GamerGate, Orthodoxy vs. Conspiracy

One distinction GamerGaters have missed is the difference between a conspiracy and an orthodoxy.  The line isn't always clear and orthodoxies can have conspiratorial elements and some conspiracies can have minions controlled by the methods of orthodoxy.  Whatever.  Insert the usual caveats about continua and generalities here.

The GamerGaters are focusing too much on the conspiratorial elements of the gaming press instead of the orthodoxy.  I suppose this is where I should outline what I see as the differences between the two.  Orthodoxies are filled with true believers.  In their minds, minds they are on the side of angels.  Conspirators know that they are up to no good.  The problem for outsiders is determining which you are working against and since we can't get into each others heads we'll never have concrete proof.  We can only go with the weight of the evidence.

I am arguing that the evidence weighs in favor of orthodoxy, for one main reason.  They're clumsy.  Conspirators would have been more adroit in covering their tracks.  Were they competent they would have been a little security minded with their forum, they would have been spaced out their "Gamers are Dead" articles, they wouldn't have bragged about their ability to black list people or otherwise destroy careers and,  they would have been much more subtle in their attempts at quashing dissent.

 The orthodoxy is "Social Justice".  Of course the reason they have to enforce an orthodoxy is that it is an incoherent idea, like a religion.  The dominant sect of social justicism, at the moment, is feminism, with their demands of faith ("listen and believe"), ethereal threats (the Patriarchy, but to be fair they are never clear as to whether or not it is a malevolent cosmic force or a vast conspiracy), circular reasoning (The patriarchy causes the difference in earnings.  The difference in earnings proves the patriarchy), terms of derision for outsiders ("neckbeards", "misogyinists", "shitlords"), ascribing evil motives to dissenters (You just want to continue oppressing women), the attempts of silencing dissent (doxing, false DMCAs, closing threads in forums), and let's not forget the witch hunting.

This is the real issue of GamerGate and it's time to own it.  The problem is the mono-culture in the press.  The source of the corruption is the desire to control the narrative.  The echo chamber in the gaming press needs to be opened (that of the mainstream press as well).  No rewriting of ethical guidelines will do, as long as those in charge of enforcing them are in ideological lock step.   As long as the press is filled with comm. lit. and foo studies majors who were all spoon fed the same psuedo-marxist, Post Modern ideology these things will continue to happen,

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I've mentioned before that GamerGate needs a specific list of demands.  The Occupoo movement failed for the lack of one and it looks like GamerGate is heading down the same road.

I demured on specifics for the list, not being a gamer, and apparently,
 that made people lukewarm on the idea.  So here's my list.

• The press needs diversity in it's ranks.  A chorus of people of different colors doesn't count.  They need people with different views.
• No personal attacks.
• No misrepresenting people's positions.
• No deflecting from controversies with red herrings.
• No colluding on narratives.
• No financial or personal conflicts of interest, disclosure is not enough, recusal is mandatory.
• Tell the whole story, not just the parts that fit your world view or agenda.

There is my short list.  Perhaps someone active in GamerGate can add to or edit it and put it up as something others can point to.  I believe that this is necessary.  By having a specific list of reasonable demands, you are forcing the press to either admit corruption or get their shit in order.

Why Feminists Hate the Trans-gendered.

The most extreme feminists hate the trans-gendered.  I have no idea what their numbers are so I can't tell if they have a voice beyond their numbers.  However, they do have enough of a voice and aren't systematically excluded from feminist circles, so they need to be addressed.

The reasons for their hatred are easy to infer.  Trans-gendered people are rhetorically inconvenient.  They undermine three articles of faith among feminists.

First. Gender is a mere social construction.  Every person who was born with an X and Y chromosome and junk who felt like a girl all his life and every one who was born with two Xs and no junk (or interior junk, whatever) who felt like a boy all her life, in spite of all the social pressure to behave like their physical sex is undeniable evidence that there is a physical component to gender identity.

Second.  Life as a woman is an unbearable horror.  Every man who goes through scads of hours of therapy and spends thousands of dollars to become a woman shows that being an identifiable woman isn't as bad as being a woman stuck in a man's body who can live as a woman on his time off. 

Third. Cis women are the only victims. One good strategy for winning the oppression olympics  is to thin the competition as early in the game as possible.  By denying that there are real social problems for the trans-gendered or that the same exist they do so.   It's nothing more than a turf battle.

It's patently obvious that there are people that are born with a brain body mismatch.  Worse, it is probably an issue of gender identity falling on an inverted normal distribution (an abnormal distribution, wakka wakka), but we'll ignore that for now.  It's a birth defect that can be partially corrected through surgery like a cleft palette.  I'm sure that it is very difficult to determine who the legitimate candidates for reassignment are (Perhaps it should be called "gender corrective"?).  And, I have no idea how one should treat borderline cases.  Nevertheless, the phenomenon  is clearly real.

We also know that gender attraction isn't necessarily tied to gender identity.  A group so disproportionately laden with lesbians should understand this.  I believe that they secretly do but are throwing their rightful allies under the bus for their own agenda.

What Gamergate Needs to Do, But It's Probably Too Late

Shit, I accidentally deleted the first post of this and it was before the Wayback Machine had a chance to archive it.  So Here it is again from memory.

