The sad part is that what you're saying is pretty much true of anything.
If someone wants to do a thing given a set of conditions, they generally find a way to accomplish that thing within the set of conditions given.
The correct response isn't to create more rules or limitations, seeing as how it's proven that if given the ingenuity of people who either want something enough, or want to piss off someone enough, people can accomplish almost anything, but to embrace the ingenuity as it arises and find out how to channel it so it stops being a distraction.
Depends on how valuable you are, and, if you're a high-level muckety-muck that feels inconvenienced by security regulations, well, you might just forego going secure because it's too much trouble (you think Hillary Clinton is the only high-level muckety-muck that's skirted security regulations for reasons that suited them?).
One could make a case for Roosh V being a misogynist (and this coming from someone who takes him at his word that the piece he wrote about legalizing rape was supposed to be satire. It's wasn't good satire, but unless there are women coming forward to accuse him of rape, I see no reason to say he's guilty of anything but exercising his right to free speech, and I'm compelled to defend especially the ugliest of free speech on principle), but I'd like solid evidence of Thunderf00t being a misogynist and/or "hate-filled" because he happens to not agree with Anita Sarkeesian and Atheism+.
If being critical is your sole criteria for that, then every single person on this board is guilty of hate-speech.
Perhaps not straight-forward questions in a vacuum the way tests do, but the things that you learn DO get used (or else what's the point of that fancy-schmantzy piece of paper?), and you need to be able to apply them.
And that's what the reason behind a test is: demonstrating the ability to absorb an idea and clearly repeat it back as if you LEARNED it.
This shit has actually been going on for 20 years, and I look at this as the logical path that this sort of sensitivity has followed.
Come on back to 1996 with me, when I started college. At my orientation, the provost got up in front of the crowd and made a speech about initiatives to combat "Test Anxiety Syndrome".
Ahem.
"Test Anxiety Syndrome."
I repeated myself to highlight exactly what you, dear reader finds obviously disturbing about this statement.
My father, who attended with me, gave me a big speech after about how much a crock of bullshit that was.
Because life is generally a long series of tests. You come to college to learn what you're going to have to know on demand for what is supposed to be your entire life. If you can't get it into your head that you need to be able to recall things on demand every day, and college testing is just the classroom application of that, you're the kind of person who needs pictures of burgers on the cash register at your job because words are too hard for you.
Honestly, I try not to be an asshole, but when you try to placate college students that can't cope with, y'know, college, it's hard for me to hold back.
Yeah, the problem with freedom is that the price of it is allowing bad things to potentially happen.
I look at the push for Codes of Conduct everywhere as a vain and childish attempt to ameliorate that.
Problem is, the more rules you make, the less freedom you have, because EVERYONE is walking on eggshells hoping they don't get handed a card about how much of a creeper they are (not because they give much of a fuck, mind you, but because they don't want the hassle of dealing with a self-righteous behavior policing asshole).
So...you either have to get some perspective and suck up the minor inconveniences, or you make enough rules to piss off the majority of the consumer base in the hopes that you placate a sensitive minority.
So often I lament about the lack of true roundness of education that given there's a whole world out there beyond our interests, "relevant" should not only mean "stuff we like to read and talk about", but also things that are necessary to talk about. Or, if you like, things that will affect us whether they're considered "nerdy" or not.
Or those stupid "what does this internet quiz say about you" things that people share because they want you to be as fascinated with themselves as they are.
My theory on this is that once Star Wars blew up with the Expanded Universe, when the stories were given more room to breathe, Star Wars as a universe became more complicated and interesting and the movies since Episode I have had the worst time trying to keep up. (Whereas Star Trek was complicated and interesting to start with. I enjoyed the original trilogy as much as anyone, but complicated was something they were not.)
That's why a lot of excuses made for Episode VII have been of the "you'll have to wait for the next one" stripe or the "fan-wank" stripe.
I think a lot of people, expecting gaps in the story to be told elsewhere, just kind of expect that it will be. And you kind of have to expect that in the time of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where people will tell you that you have to watch ALL of the Marvel properties for "full appreciation" of any one property (which, in all fairness, kind of started with Star Wars, but I never felt the movies were in any way supplemented by the books or whatever).
Bah. It's just that women-on-women harassment isn't an interesting story that fits the narrative.
I can tell you, though, the harassment I've gotten from women (and yes, when four of my co-workers come to me and tell me that one woman has been talking about me to them behind my back) has been, I think, probably more insidious than anything I've gotten out of men.
Men have approached me for sex (I think they thought more that I had low self-esteem as opposed to "stupid girls can't engineer", which is why I don't call it a "sexism" problem as much as a "well, what do you want, there are assholes in every environment" problem). When I've been told about the women in my vicinity sneering at me, it was in that "you clearly don't know how many people she told that to before it got to you" way.
