Too bad they're still using the garbage astralis user interface. I don't really like firefox but I use it because I can't find anything better. Opera used to be my browser of choice but then they shat all over it and turned it into Chrome, getting rid of everything that ever made opera good.

I think by this point in the timeline, most of the clones have died off or are too old to serve as stormtroopers, most of the stormtroopers are people who have been recruited.

Looks pretty cool, interesting having a stormtrooper as a main character. Unless he's not a stormtrooper and has just stolen a suit like Luke did.

And that period coincided with news outlets talking about it a lot, something they've now stopped doing. Frankly the fact that it's still going on after three months is remarkable to me.

@mikhail said:

@Gue1: Oh, this ride is ending alright.

So gamergate is ending because interest is maintaining more or less the level it's been at since it started?

Exchange all your US Dollars for Shrekels and insist every outlet accepts them

I just finished reading a book called "the red mandarin dress", a crime novel set in shanghai. I picked it because I hadn't read any books or seen any films/tv shows actually set in china and produced by people who live there so I wanted to get some inside perspective on the country (the author is from china but wrote it in english and I think it shows that he wrote it for a western audience).

Pretty enjoyable book and a bit different to your usual american crime stories. There were some things I didn't like, such as every young female character being described in excessive detail (seemed a bit pervy to me), though the author also seems to be aware of these themes and how they might be perceived and has the main character discuss them in the story. On the whole though it was a good book.

The initial question isn't a very good one - "social justice warrior" is a disparaging term used to describe fanatical social justice activists by those who disagree with them, based on that I don't think many people would choose to describe themselves as one. The people the term refers to probably have their own description for their beliefs.

Still, I'm not a fan of them. From what I've seen there are plenty of self-described social justice activists who are reasonable, moderate and open-minded (though I still don't necessarily agree with them). There are also plenty who are arrogant, hateful, hypocritical and spiteful, who abuse their outspoken beliefs on issues like sexism as a shield from legitimate criticism (by saying anyone who disagrees with them must be a sexist). Not to mention vocal people in the media who talk a lot about social justice but leave me thoroughly unconvinced that they really care about it and aren't just using it as a means to promote their careers, to portray themselves in a better light or to hide the fact that they are still nasty people.

Caring about social issues isn't a bad thing, but there is no single right way to go about this, no single set of ideas that is unconditionally right. That seems to be something that has gotten completely lost and now anyone who criticises modern feminism/social justice is painted as a bigot automatically. There are many factions of feminism (some of which outright hate eachother, like those who disagree on whether or not transsexual women count as 'real women'), none of them are right or wrong. Everyone who follows them is just somebody with an opinion and an ideology they support, and criticising their ideology doesn't mean you can't support an opposing ideology that still shares the same goals. No matter how good or bad your beliefs and ideologies are, if you become fanatical about them and start forcing them on others as word of law rather than arguing for them as opinions, you piss a lot of people off. That's exactly what the 'social justice warriors' have been doing and I'm not surprised people are starting to openly challenge them. Frankly I think it couldn't have come soon enough.

I'm not sure I agree the movement has toxic origins, but how can they get rid of that? How the movement started is set in stone and can't be changed. But I don't think how it started is important for a lot of the people involved now - the movement today is what they make of it. Ultimately people are angry about information that has come to their attention, if that information entered into public domain through unethical means then they shouldn't be expected to tone down their anger just so it doesn't seem like they're condoning it.

I am conflicted about whether the approach toward some news outlets is right or not. It is plain as day to me that sites like Gawker are run by people with no morals whatsoever, but using advertising pressure is shaky ground, especially for gamers given what happened to gerstmann. But I don't think that women and minorities are being targeted because they are woman or minorities if that's what you're suggesting. Those people have usually done something else to invoke the ire of gamergate, their demographic status shouldn't negate any questionable things they have done.There are many women and minorities on the gamergate side who have also been hurt through this, the guy who started the notyourshield twitter tag (himself black I think) got fired from his job after opponents of gamergate told his boss he was part of a hate movement. I think that smearing the whole movement was a bad move as it has only driven an even bigger wedge between the two rational sides. I don't doubt that there have been those part of gamergate or at least sympathetic to it who have done nasty things, just as there have been those opposed to it doing nasty things. The correct thing to have done would have been to acknowledge the moderates in gamergate and the extremists opposed to it so that the calm, rational people across the board could have come together on a common ground of opposing harassment, leaving no safe place for the nasty folk to hide. Instead, by labelling gamergate as a hate movement, while the movement is pushing back against that and having some people question the accusations, they've left it safe for the harassers to hide behind gamergate as a shield.

I think one of gamergate's big problems is it has an identity crisis. It isn't really just about ethics in journalism, a large component of it is protest against an authoritarian brand of feminism/social justice that many people, such as the journalists, have exploited for their own gain and self promotion. There are plenty of people who see this as a valid cause (just look at the backlash against "shirtstorm"), that's surely the main reason I care about it and it's a cause a lot more people would support. But on the other hand there are those who want to limit it to games journalism ethics, restricting its ability to confront the social justice issue.

That settles it, I am buying a Wii U for this game. You sheeple can keep your predictable games that obey pre-defined laws of physics and conform to arbitrary standards of 'playability' for all I care, while I enjoy my games that invent their own laws of physics and surprise the player with exciting features to discover and unpredictable challenges in the form of bugs and glitches.