Theory

[Nervicide]

The good kind of lulz...

http://www.gameplayer.com.au/gp_documen ... ewall.aspx

[icycalm]

That guy is the only non-philosopher I've come across who understands the ethical dimension of videogames. That single article contains more truth in it than all the papers ever delivered on the subject in all "Game Studies" conferences ever.

I'll see if I can get his permission to post that on the frontpage.

Edit: http://insomnia.ac/commentary/are_games ... manliness/

[Molloy]

Women aren't attracted to men who don't have a spine. Just as men aren't necessarily turned on by one woman because she's 5 pounds lighter than the other one. The media keeps perpetrating horseshit rhetrotic but the smart people who ignore it will go on to procreate their healthy genes, and the impressionable idiots who let this confidence sapping propaganda wear them down will all die off.

[Mischief Maker]

Yay, Rambo! My favorite one was Rambo III, the one where he's fighting alongside the Mujahideen, even joining them in a game of Buzkashi, the manliest sport ever invented.

I think the best part was at the very end, where he and Osama Bin Laden share a long, meaningful, and manly stare, then the movie ends with a shout-out to all the brave freedom fighters of the Mujahideen.

Whatever happened to those guys?

[sadinotna]

Masculinity, and femininity for that matter, anger be because they're gender roles and gender roles exist to tell people what they're tastes should be because of their sex. My ideal society would be one where people would actually decide what they like rather than socialization to decide for them. Sure, people that defend gender essentialism go on and on about evolution, but we can genetically engineer things now. Evolution is irrelevant.

And yet the very people fighting against the old masculine are creating a new one to replace it. Fuck, the new gender role is worse! How in the fuck can people fail that much?

[icycalm]

anger be

You probably meant "anger me".

because they're gender roles and gender roles exist to tell people what they're tastes should be because of their sex.

Femininity and masculinity are not "gender roles" -- they are REALITIES, or at worst REFLECTIONS OF REALITIES.

Also, you meant "their" instead of "they're".

My ideal society would be one where people would actually decide what they like

Everyone already decides what they like. But this decision is not made in a vacuum, as it would be in your absurd ideal society. It is made in a specific environment, and based on a specific biological background. That is the reality of the world -- the rest is nonsense.

Sure, people that defend gender essentialism

No one even knows what "gender essentialism" is. So stop making up "-isms" and try to face the issues.

go on and on about evolution, but we can genetically engineer things now. Evolution is irrelevant.

lol at the nine-year-old logic. Evolution can never be irrelevant, because evolution is the universe. Your statement therefore is implying that the universe is irrelevant, which is absurd. Evolution is always ongoing -- only the forms in which it manifests itself change.

And yet the very people fighting against the old masculine are creating a new one to replace it. Fuck, the new gender role is worse! How in the fuck can people fail that much?

No idea what you are saying here. Probably nothing.

[shrimpus]

Well. I know exactly what gender essentialism is. I don't believe that its a complete chart of your beliefs but if you were to throw a single dart at the philosophical outlook you just espoused there essentialism would be one of the best. Whether or not it lands on its target is another tale entirely, but for what it is worth essentialism is not as bad as most of the isms.

However the badly articulated objections that the girl (and I am an assumption there) brings up are expressive of a deeper vein of actually valid criticism of your point, or rather your point by proxy.

The question of masculinity and feminity is more complex than the physical genetalia. It is a question of badly understood developemental processes that create not only a female or male body but a female or male mind. It is a set of switches that often do not all go flipped. Even the most rudimentary knowledge that we have gleaned on the process tends to point to the idea that the male/female dichotomy is more of a spectrum with side quests. There are many evolutionary advantages to being neither totally male nor totally female, competing breeding strategies and a whole host of other plestosciene behaviors that don't fully map onto the modern world.

Now this is all well and good, it tells us that gender while certainly real is not a simple matter of male or female but a grayscale. But that's not the most important objection that I can raise logically to the line of reasoning.

The most important question that can be asked is "does this really matter?".

I can tell you for a dead fact that men and women die the same way. Oh sure there are statistical variations on what method they will chose in dying but the actual death part is remarkably similar. A woman might not feel a heart attack like a man but when her heart twitches its last feeble beat and then halts she sure as hell will die like a man.