So, I see your male-dominated professions and raise you asshole women wherever asshole women may be found.
Perhaps you are not clear about what harassment is?
If you take a little bit of Google for a moment, you learn that harassment is "aggressive pressure or intimidation".
Your definition is too broad. Perhaps some people like it that way, but not me. I like words to mean specific and precise things so that when I bring my case to the law, they know exactly how actionable it is, and so that justice is appropriately served, and so that nobody can misuse the law against me with too broad a definition.
I might "disregard" your feelings and call you an ignorant jerk. But that isn't harassment. At least I hope so. I don't know anymore.
Well, you see, son, there's this group that raised a bunch of strawmen, and a group that didn't like being picked on by that one group created strawmen of their own, and every so often one side puts their strawman up in a field and demands highway travelers just passing through to help burn down their strawman, to show those guys over there how awful they are, and they should repent.
And then the other side sees this, flags down the traveler, and says "yeah, their strawman sucks, but here, burn down ours; it'll make you feel better about that strawman since that other strawman there was a commentary about YOU, friendly and possibly disenfranchised traveler."
Said traveler raises brows, alarmed, mutters, "Not my circus, not my monkeys" and promptly floors the pedal.
Both sides are filled with first-world-problem-ridden douchebags that want to act like ignorant assholes without being called on it. Both sides think they're doing the right thing.
Everyone else ain't got time for this shit, until it invades their space.
Oh, look, it's time to gather straw. Anyone got a few extra flannel shirts lying around?
Slashdot Mirror
The sad part is that what you're saying is pretty much true of anything.
If someone wants to do a thing given a set of conditions, they generally find a way to accomplish that thing within the set of conditions given.
The correct response isn't to create more rules or limitations, seeing as how it's proven that if given the ingenuity of people who either want something enough, or want to piss off someone enough, people can accomplish almost anything, but to embrace the ingenuity as it arises and find out how to channel it so it stops being a distraction.
Depends on how valuable you are, and, if you're a high-level muckety-muck that feels inconvenienced by security regulations, well, you might just forego going secure because it's too much trouble (you think Hillary Clinton is the only high-level muckety-muck that's skirted security regulations for reasons that suited them?).
One could make a case for Roosh V being a misogynist (and this coming from someone who takes him at his word that the piece he wrote about legalizing rape was supposed to be satire. It's wasn't good satire, but unless there are women coming forward to accuse him of rape, I see no reason to say he's guilty of anything but exercising his right to free speech, and I'm compelled to defend especially the ugliest of free speech on principle), but I'd like solid evidence of Thunderf00t being a misogynist and/or "hate-filled" because he happens to not agree with Anita Sarkeesian and Atheism+.
If being critical is your sole criteria for that, then every single person on this board is guilty of hate-speech.
Perhaps not straight-forward questions in a vacuum the way tests do, but the things that you learn DO get used (or else what's the point of that fancy-schmantzy piece of paper?), and you need to be able to apply them.
And that's what the reason behind a test is: demonstrating the ability to absorb an idea and clearly repeat it back as if you LEARNED it.
I don't normally engage in use of the term "SJW" as I hate labeling people, but I like your definition.
This shit has actually been going on for 20 years, and I look at this as the logical path that this sort of sensitivity has followed.
Come on back to 1996 with me, when I started college. At my orientation, the provost got up in front of the crowd and made a speech about initiatives to combat "Test Anxiety Syndrome".
Ahem.
"Test Anxiety Syndrome."
I repeated myself to highlight exactly what you, dear reader finds obviously disturbing about this statement.
My father, who attended with me, gave me a big speech after about how much a crock of bullshit that was.
Because life is generally a long series of tests. You come to college to learn what you're going to have to know on demand for what is supposed to be your entire life. If you can't get it into your head that you need to be able to recall things on demand every day, and college testing is just the classroom application of that, you're the kind of person who needs pictures of burgers on the cash register at your job because words are too hard for you.
Honestly, I try not to be an asshole, but when you try to placate college students that can't cope with, y'know, college, it's hard for me to hold back.
Yeah, the problem with freedom is that the price of it is allowing bad things to potentially happen.
I look at the push for Codes of Conduct everywhere as a vain and childish attempt to ameliorate that.
Problem is, the more rules you make, the less freedom you have, because EVERYONE is walking on eggshells hoping they don't get handed a card about how much of a creeper they are (not because they give much of a fuck, mind you, but because they don't want the hassle of dealing with a self-righteous behavior policing asshole).
