Scott Cawthon (FNaF guy) cancelled

Silvanus

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 15, 2013
11,027
5,795
118
Country
United Kingdom
As I already explained.
Uncle Bob has faced cancelation for his views.
The cancelation was from what he's actually good at for views ultimately not related to it.
People respect his skill in said field and don't think his political views should detract from his perceived skill or how much he can teach people.
The people on about not recommending Uncle Bob were trying to get the Factorio dev to jump onto the cancel train against Uncle Bob.
The people "Criticising" the Factorio dev over lack of non gender neutral language like Craftpersonship or whatever were trying to set up a cancellation and build the case for said developer being bad.
Fun fact the blog itself doesn't seemingly mention cancel culture. The developer decried it on the games subreddit when people brought up how not making sure to denounce Uncle Bob's politics enough is itself a political act. The developer told said poster to shove it and went on to explain they're not American

J.K. Rowling was being called transphobic way before she actually said anything just because of the Gryffindor staircase and it never being addressed in the lore about what would happen in regards to Trans students (thank you Tumblr coming up with this madness)
So nothing to do with death threats, harassment or abuse.

I also never said it specifically requires death threats to be cancel culture so I don't know where you're getting that from. Death threats etc can be one way cancel culture operates. It doesn't mean it's the only way it operates.

Why do I need to pick a lane when cancel culture is a multi lane motorway again?
You chose to focus on death threats and abuse as a reason for why "cancel culture" is so awful.

So if we've now established that "cancel culture" actually exists without those things, then all we're left with... is criticism, and people making the personal decision not to buy stuff.

In which case its on you to explain why you consider that so terribly awful.
 

Schadrach

Elite Member
Legacy
Mar 20, 2010
1,977
347
88
Country
US
Will FNaF get taken off Steam? Probably not.
Probably not. I mean, it might, but if it does it's likely to end like Hatred being taken down, with Gaben stepping down from on high and personally demanding it be put back. Assuming the Hatred thing didn't make it clear enough to the Valve drones not to do that.

It's not particularly prevalent on the left though.
I'd disagree with that, pretty strongly. I've sen countless examples of people assuming someone not to belong to a specific demographic because they hold the "wrong" beliefs to be art of that demographic.

Hell, ever heard of an MRA named Karen Straughn (aka girlwriteswhat)? She started making YouTube videos specifically because feminists commenting on her blog kept accusing her of secretly being a man because she didn't think what women are supposed to think. She expressed "man" thoughts, which meant she must have been lying about being a woman. Hint: She wasn't. Alison Tieman did the same for much the same reasons (her blog was called Genderratic). That was over a decade ago at this point, and I've seen it time and again still do through till today. Hell, whenever MRA Hannah Wallen decides to start a Twitter fight (a bad habit of hers) it's about even odds whether or not someone decides she's secretly a man and then these days usually calls her an incel, and about once a year someone tries to dox her (I say "tries" because they tend to circulate her former address rather than the current one because her former address is easier to find tied to her name).

that being justifiably called out for things you have actually done is a problem.
You sent a tweet several years ago that does not align with current "acceptable" beliefs, therefore we need to dox and harass name and shame (sorry, needed to make sure I was using the "correct" term, it's only "doxing and harassing" when the "bad" people do it) you! Drew some promo art for a video game with a woman with an exposed midriff? Time to threaten violence against the developers until they change it! Someone decides to run a frankly tiny conference on their particular flavor of activism that you find distasteful? Time to threaten to bomb the venue and murder employees and guests until the venue drops them! Let's not forget how that poor girl was treated who drew a bit of Steven Universe fan art that was deemed offensive and so was doxed and harassed!

Just being justifiably called out, amirite? If you're wondering, the second example was Divinity: Original Sin and the third was the International Conference on Men's Issues the first time it happened (they had to find a new venue at the last minute and got a VFW post to host them). In later years the ICMI only announces what city or general part of a city it will be in until 1 week before the event, and then only announces the actual location to ticket holders until day of, as a way to reduce the odds of their venue being harassed. For that last one, I'd have to decide which example of that happening I was talking about first, because it's happened several times (including for using an off palette and depicting a shapeshifting alien gem as too thin) because Steven Universe fandom is rather shockingly toxic for a cartoon about accepting other people.

He's autistic, and he got sucked into a weird genre of predatory right-wing celebrities who fed him bad ideas.
"Bad ideas" literally just meaning any position that does not align with current social justice activism.

or to understand the limitations of his own knowledge.
The most central "limitation" here being the thing where you're supposed to ignore or reject any study or statistic that doesn't align with the correct social justice position. Like how we talk about criminal justice and police reform through a racial lens (acceptable because the criminal justice system shits on black folks relative to white folks to a strong degree) rather than a sex lens (unacceptable because every single measure where the race thing is true also has the criminal justice system shit on men relative to women to a similar or in some cases larger degree, but that's...inconvenient because it's men, not women who are harmed by it).

The fact that you could even imagine that "straight white male" is a slur is is pretty much the perfect illustration of what I'm talking about.
I feel like this is the point where someone needs to post a link to that video of the protestor shouting "YOU'RE A WHITE MALE, YOU'RE A FUCKING WHITE MALE!"

I do think it's entirely normal to criticize people, even loudly or emotionally or in public,

How many, and how loudly before it's "targeted harassment" instead of criticism? Do the target's race, gender, etc change that, and if so, how?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Hawki and Ender910

Schadrach

Elite Member
Legacy
Mar 20, 2010
1,977
347
88
Country
US
1) Some rules have to be broken to allow them to work. E.G. Police can't be obeying all traffic laws while in a high speed pursuit.
...therefore they need to be immune to the law in all but the most extreme cases while on duty, right? Because that's where we went with that. Hell, if a criminal being pursued by police breaks into your home and holes up in it and the police resolve the situation by tearing down the house around him, you aren't even owed repairs (there was a court case about exactly this).

Police very much have a use and the use of force helps shut down potential harm to others and should allow for them to be treated after the situation is diffused.
...this is literally why the "defund the police" folks if you go farther than their poor choice of slogan generally want to cut back police funding, limit police duties to only cases where use of force might be necessary, and then have other categories of law enforcement workers cover that other stuff.


General consensus seems to be that IQ is inheritable to a point between individuals, but there's not a causal link between groups.
No, but common ancestry tends to mean that any trait that is at least partly heritable will tend to have differences in group average and variance. As a consequence, when you chop people up by race or sex and compare them, you usually end up with mostly overlapping but not identical bell curves. Statistics don't work in the other direction though, you can't use that, say, most men are taller than most women to tell you anything useful about a specific unknown woman.

For example, my wife and I are roughly the same height. According to a chart I found online, my height puts me in roughly the 70th percentile for an American man and my wife in something like the 99th percentile for an American woman. At a glance, I could believe that. A little better than 1 in 4 men I encounter is taller than me and my wife has at least an inch or two on most other women I know.

It's worth noting that height is partly heritable, and her dad has to duck to fit through most doorways and his sheer size has caused medical difficulties involving not fitting in equipment (necessitating in one case a visit to a vet that had a larger machine, for use with horses) and things like doctors standing on chairs to treat him. Her mom was a petite woman who was apparently horrified that her daughter outgrew all mom's clothes before 5th grade, including shoes and bras.

If you believe that death threats/ harassment/ abuse are requisites for something to be "cancel culture", then you can logically agree that those who are merely criticising Cawthon and not buying his game are not guilty of cancel culture. Right?
I think it's cute you think it's two wholly separate ecosystems, and that there's not a ton of overlap. That's...probably wrong.

Besides, remember Cawthon is a Trump supporter. And what is Trump and who supports him? Fasicsts. And who have we spent much of the past 4 years establishing are a very real, dangerous and omnipresent threat that it's not just acceptable but admirable to do violence against, again?

Briefly invoking that event we're not allowed to discuss - there was a lengthy description of a relationship and it's end involved. One that had a lot of things in it that sounded an awful lot like psychological abuse. Calling that particular person out at the time for the psychological abuse described was itself deemed harassment/abuse. Just saying.

Life is Strange II,
What was controversial about it, other than the underage sex scene that everyone seems to just forget about?

Star Trek Discovery
The last good Trek series was DS9. The last passable Trek series was Voyager. Fight me.

Natalie Wynn
She got it for stating her personal feelings about pronouns and then having an "unacceptable" trans person voice some quotes in the following video, right?
 

Dwarvenhobble

Is on the Gin
May 26, 2020
5,912
646
118
In this case, we're not talking about colleagues. We're talking about students, who have far less power and far less recourse within this situation. The fact that you confuse the two is telling.
Yeh no.
Student have far more power than people think. It's only due to adherence to the systems in place that it seems like Students have less power.
Just by there being collectively more students they have power and as shown they were able to effectively somewhat shut down the college for almost a week with their activism and that was what maybe 30% of the student population likely far less actually taking part in those actions.
The systems work by having people enforce rules. If people aren't being allowed to enforce the rules then the mob rules. The head of the college refused to let the people who enforce rules when things get out of hand (campus police) operate so ~30% of the student population likely less were able to take control by showing a willingness towards mob rules and enforcement (footage does show some students among the protestors walking round with baseball bats and students who were pro Weinstein being attacked).

So, as you said... its statistically unlikely to happen. Like, there is perhaps 50 'cancelled' people named here on this thread. Across two countries (US and UK). So, rough maths here, 50 people in 300million adult? I'll even push it way out to 1000 people. So 1 in 3 million. At an incredible stretch

But, you think that, somehow, this guard KNEW that this one interaction was going to lead to cancelling backlash? Despite the fact that most of those people who are 'cancelled', from the NFL players to Contrapoints to Joseph Massad to James Gunn did actually do something that was not seen as morally 'acceptably' by certain demographics and this security guard had done nothing. Did he magically know that the perp was going to act that way?

Are you SURE your serious about this?
Those are the well known cases. Generally people already in the media eye.

It's so simple as to be unusable.
Scott Cawthon has not been silenced. The vast majority of the people in this thread, if not 100% of them, have not been silenced. The closest thing to silenced most of them have been is...banned from social media platforms for explicitly and publicly violating rules around civility and harrassment or doing/advocating crime.
Scott chose silence when the alternative was possibly months of bullshit or worse actual asholes showing up to cause trouble in person.
Just because he had the choice of the gun or the cliff top doesn't mean it wasn't cancel culture because he was given the choice.
Same as it was still cancel culture when it happened many years back with Stanley Kubrick, only it wasn't call cancel culture then it was outrage culture or something like that or outright censorship before people kept yelling "Oh the term censorship is being overused".
 
  • Like
Reactions: Hawki

TheMysteriousGX

Elite Member
Legacy
Sep 16, 2014
8,300
6,798
118
Country
United States
Impassioned arguments aside, death threats and doxxing and harassment via random shitheads is bad, and conflating those with any form of dissent you just happen to not like is bullshit.

And, again, is impossible to actually stop. Like, is it only the first bad take that should be immune to "cancel culture"? I get to have a take on a thing or bit of politics or batch of people, but they can't say anything bad back to me?

Kinda sounds to me that agent provocuers are mad that the peanut gallery is allowed to lob a social media tomato from the next post code at their latest attempt to provoke.

Or more specifically: i should give money to people I don't like why?
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan

Dwarvenhobble

Is on the Gin
May 26, 2020
5,912
646
118
So nothing to do with death threats, harassment or abuse.
I'm sorry did you fail to read what I said or just comprehend it? Because I'm rather confused as to what you're not getting here. That's assuming you're asking this in good faith

If it's bad faith
I can only assume you're expecting me to argue and take some position I don't have just as a gotcha or using some position I've never held as a gotcha to say I'm deviating from said position.


If it's some precise definition of cancel culture you want I'd say this.

Attempting to remove a person from their platform, cause them to vacate said platform when faced with a negative life consequence of staying, attempting to deny a person access to a platform or attempting to destroy the entire platform they have based purely on perceived subjective offences of the person. Often with the demanded punishment or repercussions for aid offence far exceeding the level or scope of the original offence.

Or to put it another way.
Cancel Culture is the Black Mirror episode White Bear.


You chose to focus on death threats and abuse as a reason for why "cancel culture" is so awful.
No I singled them out as one of the awful examples of it happening and ways it can and does operate.

So if we've now established that "cancel culture" actually exists without those things, then all we're left with... is criticism, and people making the personal decision not to buy stuff.

In which case its on you to explain why you consider that so terribly awful.
See this is why I'm now questioning if your engagement is in good faith because it's starting to look rather clear you want a very specific outcome and aren't actually engaging with what I'm actually saying just pushing towards that outcome.

So once again no it's not just any criticism. There's very much criticism that is valid and criticism that is invalid and malicious. I'd hope you'd understand the idea and the idea that cancel culture generally employs the invalid and malicious kind often to push a narrative and paint some-one as far worse than reality.

E.G. if I argued the Mona Lisa was sexist because Rembrant painted her topless and so the Museum of Cairo should stop displaying the painting, well you'd call me a complete and total fool and rightfully so. It's clearly invalid criticism designed push an agenda if I said that.

People saying they have no interest in buying the thing and explaining why while keeping to actual things not making up hyperbolic claims is fair enough people can state their case. Cancel culture though generally relies on emotionally weighted language and claims designed to cause a knee jerk reaction rather than actual reality though because people know reality and the actual criticism they would make if they were being honestly aren't persuasive to most people. Thus "He literally tried to kill me" is far more persuasive that "He helped people I don't like" as an argument.

As for why I find it terrible and awful I've already explained that.
I once knew a complete and utter sociopath. Cancel culture is the same methods, techniques and approach he employed. He left a fair trail of decimation in his wake and I was one of the far luckier ones. I didn't have my engagement / marriage ruined by him. I didn't have him try to fire me from a job on trumped up charges. I didn't have him destroy my mental health and socially isolate me. I only had him try to frame me with breaking rules and lost £20 and almost lost a testicle thanks to him.
With cancel culture I see the same sociopathy at play and being weaponised against people just out of pure malice, spite or jealousy.

I also refer you back to me quoting MovieBob as to why this matters.
 

Trunkage

Nascent Orca
Legacy
Jun 21, 2012
8,684
2,879
118
Brisbane
Gender
Cyborg
Lots of things are unlikely to happen. It's unlikely that when I drive to work tomorrow I'll be in a car crash, I'm still going to put my seatbelt on. Being statistically unlikely isn't really an argument against discussing an issue.

As for what the guard knew, of course he didn't know, that's kind of my point. I've stated more than once that the guard's unease would be understandable, the unease isn't an excuse not to act.

I'm not even sure what argument you're trying to make - is that he shouldn't have acted, or shouldn't have felt uneasy?
That people have been telling this guard that certain people are evil and will get them through cancel culture. That those same people way overblow the effect of cancel culture.

You brought up a car analogy which is great becuase I was going to make a similar analogy. First though, you is asking you to 'take of the seatbelt?'

So, you may know that airplanes are safer than cars. But you also may know that that's not how the media portrays planes. Similar sort of thing happens with nuclear power. Statistics don't beat emotional storytelling.

Now, that's not to say that we shouldn't be making step to make things safer or better. When a plane crashes or nuclear station meltdown its a disaster. We arent going to 'take seatbelts' off. But its also unlikely to happen.

If you don't, you will get more people acting like this guard. Sure there are bad people who will go all PC on you. But there are also a bunch of people who will tell you those PC people are everywhere, driving up fear levels for no reason. No wonder he was scared, 'the Cancel Culture boogeyman is out to get you.'

Like I understand we need to be cautious. I understood why Trump was trying to calm everything doqn around Covid. Panic is a bad thing and I understood the media was hyping it. But also the statistics weren't on Trump side (they weren't really on the media side either but they were closer). This cancel culture stuff is bad but also unlikely. And Im a bit sick to death of Shapiro types doing this to drum up business (eg. Carano.) Also, I don't see any difference between Shapiro and cancellers. He's always trying to take people out or shaming them

Now, the other thing I wanted to ask. You're now the CEO of Twitter (or Disney or whatever company suits.) How do you cure this problem?
 

Dwarvenhobble

Is on the Gin
May 26, 2020
5,912
646
118
I still want to see one of these whingers address this elephant in the room. How do they propose to make me buy something I don't want or need against my will?
I'm not making it.
I don't think anyone else is.
It's the people who seemingly support cancel culture who seem to believe they can make people buy things or they at least keep trying via various shaming techniques or presenting the things as must see if you support x because oddly that actually seemingly did work at one point in the past. Not the shaming but pushing people to see something as a political event or show of support.

With American Sniper.


Though now it's become more of a case of pushing the shaming angle

Does it work? Fuck no not really all it does is mean people have no desire to talk about not seeing it because assholes will dogpile them with accusations online if they do like happened with James Rolfe.


...therefore they need to be immune to the law in all but the most extreme cases while on duty, right? Because that's where we went with that. Hell, if a criminal being pursued by police breaks into your home and holes up in it and the police resolve the situation by tearing down the house around him, you aren't even owed repairs (there was a court case about exactly this).
I think if they cause harm there should be compensation but I don't agree with the system holding officers responsible if their conduct can be shown to be fine but the damage was the result of an accident or unforeseen circumstances happening. The system should be the one responsible for accidents because it's acceptable accidents the system should see as things it takes responsibility for fixing.
E.G. in a high speed pursuit if a police car has a puncture and spins out hitting another car them it's not the officers to blame but the system who accepted the risk of it happening vs the reward of preventing further harm by trying to stop the criminals.
So yeh in all but the more extreme cases (I won't say most extreme) officers should be immune.


...this is literally why the "defund the police" folks if you go farther than their poor choice of slogan generally want to cut back police funding, limit police duties to only cases where use of force might be necessary, and then have other categories of law enforcement workers cover that other stuff.
The issue is how fast such other cases can turn.
A Drunk guy suddenly turning violent.
A Drugged out person suddenly turning fearful and paranoid.

What was controversial about it, other than the underage sex scene that everyone seems to just forget about?
The people advocating for people buying it claimed people only weren't buying it because they were racist because the two main male characters are Mexican.

The last good Trek series was DS9. The last passable Trek series was Voyager. Fight me.
 

Dwarvenhobble

Is on the Gin
May 26, 2020
5,912
646
118
Impassioned arguments aside, death threats and doxxing and harassment via random shitheads is bad, and conflating those with any form of dissent you just happen to not like is bullshit.
Which is why I've tried to draw a fairly clear line between deliberately malicious lies masquerading as criticism designed to stoke said flames more.

And, again, is impossible to actually stop. Like, is it only the first bad take that should be immune to "cancel culture"? I get to have a take on a thing or bit of politics or batch of people, but they can't say anything bad back to me?
Again NO-One is saying that.
What is being said is people shouldn't be making up bullshit whole cloth and in the UK they actually can't do that without you being able to take action back to correct the damage.
The US works on a system of having to prove direct causal harm from false claims
The UK works on a system of having to prove harm done was not a direct result of false claims.
In the UK system that's the first check though that normally most cases don't bother fighting over they go to the second one of "Given the information the person making the claim had would a reasonable sane member of the public come to the same conclusions" With a higher expected standard for journalists. This helps determine if it was a sane thought out claim or one being made in the heat of the moment out of malice.
Oh and to any-one who thinks the UK law is stupid. Johnny Depp lost his libel case because the information he provided for the case wasn't information the journalist of the piece could reasonably have been expected to know or have access to. If Amber Heard herself had written the piece then there would have been far more of a case because in the UK court the truth of the claim doesn't matter but the reasonableness given the evidence presented that said claim can be made.

Kinda sounds to me that agent provocuers are mad that the peanut gallery is allowed to lob a social media tomato from the next post code at their latest attempt to provoke.
Except in this case the peanut gallery is throwing sticks of lit dynamite without provocation and then either hoping the performer blows themself up or if they throw it back using that as an excuse to storm the stage and take revenge.

Or more specifically: i should give money to people I don't like why?
Because otherwise no-one would ever pay taxes unless the party they like were in power?
 

Silvanus

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 15, 2013
11,027
5,795
118
Country
United Kingdom
I think it's cute you think it's two wholly separate ecosystems, and that there's not a ton of overlap. That's...probably wrong.
I think it's cute that you believe any mere critics can be tarnished by the separate existence of harassers and abusers. We probably shouldn't criticise anyone, then, eh?

Besides, remember Cawthon is a Trump supporter. And what is Trump and who supports him? Fasicsts.
If you say so.

Briefly invoking that event we're not allowed to discuss - there was a lengthy description of a relationship and it's end involved. One that had a lot of things in it that sounded an awful lot like psychological abuse. Calling that particular person out at the time for the psychological abuse described was itself deemed harassment/abuse. Just saying.
Hah! I don't believe I saw a single post from that period that actually expressed genuine concern or empathy. Don't fucking pretend the complainants gave a single, solitary shit about the wellbeing of those people.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BrawlMan

Silvanus

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 15, 2013
11,027
5,795
118
Country
United Kingdom
I'm sorry did you fail to read what I said or just comprehend it? Because I'm rather confused as to what you're not getting here. That's assuming you're asking this in good faith

If it's bad faith
I can only assume you're expecting me to argue and take some position I don't have just as a gotcha or using some position I've never held as a gotcha to say I'm deviating from said position.
Yes. You offered a litany of examples in the section I quoted, none of which constitute harassment, death threats or abuse.

I don't pretend to describe your position for you. But you chose to claim that "cancel culture" is characterised by those things. And then give a long list of examples entirely unrelated to those behaviours.


If it's some precise definition of cancel culture you want I'd say this.

Attempting to remove a person from their platform, cause them to vacate said platform when faced with a negative life consequence of staying, attempting to deny a person access to a platform or attempting to destroy the entire platform they have based purely on perceived subjective offences of the person. Often with the demanded punishment or repercussions for aid offence far exceeding the level or scope of the original offence.
OK. Then why is it described as "cancel culture" when somebody merely criticised somebody online, or expresses an intention not to buy their stuff?

Such as that blog comment by a fan of Factorio?


See this is why I'm now questioning if your engagement is in good faith because it's starting to look rather clear you want a very specific outcome and aren't actually engaging with what I'm actually saying just pushing towards that outcome.

So once again no it's not just any criticism. There's very much criticism that is valid and criticism that is invalid and malicious. I'd hope you'd understand the idea and the idea that cancel culture generally employs the invalid and malicious kind often to push a narrative and paint some-one as far worse than reality.

E.G. if I argued the Mona Lisa was sexist because Rembrant painted her topless and so the Museum of Cairo should stop displaying the painting, well you'd call me a complete and total fool and rightfully so. It's clearly invalid criticism designed push an agenda if I said that.

People saying they have no interest in buying the thing and explaining why while keeping to actual things not making up hyperbolic claims is fair enough people can state their case. Cancel culture though generally relies on emotionally weighted language and claims designed to cause a knee jerk reaction rather than actual reality though because people know reality and the actual criticism they would make if they were being honestly aren't persuasive to most people. Thus "He literally tried to kill me" is far more persuasive that "He helped people I don't like" as an argument.
Now, that Rembrandt criticism-- that's not malicious. I'd call it overblown and nonsensical, but so what? There's no "culture" in a single comment.

Cancel culture is seen in the aggregate of lots of people commenting at once about something like this, right?

But that's now how that term is used. It's not even how it's understood anymore, even by its proponents. It gets applied whenever individual critics opine online that outlets shouldn't associate with specific people.

And that's a valid avenue of criticism. A speaker/writer reflects on their outlet. An author reflects on their publisher. A journalist reflects on their newspaper. The employer has certain expectations of a respectable, open image; that's part-and-parcel of working in the public eye. And it's worth knowing if something they've done has alienated a proportion of their audience.

Acting in a way that may hurt a proportion of the outlet's potential customers/viewers/readers is not good business.

As for why I find it terrible and awful I've already explained that.
I once knew a complete and utter sociopath. Cancel culture is the same methods, techniques and approach he employed. He left a fair trail of decimation in his wake and I was one of the far luckier ones. I didn't have my engagement / marriage ruined by him. I didn't have him try to fire me from a job on trumped up charges. I didn't have him destroy my mental health and socially isolate me. I only had him try to frame me with breaking rules and lost £20 and almost lost a testicle thanks to him.
With cancel culture I see the same sociopathy at play and being weaponised against people just out of pure malice, spite or jealousy.
I would suggest you're projecting characteristics onto people online that aren't actually there. That's all I'll say. Almost none of the people regularly accused of cancel culture would wish anything remotely close to that on anyone.

It's horrible that you went through that.
 

Dwarvenhobble

Is on the Gin
May 26, 2020
5,912
646
118
Yes. You offered a litany of examples in the section I quoted, none of which constitute harassment, death threats or abuse.

I don't pretend to describe your position for you. But you chose to claim that "cancel culture" is characterised by those things. And then give a long list of examples entirely unrelated to those behaviours.
And where did I say Cancel culture is only specifically those things I said it would constitute cancel culture.
Like how Chihuahuas and Great Danes both are dogs.
I didn't say cancel culture is ONLY these things.

So yes you were seemingly trying to make me argue against a position I didn't hold and at this stage you can either accept that is not my argument or admit that you plan to try carrying on what would be a bad faith argument line by strawmanning me. I've now told you it's not my position multiple times. Time to flip the script and change the argument.


OK. Then why is it described as "cancel culture" when somebody merely criticised somebody online, or expresses an intention not to buy their stuff?

Such as that blog comment by a fan of Factorio?
Which?
The one about Uncle Bob was trying to push the developer to take a side either with the mob trying to cancel Uncle Bob or against the mob. That is part of cancel culture roping in other people who have platforms and position to use them for the benefit of the mob or go against people the mob dislikes.

The ones about Craftsmanship? Obvious bait. The developer addressed it because the options were ignore it and let the angrymob grow, make the change knowing the angry mob will be back with more changes they demand or pull the trigger and address it there and then shutting it down.

Now, that Rembrandt criticism-- that's not malicious. I'd call it overblown and nonsensical, but so what? There's no "culture" in a single comment.
Except a repeated pattern of numerous people making such comments, sharing such comments and almost trying to one up one another with such comments.


Cancel culture is seen in the aggregate of lots of people commenting at once about something like this, right?
As I said with specific intent and approach to it.

But that's now how that term is used. It's not even how it's understood anymore, even by its proponents. It gets applied whenever individual critics opine online that outlets shouldn't associate with specific people.
Does it?

Or is it regularly a mass of people doing so.

I've certainly never seen it used that way. Maybe it is by the people who are very much pro cancel culture because they get to bully impunity and be praised as the good guys but then they very much have a vested interest in misusing the term by claiming I cancelling a Disney Plus Subscription is cancel culture.

And that's a valid avenue of criticism. A speaker/writer reflects on their outlet. An author reflects on their publisher. A journalist reflects on their newspaper. The employer has certain expectations of a respectable, open image; that's part-and-parcel of working in the public eye. And it's worth knowing if something they've done has alienated a proportion of their audience.

Acting in a way that may hurt a proportion of the outlet's potential customers/viewers/readers is not good business.
But didn't you previously say that it's applied to individual critics of objecting to outlets associating with people online?
So is the outlet very small that one citric is considered a valuable enough portion of their audience?
Or are we talking a decent number of people?
How quickly do you judge the impact of the change or perceived hurt?


I would suggest you're projecting characteristics onto people online that aren't actually there. That's all I'll say. Almost none of the people regularly accused of cancel culture would wish anything remotely close to that on anyone.

It's horrible that you went through that.
Nah it's the same shit. I recognise it a damn mile off. One of the most insidious tools of a true sociopath is making people think they are good people with good intentions and care about what happens, that's how many of them get away with it for so long.
Don't feel bad for me, feel bad for the other people whose lives were far worse impacted and far more changed by his actions. What happened to me? Nothing really. The true worst part of it was watching the trail of destruction and basically having to follow along behind somewhat picking up the pieces and dealing with the damage because he really did screw over some people who I was friends or at least friendly with.
 

Hawki

Elite Member
Legacy
Mar 4, 2014
9,651
2,173
118
Country
Australia
Gender
Male
James Rofle got dragged by ~20 different outlets with accusations going so far as claiming he just hated all woman and him refusing to see it was somehow an attack or declaration of war against women.

Leslie Jones got trolls attacking her on twitter.

In terms of scope and scale.

Leslie Jones got maybe 100 Trolls fucking with her James Rofle got a number of outlets that are seen to have some level of greater validity to their claims (at least in so much that they can be cited on wikipedia and seen as fact by people) making claims about him. In terms of actual damage and impact, sorry but James Rolfe came off worse because you can google his name and fine the articles about him still easily. The comments towards Leslie Jones by trolls? Resigned to history mostly all that can be said is it happened not even mostly what the claims were or them easily found.

The power of the media (While heavily waning due to misuse of that power) is still in effect and still unfortunately can easily become record.
I did a search of both - most people discussing Rolfe did so simply by reporting the facts. I'm sure some people tried dragging his name through the mud, but that can't compare IMO to a Twitter mob descending on you, and being sexist and racist at the same time. I have sympathy for both, but Leslie Jones gets more of it (though that's not a game I'm fond of playing).

That people have been telling this guard that certain people are evil and will get them through cancel culture. That those same people way overblow the effect of cancel culture.

You brought up a car analogy which is great becuase I was going to make a similar analogy. First though, you is asking you to 'take of the seatbelt?'

So, you may know that airplanes are safer than cars. But you also may know that that's not how the media portrays planes. Similar sort of thing happens with nuclear power. Statistics don't beat emotional storytelling.

Now, that's not to say that we shouldn't be making step to make things safer or better. When a plane crashes or nuclear station meltdown its a disaster. We arent going to 'take seatbelts' off. But its also unlikely to happen.

If you don't, you will get more people acting like this guard. Sure there are bad people who will go all PC on you. But there are also a bunch of people who will tell you those PC people are everywhere, driving up fear levels for no reason. No wonder he was scared, 'the Cancel Culture boogeyman is out to get you.'

Like I understand we need to be cautious. I understood why Trump was trying to calm everything doqn around Covid. Panic is a bad thing and I understood the media was hyping it. But also the statistics weren't on Trump side (they weren't really on the media side either but they were closer). This cancel culture stuff is bad but also unlikely. And Im a bit sick to death of Shapiro types doing this to drum up business (eg. Carano.) Also, I don't see any difference between Shapiro and cancellers. He's always trying to take people out or shaming them

Now, the other thing I wanted to ask. You're now the CEO of Twitter (or Disney or whatever company suits.) How do you cure this problem?
You still didn't actually answer my question as to what the bigger issue is - is it that the guard didn't act, or is it the reasons behind him not acting?

Lets say you're right, thta people did tell the guard directly that people were out to get him. Yes, and? That isn't an excuse to not do his job.

If we're talking about statistics, well, the statistics pretty much tell the same story. Levels of depression in later Gen Y/Gen Z are skyrocketing, and that includes demands for safe spaces, anti-free speech stances, and punitive punishment. You can actually look at the statistics that confirms the anecdotes. The best example I've read is The Coddling of the American Mind, but even recently, I saw poll data for college students on issues such as free speech, censorship, and reporting faculty for "offensive language." The further left you are, the more likely you are to support these positions.

As for Twitter/Disney, well those are two different things. Twitter is a platform, Disney is a corporation - they have different mandates, so to speak. If I became CEO of Disney, one of my first orders of business would actually be something like giving employees a living wage at Disneyland (look it up, it's shameful), but on the subject at hand, I'd probably work something into what I assume is pre-existing EEO policy. It's already illegal to discriminate based on sex, ethnicity, or religious belief, so make sure that the company has a mandate that political and social belief is worked into the framework.

Twitter's a different story though - there's absolutely cases to ban people and groups from Twitter if they're preaching violence (you wouldn't want an ISIS Twitter account for instance), but apart from that, well, it's kind of a free for all. I don't think there's a simple answer there. It's easy enough to control what Twitter itself does, but what people do is another question. I guess the basis would be something like a 'no harassment' policy, but how do you enforce it, and where do you draw the line?
 

Dwarvenhobble

Is on the Gin
May 26, 2020
5,912
646
118
I did a search of both - most people discussing Rolfe did so simply by reporting the facts. I'm sure some people tried dragging his name through the mud, but that can't compare IMO to a Twitter mob descending on you, and being sexist and racist at the same time. I have sympathy for both, but Leslie Jones gets more of it (though that's not a game I'm fond of playing).
See I argue the other way.
Random twitter users mad at me or random other social media users mad at me? That's a lot of birds squawking that vanish quickly enough, it's a flurry and maybe you get a few dribbling in over 2 weeks but by day 2 it's mostly over even if you piss off a big account (who actually tend to wade into such spats).

With articles you get all the people who look up to those platforms then turning to if they are so inclined. It's kinda of amazing just how many sites wrote about James Rolfe and a fair few where the question has to be asked if he's even in the normal wheel house of topic they cover to begin and and question their decision to even cover him just refusing to go see a film.

I will say Leslie Jones likely gets more shit overall on twitter.

But the sparking incidents in each case I'd say Leslie Jones likely saw the number of bullshit tweets she got go up by maybe 100 while James Rofle probably saw his go up by 1,000+. Now you can argue that's because Leslie Jones already got so much bullshit as a base level vs James Rolfe and that would be a fair argument but in terms of variation from the baseline?

Yeh no the James Rofle thing probably hit harder and the articles that were more insulting in the vein of "Brave Bold angry male pissbaby who hates women refuses to go see film in act of courage" those can do some actual reputational damage and put people off working with or sponsoring a person.

A random twitter user throwing a racist insult at Leslie Jones? That won't cost her jobs or have people not wanting to associate with her at all.
 

Terminal Blue

Elite Member
Legacy
Feb 18, 2010
3,906
1,774
118
Country
United Kingdom
I'd say it becomes a problem when people go from criticizing a person's ideas to attempting to remove the means of the person to express those ideas.
What does this mean?

This one's got off the rails a bit, so let's just zero on this fundamental point of disagreement. What is the line between criticizing a person's ideas and attempting to remove the means of the person to express those ideas, and why is it a problem if that line is crossed?

Every day I get out of bed and I discover that I still don't have a job as a journalist in a national newspaper. I will never work at a national newspaper, mostly because I don't have the particular background, skillset or connections, but also because the environment of British journalism is a weird, insular and hostile place which just wouldn't employ someone like me. Have I been cancelled? Have I lost a platform to which I am inherently entitled? Even if I wanted to work in journalism, would I not then be in the position of being beholden to my audience, forced to say whatever will appeal to them in order to keep my own career going? Is that a problem? Have journalists all been cancelled because they can't express their true opinions without mediation?

Noone can actually take away the means for you to express your ideas. All they can do is to say that they don't want to hear them, and if enough people don't want to hear your ideas then you should probably keep silent or face the consequences. Of course, you don't have to keep silent, you can keep using whatever influence you have to spread your unpopular ideas, but most people are not under the delusion that that is going to be an easy or safe thing to do.

Your idea of free speech is a children's playpen. It's a place where everyone can say whatever they want, but nothing they say is allowed to have consequences. It's a conservative fantasy of free speech presided over by the sober and right thinking adults who moderate the discussion and tell everyone to stop being naughty. For most people, free speech isn't a low stakes game, it's a power struggle. It's always been a power struggle. It's only conservatives, who never had to struggle, who never had to faced the risks of speaking out, who never faced ridicule or hatred because they have never deviated from the side of power, who pretend otherwise.

The absolute arrogance of believing you have some inherent entitlement or right, not just to speak, but to be heard, to be given whatever help or support you need to be heard. The idea that your ability to be heard should be sacred and inviolable, is ridiculous and offensive. It's ridiculous because somehow you've got through life thinking that's a right everyone has, and it's offensive because it only became a problem to you once people in positions of influence had to live by the same rules everyone else does.

But honestly, this is redundant because we're already assuming that this is actually the definition of "cancel culture" you're applying, and it's clearly not because you're equating someone voluntarily quitting twitter, someone being banned for twitter for advocating violence and someone being fired and blacklisted from their job as if they're all the same thing and as if they all have the same cause. That's why I don't think cancel culture is real, not because noone has ever lost their job or been ostracized from society for spurious reasons (I'm queer, I'm intimately aware of the fact that happens, probably to a degree you never will be) but because you can't even apply the concept consistently.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Avnger

Hawki

Elite Member
Legacy
Mar 4, 2014
9,651
2,173
118
Country
Australia
Gender
Male
See I argue the other way.
Random twitter users mad at me or random other social media users mad at me? That's a lot of birds squawking that vanish quickly enough, it's a flurry and maybe you get a few dribbling in over 2 weeks but by day 2 it's mostly over even if you piss off a big account (who actually tend to wade into such spats).

With articles you get all the people who look up to those platforms then turning to if they are so inclined. It's kinda of amazing just how many sites wrote about James Rolfe and a fair few where the question has to be asked if he's even in the normal wheel house of topic they cover to begin and and question their decision to even cover him just refusing to go see a film.

I will say Leslie Jones likely gets more shit overall on twitter.

But the sparking incidents in each case I'd say Leslie Jones likely saw the number of bullshit tweets she got go up by maybe 100 while James Rofle probably saw his go up by 1,000+. Now you can argue that's because Leslie Jones already got so much bullshit as a base level vs James Rolfe and that would be a fair argument but in terms of variation from the baseline?

Yeh no the James Rofle thing probably hit harder and the articles that were more insulting in the vein of "Brave Bold angry male pissbaby who hates women refuses to go see film in act of courage" those can do some actual reputational damage and put people off working with or sponsoring a person.

A random twitter user throwing a racist insult at Leslie Jones? That won't cost her jobs or have people not wanting to associate with her at all.
Far more than just a "random Twitter user," let's be honest. Even if one pissant went after Jones, add in a hundred or a thousand, and that's a lot of pissants pissing and biting.

In contrast, I never saw any attempt to actually deplatform Rolfe, or make any concious attempt to ruin his career.

I said earlier in the thread that I'm not particuarly interested in ranking who has it worse, but Rolfe, at best, had to deal with nonsense articles. Jones had to deal with a Twitterstorm that was part of a larger Twitterstorm, that was part of a larger culture war spat because the Ghostbusters no longer had dicks. Rolfe got drawn into the storm as well, but, well, Jones got hit with more of the debris, so to speak.

What does this mean?

This one's got off the rails a bit, so let's just zero on this fundamental point of disagreement. What is the line between criticizing a person's ideas and attempting to remove the means of the person to express those ideas,
Fine, let's make this as simple as possible.

Criticizing: "I think TB has bad ideas."

Censoring: "Remove TB from The Escapist because I don't want him expressing those ideas."

and why is it a problem if that line is crossed?
How can it not be?

Every day I get out of bed and I discover that I still don't have a job as a journalist in a national newspaper. I will never work at a national newspaper, mostly because I don't have the particular background, skillset or connections, but also because the environment of British journalism is a weird, insular and hostile place which just wouldn't employ someone like me. Have I been cancelled? Have I lost a platform to which I am inherently entitled? Even if I wanted to work in journalism, would I not then be in the position of being beholden to my audience, forced to say whatever will appeal to them in order to keep my own career going? Is that a problem? Have journalists all been cancelled because they can't express their true opinions without mediation?
That's a nonsensical equivalance - you can't equate professions with simply the ability to speak. I'm not entitled to any career, you're not entitled to any career, and if you did end up in journalism, whether you pander to your audience or not is up to you or your editor.

And absolutely journalists have been censored. Even in the countries we're talking from, that's undoubtedly occurred at some point. But that's really veering into censorship.

Noone can actually take away the means for you to express your ideas. All they can do is to say that they don't want to hear them, and if enough people don't want to hear your ideas then you should probably keep silent or face the consequences. Of course, you don't have to keep silent, you can keep using whatever influence you have to spread your unpopular ideas, but most people are not under the delusion that that is going to be an easy or safe thing to do.
I'm not even sure what point you're making here.

No-one is obliged to listen to anyone else. You're not obliged to listen to me, I'm not obliged to listen to you, we're both still here, for whatever reason.

And I agree, for a lot of people it isn't always safe to express ideas - that's an argument AGAINST cancel culture, not for it.

Your idea of free speech is a children's playpen. It's a place where everyone can say whatever they want, but nothing they say is allowed to have consequences.
Okay, how are you defining consequences? Because you're really not clear.

It's a conservative fantasy of free speech presided over by the sober and right thinking adults who moderate the discussion and tell everyone to stop being naughty. For most people, free speech isn't a low stakes game, it's a power struggle. It's always been a power struggle. It's only conservatives, who never had to struggle, who never had to faced the risks of speaking out, who never faced ridicule or hatred because they have never deviated from the side of power, who pretend otherwise.
Ah yes, because no-one with right wing beliefs could have ever struggled through life. FFS...

(This is how you end up with ideas such as "race collaborators" and "gay traitors," by the way.)

Again, let's say I agree with everything you said. Let's say I agree with the premise that all speech is power struggle, that conservatives are all one big bloc, and have never faced ridicule. Upon that agreement, why then, should you apply that 'power' to people who want to 'struggle' against this bloc? You think I enjoy seeing people on the left engage in circular firing squads?

Because that's what's happening, and what's happening a lot.

The absolute arrogance of believing you have some inherent entitlement or right, not just to speak, but to be heard, to be given whatever help or support you need to be heard. The idea that your ability to be heard should be sacred and inviolable, is ridiculous and offensive. It's ridiculous because somehow you've got through life thinking that's a right everyone has, and it's offensive because it only became a problem to you once people in positions of influence had to live by the same rules everyone else does.
You're all over the place here.

First, do I have a right to speak? Well, I'd say yes, in that I believe I have a right to speak, and you have a right to speak, and that everyone has a right to speak, and that in practice, there's no shortage of people in the world who can't speak, so why apply those measures against people when we live in societies where free speech is in theory, if not always in practice, a right?

Second, where the hell did I say I was entitled to support to be heard? That's insane. Give me an actual quote where I said that.

Third, I don't have a right to be heard per se. Be it on the street, or on this forum, or on social media, people are under no obligation to listen to me, or anyone else. You can stop listening to me, right here, right now, and I'm not about to yell "TB isn't listening to me, my rights are being violated!"

Fourth, where did I say that it's a right everyone has? Of course it's not a right, there's many places in the world where it isn't a right, but most, if not people here live in countries where it's a right in theory, if not in practice.

Fifth, I don't know where you got the idea that it was people in influence I'm worried about, it's people with less influence I'm worried about, because the less influence you have, the less ability you have to fight against it. Most of the people on this thread aren't in positions of (real) influence. Since you keep coming back to her, Lindsay Ellis wasn't in a position of influence, yet the mob came for her. It's utterly bizzare that you think I'm more worried about people with more influence than those without it.

But honestly, this is redundant because we're already assuming that this is actually the definition of "cancel culture" you're applying, and it's clearly not because you're equating someone voluntarily quitting twitter, someone being banned for twitter for advocating violence and someone being fired and blacklisted from their job as if they're all the same thing and as if they all have the same cause. That's why I don't think cancel culture is real, not because noone has ever lost their job or been ostracized from society for spurious reasons (I'm queer, I'm intimately aware of the fact that happens, probably to a degree you never will be) but because you can't even apply the concept consistently.
Yeah, I'd need specific examples there.

Voluntarily quitting Twitter...I mean, okay, it's technically voluntary, but if a mob comes after you, trying to make your life hell, you really think that quitting Twitter is some inocuous thing has no relation to anything else that just happened to precede it?

Advocating violence falls into hate speech in most cases. It's a distinction that can be made. Not always easy to distinguish, I admit, but how many people who've been discussed so far could reasonably be accused of that?

Blacklisted from their job...blacklisted for what? Are you equating speech with action? Again? There are absolutely actions that should blacklist people from working in a certain field, but those are almost always actions.

Frankly, you're the one who's being inconsistent. You've pointed out, correctly, that people have been ostracized and even lost positions for spurious reasons...yet in this same thread, you've DEFENDED people for ostracizing people and firing people for spurious reasons. You're operating under the principle of "I don't care what happens to people, unless they're people like me."
 

TheMysteriousGX

Elite Member
Legacy
Sep 16, 2014
8,300
6,798
118
Country
United States
Fine, let's make this as simple as possible.

Criticizing: "I think TB has bad ideas."

Censoring: "Remove TB from The Escapist because I don't want him expressing those ideas."
What is "fuck <insert company>, I'm not giving them money while they work with <insert asshole>"?
Am I obligated to continue patronizing a company? Am I not allowed to state my intentions and resoning publicly? Is there a list of specific moral or ethical objections that are allowed?

Because, like, I'm not going to buy a game with Casey Hudson as main writer or creative director and I'm willing to say so publicly. Is there a difference in whether it's Cancel Culture if the reason is because I don't like their writing instead of me disliking them personally? Or am *I* allowed that take, and anybody who disagrees with me and publicly says that they wouldn't want to read my reviews because of my subjectively shit opinion is engaging with Cancel Culture?
 

Silvanus

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 15, 2013
11,027
5,795
118
Country
United Kingdom
And where did I say Cancel culture is only specifically those things I said it would constitute cancel culture.
Like how Chihuahuas and Great Danes both are dogs.
I didn't say cancel culture is ONLY these things.

