOC.
Its about as exciting as "its cool to stay in school." Its dry stuff that makes sense to do.
Its not exciting like, expel the invading hordes, or overthrow capitalism.
Also, when you use revolutionary theming like Obama did, while only delivering milquetoast economic policy, it calls into question the legitimacy of politics. Obama campaigned on Hope and Change, Trump campaigned on Make America Great Again, neither delivered or are going to deliver. The revolution through legitimate politics fails and that leaves the illegitimate politics.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
I feel like people are forgetting David Hogg, Greta Thunberg, and all the groups of young people protesting for gun regulation and global warming. It seems like "surviving our school years and having an earth to live in" are pretty motivational topics after all.
At the risk of making some made. I'd argue libertarianism primary issue is that it's an ideology of the immature because it's grounded in this this idea that their shouldn't be a set of rules that one has to follow. It is ill equipped for the concept of society and community, where there is a need for common rules. This is also why it's a gateway because a fair number of young men, mostly cis white one, take offense at the idea that they shouldn't treat women or those they deem beneath them, like people that have the same rights.
It's hard to fight the altright bullshit because the game is very much "memememememememememememememme fuckoff mememememememememmemememememe." Sadly some people are really hardwired into being selfish asshats, while many others are still kind of tilted towards being the selfish asshole.
Liberalism right now has to deal with the fact society has really reinforced selfishness and shunning the idea of putting thought into fixing problems, while insisting that all problems are easy to solve. Problem is society needs people to be team players in order to work. Also that many problems are not easy to solve, they are easy to spot, but by no means easy to address. A good example of this is traffic problems, it's easy to spot where those exist, but good luck on getting half the fixes in because there is always various groups that will oppose every solution purely on purely self serving grounds, while also often getting a fair number of people that oppose every solution on grounds that are purely self serving. For every 5 NIMBY asshats, you get one person where they can point out that moving isn't exactly a reasonable solution for them.
So to get this back to shitty alt righters. For many of them, it's far easier to be a smart ass making shitty memes making fun of problems and those that are trying to solve them. Then to you know try be proactive, understanding and not an asshole.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
But that's completely off topic from the issues at hand. I do think legislation is required, which I realize doesn't sit well with Frankie because they are obviously very distrustful of government. But I also think there's no other way to hold the companies of social media to account; there's no reason to listen to customers if they don't care who they attract, social media especially cares more about engagement than it does bodies and eyeballs, and there's basically no downside for almost all of these folks to operate as they have been. That doesn't mean we hand entire control over to our corporate or governmental "overlords", that'd be silly. And we can, as consumers of games, use our buying power to limited effect on gaming companies.
I'm mainly trying to think of there's some way to legally encourage companies to deplatform Nazis et al. I feel like that may be a part of a solution. I think it's going to have to be moderation, legislation, and public pressure that shifts things, but I hardly feel like we're united to do the last. If there's one talent the alt-right seems to have, it's a unified tactical plan, even if that plan is "memememe fuckoff memememe", and meanwhile we can't even agree on if legislation would theoretically be feasible, or how to encourage companies to, y'know, not harbor fascist ideology on their platforms.
I mean, hell, look at all the evidence against PewDiePie. The man admitted he paid the sign guys to hold up a racist sign, and there's so much more evidence of who he hangs out with, clips of him being racist, but YouTube stands behind him 100% because he puts views on videos and draws traffic to the site- i.e., he puts butts in seats, to use an old phrase, and they might be afraid of what might happen to them economically and how it might affect their stock price if they kicked him to the curb. I mean, there are either people or bots going around pushing the whole "subscribe to PDP" bullshit trying to frame it as "one man versus a corporation that doesn't represent small YouTubers, so subscribe to PDP because herpaderp".
He doesn't need YouTube; YouTube needs him because they don't want to lose all that glorious advertising $$$ his followers generate, and they'll follow him wherever he might go if they kill his channel, taking all those views and money with them.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
That really is just another way of saying, though, that the problem is companies that make *money* off of social media, right? Like, Facebook, YouTube, etc, all make money off advertisements and selling user data, which is why they are incentivized to get as much interaction from as many people as possible.
Does it work to somehow prevent monetization of social media? Like pass laws saying you can't have advertisement on social media platforms at all? You aren't restricting free speech (to avoid conflict with the free speech thread here lol) but if social media was paid for by other means, like subscription plans, then the company suddenly cares more about how many people they have on the platform than engagement, and as such they have an incentive not to have users driven away by hate speech? (I'm leaving out the purely ideal scenario of a totally free social media platform because realistically it would have to be paid for *some*how...)
I mean, even PA is technically not "free" free. It's paid for indirectly by the PA fans spending money on merchandise, PAX, etc, right? So in a perverse alternate reality where we didn't have the awesome mods we have today, PA would still have an incentive to keep the forums safe, because the alternative drives people away from the community, which drives them away also from spending money that funnels back through PA, right?
ETA: Bringing this more back to games, because you'd think the fact that you have to pay for a game would thus create the same sort of incentive to keep the gaming space for said game safe...so why doesn't it? Is it because the games in question are already aimed more towards young white males so they are in effect doing exactly that: keeping the paid space of the game "safe" for their target audience, it just happens that that target audience is alt-right-leaning white males? And that still doesn't explain Valve's lackluster response on Steam.... so apparently my theory/proposal isn't a good one, although I'm at a loss to explain why...
YouTube is no longer a social experiment running out of someone's garage; if it ever was. If proactive human pre-approval isn't feasible, then you'd better have a damn good "flag & review/remove" moderation system. But NO moderation system is going to work if the principles of the company itself are sympathetic to the messages the rest of us would like to see removed, or are free speech absolutist.
No.
Youtube, Facebook et al., they had their god damned chance to do something about it without any government interference. They chose to do nothing and may reap the consequences of that, which will prove to be infinitely more damaging to their business than if they had done it themselves in the first place.
People aren't generally driven off YouTube or Facebook by Nazis, though. Either they curate their experience as best they can, or they get radicalized and stick around for that.
Also, as was pointed out earlier in the thread, forcing a subscription model fucks the poor.
Ars Technica already has a story on it. Judging by the first few comments, it was immediately hit by trolls who were then cleaned up by the Ars mods.
My favourite part here is the way they call out that it's not a matter of just moderating some troublemakers:
They point out it's a persistent cultural problem with this kind of community. Good on them. That's what needs to be hammered over and over again.
Actually, today has pretty insane traffic to that page due to it being the premiere spot to track April fools gags. Good move, page view wise
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
A particular bit that calls my attention is how they call everybody else degenerates while being terrorist cheerleaders and pedophile "is anime so it doesn't count" apologists. But it comes from the same people that claim to be Christian paladins while being PUA jock sniffers.
Plus it functionally deprives people of one day to celebrate inappropriate humor
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Of course, /r/games is just one subreddit. And that's part of the problem - reddit, by design, is not consistent in their moderation policies.
Obviously there will be problems, nothing worth doing doesn't have its issues. But if this leads to a better community than it will be worth the problems.
pleasepaypreacher.net
I didn't mean it to read like I felt it wasn't worth doing. Holy cow, it's about time someone took up a stand. After seeing a week of news on the SWATting trials, I just.. I hate that my hobby is so associated with violence and hate.
It didn't don't worry, but at times what holds up progress is the futility in doing anything, so I was talking more in general.
I mean honestly if any of those redditors are upset about this notice maybe they should take a look around their community and wonder what they can do to improve it beyond just contributing to it.
pleasepaypreacher.net
The statement "It's OK to be white," is a prime example. People familiar with the history of racial violence in the American South see that shit and know immediately what kind of dog whistle is being blown, and where that sort of rhetoric is often designed to lead. People without that context (i.e. young, ignorant people, which isn't exactly abnormal for gamers) see that statement and think "There's nothing wrong with me as a byproduct of my race. Seems legit." If you're dealing with someone in that predicament, if you react too forcefully then you risk exacerbating the climate that made that rhetoric effective on them in the first place. They start to think, "Wow, progressive people really DO hate me, and for no reason!" They're wrong, of course, but they don't understand that. Then they end up slowly boiling in an ever-warming pot of crazy because the youtube algorithm is so shitty about this.
My guess is the number of people in the "idiot" camp is higher than we think, and that will require proactive engagement to counteract.
Our first game is now available for free on Google Play: Frontier: Isle of the Seven Gods
The obvious one but a dangerous one:
The villains are out there. They want your friends dead and you in chains. Fight back.
Of course, maybe we don't want to inspire a generation of would-be BJ Blazkowicz that actually goes out and perpetuates the idea in its literal fashion because that gives the other side and the mainstream ammo like the Reichstag fire started by a German Socialist.
The reason why I am bringing it up is basically it's kind of just a mirrored version of what the alt-right uses and how hard it is to make a message that would recruit folks on their level without instilling damaging values. I do believe some folks honestly believe the above and do want to at least do defensive actions in the spirit of it.
This is exactly where it starts. I've seen so many people fall into this hole - I'd include myself, if briefly while I was younger and stupider. It's a train of thought that is very difficult to get out, since absent any context those kind of statements are, technically, OK. But context is everything, and bringing that context people is impossible en mass. You simply can't deliver the same message to everyone and expect to get through.
For example, the whole 'men can be better' ads that Gillette ran fell flat with people who are in both the 'idiot' and 'sexist' camp, and mainly just pissed them off judging by the social media backlash. Anyone who feels they are being targeted as 'the bad guy' will inevitably respond poorly to the message, regardless what the issue is (sexism, racism, environmentalism, LGTB, whatever). No one likes to be the bad guy, and they really hate it if they perceive that they are being painted as one, rightly or wrongly.
Like the Gilette ad was pretty "don't be an asshole" as far as moral lessons and yet people got so upset about it that it felt like "no I won't change, you change!"
pleasepaypreacher.net
Maybe the best option is to get non-stupid people to do the intervention (friends and family), but then that creates an us-vs-them mindset... argh. It's a hell of a problem to fix.
Our first game is now available for free on Google Play: Frontier: Isle of the Seven Gods
Also, on a mass scale you're up against "but that's the way it's always been!" mentality that allows for the tribalistic/mob mentality thing to thrive. Tradition is difficult to break when it's decades or centuries old, and it almost always pushes the traditionalists into a dangerous frenzy when there's so much as a bump to the social applecart because at this point it's part of their accepted identity. So when society breaks from tradition, you're going to lose some people, and a fraction of those folks are going to find validation in the most toxic pits of backwards thought available.
And the internet allows that to happen in real time with virtually anyone in the world.
So trying to break from tradition is, I think, harder now considering you can go on the internet right now and find several hundred if not several thousand people who all will tell you that those horrible "traditional" misogynist or sexist or racist or whatever views you hold are valid. Instant echo chamber, and now you don't have to budge, hell, these folks might even bring up some new ideas you might not have heard of, and they "seem alright".
That's really the biggest danger, I think, is that there's so many pits for anyone who "doesn't want to hear it" to dive deeper into the muck. And bringing anything like this up at all is basically assured to kick off someone being initially defensive, if not instantly recoiling from even their closest friends and family as if they'd all been taken over by pod people and the intransigent person is really "the only sane one".
Particulary biting is how they don't want to know anything and lash against people that say that yes, being a lazy asshole is a priviledge: