Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

[Prak]

It is also really fucking obvious why an actual anarcho-communist would vote for a democrat. If an anarcho-communist, in addition to planning to disband the military and hand over stewardship of all federal buildings to local communes, also has designs on being able to walk down the street and pop a J, then it is perfectly fucking sensible for the anarcho-communist to concede that he can't have all of his goals and form a caucus with the dudes who at the very least are more amiable to blazin' it 420. That's not contradiction, just a cost-benefit analysis.

Well, I've already admitted that I had a wrong understanding of what anarchocommunism is, but this is closer to what I was trying, and failing, to get across.

[DSMatticus]

I honestly cannot grasp what's so badwrong about having an ideal end result

Because anarchocommunism is not Prak's ideal end goal. Stateless utopia is Prak's ideal end goal, and Prak correctly recognizes that anarchocommunism will not give him that stateless utopia, and as a result rejects anarchocommunism. While for some reason deciding to continue to call himself an anarchocommunist.

but this is closer to what I was trying, and failing, to get across.

No! No it isn't! Why can't you just fucking admit you were wrong in the way you were so obviously wrong? You have said repeatedly that you do not pursue your anarchocommunist agenda because you do not actually believe anarchocommunism would work and as such do not actually have an anarchocommunist agenda! You did not talk about how you are an anarchocommunist who wants to dismantle the state but realistically can't achieve your political goals (because they are unpopular) and so you instead vote for the Democrats whose emphasis on personal liberties resonates more closely with your anarchocommunist values (the thing Eikre said). You just declared anarchocommunism to be wishful thinking, abandoned it, and then kept calling yourself an anarchocommunist.

You did a fucking dumb. And that particular fucking dumb is not in the definition of anarchocommunism, it is in the very fundamental nature of what it means to be a thing.

People should not identify themselves politically based on their ideals; they should identify themselves based on what policies they materially support.

Yes, they should. Actual socialists should call themselves socialists even if they are voting blue out of a realistic understanding of the limits of their electoral systems. Because the word socialism reflects the agenda they want enacted, and the thing they vote for is just a practical matter of achieving that goal by voting for the closest feasible alternative.

But you should not identify yourself as a thing, and then admit that that thing is stupid and that you do not even want it achieved to begin with.

[Prak]

I honestly cannot grasp what's so badwrong about having an ideal end result

Because anarchocommunism is not Prak's ideal end goal. Stateless utopia is Prak's ideal end goal, and Prak correctly recognizes that anarchocommunism will not give him that stateless utopia, and as a result rejects anarchocommunism. While for some reason deciding to continue to call himself an anarchocommunist.

Well, did.

but this is closer to what I was trying, and failing, to get across.

No! No it isn't! Why can't you just fucking admit you were wrong in the way you were so obviously wrong? You have said repeatedly that you do not pursue your anarchocommunist agenda because you do not actually believe anarchocommunism would work and as such do not actually have an anarchocommunist agenda! You did not talk about how you are an anarchocommunist who wants to dismantle the state but realistically can't achieve your political goals (because they are unpopular) and so you instead vote for the Democrats whose emphasis on personal liberties resonates more closely with your anarchocommunist values (the thing Eikre said). You just declared anarchocommunism to be wishful thinking, abandoned it, and then kept calling yourself an anarchocommunist.

You did a fucking dumb. And that particular fucking dumb is not in the definition of anarchocommunism, it is in the very fundamental nature of what it means to be a thing.

Fuck it. Whatever. Apparently I don't know what I was trying to express about my own personal fucking views. A couple guys on the internet do. Whatever.

But you should not identify yourself as a thing, and then admit that that thing is stupid and that you do not even want it achieved to begin with.

Who the fuck said I don't want it achieved? I'd love for a stateless utopia to happen. That'd be great. I just am a cynic and don't believe it's actually possible.

[DSMatticus]

Apparently I don't know what I was trying to express about my own personal fucking views. A couple guys on the internet do. Whatever.

Yes, they do, because you are being that goddamn thickheaded.

Who the fuck said I don't want it achieved? I'd love for a stateless utopia to happen. That'd be great. I just am a cynic and don't believe it's actually possible.

No fucking shit. The definition of utopia is "most awesomest society evar." Every fucking person on the planet who does not get their kicks out of human suffering and/or has some arbitrary love of authority such that they are willing to tolerate unnecessary human suffering to have it will pick stateless utopia over any non-utopia.

But why are you being so willfully fucking stupid that you refuse to understand that rejecting the anarchocommunist agenda (as you previously understood it) because you don't believe it will lead to a stateless utopia (or even be an improvement at all) MAKES YOU A NOT-ANARCHOCOMMUNIST?!

Fuck it. I'm an anarchocapitalist. The idea of a stateless utopia not only consistent with but built on the greedy self-interest of human beings sounds both awesome and easy. I know it's complete and total bullshit and anarchocapitalism would never result in a stateless utopia and as a result I actively oppose the implementation of an anarchocapitalist society, but what does that matter? I totally believe in anarchocapitalism.

[momothefiddler]

I honestly cannot grasp what's so badwrong about having an ideal end result

Because anarchocommunism is not Prak's ideal end goal. Stateless utopia is Prak's ideal end goal, and Prak correctly recognizes that anarchocommunism will not give him that stateless utopia, and as a result rejects anarchocommunism. While for some reason deciding to continue to call himself an anarchocommunist.

Gotcha. This is the distinction I was failing to make and in retrospect you were right; I'm an idiot.

Thanks for working through that with me.

[Meikle641]

So, I need to make a website for my company. What is my "best" option between free sites and paid ones? My budget is fairly limited, naturally. Was thinking some form of Wordpress based site, but I dunno. I'm not up to making a site myself, though.

[fectin]

I'd look at Dreamhost. They're moderately cheap, somewhat reliable, and don't seem to screw you over for funsies. Their "one-click installs" do what they say on the tin.

Wordpress is nice, versatile, and has a tonne of plugins. You might want something like a storefront instead though, depending what you want to do with your website.

When you're ready to move to pure hosting, I've been extremely happy with vnucleus. Price is great, reliability is great, and support is very responsive.

[Meikle641]

Well, I already have my domain and hosting paid for for a year. Just a matter of having a website, I'd guess.

[Shrapnel]

Could some explain to me, please, what this whole deal around Zoe Quinn is about? I don't feel like trudging through Google.

[name_here]

Well, I just checked a couple articles, so I can't tell you with much authority, but basically Zoe Quinn is an indie developer who wrote a critically praised but not exceptionally well-selling game called Depression Quest, which happened to go up on Steam recently. The controversy started when her ex-boyfriend put up a long post accusing her of sleeping around with coworkers and journalists. Incidentally, he's since edited his post to clarify that this happened after the game got released and reviewed.

So you've got a female game developer doing something bad, which is a perfect recipe for the internet exploding as the various MRAs and their ilk come forth and spew bile while lots of people who probably don't generally approve of her conduct form up to protect women in gaming in general. To make matters worse, someone (it is not entirely clear who) has been sending takedown notices to Youtube and webhosts to remove criticisms of her, and discussion on Reddit got nuked, reportedly for violation of terms of service (Arguably it does violate the "no personal information" rule).

[Shrapnel]

So lemme get this straight... Dudette makes a game that goes up on steam, and people think it's good but it don't sell too well. Then, a crazy ex-boyfriend decides to start a slander and smear campaign against said dudette for no discernible reason that I can see, which in turn opens the floodgates for the Internet's super crazy anti-woman freaks to start vomiting all over the Web, while other people try to defend Zoe simply because she is a female game designer, and all the while some masked crusader is trying to purge the internet of any and all criticism towards her.

Just... why?

[schpeelah]

People don't "think it's good". Several critics, some of whom she slept with, said it was good, while word of mouth is mainly negative. It has a 1.2 score on Metacritic. You can play for free on the internet, just Goggle it, it's a text based Flash thing.

Also, she admitted to cheating on the boyfriend with these people (well, they aren't releasing the names of 2 out of 5, but the internet tracked them down anyway). They are people who wrote funded her and wrote good reviews as journalists on major gaming websites.

[Shrapnel]

Ahhh... now it becomes clearer. So Zoe slept around to get a shitty game better reviews, and the ex-boyfriend started all this because he was cheated on and thus understandably upset, but threw a giant internet temper tantrum which let loose a whole flood of stupid. Now I get it. I think.

[name_here]

Uh, no, according to that very ex-boyfriend, the timeline is entirely wrong for that to have happened. Also, I wouldn't trust the metacritic user score for something this hot-button, especially since a sixth of the negative reviews on the first page of reviews seem to be copy-pasted.

[Eikre]

Just... why?