The differences of our genders are exagerrated in our minds because it suits us to exagerrate them. For most of human existance there has been an obsession with the opposite gender, which leads to caricatures of gender that exist in our minds only loosely reflecting reality. Frankly its kinda fun to play the game, to embrace the role and throw all the signals that the other side is expecting. Gender is almost a language, but just because you have vocal cords better suited to one langauge or another doesn't mean much about the rest of you. Variance between one human and the next tend to be far more dramatic than the ones between males and females of our species.

I would say that I have far more in common with a female of similar intellectual parameters than with a male idiot. That's even assuming that she has a female brain, something that is in no way assured.

I suppose that in the end, despite badly formulating the argument, sadinotna was manifesting an emotion irritation with the gender argument that is not without decent basis in reality.

Since I am spending some time helping her along I guess I could dip in and say a few other things that I can attest to.

Games are not the last bastion of masculinity.

Not even close. I wouldn't even call them a bastion of masculinities juvenille counterpart, guyness. If you want bastions of masculinity you need go no further than cultures that aren't white. If you want an intellectual realm rather than the cultures that encompass most of the world's peoples then I would recommend literature. Cheap romance literature is an especially delightful location for masculinity. Ironic perhaps but the roles of male and female have almost always been perceived through our counterparts. Sexual selection is far more powerful than natural selection in terms of the speed at which it alters a species. What women perceive men to be in their own idealized personal dreamscapes is a much better place to find the masculine entity than gender neutrilized games. Sure that's a bit of a joking argument, I wouldn't really defend it all that hard if pressed (and I am not even gonna touch yaoi) but it holds a lot more truth than a blanket statement that an entire gender is universally being castrated. That's just ridiculous.

[warken]

Whatever notions of "manliness" you see in a video game no longer exist. Those ideas have become trivialized by being in a game and are no longer relevant. If anything, shrimpus, you should be glad games are "the last bastion of manliness," because now men don't have to go around slaying dragons and killing aliens to prove their sexuality anymore (it was tough back then).

I don't disagree with your ideas, shrimpus, but when you apply them to video games it's silly. Like the author said, games want nothing to do with sexuality or gender (or ethics of any kind). It's because we do treat games as reflections of sexuality/gender that we have problems in the first place; "games being for guys," etc. And, in fact, (stupidly and hilariously enough) games have become a place for "manliness" worshipers to congregate. It's up to them to realize if they are glorifying reality or not (answer: they are not).

[Bradford]

Well. I know exactly what gender essentialism is.

Well I didn't, and you certainly didn't take the time to actually define it, so I looked it up. For everyone playing along at home, essentialism is the theory that all entities have a set of characteristics or properties that all entities of that kind must possess (or else they would be a different kind of entity). So gender essentialism would be the theory that there are a set of characteristics that all men must possess to be male, etc.

Unfortunately, sadinotna's use of the term was still entirely superfluous to the point he was trying to make and Icy was right to ignore it.

The most important question that can be asked is "does this really matter?".

If you are going to posit the "most important question that can be asked" about a subject, it would be courteous to either attempt to answer it or explain why you can't or won't answer it.

I suppose that in the end, despite badly formulating the argument sadinotna was manifesting an emotion irritation with the gender argument that is not without decent basis in reality.

I have no idea how you justify that conclusion, and your syntax is too poor for me to even be completely certain what you are saying. Sadinotna's only point that I could discern was that sadinotna is angered by the existence of "gender roles", from which I can only conclude that he or she would rather we all be an 'it'

masculinities juvenille counterpart, guyness.

Please don't make up new words, we already have enough of them that no one can define.

Otherwise, you're right about the persistence of these concepts of manliness in certain other cultures, but the article was implicitly referring only to modern cultures where political correctness has had a significant effect. According to the article, in a politically correct society, games will be the last to succumb because their content (other than the violence) mostly flies under the radar. The reason it flies under the radar is because games are seen as being messageless. That is, if a movie has a character like Marcus Fenix as the hero, it is seen as an endorsement of Marcus Fenix's character. In a videogame, apparently, no one takes it that way.

Something I consider to be an important component of manliness is competitiveness. That may be the more important thing being sheltered within videogames, as other competitive endeavors are gradually being softened (e.g., increase in penalties for various types of contact between the players in the NFL and NBA).

