pouët.net

I think by now pretty much everyone who had interest to read the story has done so, and who wanted to join the discussion had the chance to do so on one of the various scene social media we have.

I also think it was clearly understood that not everybody will duck and hide once "social value missionaries" start blocking their way, but that some people will fight back for their rights to have own believes and value systems, and that shit storms can't always be trusted to be one-way-streets.

I've therefore now replaced https://uc9.party/sjw.html and will move on.

thank you.

This is not helping. Your anger is understandable but I hope you both can stay away from the cursewords and argumenta ad hominem.


Sorry, but you're wrong in this one. This whole frame of thinking is mostly fueled by the US. It escalated to monstrous proportions and it's viral nature is kinda infectious. It comes with a whole dictionary of words that you'll have to learn to get into the game.

Not knowing what this incrowd jargon stands for, means you'll kinda lost the discussion before you can make an argument. Reading up on the matter introduces these concepts and keywords into your mind in a way that can only be described as a cult.

I had to delete some words isn a vocal sample describing Anglo-Americans in my demo to censor myself, since the potential impact could be rather severe. Once something has been said it is next to impossible to take it back and some people just don't have any humor.

This list of forbidden word has always been there. What worries me, is that people try to extend it.

Anyway. I hope you two can resolve this in a peaceful manner. For what it is worth: I have respect for both of you, who you are and what you have achived and you both seem huggable persons when not on an active flamewar. <3

This concerns multiple people in this thread, so I'm posting it in public.

I'm sure nobody wants to label words as 'thoughtcrime', 1984 style. I'm sure nobody here would object that free speech is super important. We all agree on this already!

So what happened? Political groups tend to define, actively 'steal' and redefine our vocabulary, so meanings can change over time. This happens across the political spectrum, and seems to have caused severe misunderstandings in this discussion.

Political terms you started using just months ago can already mean something different now. And using the same terms evokes totally different ideas and emotions depending who you talk to.

Political terms are designed and put in circulation with a purpose, so try to find out if this purpose (still) matches your own purposes before using them. Use an incognito window or DuckDuckGo when using a search engine to avoid confirmation bias. Don't be lazy, don't go with the first meaning you find. Try to use it in the same way as your audience understands it. Invent better words if you're unsure how your audience interprets it, and explain what you mean.

"Stop telling me obvious things!" I hear you think. Let's check if you actually did your homework:

Political Correctness is a term that our parents used completely differently from what it means nowadays. It had a positive meaning once, a later generation used it derogative because they were annoyed by it, and nowadays it's main use seems to be to create straw man arguments as described by Chaos. It has been used by the alt-right so extensively that it's very likely that a big audience part that reads political blogs across the whole political spectrum will associate you with Trump if you use it.

Snowflake is a very funny example, too. After totally different political uses of the word in 1860 and in 1970, within in a very short time today, this went from describing the perceived education of millenials ("Generation Snowflake") to a political insult against any demand by any minority. In the meanwhile, the left tries to steal the word back, with the mixed result that it's now used as positive self-description or against right-wing politicians to ridicule them for using the term while being over-sensitive to things themselves. Using the term "Snowflake" evokes totally different pictures depending on whatever random blog article a reader has seen last. This makes it problematic for serious communication, and even when used satirically it might accidentally cause an 'ewww' instead of the audience lulz you actually wished for.

Like the German word "handy", another good candidate for international misunderstandings is the word "Shitstorm". It's meaning is totally different meaning in German and English. While describing bad situations in general In English, its German meaning is very specific and political. One of the people who coined this new 'German' meaning is now publicly sorry about it: " ‘Shitstorm’ is usually used as dysphemism und discredits any kind of indignation." (The linked article contains a list of problematic consequences of its usage.)

So no matter if satire or not: If you have a political message and don't want to accidentally say the opposite of what you want to convey, you have to know how your audience interprets it if your aim is to get your point across. Of course it's totally okay to not care about all this because it's theoretical. But then you have to live with the audience's very non-theoretical 'ewws', too. They are not a thoughtcrime, either.

Thanks for that explanation, that indeed did contain quite a lot of news to me.

I had completely different things in my mind here:

- Political Correctness: Speech done in a way to make sure not to be possibly be offending anyone, therefore typically being free of any substance and boring in general.

- Snowflake: Someone who is easily offended and can hardly be touched without melting away

- Social Justice Warrior: Someone who believes to be fighting for social justice, but somehow forgot that not everybody likes the concept of "warriors".

The explanation about two different ends of the political spectrum now fighting about who owns "snowflake" makes sense. It explains why yesterday I first was told by a person who I consider liberal-left that it's OK to use that, and then a couple of hours later was told by other person I regard as liberal-left that the term is derogatory. Someone probably had forgotten to renew his subscription for the "banned words of the month" list. And I'll never be able to touch a snowflake like I did before...

I have to admit that I find my approach as laid out above as much more logical. And I have to admit I like logic much more than I like ideology.