So yes you were seemingly trying to make me argue against a position I didn't hold and at this stage you can either accept that is not my argument or admit that you plan to try carrying on what would be a bad faith argument line by strawmanning me. I've now told you it's not my position multiple times. Time to flip the script and change the argument.
It's not me "strawmanning"; you were the one to list death threats and abuse. I didn't do that.

This started because Casual Shinji said, "I'm... not talking about threats, I'm talking about criticism". Those were the exact words. In response, you said, "but I don't really consider the following to be criticism", and listed a bunch of harassment and abuse and death threats.

You were the one to steer the conversation in that direction. You were the one who wanted to characterise "cancel culture" that way.

Which?
The one about Uncle Bob was trying to push the developer to take a side either with the mob trying to cancel Uncle Bob or against the mob. That is part of cancel culture roping in other people who have platforms and position to use them for the benefit of the mob or go against people the mob dislikes.
These were the specific comments;

d40b said:
I know I know, politics and games don’t mix well, but promoting a controversial person without any reservations _is_ a political act. So it might be worth considering to add a disclaimer. His actions and words have hurt a lot of (typically) underrepresented people and I’d personally prefer to avoid more people getting hurt by promoting him.


So.... not even asking for anything to be removed. Just asking Kovarex to add a disclaimer. And that was one commentator: there was no "dog-pile", there weren't hordes of people demanding this. It was one guy, on the official blog, making a pretty mild criticism that didn't even involve removing anything.

And Kovarex's response was;

Kovarex said:
Take the cancel culture mentality and shove it up your ass.
Does it?

Or is it regularly a mass of people doing so.
See above. One single guy. And the same crowd is vehemently convinced that it's "cancel culture" just the same.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Buyetyen

Dwarvenhobble

Is on the Gin
May 26, 2020
5,912
646
118
What does this mean?

This one's got off the rails a bit, so let's just zero on this fundamental point of disagreement. What is the line between criticizing a person's ideas and attempting to remove the means of the person to express those ideas, and why is it a problem if that line is crossed?

Every day I get out of bed and I discover that I still don't have a job as a journalist in a national newspaper. I will never work at a national newspaper, mostly because I don't have the particular background, skillset or connections, but also because the environment of British journalism is a weird, insular and hostile place which just wouldn't employ someone like me. Have I been cancelled? Have I lost a platform to which I am inherently entitled? Even if I wanted to work in journalism, would I not then be in the position of being beholden to my audience, forced to say whatever will appeal to them in order to keep my own career going? Is that a problem? Have journalists all been cancelled because they can't express their true opinions without mediation?

Noone can actually take away the means for you to express your ideas. All they can do is to say that they don't want to hear them, and if enough people don't want to hear your ideas then you should probably keep silent or face the consequences. Of course, you don't have to keep silent, you can keep using whatever influence you have to spread your unpopular ideas, but most people are not under the delusion that that is going to be an easy or safe thing to do.

Your idea of free speech is a children's playpen. It's a place where everyone can say whatever they want, but nothing they say is allowed to have consequences. It's a conservative fantasy of free speech presided over by the sober and right thinking adults who moderate the discussion and tell everyone to stop being naughty. For most people, free speech isn't a low stakes game, it's a power struggle. It's always been a power struggle. It's only conservatives, who never had to struggle, who never had to faced the risks of speaking out, who never faced ridicule or hatred because they have never deviated from the side of power, who pretend otherwise.

The absolute arrogance of believing you have some inherent entitlement or right, not just to speak, but to be heard, to be given whatever help or support you need to be heard. The idea that your ability to be heard should be sacred and inviolable, is ridiculous and offensive. It's ridiculous because somehow you've got through life thinking that's a right everyone has, and it's offensive because it only became a problem to you once people in positions of influence had to live by the same rules everyone else does.

But honestly, this is redundant because we're already assuming that this is actually the definition of "cancel culture" you're applying, and it's clearly not because you're equating someone voluntarily quitting twitter, someone being banned for twitter for advocating violence and someone being fired and blacklisted from their job as if they're all the same thing and as if they all have the same cause. That's why I don't think cancel culture is real, not because noone has ever lost their job or been ostracized from society for spurious reasons (I'm queer, I'm intimately aware of the fact that happens, probably to a degree you never will be) but because you can't even apply the concept consistently.
Except people aren't merely saying they don't want to hear the ideas but trying their damnedest to make sure no-one else gets to hear them.

The XKCD comic often referenced by people using the "Showing your the door" argument. Only really works if the crowd as a whole decided to show the person the door not merely one person who controls the place who has got a bit aggrieved at you saying something they don't like while everyone else there actually there to hear you speak then circulating their picture to every other space to tell them not to let the person speak there either along with nebulous false claims of wrongdoing. Or they threaten to burn down the venue unless the person they dislike is shown the door even though they were never there to hear them speak and in fact others very much were.

The XKCD comic and using it to justify shutting people down is like a call to let the closed minded dominate the conversation because they don't want to even listen to other ideas and I'd have thought people would have had enough of that kind of attitude with Mary Whitehouse in the past.


The idea that popularism makes right is a terrifying prospect to see people push.

People have the right to build their platforms even if that starts by plonking down a soapbox. Even in the UK there's speakers corner in some London park where people can go and speak on issues they want and people who want to can go and listen and hear people speak about said stuff. People have a right to have their ideas heard because then their ideas get to be tested and the understanding is they then hear the return or rebuttal.

What I'm seeing go on especially a lot in regards to Scott Cawthon is playpen level debate and discussion. It's Scott expressing his views and then people yelling "But you're a poopy butt head" and thinking that actually constitutes a cogent argument back while a bunch of people who have the critical thinking capacity of a dead gnat on twitter all applaud them for saying it because "You own dat Nazi facist whose part of the global wide massive cult of evil who make up everyone we disagree with on any issue" or whatever. People don't seem to get debate anymore they don't seem to be willing to go in ready to hear other views they just want the person whose views they like to act like a little child throwing pathetic jabs at the opponent because listening to a soundbite claiming that their opponent supports killing children and claims to be pro life and is therefore a hypoctire is far less taxing than understanding masses of information that prove the other person is entirely wrong from a logical and philosophical position. It's idiocracy beginning almost


Quitting twitter = If they were given a choice of quit twitter or face potential death is that truly a fair choice or one you'd consider most people would choose one option over the other for?
Being banned from twitter = Well this is people wanting a person silenced just a much
Being fired from a job and blacklisted = Often punishment by proxy it's still trying to silence people by taking away what platform they have build by other means than just the views they express to try and stop people expressing said views.

The phrase is "I may not agree with what you have to say but I'd die defending your right to say it" NOT "I may not agree with what you have to say but I'd happily die to make sure you couldn't say it".
 
  • Like
Reactions: Hawki