The Tanoubliette: Pussy Hurt and Delusions or TTPHAD for short.

That's what I thought.



...Bitch.

Khalid: "See, this is what I'm talking about. You want us to repeat the same arguments that you have repeated for 2 fucking years now. You are like a crack addict with Anita. You keep needing your fix of defending her. I'm not going to feed into it bro. Take a step back, its not too late."

You don't get it, do you?

FACT: I have listened to EVERY supposed piece of "evidence" presented by Anti-Sarkeesies that she is a "liar, fraud, and con artist".
FACT: I have provided, on EVERY occasion, an alternative perspective, a counter-argument, or outright proof that this "evidence" is flawed, using nothing but LOGIC and REASON.
FACT: I can EASILY prove both of the above statements, since it all exists in plain text that anyone can see at any time.
FACT: My counter-arguments have been ignored. No effort has been made to explain the flaws they contain, if any.
FACT: I have been repeatedly dismissed with the laziest of arguments, including but not limited to: Appeal to majority, application of dismissive labels, ad hominem, references to irrelevant topics (moon landing, anyone?), and straw men.

Now, if you take issue with any of these facts, feel free to present a rebuttal. If you are unable (which appears to be the case), then you got nothing, bro.

It shouldn't be too hard. You claim I ignore your "facts". Pick one, any one. If you are right, and I have in fact ignored that fact, then you have made a valid point. Do you even understand how discourse works? If, on the other hand, the "fact" you have chosen doesn't stand up to scrutiny, then it loses its classification as "fact" and whatever conclusions were drawn from it are subject to dispute. What are you afraid of?

I am literally the only person willing to engage in good-faith discussion on this topic. Everyone else just wants to be reassured that their stance is right by like-minded people. Which is fine, by the way, that's human nature and all, but don't go talking to me like I'm the one being unreasonable here. I have treated your side of the argument with the respect it deserves by rationally explaining its flaws. If you can't do the same to me, then what right do you have to get all high and mighty talking to me like my arguments have no merit but never actually contradicting any of them? I feel like I'm on crazy pills here!

Sure, but could they back it up?

That's the part you keep ignoring.

Khalid: "You haven't engaged in good faith on this topic in 2 years. If so, you wouldn't be "the only one willing to engage in a conversation" on the topic."

Stop just making baseless statements. Back your shit up or shut the fuck up. It's not complicated. I've made my case and have proven it. If you can't do the same, you're pissing into the wind.

Khalid: "I'm not making baseless statements. You haven't been able to engage anyone on this topic without driving them away or them dismissing you for the last 2 years on this forum. This is a fact, as at least partly evidenced by you hiding in the shaw."

You bet your ass you're making baseless statements.

Have you considered that it's exactly BECAUSE no one wants to engage in good faith discussion about the topic that I'm "hiding in the shaw"? Have you not noticed that my entirely reasonable and logical posts are followed, not with insightful and thoughtful rebuttals, but with sarcasm and bile? I've certainly noticed. Here, let me give you an example: Soygen asks me if I agree with Sarkeesian's claim that she's an expert on the portrayal of women in video games. He doesn't want a response, he just thinks he's making a fun jab at her. I watch the whole video and see that her statement is not completely unfounded, that while it would be generous to call someone an "expert" after 3 years of research and study, that she could rightfully claim the title since she's likely put more thought and effort into learning about the subject than any other person on the planet. None of that is "absurd". None of that is even particularly contrary. It's a logical, reasonable way to look at the situation. What do I get in response?

Skanda: "I fucking hate you so much right now." (Directed at Soygen)
Gavinmad: "I feel like Soygen should be RRPed for inviting he who must not be named to post in this thread."
Bisi: "Infract yourself, Soygen."

This is knee-jerk smarm that addresses nothing and makes no point.

Now, to the credit of Caliane and Moontayle, they both actually did address the point at hand.
Caliane: "I fail to see how she meets any of those standards. She's failed all of them. She has shown little to no knowledge or insight. Poor research, doesn't make you an expert. Valued opinion. lolwhat? That is not a standard for anything. 3 years of research... well 3 years x 5hours a day x300 days/year. 4500 hours of the "10,000 hours" of mastery. Its also laughable you think shes actually doing research, and not self promoting.
She is an expert at THAT."
Moontayle: "Claiming you're an expert is just an ego feed. Actions speak louder than words, her actions indicate she's insecure and needy. If she really were an expert she wouldn't need to say so, other people would do it for her and she wouldn't ever have to utter those words. Instead, she actively seeks validation which in the minds of many dilute her message. "

So there are inklings of an actual discussion going on. There are points and counterpoints to be made. But I dared not respond to either of them in the GG thread because it had been made very clear I was not welcome to. At no point was the validity of my statement even a factor here. See what I'm saying? You look at sarcastic responses and see evidence that I am a bad poster. I look at the same posts and see evidence that they are simply not interested in discussing the topic, that they only want to shit on their villains in peace. Which, by the way, is fine. But at least let's call it what it is and not pretend that I'm crazy for contradicting ridiculous stances.

Will the circle be unbroken?

That was a good read, Soy, thank you. Adrian makes a few good points, but he still gets quite a few things wrong.

All right, you knew this was coming:

The good:
- He acknowledges that Thunderf00t is wrong about some of his bullshit.
- He agrees that many people "focus on minute details which are then blown out of proportion in an attempt to create a scandal". Bravo.
- He correctly points out Sarkeesian's tendency to use "sexism" as a catch-all for people treating her like shit.
- He's right that FF doesn't acknowledge or engage the legitimate criticism of their work.
- Number of times the words "liar", "fraud", or "con artist" appeared: Zero. It's almost like he doesn't have to resort to personal attacks to make his point.

The bad:
- He talks about "the Hitman segment", dismissing the fact that what she was describing applied to a number of games featuring the trope in question.
- He makes a bizarre leap of logic where he thinks Sarkeesian's work implies that games are filled exclusively with women to kill (I honestly can't imagine anyone, even someone not familiar with video games, getting that impression).
- He seems to think Sarkeesian's focus on women in games while ignoring men is unfair, despite the fact that her clearly stated goal is to discuss how women are portrayed in video games.
- He says Sarkeesian is pushing a "Hitman is a sexist game" argument, which is flat out false. She never calls Hitman (or any other game in that video) sexist.
- He incorrectly claims that Sarkeesian is condemning anyone who would criticize her, when she is clearly specifically talking about people who use bullshit arguments to try to discredit her.
- He puts WAY too much weight on score/reward/achievements. Yes, the game rewards you for not killing civilians. However, he ignores that you can play and re-play these scenarios indefinitely, so no matter how harshly you are punished for an action you can always just try again, rendering the punishments moot.
- "So which is it: does the game encourage the players to attack civilians or is it a sandbox designed to be played in many different ways?" Those aren't mutually exclusive. If you're encouraged to play multiple ways and one of those ways involves attacking NPCs, then you are encouraged to attack NPCs. It doesn't have to be "all the time" for that statement to be true.
- He brings up the "simulation" argument (strip clubs exist in real life), which would be good and fine if Sarkeesian had been talking exclusively about Hitman. However, she was talking about a trope featured in at least 25 games, all of which feature sexualized vulnerable females.
- He thinks the fact that developers can't predict player's thoughts and behavior means we can't say what players are "meant" to do, ignoring that not every player has to carry out an action in order for it to be considered an intended action. Lots of games have Easter Eggs and secrets that are certainly "meant" to be found, even if the vast majority of players will never find them. Otherwise, why even put them in?
- "I mean, what is the alternative here? That we never show strip clubs in a game about a seedy underworld?" No. But when we see at least 25 games all featuring sexualized, vulnerable females in some form, it's OK to examine and discuss the underlying reasons for that.
- He claims "Sarkeesian accuses their critics of 'no real attempt to engage with the substance of my analysis'", which is not true. She's accusing those who use bad-faith arguments (hardly a minority in this case) of that, but she's not hand-waving any and all criticism of her work. Heck, she explicitly encourages constructive criticism and specifies that that's not what she's talking about here.
- He repeatedly claims that Sarkeesian fails in her analysis of Hitman as a game when her goal was never to analyze Hitman as a game. It's not cherry-picking to say you're going to talk about tropes and then talk about tropes. He keeps thinking Sarkeesian is saying "Hitman is sexist" when what she is saying is "Hitman contains elements that, when present in a variety of popular games, contribute to an environment that can effect how people see and act towards women." To over-simplify her point into "Hitman is sexist" is, frankly, dishonest, and it's ironically exactly what he's accusing her of doing. He is "presenting a fragment of (her argument) without giving it context or top level view", which in his own words is misrepresentation.


And, because he was very generous with "cherry-picking" accusations, let's look at a few occurrences of him doing just that:

The cherry-picking:
- He acknowledges that Thunderf00t got some things wrong, but doesn't acknowledge the effect TF's video had on the discussion at large; that many, many people latched on to his every word and used it as the foundation of their argument that Sarkeesian is a liar.
- He ties in game achievements with active encouragement from the developers. So then, in Red Dead Redemption, the developers are actively encouraging you to kill a female NPC by putting her on railroad tracks, right?
- "I know it may come as a shock to many people, but in general quite a lot of entities and objects are put in a game to be 'acted upon', i.e. interact with them." Why would that come as a shock? Sarkeesian explains that very point in her video. That's exactly how we know what she's talking about when she uses terms like "implicitly invited" and "encouraged". Seems strange to not acknowledge that.
- Yes, strip clubs exist in reality. So do children, which as far as I know, don't exist in most (if not all) of the games listed in Sarkeesian's video. I'M NOT SAYING WE NEED TO TREAT WOMEN LIKE CHILDREN. I'm saying "because it exists in reality" is not a great argument when, by necessity, video game exclude a HUGE number of elements that exist in reality.
- He thinks he can speak for "the real problem everybody had", as though his relatively reasonable and well-written critique is somehow the norm. He acts as though bad-faith attack pieces against Sarkeesian don't exist, even though they tend to vastly outnumber legitimate criticism and that's pretty much exactly what she's talking about.

I know, I know... "Didn't read."