7 ms·

Fear of White Replacement in Life and Gaming [video]

6 points by peri 4y ago

peri 4y ago
Obviously this discussion is INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS to post online, so this video is not mine and not my perspective but: #meToo, every time I, as a Cajun lady, walk into any kind of game store, tobacconist, gas station, or grocery store in the United States of America. American friends keep saying over and over and over again that this is "unique" to American culture but I have never felt this under threat in any country I've ever been in with the possible exception of Austria/Poland between 2014-2021. I am so used to "hackers" in the MIT/CSAIL sense covering up the damage of other academics in order to protect "their own" and it's not ever been cool, and I refuse to respond to anyone who expects me to reply to anything here ever in Yiddish.
- peri 4y ago
  And as someone who is in a real sense a convert to Judaism not from it: I am 110% unsurprised to see this get downvoted. It is simply not safe online in many spaces where we discuss complex techincal issues, especially in games (electronic or otherwise) to center the experiences of more powerful, more affluent, less Jewish, more "properly" white perspectives. In startups we do this every single time we choose countries with complex racial histories (like everywhere, but for example Canada and New Zealand) and then try to target for affluence or similar markets rather than serving the downtrodden. That sort of behavior embeds some negative values imo.
- jfengel 4y ago
  It's funny that you should mention the MIT sense of the term. I was very influenced by this line from The New Hacker's Dictionary, which came out of the MIT hacking culture: "[T]he ties many hackers have to AI research and SF literature may have helped them to develop an idea of personhood that is inclusive rather than exclusive — after all, if one's imagination readily grants full human rights to future AI programs, robots, dolphins, and extraterrestrial aliens, mere color and gender can't seem very important any more." It has been a rather rude awakening to realize how much hacker culture is the opposite of that. They see the most powerful and intelligent people as looking like themselves, and see their exclusion of anybody else as proof that they were right about it. They believe in a "meritocracy", but define themselves what constitutes "merit", and it just happens to be the things that they're already doing. I don't know what's actually going on in Cambridge, Mass, but Hacker News brings me every day evidence from their successors in Silicon Valley. I see so much intolerance here.
  - peri 4y ago
    I refuse to respond to anyone who believes esr over jwz or other pr gnus services, personally. But I never "matriculated" into MIT or CSAIL, despite having direct connections to the Fine Institutes of the Commonwealth of the People's Commeanweal de Cambervillained of Nouveaux Anglishteary Albion Perfidioux. I just picked up their trash in the 90s-2000s and failed out of my BA/BSc+MFA. Or in more direct langauge: the Tech Model Railroad Club was not the only group that were bigger fans of safe operations of tiny tracks and switchways. SNCF and the rest of Europe use different lingo for consists and that's life and safety critical training even with duplo blocks.
car_analogy 4y ago
- krapp 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - car_analogy 4y ago
    > No, sweet summer child, you can't simply dispel this with a single JPEG. How can we know unless we try? And watching the news, I haven't seen them try once (this issue is no exception - it seems media in general is allergic to graphs and data). Unfortunately, I cannot try it. I'm not published by any media company, and posting it here would prove nothing - readers here are highly non-representative, so results would not generalize. To clarify, I don't think it would be a panacea. As you say, the most hardboiled would dismiss it. But it would surely help.
    - krapp 4y ago
      >And watching the news, I haven't seen them try once (this issue is no exception - it seems media in general is allergic to graphs and data). "media in general" publishes graphs and data all the time. >Unfortunately, I cannot try it. Sure you can. Just find one of the many forums or groups where such people hang out and post the graph. If you're correct, the cascade failure should be near instantaneous.
      - car_analogy 4y ago
        But those are exactly the most hardboiled - I'd fully expect them to reject the graph as fake. But just because some racists are lost causes, does not imply all who harbor racist fears are beyond saving.
        4y ago
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
Nothing that can't be fixed with a couple more HR lead struggle sessions.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- peri 4y ago
  Ah yes, a great response here: "Please don't be racist towards people different than you" with a reference to one of the greatest wealth and race based forms of discrimination the world has known. I'm not at all against the peoples and cultures that suffered under Marxist-Leninist or Marxist-Leninist-Maoist domination and oppression from 1917 to today. But I refuse to tolerate the idea that a group meeting with HR is anything like the actual "struggle sessions"/"denunciation rallies": - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denunciation_rally https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denunciation_rally - https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9ance_de_lutte https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9ance_de_lutte - https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%89%B9%E9%AC%A5 https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%89%B9%E9%AC%A5 Using that term to describe a meeting for a few hours over hot or cold non-alcoholic beverages is not only showing ignorance of history, it's demonstrating that you tolerate and embed racist notions of the unimportant of the real suffering of Chinese and other peoples relative to the minor burden of on the job training, especially if you do more of the white-collar end of technical work. Read a few books on the history of that term before using it again, or I have to assume that you literally would rather scare off anyone who has a heritage of suffering under ML/MLM domination rather than hire someone who is considered part of your in-group.
peri 4y ago
Slight bit of additional context for those who can't be bothered to click the link at all: Shelf Stories is presented by a doctor of psychology who uses that lens to examine his primary hobby of physical games. As a game designer and programmer/implementer: I'm much more inclined to trust him on the psychology side and he usually gets how things relate to games pretty well too.
- peri 4y ago
  I think I should have said "Psychiatric/Psychology Doctorate holder"

6 points by peri 4y ago

peri 4y ago

Obviously this discussion is INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS to post online, so this video is not mine and not my perspective but: #meToo, every time I, as a Cajun lady, walk into any kind of game store, tobacconist, gas station, or grocery store in the United States of America. American friends keep saying over and over and over again that this is "unique" to American culture but I have never felt this under threat in any country I've ever been in with the possible exception of Austria/Poland between 2014-2021. I am so used to "hackers" in the MIT/CSAIL sense covering up the damage of other academics in order to protect "their own" and it's not ever been cool, and I refuse to respond to anyone who expects me to reply to anything here ever in Yiddish.

peri 4y ago
And as someone who is in a real sense a convert to Judaism not from it: I am 110% unsurprised to see this get downvoted. It is simply not safe online in many spaces where we discuss complex techincal issues, especially in games (electronic or otherwise) to center the experiences of more powerful, more affluent, less Jewish, more "properly" white perspectives. In startups we do this every single time we choose countries with complex racial histories (like everywhere, but for example Canada and New Zealand) and then try to target for affluence or similar markets rather than serving the downtrodden. That sort of behavior embeds some negative values imo.
jfengel 4y ago
It's funny that you should mention the MIT sense of the term. I was very influenced by this line from The New Hacker's Dictionary, which came out of the MIT hacking culture: "[T]he ties many hackers have to AI research and SF literature may have helped them to develop an idea of personhood that is inclusive rather than exclusive — after all, if one's imagination readily grants full human rights to future AI programs, robots, dolphins, and extraterrestrial aliens, mere color and gender can't seem very important any more." It has been a rather rude awakening to realize how much hacker culture is the opposite of that. They see the most powerful and intelligent people as looking like themselves, and see their exclusion of anybody else as proof that they were right about it. They believe in a "meritocracy", but define themselves what constitutes "merit", and it just happens to be the things that they're already doing. I don't know what's actually going on in Cambridge, Mass, but Hacker News brings me every day evidence from their successors in Silicon Valley. I see so much intolerance here.
- peri 4y ago
  I refuse to respond to anyone who believes esr over jwz or other pr gnus services, personally. But I never "matriculated" into MIT or CSAIL, despite having direct connections to the Fine Institutes of the Commonwealth of the People's Commeanweal de Cambervillained of Nouveaux Anglishteary Albion Perfidioux. I just picked up their trash in the 90s-2000s and failed out of my BA/BSc+MFA. Or in more direct langauge: the Tech Model Railroad Club was not the only group that were bigger fans of safe operations of tiny tracks and switchways. SNCF and the rest of Europe use different lingo for consists and that's life and safety critical training even with duplo blocks.

car_analogy 4y ago

krapp 4y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- car_analogy 4y ago
  > No, sweet summer child, you can't simply dispel this with a single JPEG. How can we know unless we try? And watching the news, I haven't seen them try once (this issue is no exception - it seems media in general is allergic to graphs and data). Unfortunately, I cannot try it. I'm not published by any media company, and posting it here would prove nothing - readers here are highly non-representative, so results would not generalize. To clarify, I don't think it would be a panacea. As you say, the most hardboiled would dismiss it. But it would surely help.
  - krapp 4y ago
    >And watching the news, I haven't seen them try once (this issue is no exception - it seems media in general is allergic to graphs and data). "media in general" publishes graphs and data all the time. >Unfortunately, I cannot try it. Sure you can. Just find one of the many forums or groups where such people hang out and post the graph. If you're correct, the cascade failure should be near instantaneous.
    - car_analogy 4y ago
      But those are exactly the most hardboiled - I'd fully expect them to reject the graph as fake. But just because some racists are lost causes, does not imply all who harbor racist fears are beyond saving.
      - 4y ago

Mountain_Skies 4y ago

Nothing that can't be fixed with a couple more HR lead struggle sessions.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
peri 4y ago
Ah yes, a great response here: "Please don't be racist towards people different than you" with a reference to one of the greatest wealth and race based forms of discrimination the world has known. I'm not at all against the peoples and cultures that suffered under Marxist-Leninist or Marxist-Leninist-Maoist domination and oppression from 1917 to today. But I refuse to tolerate the idea that a group meeting with HR is anything like the actual "struggle sessions"/"denunciation rallies": - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denunciation_rally https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denunciation_rally - https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9ance_de_lutte https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9ance_de_lutte - https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%89%B9%E9%AC%A5 https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%89%B9%E9%AC%A5 Using that term to describe a meeting for a few hours over hot or cold non-alcoholic beverages is not only showing ignorance of history, it's demonstrating that you tolerate and embed racist notions of the unimportant of the real suffering of Chinese and other peoples relative to the minor burden of on the job training, especially if you do more of the white-collar end of technical work. Read a few books on the history of that term before using it again, or I have to assume that you literally would rather scare off anyone who has a heritage of suffering under ML/MLM domination rather than hire someone who is considered part of your in-group.

peri 4y ago

Slight bit of additional context for those who can't be bothered to click the link at all: Shelf Stories is presented by a doctor of psychology who uses that lens to examine his primary hobby of physical games. As a game designer and programmer/implementer: I'm much more inclined to trust him on the psychology side and he usually gets how things relate to games pretty well too.

peri 4y ago
I think I should have said "Psychiatric/Psychology Doctorate holder"