When you don't know the merits, using the proposer as a proxy is quite regularly successful.

they're pretty terrible at reporting celebrity gossip too - it's just celebrity gossip is so crap in the first place, you might not have noticed.

I wouldn't say that it is 'merely an extension', and consequentially I didn't. so you're first sentence is a bit pointless. They are similar in that they both involve genetically modifying populations. It might be like saying that space travel is like sea travel in that they both involve moving from one place to another.

so what you are saying is that aggressively breeding mutated organisms without knowing the nature of the mutations is good
but if we know what the mutation is ahead of time and deliberately introduce it, that's bad

because....an appeal to nature?

But the reason we selectively breed in the first place is that without doing this, these things do NOT occur in nature (or at least where they do, they don't generally naturally propagate). The evolutionary process is not interrupted by replacing random mutations with directed ones and if you want to argue it is then the same applies to selective breeding - this interrupts the evolutionary procedure by undermining sexual selection / mate choice. And who cares about preserving the evolutionary process in any event - it isn't some God that must be revered. Preserving the evolutionary process would mean allowing pests the time to evolve counter strategies and simply results in an evolutionary arms race with people that need to eat being the civillians in the cross-fire...basically like most of human history. That is to say: The evolutionary process is not our friend, it doesn't even have our number on its phone. However, vaccines seem to have done quite well, selective breeding has done us quite well.

If your family was getting less and less food every year - and the trend was looking fatal - would you choose to preserve the evolutionary process or would you use the tools at your disposal to grow food that won't be destroyed by whatever conditions are causing the famine to begin with?

Let me ask you another question. suppose there were two genetically identical corn plants. One plant had had bacterial DNA inserted into it by genetic scientists in order to provide insect resistance. Another had the same bacterial DNA inserted into it by a completely natural, evolutionary pure process of horizontal gene transfer without any purpose behind it whatsoever (Dawkins' blind genetic scientist you might say). HGT in eukaryotes is rarer than between bacteria, but there are some known examples such as with a Bean weevil, Purple witchweed, the pea aphid, as well as HhMAN1 in the Coffee borer beetle. Would you be arguing that both corn plants should not be used because they are dangerous, unpredictable or in some other way problematic? Would you argue that in fact because one happened 'naturally' that makes them both good. Or would inexplicably prefer the natural-HGT plant over the otherwise identical scientist-gene-transferred plant? Finally - how long do you think you'd have to wait around, breeding crops, until a bacterial HGT event occurred at a spot that conveyed this kind of advantage?

In what way am I confusing these things?

Artificial selection is primitive research that allows for improvement, you have to wait and get lucky. We've actually been doing it for quite a long time. This is not 'advanced', even though advances have been made - there are limitations to the process.

We've been tinkering with the genetic makeup of our crops for thousands of years, you called it selective breeding. It basically means growing lots of crops and waiting for the DNA to be mutated in ways that appear on the face of it to be really cool and aggressively breeding that strain. We don't know where the mutation happened, what pleitropic effects it might have, and whether it will cause us all to 'drop like honeybees'. Then we repeat the genetic crapshoot over and over again. The difference with GMO is that we're not doing it completely blind.

It's not Peach's hypothetical suffering compared with Mario's. It's that Peach is basically a prize that the belligerents are contesting that poses the challenge.

Consider if black men were often used to add a gritty edgy element to the game, and they were regularly scantily clad and subservient to the player's needs or were commodities that the enemy was trying to acquire from you. Or if Jews commonly turn up as financiers and usurers. Or gamers were portrayed as overweight antisocial misogynists.

That's kind of the issue here. We know that the way groups are portrayed and stereotyped in the media can influence people's views and perspectives and some media can reinforce stereotypes with a harmful effect that isn't always obvious to those that are entrenched in that culture.

