No, I actually listen to people I disagree with. I've listend to right-wing extremists, left-wing extremists, even to christian and islamic fundamentalists (though it's really difficult to do that for more than a few minutes).

I've listened to feminists. There are moderate ones and extreme ones. The more extreme ones are quite open in what they want, and it's not equality. They cover it thinly, but basically they say women were oppressed for centuries, now it's time to turn the tables. I have citations, but they're in my native language (german). Google "Alice Schwarzer", the by far most well-known german feminist (though according to her, it should probably be feministIn).

In which games? All the games I've played in recent years make all classes available to both genders.

Because that's the fucked-up stereotypes in our society. I don't like it, either. But claiming it's only unfair to women is even more fucked-up.

If you had tried to understand what I wrote, you'd have realized I am all for equal rights. I am not, by the way, for equal treatment - gender differences are real facts of the real world and require consideration. We need slightly different clothes, for example (where would you put your dick in a woman's panty?). Sports are segregated by gender for real biology reasons. There are psychological difference where science is not sure how much is education and how much is biology. The list goes on.

Frankly speaking, I don't care because it's not my problem. I want to relax, remember?

Yes, I can understand that as a father of a daughter (which the original story on this was about) I would be upset. And yes, I think it's stupid to include only male characters unless your story calls for it (Leisure Suit Larry games, for example). But again, it's not my problem. If you want to change it, I'll not stand in your way, but I see no reason to spend my time and energy supporting a cause that's not my problem.
You fail to see the difference between normal people with normal views and political activists who have an agenda behind everything they do. No, if one of my female friends brought that up, I'd relate to her and tell her to write the company an angry letter. Why should I tell her the bullshit nonsense that you bring up? But also, why should I campaign against problems that don't affect me?

Here's what really bothers me: It's a well known psychological fact that if you have people who are mostly on your side, but just not as engaged as you are, and you bother them too much, they will more likely oppose you then join your fight. Because nobody likes to be forced, not even into something they think is a good cause.
That is my problem with aggressive feminism and why I say keep your politics out of my entertainment. I'm all for equal rights, but I would like to punch feminazis in the face, except that I was taught not to hit women. Now I'm probably a chauvinistic swine because - omg - I don't treat men (which I would hit) and women (which I won't) not equal.

The "14yo brat" is free to call anyone he or she wishes a faggot, and you and anyone else is free not to listen.

Being called a faggot in an online game might affect your desire to continue playing online games. Thus, it affects interstate trade, and is clearly within the Federal Government's right to regulate. For that matter, since you listening or not listening to such insults will also affect your future gaming prospects, that too falls under the Federal Government's jurisdiction.

I may not agree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it.

Sorry, no can do. Dying definitely diminshes your future interstate trade prospects, except perhaps in the organ market.

For a $25 billion plus industry, the trade press is really terrible. Perhaps people who play games expect more that what the existing setup delivers.

"Trade press" is not meant for people who consume the product, but for people who make it. And they're too busy working 60-hour weeks to spare time for reading.

I find it to be mostly repackaged PR pieces and manufactured outrage at issue X of the day. Its time to grow up and be professional.

"Professional" means someone who works for money. So being at the beck and call of games industry is being professional.

There is a lot of ugly misogyny in games.

Yes there is. And in society as a whole. And it isn't just misogyny.

If you're a woman gamer, and you don't respond to certain male gamers they way they want you to, you will get death threats, rape threats and doxxing.

I wish that someone with better gaming skills than me would do a few tests. As such:

Create an account with a female name and avatar. Play some games. Record the reactions.

Create an account that appears to be African American. Play some games. Record the reactions.

Create an account that appears to be LGBT. Play some games. Record the reactions.

Create an account that appears to be Jewish. Play some games. Record the reactions.

Create an account that appears to be Muslim. Play some games. Record the reactions.

Create an account that appears to be a teenage male. Play some games. Record the reactions.

I'd say that you'd find an amazing amount of hatred for each of those categories. Not because there really is that degree of specific hatred. But because the people losing are trying to hurt the victor with whatever insults they think might work.

The fact that most games are written and told from an adolescent male point of view does not help. It creates a sort of greasy milieu where it's easy to believe that any behavior toward a woman is acceptable.

While I believe that that is a MAJOR factor I think it is also an unconscious strategy on the part of the less competent gamers.

If a woman beats you at that game and you call her a whore and she leaves and never comes back then that is one less player who is better than you.

In my experience, no one bothers with directed insults at someone who is a worse player or who agrees with your opinions.

So, IMO, there is no solution in the larger context. But there are ways to mitigate it in the specific category of playing games. And the easiest to implement would be to restrict messages until a player has sufficient investment in a system to behave themselves.

I also hope that, someday, someone will come up with a variation of the Bechdel test to demonstrate how women are depicted in games. If the woman can be replaced with a bowling ball then there is a problem with the writing.

My daughter was kidnapped and is going to be auctioned into sexual slavery! I must kill all the peoples.
vs.
My bowling ball was stolen and is going to be auctioned on eBay. I must kill all the peoples.

Such as portraying stealth as perfect invisibility? Yes, that's a straw man.

Learn what a straw man is.