Two reasons:

One. Zoe allegedly made it clear on her first date ever with ex-boyfriend guy that any and all sexual relations with her were contingent on monogamous exclusivity, and that any infidelity was cause for a retroactive withdrawal of consent. In short, that cheating was tantamount to rape. This is academically defensible and a fine conceit for an up-front relationship contract and I have no criticisms, but it's laughable that under these well-defined and concrete terms, she would proceed to bareback multiple dudes in secret and continue to urge her boyfriend not to use condoms during and after the periods in which she had her trysts.

Her personal conduct understandably erodes her stance on the moral highground. To most right-minded people, this merely makes her a less sympathetic figure in the face of her ex-boyfriend's crass and poorly-advised public airing of his dirty laundry. To the worthless internet misogynist contingent, though, it's just cause for an all-out dox crusade.

Two. "Games journalism." No further comment.

[Stahlseele]

Disclaimer: this is how i pieced together these timeline picture postings.

And then there is the whole mess with wizardchan getting involved somehow.
Wizardchan is a board for men. Not for women. She took that appearantly to mean that it was her holy social justice warrior duty to start shit with them.
And then cried to her other social justice warrior friends on tumblr abour how toxic the games developement community is to females after the chan reacted defensively to her starting shit with them. which, if you know anything about the chan culture at all, should be a pretty obvious thing to expect to happen.
And then when the game actually failed on steam greenlight she used it as the excuse for that, telling everybody and their mothers that all the naysayers were obviously trolls from the chans attacking her because of her ovaries.
And then when people pointed out that the game had failed on greenlight, according to the timeline, BEFORE the mess with the chan started, she got all defensive about that and started calling people mysoginist pigs for defending the chan and then the whole thing exploded again. And the #outcry made it so that everybody who heard about it and actually fell into the:"these horrible people are mean to this nice girl" trap actually upvoted the game and got it greenlighted on steam.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Also, she admitted to cheating on the boyfriend with these people (well, they aren't releasing the names of 2 out of 5, but the internet tracked them down anyway). They are people who wrote funded her and wrote good reviews as journalists on major gaming websites.

I read that she had only slept with 1 journalist, and said journalist never at any point reviewed the game.

[Shrapnel]

Okay, NOW I (think) I get it.

Zoe acted like a bitch, ex-boyfriend acted like a moron, and everyone involved is an ass.

Does that sum it up?

[Chamomile]

There's evidence that the incident with wizardchan may have been an extremely successful troll trying to stir up a fight between Zoe and her tumblr fans against wizardchan. There's also evidence that it may have been a false flag operation by Zoe herself. Basically the only reasonable conclusion to come to is that it's an anonymous imageboard and we have no idea who did what in the thread that prompted the vitriol of Zoe's supporters. It wouldn't be the first time a bunch of tumblrites got suckered into doing somebody's dirty work on buzzwords and a false sense of community, only this time they didn't even get an extra hour in the ballpit out of it.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Okay, NOW I (think) I get it.

Zoe acted like a bitch, ex-boyfriend acted like a moron, and everyone involved is an ass.

Does that sum it up?

That sums up nearly everything that has ever happened ever...

[DSMatticus]

Okay, NOW I (think) I get it.

Zoe acted like a bitch, ex-boyfriend acted like a moron, and everyone involved is an ass.

Does that sum it up?

Almost - you're missing the end.

Zoe Quinn took a bunch of highly principled stances on the ethics of relationships and did not live up them while successfully convincing her boyfriend to do so. Relationships are fucking hard and people are hypocrites; news at 11:00. The people who want to talk about this are the "women ain't nothing but bitches and sluts and you should hate them" types.

You can make a pretty solid case that Zoe Quinn crosses the line from terrible girlfriend straight into emotionally abusive partner, but most of the evidence to that effect is coming from a one-sided description of their breakup. I am not accusing Eron Gjoni (the ex-bf) of any deliberate misconduct, but if how we handled our breakups were the benchmarks against which we were measured very few of us would pass. Their attempt to patch things up was basically guaranteed to bring out the worst in both of them, and it's worth noting that while Zoe Quinn admits to lying a bunch it is usually immediately after Eron Gjoni accuses her of lying and threatens to walk out if he doesn't get "the truth." Again: not accusing him of deliberate misconduct, but that is a recipe for "this is what I think you want to hear, so I will say it." The only safe conclusion you can make based on that clusterfuck is that some people made some bad decisions.