[icycalm]

shrimpus' post, bad diction and typos aside (of which I corrected several), displays all the hallmarks of journalistic writing and shallow-pate philosophical dabbling, consisting as it does of a regurgitation of simple truisms mixed with obvious fallacies, and stirred vigorously with no regard for either refuting a point or making a new one. He is basically, for whatever personal reason, repulsed by the notion put forward in the article, and, having no rational response, resorts to random incoherent babbling.

I am not even going to touch any of his non-existent arguments, because, guess what! -- they don't exist.

In any case, it's not like the original author actually bothered giving us much by way of explanation. It was basically a joke article which, however, happened to reflect the truth of the matter, which is why I posted it. Whoever wants to understand exactly why the article is correct, and in great detail, needs to read everything listed here, and then my second book, whenever I end up finishing it.

[icycalm]

I'll give a couple of examples:

The question of masculinity and feminity is more complex than the physical genetalia.

Insulting truism for which he should have been banned.

but it holds a lot more truth than a blanket statement that an entire gender is universally being castrated. That's just ridiculous.

TOO BAD NO ONE SAID THAT, RETARD. SO I GUESS THE ONLY RIDICULOUS THING HERE IS THE FACT THAT YOU CAN'T READ AND THEREFORE HALLUCINATE POINTS ONLY TO LATER CALL THEM RIDICULOUS.

Now this is all well and good, it tells us that gender while certainly real is not a simple matter of male or female but a grayscale.

Yet another truism, and a favorite debating tactic of retards the world over. Watch it in action:


Heraclitus: War is the father of all things.

Retard: It's not as simple as that -- things are not black and white: there is a grayscale.

Heraclitus: Yes, retard, but a grayscale includes, at its ends, the colors black and white.

Retard: Huh?



AND SO ON AND SO FORTH!

[shrimpus]

Ah this place is a trip and a half. I have never ever meet such a concentrated group of competitive human being in one place. This is so much more fun than I have had in ages. I can't even begin to tell you what its like to have to watch your back and not be able to spew lazy stream of consciousness onto a forum.

Icy, you are perfectly correct in that I don't have any formal philosophical backround other than a large quantity of ill directed reading. I have very limited knowledge of your reading list. However as you mentioned great critics referencing great works, I am now interested in making these a priority. Gutenburg has turned up most all of them so I don't even have to go buy them.

You are however incorrect in assuming that I care one way or another about the article. I wasn't repulsed by it, I was amused and in agreement. I love the fact that politically incorrect games keep popping up. Frankly I have more feelings for your reaction to Sadinotna. See while you do have a point that she is quite incoherent the incoherence doesn't mean that she doesn't have a valid point buried in the dross.

I don't give a shit what Heraclitus said or how he applies to this argument. I don't yet have the knowledge to really even argue whether or not he even said that. Gender is not a binary state. No amount of philosophizing is going to change what is not a philosophical questiuon. Its a medical and biological one.

Femininity and masculinity are not "gender roles" -- they are REALITIES, or at worst REFLECTIONS OF REALITIES.

They are two realities of hundreds. To make a statement like this in response to someone saying gender roles are obsolete implies that they are the entire breadth of your selections. Grayscale only applies to colors, our neurological layout with regard to gender is much more complex with weird side tracks and loops that would make as much sense on a gray scale as a C flat.

To Warken,

I agree with you, and diagree with you. There are still dragons to slay out there in reality and thats the only place that masculinity matters to me. I can't ever feasibly be masculine in a virtual world as my gender is essentially tied to my physical form, not the avatar I project in a virtual world. Of course for that to be totally true I would have to stop being turned on by digital women, which I can't.

[icycalm]

You don't give a fuck about the article, you don't give a fuck about the issue, you don't give a fuck about Heraclitus, you don't give a fuck about arguing -- AND YOU ARE STILL POSTING ALL THAT FUCKING RETARDED NONSENSE IN MY FORUM? Be thankful to your gods that I am not in your immediate vicinity you little gay wimp, otherwise you'd be in an ER right now.

Banned.

(To anyone reading this, note that his post will be moved to the 'casual' forum soon, because it's that retarded. So if you answer it your answer will end up there too.)