I never said "youtube comments are toxic".

If the poster NEVER allows comments (like "Christian mom debunks the science museum"), yes, that's not good and indicates a lack of interest in opposing viewpoints.
If the poster disables comments after repeated rape and death threats, that's only prudent, no matter who the poster is or what they post. That's what was reported in this case, rape and death threats.

Once again, since it's not sinking in, getting serious repeated detailed death and rape threats is not "being called on her shit", and your insistence on calling it that gets you distain and incredibility from my camp. Only a seriously demented douchebag could honestly think they are the same thing, or is it you are claiming that it didn't happen? If the latter, please provide evidence of that claim. She disabled comments and ratings and canceled appearances on the advice of the police/FBI, from what I recall reading back then. Perhaps she was not getting the same threats on her kickstarter page (could it possibly be moderated better?), or maybe she forgot it with the stress of being threatened?

But once again you ignored the point and my request for verification about WHAT SHE SAID ABOUT SEX WORKERS...we never disagreed that she disabled comments, only on why she did it. I'm certain you understand that and are trying the "look, look at the monkey" technique for distraction from the points at hand. That indicates to me that there is none and you just made up what you wanted her to have said. That will be my position until you prove it wrong, do so and I'll change that position.

You seem to think death and rape threats are faux-excuses and not serious. I'll hope you never have to find out differently, but many people have. It's unseemly to imply a single woman should ignore such threats or assume they are not credible, and does not make you look good in my eyes.

It's obvious you have severe hatred of her, and distain for anyone that doesn't, and that you take anything she says or does in the worst light. That makes further discussion moot...and I just don't care. My main point was your aggressive, insulting tone, and it's unlikely to change since you ignored my stated points entirely.

We'll start with the "youtube comments are toxic".

We're in agreement. Even youtube agrees.

While it's unfortunate that the comment cream doesn't rise on youtube..

This still doesn't eliminate that fact that tons of valid criticism is being censored by Sark & plenty of other unscrupulous agenda-pushers.

It's a perfect opportunity to squash any dissent, under the guise of -

"there is no real debate here. only insults & threats. I had to disable comments to spare my audience the vitriol"

However, imagine if the youtuber was an outspoken Scientologist or Creationist..

Snowball's chance in hell you aren't viewing that as a deceitful tactic to avoid scrutiny.

"Everyone knows creationism is easily debunked/scientology is a cult. Clearly they've disabled comments because they want to squash dissent/valid arguments"

Rarely, if ever, would you think -

"Disabled comments? I get it. They probably just got too many death threats. Scientologists have feelings too yuh know"

Nonetheless, when the EXACT SAME scenario is put in front of you..

..with regard to topics that tug at your liberal, tree-huggy sympathies..

You lose all skepticism. Why is that?

Literally all it takes is a 30 second google search to discover the inconsistencies in Sarkeesian's statements & actions.

From the first article -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the words of Tumblr user robbiebaldwin:

“She says she wants to ‘create a dialogue’ or ‘force video games into open debate,’ except she turns off both comments and even ratings on her videos. Wanting to hear your own voice in an echo chamber is the total opposite of ‘open debate.’”

Leading the charge against Sarkeesian’s decision is Tumblr user amazingatheist, who posted a ten-minute video entitled "Who’s The Damsel Now?"

Arguing that Sarkeesian’s “censorship” of YouTube comments counteracts her message about strong women
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Are you seeing the larger picture now @newtboy @Babymech etc.?

This self-described - "critic of sexism in pop culture" - is espousing a set of ideas & strong statements..

Then completely cowering, juking, and being absolutely non-responsive when called on her shit.

She disabled the RATINGS for FSM's sake!
The neutral, objective, non-threatening, non-absuive RATINGS!

That's the way you stand strong for your cause, right!
By disallowing even your supporters from showing their approval!

And before you even mention that cancel lecture of hers.

WHAM!

BAM!

Straight from Utah State -

"Throughout the day, Tuesday, Oct. 14, USU police and administrators worked with state and federal law enforcement agencies to assess the threat to our USU community and Ms. Sarkeesian. Together, we determined that there was no credible threat to students, staff or the speaker, and that this letter was intended to frighten the university into cancelling the event."

They were all "Please don't cancel. We love con-artists! We're Mormons, remember!"

*TooLong,Don'tGiveaFuck*

Anita Sarkeesian is a self-proclaimed pop-culture critic..

Who claims that she wants to 'create a dialogue' & 'force video games into open debate'..

She then proceeds to disallow any & all discourse or scrutiny of her work - positive or negative - going so far as to disable like & dislike ratings on her videos.

Oh and I forgot to add..

She conveniently forgot to disable the vitriol 'whining' on her Kickstarter page until AFTER those comments boosted her campaign to over $150,000 in donations.

[i'll search for the video while you whine about citing sources]

BUT AGAIN! THIS ISN"T JUST ABOUT HER!
It's the overall debacle & all the stupid articles surrounding it.

Tho first I have to slog thru this shitstorm because you're easily distracted by syntax & word choice.

Shit, this is pointless.

Oh well. Done for now.

By the way, this kickstarter is going fast! Yesterday there was about 1000 out of 5000 full $600 packages sold, today its 2000+ sold. So if you want a cube , I suggest you get going within the next 7 days.. I ordered mine yesterday. Too bad their estimated shipping is december, but I guess that gives me some time to prepare for next spring/summer!

Cool. I'd get something like that for my Yoshi cat if I thought there was a chance he'd use it. Interesting Kickstarter campaign that got 340% of the goal: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/620439316/one-fast-cat-exercise-wheel

Even the stuff that's not really harassment seems really annoying, it reminds me of the charity collectors that I have to deal with every time I go to the grocery store(I don't want to have to explain why I'm not donating to their homophobic charity every time I buy toothpaste). Makes me want to start a kickstarter for a t-shirt that changes to read "f*ck off" whenever someone you don't want to talk to talks to you.

Nailed it dude!

The only angle I feel hasn't really come up so far is the idea that private enterprise and public governance could easily be regarded as two manifestations of the same "real" social dynamic: Establishment/challenger (or master/slave if you want to get fully Hegelian about it)

Like, why do we even develop governmental systems in the 1st place?

I have yet to conceive a better answer than: "to curb the destructive excesses of private wealth/power."

Why would we champion personal freedom? I would say: "to curb the destructive excesses of public wealth/power".

Or something to that effect at the very least. The idea of a society with either absolute personal, or absolute collective sovereignty seems hellish to me. And probably unworkable to boot!

There seems to me a tendency in the history of societies for these two types of power to dance either side of equilibrium as the real power struggle unfolds i.e. between reigning establishment and challenger power groups/paradigms.

Right now the establishment is both economic and governmental. The corruption is mutually supporting. Corporations buy and control governments, governments facilitate corporations ruling the market and continuing to be able to buy them.

The circle jerk @blankfist IMHO is between government and private dynasty and moreover I strongly believe that in a vacuum, one will always create the other.

Pure collectivism will naturally breed an individualist challenger and visa versa.

People are at their best I think when balancing self interest and altruism. Too much of either tends to hurt others around you and diminish ones capacity to grow and adapt. (being nice is no good if you lack the will and capacity to get shit done)

It seems natural that the ideal way of organising society would always balance collective state power, with private personal power.

Libertarianism (even the superior non anarchist version) defangs the state too much IMHO. Some collectivist projects such as education, scientific research and exploration I think tend to be better served by public direction. But more importantly I expect the state to referee the market, just as I expect public transparency to referee the state.

Total crowbar separation between the three: public officials cannot legally own or control private wealth and cannot live above standard of their poorest citizens. Private citizens cannot inherit wealth legally, only earn and create it. The state cannot legally hold any secret or perform any function of government outside public view unless it is to prepare sensitive legal proceedings (which must then be disclosed in full when actioned).

In the age of global communications this kind of transparency may for the first time be a workable solution (it's already near impossible to keep a lid on most political scandals and this is very early days). There is also the possibility of a steadily de-monetised market as crowdfunding and crowdsourcing production models start to become more advanced and practical than traditional market dynamics. e.g. kickstarter style collective investment in place of classical entrepreneurial investment.

The benefits and dangers of both capitalism and socialism here would be trending towards diffusion amongst the populace.

And then there's the whole Meritocracy vs Democracy thing, but that's really getting into another topic and I've probably already gone on too long now.

Much love

Maybe we need to kickstart Mr. Nye to go to space!

@Stormsinger, then why can't I buy the music or tv shows I want from Amazon?

How come hulu or netflix aren't available in my country? I've said it before, I am happy to spend money on the content I want, just make it available to me for a reasonable price (i.e. not nearly double what people in the US are paying for it http://www.steamprices.com/au/topripoffs)

At what point is it my fault that there is literally no legal way for me to purchase the content I want due to an arbitrary geographical restriction?

So if the entire internet is an experiment in alternative monetization, it's a dismal fucking failure.

You want some examples that work?

Steam Sales
Louis CK selling his entire show for $5
Kickstarter (hell Star Citizen alone)

Some people will always choose free. Fine, maybe they just can't afford it, and telling them to just not watch it is never going to work. Forget those people. Focus on the ones who believe that good content deserves rewarding. Make it easy for them to access your content (reasonable price, no drm or arbitrary restrictions) and they will pay.

Trying to stop piracy is pointless. It's out there and as I said, someone people genuinely have a moral issue with paying for content (the OSS zealots for example). Just assume it's going to be pirated (it already is!) and make it easy for those of us who want to pay for it to get it.

I wonder if this is where the $500k went that Yogs raised for their game on Kickstarter?

I'll start a kickstarter for funding (only) my desire to see this produced.

This is so cool but getting no coverage on VideoSift.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/controlvr/control-vr-motion-capture-for-vr-animation-and-mor



*Promote while there's still time on the Kickstarter campaign.

I guessed from the outset that this was one of those 'inventions' asking for 'investors' on one of those kickstarter type sites that allows the 'inventor' to keep the money even if the venture fails (or never gets started). If that's the case (I'm just guessing) then these WERE successful, as they got tons of investment but will never have a product.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3625970/

Doesn't look like parody at all. Here is some text from the writer's bio:

"After a successful Kickstarter..."

Holy shit, this thing had a Kickstarter? OMG here it is...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jrralls/rpgs-are-evil-dark-dungeons-the-movie

"The movie will make its world premier in Gen Con..."

That is like Christopher Hitchens doing a film premiere at the Vatican. This should be good.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Wish-I-Was-Here-First-Teaser-Trailer
*related=http://videosift.com/video/Wish-I-Was-Here-Zach-Braffs-Kickstarter-Funded-Movie

Wish I Was Here - First Teaser Trailer has been added as a related post - related requested by lucky760.

Wish I Was Here - Zach Braff's Kickstarter-Funded Movie has been added as a related post - related requested by lucky760.