Target Aus Pulls GTA V From Shelves, For Its "Violence Against Women" - Update
- Thread starter Steven Bogos
- Start date
I see a slippery slope fallacy, and someone walking back their "I told you so" about a certain person.NuclearKangaroo said:
Doesn't oppose it? The monster!
You're talking about large groups of people using singular examples, the exact sort of thing that's got you upset in the past when it's been inconvenient for you.
A major retailer apparently nobody buys games at. By "lying" about content in pretty much the same way the consumer activist group Gamergate, PBUH, has done. The same way Zontar lied when he hauled off into histrionics about censorship.Qizx said:
You can't kill prostitutes in GTA?
It's almost like he was addressing people who have actively supported the movement to "censor" publications on false pretense but suddenly think that's a bad thing when it no longer suits them. The size of the movement is irrelevant. Unfortunately, you're not even making "points."
You really shouldn't say "even," since it only seems to apply to them. You're quick to take umbrage when someone dares to want something else, and very silent when the industry blocks that. The message I get is that it's wrong to force developers to make characters until they're not aimed at straight white dudes, and then...who cares.NuclearKangaroo said:
Encouraging people I disagree with (who are also coherent) to continue discourse with me is the only way I'll learn regarding the areas that I am ignorant in while strengthening my ability to defend areas I'm right in. Though, from looking below it appears that we actually agree on all points so...Signa said:
You can type # or hashtag however you want. I don't follow or particularly care about twitter so I haven't been involved in hashtagging things.
It seems to me that gamergate also had a particular focus on SJWs being the ones abusing the lax ethics in journalism to suite their own devices. Not SJW as in anyone who believes in social justice but "SJW" in the way GG generally defines it as people who are out to exploit social causes for their own benefit or even those who would force their opinions on others including moral concepts that aren't necessarily inherently correct (for example, sexual depictions of women aren't inherently evil. Even less so when the "woman" is a collections of 1's and 0's rather than an actual woman. Claiming even that porn is bad would just end up being a moral claim rather than an ethical imperative like not murdering). So it isn't an extreme leap to see intellectually honest proponents of GG seeing this event as the SJW crowd imposing their morals on games and gamers in a way that gets games censored in the same way books like the Giver got censored or taken off of shelves. That being said, the legitimate issues of GG are legitimate for you and me too regardless of our stand in GG. So just because your issues overlap with GG shouldn't make it the automatic stop of conversation.
Something people misunderstood in mass during this whole thing is actually the ambiguity of the term "Social Justice Warrior". Most of the definitions of the term actually aren't flattering terms about people who just defend Social Justice. If that's what it was, no one (well, generally no one) is so idiotic as to actually demonize social justice. However, feminists defined the term as just that. So when someone complained about SJW being allowed to abuse journalism the people complaining thought they were talking about the bad elements who aren't real Social Justice advocates who are out to exploit their cause or to support inequality (putting women up by putting men down, for example) or even to control the media that other people enjoy like we're seeing now. All the while the real social justice advocates thought they were talking about them. The feminists out for equality, the racial justice out for equality, the LGBT advocates out for equality. People I and hopefully most other GG's have no problem with and even ally ourselves with. So we got a LOT of talking past one another with one side shocked that anyone would defend SJWs and one side shocked that anyone would attack SJWs (philosophically, not physically, screw anyone that actually attacked or harassed either side online).
It is kind of interesting to see how people actually make this happen in modern times. It helps me understand why books and music was banned in my parents' day.
Yes, I corrected that above in my discussion with another user. I'm used to AU generally censoring games like this anyways so I guess I was thinking about their regular censorious behaviors while I was typing. Thank you for the correction though.
[Joke] Well... I guess we agree then... um... I think you should insult my mom now or the internet will break. Warning, I'm an adult out in the real world so you'd just be insulting an old lady. Is that what you like? Mr. Tough Guy? Insulting old ladies with their arthritis and fresh baked cookies available in case someone visits? [/joke]
Well, you didn't ask for a lesson in 17th century semantics but here it goes: Bigotry was originally solely used in the context of intolerance of belief, specifically in relation to "religious hypocrites" being intolerant of others. The "got" of bigot is supposed to be derived from a German term for God for example. So not only is intolerance of belief acceptable, but it is the core/primary definition of the term that has evolved to include other things as well. So it's actually extending the term to race, gender, and political affiliation that is guilty of making the term broader.
E.g.
Wikipedia: Some examples include personal beliefs, race, religion, national origin, gender, disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, or other group characteristics.