It is the case that Eron Gjoni chose to vent by naming and shaming someone for their personal relationships. That's... sketchy. Blah blah blah games journalism whatever - that isn't why he did it and he's even clarified since then that the timeline of events does not imply any specific conflict of interest. But once the story broke some people wrote articles and posted videos on youtube discussing the fact that devs fucking journalists reeks of unprofessionalism and those articles and videos were taken down by someone claiming to be Zoe Quinn through maliciously false copyright takedown notices.

Finally a big YouTube personality (TotalBiscuit, though he wasn't the only one) commented along the lines of "I don't know or care what happened between Zoe Quinn and her boyfriend, but yes games journalism is a steaming pile of shit and if Zoe Quinn was the one who sent those copyright takedown notices that was both stupid and reprehensible." And then a bunch of indie devs jumped to twitter to go absolutely batshit at TotalBiscuit (particularly Phil Fish). Because you know, how dare you suggest that doing terrible things would make Zoe Quinn a terrible person.

Also, as usual, chans are confusing and scary things that you can blame for literally anything and no one will even bother to ask for proof. Get a prank call, perhaps one that's even threatening? Blame it on a chan: not only do you not need to prove that that website is responsible, you don't even need to prove that it happened at all! Also Zoe Quinn had her personal info leaked, and then the cellphone number in that leak turned out to be a landline in Hawaii. So... yeah. There's a lot of evidence that suggests Zoe Quinn will fabricate attacks against herself to gain supporters through victim sympathy, which would make her the embodiment of the strawmen disgusting shitbags use to dismiss real victims. Fucking hell.

Anyway, the point is there are legitimate grievances you can raise with respect to Zoe Quinn. None have anything to do with Zoe Quinn's vagina. This is basically another elevatorgate - a prominent feminist does something stupid and/or despicable, and legitimate discussion of that stupid and/or despicable thing gets drowned out by cries of "I hate women!" and "you woman-hater!"

[Shrapnel]

And with that, the picture becomes complete. Thanks.

...Actually, I think this might've been an episode of Days of Our Lives; the only thing that's missing is a hortisexual affair with a Boston fern.

[Corsair114]

This article covers the salient points RE: Zoe Quinn quite accurately.

[DSMatticus]

That is an awful article. It's just the exact same "look at all these people who hate women. If you think this woman did something wrong, you must hate women too!"

The fact that people want to talk about Zoe Quinn's private life is disappointing. The fact that the allegations of misconduct are flimsy and unsubstantiated at best makes it little better than gossip. But Zoe Quinn still is not the least bit justified in preventing people from discussing whether or not the fact that a developer slept with a journalist raises issues of journalistic integrity. It is ethically and legally improper for her to send DMCA takedown notices to YouTube on videos talking about the fact that she slept with a journalist. It is ethically and legally improper for her to send takedown notices to the hosting providers of gaming related websites demanding that articles about the fact that she slept with a journalist be taken down. And it is ethically improper for her to demand that reddit moderators remove every single instance of discussion about her.

Note: she is not requesting that her private info be scrubbed for her privacy/safety, she is demanding that people on the internet stop talking about her at all. And in some of those cases backing up those demands with malicious abuses of copyright law. Assuming, of course, that she did those things. But considering the last of those is all but proven, the other two are both strongly implied and have not been denied (and that her close supporters have defended her against criticism for doing those two things), odds are good she did all of those things.

So no. Fuck that article. The entire thesis of that article is literally "feminists can't be wrong about things look how victimized they are." The reason misogyny does so well in the dark corners of the internet is exactly because articles like that are so transparently biased they hurt the feminist brand.

[Chamomile]

The reason misogyny does so well in the dark corners of the internet is exactly because articles like that are so transparently biased they hurt the feminist brand.

This really needs to be emphasized. Closing ranks around anyone who is "one of us" even when they do things that are extremely and blatantly immoral means that you aren't fighting for a cause, you're just a tribalist. I'm not sure if condemning Zoe's censorship of others or just going dead silent would be the wise move in this debacle, but it is definitely one of those two things and not defending Zoe's right to have her personal matters kept personal while quietly pretending her censorship campaign never happened.

Articles that are pro-feminist are articles that are somehow strategically useful to the cause of feminism, which help improve morale or convince moderates and the undecided to entrench themselves in the feminist camp, not articles that blindly cheerlead for anyone who has become a feminist celebrity no matter what they've done.