Well, it's not all that big a deal as you are making it.
1. There are three ways to interact with the women, should you encounter them in play. 1) Kill them. 2) Render them unconscious 3) Voyeuristically watch and listen. so she was right in that they are there to be beaten/killed or distract you.
2. The points you lose by knocking them out you can get back by hiding them, I think you also sacrifice an end of level bonus in points. The points are meaningless metrics that most people only care about in a transient way - having a good time being more important.
3. They serve no narrative purpose, and are not involved in any solutions for the level and are trivial to avoid (so provide no additional challenge). Their reason for being there is to only to add a background texture and a semblance of 'life' to the club, and as such they are indeed there as Background Decoration, her general thesis.

The female characters in Hitman Absolution:
Diana: Mostly a disembodied female voice, strong intelligent woman.
Boo: A former erotic dancer now dead assassin / sexy nun cosplayer.
Lilly S. Dukes: A sexy country girl that can shoot
LaSandra: Former high achieving black female cop. Now wears a sexy nuns outfit and kills people.
Mrs. Cooper: A dominatrix
Paxton: Another sexy nun, with a gun
Moorhead: Another sexy nun, former cop
Dijana and Agnija sexy Balkan nuns
sister Mary: An actual nun

I've seen youtube comment sections. They are not generally locations of reasoned criticism and I fault nobody who chooses to disable them - and if I had a youtube channel and gained some degree of notoriety, I'd disable the damnable things too. I believe Pewdiepie did likewise recently.

Incidentally, where did you get her 'job' description from? Her Kickstarter says she'll play games and do some research and produce a series of videos to 'explore five common and recurring stereotypes of female characters in video games', when funding exceeded the initial ask the video series was expanded. She doesn't say she will perform academic standard research and present her findings. She used her previous series about women in mainstream media as an example of the kind of work she will be doing. So she's doing exactly what she was being funded to do.

I'm not denying evidence, I'm asking for it. Objectification is the viewing of an individual as if they were object, perhaps of some utility or value. In sexual objectification the utility is sexual. This can occur in narratives. In narratives within games, the player may experience an interactive experience in which sexual objectification exists. Whether the player objectifies something sexually themselves is their own affair. What has Sarkeesian's work got to do with the players particularly, her primary focus is on the games themselves. She may mention potential effects to players for being exposed to negative stereotypes, which is an ongoing research topic. The way people are portrayed/stereotyped by the media seems to have some kind of effect, this is why dictatorships have such hard working propagandists, after all.

No problem. I understand there are lots of criticisms of her out there - this article is primarily about some of the more extreme results of this negative opinion about her. I've seen some of the criticism, and the stuff that I investigated myself turned out to be misrepresentative lies on the part of the anti-feminists rather than anything Sarkeesian did particularly wrong. The DD:Neon argument you raised here is like 18 months old - the error you made here was that you hadn't seen the source material and this caused you to rely on assumptions you drew from the impression you got of her from some of her worst critics: a strategy doomed to failure.

I can tell you didn't see it because you said she called DD:Neon 'misogynistic', when she didn't. She called it regressive crap. She also said 'I'm not saying that all games that use the Damsel in Distress plot device are automatically sexist or have no value.'

I see no evidence that she is a 'scam artist', and I see every evidence of people that call her this don't have the first clue and are often misrepresenting her. Is this another attack against her character you'll not back up and simply wave at some vague vloggers as support?

It's not uncommon to find people who want to harm her reputation, but only by regurgitating talking points of youtubers etc., such as yourself in this thread, perhaps as a shield against being wrong. I mean really - she talked about Double Dragon for all 40 seconds. DD:Neon only gets about 12 seconds of attention. You can't bring yourself to give an opinion on what she said, but will happily take the time to repeat bad things other people have said about her? I don't mind potentially confusing what you said to whom (but thank you for the grace in apologizing, a rare sighting on the tubes, you should be commended for that) but you put a little bit of effort into being a bitch to me and about Sarkeesian but won't make the effort to passively observe something for a few seconds and defend your position regarding it? That latter is worse, because I fear it reflects terribly upon you. It reminds me of people outraged by books or films who protest the horrible content, but either can't name anything specific (as they haven't seen the offending media) or give misleading gibberish clearly regurgitated from their pastor/radio-host/tv pundit's soapbox. I'm pretty sure you think you are better than that.

