Posts made by Derp

I think that merits are just general merits now, right? Except for things like Style merits. So many of them don't fit neatly into one category.

So maybe I'm not getting it, here, but the stuff in parens can literally just be anything, right? It's basically just a string of text?

Why not Library 3 (Occult - Advanced)
Or Striking Looks (Angelic - Advanced)

If the only real difference between that and the regular version is the fact that you tag advanced on it, why not just tag it in the parens?

@nyctophiliac said:

Do I have to do it room by room or is there a code that will wholesale change every room's appearance/color?

reply

Normally, rooms on MU's I've been on are children of a parent room. This means that all the rooms share the basic properties of one room with a template set on it, which is then transferred to any rooms @parented to it. So changing that will change it for every room. You'll just have to go through and manually edit the room parent's template, which is often auto-set on new rooms from the parent when a room is dug.

As for individual overrides, I don't know that it's possible, but Cobalt would, for sure. I've never had to override a room's layout before.

@Ganymede and @Kanye-Qwest

Alright, I can certainly get behind this.

I do think, however, that the ... language used could be better when discussing this situation with white men.

Too often, I get told, rather directly, that I should basically feel like a terrible person for the equivalent of winning the genetic lottery. All of us tend to get lumped into one group, the same as say, blacks or asians. And just like it makes minorities mad to get lumped into one giant supergroup, it makes white men angry too.

In regards to things people actively do to try and enforce racial/gender stratification, I do very few of them. I do have a few traditional beliefs that people tend to fall on either side of the fence on. Raising a hand to a woman is not okay to me, unless you're being threatened with grievous harm by a woman. Maybe not a progressive idea, since it does place women in a different class, but one I think has merit.

In regards to the things that hapen just because I'm a white guy, though, regardless of my actual actions or input, it's really frustrating to be treated like The Enemy, or That Fucking Guy just because I happen to be white. I'm sorry. I didn't get a choice in that matter. For what it's worth, it's not all sunshine and roses on this side, either. But too often, this kind of a conversation turns into "You should feel bad because you're white."

I think that instead of statements like "you are part of the problem", it might be better to use more neutral statements like "the problem exists because this situation exists". Statements like these are especially fodder:

But the old saying is true : when righteous men do nothing, evil flourishes. In this case, it's not enough to just be innocent of this shitty behavior yourself. It is - sadly - not enough to try and prevent it if you happen to see it happening to a friend or someone you know. The only way to be 'part of the solution' here is to ACCEPT that because of your position of privilege, other people suffer.

There is a limited amount of stuff I can do about that. Telling myself that I should feel bad about being me because other people aren't me is not, in my opinion, a good solution. Tell me to support other people. Tell me to use whatever position I have to try and help. Those things, I can do Telling me that because I'm me, someone's life is shitty, and I should be not-okay with this is... maybe functionally identical when it comes to end results and what actions I take, but a world of difference away when it comes to the mentality that you're trying to foster, of cooperation and harmony. Them's almost fightin' words, you feel me?

So I think that maybe it would be wise to take a look at the language we're using in these conversations, and try to find less antagonistic ways of saying what we would like to see happen.

@Kanye-Qwest said:

@Arkandel
...huh. I don't think anyone is asking you to personally intervene to rescue women from gropers and harassers.

It's not about you seeing it in action and preventing it, at ALL, but I find it interesting that your mind goes that way. It's indicative of something important, and that thing is : loss of agency.

You want to be told where and when this type of thing happens, because you want to prevent it. That's noble, but misguided. We don't need white knights. We don't need protectors and heroes. To want to be that person is not helping women - it's trying to help yourself regain your lost agency.

What we ACTUALLY need is a deeper understanding of the pervasive social issues that make this shit commonplace. We need the people in power, the members of the group of people perpetrating this shit - in this case, men, specifically (because they have a much harder time accepting that struggles are real) white men - to accept that their permissiveness of this privilege is absolutely contributing to the problem.

I'm sorry if that's uncomfortable for you. It's understandable, but it sucks, because I think your (specifically you) heart is in the right place. You don't need to be told what to look for, you need to be told that your idea of helping is not actually the help we need.

Okay, see, this is something we can talk about, because this might have come across differently than what you intended.

What I read here:

Men doing nothing and being permissive of these situations is what causes the problem.

Men doing something and being active against it, thus not permitting it, is not a solution to the problem.

So basically, that read:

Men are a constant problem. They're wrong, and there's nothing they can do about it, because by doing something or doing nothing, they're still wrong.

See how that could maybe not come off the way you intended it to come off? @Arkandel is trying to figure out what he can do, and that answer came across as a politely worded "you'll always be a problem."

@Ganymede said:

settled

Okay, yes, fought would have been a better word choice, but I was referring more to the idea of the thing and less the actual ground-floor circumstances. What people are told and what they do will always be two different things.

@Coin said:

If you have never, ever been witness to it (something I doubt, but moving on) then lucky you, but they aren't asking you to stand up and say OH YEAH I TOTALLY SAW THIS. No, they are asking that if you see it, do something about it. They are asking you to not doubt them just because you haven't witnessed it yourself or they don't have evidence; they're just asking for support.

Well, that at least I can get behind. That's easy enough. I thought that was just common sense, standing up for people who have people being dicks to them.

My main beef is that a lot of the tone of these things seems to be calling for something more proactive than reactive. The people who are reactive to such things are called out just as much for being part of the problem for not being proactive and, you know, doing something before they've seen anything to do something about.

It baffles me. But if all anyone is asking for is for me to say 'Dude, not cool, knock it the fuck off' when someone is being a dick to a girl? I mean, sure, I'm your guy. That so rarely happens in my gaming groups that I don't know how often it'll come up, but I'll put on that hat, for sure. I would do that without anyone asking, regardless of a person's gender, because ... common decency?

@Apos - Alright, so I'm willing to step back and consider your statements. I fully believe that many women I know have been treated in dickish ways throughout their lives. I've at least seen that outside of gaming groups enough to believe that people being shitty is a thing. But also consider this, as a mental exercise -- A person exists in the world, somewhere, that has seen no evidence of that in the gaming world. They've heard about these things, and asked their friends, both male and female, in the gaming world if this is a thing that happens, and those people say 'no, I have never had that happen'. Both based on their own perceptions and the experiences of those they have to talk to about it, they believe that this has not happened to the people they know. And then someone comes along and says 'This has happened to every woman you know to an extent greater than you realize' -- do you really think that the statement alone is going to make them believe something that their friends and own experiences contradict? Do you see how that could be seen as, at best, incorrect, and at worst somewhat manipulative in order to elicit an action/response in favor of your claim? That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. You've essentially both called that person wrong, and called that person's circle of contacts for information liars. It's an easy way to generate hostility.

Just, you know, consider both sides. I know that we could talk in circles at each other for hours and hours, but instead -- I consider your side, you consider mine, and we agree to keep them in mind in the future?

@Roz said:

@Derp Witness testimony is, in fact, evidence in a trial. And multiple witnesses all corroborating the same story is pretty strong evidence.

Are you saying that if a woman you were personally close to came to you and said, "I've gotten groped and harassed at multiple geek gatherings," your response would be, "Okay, prove it?" This isn't a freaking legal trial. If people were being charged with crimes, then yeah, let the court and its requirements for proving beyond a reasonable doubt rule. Do guys just think there's a massive conspiracy women are running to -- what, even? Take away the boobs in their video games? Just have guys notice when someone in their vicinity is being harassed and support her in shutting it down? Just being more aware to the experience of people outside themselves?

No, I don't have evidence of every instance of my daily life. I haven't happened to be recording my whole day to catch the times I've been sexually harassed.

If something shitty happened to you on a regular basis, and happened to the majority of your friends, and you all spoke up to say, "This shitty thing keeps happening," wouldn't you feel fucking shitty to get laughed at and said, "Okay, I know a huge group of you is saying this, but prove it?"

Yeah, it is fucking shitty.

Except as others have mentioned, this doesn't happen to some of us. @Arkandel, for instance, expressed his bafflement at some of these things. No, this has not happened to me. This has not happened to any of my friends. I know multiple girls in gaming circles, and they're all treated respectfully --- well, except for chats and things in FPS games, but that's different ... everyone gets treated like shit in those. That's equal opportunity shitheadedness.

No. My experience of this thing differs greatly from the experiences being expressed. It differs greatly from the experiences of my friends, male and female, who do this. It is so alienated from my conception of gaming groups in general that my first reaction is 'what?' And then, I follow up on that 'what'. I ask my friends. And if their reaction is also 'what', then yes, I express some skepticism.

I'm not saying that I don't think it happens. I'm sure it does, somewhere. I think it should stop. I'm saying that people should stop tearing down the people asking for evidence of these things, because a) you're not helping your cause in doing so -- you're alienating the very people you're asking to take action in the first place and worse, you're setting them up to disbelieve you in the future by creating a negative rapport. And b), their viewpoints are valid too. This doesn't happen everywhere, to everyone, on the massive scale that the internet would have you believe it does. It is not so wholly pervasive that you would have to be a blind drooling monkey to miss it. And if you're going to convince the people that have no experience of this, in any form, either among themselves or their friends, then when those people say 'I'm going to need something more', you should say 'I can respect that', and then work to find it, instead of getting angry that they would dare ask for such a thing in the first place, those insensitive blind bastards.

ETA: And @Roz, as much as you say this isn't a court of law, American culture is an adversarial culture, and has been since the country was founded. Some of the earliest writers on American culture commented on the legalistic mindset of american relations, and how very formal we as a culture are when it comes to things like evidence of wrongdoing.

And remember, the Civil Rights movement was settled in courts too, with notable cases like Brown II, so when people start talking about Social Justice, it's not unreasonable to think in terms of legalities and evidence.

@Tyche said:

I don't find the argument that if you don't accept the position of the poster then you are part of the problem.
Just maybe the typical response is rationally skeptical.

@Lithium said:

Even as he tries to deflect, he still belittles the issue at hand by the ever present call for evidence.

You know, I had to go through and re-read this a couple of times before I could come up with the reply that I wanted, just because I couldn't believe that the tone of this conversation had actually gone this way. But that said...

When did asking for evidence become a crime? When did a person become a part of the problem when they say "I have not seen the things that you have seen, even given much experience in the same circles. Please show me something more than just your word that this happened?"

That does not make a person a part of the problem, anymore than a judge asking for evidence is a part of the problem when you get two people in a court of law saying opposite things about each other. The judge has no experience in your affair. He has not seen what you have seen. As a reasonable third party, he requires something more than your word in order to take action -- and the people who are decrying it are calling for action to be taken. This isn't someone saying "this is unfortunate", this is someone saying "this should be stopped", and as such, some presentation of evidence should be expected.

The fact that Tyche's post has six downvotes baffles me. Tyche has a valid point, from his frame of reference -- the only evidence presented of this is people who've said they've been subjected to this (and god knows that nobody on the internet has ever been known to lie, or blow something out of proportion). Given the nature of some of the claims, I don't think that asking for evidence beyond "It happened to me and I'm not lying so you have to believe me" is unreasonable.

"You don't believe me and won't believe me unless I present you with evidence, so you are a part of the problem," is just as ludicrous of a statement as "I have never seen any such thing, so there is no problem." Evidence is your middle ground, evidence is how you are going to change the dominant mindset, evidence is the way you're going to get people to respond to your call for action. Not your word, even if you have a lot of people giving their word, especially not in a niche culture that doesn't get a ton of spotlight anyway -- and certainly not if most of the claims come from the internet.

@Ganymede said:

In the same way, I do not understand why my clients dispute what I have to say about whether something is legal or illegal. I mean, do what you want, but you pay me an awful lot of money to ignore me.

Because television has trained us to believe that the duty of an attorney is to take the 'il' out of 'illegal' and work magic to help you justify your actions for all of eternity.

@Ganymede said:

@dontpanda said:

If my libertarian slant didn't preclude me from insisting children be vaccinated by rule of law... damn my conflicting principles.

If you take advantage of a government service, you should not be surprised if there are rules related thereto.

I see nothing wrong with the public education system requiring vaccinations, even from a libertarian perspective.

Libertarianism tends to get conflated with a lot of other things, like anarcho-capitalism, which are more extreme versions of it. Libertarians are -minimal- government, not no government. Most of us still understand that there has to be rules to things, yeah, though this one could fall on either side, as government mandated actions, especially medical procedures, tend to fall pretty squarely in the 'no' category. It's not the vaccination itself, it's the doors to other things it opens the way to.

I keep getting weird notifications too, like phantom upvote notifications. Usually they clear out, but sometimes they persist for a while.

@Coin said:

@lordbelh said:

@Coin said:

Coworkers who are touchy-feely. don't fucking stroke my back or shoulders when you come over to ask something. It's fucking creepy as shit.

This.

and the knowledge that if you say anything it will be taken as aggressive and ill-tempered.

I can see this. Some people go overboard with it. But also -- don't you live in a country where being touchy-feely is kind of part of the culture?

@Arkandel

I haven't read it yet, but since the very first comment on DTRPG is all 'wow, moar stuff for the fans of crossover games', I'm guessing that those concerns might not be entirely unfounded.

Yeah, I cleared my shit out and it shows up again. Also, some of the random glitches have stopped. I don't know where it disconnected, but it seems to be alright now. Carry on.

@skew

If a bucket is both myjobs accessible and public, I think that means anyone can read anything in it. I am not at my help files right now. Try clearing that flag.

@tragedyjones

I was a little intimidated when I first saw Theno code. It looks really complex at first glance. So many things everywhere. And then I realized that he actually made it really, really nice and easy to change things when they need to be changed by just breaking it up into little tiny pieces and then smooshing them back together, in the example I saw.

@Thenomain does things with code, though, that I'll freely admit I don't understand at all. I just sort of trust that it works. I think at this point he's earned that with just about everyone.