Out of Pod Experience

Wait, you actually READ the forum rules?

You are absolutely right, my mistake. Rest assured it will not happen again.

I must say, I am rather impressed that you moderated the moderator.

Being a sociopath is not something that is "inflicted" on you, just so you're aware.

I've been fully aware of my own status in that regard since I was about four or five years old, before I even had a name for it. One finds oneself frequently watching and observing real people in order to figure out how to act like them, it's rather interesting.

Now, an actual personality disorder? No idea. That may very well be an acquired behavior.

But talking about it like people are mentally incompetent for deriding the preachy, huggy groupthink that surrounds political correctness? That's just out of line.

It's easy to not care about racial slurs and bigotry in games when you are a straight white male. You will find most people who hold such opinions are indeed just that. It's then no coincidence that people who are either not white, not male, or not straight almost unanimously get offended.

Seriously... show me the black guy or the gay guy who think it's cool to use racial or anti-gay slurs in video games.
Or anywhere.

I would not call this thin skin. In our society - and for many decades now - the vast majority of people find that kind of speech unacceptable. You will be fired from jobs and kicked out of schools if you are caught speaking this way.

The people who defend and/or use bigotry - despite perhaps not being actual bigots themselves - are just unusually thick skinned. They are in fact the "abnormal" ones. Kudos, I wish I could be like that. Life would be more fun if I never got offended. Alas, I'm normal.

The worst part about it is that CCP gets a rather skewed view of the issues at hand. Take a look at Lugia's post on page 1 and you will see 9 likes already, more than the OP or those agreeing with him. I reckon CCP take these sorts of occurrences as evidence that the community at large has no real issue with such behavior.
Couldn't be further from the truth as far as my experience goes. I've lived in various parts of highsec; both carebearing and ganking. I roam with people in low-sec, and I've even lived in a WH with a small coalition before. In this time I have gotten to know several dozen players well, from the lamest of carebears to New Order agents to elite lowsec PVPers to wormhole hunters. I would be surprised if even 10% of these players supported posts like Lugias which are effectively defending bigotry within EVE Online.

Why there is such a discrepancy on these forums in regards to certain personality types being dominant is somewhat beyond me, I have theories but mostly just out of my butt. What I am rather sure of though - not a fact, but quite sure - is that if the entire EVE community voted on this thread, we'd be seeing significantly more support for the anti-bigotry side than the "HTFU and accept hate speech" side.

Lastly... quite amusing to see the number of Goons that defend themselves in threads like this. Guilty conscience catching up?

Ummm....not so fast, and not accurate. Read the studies.

I feel with my hands.

Signing pleas don't change things (much).


People are free to use slurs all they like, and I'm free to throw my entire dictionary of **** talk at them to drown them out too. Freedom is a wonderful thing. Don't expect your slurs to be heard above the sound of my shouting.

The real problem is over-exaggeration of the issue of 'intolerance', which is not exclusive to the gaming community. This petition is a sham because all it is is developers/journalists paying lip service to the gamers they just spent a month insulting.

This is very much related to the 'Quincident' that occurred, and I, for one, reject its sincerity on every level.

The problem with the 'SJW' crowd is they blow little things so far out of proportion that the real issues faced by some, if not many of us right here in this game that we have to face on a daily basis, and do so with little to no complaint. I've had more than a few people think I must be some kind of criminal because I'm autistic, and refused to hire me. I was left by a woman I loved dearly because when things started to get serious, she became afraid of having autistic children. This one has severely affected my ability to get close to anyone. I may end up living the rest of my life alone as a result.

My autism has had very real life-changing effects for me, and while the above might sound like complaining, and while I do wish my life had gone better, I still do what I can to move past it and improve my life. I can't work directly with other people, and as a result I'm virtually unemployable and on disability but, I finished a masters degree in journalism, and wound up writing freelance for a few of those 'ezines' that have been blowing smoke up our arses. I recently had the privilege of telling one of their editors he could shove the 'story' he wanted me to write up his arse, and I wouldn't be whoring for his gaming tabloid anymore. I should have stuck to science journalism.

At the end of the day though, I still struggle against many a public misconception about autism, so I get a little bent outta shape when people on the internet start calling other people 'autistic' in particular. While I know I can't stop them, I do feel the need to criticise it. "Did you just do that? You must be autistic" sounds like "only an autistic person could be that stupid".

And then I get called an "SJW", pejoratively, because I'm supposed to know it's 'just a word' and I'm probably 'just a Tumblr-autist on a crusade against free speech'. I get made to feel guilty for saying, hey, not cool man, people aren't autistic by virtue of being stupid, can't you just call him stupid? I know from some perspectives it would look that way, that I'm out to control what you can and can't use words for, but I'm not, I just wish I could communicate my own perspective better, but I don't know how. Anyway, for me, it's kinda like how a gay guy would feel when you call something gay by virtue of something being wrong with it, which amounts to something being wrong with being gay.

I was actually diagnosed when I was 13, by a Tony Attwood. Other actual autistic people around here might know who he is. When I was diagnosed, he wasn't a world leader just yet. I know this much though, I've never even looked at Tumblr.

Anyway, I'm off on a rant here, but my point is, there is an SJW crowd out there without a leg to stand on, and by acting the way they do, they turn people against anyone speaking out against legitimate concerns of social misunderstandings and misattributions. And they do use REAL censorship, they don't just ask nicely if you could use a different word that you're misattributing, they get your Twitter accounts banned and write horrible things about you. What they don't realise is that by silencing their critics, they're not achieving a victory over anyone, they're actually just revealing how afraid they are of what their critics have to say. I do firmly believe in freedom of speech, whether I'm telling someone off for using a word I don't like or not, and that right includes the right to criticise.

Anyway, I read this petition the other day, and I was legitimately disappointed to see CCP names on it, but then I realised they were American CCP employees and they've probably been sacked anyway so, not concerned about CCP's involvement in all this.

Remy.. hugs.