But of course the main lesson here is that I am not fond of any kind of missionaries coming after me, and no matter what their name of the day is, that *forcing* your world view, morale and ethics onto someone typically means that your world view sucks, you've got no morale, and your ethics stink, because else there would be no need to try to force them onto others. It would be enough to enable an informed decision.

I personally prefer the Jehovah's Witnesses that you can find standing at pretty much any German railway station, because they of course try to spread insanely laughable non-sense that makes your brain explode in seconds. But they are just standing there silent, waiting for some sorry fly to get stuck in their web. I prefer that over an outraged Twitter Mob shouting at me to let me know what they believe the ultimate formula of becoming an acceptable human being to be, at any time.

But then again, nobody expects the Spanish inquisition.

that reminds me that i forgot to add one item to my wish list: that you would stop further attacks against me (including where i can't see them)

and perhaps a more general observation that the words became inacceptable because the underlying sentiments are, so finding a new name will only eventually make that name as inacceptable

My association with the word "snowflake" is about the individualist society. As they say, every snowflake is unique. This analogy is used to tell children in school that they are all 'special' in some way, everyone is good at something (for example, as an excuse for children who aren't good in sports... leading to crazy things as giving every participant in a race a prize).
This gave rise to a generation of people who considered themselves unique, and even moreso: entitled to all sorts of things.

That is what I think "Generation Snowflake" is about.
In general, it has been observed that 80% of the people consider themselves in the top 20% (Dunning Kruger effect). Generation Snowflake is closer to 99% of the people considering themselves in the top 1%.
In the end it somewhat boils down to them not dealing well with negativity or whatnot, and they will be easily offended as a result of their misplaced sense of entitlement.

You can live happily without missionaries, but living without an asshole is a pain in the ass.

How wayfinder was treated for raising a concern I share and how little opposition I see against such behavior here is the final straw for me. I'm done with the scene. Claiming only outsiders have a problem with it and real sceners are OK with it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Behavior like that is driving people away. Of course everyone is free to behave that way, but don't be surprised if it causes people to walk away from the scene after you've shown them that they aren't welcome.

wayfinder: As the way I have used these words clearly has triggered people I had/have a genuine interest in how others use them in the scene. The biggest amount of complaints I have received about sjw.html was the filename, which is kinda telling - "word choice more important than message, and even making the message itself getting ignored". Anyway, this isn't about you, and never has been exclusively, anyway.

scali: That makes sense. I did not have the aspect of uniqueness of individual snowflakes in mind at all.

Even with not liking the whole thing of words having this huge amount of subtext and fights about who "owns" them, I should have probably googled the shit before for the first time using those myself, and I will adapt.

Word choice is part of the message.

yeah no i realize that you need a whole conspiracy to be able to frame this as punching up to yourself. if you were a powerful party orga removing a person from your team for insisting on human decency, and not a Freedom Fighter Defending Art against the Forces of Fascism, that would perhaps not feel as righteous

wayfinder: No sense in going back into this. Executive summary still is: "Don't threaten, bitch against and badmouth scamp for weeks on art and speech that it is important to him, especially not if you are not willing to handle the consequences".

Others involved into the stuff that went on on Twitter have understood.

And everything else is just Argument Clinic.

i am and was willing to handle the consequences for standing up for myself and my convictions. i am not willing to endure an unending stream of veiled and open insults and threats.

and again, the myth of that constant nagging: show me the receipts. i left you well alone for that whole time, so stop lying. if you are using it as pretext for an impending infinite campaign of badmouthing *me*, stop it right now.

While I am similarly bothered by it, be advised that your perspective might be subjective here - the ratio of for/against e.g. on IRC was very much the opposite. I do share your concern there's too much of a "not my problem" "oh not drama again" tendency when it comes to these things though, I'd say a large portion of the scene doesn't understand what community care is and why it's necessary.

i guess only finns will get this but: scamp is paavo väyrynen of demoscene.

With a few exceptions that sums up the reaction of most I've seen react to this or talked to about this. And that's how it is most of the time if such an issue comes up. And those are people I've worked with and interact with at parties, not people who are the loudest here on pouet.

I've not been active since we've released overdrive 2 anyway, and the reason is that I've felt much more welcome in other communities, that while not perfect, are doing much better in this regard. So in a way this has already happened. I'm only writing this here now, so there is evidence of this actively driving people away.

@jix, you are right that the problem is very real. However, every time someone like you leaves, the ratio of people who care and people who don't gets worse. I think the responsibility to stay and be vocal is also with us. In this respect, it is great to actually have something like this discussed in the open.

This is a pity, moreover knowing the world we live in. I understand jix, I had hoped the scene was more of a love community than anything else.


Exactly my point of view as well.

I wouldn't reprimand - or even better: put a feeling of guilt into - people who choose to live the community for reasons Jix is pondering to leave the scene. there is only so much some people can stomach and there is nothing wrong with that.

Sorry if it came across like this. I did not mean to guilt him (or anyone else) into staying. I was mostly trying to explain one of the reasons people stay, even if they run into similar levels of disagreement.