So...you either have to get some perspective and suck up the minor inconveniences, or you make enough rules to piss off the majority of the consumer base in the hopes that you placate a sensitive minority.
Indeed. I don't mind using the AC while moderating a thread so I can contribute even though I'm modding things.
Also, there are things that I'd like to say without having my name connected to them.
Aaaaaand, you lose The Game.
(So has everyone reading this, by the way.)
I regret nothing. NOTHING.
I'd have given them the benefit of the doubt if, in their original video, they weren't pushing the line of "we're going to change the world!"
That's some Prosperity Gospel line of bullshit thinking right there.
I, too, appreciate those stories.
So often I lament about the lack of true roundness of education that given there's a whole world out there beyond our interests, "relevant" should not only mean "stuff we like to read and talk about", but also things that are necessary to talk about. Or, if you like, things that will affect us whether they're considered "nerdy" or not.
Or those stupid "what does this internet quiz say about you" things that people share because they want you to be as fascinated with themselves as they are.
Someone makes something death-proof, they just go and make a bigger death.
Or something like that.
I am not all that interested in the history of D&D, but my husband is. I'll be sure to toss some of this information his way. Thanks!
...how does one get to be a game historian and get paid for it?
My theory on this is that once Star Wars blew up with the Expanded Universe, when the stories were given more room to breathe, Star Wars as a universe became more complicated and interesting and the movies since Episode I have had the worst time trying to keep up. (Whereas Star Trek was complicated and interesting to start with. I enjoyed the original trilogy as much as anyone, but complicated was something they were not.)
That's why a lot of excuses made for Episode VII have been of the "you'll have to wait for the next one" stripe or the "fan-wank" stripe.
I think a lot of people, expecting gaps in the story to be told elsewhere, just kind of expect that it will be. And you kind of have to expect that in the time of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where people will tell you that you have to watch ALL of the Marvel properties for "full appreciation" of any one property (which, in all fairness, kind of started with Star Wars, but I never felt the movies were in any way supplemented by the books or whatever).
What do you got against Homeland Security?
You're probably one of those commie bastards that is against Social Justice as well.
So, tell me about your friends, citizen.
Interesting take. Mine is that it's Doctor Who re-imagined through the Adult Swim Lens.
Bah. It's just that women-on-women harassment isn't an interesting story that fits the narrative.
I can tell you, though, the harassment I've gotten from women (and yes, when four of my co-workers come to me and tell me that one woman has been talking about me to them behind my back) has been, I think, probably more insidious than anything I've gotten out of men.
Men have approached me for sex (I think they thought more that I had low self-esteem as opposed to "stupid girls can't engineer", which is why I don't call it a "sexism" problem as much as a "well, what do you want, there are assholes in every environment" problem). When I've been told about the women in my vicinity sneering at me, it was in that "you clearly don't know how many people she told that to before it got to you" way.
So, I see your male-dominated professions and raise you asshole women wherever asshole women may be found.
Perhaps you are not clear about what harassment is?
If you take a little bit of Google for a moment, you learn that harassment is "aggressive pressure or intimidation".
Your definition is too broad. Perhaps some people like it that way, but not me. I like words to mean specific and precise things so that when I bring my case to the law, they know exactly how actionable it is, and so that justice is appropriately served, and so that nobody can misuse the law against me with too broad a definition.
I might "disregard" your feelings and call you an ignorant jerk. But that isn't harassment. At least I hope so. I don't know anymore.
Yeah, but how else would Slashdot get clicks for internet drama?
Well, we can make some fresh popcorn for you as soon as we start a fire.
Here, have a match, friendly traveler.
Well, you see, son, there's this group that raised a bunch of strawmen, and a group that didn't like being picked on by that one group created strawmen of their own, and every so often one side puts their strawman up in a field and demands highway travelers just passing through to help burn down their strawman, to show those guys over there how awful they are, and they should repent.
And then the other side sees this, flags down the traveler, and says "yeah, their strawman sucks, but here, burn down ours; it'll make you feel better about that strawman since that other strawman there was a commentary about YOU, friendly and possibly disenfranchised traveler."
Said traveler raises brows, alarmed, mutters, "Not my circus, not my monkeys" and promptly floors the pedal.
Both sides are filled with first-world-problem-ridden douchebags that want to act like ignorant assholes without being called on it. Both sides think they're doing the right thing.
Everyone else ain't got time for this shit, until it invades their space.
Oh, look, it's time to gather straw. Anyone got a few extra flannel shirts lying around?
Well, damn it. Now I'm going to have to come up with something more original.
The only thing that would make this better for me would be if I could get my corpse shot out of a cannon onto the mountain amid fireworks.