Google: big·ot·ry
ˈbiɡətrē/
noun
noun: bigotry; plural noun: bigotries
intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself.
(that's the only definition it provides, interestingly enough)
Go ahead and take a look. Intolerance of belief is the first and foremost definition of bigotry in most of the dictionaries too. My office dictionary (does it make me old to have a dictionary on my desk considering the internet now exists?) has it as the primary definition as well. In fact, belief is the first definition and now it appears that religion is a secondary definition due to it being a more precise term.
I will say, though, bigotry has an element of unreasonableness to it. So, for example, I am against the KKK and everything they stand for. I am flagrantly against them and there's no amount of reasoning they can give me to see the world as adversarial races. However, if one of their members believes that my dismissal of them is unsubstantiated then they would be properly using the term themselves in calling me a bigot while you and I would disagree.
So the evaluation of the unreasonableness is unfortunately relative/subjective. Maybe society would have considered me a bigot for hating the KKK in the 1920's, for example.
Banning is officially or legally preventing something. What's more to get? Anyone with the authority to prevent something is capable of banning said thing.TopazFusion said:
Is a store banning books from their shelves inherently different from a library banning books from their shelves? While yes, libraries are governments and there's certainly a creepier element to government controlling our media, games are typically only acquired through stores and not libraries. So the end result is similar.
Target, as a corporation is banning the game from being sold in their stores. This is the realm over which they have authority and preside. The scope is not as broad as entire governments, sure. But the effect is similar.
In the same way you can kill all the males too. The game does not particularly focus on women in any way. I'd say men are far more harmed in the story.Zachary Amaranth said:
The problem I have here isn't necessarily against banning violent games. I don't have any qualms with violent games depending on the age of the kid playing it but I also understand that different cultures may have a different set of moral beliefs than my own in the same way our culture bans and demonizes sexual depictions. What I do have a problem with is only banning the game because women can be hurt in it. I have a problem with them being sexist, not with them being morally strict. Why is it wrong to have the option to have violence against women but not wrong to have violence against men? Double standard and anyone/everyone who understand the game should be mad about it.
Feminists should be upset that they're being treated differently. That the company has decided it's their job to protect the weak and defenseless women.
Men's Equality groups should be upset about the message that this sends where violence against men is fine and good but women have more rights to safety.
"Daring to want something else" isn't banning from shelves and preventing from being sold. It isn't taking away content from others. It's about being catered to as well. Shame on you for defending it on either side. The industry doesn't "block" some of the things other people want. The industry doesn't think it will be profitable so they make the thing that is profitable. It is insane to think we should be silent just because Coca Cola won't make shit-flavored syrup for shit-loving Ted.
1 store pulled the product... then 2 stores... then a movement of feminists in norway wants to do the same, oh but go ahead, keep saying im just talking nonsenseZachary Amaranth said:
not only they dont oppose, anita herself argued publishers should enforce censorship on devs, but go ahead, keep saying im talking nonsenseZachary Amaranth said:
just out of curiosity, what large group of people you think im talking about?Zachary Amaranth said:
again implying im white...Zachary Amaranth said:
anyways, no, maybe if you actually read what i write, like when i was discussing with ertheking, and i defended this game with a transexual main character, i said it would be very nice if these extremist encouraged the creation of "inclusive" games, instead of demanding the censorship of games they dont consider inclusive, maybe i wouldnt play the game, but im not agaisnt the fact it exists
also take just a minute to consider the following:
if these characters are aimed at straight white males, how come gaming is something enjoyed by people of almost all ages in almost all countries?
is the world full of straight white males? or maybe, just maybe, these people dont give a shit about race
You can't kill prostitutes in GTA?Zachary Amaranth said:
You can. In the same way you can kill birds, GTA FIVE PROMOTES VIOLENCE AGAINST BIRDS! I, as a person who identifies as a bird DEMAND that GTAV be pulled from all retailers due to it's glorification and rampant promotion of violence against birds. I mean hell, in GTIV you get a damn achievement from doing it! Now that's actually rewarding it.
I think your missing the point as zachary was likely taking issue with your hyperbolic claims of the petition makers accusing the game of things it doesn't do, when the game does actually let you do all the things the petition claims it does.Qizx said:
You were wrong about that, the petition makers didn't make up things that didn't happen in the game, they used hyperbole and twisting their words to make it look like the prostitute killing was more central to the game than it actually is, but they did not make up any of the things you can do to prostitutes in the game, failing to mention that the game lets you do it to anyone does not make the petition writers liars, it does make them hyperbolic and extremely biased, and you could make the claim that their points are misrepresenting the game, but they are not lying about it.