The whole point of this is that there is no horizon to hide behind in space so stealth does not exist because there is no way to be undetectable.

You are claiming that the exhaust will cool to background radiation levels. That is, the temperature of the rest of the universe that has been cooling for billions and billions of years. You cannot explain how it will cool that fast.

So then you say that it doesn't have to be perfect, as long as everyone is blind. That's not stealth. That's blindness. You aren't invisible because a blind person cannot see you.

It's physics.

The Laws of Thermodynamics.

If kids could not be prosecuted, some poor, down on the luck, homeless kid will end up taking their own photograph and selling it.

And that would be horrible. Far better that said hypothetical kid remain impoverished and homeless, right? It's not as if anti-porn concern trolls are going to want to pass laws to make sure kids aren't impoverished and homeless. And it's not as if we could have kids under adult supervision by any means other than criminal prosecution, right?

Was that to me? Sorry, I have physics classes to teach and am insanely busy teaching them, and there is no point in posting a short answer to a difficult or subtle question. I had time to answer this morning and did so. Not that I expect my reply to make any difference in your beliefs. If you wish to accept the word of the climate "oracles" as god-descended truth instead of something that, well, could easily be doubted on multiple grounds I doubt that pointing those grounds out will change your beliefs. I'll merely point out that actual statisticians often make fun of climate scientists (see e.g. William Briggs' blog and his patient, detailed posts on the subject), and for pretty good reasons. Making reliable inferences from computational models in this class is something I've done a fair bit of work in, and it is very, very difficult. This isn't computing the trajectory of a baseball.

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I can relate, in parts. To the anti-feminists, that is.

I'm sick and tired of getting feminism shoved down my throat absolutely everywhere. There's new laws, most companies have policies, our language is being policed for misunderstood "gender-equality" and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I'm in full support of women fighting actual oppression. If you can't vote just because you're female, I'm with you on that. If you can't drive a car because you're a female, I'm with you on that. If your boss tells you that short skirt is the appropriate dresscode, while he insists on long trousers for your male colleagues, I'm with you on that.
But the feminazis who insist that absolutely everything has to be exactly 50/50 male/female, then for all I care you can fuck off and die.
Also, let's be honest, many of the most vocal feminists quite publicly state that their goal is not 50/50, but female dominance.

Women in video games is one of the "soft topics". Yeah, it's ridiculous what armor female characters wear sometimes. But you're blind, deaf and stupid if you think it's a gender thing. Look at the male characters - they are all Schwarzeneggers, too. According to my female friends, I'm quite handsome, but most video game characters beat me hands down in both beauty and body shape. It's the same as in movies and magazines - we get idealized, unnaturally enhanced versions of humans.

Could video games improve their representation of women? Sure, they could. But the subject is by far not as simple and clear-cut as voting rights or such.

And frankly speaking, I play video games to relax and shut down. You could keep your politics out of my entertainment and work on improvements in the real world. You know, the one that matters.

Which basically means that Microsoft is selling a car without mirrors, brakes and seatbelts, but you have plenty of options buying one from a 3rd party. Provided you remember to do it...

I don't know about U.S. v. Miller.

The point of the New Yorker article is that, contrary to Antique Geekmeister, there were many laws in the U.S. during the 19th century regulating the possession of handguns, up to and including allowing towns to ban their possession entirely within their borders.

And even the NRA supported the regulation of firearms, at least up to and beyond 1957.

Really, this was modded up and mine was modded down? Have you never actually read anything about the history of the eruption? Everyone who was with him at the time was fine, he was the only one who was having trouble, because of his lousy health. Pliny the Younger blamed it on his "weak innards".

Israel is our extra special hand puppet^W^Wfriend and we would never hack them because we own them and we don't need to hack them. They're doing precisely what we pay them for.

HAHAHAHA. There's no way that this went down without the blessing of the superiors. None. They knew what they were doing, and they did it on purpose.

Sure, but by "suspension" you mean dampers and maybe springs, and anti-roll bars are fairly inexpensive and trivial to upgrade. Bolting on the turbo is more work by far. And as stated before, you need a better tire and wheel package. So what, 1-3k depending on provenance? Before you get to the turbo, obviously. Since there's no cars to pull parts from, you do have to buy everything new, not actual Subarus where everything interchanges and they about snap together like Lego. I'd rather have an Impreza, anyway; I prefer my Subarus with AWD. I bought an A8 D2, which is kind of like the Impreza's classy uncle. I suspect that if you put the D2 next to a GC5 the similarities would leap out. Off to go do that in an image.

Pliny is more bitter than hopfather, it says so right on their website, and it also says so in my mouth. And the younger is even moreso, and I can't figure out why anyone would give a shit about the elder any more because it has clearly. gone. down. hill. Last time I actually made it in for the younger (which I only do by accident, because life is too short to make plans around when a keg of beer is opened) it wasn't that good, either. It was missing something important from the hop character. Since they got mobbed, Russian River has lost the ability to give a fuck. They really need to expand, but make bullshit noises about keeping it small and not being able to do the same quality of beer if they grow. But they're not keeping the same quality of beer now, so what do they have to lose?

Is that what happened to your taste buds?