TLJ is far from my favourite movie, but neither do I think it's a garbage fire. You obviously do and that's cool.

As I said, all these things are subjective. I'm not interested in a flame war either.

I DO have an issue with some of the criticisms levelled against it because they are not really accurate or relevant, but at the same time I'll happily concede that it has serious pacing issues and a whole subplot that went nowhere.

Still better than the trainwreck that was Rogue One though.

I think you misunderstand my opinion of TLJ here.

Had this video been used to build a script for TLJ, it would have been better than TLJ because ANYTHING would have been better.

As evidence, we can compare TLJ to a two-hour video of a garbage fire, and indeed, the garbage fire would have had better writing.

The movie was terrible.

If they were going to have vaudevillian humour in the opening scenes with Poe prank-calling Hux---while dozens of star destroyers with hundreds (thousands?) of fighters sit there idle----they may as well have gone full 'Snakes on a Plane' B-movie fan service and let Ackbar do the same thing with an "it's a trap" gag. But that wouldn't do, because that would involve some kind of consistency. And one thing I can't stand is scripts and characters in stories that contradict their own being.

e.g. Luke "I see good in the most evil villain of movie history" Skywalker considering killing his own nephew, because maybe he's too far gone. Darth Vader wasn't too far gone, but somehow the son of Leia and Han was? See how that kinda goes against Luke's character? There are a million ways they could have written the fall of Ben Solo into the dark side that didn't involve violating the essence of existing characters.

A garbage fire wouldn't have done that. A garbage fire would have known better.

TLJ was terrible movie that just happened to have the massive budget for some cool special-effects scenes and some A-list actors wasted on an awful script with a thin, scattered plot.

Now maybe TLJ is your favourite movie, and if so, whatevs. We just have different taste I guess. I'm not going to get into a flame war over a garbage-fire.

Newt,

A certain person, yeah -- but there have been others from time-to-time.

Look, everyone knows we're talking about Bob, and I don't want to throw rocks at the guy. FWIW, for all his faults, I believe he's not stupid and is probably capable of presenting something rational if he could just get past bomb-throwing. He's presented a video where someone tried to intellectually defend the views that he holds. It wasn't the strongest set of arguments ever, but it was better than the usual bullshit.

Here's the thing: I actually want to hear what the other side thinks and feels, both from the standpoint of empathy and curiosity. Maybe there's something to learn from people on the other side. But I can't do this when all they present is HURR BLURF HURR CUCK SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE SJW LOCK HER UP ETC.

I hold vanishingly little hope that any kind of consensus can ever be reached again in this country (and the microcosm that is VideoSift) again, but I'm willing to at least listen and try to do my part. That doesn't mean I won't call bullshit, but if someone on the Right is willing to speak their piece without resorting to Alt-Right (Far Right) games, I'm game for something better than the usual flame war.

Congratulations! Your comment on We Didn't Start the Flame War has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

This achievement has earned you your "Silver Tongue" Level 5 Badge!

I liked the part where he hoped it wouldn't ignite a flame war in the comments.

It's a flame war!

Okay Enzo. I've already been thru this with Newtboy.

I don't want to have another pointless back and forth.

I'm not trying to start a flame war.

So please explain what you're citing as "the truth" in that seemingly bias "rational"wiki page.

[I say that because "hate-train" doesn't seem like very objective or academic terminology]

Please explain away this instance of Sarkeesian's theft and misappropriation of a female artist's work.

http://cowkitty.net/post/78808973663/you-stole-my-artwork-an-open-letter-to-anita

And this instance of fabricated gameplay footage from Hitman: Absolution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuRSaLZidWI&t=149

The footage she uses in her FemFreq video implies that the ENTIRE point of this section of the game is to brutalize women.

When, in fact, the game penalizes players for killing ANY civilians.

Every other legitimate walk-through of this game & mission clearly shows the player completely avoiding the exotic dancers.

Please do your best to avoid semantics and objectively justify this behavior. Thanks

This will undoubtedly stir up a flame war, because it touches upon one of the forbidden topics, but what the hell:

Although there is, indeed, not a vaccination for heart diseases, a plant-based diet, across the board, in studies since, like, the 70s have shown that it basically heart-disease proofs you, not to mention diabetes.

Here's a long 53 minute video that goes over the basics, but the entire webpage has a little under 2,000 videos with a bunch of stats, papers, meta-studies, etc.

In a lot of ways, heart disease is very preventable, and even reversible in some cases, if you stop eating so much damn meat.

But, as stated above, "not eating meat" or "don't tell me what I can and cannot eat!" is up there with religion as far as topics that people get super-defensive about.

It's up you, truly, to determine what's more important: health or food deliciousness. And some people, knowingly, choose food deliciousness. And bless them. You make your own choices.

But also bless them for our ridiculous health care costs.

...without a flame war

Maybe he needs to take a course on human history, ain't happening I'm afraid.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Lenovo industrial design is fantastic - but yeah, shame about the operating system. I do use Windows 7 and 8 pretty regularly for my corporate day job, but mainly Dells.

*promote for the eternal flame war.

excellent start to the flame war!

not sure about 8, because I immediately updated to 8.1 from 8... There is a way to just use old school local accounts, not tied to MS account in any way. The only downside is that you can't download (even free) Apps on the Microsoft Store until you create/link an account, but you can run any of the Win7 and earlier "Desktop" apps.
(Unless you have Win 8 RT, in which case, sorry you're SOL because it has no Desktop mode)

counter-point: OS X Yosemite broke many things from Mavericks. I still run Mountain Lion on my main Mac though. I don't sync to iCloud either.

