Kazeno Rannaa
Seraphim Initiative.
CRONOS.
145
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Posted - 2012.12.28 14:58:00 -
[1] - Quote
So my last thread was a bit of a firestorm. I knew it would be a touchy subject, yet people need to take some time and be exposed to other ideas, perceptions and contextualizations of information.
Now this should only go for a snippet, so if it goes for longer then that is up to you, the community members. What I am going to say, and agree with my corp mate Chunky, is that though there are, as I am sure, a number of very intelligent, book smart people in this group of beta-testers, I ma saddened by the lack of GAS (give a shite) when it comes to be amiable, constructive, and humane while engaged in a conversation or discussion. Why is there such a HUGE propensity for so many members of these forums to be unnecessarily crass, rude, vindictive, and down right abusive with their language in response to someone else's thoughts or perceptions?
Granted we are supposed to be Space Dusters fighting the never ending battle of corporate and faction warfare, yet like so many people tried to point out in one respects, is that this is just a game. Or is it? Would it be fair to say that this game is, can and will be reflective of our own socioculturally conditioned beliefs and performances of identity and power structures?
I find the need for people to be so pejorative in their responses and discursive interactions is due to their internalized understanding that their behavior is socially UNACCEPTABLE, especially when placed in comparison to contemporary norms (either in a national sense or now a days in a greater international sense). Yet said people still lash out with comments that are nothing more than unformulated rants filled with biases, oppressive scaffoldings of power, pejorative gender and sexual connotations, while touting that they have an open mind.
If those of you have an open mind, why must you commit intellectual deforestation to prove your point, or even in the most minute way to just communicate your points. This is not to say that close analysis and examination of these topics or the arguments/ views are not required or encouraged. Rather it is the observed need to troll, bash, bully, ****-on, invalidate, oppress, marginalize, and repress another's arguments or observations for the very fact that it (the topic of discussion) makes you uncomfortable. I point this out to the number of Trolling responses to my last thread. The very fact that a topic on the representation of women in Dust required Cerebral Wolf to request that it be locked due to the intensity of the conversation I find as a worrisome example of the direction this community is going.
Let's face it, if you will, the fact that though this may be a game, on set thousands of years in the future, it is still reflective of all the issues, internalized sociocultural and sociopolitical baggage that everyone carries around with themselves for the entirety of their lives. So no matter how much anyone wishes to throw at another community member the absurdity of even having an intelligent and rooted discussion on topics that will affect the proliferation of this game to a wider community because the game is just here for entertainment, those same players are carrying their contemporary hang-ups into this community and into this game. Hence the reason I broached the topic I did earlier this week.
Now this goes to GM Vegas; why censor? And what is off topic when it comes down to instigating a discussion about the graphical representative choices of CCP and how they are contributing to the socialization of how normative the overt sexualization of women within the structure of Dust, and really in a way perpetuating, in their own small way (granted no matter how small it is still an active and a tacit contribution to a much larger problem) the continued commodification of a gender's reified traits for the sake of profit (whether that be for an actual, tangible monetary profit or that of the intangible ego)?
I guess my place here is to help out in the branching of discussions on these forum so as to break the monotony of QQ'ing about OP weapons, nerfing's of vehicles, terrain and environmental mechanics that never seem to transfer over well from the internal CCP Q&A, the gun mechanics (i.e., hit detection, bullet telemetry and physics, damage transferal, etc.) and the loads of other issues that we have been dealing with during the lifespan of this Beta.
So before all of you start in with the pitch forks, tar, and torches, do yourself a favor and take a look into the mirror. No matter what avatar you have, you are still the same person acting in the ways that you have been socialized to act. Except now with the advent of technology and the anonymity associated with it, you THINK that you have some new form of agency to act like complete fools. Or it has turned into the perfect excuse to be the number one A-HOLE to everyone else because you don't have to deal with each of us in a face to face fashion and thereby do not have to take REAL RESPONSIBILITY for your atrocious behaviors.
So everyone take a deep breath and learn to listen and respond with a bit more forethought. Maybe then Dust will have not only it's entertainment values, but also some deeper reaching sociocultural values too. No matter how far a person goes to escape reality, you can never escape yourself, and each individual is the core of that reality since it is they that creates the reality that they ultimate choose to live in, participate with, or be controlled and oppressed by. |