Anyway, if you still don't want to defend your own opinions and would rather offshore that to some random person waving their arms around and being generally irritating, I get it. I'm not sure its a *waste* of time, as by risking your own arguments you might get to change your mind which is generally a fun experience, but it's definitely your time to consume as you will. Just make sure you have correctly identified who the gullible parties are! Is it the side that is highly confident that Sarkeesian called this 'one game' misogynist because they heard it from some chemist who thinks it is morally imperative to hack into systems to eavesdrop on what people are saying about him in private, or is it the side that encourages you to watch what she actually said and provide you with links and time stamps and stuff so you can see that the criticism is bogus? Catch you in another thread.

Referencing 'dudes' (why do you keep saying 'dudes'? I never said 'dudes'') doesn't explain to me you view of how Double Dragon: Neon's final few seconds counter the notion that the game Double Dragon is about Damsels in Distress?

You didn't do it #47782055 or #47785225 or #47793641 or #47795571 or #47801697, maybe you got me confused with another poster?

Anyway, I'm looking for this:

"In Damsels In Distress, part 1, (4:47) Sarkeesian states that the Double Dragon games feature women that never get involved in violence, but that ignores Linda/Rinda and Roxy, and in 'Neon' where Marian gets the last punch in with the boss"

Or

"In Damsels in Distress, par 1 (20:25) Sarkeesian states that the opening of the Double Dragon games is iconic, Marian gets punched in the stomach and kidnapped, in some versions showing her panties as she's carried away. It has been released to dozens of systems over the decades. That's all she says specifically about Double Dragon. This is not made untrue by the events of the game: Two brothers seek to rescue Marian by defeating the enemies. They defeat the boss who makes it clear he kidnapped her for mating rights, and realizing this is about mating rights, the brothers fight each other for who gets to fuck Marian. In one version of Double Dragon Marian punches the already utterly defeated enemy in the balls. This does not show Marian to be strong and capable, if anything the statement being made here is 'Oooh, you got punched in the balls by a woman dude, the ultimate humiliation in defeat!'"

You know, something with an actual argument that cites the piece being criticized. Youtube videos is not an argument, please try again. The only youtube video of relevance to this argument is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

I'm not sure why you used 'dudes' in quotes. In any event, finding random people that have opinions on the internet is not hard, I'm talking to you and asking about yours. Can you, while referencing Sarkeesian herself, explain why the Double Dragon example was an own goal?

Thanks, a youtube video from an immoral dunderhead that doesn't like Sarkeesian, what I always wanted. Shame it doesn't discuss Double Dragon: Neon. I think you meant to bore me with this https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

But that obviously misrepresents Sarkeesian who was just talking about the trope where the players have to rescue a damsel in distress by spinning a 7 second animation (that only occurs in one relatively modern variation of the game) as if that shows that the Damsel wasn't really in distress?? Perhaps you should try focusing on the primary source: Sarkeesian's vidoes rather than getting your information from radical afeminists.

Anyway, as fun as it was to watch you fail to construct an argument allow me to do the work for you.
Damsel in Distress, Part 1, Anita Sarkeesian
Double Dragon's opening vignette contains a woman being beaten and carried away - the male heroes must rescue her!
Double Dragon Neon starts with same vignette, this time in HD.

That's it. That's all she said. It's completely true. The plot of the game is to rescue a damsel in distress, who is shown right at the start. This is not undone by a credit sequence where after the bad guy is defeated by the guys, he sings a stupid song about how he wants the girl to be his girlfriend but the heroes were too awesome for him as he falls towards the girl who during a 7 second sequence punches him in the balls. Then you are treated to a screen with one of the heroes holding the damsel in a stereotypical hero pose. This does not undo the fact that the woman's only role in the game is to be kidnapped and rescued by the male protagonists, meaning it fits the trope.

How does this few seconds of animation wherein the damsel in distress has the bad guy defeated for her and then gets the last punch in for comedic effect, undermine Sarkeesian's point about it being a game about a damsel in distress again?