First off, a confession.  I'm not a gamer.  I have yet to master Openttd.  I have a Wii, but I only use to to watch Netflix.  But I think I have something to offer as an atheist/skeptic. We've survived an attempt at co-opting.  The SJWs have been relegated to a few small farm league cons and blogs of dwindling readership, but not without some cost.

Nevertheless, what I think you need to be doing now is simple.  You need a list of specific demands that people can point to and say "This is what you need to do to gain my trust and patronage.".  The biggest reason the Occupoo movement failed was a failure to do just that.

Not being a gamer I am only offering broad suggestions.

• A provision regarding personal conflicts of interest.
• A provision regarding financial conflicts of interest.
• A provision regarding collusion on stories.
• A provision regarding abusive behavior towards dissenters.
• A provision regarding openness of debate.
• A provision regarding any ideological agenda
• Standards of honesty.

These provisions need to be specified precisely.  You don't need another editor saying "Hey, we fixed it, our staff can no longer make Patreon contributions to the people they write about.  We're the good guys.".  This leaves Indiegogo and any number of other means for them to invest in a project that they later promote through their reviews.  Don't give them the wiggle room.

Don't demand heads, or not more than one or tow to serve as examples.

Be ready to forgive.  The only thing the post-Apartheid government of South Africa got right was the Truth and Reconciliation commissions.  It probably prevented a bloodbath.

Go to the grownups.  The editors of these sites are mostly trust fund babes.  The parent companies are more concerned with the bottom line.  They are more likely to listen to you.

As fascinating as I find the whole DIGRA entanglement in the affair, it is tangential.  The so-called journalists in this affair come from the comm. and foo studies departments in their universities.  These are pretend disciplines whose only purpose is to give an academic veneer to political activism.  There's probably a lit, major or two in the mix.  If DIGRA didn't exist, they'd have the same attitude.

It's probably too late but worth a try anyway.

Another Step in Jaclyn Glenns Victim Narrative

First she tried to antagonize the Muslims.  That didn't get the response needed to cast herself as a victim.  Now she is trying to follow in Rebecca Watson's footsteps. 

Way back when, Becky used her sexuality to get attention in the skeptosphere, making sexual jokes, posing for and selling nudie calendars and using the fact that more women would rather go to a tarot and crystal convention that learn some counterintuitive facts at a skeptical convention, to market herself as the female face of skepticism.  It wasn't long before it became obvious that she has nothing of substance to offer.

Upon not getting the clout she felt entitled to she pulled the woman card, complaining that there weren't enough women (her friends) on the panels to satisfy her while claiming that she didn't want quotas.  How you can claim that there isn't enough of something without having a quantity in mind is beyond me.  Upon not getting her demands met she escalated her rhetoric, telling everyone that would listen that women aren't safe at skeptical conventions.

Anyone with two neurons to rub together saw through this and started pushing back and she doubled down.  More importantly she learned from Anita Sarkeesian that there is money to be made in the professional victim racket.  That's all she talks about now, and she must be doing OK with it because she hasn't had to get a real job yet.

Jaclynn, has started the same way, this time with loads of makeup and low cut camisoles, but without much to say.  To be fair there isn't much left to be said about atheism.  It was all said by 1900.  But, every generation or so needs to hear and say it in it's own voice.  For those alive today that started around 2000 and it has all been said, again.  Even the Amazing Atheist has largely moved on to other matters.  This is why she doesn't have anything new to say.

But the fact remains that she has nothing new to say, and she isn't getting the traffic she wants.  So she is laying the groundwork to get into the professional victim racket.

She did the standard video with hand picked comments to show what a bunch of horrible people atheists men are.  She was clever enough to include one that wasn't offensive, but it is pretty much the same strategy.  I just hope it's played out.

This Is Why I Don't Give Money to Atheist Groups.

The Nashville Sunday Assembly has as their speaker, film fraudster Morgan Spurlock, of Supersize Me infamy.

So apparently, organized atheism is fine with lying as long as he recites the cant of corporations bad, government regulators good.  I guess next it will be Michael Moore.

The Next Stage in Putting on the Victim Suit.

Jaclyn Glenn's plan in getting in on the victim game is going apace.  Some British Muslim did a response to her.  It had a number of the usual apologists tricks, but overall,  it was nothing more than an unconvincing plea for the viewer to study Islam.  Whatever.

The rhetorical trickery is in her weak attempt to spin it into a threat.  At no point does the guy even hint at violence, yet she likens it to a girl sicing her older violent brother on someone who was 'mean' to her (Where have we seen this in real life?  Lemme see, feminists and mystery men in elevators comes to mind.). 

She claims that she is going to put up a video with death threats.  Let's see if there are any credible death threats (y'know where someone actually threatens to kill her.) or her trying to spin wishes for her death or someone pointing out the dangers of offending crazies as death threats.  I know where my money is.

An odd thought occurred to me as writing this.  If I ever get any traffic the predictive nature of these articles will be ruined because she will add spin to her videos to deny it and those who are predisposed to believer her will not look beyond that.

The Beginning of a Victim Narrative.

The most redundant atheist Youtuber is now trying to get into the victim game.

On 14-01-10 Jaclyn Glenn posted a video where she draws an insulting picture of Mohammed.  Gee, who hasn't done that before?  Now all she has to do is wait for the psuedo-death threats to come rolling to to spin the victim narrative for fun and profit.  If she's lucky she might even get a real threat.  I wonder how long it will be before she starts yammering about the The Patriarchy. Dun dun DUN.