@Enzoblue

Thunderf00t is probably the least level-headed response you will find. His video is terrible for a lot of reasons, mostly because he does all the same things Anita Sarkessian is accused of doing (for example, cherry-picking) to an exponential degree, but I recommend you watch it anyway and draw your own conclusions.

As much as some Gamergate supporters would like the movement to be about ethics in gaming journalism, it has its roots in a witch-hunt started by claims from a jilted ex-boyfriend that his girlfriend (Zoe Quinn) slept with reporters to get good reviews--claims that were later shown to be completely untrue but not before the Gamergate movement had found a cause to rally around. From the very start, the movement had trouble separating actual journalistic ethical problems (i.e. gifts from game publishers to game reviewers... see pretty much any tweet or video by TotalBiscuit about Gamergate for a reasoned overview of the problems) from anti-feminist screeds against Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, and later Brianna Wu. And it only got worse over time.

To understand why people might be opposed to Sarkeesian's critiques, you should probably read: this article. Just to summarize the article's main thesis: there is a group of gamers out there who refuse to see a problem with the status quo and make the claim that anyone trying to point out a problem is demanding special privileges. This is not to say that Sarkeesian's critiques aren't without flaws. It is rather to explain how so many people got enraged by her analysis that they felt the need to personally attack her.

So, to put it in a nutshell, there ARE some problems with gaming journalism but they are akin to the same kinds of problems entertainment journalism has in general (Colbert's point). But there are also some serious problems with gaming culture that were brought under the magnifying glass by the whole Gamergate phenomenon.

Frankly, as a "hardcore gamer" (30+ years of gaming experience including games across dozens of consoles and the PC), watching the "debate" on the topic has been embarrassing to say the least. Gaming was finally overcoming the stigma and stereotypes that it had been shackled with before this thing blew up and made us look like the bunch of socially inept man-babies the rest of society assumed we were.

I think not only is it going to take years for our social image to recover, it is going to take years to overcome the toxicity that has pervaded the debate. People on both sides are seriously butt-hurt about how everything went down and the back and forth has been more on the emotional side than the intellectual, leading to lots of flame wars and very little critical reflection.

I kinda don't know what to make of this vid. At one point, she makes an appeal to others not to be apathetic to anonymous Internet comments, but I don't see how starting a flame war every time someone makes an inappropriate comment solves the underlying problem.

Plus, I don't see a person who makes those kinds of comments seriously reconsidering them after watching this vid. And if, as she says, those kinds of comments are a small minority of the feedback she receives I'm not sure exactly what the problem is.

She equates it to bullying, but that reminds me of this Sift where the reporter did the same thing after receiving a single email about her weight (a vid which produced a pretty extensive VS debate thread on the topic):

http://videosift.com/video/News-Anchor-Responds-to-Viewer-Email-Calling-Her-Fat?loadcomm=1

So... yeah. Some people are mean/clueless/crude/outright insulting/sexist on the Internet. She seems to think this is preventing women from keeping vlogs about STEM topics, but doesn't really offer any evidence to support this.

In fact, if her supposition were true wouldn't you see that trend across YouTube? Basically if it were true, YouTube vlogs would be dominated by men since the women are too what... delicate? Afraid of dealing with negative comments? In a way, her hypothesis itself seems kind of insulting to women, suggesting that they wilt in the face of these kinds of comments and just give up.

I think that's because most Sifters find drive-by comments that don't show even a hint of critical thinking (I'm referring to his first post) more egregious than posts by racists, homophobes, or religious zealots who at last make a token effort to provide support for their own views (no matter how flawed that support may be).

BTW, it took me longer to write the above than to think about it. Yes, I am proud of myself.

Maybe we could have a little less drama and a little more reasonable argument from your posts on this topic? You know that people on the Sift will comment on shit like this (i.e. "censorship"/bias on the Sift in the form of downvotes) forever... if it doesn't look like they're going to get drawn into a flame war in the process.

All I'm saying is that the tone comes off as confrontational. Two commenters above me have already self-censored responses to you pretty much for that very reason. If your goal is to get people to think seriously about this topic, then you'll probably need to change the way you post about it. Of course, if your goal is to troll or sit on your high horse and let the rest of us know how bad our shit stinks then please let me know now so I can put you on my ignore list.

Hey argument mongers! YEAH YOUSE! This is a great video so why don't we respect it and resist the temptation to turn this into another gun rights flame war (incidentally, another war that cannot be "won"). There is a place for that discussion and it's not here. Move along. Theenks.

I love when retired police officers step forward and slowly rip apart the drug war with facts, experience and wisdom. Seems the sad truth is that the U.S. government, (which is currently in the habit of displaying a level of insanity fit for a corporate-emperor-giant-king via what it says to the public versus what it actually does in its slowly eroding privacy) clearly doesn't seem to actually want to end the drug war or the war on terror for that matter any time soon. i guess there is too much profit to be had from the institutions that are already in place at this point.

With luck, the Nixon/Reagan-esque dinosaurs of free will control, hiding behind the thin guise of morality, which they surely are not the paragons of, will soon be trapped within their sedimentary prison for all time and We the people will be able to choose what kind of substances we ingest without the looming shadow of silent oppression casting its all encompassing umbra upon us.