They seem to believe that the violence against women is a special case or that it should be given special protection, therefore what you can do to birds or random civilians does not effect the fact that they are right about what you can do in the game, no matter how much you or I may disagree with the intentions and morality, they still aren't actually lying.
OT: Australia is where I would expect something like this to happen, overall I disagree with targets decision, but much like other consumer petitions, I still believe it is Target's decision to make and crying censorship just undermines efforts to reverse the position, by making its critics look like idiots.
I very much doubt slippery slope applies in this case as single chain stores have done this with media in the past, and without a concerted effort from a centralized source, it won't result in widespread or longterm bans, Target will likely wait for this to blow over and then stop caring right in time for them to start selling copies of GTA6.
Glad to see we can make the decision for what is appropriate for Target to sell.Steven Bogos said:
So are all the articles from Escapist going to be like this from now on? Like we're just dropping pretenses yeah? Man I can't wait for GG to jump all of the lack of journalistic ethics here. Clearly Steven Bogos is pushing an agenda, which is like, the biggest crime ever.
From what I can tell, militant feminazis have occupied the former penal colony known as Australia, and using their army of white knights have forcibly removed all copies of Grand Theft Auto V from the landmass. Don't trust the stories that are coming out about two stores opting not to sell the game because of their customer base, those are clearly by SJW plants who lack journalistic ethics. In fact, so unethical are they, we should probably boycott them. And boycotting is totally not censorship or banning, so it's okay for me to champion it.irishda said:
You weren't the only one to notice this.irishda said:
It's funny, this thread is full of GamerGate supporters (page 1 in particular), but not one of them mentioned the obvious lack of objectivity in this article.
I guess screaming censorship and having a lolly scramble of logical fallacies, is more important to them than their beloved journalistic ethics.
You still haven't demonstrated anything but nonsense.NuclearKangaroo said:
Shifting the goalposts because your case was so bad.
You've previously established "people like her" are "feminists" and "SJWs."
Only if you don't mind lying. Which, evidently, you don't.
Excpet previously you've whined about attempts to be inclusive, so I don't believe you. Nor should anyone with pattern recognition.
That would be relevant except the largest consumer markets are in three regions, two of them primarily white. I know you claimed they're played everywhere, but that doesn't make them a target audience. And in the end, that's all I said. Not that you were white, or that the entire audience was white. But that would require honestly addressing a point without theatrics.
Then they only "lied" as much as you did with your previous claim.Qizx said:
You know it's bad when Kotaku has you beat for objectivity and personal bias limiting when both of you are reporting on the same story. XDIceForce said:
...Anyways still waiting for certain individuals to make this their main cause right now. Even if I think why they are fighting is stupid, I'd still probably prefer GTA V back on shelves in Australia, for the sake of at least shutting up the free speech absolutists of the internet, who should know this does/will not affect them greatly.
Also, not sure why people still call these people "SJW"s and "feminists", this still sounds like a concerned moms group or something akin to women that apparently lived through this abuse if that Change.org page is any indicator. Do I disagree with them, their actions, and ultimately their approach? Yes! But they aren't the worst thing ever and I'm not going to pretend this is somehow the greatest injustice of my lifetime. When the day A Birth of A Nation is off Netflix instant streaming, then maybe I'll think we're living in these so called end times to
Hey, it's probably worth updating the article with this.
https://www.change.org/p/target-withdraw-the-holy-bible-this-sickening-book-encourages-readers-to-commit-sexual-violence-and-kill-women
It's pretty fresh and it almost has as many votes as the target one.
https://www.change.org/p/target-withdraw-the-holy-bible-this-sickening-book-encourages-readers-to-commit-sexual-violence-and-kill-women
It's pretty fresh and it almost has as many votes as the target one.
Well, that was stupid.
wait there are actually people defending censorship and comparing this to the bitching of "Gamergate is ISIS" guy? What the hell happened here? Basically this post:
wait there are actually people defending censorship and comparing this to the bitching of "Gamergate is ISIS" guy? What the hell happened here? Basically this post:
----------------------------------Robert Marrs said:
It has only recently been realesed for the new consoles and thus isnt really "so old noone is buying" but otherwise i agree with the sentiment.Shamanic Rhythm said:
If you really think that first person mode is the only difference you havent been paying attention.WouldYouKindly said:
If by asinine bitching you mean people pointing out conflict of interest and lack of ethics then yes, its totally different thing.IceForce said: