PewDiePie and the bad word dramaz

Started by Cognitive Brainfart, September 14, 2017, 06:27:51 PM

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Cognitive Brainfart

So most of you probably heard about the most recent PewDiePie dramaz.

If you don't know, the TL;DR version is that PewDiePie was playing some sort game on a live stream and, upon getting annoyed, he blurted out: "What a fucking nigger." at his opponent or whoever he was shooting at. He apologized right after and, later, he even made a video where he apologized again.

Of course, as these things go, it caused a massive drama where some people are condemning him to hell because he dared say "the n word", other people are defending him by saying it was a heat-of-the-moment reaction and he apologized, and some don't give a rat's arse.

I don't really care about PewDiePie, don't watch him and such, but I'm interested in your opinions on this. Do you think it's something to get worked up about? Do you think the reaction of the media/public is justified? Do you think it doesn't matter that he said the word in the heat of the moment? Is it ok because he apologized? I'm curious to hear your thoughts. Of course, I have my own thoughts but I want to hear yours :)

You can find the video here:
You can find the apology video here:

Lustful Bride

Considering how he has gotten in trouble before with the whole 'kill all jews' thing, he should know better by now.

But when all you get is a slap on the wrist and many fans defending you, how can he be expected to learn? I'm pretty sure a few months from now he will do something else and itl be all back to square one again.

Its like a child who thinks that just saying 'Sorry' will make everything better. Especially when they repeat the behavior over and over again. I don't think hes a racist, but hes an idiot who loves to court controversy, despite how bad of an effect it had on many youtubers getting flagged and their channels damaged by the kneejerk system the YT staff put in place to filter out bad content. But all the system does is fail as hard as YT's copyright system.

Blythe

My opinion is that he knows better.

Apologies ring hollow when it's someone who's been involved in racial controversy before, who knows what is and is not appropriate behavior, and then just sort of keeps at the same inappropriate behavior.

Quote from: Lustful Bride on September 14, 2017, 07:21:46 PM
I'm pretty sure a few months from now he will do something else and itl be all back to square one again.

Completely agreed.

WindFish

If this was just an one time thing, then I might be inclined to accept his apology, but the guy has a pattern of racist behavior. Remember all the Nazi jokes (I recall him even giving the Hitler salute at one point) and the "kill all Jews" thing? This is a recurring thing for him that he can't seem to escape. I suspect that he is a racist. Whether he knows it or not is up for debate, but when he keeps doing these things, it does establish a clear pattern.

I don't watch him, but I do watch other Let's Players who do more than simply scream at the game and make racist jokes. He's giving the Let's Play community, and by extension gamers, YouTube, and the game developers a bad name. I honestly can't blame people for wanting to distance themselves from him. Sure, he may have helped to put Let's Plays on the map, but there are others who have been doing it longer and better than him. He's more of a liability at this point to the community.

It seems that no matter how many times he does something like this, his fans and the apologists will be right there to defend him. He has no reason to change his behavior., especially since he thinks that being "edgy" will help shed his "kiddie" image. Sadly, I don't see him getting better and I'm sure he'll get involved in another controversy in another week.
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DelightfullyMAD

I both agree and disagree on this point.  I'm not really a fan of Pewdiepie, and some of his shenanigans have definitely toed the line of what is good taste.  That being said, what does that say about the rest of us when we (in general) get so bent out of shape over this sort of thing?  Has he said tasteless things in the past?  Oh, definitely, and I don't defend them in the slightest.  But I do think that, given the social climate that has been steadily building over the last decade or so, these sorts of things are given way more attention than they actually deserve.  The general idea is that we are supposed to be moving beyond all this nonsense, yet if we just keep falling back whenever someone says something in poor taste, we'll never get anywhere.  There has to come a time when we, as a society, just stop giving stuff like this the sort of attention it gets, and instead learn to just shrug our shoulders and realize this sort of stuff for what it is; harmless.

Yes, Pewdiepie courts controversy, especially lately, and I do think that there is a certain sense of untouchability (not a word, I know) in his actions.  But honestly, the main reason people like him even do this sort of thing is because the rest of society is going to loose their collective minds over it.  If most people just shrugged their shoulders and paid it little mind, then a lot of this would loose it's power.  Hell, Morgan Freeman himself basically said that the best way to solve this problem in our society is to stop talking about it, to stop giving it the sort of attention that it's getting.  And I personally think he's right.

Simply put, I think people are addicted to drama, and like any addiction, it's not healthy.

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Cognitive Brainfart

#5
Uh, I didn't realize it would be considered a controversy, so sorry for posting in the wrong topic.

Quote from: WindFish on September 14, 2017, 07:35:13 PM
If this was just an one time thing, then I might be inclined to accept his apology, but the guy has a pattern of racist behavior. Remember all the Nazi jokes (I recall him even giving the Hitler salute at one point) and the "kill all Jews" thing? This is a recurring thing for him that he can't seem to escape. I suspect that he is a racist. Whether he knows it or not is up for debate, but when he keeps doing these things, it does establish a clear pattern.

I can definitely see where you're coming from when you say that. Personally, it just seems to me that he does it for the drama. I don't think he's truly a racist. Even someone who isn't a racist in real life can say something controversial on the internet to get a reaction. Especially if they're in the spotlight for it. You know, saying something just because people know damn well that race issues will always make someone pissed, not because they actually believe it.

Edit:
I completely agree with DelightfullyMAD. Some of the stuff he did was very much in poor taste, though it's generally thought that on the internet, nothing is sacred and so these kinds of jokes are more... allowable I suppose. Even if some stuff was in poor taste, like I said, I think people going crazy about it (especially big media) is a bit of an overreaction. If people give too much attention to something, it will never go away. It's like they say, "don't feed the troll" or in this case, don't feed the topic. To me, words have only as much power as people give them.

Exaelitus

#6
I prefer to lurk, and before you read this, realize I type as fast as I can talk, so this may turn in to a novel without my knowledge, where it only takes two minutes for me to say, but I did want to say this:

QuoteI'm not really a fan of Pewdiepie, and some of his shenanigans have definitely toed the line of what is good taste.

Apologies are reserved for spilling a glass of water or stepping on someone's foot when boarding in a packed train. It does not matter if he knew what is acceptable or not. Ignorance or intention is not an excuse to do something wrong: There are some places in the world where women are murdered by their fathers for listening to rock music. "Sorry I know better now" does not cut it. Actions convey you are sorry: looking out on the train for people's toes from this day forward or taking the spilled water moment and maybe holding the glass with two hands says you are sorry. Words are nothing. So he said something about nazis and jews before and apologized for it? Well then maybe he should have used his status to provoke donations to victims of hate crimes instead of using people's pain to remain relevant. That's how you say you are sorry.

Next,

Quotejust stop giving stuff like this the sort of attention it gets, and instead learn to just shrug our shoulders and realize this sort of stuff for what it is; harmless

I totally disagree. Prejudice happens because of the lack of exposure. Most often it is not personalized moment between a singular person and an entire group of people. Even accidental prejudice is based on ignorance. If someone says "This cop was being such a fag for giving me a parking ticket." Sure, to some labels like fag or gay on every day events that displease them mean just that, and to some, they can decide it is not offensive--just like I can, too. But I choose not to, because I have personal experience keeping a friend from killing himself when he was disowned by his family for coming out, or a roommate of mine moved in after previous living conditions entailed a straight man he lived with came home one night, climbed in to the shower (while he was already in it), and told him to get on his knees or else. Police involvement happened, and he found himself homeless in a minute, because his name was not on the lease. So when you say someone is 'acting like a fag', or someone is 'gay', I get that you are not directly tying it with the notion of homosexuals. But what happens to the people who went through personal trauma when they hear it? Now, they must stay quiet or be forced to re-live it when they try to explain why something is not funny. So they have to laugh, or go through the motions of pain again. Turning the blind eye to racism, does not make it 'lose' power. It does not magically erase the knowledge that the word was used when hanging a man on a neighborhood tree when he walked on the wrong side of the street, or an entirely black majority town of Rosewood, Florida literally erased over night because some woman was beat up by her husband and did not want to stain her family name so she blamed a resident of that town and pretty much everyone from the town was mutilated, tortured, and murdered (not to mention people would not even pick up any dark skinned travelers fleeing because they were so scared for their own well being), it also does not ignore the fact that the US Government deliberately infected blacks in Alabama with brain damaging Syphilis and claimed it was a vaccine over the course of 40 years quite literally just to see what happened, because "No one cares about those N's". (and is probably where that business came from about how vaccinations cause autism but that's a different topic) There are people alive today who's lives were directly ruined because of these events.

So when some moron who thinks the internet cushions him around accountability when he decides to use the N word, you suggest ignoring him and it will all just 'go away'? That was done already, and negative results happened. People started calling it out, and people who escaped Rosewood or unwitting participants in the Tuskegee experiment now get free college scholarships and restitution from the government. That's why you judge harshly and call it out. It's not that you are hearing more of it, or that people are becoming softer, it's just that it always was a massive problem but people are learning that speaking up is more prone to keep you alive and well instead of shutting up. Sure, there are some out there who like drama, as you suggested, but I would prefer to listen to dramatic people than to hear about a town where every was brutally murdered and how many people don't actually know about it.

But I do think we should stop making stupid people famous and let the trash settle on the trash. I don't think much of pewdiepie but I know that because it was blown in to a big deal, he is going to get exactly what he deserves of equal proportion. His cute ten seconds of fame are probably going to mean he never gets the chance to lock down a job he might actually want in the future, because all the places where video gaming skills are relevant require six figure salaries to live well and no company willing to invest that much money in to their employees will not see his potential sincerity as anything other than a liability. He will never be able to support a family, no one is going to want the alienation of a relationship with him, his family will be ashamed and harassed because of him, and he is probably accumulating a nightmare whirlwind of email and phone threats from bored losers just like him.

I think it was a good thing that people made a huge stir of it, drama and all.
His loving fans and supporters can see his washed up mtv true life drama apology episode in fifteen years, and I'm pretty content with knowing one day he could wind up being that miserable 80 year old gas station attendant pumping my gas on Thanksgiving because he has absolutely no where to go and can't afford to retire.

I am neither nice or friendly in real life, but I don't stand for ism's out there, whatever they may be, and I think people should be judged very harshly.

Also, EDIT:
The game he said not very nice stuff on is suffering and the developer is likely to go out of business because they were review bombed so the game may not sell. Since money is involved, there will probably be an attempt to sue him if they can for whatever possible. Would be the next logical occurrence. Not to say they will be successful, but when someone loses money things tend to happen.

Skynet

#7
Quote from: DelightfullyMAD on September 14, 2017, 07:39:17 PM
I both agree and disagree on this point.  I'm not really a fan of Pewdiepie, and some of his shenanigans have definitely toed the line of what is good taste.  That being said, what does that say about the rest of us when we (in general) get so bent out of shape over this sort of thing?  Has he said tasteless things in the past?  Oh, definitely, and I don't defend them in the slightest.  But I do think that, given the social climate that has been steadily building over the last decade or so, these sorts of things are given way more attention than they actually deserve.  The general idea is that we are supposed to be moving beyond all this nonsense, yet if we just keep falling back whenever someone says something in poor taste, we'll never get anywhere.  There has to come a time when we, as a society, just stop giving stuff like this the sort of attention it gets, and instead learn to just shrug our shoulders and realize this sort of stuff for what it is; harmless.

Yes, Pewdiepie courts controversy, especially lately, and I do think that there is a certain sense of untouchability (not a word, I know) in his actions.  But honestly, the main reason people like him even do this sort of thing is because the rest of society is going to loose their collective minds over it.  If most people just shrugged their shoulders and paid it little mind, then a lot of this would loose it's power.  Hell, Morgan Freeman himself basically said that the best way to solve this problem in our society is to stop talking about it, to stop giving it the sort of attention that it's getting.  And I personally think he's right.

Simply put, I think people are addicted to drama, and like any addiction, it's not healthy.

Morgan Freeman long disavowed those words he said.

To the bold: ignoring the problem doesn't mean it will go away. On the contrary, the prejudice which is hardest to root out are the ones which can't be detected by the general public. Dog-whistle politics is like this in Washington, where folks running for office use code-words to appeal to racist voters:

Quote from: Lee Atwater on the Southern Strategy to gain the segregationist voteYou start out in 1954 by saying, “Ni**er, ni**er, ni**er.” By 1968 you can’t say “ni**er”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Ni**er, ni**er.”

But in recent times, racial slurs (not just the n-word) have been picked up by ironic "I'm just joking/trolling" types as a way to mask their views behind plausible deniability, in part on the account of its taboo nature and the relative safety of the Internet allowing you to say such things on a public forum without getting punched or driven out of the room. Regardless of PewDiePie's intentions, it's part of a broader pattern of behavior of a very real concern of such propaganda being 'legitimized' via a broader cultural acceptance.

Most people don't know that former Trump aide Steve Bannon's a big fan of white supremacist literature, but that doesn't mean it has a negligible worldview on the administration's policies. But it's just a book, he's not really going out and advocating slaughtering dark-skinned immigrants, right?

One might say what this has to do with PewDiePie now, but that's my point. "It's just a word, it's just a book, it's just X," where the burden is on the people reacting to racism and not racist behavior. Like it or not, PewDiePie's tasteless jokes in the past have made him popular among the /pol/style "jokey racist" factions, and his behavior and anti-SJW style of videos have made him a piece of propaganda in the culture wars.

So it's not so much folks are angry at him using a slur in anger, more of the broader cultural implications it will have down the road and has had in the past.

Regina Minx

My take:

PewDiePie did something racist. I'm not surprised.

What I am surprised about is that there are people defending him, because apparently PewDiePie should be allowed to do the sort of thing that would get you, me, or anyone else fired if we worked for McDonald's. I guarantee you that if you burned your hand in the deep frier and called the deep frier the N-word, you would be out of there before the fries came out. PewDiePie doesn't work for McDonald's; he's self-employed, which means that it's a lot like the CEO of McDonald's calling someone the N-word. Would anyone here be surprised if that lead to a...shall we say decline in McDonald's business and brand value afterward?

The argument goes that it was said in the heat of the moment. Which makes it OK, I guess? Here's my objection to that, even if it was true. You do not say something in the heat of the moment that you don't already have in your vocabulary. There are hundreds of thousands of words besides that one, and he chose to do that one in a fit of anger. I've said things when I've been angry before. I've had a girlfriend cheat on me, I had a cinderblock fall on my toe. Did I cuss? You're goddamned right I did. DId I say words that were meant to be insulting and cutting? Yep.

Did I use the N-word? Nope. Because the N-word is not part of my working vocabulary.

PewDiePie chose to use that word instead of the hundreds of thousands of others he had to choose from. He could have called the guy in the video game a cockfucker or a shit ass guzzler, but he didn't. He said the N-word at his job where the vast majority of his audience is children and teenagers.

The moral of the story is: don't say the N-word at work. And I am amazed that this is a lesson that needs to be learned.

Marri

#9
Deciding some words are okay to say and some aren't just gives them way more power than they deserve, y'know? The first time I said fuck, or cunt, I felt horrible. But as you say and hear something progressively, it begins to lose a lot of its power. You see this even today, where words which were once viewed as pejoratives are used by people -- and I'm not just talking, "the n-- word". I don't think you're a racist for rattling off one derogatory term; I think assuming such really waters down the meaning of the word racist and how vile and ugly true racism can be. He said something he shouldn't have, but was anyone's feelings really hurt by some random idiot on Youtube blurting out the "n" word when he got mad in a game? You're bound to hear some naughty words on the Internet, so what? It's not like someone using a racial slur that isn't directed at anyone but a nameless enemy in a game (who couldn't hear him) isn't going to set social progress back anything. Outrage for the sake of outrage, over a single word, no less, is silly.

Bringing up examples of social injustice, as though its supposed to prove how problematic a word can be, makes zero sense. Those suffering based on their gender or their race aren't going to suddenly suffer more because a Youtube entertainer said a naughty word. It also doesn't diminish the fact that aforementioned entertainer, to be quite specific, is far from the abhorrent human being the online virtue signalers love to make him out as. Have we forgotten how he raised over 1 million dollars for RED already? Or does being a generally decent human being go out the window with one insensitive gesture?

Regina Minx

Quote from: Marri on September 16, 2017, 08:07:49 AM
Deciding some words are okay to say and some aren't just gives them way more power than they deserve, y'know?....

We do decide that some words are OK to say and that some aren't. Even someone who would describe themselves as a free-speech absolutist is probably going to say that libelous or slanderous speech is OK, or that you can't threaten or incite. So even the people that worship this like it was a religious tenet are going to say "Well, sometimes it's not OK to say certain things and if you do you get hit with a criminal or civil liability stick."

Quote from: Marri on September 16, 2017, 08:07:49 AMHe said something he shouldn't have, but was anyone's feelings really hurt by some random idiot on Youtube blurting out the "n" word when he got mad in a game? You're bound to hear some naughty words on the Internet, so what? It's not like someone using a racial slur that isn't directed at anyone but a nameless enemy in a game (who couldn't hear him) isn't going to set social progress back anything. Outrage for the sake of outrage, over a single word, no less, is silly.

Again, I want to re-iterate that PewDiePie's job is to make videos for the Internet. Would you take this same line of defense if he worked at McDonald's, got mad at the deep frier, called it the N-word, and was fired for that? Would you be saying that McDonald's was being silly and over-reacting for firing him because he called an inanimate piece of machinery a racial slur? That you hear some naughty words in the kitchen of McDonald's, so what? It's not like one fry-cook using racial slurs at McDonald's is going to set back social progress.

Marri

#11
Threats of violence, which are in fact criminal, and racial slurs are not the same thing. I noted words -- not phrases. You can string together any number of perfectly acceptable words to form a statement that can get you in trouble. If Pewdiepie had said, for example, to "lynch all [black people]," then yes, I'd be right along with you in condemning him. It's a call to action that is downright vile; but that's not what he did. What he did was idiotic and insensitive, but not much more than that.

You can't really equate his position as a performer with a retail job, either -- though to provide an answer, yes, I would one hundred percent consider McDonalds silly. We know the definition of that particular racial slur, and it in no way relates to the hypothetical situation in which it is being used. It is silly, nay, comical, for exactly how little sense it makes. That said, being essentially self-employed and functioning off partnerships and ad revenue is a good deal different than being a team member within a franchise. Certain expectations are made, y'know, concerning ethic and how one carries themselves, that are typically spelled out clearly for the potential employee; so yes, you might get in trouble for doing things that are acceptable otherwise because you're breaking an agreement with your employer. Like, in the video where PewdiePie uses a racial slur, he corrects himself by saying something like, "Fucking asshole," and nobody bats an eye. That wouldn't really fly in a retail environment (though again, since we hold racial slurs on some undeserved pedestal of naughtiness, your punishment might be different). Look to any incident where an entertainer has used the "n" word and you'll see a trend typical as to what we're seeing now. Their popularity plummeted as people and sponsorships turned away. You can choose not to watch Pewdiepie because what he said offended you and you're free to feel that he was racially insensitive -- but holding the rest of the world to that standard just waters down what true racism is -- and that's not the kind of word you want losing its punch.

We're at the point where people are getting offended by the skin tone of emojiis. Can you really blame people for rolling their eyes at the "Pewdiepie is a racist," bandwagon? Reporting in regards to PewdiePie already carries a negative connotation with the Youtube community considering how it led to the awful restructuring of its ad system.

Aiden

Attention whore in need of attention, and got it. If you don't support him, then don't click his videos, every view is more ad revenue in his pocket.

Regina Minx

#13
Quote from: Marri on September 16, 2017, 09:23:54 AM
Threats of violence, which are in fact criminal, and racial slurs are not the same thing. I noted words -- not phrases. You can string together any number of perfectly acceptable words to form a statement that can get you in trouble. If Pewdiepie had said, for example, to "lynch all [black people]," then yes, I'd be right along with you in condemning him. It's a call to action that is downright vile; but that's not what he did. What he did was idiotic and insensitive, but not much more than that.

Shouting "FIRE" in a crowded movie theater is both the perennial example of the limits of free speech and something free speech advocates almost universally agree is and should be criminalized. I find your distinction between certain phrases being unacceptable, but individual words being somehow sacrosanct a bizarrely arbitrary distinction. And even drawing that distinction doesn't work, due to the theater example above.

Quote from: Marri on September 16, 2017, 09:23:54 AMYou can't really equate his position as a performer with a retail job, either

Bullshit you can't. Remember 10 years ago when Michael Richards, the actor who played Kramer in Seinfeld, went on a racist rant against black hecklers at a comedy club? Yeah, his career got fucked for that one. This is directly analogous to a person being fired from their job for using racial slurs on the job, and directly analogous to PewDiePie too.

Quote from: Marri on September 16, 2017, 09:23:54 AM-- though to provide an answer, yes, I would one hundred percent consider McDonalds silly.

And that's the difference between you and me. McDonald's has a vested interest in firing such an employee for two reasons. One, failure to do so could constitute evidence that they had acted in such a way as to foster an environment in which racial discrimination was permitted or practiced. Failing to fire that employee could expose them to liability. But even the liability argument is undercut by the second reason they McDonald's would fire him. McDonald's is a brand, and the public perception of that brand is directly tied to their marketability and profit margins. No company, even one where every single person in a position of corporate management is a closet racist wants to endure the damage to brand image that NOT firing such an employee would cultivate.

Shielding themselves from liability and protecting the value of the brand are non-silly reasons to fire an employee that directed the N-word at a deep frier. McDonald's exists to make money. Failing to fire such an employee would run directly contrary to that corporate goal. That's kind of the exact opposite of 'silly.'

Quote from: Marri on September 16, 2017, 09:23:54 AMLike, in the video where PewdiePie uses a racial slur, he corrects himself by saying something like, "Fucking asshole," and nobody bats an eye.

Obviously, people are batting eyes, given that game developers are proceeding with DCRM claims against him, and the fact that we're even talking about this.

Quote from: Marri on September 16, 2017, 09:23:54 AMLook to any incident where an entertainer has used the "n" word and you'll see a trend typical as to what we're seeing now. Their popularity plummeted as people and sponsorships turned away. You can choose not to watch Pewdiepie because what he said offended you and you're free to feel that he was racially insensitive -- but holding the rest of the world to that standard just waters down what true racism is -- and that's not the kind of word you want losing its punch.

Except that ISN'T the trend we're seeing now. Michael Richards and Mel Gibson effectively didn't work for a decade or more after their racist tirades. I'm not seeing any sign that PewDiePie is losing vast numbers of subscribers over this incident. Either because he's being held to a different standard than Mel Gibson and Michael Richards, or because the environment has changed since those men were excoriated for their words.

Deamonbane

Quote from: Aiden on September 16, 2017, 09:41:17 AM
Attention whore in need of attention, and got it. If you don't support him, then don't click his videos, every view is more ad revenue in his pocket.
This.
Angry Sex: Because it's Impolite to say," You pissed me off so much I wanna fuck your brains out..."

Regina Minx

Quote from: Aiden on September 16, 2017, 09:41:17 AM
Attention whore in need of attention, and got it. If you don't support him, then don't click his videos, every view is more ad revenue in his pocket.

You're kind of assuming that the only meaningful interaction I could have ABOUT PewDiePie is to not watch his videos. That is obviously not the case, since he's not getting paid by E for every time we mention him on this site. A discussion about appropriate conduct at business, whether or not 'it was a silly thing to say in a fit of anger' is or should be any kind of defense or excuse, or even if we can infer racist intent by what he said is a perfectly valid thing to have.

Although I had watched individual PewDiePie videos in the past, I am not a regular watcher and will not become so now. So I'm already taking your (rather dismissive, if I may say so) advice, yet the conversation is clearly not about whether or not we should click his videos. In fact, I think you might have been the one to bring it up.

Deamonbane

Under that context we should be adding every comedian who has ever been desperate enough to use shock tactics to get attention, which is what this is, to this discussion.
Angry Sex: Because it's Impolite to say," You pissed me off so much I wanna fuck your brains out..."

Regina Minx

#17
Quote from: Deamonbane on September 16, 2017, 10:42:35 AM
Under that context we should be adding every comedian who has ever been desperate enough to use shock tactics to get attention, which is what this is, to this discussion.

That's one way of looking at it. Then again, you could also argue that he let slip something he uses as part of his workaday vocabulary in a 'hot mic' incident. See my post above about using invectives in a fit of anger or pain. Which has the higher prior probability of being correct? And given the evidence (the quick retraction, the apology video) which has the higher consequent probability of being correct?

I'm going to argue that it's at least 2-1 more likely that this wasn't a planned shock tactic event, but a slip of the tongue reflecting a word he has quick to hand, and not some 3-dimensional chess 'LOOK AT ME' attention-getting move.

Deamonbane

I was referencing his previous calls for attention which had people gasping at his supposed Nazism, not his casual use of a word that is used in most toxic gaming communities alongside the wild antics of gamers with other gamers' mothers. In short, it's much ado about yet another toxic gamer.
Angry Sex: Because it's Impolite to say," You pissed me off so much I wanna fuck your brains out..."

WindFish

If this had been an one time thing, I might have been inclined to believe his apology. The fact is that he's been caught saying and doing racist shit long before this incident. There's only so many times the "it's just a joke" defense can be used before people distance themselves from him and call him out on the racism. It's no wonder he's become a poster boy for the alt-right and Nazi sympathizers.

During my twenty-six years as a gamer, I have not once uttered a racial, sexist, or homophobic slur in a moment of frustration. If that kind of language is the first thing you say when you're frustrated, then it does hint at some racist mindset on his part. I've dropped plenty of f-bombs, but I never use slurs.

Making this worse is that many children watch him and will think his behavior is acceptable to emulate, and that it'll be harder for more talented Let's Players to do their jobs due to threats of DMCA takedowns.
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Regina Minx

Quote from: Deamonbane on September 16, 2017, 10:57:54 AM
I was referencing his previous calls for attention which had people gasping at his supposed Nazism, not his casual use of a word that is used in most toxic gaming communities alongside the wild antics of gamers with other gamers' mothers. In short, it's much ado about yet another toxic gamer.

Whether or not I watch a YouTube content creator, it's not an invalid use of time to talk about a particular toxic gamer, toxic gamers in general, and the larger trend of similar hot mic incidents that picked up racial slurs coming from the mouths of people who have a brand and a name to defend.

Oniya

#21
Quote from: Marri on September 16, 2017, 09:23:54 AM
Threats of violence, which are in fact criminal, and racial slurs are not the same thing. I noted words -- not phrases. You can string together any number of perfectly acceptable words to form a statement that can get you in trouble. If Pewdiepie had said, for example, to "lynch all [black people]," then yes, I'd be right along with you in condemning him. It's a call to action that is downright vile; but that's not what he did. What he did was idiotic and insensitive, but not much more than that.

You mean, like this incident?  That was earlier this very year.

Also - I'm a gamer.  I understand cussing in the heat of the moment.  But the words you cuss with in-game really tend to be the words you cuss with in real life - or at least think about cussing with in real life.  There's a reason they call it the 'heat of the moment' defense:  You aren't thinking.  You are using what comes as an instinctive reaction.

Think about it - his instinctive reaction is to call a person a racial slur when they upset him.  Back when I was growing up, that was a mark of someone who was 'not a nice person.'

"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
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Deamonbane

Quote from: Regina Minx on September 16, 2017, 11:04:01 AM
Whether or not I watch a YouTube content creator, it's not an invalid use of time to talk about a particular toxic gamer, toxic gamers in general, and the larger trend of similar hot mic incidents that picked up racial slurs coming from the mouths of people who have a brand and a name to defend.
That's fair.
Angry Sex: Because it's Impolite to say," You pissed me off so much I wanna fuck your brains out..."

Vergil Tanner

#23
Quote from: Oniya on September 16, 2017, 11:34:34 AM
You mean, like this incident?  That was earlier this very year.

You mean a joke? You can think it's distasteful, yes, but the fact remains that he wasn't serious. It was a joke. Holocaust and Nazi jokes aren't funny because the Nazi's were right, it's funny because it's not funny. The joke isn't that the Holocaust was a good thing, the joke is that it was a bad thing and the person telling the joke is a bad person. The joke is about the person telling the joke. But again, you can find it distasteful, that's fine, but shocking, distasteful and dark jokes are all part and parcel of being an entertainer...and that's what Felix is. He's an entertainer. Are we going to start dragging every Comedian who has ever made a distasteful joke over the coals now? Because doing it to Pewdiepie and not doing it to comedians who make those jokes is massively hypocritical.

And honestly, in your post where you're quoting somebody, you're equating that to an outright threat of violence, which I don't think is true or fair. He's making a joke, and the video makes that absolutely clear. He is in no way saying "Yeah, guys, you heard them...go do it!" THAT is a threat of violence. Or if he'd said "Too fucking right, they all deserve it," then you'd have a case. But he didn't. So you suggesting that his joke was actually a threat of violence? That's misleading and drawing a very tenuous false equivalence.

And once you say that there are subjects that people should never make jokes about, you're setting apart those things in a special protected class, which is missing the point of humour. Either everything is ok to joke about, or nothing is. I mean, I might have a different perspective on it given the British style of humour, but I don't see the big deal over him making racist jokes. Are you saying that he's racist BECAUSE he made a racist joke? By that same logic, anybody who makes a dead baby joke is infanticidal, anybody who makes rape jokes is a rapist, and anybody who makes Knock Knock jokes is a serial knock and runner.

In any case, regardless of what he did, that doesn't justify the Wall Street Journals slanderous Hit-Piece on him that took pretty much everything he said out of context and tried to paint it like he genuinely believed that shit. And it isn't the first time that the "Mainstream Media" has tried to attack big youtubers, either. And actually, that's what makes me believe his apology (ironically enough). See, when the WSJ posted that lawsuit-worthy article, Pewdiepie came out swinging in his own defence, mocking the WSJ and vehemently denying their accusations that he's secretly a Nazi. He stood up for himself, and refused to apologise for his off colour jokes...which I agree with, because honestly we need off colour jokes to push the boundaries of what's acceptable. Now, Nazi jokes are a little lazy at this point in time, but that doesn't mean he should be accused of BEING a Nazi for making them. Hell, if he WAS a Nazi, I don't think he WOULD be making Nazi Jokes because they wouldn't be jokes to him. But I digress; he stood up for himself when the WSJ wrote that article...and yet, the day after he made that comment, he came out with a contrite video apologising without reservation. I've known about PDP for a while, and whilst I grew out of his videos six or seven years ago, my experience of him is that if he makes a mistake and apologises, he does genuinely mean it, and his actions reflect that. Yeah, he said a racial slur in the heat of the moment...and then he apologised immediately afterwards AND released a full apology video. So...what's the big deal? Amusingly, I've seen a number of black youtubers hearing about it going "...so?" But that's besides the point, since that creeps into argument ad populam, so eh.


Quote from: Oniya on September 16, 2017, 11:34:34 AMAlso - I'm a gamer.  I understand cussing in the heat of the moment.  But the words you cuss with in-game really tend to be the words you cuss with in real life - or at least think about cussing with in real life.  There's a reason they call it the 'heat of the moment' defense:  You aren't thinking.  You are using what comes as an instinctive reaction.

Think about it - his instinctive reaction is to call a person a racial slur when they upset him.  Back when I was growing up, that was a mark of someone who was 'not a nice person.'

I disagree entirely. Sorry, Oniya, but that isn't really true. I can't give statistics due to the personal nature of it, but I can give you an anecdote from my own experience; I was playing a game a couple of weeks ago, and I hit a wall of difficulty that I just couldn't get through. I rammed my head against this level three, four, five times, and I always died at the same spot, right? On my sixth death, I got frustrated and said "Oh, you fucking cunt." Before that moment, the last time I'd said the word "Cunt" was about six months previously. I was frustrated, and I blurted out the worst word I could think of to vent. And that's exactly what PDP said that he did. Now as I understand it, he does Livestreams a LOT, and to the best of my knowledge he's never said "Nigga" on-stream before this. If he'd said it three or four or five times beforehand, and this was just another time he said it and apologised? I'd be with you. But for a first time offence that he apologised for immediately afterwards? I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. This time.

I mean, it's a word that he apologised for straight away. I just don't see why it's such a big deal, personally.
Vergil's Faceclaim Archive; For All Your Character Model Seeking Needs!


Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by that of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion. Therefore it is unnecessary to have all the qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

Dubbed the "Oath of Drake,"
A noble philosophy; I adhere...for now.

Vergil Tanner

Also: Additional on the DMCA:

The company is abusing it, plain and simple. The DMCA isn't there for companies to use when somebody using their game says something that they don't like. Personally speaking, I think that Let's Plays with commentary over the top - like Pewdiepie does - should be considered Fair Use, and a company using a DMCA because the person they were previously ok with playing the game said a naughty word that they didn't like sets a very dangerous precedent for future abuse.
Vergil's Faceclaim Archive; For All Your Character Model Seeking Needs!


Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by that of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion. Therefore it is unnecessary to have all the qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

Dubbed the "Oath of Drake,"
A noble philosophy; I adhere...for now.

Lustful Bride

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 16, 2017, 09:42:16 PM
Also: Additional on the DMCA:

The company is abusing it, plain and simple. The DMCA isn't there for companies to use when somebody using their game says something that they don't like. Personally speaking, I think that Let's Plays with commentary over the top - like Pewdiepie does - should be considered Fair Use, and a company using a DMCA because the person they were previously ok with playing the game said a naughty word that they didn't like sets a very dangerous precedent for future abuse.

I agree on this regard at least. This sets a bad precedent where a company can just DMCA anyone they like....even though they kind of already do that :/

He wasn't even playing Firewatch when he yelled the slur.

Regina Minx

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 16, 2017, 09:42:16 PM
Also: Additional on the DMCA:

The company is abusing it, plain and simple. The DMCA isn't there for companies to use when somebody using their game says something that they don't like. Personally speaking, I think that Let's Plays with commentary over the top - like Pewdiepie does - should be considered Fair Use, and a company using a DMCA because the person they were previously ok with playing the game said a naughty word that they didn't like sets a very dangerous precedent for future abuse.

Fair use is intended to permit the borrowing of portions of a work, not significant chunks of it.  (Religious Technology Center v. Lerma, 40 U.S.P.Q.2d 1569 (E.D. Va., 1996). In addition, there is little transformative use of the work to record playing through the came with commentary. This is why Channel Awesome had a huge DMCA strike against theme for releasing entire works with their commentary as an additional audio track a few months ago.

This fails two prongs for determing fair use, and we can also see how the copyright holder could argue that it would fail a third as well, that continuing to allow PewDiePie to use the work would negatively impact its salability.

Let'sPlay has always operated on the good graces and at the discretion of the copyright holder. And "at the discretion of" means that it's a permission that can be revoked.

You're essentially arguing that because the developer invited PewDiePie into their house, they have no right ask him to leave when he takes a shit on the living room table.

Regina Minx

Quote from: Lustful Bride on September 16, 2017, 09:50:26 PM
I agree on this regard at least. This sets a bad precedent where a company can just DMCA anyone they like....even though they kind of already do that :/

He wasn't even playing Firewatch when he yelled the slur.

You can agree all you like, but fair use is a shield for copyright infringement, and you have to prove it in court. You don't merely get to assert it like diplomatic immunity from Lethal Weapon 2.

Vergil Tanner

Quote from: Regina Minx on September 16, 2017, 09:52:52 PM
Fair use is intended to permit the borrowing of portions of a work, not significant chunks of it.  (Religious Technology Center v. Lerma, 40 U.S.P.Q.2d 1569 (E.D. Va., 1996). In addition, there is little transformative use of the work to record playing through the came with commentary. This is why Channel Awesome had a huge DMCA strike against theme for releasing entire works with their commentary as an additional audio track a few months ago.

Yes, but I would argue that a person playing a game in their way - with commentary and editing over the top - IS transformative. Take PDP's LP of Amnesia way back in his early days; he created entire characters that didn't exist in the game and formed his own narrative within the frame of that game. If that isn't transformative, what is?
The problem stems from the fact that when the DMCA legislation was first introduced, LP's weren't really a thing, so they exist in a kind of grey area, because the DMCA is vague when it comes to forms of media that have arisen since its inception. It needs a reworking and they need to clear up that grey area, but nobody wants to be the one to break cover first. Also add onto that that as Lust said, he WASN'T playing Firewatch at the time, so they arbitrarily decided to enforce it because he said something they didn't like. That isn't enforcing copyright, that's censorship.


Quote from: Regina Minx on September 16, 2017, 09:52:52 PMThis fails two prongs for determing fair use, and we can also see how the copyright holder could argue that it would fail a third as well, that continuing to allow PewDiePie to use the work would negatively impact its salability.

But movies and games are two entirely different genres; just the act of playing through it transforms it into something that nobody else has; your experience of a game is entirely different to everybody else. Plus, they could ARGUE that it would negatively impact it's sales, but they'd have to prove it; they'd have to come up with the statistics, and I believe that at best, the statistics on that are vague and inconclusive on some games, and the complete opposite in others. I mean, if PDP plays a game, instantly there are millions of people who know that game exists. Sometimes that results in more sales, and sometimes it doesn't...but there are no statistics to show that it reduces their sales at all.


Quote from: Regina Minx on September 16, 2017, 09:52:52 PMLet'sPlay has always operated on the good graces and at the discretion of the copyright holder. And "at the discretion of" means that it's a permission that can be revoked.

You're essentially arguing that because the developer invited PewDiePie into their house, they have no right ask him to leave when he takes a shit on the living room table.
[/quote]

No, I'm arguing that the DMCA is intended to protect their copyright and that LP's have always existed in a grey area that everybody has been too afraid to clear up. And in THIS case, they cannot argue that they protected their Copyright, because there are OTHER Firewatch videos online that they HAVEN'T taken down...and if you want to protect your Copyright, you have to do it on ALL the videos, not JUST one. Because then the question becomes "How did he violate your copyright in a way that these other videos didn't?" And if it can be proved that they are going after one person specifically for a reason OTHER than Copyright? They've just abused the DMCA...and, worst case scenario, committed perjury.


Quote from: Regina Minx on September 16, 2017, 09:54:13 PM
You can agree all you like, but fair use is a shield for copyright infringement, and you have to prove it in court. You don't merely get to assert it like diplomatic immunity from Lethal Weapon 2.

Actually, since it's the company making the claim, if it went to court, THEY would have to prove copyright infringement. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.
Vergil's Faceclaim Archive; For All Your Character Model Seeking Needs!


Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by that of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion. Therefore it is unnecessary to have all the qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

Dubbed the "Oath of Drake,"
A noble philosophy; I adhere...for now.

DominantPoet

If the company doesn't want any association with the YTer, IMO, it's in their rights to take whatever actions they are able to or deem necessary within the law to attempt to ensure that they no longer have any. If that means filing DMCAs against his videos with their properties, they're totally in the right there. It's not like Nintendo doesn't do this to...well, everyone, really, in the name of protecting their IPs and copyrights.

PDP thinks he's still some lower level YTer who isn't constantly under the public eye, and what's worse, he still seems to think he can do whatever he wants without consequences, even after losing huge sponsors with his last stint in the media. Which shows that he doesn't learn, whether willfully or ignorantly, he remains the same person. If you hear your actions are bad and don't correct yourself but continue to be the same horrible person, well...that's your own damned fault, and you will get what's coming to you in the end.

Regina Minx

#30
Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 16, 2017, 10:07:32 PM
Yes, but I would argue that a person playing a game in their way - with commentary and editing over the top - IS transformative.

A derivative work is transformative if it uses a source work in completely new or unexpected ways. Simply recording your face while you play a game and use racial slurs is going to have a very hard time clearing the bar of showing that it's transformative.

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 16, 2017, 10:07:32 PMPlus, they could ARGUE that it would negatively impact it's sales, but they'd have to prove it; they'd have to come up with the statistics, and I believe that at best, the statistics on that are vague and inconclusive on some games, and the complete opposite in others. I mean, if PDP plays a game, instantly there are millions of people who know that game exists. Sometimes that results in more sales, and sometimes it doesn't...but there are no statistics to show that it reduces their sales at all.

Courts have almost universally favored the companies when they've argued on the effect of the market value of the work. There's just not the precedent to back up what you're saying. The one and only time I can remember off the top of my head when a claim about the market value of the derivative work was when the copyright holder used material from an out of print and no longer published magazine.

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 16, 2017, 10:07:32 PMand if you want to protect your Copyright, you have to do it on ALL the videos, not JUST one. Because then the question becomes "How did he violate your copyright in a way that these other videos didn't?" And if it can be proved that they are going after one person specifically for a reason OTHER than Copyright? They've just abused the DMCA...and, worst case scenario, committed perjury.

Not even a little bit. Copyright holders may enforce their copyright claims at their discretion. Failing to enforce a copyright claim against one person does nothing to weaken your copyright in a separate claim. This is why copyright holders may (and often do) turn a blind eye to fan works, such as fan fiction and fan art. A copyright can't be diluted the way that a trademark can, and no matter how many unauthorized Harry Potter stories are out on the Internet, that does nothing to hurt J.K. Rowling's copyright regarding the books or her characters. However, this also means that if there's a fan work that the copyright holder doesn't like for any reason, they can choose to enforce their copyright claim against that particular fan work. You may grumble that selective enforcement of copyright claims is censorship, but it's completely within the copyright owner's rights to do that.

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 16, 2017, 10:07:32 PMActually, since it's the company making the claim, if it went to court, THEY would have to prove copyright infringement. Innocent until proven guilty and all that.

First of all, a claim of copyright infringement would be a civil, not a criminal matter, so the court wouldn't return a finding of guilty or not guilty. Second of all, fair use is an affirmative defense. You're conceding the underlying claim, that you're making use of copywritten material. But you're arguing that it's an acceptable use. And any time you make an affirmative defense, then you are also then shifting the burden of proof onto yourself. You are saying "I am willing to prove that my defense claim is true. My use of this material was fair because it satisfies these five prongs of the fair use test and here's how it does that."

You can't have it both ways. You can't use fair use as your defense, and then say that it's up to the publisher to prove infringement. By making the fair use claim in the first place you are conceding the point that copyright-protected material was used.

Vergil Tanner

#31
Responses in the Spoiler.

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Quote from: DominantPoet on September 16, 2017, 10:18:53 PM
If the company doesn't want any association with the YTer, IMO, it's in their rights to take whatever actions they are able to or deem necessary within the law to attempt to ensure that they no longer have any. If that means filing DMCAs against his videos with their properties, they're totally in the right there. It's not like Nintendo doesn't do this to...well, everyone, really, in the name of protecting their IPs and copyrights.

Here's the thing; we don't know if that's true or not because the DMCA doesn't explicitly cover LP's, because LP's weren't a thing back then. The only reason Nintendo gets away with it is because they're Nintendo and nobody wants to challenge them...for good reason. But Nintendo isn't a good example of being "In the right," since they even Content ID and occasionally DMCA videos that ARE fair use, like reviews, or videos that use five seconds of footage as a joke in a wider context.

The point here is that if they're going to DMCA PDP's Videos because he said a naughty word, that should no longer be a case of copyright infringement. If they are going to decide that LP's are an infringement of their copyright, they need to do it to ALL videos, since if they get brought up in a court of law over it, they'll have to explain why they DMCA'd PDP, and not somebody else who did the same thing. And if they don't have a good reason, well...things get bad for them. Copyright isn't something you get to pick and choose when to defend; you have to defend it consistently, since if you do end up defending it in court and the other side can pull up cases where you didn't defend the copyright, worst case scenario you could LOSE that copyright because you aren't defending it, or at the least end up with that person saying "Well, you didn't defend your copyright against X, who did the same thing as us, so obviously it isn't copyright infringement and there's another reason behind it."

The thing is, we don't know if it's within a companies right, since we don't know if LP's are covered under Fair Use because it's a vague grey area that's never been defined. Personally, I think that PDP's style of LP's are covered, but then that's just personal opinion at that point. The point I was making is that the company didn't DMCA him because he breached copyright. They DMCA'd him because he said a naughty word and they don't want anything to do with him anymore (which they outright said). That isn't a copyright issue, so the DMCA shouldn't have been used.

Now I know that isn't how it works. But that's how it SHOULD work, or the corporations end up having way too much power over how their product is perceived by the general populace.


Quote from: DominantPoet on September 16, 2017, 10:18:53 PMPDP thinks he's still some lower level YTer who isn't constantly under the public eye, and what's worse, he still seems to think he can do whatever he wants without consequences, even after losing huge sponsors with his last stint in the media.

You mean when the WSJ misrepresented and slandered him? Because if PDP had wanted to, I reckon he could have successfully sued them for defamation.


Quote from: DominantPoet on September 16, 2017, 10:18:53 PMWhich shows that he doesn't learn, whether willfully or ignorantly, he remains the same person. If you hear your actions are bad and don't correct yourself but continue to be the same horrible person, well...that's your own damned fault, and you will get what's coming to you in the end.

But that's the thing. If you disagree that they're bad, why the fuck should you change at all? If I do something that I think is right, and somebody says "I think that's wrong," if they don't make a convincing case...why should I accept their judgement over my own? He didn't learn from being slandered? He didn't learn from having people take his jokes out of context? Yes, you can dislike the jokes, but at the end of the day they're still jokes, and making horrible jokes doesn't make you a horrible person. As I recall, plenty of comedians have made off colour jokes in the past, and that's what Felix is. He's an entertainer. You can think he's a BAD entertainer, sure, but that doesn't change the fact that he is one, and he's being raked over the coals - unfairly, I think - for something that a lot of comedians and entertainers do and get away with it (the jokes, not saying Nigger).




Quote from: Regina Minx on September 16, 2017, 10:30:49 PM
A derivative work is transformative if it uses a source work in completely new or unexpected ways. Simply recording your face while you play a game and use racial slurs is going to have a very hard time clearing the bar of showing that it's transformative.

But games are by their very nature transformative; nobodies playthroughs are going to be the same, and if he adds commentary over the top and does silly things, then that isn't an exact carbon copy of the game. It's HIS gameplay, and it's entirely fair for him to post videos of his gameplay.


Quote from: Regina Minx on September 16, 2017, 10:30:49 PMCourts have almost universally favored the companies when they've argued on the effect of the market value of the work. There's just not the precedent to back up what you're saying. The one and only time I can remember off the top of my head when a claim about the market value of the derivative work was when the copyright holder used material from an out of print and no longer published magazine.

Have they ever ruled on video games Vs LPers, though? Because there's a big difference there; movies and video games are not the same thing. Finding a movie online and watching it for free means that you likely won't buy the movie itself if you can get it for free. But if you watch somebody play a video game, a lot of the time, that translates into people going to buy the game itself because they want to experience it firsthand as well, and there are a number of statistics that suggest that if a big gamer like PDP gets ahold of a game...sales increase because of increased visibility. It's not always the case, but it happens more often than not.
Why do you think so many games come out that fall into the genre of "Youtube Bait?"


Quote from: Regina Minx on September 16, 2017, 10:30:49 PMNot even a little bit. Copyright holders may enforce their copyright claims at their discretion. Failing to enforce a copyright claim against one person does nothing to weaken your copyright in a separate claim. This is why copyright holders may (and often do) turn a blind eye to fan works, such as fan fiction and fan art. A copyright can't be diluted the way that a trademark can, and no matter how many unauthorized Harry Potter stories are out on the Internet, that does nothing to hurt J.K. Rowling's copyright regarding the books or her characters. However, this also means that if there's a fan work that the copyright holder doesn't like for any reason, they can choose to enforce their copyright claim against that particular fan work. You may grumble that selective enforcement of copyright claims is censorship, but it's completely within the copyright owner's rights to do that.

Well in that case, if what you're saying is true...it shouldn't be, and it's another example of corporations holding way too much power, if they can censor you with a DMCA because they don't like what you said.


Quote from: Regina Minx on September 16, 2017, 10:30:49 PMYou can't have it both ways. You can't use fair use as your defense, and then say that it's up to the publisher to prove infringement. By making the fair use claim in the first place you are conceding the point that copyright-protected material was used.

True. My knowledge of the American legal system is spotty at best, so I'll admit I made a mistake there.
But that doesn't change my opinion that LP's should be considered fair use simply down to the nature of video games; a movie will be the same on every viewing, but with most video games, every playthrough is going to be different and everybodies experiences will deviate in some way. And when you LP something with commentary and your own humorous spin on something, that is transformative by its very nature because you're playing it in a way that the creators didn't necessarily envisage. Again, see PDP's playthrough of Amnesia for an example of that.




In any case;

The point of this thread isn't DMCA and its usage, even if I think it's a messy piece of legislation that needs to be cleaned up and codified when it comes to certain forms of media that have evolved since its inception. The point is Pewdiepie using the word "Nigger," so I'm going to stop derailing this thread now. >.>
Vergil's Faceclaim Archive; For All Your Character Model Seeking Needs!


Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by that of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion. Therefore it is unnecessary to have all the qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

Dubbed the "Oath of Drake,"
A noble philosophy; I adhere...for now.

DominantPoet

Since what Regina said is in fact true about copyrights, there's not much point on me regurgitating what she already stated on them, so -

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 16, 2017, 10:44:12 PM
You mean when the WSJ misrepresented and slandered him? Because if PDP had wanted to, I reckon he could have successfully sued them for defamation.

Misrepresented? Like when he claimed there's a difference between a joke and actually having the mindset of "Death to all Jews?"? Because while he's correct in that statement, if you don't make it blatantly obvious to begin with that you're joking and have to do it AFTER the fact...there's a very good chance you weren't joking. It's kind of a "if you're offended, I'm totally joking, but if you agree with me, I'm totally serious" type of mindset that quite a few people have these days.

That's not really misrepresenting or slandering, that's a case of him not being clear and concise, to begin with. He might have been able to get a misrepresentation ruling, but given that he didn't attempt to do that, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that would have never happened because it would have been tossed out of court, or before it even made it to court. So. You can reckon about it all you want though.


Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 16, 2017, 10:44:12 PM
But that's the thing. If you disagree that they're bad, why the fuck should you change at all? If I do something that I think is right, and somebody says "I think that's wrong," if they don't make a convincing case...why should I accept their judgement over my own? He didn't learn from being slandered? He didn't learn from having people take his jokes out of context? Yes, you can dislike the jokes, but at the end of the day they're still jokes, and making horrible jokes doesn't make you a horrible person. As I recall, plenty of comedians have made off colour jokes in the past, and that's what Felix is. He's an entertainer. You can think he's a BAD entertainer, sure, but that doesn't change the fact that he is one, and he's being raked over the coals - unfairly, I think - for something that a lot of comedians and entertainers do and get away with it (the jokes, not saying Nigger).

Yeah, I'm going to ask you to take the logic you're attempting to use here, and apply it to literally any other situation that society deems as bad, unlawful, evil, etc etc. If I disagree that murder is bad, why should I change? Robbery, fraud, scamming, breaking and entering, sexual assault/harassment, animal abuse, so on and so forth. What if I disagreed that any of those were bad and used the logic you're attempting to put forth here? Do you perhaps see how it suddenly becomes...let's say, questionable?

He wasn't slandered, I would strongly suggest you learn what slander actually is. Plenty of comedians have indeed made many off-color jokes in the past, many more will in the future. And as I said - they make it very obvious they are joking, making light of a serious issue, so on and so forth. They also generally understand that those types of jokes are risque, and must be presented in specific ways, as I have already said. You can't just go around and say things like "I tossed a penny between two jews and let them fight to the death" (Jeff Dunham) without making it blatantly, BLATANTLY obvious that is a JOKE. Far, FAR too many people in this day and age seem to think they can just spout out whatever crap they personally think is funny, blurting it out, and only after people take offense to it do they bother to claim and elaborate "Uhhh, I was just JOKING, calm your nuts" or some sort of other drivel of the sort.

Jock logic, as I like to call it. "Principal dude Sir, we dunked Billy's head in the toilet as a joke, take a chill pill, bro."

As for corporations having way too much power - I'm not sure how old you are, but that's kind of been the case for the better part of the last century. It was the case before I was even born into this world, so.


Vekseid

Quote from: Aiden on September 16, 2017, 09:41:17 AM
Attention whore in need of attention, and got it. If you don't support him, then don't click his videos, every view is more ad revenue in his pocket.

No. PewDiePie is the Youtuber/pro gamer equivalent of a manipulative partner. The guy has some incredibly calculated language designed to form a dependent relationship. "If you're going to play it, make sure you're playing it with me, so you're not just playing by yourself."

That's not just an attention whore. That's the sort of manipulative speech you hear from a sociopath or cult leader. It is based off the same sort of logic that 'negging' is.

It is not a good idea to dismiss these sorts of antics as 'mere' attention whoring.

Vergil Tanner

Quote from: DominantPoet on September 17, 2017, 03:58:40 AM
Misrepresented? Like when he claimed there's a difference between a joke and actually having the mindset of "Death to all Jews?"? Because while he's correct in that statement, if you don't make it blatantly obvious to begin with that you're joking and have to do it AFTER the fact...there's a very good chance you weren't joking.

So if it wasn't 100% clear that he was joking, then he obviously meant every word? Pardon my French, but that's ducking absurd. Even if he was being ambiguous, how does not being clear to all people make him automatically guilty of being a Nazi?
And in any case, I went and watched every single one of the examples people have given of his racism that I could find, and each one - besides the nigger stream - it was obvious, in context, that it was a joke. As you say, there's a difference between a joke and a call to action, and of all the times I've seen, not one of them is a call to action. Unless you have an example that I haven't seen, where it was ambiguous? If so, please let me know and I'll concede the point.


Quote
It's kind of a "if you're offended, I'm totally joking, but if you agree with me, I'm totally serious" type of mindset that quite a few people have these days.

That's true...but where's your evidence that PDP has this mindset? Because that kind of accusation kind of requires proof beyond "he makes off colour jokes." I make dead baby jokes all the time to my friends. Does that mean that I secretly get off on infanticide? The Bible Reloaded makes a lot of jew jokes (along with much darker shit), so does that mean that they secretly believe that stuff?


QuoteThat's not really misrepresenting or slandering, that's a case of him not being clear and concise, to begin with. He might have been able to get a misrepresentation ruling, but given that he didn't attempt to do that, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that would have never happened because it would have been tossed out of court, or before it even made it to court. So. You can reckon about it all you want though.

It is misrepresentation if you take somebody out of context, edit bits together and make it look like they're saying something without the mitigation of the buffering context...which is exactly what the WSJ did.


QuoteYeah, I'm going to ask you to take the logic you're attempting to use here, and apply it to literally any other situation that society deems as bad, unlawful, evil, etc etc. If I disagree that murder is bad, why should I change? Robbery, fraud, scamming, breaking and entering, sexual assault/harassment, animal abuse, so on and so forth. What if I disagreed that any of those were bad and used the logic you're attempting to put forth here? Do you perhaps see how it suddenly becomes...let's say, questionable?

That's one extreme, yeah. But let's take it the other way with what YOU'RE saying and say, "if I disagree that homosexuality, BDSM, Transgender or atheism is bad, then obviously I'm wrong!" My point was, somebody saying that you're a bad person doesn't necessarily make you a bad person on its own. Your actions dictate that, and beyond his off color jokes, what does he do? Because as I understand it, PdP is actually a really nice guy who does a hell of a lot for charity and noble causes. You saying he's a bad person doesn't make him one. You could just be wrong.

Quote
He wasn't slandered, I would strongly suggest you learn what slander actually is.

"The act or crime of making a false spoken statement about somebody that damages their reputation." They made a video, so Slander. The article itself was libel.
In any case, they took his quotes out of context and accused him of being a racist white supremacist Nazi. Without hard evidence that he actually is? That's defamation!


QuotePlenty of comedians have indeed made many off-color jokes in the past, many more will in the future. And as I said - they make it very obvious they are joking, making light of a serious issue, so on and so forth.

As did PDP, as far as I can tell. He's never presented himself as a journalist. He's an entertainer who screamingly over reacts to video games. Why would you ever take him seriously in that context?


QuoteThey also generally understand that those types of jokes are risque, and must be presented in specific ways, as I have already said. You can't just go around and say things like "I tossed a penny between two jews and let them fight to the death" (Jeff Dunham) without making it blatantly, BLATANTLY obvious that is a JOKE.

You keep repeating the same thing over and over with no real references. As far as I can find, they're all obviously jokes in context. Can you present one where it wasn't obvious, and was presented in a vague way?


QuoteFar, FAR too many people in this day and age seem to think they can just spout out whatever crap they personally think is funny, blurting it out, and only after people take offense to it do they bother to claim and elaborate "Uhhh, I was just JOKING, calm your nuts" or some sort of other drivel of the sort.

So.PdP is racist because other people are thoughtless assholes. Got it.


QuoteJock logic, as I like to call it. "Principal dude Sir, we dunked Billy's head in the toilet as a joke, take a chill pill, bro."

So...you're equating a spoken joke in a video designed for entertainment to a case of actual physical abuse where somebody physically got hurt as a direct result?
Come on. That's absolute poppycock and you know it. A huge false equivalence, and if you honestly think they're comporable, I have no idea what to say. That's like saying that the joke "What was Germany's biggest debt after WW2? Their gas bill!" Is the same as pushing a Jew down a flight of stairs and that is utter nonsense.


QuoteAs for corporations having way too much power - I'm not sure how old you are, but that's kind of been the case for the better part of the last century. It was the case before I was even born into this world, so.

Doesn't mean we should stop bitching about it. As soon as we don't mention it anymore, they win for good.



Also, sidebar; as David Mitchell once said...why is it that we can joke about Attilla The Hun and Ghengis Khan and the Romans atrocities, but WW2 is taboo? Seems like an odd double standard there. Is it just time? In which case, at what point do Holocaust jokes stop being a case of "Too soon?"


Quote from: Vekseid on September 17, 2017, 05:16:14 AM
No. PewDiePie is the Youtuber/pro gamer equivalent of a manipulative partner. The guy has some incredibly calculated language designed to form a dependent relationship. "If you're going to play it, make sure you're playing it with me, so you're not just playing by yourself."

That's not just an attention whore. That's the sort of manipulative speech you hear from a sociopath or cult leader. It is based off the same sort of logic that 'negging' is.

It is not a good idea to dismiss these sorts of antics as 'mere' attention whoring.

Um...no offence, Vek, but that's going into tinfoil hat territory. I mean...again, have you got any evidence that that's what he's doing? Because I highly doubt that this is all a calculated ploy by Felix, the secret leader of the Illuminati.
Vergil's Faceclaim Archive; For All Your Character Model Seeking Needs!


Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by that of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion. Therefore it is unnecessary to have all the qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

Dubbed the "Oath of Drake,"
A noble philosophy; I adhere...for now.

Regina Minx

#35
I'm not going to go over every point you made because a DMCA talk is out of scope for the PewDiePie discussion. However, there is one point I still think is worth following.

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 16, 2017, 10:44:12 PM
Well in that case, if what you're saying is true...it shouldn't be, and it's another example of corporations holding way too much power, if they can censor you with a DMCA because they don't like what you said.

First of all, I have to correct your premise. It's not just corporations that can own copyright. I gave you a very prominent example in my last post. JK Rowling owns the copyright on all Harry Potter material. She is not a corporation even though she's richer than Croesus. The standard you seem to be arguing, though, is that unless JK Rowling personally files DMCA requests against fanfiction.net and elliquiy itself, then she has no right to file a lawsuit against a theater troupe doing an unauthorized production of the Cursed Child.

That is ludicrous. First of all, think about what you're demanding of copyright holders. You're insisting that they post themselves on the Internet, filing DMCA claims every single time the copyright material is uploaded. I hope you can see how absurd this is.

Second of all, it speaks to an air of entitlement that isn't appropriate for discussing the work that an artist or creator owns. If I may transform the context slightly bigly, you are not entitled to a blowjob from me just because I've given a blowjob to the last 9 guys I've met. And just because I start to give you a blowjob does not obligate me to complete the blowjob if I decide not to mid-stream. "You were perfectly fine with giving me a blowjob but then you arbitrarily changed your mind and cut off my blowjob access? You're punishing me just because you don't like that I called you a nasty bitch midway through the blowjob! That's unfair and I'm entitled to your blowjob."

No sir, you are not. And PewDiePie is not entitled to indefinitely enjoy the right to the creative works of video game developers outside of a fair use context. No matter how long a blind eye has been turned to inappropriate behavior, you can't use the fact of the blind eye as a defense when that behavior is called out.

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 17, 2017, 07:05:35 AM
And in any case, I went and watched every single one of the examples people have given of his racism that I could find, and each one - besides the nigger stream - it was obvious, in context, that it was a joke.

Because as I understand it, PdP is actually a really nice guy who does a hell of a lot for charity and noble causes. You saying he's a bad person doesn't make him one. You could just be wrong.

Here's the logical flaw present in both of these sentiments. It's called the false dichotemy and it goes like this:

"PewDiePie can't be a racist, because the racist things he said in the past were meant as jokes." You're implying that a person can't be racists and make jokes about their racism. I disagree.

"PewDiePie does good work and raises money for charity. Therefore he can't be racist." You're implying that a racist person can't contribute to charity. Again, I disagree.



If you don't understand the context of the sign due to cultural or international differences, essentially any club, organization, or company can volunteer to pick up litter along segments of the highway. If you do and commit do doing that as an ongoing volunteer effort, the state or federal highway authority will put up a nice little sign thanking you. In the picture above, the KKK had volunteered to do litter pickup (must not make white trash joke) on that highway in Missouri, and the state had to put up that sign.

The illustrative point is that racists can do charity, and it's no defense to say "the Klan isn't racist! Look at the volunteer work they did on that highway!"

Bringing this back to PewDiePie, your defense of him has been based so far in a misunderstanding of the laws about copyright, unreasonable expectations about the entitlement of non-content creators to use copyright-protected work, and logical fallacies. What are you trying to accomplish in this discussion? To argue that PewDiePie isn't racist? That using the N-word in a fit of anger isn't a big deal?

I kind of feel like this is a relevant clip/quote:

http://southpark.cc.com/clips/155461/race-war

Quote
Kyle:   Dude, did your dad know that the show was being broadcast live?
Cartman:   Dude, that was the funniest thing I've ever seen. I watched it on YouTube about sixty times.
Stan:   Can we just drop this please? I don't wanna talk about it!
Cartman:   Yeah well, it's not us you have to worry about. It's Token. [points at the camera. Dramatic music swells. The camera then looks at Token, who's putting some books into his locker] He is gonna want to kick your cracker teeth in.
Stan:   No he's not. [looks at Kyle] Is he?
Kyle:   I don't know.
Stan:   I just need to explain things. [walks up to Token, who's finished with the locker and holds only a binder in his right hand] Hey Token. Look, I don't know if you saw Wheel of Fortune last night, but-
Token:   Yeah, I was watching with my whole family. And then we saw all the replays this morning on the news.
Stan:   Listen, Token, my dad isn't a racist. He's just stupid, all right? He just blurted out the N-word, and it's no big deal, okay?
Token:   Uh, well, actually it is kind of a big deal, Stan.
Cartman:   Ohhhhhhhh?
Token:   It may be a mistake, but you don't understand how it feels when that word comes up. So don't say it isn't a big deal.
Cartman:   Oh shit here we go! [gets really excited and cuts in between them, yelling] It's on! Race war! [goes back and yells at one end of the hall] Race war! Race war! [comes back again and yells at the other end of the hall] Race war is on, everybody! It's going down! Shit is going down! [returns, just itching to see Stan and Token fight]
Stan:   Token, my dad wasn't trying to be offensive. Just forget about it.
Token:   That's easy for you to say, Stan.
Cartman:   [softly] Yeah, come on! Here we go!
Stan:   Yeah, but he didn't say it in anger or anything like that.
Token:   That doesn't mean I can just be fine.
Cartman:   [softly] Race war! Come on! Race war!
Token:   If you really think it's not a big deal, then you really are ignorant. That's all. I'm not fighting anybody. [turns left and walks away]
Cartman:   Token forfeits! [takes Stan's left hand and holds it up in victory] Whites win! [lets go and twirls away] Whites win! [runs to one end of the hall] Race war is over, everybody! Whites won again!

Vergil Tanner


Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 08:12:05 AMSecond of all, it speaks to an air of entitlement that isn't appropriate for discussing the work that an artist or creator owns. If I may transform the context slightly bigly, you are not entitled to a blowjob from me just because I've given a blowjob to the last 9 guys I've met. And just because I start to give you a blowjob does not obligate me to complete the blowjob if I decide not to mid-stream. "You were perfectly fine with giving me a blowjob but then you arbitrarily changed your mind and cut off my blowjob access? You're punishing me just because you don't like that I called you a nasty bitch midway through the blowjob! That's unfair and I'm entitled to your blowjob."

No sir, you are not.

Um. That's such a stupid anecdote that I'm not sure where to begin. I mean, comparing a sexual act that involves you directly and requires your consistent effort to put in to the fair use of a released commercial project is...ludicrous, to say the least. Unless you're implying that your blowjobs are a commercial project that you offer to the mass market? :P
(Unless the smiley wasn't clue enough, that was a joke :P No offence meant :P )
In any case, the big difference there is that once somebody releases a piece of art - be it movie, television, book, video game or what - they are subject to people transforming their work within the scope of the law. Now, if they believe that their copyright has been violated, they are allowed - and should be able to - defend that copyright within the bounds of the law. I personally believe that if they allow one person to violate their copyright and are allowed to then quash somebody elses without having to justify it, that opens it up to a lot of abuse.
Taking a less "grey area" example, what if there are two reviews up of a video game, one positive and one negative. The copyright holder DMCA's the negative review, and allows the positive review to stay up. Should that be allowed? Is that right, that they get to silence negative opinions or people that they dislike by weaponising the legal system to control the message?

There are, again, grey areas of course. But I just find it disheartening when people are given the power to squash people that they don't like under the claim that they are somehow uniquely misusing their IP, without any kind of justification.


Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 08:12:05 AMHere's the logical flaw present in both of these sentiments. It's called the false dichotemy and it goes like this:

"PewDiePie can't be a racist, because the racist things he said in the past were meant as jokes." You're implying that a person can't be racists and make jokes about their racism. I disagree.

"PewDiePie does good work and raises money for charity. Therefore he can't be racist." You're implying that a racist person can't contribute to charity. Again, I disagree.

...no, I'm not. You are entirely missing the point. I did not present a false dichotomy in any way, shape or form.

"PewDiePie can't be a racist, because the racist things he said in the past were meant as jokes." You're implying that a person can't be racists and make jokes about their racism. I disagree.

I never once said that. Please direct me to where I said that Pewdiepie can't be racist because his comments were made as jokes. Please. Because if I said that, I will happily retract the statement and admit that I misspoke.
What I SAID was that people are pointing to his jokes and claiming that they prove that he is secretly racist. I am saying "No, I don't believe that they prove that he is racist, can you point me towards comments he made that were not intended as jokes, where he expresses racist sympathies." I was saying that jokes do not prove that you are something; making sexist jokes does not inherently make you sexist, dead baby jokes do not inherently prove that you are infanticidal, and rape jokes do not inherently mean that you are A-OK with rape. I didn't say that he CAN'T be racist, just that I don't think that the examples people are holding up are representative of his actual views.
Here is the rest of that quote:

"As you say, there's a difference between a joke and a call to action, and of all the times I've seen, not one of them is a call to action. Unless you have an example that I haven't seen, where it was ambiguous? If so, please let me know and I'll concede the point."

Here it is made clear that I am not saying he CAN'T be racist, just that from what I've seen, I don't think he is. There's a big difference there. I never once said what you accused me of saying.


"PewDiePie does good work and raises money for charity. Therefore he can't be racist." You're implying that a racist person can't contribute to charity. Again, I disagree.

Again, no. The full quote:

"My point was, somebody saying that you're a bad person doesn't necessarily make you a bad person on its own. Your actions dictate that, and beyond his off color jokes, what does he do? Because as I understand it, PdP is actually a really nice guy who does a hell of a lot for charity and noble causes. You saying he's a bad person doesn't make him one. You could just be wrong."

Nowhere there did I say that he CAN'T be racist BECAUSE he raises money for charity. That's just stupid and obviously wrong.
I was making the point that just saying that somebody is a bad person doesn't inherently make them one, and that you have to look at his actions on the whole. I was making the point that PdP does a hell of a lot of good with his position and his money, and that absent any actual proof that he's a rampant racist, we can't justifiably claim that he is. The point was just that we have to look at what we have and the context present in each circumstance, and claiming that he is a huge racist because he makes off colour jokes is unfair and hypocritical. I never once said that he CAN'T be racist, and I'll thank you not to twist my words into saying things that I didn't actually say.


Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 08:12:05 AMBringing this back to PewDiePie, your defense of him has been based so far in a misunderstanding of the laws about copyright,

That was an addendum at the very end, and didn't even make up a single fifth of my original post. I was just commenting on how I don't like how Copyright holders can arbitrarily stop people from using their games, especially when they've previously not minded. To say that that was part of my defence of him is grossly exaggerating the initial emphasis I placed on that point. I will freely admit that I was unclear on Copyright Law and Fair Use...but since that wasn't even a foundation in my defence of PDP and more of an aside, it's kind of irrelevant.


Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 08:12:05 AMunreasonable expectations about the entitlement of non-content creators to use copyright-protected work,

Addressed above. I'll concede the point about the DMCA, since that wasn't even my main point - more of an aside - so...what now? What about the other arguments and statements that I've made?

Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 08:12:05 AMand logical fallacies.

Where? Which ones? I've already explained how your accusation of false dichotomies above is nonsense, so which other logical fallacies have I made? If you can point me to them, I would be happy to correct them! And that isn't sarcasm. If I'm genuinely making logical fallacies, I want to know.


Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 08:12:05 AMWhat are you trying to accomplish in this discussion? To argue that PewDiePie isn't racist?

Not that he isn't racist - I don't know whether he is or not - but that we don't have reasonable justification to accuse him of it. Making racist jokes doesn't inherently make you racist; you can make a racist joke and not have racist views or inclinations, so why are we saying that because PDP has made Nazi jokes in the past, he's secretly a nazi? Besides his off colour jokes that (to me, at least) were obviously intended as such, what evidence do you actually have? Because that's a hell of an accusation to make. 


Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 08:12:05 AMThat using the N-word in a fit of anger isn't a big deal?

Saying "Nigger" can either be a tiny, insignificant deal or a huge deal, depending on the context. For example, me using nigger here is a tiny, unimportant deal because of the context. I'm not calling anybody one, I'm not saying that people should be able to use it with impunity and I'm not saying that the people who use it to denigrate black people should do it (quite the opposite). It's the same as using the word "Cunt." It's as big a deal as the context makes it. My argument on that front is that he let it slip and apologies immediately afterwards. When people exploded over it, he didn't fight back, he issued an apology, accepted his mistake and promised to do better in the future. I'm saying that, since - as far as I can tell - this is a first offence on his part of ACTUAL racism and he seems sincere in his video, we should give him the benefit of the doubt. If he does it again next week, however, that's when we start to say "Ok, dude, what the fuck?" and suspicions of actual racist ideas become justified. But for the time being...I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because it seems to be a genuine mistake that he regrets.
*shrug* He fucked up, he apologised, and it's the first time he's said it (that I'm aware of)...so why are we getting bent out of shape over it?
Vergil's Faceclaim Archive; For All Your Character Model Seeking Needs!


Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by that of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion. Therefore it is unnecessary to have all the qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

Dubbed the "Oath of Drake,"
A noble philosophy; I adhere...for now.

Regina Minx

#37
Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 17, 2017, 09:22:31 AM
Um. That's such a stupid anecdote

It's not. It's an analogy. And I'll thank you not to call it stupid.

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 17, 2017, 09:22:31 AM
In any case, the big difference there is that once somebody releases a piece of art - be it movie, television, book, video game or what - they are subject to people transforming their work within the scope of the law. Now, if they believe that their copyright has been violated, they are allowed - and should be able to - defend that copyright within the bounds of the law. I personally believe that if they allow one person to violate their copyright and are allowed to then quash somebody elses without having to justify it, that opens it up to a lot of abuse.

And for reasons that I've already identified, that's a ludicrous standard. JK Rowling is not responsible for taking down every Harry Potter story on fanfic.net before suing a theater company doing an unauthorized performance of Cursed Child.

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 17, 2017, 09:22:31 AM
Taking a less "grey area" example, what if there are two reviews up of a video game, one positive and one negative. The copyright holder DMCA's the negative review, and allows the positive review to stay up. Should that be allowed? Is that right, that they get to silence negative opinions or people that they dislike by weaponising the legal system to control the message?

And again, you're shifting the burden of proof here. If PewDiePie wants to argue that his words are critical, educational, or protected by fair use standards, then that's a burden that HE has to meet. Fair use is not a right. It's a defense.  

Look at what happened to Doug Walker (aka The Nostalgia Critic) when he did his review of The Room. Even though I think we can agree that the point of a Nostalgia Critic review is parody, one of the strongest defenses you can make against copyright infringement, it's not a given that his use of the room did not violate copyright (mostly due to lack of attribution and the length of material used, two critical factors in determining if use is fair). Now while I think that Doug Walker would have a strong defense if Tommy Wiseau had ever sued him and taken him to court, it's not a given that he would have won.

And yes, I'm going to repeat it again. If a second reviewer had posted a review of the room and praised it, while repeating Doug's sampling rate of the movie and not attributing, it does not impact Tommy Wiseau's case against Doug Walker at all. A copyright holder is not required to defend every violation of her copyright. Letting 99 YouTubers post LP footage of your game, but denying that to the 100th is within the bounds of what the copyright holder is allowed to do.

If you disagree, take it up with the legislature. But be prepared to answer this question: If I let 99 people borrow my shovel, am I obligated to let the 100th person borrow it as well? And if they borrow my shovel after I tell them they can't, does the fact that it was previously loaned to 99 people protect you from a charge of theft?

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 17, 2017, 09:22:31 AMI never once said that. Please direct me to where I said that Pewdiepie can't be racist because his comments were made as jokes. Please. Because if I said that, I will happily retract the statement and admit that I misspoke.

Here is what you said: "No, I don't believe that they prove that he is racist, can you point me towards comments he made that were not intended as jokes, where he expresses racist sympathies."

You are rejecting the conclusion that PewDiePie is racist becuase you believe his comments were intended as jokes, not racism. Here's the syllogistic logic of the underlying argument:

P1: If something is intended as a joke, it can't be racist.
P2: PewDiePie's comments were intended as jokes
C: Therefore, PewDiePie's comments can't be racist.

I reject P1. I believe that something can be intended as a joke....and also be racist. If you want to prove P1 from up above, since I'm not willing to grant it, then you need to demonstrate how and why it's impossible for something intended as a joke to be racist.

In Bayesian terms, arguing that P|e isn't true because there's a non-zero ~P|e is a failure of understanding how a piece of evidence can argue in favor of both a thesis and its antithesis.

Vergil Tanner

Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 09:58:08 AM
It's not. It's an analogy. And I'll thank you not to call it stupid.

Analogy, sorry, my mistake.
I still think it's a silly one.


Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 09:58:08 AMAnd for reasons that I've already identified, that's a ludicrous standard...charge of theft?

As I've already said, copyright law isn't my forte. I disagree with how it works, but I'm not about to argue that it DOESN'T work that way against somebody who obviously knows more about it than I do. And since it wasn't the main thrust of my argument (and isn't the subject of the thread) in the first place, I'm going to leave it there.


Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 09:58:08 AMHere is what you said: "No, I don't believe that they prove that he is racist, can you point me towards comments he made that were not intended as jokes, where he expresses racist sympathies."

You are rejecting the conclusion that PewDiePie is racist becuase you believe his comments were intended as jokes, not racism. Here's the syllogistic logic of the underlying argument:

Exactly! I'm rejecting the conclusion that Pewdiepie is racist.
That is NOT the same as accepting the conclusion that Pewdiepie is not racist. They are two entirely separate claims. I am saying that I do not believe that he is racist, and that I would need further evidence to come to that conclusion. I am looking at the evidence being provided and saying "Eh, I'm not convinced." I am not arguing that PDP is NOT racist, just that the evidence available is not enough to persuade me that he IS.


Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 09:58:08 AMP1: If something is intended as a joke, it can't be racist.

Wrong. Completely and utterly wrong.
Something can be racist even if it's meant as a joke. What I am saying is that making a racist joke doesn't inherently make you a racist person, since to be racist you have to have certain ideas and beliefs based on race. You don't have to have those beliefs to make the joke.


Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 09:58:08 AMP2: PewDiePie's comments were intended as jokes
C: Therefore, PewDiePie's comments can't be racist.

Your conclusion is wrong because your analysis of my premise is wrong. How many times do I have to state that you are wrong about what I am arguing before you accept that you've misunderstood my position?


Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 09:58:08 AMI reject P1. I believe that something can be intended as a joke....and also be racist. If you want to prove P1 from up above, since I'm not willing to grant it, then you need to demonstrate how and why it's impossible for something intended as a joke to be racist.

Well we're in luck! Because that is not and has never been one of my premises. My premise is ACTUALLY that you can make a racist joke and not be a racist person.
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Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by that of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion. Therefore it is unnecessary to have all the qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

Dubbed the "Oath of Drake,"
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Lets all remember that we are all friends here. We are on the same side, just in different ways and degrees.

Regina Minx

#40
Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 17, 2017, 10:12:18 AM
Well we're in luck! Because that is not and has never been one of my premises. My premise is ACTUALLY that you can make a racist joke and not be a racist person.

Right. But your premise doesn't preclude that a person can make racist jokes AND be racist.

Do I, Regina Minx, think that PewDiePie is racist? I think it's more likely than not that he is (that is, that P>50%). This is not the first time he's gotten in trouble for doing this stupid shit. Michael Richards had one racial outburst and has pretty much been apologizing about it and agonizing over it ever since. And since he's also never done anything like it again (to my knowledge: opinion subject to change as new information is presented), I'm willing to accept that Michael Richards is not racist.

This is not the first time PewDiePie has done shit like this. Not even the second. I think at some point P|e becomes a lot more likely than ~P|e.

Edit to Add:
Yes, I've done the math on this. I've done Bayesian calculations to determine whether or not I think it's reasonable to conclude that a Swedish Youtuber is racist. This is EXACTLY what my parents intended when they paid for my math degree.

Oniya

I'd like to take a moment to correct some things from my earlier post.  The phrase I was looking for wasn't 'heat of the moment' defense (although that seems to be the angle that PDP and his crew are taking), but rather 'excited utterance'.  According to the Cornell Law Institute:

QuoteUnder the Federal Rules of Evidence, an excited utterance is defined as a statement that concerns a startling event, made by the declarant when the declarant is still under stress from the startling event. An excited utterance is admissible under an exception to the hearsay rule.

Now, the reason that this is an exception to the hearsay rule is because the person saying it hasn't had a chance to reflect on what he's saying and come up with something else.  That was the interpretation I had proposed in my post. 

Now, Vergil has stated that in a similar situation
Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 16, 2017, 09:21:42 PM
I was playing a game a couple of weeks ago, and I hit a wall of difficulty that I just couldn't get through. I rammed my head against this level three, four, five times, and I always died at the same spot, right? On my sixth death, I got frustrated and said "Oh, you fucking cunt." Before that moment, the last time I'd said the word "Cunt" was about six months previously. I was frustrated, and I blurted out the worst word I could think of to vent. And that's exactly what PDP said that he did.

Okay - let's go with that for a moment.  PDP was frustrated, and blurted out the 'worst word' he could think of to refer to his adversary.  So, he selected a word that is also a racial epithet.  Apparently it's worse than 'asshole', because that's what he 'corrected' to.  The problem with this is that it implies that he had the time and inclination to choose his words. 

I also want to address the 'haven't said [word x] in [long period of time]' part of the anecdote.  I don't cuss often at all.  When I get upset enough to swear, it surprises people - has surprised people here (and I'm a little freer with my language when I type.)  The thing is, when I cuss, I still have a no-go-zone.  There are plenty of words I will consider using when I'm mad that I don't consider using in day-to-day speech.  Racial epithets of any sort (and I know a sizeable list of them) are not on that list.

In sum - he either said it without thinking (which suggests that it was uppermost in his mind), or he said it with some amount of thought - which still says a lot for him.




With regard to Firewatch - I don't agree with their method, but I think they want to distance themselves from PDP.  Some people have said that he wasn't even playing Firewatch when he said the thing, so Firewatch shouldn't be bent out of shape.  Every campaign season, you hear stories of some musician/band telling some politician 'Hey, I don't want you using my song in your campaign.'  They disagree with the message that the politician is putting out there, and don't want to even give the appearance of promoting it.  Occasionally, this has gone as far as lawsuits.  There are organizations that cancel proposed speaking events when the speaker screws up somewhere else.  There are more subtle 'shunnings', like simply not inviting a celeb to a particular venue.  There may be other avenues Firewatch can use (or has used) to tell PDP 'Hey, we really don't want to risk you spouting this stuff over footage of our game] - but that's the message that they are wanting to send.  It may be that anything less would be (or has been) met by this guy saying 'Pffft - I'll upload what I want and you can't stop me.'
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WindFish

Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 10:21:21 AM
Right. But your premise doesn't preclude that a person can make racist jokes AND be racist.

Do I, Regina Minx, think that PewDiePie is racist? I think it's more likely than not that he is. This is not the first time he's gotten in trouble for doing this stupid shit. Michael Richards had one racial outburst and has pretty much been apologizing about it and agonizing over it ever since. And since he's also never done anything like it again (to my knowledge: opinion subject to change as new information is presented), I'm willing to accept that Michael Richards is not racist.

I think this is a very important takeaway.

Michael Richards still talks about it in interviews, it it clearly still haunts him to this day. He regrets it and to my knowledge he hasn't done anything like it again. I'm willing to believe that the incident was simply him being edgy and obviously failing at it. It pretty much killed his career and I'm more inclined to believe that it was an one time incident and that he's not racist.

PewDiePie, on the other hand, continues to make the same racist jokes and slurs, and gets away with it. He's pretty casual about racial slurs and if he uses them while he's on camera playing a game, then I'm willing to bet that it's a word he uses in private. How is he supposed to learn when he has legions of fans defending him and when he's now become a martyr for the alt-right? That's only going to encourage him to do the same thing that makes him popular and edgy. Apologies are meaningless when he does the same thing he apologized for again. That's why I'm inclined to believe that he's racist. He does not learn from his frequent mistakes.

He's going to keep on doing it until more developers and YouTube finally have enough of his childish antics and give him the boot, and when that day comes, it'll be harder for other Let's Players and YouTubers do to their jobs with the DCMA and copyright lawyers sharpening their knives.
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Vergil Tanner

Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 10:21:21 AM
Right. But your premise doesn't preclude that a person can make racist jokes AND be racist.

No, it doesn't. I'm glad that you've finally acknowledge that what you've been asserting as my position is not, in fact, my actual position.


Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 10:21:21 AMDo I, Regina Minx, think that PewDiePie is racist? I think it's more likely than not that he is. This is not the first time he's gotten in trouble for doing this stupid shit.

And what stupid shit is that? Besides him making racist jokes, what else is there that you have access to that has convinced you? If it's simply that he makes racist jokes, then I disagree with you on your conclusion, and I'm not sure that there's much more to be said. I don't think making racist jokes is a barometer of whether you're racist or not; Frankie Boyle made a LOT of off colour and horrible jokes, but I don't necessarily think he's racist...he just relies on shock tactics to make his audience laugh. I think PDP is roughly in the same league. Not something I care for, but I'm not about to accuse him of actually being a hateful bigot on the back of his chosen source material.


Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 10:21:21 AMEdit to Add:[/b] Yes, I've done the math on this. I've done Bayesian calculations to determine whether or not I think it's reasonable to conclude that a Swedish Youtuber is racist. This is EXACTLY what my parents intended when they paid for my math degree.

But I don't think you can reliably use mathematics to calculate what goes on inside somebodies head, thought and personality wise. I mean...mathematics and odds are all well and good, but just because something is 70% likely doesn't inherently mean that it's true. I, personally, need more concrete evidence before I'm going to pass judgement on what somebodies personal beliefs and attitudes are, especially when I've never met them face to face. As an example of how that can be dangerous, for the longest time, people thought Felix was actually like PewDiePie, when in fact PDP was more of a character that Felix played than his genuine personality. I just don't think we have enough information to say that he's probably racist or not.




Quote from: Oniya on September 17, 2017, 10:31:50 AM
Okay - let's go with that for a moment.  PDP was frustrated, and blurted out the 'worst word' he could think of to refer to his adversary.  So, he selected a word that is also a racial epithet.  Apparently it's worse than 'asshole', because that's what he 'corrected' to.  The problem with this is that it implies that he had the time and inclination to choose his words.

Well, that's entirely possible. You can see him getting frustrated long before he says the word, so if he automatically chooses the worst word he can think of - and the worst word he can think of is "Nigger" - I would argue that it could also be seen as him being staunchly anti racist, since a racist wouldn't necessarily see the word "Nigger" as a horrible word that he should never ever say. Not sure how long that argument would be, but my point was just that him using that word "as the worst word he can think of" doesn't necessarily mean that he's a racist, just that he views it as a disgusting, horrible word...which I think we can at least agree that it is indeed a horrible, horrible word, right? :P


Quote from: Oniya on September 17, 2017, 10:31:50 AMI also want to address the 'haven't said [word x] in [long period of time]' part of the anecdote.  I don't cuss often at all.  When I get upset enough to swear, it surprises people - has surprised people here (and I'm a little freer with my language when I type.)  The thing is, when I cuss, I still have a no-go-zone.  There are plenty of words I will consider using when I'm mad that I don't consider using in day-to-day speech.  Racial epithets of any sort (and I know a sizeable list of them) are not on that list.

Yeah, but that's just you. Some people don't have as much of a filter on their mouths (Guilty!) and end up saying way worse shit than they normally would in the heat of the moment. I would never, ever use the word "Cunt" as an insult most of the time, and most of the time in most company I don't say it AT ALL and I always manage to stop myself before blurting it out...but if I get frustrated enough, it's still in my head as a horrible, disgusting word, so if i get angry enough, I can't stop myself from blurting it out. The fact that his immediate reaction - without a single breath - was "Oh shit! I'm sorry!" suggests that he knew he shouldn't have said it the moment he finished the thought, which can be interpreted either way. My point to you was simply that that doesn't mean that he's racist; it could just mean that he knows how much of a no-go word that is and he surprised himself with the way he used it.


Quote from: Oniya on September 17, 2017, 10:31:50 AMWith regard to Firewatch - I don't agree with their method, but I think they want to distance themselves from PDP.  Some people have said that he wasn't even playing Firewatch when he said the thing, so Firewatch shouldn't be bent out of shape.  Every campaign season, you hear stories of some musician/band telling some politician 'Hey, I don't want you using my song in your campaign.'  They disagree with the message that the politician is putting out there, and don't want to even give the appearance of promoting it.  Occasionally, this has gone as far as lawsuits.  There are organizations that cancel proposed speaking events when the speaker screws up somewhere else.  There are more subtle 'shunnings', like simply not inviting a celeb to a particular venue.  There may be other avenues Firewatch can use (or has used) to tell PDP 'Hey, we really don't want to risk you spouting this stuff over footage of our game] - but that's the message that they are wanting to send.  It may be that anything less would be (or has been) met by this guy saying 'Pffft - I'll upload what I want and you can't stop me.'

Pretty much this. I understand where they're coming from, definitely, I just disagree with their method and think that it was creeping a bit too close to (in my opinion) an abuse of the DMCA. But as you say, it could be that they tried and he said no. But since we don't have access to their communications (if there are any), then.... *shrug* It's all conjecture at this point.
Vergil's Faceclaim Archive; For All Your Character Model Seeking Needs!


Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by that of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion. Therefore it is unnecessary to have all the qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

Dubbed the "Oath of Drake,"
A noble philosophy; I adhere...for now.

Vergil Tanner

Quote from: WindFish on September 17, 2017, 10:41:55 AM
Michael Richards still talks about it in interviews, it it clearly still haunts him to this day. He regrets it and to my knowledge he hasn't done anything like it again. I'm willing to believe that the incident was simply him being edgy and obviously failing at it. It pretty much killed his career and I'm more inclined to believe that it was an one time incident and that he's not racist.

So because Pewdiepie isn't on his knees begging for forgiveness daily, he's automatically racist? Come on.


Quote from: WindFish on September 17, 2017, 10:41:55 AMPewDiePie, on the other hand, continues to make the same racist jokes and slurs, and gets away with it.

He makes racist jokes, yes, but that doesn't inherently make him racist. As for slurs, besides the "Nigger on stream," has there been another time he's used a racist slur seriously that I'm not aware of?


Quote from: WindFish on September 17, 2017, 10:41:55 AMif he uses them while he's on camera playing a game, then I'm willing to bet that it's a word he uses in private.

He didn't use it casually; his first reaction was "Oh shit, I'm sorry."


Quote from: WindFish on September 17, 2017, 10:41:55 AMHow is he supposed to learn when he has legions of fans defending him and when he's now become a martyr for the alt-right?

...so because the Alt Right are using him as a martyr, he's guilty by association? Not sure why you brought this up.


Quote from: WindFish on September 17, 2017, 10:41:55 AMApologies are meaningless when he does the same thing he apologized for again. That's why I'm inclined to believe that he's racist. He does not learn from his frequent mistakes.

Ok, again, what mistakes are you talking about? Is it the racist jokes, or has he been spouting phrases like "Nigger," "Hooch," "Porch Monkey," etc etc, in serious contexts and I just haven't heard about it?
Vergil's Faceclaim Archive; For All Your Character Model Seeking Needs!


Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by that of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion. Therefore it is unnecessary to have all the qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

Dubbed the "Oath of Drake,"
A noble philosophy; I adhere...for now.

Regina Minx

#45
Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 17, 2017, 10:43:33 AM
And what stupid shit is that? Besides him making racist jokes, what else is there that you have access to that has convinced you?

Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 17, 2017, 10:43:33 AMBut I don't think you can reliably use mathematics to calculate what goes on inside somebodies head, thought and personality wise.

I'm not. I'm using Bayesian reasoning to attach numbers to what I think is the most probable explanation of the evidence.

We think in math. All of us. All the time. In social commentary, history, philosophy. We just don't know we're doing it. Every time you accept or reject a conclusion because something is “unlikely” you are doing math. You're just using ordinary words instead of numbers. Select any claim in the world, and you will immediately be able to say roughly how likely you think it is— in some verbally descriptive way ("very probable," "almost certainly won't happen,"somewhat likely," "a coin flip," etc.).

As soon as you say x is more probable than y (both 'PewDiePie is probably a racist' and 'PewDiePie is probably not a racist' count as probabilistic statements), you are doing math. In fact, your thinking is even more mathematically precise than that. When you say something is “probably true,” you mean it has an probability greater than 50%. Because that's what that sentence literally means. And when you say something is probably false, you mean it has a probability less than 50%. Because that's what that sentence literally means. And when you say you don't have any idea whether a claim is probably true or probably false, you mean that you think it has a probability of 50%, because, again, that's what that sentence literally means.

If you are going to say "You can't make a Bayesian argument because numbers can't capture what's going on in someone's head," that same logic prevents you from arguing the antithesis of my P. You cannot say "You can't make the argument P|e because you can't numbers someone's thoughts" while at the same time arguing "I think that ~P|e is >50%."

la dame en noir

Me and quite a few other black nerds/gsmers had a big discussion about this on a Facebook group thread. Long story short, we don't find it cute or funny. I also didn't find his Jeep jokes funny and neiher did my Jewish friends. I even unfollowed Markiplier when he defended him. If he does it for this too, he is written off.

This sort of shit needs to be put out. I don't think racial slurs are cute and where he is from is no excuse either. Was shocked? No, because he's trash. I'm just over all of this and the damn slaps on the wrists these YouTube stars get.
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la dame en noir

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 17, 2017, 10:46:58 AM
So because Pewdiepie isn't on his knees begging for forgiveness daily, he's automatically racist? Come on.


He makes racist jokes, yes, but that doesn't inherently make him racist. As for slurs, besides the "Nigger on stream," has there been another time he's used a racist slur seriously that I'm not aware of?


He didn't use it casually; his first reaction was "Oh shit, I'm sorry."


...so because the Alt Right are using him as a martyr, he's guilty by association? Not sure why you brought this up.


Ok, again, what mistakes are you talking about? Is it the racist jokes, or has he been spouting phrases like "Nigger," "Hooch," "Porch Monkey," etc etc, in serious contexts and I just haven't heard about it?
all of this is what I'm talking about when people want to protect dumb fucks like Felix.

Europe isn't not exempt from racism at all, so to act like no one would know what this shit means is bullshit. Secondly there are plenty of black people in Sweden, where he's from, and in Europe in general that would not find his words fun. I have a biracial friend from Spain who speaks about racism she and her black sister have faced many times.

Also, if you're not rwcist or prejudiced, you wouldn't need to use any racial slurs at all. Felix is a fucking idiot.

I'm so sick of people making excuses for him.
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#48
I've seen the "he's from Sweden" used as a defense. But it doesn't really apply in that he's been fluent in English for a long time and has been connected with the English-speaking world for a while. He has social media profiles, official message boards, all in English. He's not some dude from an isolated corner of the world whose only exposure is through Hollywood movies.

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 17, 2017, 10:46:58 AM

He makes racist jokes, yes, but that doesn't inherently make him racist. As for slurs, besides the "Nigger on stream," has there been another time he's used a racist slur seriously that I'm not aware of?

...so because the Alt Right are using him as a martyr, he's guilty by association? Not sure why you brought this up.


Ok, again, what mistakes are you talking about? Is it the racist jokes, or has he been spouting phrases like "Nigger," "Hooch," "Porch Monkey," etc etc, in serious contexts and I just haven't heard about it?

Depends upon which definition of "racist" you use, as I count at least 5 going around in popular usage. Regardless, saying a slur in anger is pretty poor form and generally considered a racist act under at least 3 of the 5 definitions (4 if the player he was calling that has dark skin IRL). Also most racists in the English-speaking world rarely say those types of words out loud casually unless they believe they're in a private setting, have a poor filter, or think they can get away with it. A lot of racism is subtle and coded. There's a phrase for something like this: "A k*ke is a Jew who just left the room."

Secondly, I made a post earlier in this very thread talking about why it's troubling for many that the alt-right is holding PewdiePie as a martyr.

la dame en noir

Quote from: Skynet on September 17, 2017, 02:33:57 PM
I've seen the "he's from Sweden" used as a defense. But it doesn't really apply in that he's been fluent in English for a long time and has been connected with the English-speaking world for a while. He has social media profiles, official message boards, all in English. He's not some dude from an isolated corner of the world whose only exposure is through Hollywood movies.

Depends upon which definition of "racist" you use, as I count at least 5 going around in popular usage. Regardless, saying a slur in anger is pretty poor form and generally considered a racist act under at least 3 of the 5 definitions (4 if the player he was calling that has dark skin IRL). Also most racists in the English-speaking world rarely say those types of words out loud casually unless they believe they're in a private setting, have a poor filter, or think they can get away with it. A lot of racism is subtle and coded. There's a phrase for something like this: "A k*ke is a Jew who just left the room."

Secondly, I made a post earlier in this very thread talking about why it's troubling for many that the alt-right is holding PewdiePie as a martyr.
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Jezabelle

The apology was hollow, much as his previous ones were.  People (and Scandinavians to be fully honest with you) like him are common in the gaming community, viewing all such issues as a world away (until recently where anti-Refugee sentiments have become very popular, the same people calling America inhumane and monstrous years ago and bragging about how humanitarian they were--including their 100% acceptance of refugees--have suddenly done a heel turn).

He fully and un-ironically engaged in casual antisemitism and uses AAVE to imitate what he perceives to be "gangsta" language, speaking volumes.  Does he want to gas the Jews, lynch black people?  Probably no, or not enough to do anything about it\not on the surface level of his psyche.

His actions are still wildly unprofessional and have strangled his career.  He had a deal with Disney for Christ's sake.  I guess at some point you're so rich you don't care, and I don't exactly hold people who scream at video games in over-cut videos to a high moral standard, but the only thing laudable about him at this point is his success.  He did it.  He solved YouTube and got really fucking rich doing it.  Hats off as far as the Capitalist ethic are concerned, but beyond that he's a jackass.

Vergil Tanner

Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 10:54:49 AM
Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

I think it's a perfectly reasonable question to ask. Your assertion that he's secretly a hugely racist person is based off of the fact that he frequently makes racist jokes. Being a person who frequently makes dead baby jokes but has no desire to ACTUALLY kill babies, I don't think that's enough evidence....so I am genuinely asking whether you have any further evidence that would swing me towards your point of view, since my opinion is subject to change if presented with new information. The fact that you keep making snarky comments and avoiding the question suggests that you don't have any further evidence. See, a racist person and a non racist person can both make racist jokes. Being racist is not a prerequisite to making racist jokes. So we need evidence outside of his jokes to demonstrate that he has racist sympathies, which you appear not to have. Ergo, I reject your conclusion that he's racist based on the fact that you haven't presented sufficient evidence for me to agree with you.


Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 10:54:49 AMAs soon as you say x is more probable than y (both 'PewDiePie is probably a racist' and 'PewDiePie is probably not a racist' count as probabilistic statements), you are doing math. In fact, your thinking is even more mathematically precise than that. When you say something is “probably true,” you mean it has an probability greater than 50%. Because that's what that sentence literally means. And when you say something is probably false, you mean it has a probability less than 50%. Because that's what that sentence literally means. And when you say you don't have any idea whether a claim is probably true or probably false, you mean that you think it has a probability of 50%, because, again, that's what that sentence literally means.

If you are going to say "You can't make a Bayesian argument because numbers can't capture what's going on in someone's head," that same logic prevents you from arguing the antithesis of my P. You cannot say "You can't make the argument P|e because you can't numbers someone's thoughts" while at the same time arguing "I think that ~P|e is >50%."

Except I'm not making judgements on probability. I'm saying "I don't believe your assertion on face value, do you have evidence?"




Quote from: la dame en noir on September 17, 2017, 12:53:35 PM
Also, if you're not rwcist or prejudiced, you wouldn't need to use any racial slurs at all. Felix is a fucking idiot.

That's bullshit. I'm sorry, but sometimes people say stupid shit that they don't mean or don't intend. He's a moron and should have thought before he spoke, yes, but saying something racist by mistake (and I would argue that it wasn't specifically targeted at a black person because he didn't know whether the person on the receiving end was black or not, but that's an eeeeeh argument that isn't the point) doesn't inherently mean that you are a rampant racist. As I've already noted, sometimes people say stupid, horrible shit in the heat of the moment just because it's the worst thing they can think of and they get angry. Was it stupid? Yes. Does it reveal that he is a secret racist? No.





Quote from: Skynet on September 17, 2017, 02:33:57 PM
Depends upon which definition of "racist" you use, as I count at least 5 going around in popular usage. Regardless, saying a slur in anger is pretty poor form and generally considered a racist act under at least 3 of the 5 definitions (4 if the player he was calling that has dark skin IRL).

Well, 1) I don't think it qualifies as Number 4 just because he had no way of knowing whether that person was black IRL, but regardless.
What he said WAS racist. I'm not arguing that. Using a racial slur as an insult is obviously racist. But saying one racist thing in a moment of anger doesn't mean that you are a racist person overall. And making racist jokes doesn't mean that you are a racist person. I agree it's poor form and utterly stupid considering the shitstorm that just died down from the WSJ, but does it inherently, irrefutably prove that he has racist sympathies and white supremacist opinions? No.


Quote from: Skynet on September 17, 2017, 02:33:57 PMAlso most racists in the English-speaking world rarely say those types of words out loud casually unless they believe they're in a private setting, have a poor filter, or think they can get away with it. A lot of racism is subtle and coded. There's a phrase for something like this: "A k*ke is a Jew who just left the room."

True. But then again, people who AREN'T racist can also accidentally say racist things, or say something horrible that they don't mean in the heat of the moment. So how do you differentiate between the two? Or is anybody who says something racist by mistake a horrible, filthy racist? That doesn't allow for many shades of grey there.


Quote from: Skynet on September 17, 2017, 02:33:57 PMSecondly, I made a post earlier in this very thread talking about why it's troubling for many that the alt-right is holding PewdiePie as a martyr.

And that's PDP's fault...how?
That's like saying that PDP is a Nazi because the Daily Stormer put him on their banner. He has no control over what the Alt Right does on his behalf or says about him, so really I don't know why it matters when it comes to PDP and his Nigger Stream.




Quote from: Jezabelle on September 17, 2017, 03:25:17 PM
The apology was hollow, much as his previous ones were.

I personally disagree.


Quote from: Jezabelle on September 17, 2017, 03:25:17 PMPeople (and Scandinavians to be fully honest with you) like him are common in the gaming community, viewing all such issues as a world away (until recently where anti-Refugee sentiments have become very popular, the same people calling America inhumane and monstrous years ago and bragging about how humanitarian they were--including their 100% acceptance of refugees--have suddenly done a heel turn).

Eeeeh, refugee sentiment is a complicated one. There are justifiable reasons beyond "Don't like the foreigners" that people can be anti refugee considering what's happening in Europe in the wake of mass refugee immigration (I'm kind of on the fence about it; I agree with points from both sides), but that's an argument for a different time.


Quote from: Jezabelle on September 17, 2017, 03:25:17 PMHe fully and un-ironically engaged in casual antisemitism

Where? If you're talking about his jokes, that seems pretty ironic to me.


Quote from: Jezabelle on September 17, 2017, 03:25:17 PMand uses AAVE to imitate what he perceives to be "gangsta" language, speaking volumes.  Does he want to gas the Jews, lynch black people?  Probably no, or not enough to do anything about it\not on the surface level of his psyche.

And that's kind of all I'm saying. I don't like his content. but I think labeling him as a racist because of these incidents is jumping a little too far for my liking.


Quote from: Jezabelle on September 17, 2017, 03:25:17 PMHis actions are still wildly unprofessional

The Nigger Thing, yes...the frequency of his racist jokes, yes, but I disagree that it's entirely unprofessional considering how many entertainers and comedians do it.


Quote from: Jezabelle on September 17, 2017, 03:25:17 PMHe had a deal with Disney for Christ's sake.

Eeeeh, that's...a weird one. I personally think that they only cut ties with him BECAUSE it got publicised. Are you telling me that Disney didn't know EXACTLY who they were getting into bed with? I would be very surprised if his tendency to make off colour jokes was completely new to them.


Quote from: Jezabelle on September 17, 2017, 03:25:17 PMI don't exactly hold people who scream at video games in over-cut videos to a high moral standard,

That's the other thing; given his content, why would you ever take jokes he makes in those videos at all seriously? Especially since in those videos, he's playing a character rather than reacting naturally.




Anyway, I've said my piece, and I don't think I'm going to change anybodies opinion here, and from what I can tell, I don't think anybody here has the extra evidence I need to agree with you guys either. I don't post in PROC very often, just because it sucks me in and drains all of my free time, so I will leave my thoughts here and respectfully bow out of the conversation. Peace guys! :D
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Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by that of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion. Therefore it is unnecessary to have all the qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

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I think it's safe to say that racist apologists exist. :3
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Quote from: la dame en noir on September 17, 2017, 07:41:43 PM
I think it's safe to say that racist apologists exist. :3

Of course they do. Apologists for everything exist, if you look hard enough.

Though I'm not sure why you mention it now. Are you implying that I'm an apologist for racism?
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Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by that of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion. Therefore it is unnecessary to have all the qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

Dubbed the "Oath of Drake,"
A noble philosophy; I adhere...for now.

Oniya

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 17, 2017, 10:43:33 AM
Yeah, but that's just you. Some people don't have as much of a filter on their mouths (Guilty!) and end up saying way worse shit than they normally would in the heat of the moment. I would never, ever use the word "Cunt" as an insult most of the time, and most of the time in most company I don't say it AT ALL and I always manage to stop myself before blurting it out...but if I get frustrated enough, it's still in my head as a horrible, disgusting word, so if i get angry enough, I can't stop myself from blurting it out. The fact that his immediate reaction - without a single breath - was "Oh shit! I'm sorry!" suggests that he knew he shouldn't have said it the moment he finished the thought, which can be interpreted either way. My point to you was simply that that doesn't mean that he's racist; it could just mean that he knows how much of a no-go word that is and he surprised himself with the way he used it.

So, here's a question.  Obviously saying that he 'doesn't have a filter' doesn't make it all sunshine and rainbows when he says something that he shouldn't, regardless of his motivation for saying it.

How does someone acquire or adjust their filter?
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Quote from: Exaelitus on September 14, 2017, 10:44:35 PM
But I do think we should stop making stupid people famous and let the trash settle on the trash. I don't think much of pewdiepie but I know that because it was blown in to a big deal, he is going to get exactly what he deserves of equal proportion. His cute ten seconds of fame are probably going to mean he never gets the chance to lock down a job he might actually want in the future, because all the places where video gaming skills are relevant require six figure salaries to live well and no company willing to invest that much money in to their employees will not see his potential sincerity as anything other than a liability. He will never be able to support a family, no one is going to want the alienation of a relationship with him, his family will be ashamed and harassed because of him, and he is probably accumulating a nightmare whirlwind of email and phone threats from bored losers just like him.

I think it was a good thing that people made a huge stir of it, drama and all.
His loving fans and supporters can see his washed up mtv true life drama apology episode in fifteen years, and I'm pretty content with knowing one day he could wind up being that miserable 80 year old gas station attendant pumping my gas on Thanksgiving because he has absolutely no where to go and can't afford to retire.

I really don't think Pewdiepie has to worry about this whatsoever. He won't stop being popular because he said "a bad word". After all, as someone mentioned, he did several times before. Not to mention that there have been many YouTubers who did the same and they are still popular. Apart from that, he has made so much money already that he doesn't have to worry about a job. Even if he would quit Youtube tomorrow and never come back to it, he probably wouldn't have to work his entire life. Unless he does something stupid with the money or lives beyond his means. As for relationships, I can't say because I don't know about his relationships, but I don't think it would hinder him from having a family.

Vergil Tanner

Quote from: Oniya on September 17, 2017, 08:10:44 PM
So, here's a question.  Obviously saying that he 'doesn't have a filter' doesn't make it all sunshine and rainbows when he says something that he shouldn't, regardless of his motivation for saying it.

How does someone acquire or adjust their filter?

Oh, I'm not saying that at all. Of course it doesn't excuse what he said, it's just something to take into account when trying to figure out the internal motivation for using that language. I'm not supporting or defending how he used the word - "Nigger" should never be used in an insult, full stop - I'm just saying that that slip of the tongue doesn't necessarily make him a racist person overall. I'm willing to - on this occasion - take his apology at face value and move on with my life. If he does it again in a weeks time? That's when I'll start to think "Eeeeeh...I don't think you're being entirely sincere here, dude."

In terms of how you go about adjusting your filter...it's a tough question. It's something you have to work on, and work hard on. It's just about learning to stop, think about what you want to say and deciding whether or not you should, or whether it's a good idea. When I was a little younger, I had literally no filter in place. I'd say the first stupid shit that came into my head. I had to learn the hard way to force myself to pause and think about things and how they might be interpreted before I said it. Sometimes I still don't do it. Most of the time I do, but I still have the occasional slip, or I don't take everything into account when saying something (EG, where I am and what my surroundings are and how what I'm saying might be interpreted). Personally speaking, being in China has helped me a LOT with that, since I usually have loud political opinions, and in China...you don't say anything about Chinese Politics. The threat of going to prison or being deported has done wonders for motivating the self-enforcement of a filter. :P


IN ANY CASE. I said I was withdrawing from the conversation, and I meant it. xD
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Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by that of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion. Therefore it is unnecessary to have all the qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

Dubbed the "Oath of Drake,"
A noble philosophy; I adhere...for now.

Regina Minx

#57
Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 17, 2017, 07:08:05 PM
I think it's a perfectly reasonable question to ask. Your assertion that he's secretly a hugely racist person is based off of the fact that he frequently makes racist jokes. Being a person who frequently makes dead baby jokes but has no desire to ACTUALLY kill babies, I don't think that's enough evidence....so I am genuinely asking whether you have any further evidence that would swing me towards your point of view, since my opinion is subject to change if presented with new information.

If you really, really, really, REALLY want to see how I apply Bayes in this case, fine. This is not me presenting new evidence, this is me explaining to you why the evidence we have leads me to the conclusion that I hold.

The long form of Bayes' Theorem is:



Here is where I define terms.

h is the hypothesis we are testing, in this case, that PewDiePie is a racist. ~h is the contrary of that hypothesis, that PewDiePie is not a racist.

e is the evidence we are using to test the hypothesis, and it is derived from the two incidents already under discussion: the 'Kill all Jews' incident and the racial slur.

b is our sum of background knowledge.

For b, it is essential to determine the background level of racism in a culture or society. How many people are at least a little racist, in other words. The clearest and most applicable reference class for which we have sufficient data is a 2006 study commissioned by the Swedish government revealed that 15% of the Swedish population is at least a little anti-Semitic. This is the best data I can find for the prevalence of racism in Sweden, so if you want to argue that PewDiePie belongs in a different reference class, please provide that data.

Since e contains two incidents, I'm going to break them down and discuss their probabilities separately.

For the "Kill All Jews" incident, how likely is it that we would have this evidence if the person under discussion was racist? I think the chance is 100%: we very much expect racists to say things like this, and we had great evidence of "Jews Will Not Replace Us" and "This city is run by Jewish communists and criminal niggers! That’s exactly what it is" in Charlottesville.

But, being a good Bayesian, I must acknowledge that there is a chance that we would have this same evidence on ~h. How likely would it be that a person would pay other people to film themselves holding a sign saying "Kill all Jews" if they were not racist? I will argue a fortiori and say that there is a 40% chance that a person would, for whatever reason (a joke, shock tactics, a painfully uneducated understanding of European history), pay others to hold such a sign even if they were not a racist.

Therefore, I believe that P(jews|h)=1, and P(jews|~h)=.4

The second incident is the racial slur we have been discussing. We must determine what we believe this evidence says. Like the "Kill all Jews" incident, I must again conclude that this is 100% expected on h.

I want to say that the probability on ~h is even lower in this case. The N-word is such a no-go in conversation that I believe that a person would be much, much less likely to say this on any other theory than h. Nevertheless, I will give it a probability of 35% for the sake of arguing a fortiori. That is, I am being as generous as I can reasonably be in interpreting the evidence on the theory of ~h.

Therefore, I believe that P(racial slur|h)=1, and P(racial slur|~h)=.35

That means for the theorem, that P(e|h) = 1, and P(e|~h) = 0.14

P(h|e.b)= [.15*1]/[(.15*1)+(.14*.85)]

=.15/(.15+.119)

=.15/.269

=0.55762081784

≈56%

That is, I think it is AT LEAST 56% likely that PewDiePie is racist. Slightly more than 50%, meaning “is probably” is the word I would use. But this does not consider all the evidence, just the facts I personally know about at this time. I understand that the Wall Street Journal found something like 9 racist or anti-semitic remarks in videos, but as the article itself on the WSJ website is behind a paywall, they are not counted in the calculation above.

If I was presenting this formally, I would put more into it than these very rough calculations, but for purposes of ‘arguing on the Internet’, I believe this is sufficient explanation.


Bayes Theorem is a logically valid form of argument. As we all remember from Logic 101, if an argument is both valid and sound, then it must be true. Well, I’ve used a valid argument. How about its soundness?

For you to say my argument is unsound, you must therefore tell me what you think those premises ought to be. You have to tell me why you think P(jews|h) should be less than one, or why P(jews|~h) should be greater than .4, and so on.

I’d like you to pin down your subjective assumption about the relative weight of the evidence under discussion. I’ve shown you why I think the evidence we have leaves us, even at my most generous interpretation, to the probable belief that PewDiePie is racist. Please tell me why you think the evidence suggests that he is probably not. And please, use Bayesian terms.

Vergil Tanner

Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 09:17:33 PM
I’d like you to pin down your subjective assumption about the relative weight of the evidence under discussion. I’ve shown you why I think the evidence we have leaves us, even at my most generous interpretation, to the probable belief that PewDiePie is racist. Please tell me why you think the evidence suggests that he is probably not. And please, use Bayesian terms.

No.

I am not going to use Bayesian terms because I don't fully understand Bayesian Mathematics, and I'm shit at numbers. Just because an argument is not placed in mathematical terms with arbitrary, subjective percentages attached to different values with no real justification doesn't make it objectively wrong. The evidence here is open to interpretation, and my interpretation is obviously different to yours. However, I am not arguing that PDP is not racist. I am arguing that the evidence is not conclusive enough to say that he is.

I've explained my position, and if you still don't understand my perspective or my arguments, I don't think it would be a wise use of my time to further explain it. The fact is, you continue to claim that I am saying something that I am not. See below.


Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 09:17:33 PM
Please tell me why you think the evidence suggests that he is probably not.

I'm not saying that he probably isn't racist. I'm saying that I am not convinced that he probably is. Those are two very different statements, and since this is...what, the third or fourth time you've claimed that I'm saying something that I'm not - despite being told this several times - I no longer have any interest in discussing this with you because you're either misunderstanding or deliberately misrepresenting my position on the matter.

I've said my piece, and that is the last I will say on the matter. I am genuinely, well and truly finished with this conversation.
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Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by that of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion. Therefore it is unnecessary to have all the qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

Dubbed the "Oath of Drake,"
A noble philosophy; I adhere...for now.

la dame en noir

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I feel like at this point nothing we say really matters as PEwd is too well off and established to get anything more than a slap on the wrist :/

Nothing to do but sit back and wait for him to do it again and just pile it on as more evidence if he does. The best thing anyone can honestly do if they disagree is to vote with their views. Avoid his videos and try not to give him any add revenue. It isn't much of a gesture but in this way at least we do something. :P

Vergil Tanner

Quote from: la dame en noir on September 17, 2017, 09:30:21 PM
>.>   <.<

Uuuuuugh, I can't resist. Ok, one more thing.

The fact that you haven't directly answered my question makes me suspicious.

Are you accusing me of being an apologist for racism, yes or no?

If no, then I apologise for misunderstanding what you were saying.

If yes, then I have to strongly disagree; I despise people who are openly, unapologetically racist and I will go out of my way to stomp out racism when I see it. However, I do think that genuine, hateful racism is not mutually inclusive with racist jokes, and that everything must be taken and judged in context. If it comes out that PDP is definitely a racist, I will cease defending his jokes and join people in condemning him. As it stands, I don't think there's enough evidence to say that he IS a racist person, so my defense amounts to "I don't believe that he's racist, given the available evidence." Stating that you don't believe somebody is a racist person based on a lack of solid evidence is not the same as saying that racism is fine and dandy and should be excused.

I take great offence to the implication that I am in favour of defending serious, genuine racism. At this juncture, I am defending racist jokes, which I don't think are inherently indicative of racist ideas or beliefs, and I would kindly thank you not to insult me in that way ever again.

However, as I said above, the previous statement does not apply if you were not, in fact, accusing me of being an apologist for racism.

And with that I really am done. I just felt like I had to publicly defend myself from a perceived implication by another user, since I dislike it when people say things about me which are patently untrue.

So, I hope you all have wonderful days :-) It's been fun!
Vergil's Faceclaim Archive; For All Your Character Model Seeking Needs!


Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by that of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion. Therefore it is unnecessary to have all the qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

Dubbed the "Oath of Drake,"
A noble philosophy; I adhere...for now.

la dame en noir

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 17, 2017, 09:38:57 PM
Uuuuuugh, I can't resist. Ok, one more thing.

The fact that you haven't directly answered my question is telling.

Are you accusing me of being an apologist for racism, yes or no?

If no, then I apologise for misunderstanding what you were saying.

If yes, then I have to strongly disagree; I despise people who are openly, unapologetically racist and I will go out of my way to stomp out racism when I see it. However, I do think that genuine, hateful racism is not mutually inclusive with racist jokes, and that everything must be taken and judged in context. If it comes out that PDP is definitely a racist, I will cease defending his jokes and join people in condemning him. As it stands, I don't think there's enough evidence to say that he IS a racist person, so my defense amounts to "I don't believe that he's racist, given the available evidence." Stating that you don't believe somebody is a racist person based on a lack of solid evidence is not the same as saying that racism is fine and dandy and should be excused.

I take great offence to the implication that I am in favour of defending serious, genuine racism. At this juncture, I am defending racist jokes, which I don't think are inherently indicative of racist ideas or beliefs, and I would kindly thank you not to insult me in that way ever again.

However, as I said above, the previous statement does not apply if you were not, in fact, accusing me of being an apologist for racism.

And with that I really am done. I just felt like I had to publicly defend myself from a perceived implication by another user, since I dislike it when people say things about me which are patently untrue.

So, I hope you all have wonderful days :-) It's been fun!
Hearing someone defend racist shit as a black woman is fucking awful. I've seen this narrative in more than one issue and I'm honestly not surprised by your opinions, statements, and otherwise - even if I think it's all BS. It's sickening to me and lots of other people.

And for the record, that face was because you kept saying you were done, but kept coming back. My guess is that you like having the last word and if you really were going to stay out of the thread, you wouldn't come back - but you keep coming back. There is no reason for me to be wasting my breath.
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Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 17, 2017, 09:27:52 PM
I'm not saying that he probably isn't racist. I'm saying that I am not convinced that he probably is. Those are two very different statements, and since this is...what, the third or fourth time you've claimed that I'm saying something that I'm not - despite being told this several times - I no longer have any interest in discussing this with you because you're either misunderstanding or deliberately misrepresenting my position on the matter.

I'm not deliberately misrepresenting you. I am, however, phrasing h and ~h in terms of a direct, logical negation. That is, you cannot have an opinion about whether or not you think h is probable without having an opinion about how probable you think ~h is. You have said before that you do not believe that P(h|e) to be likely. You said, "I'm just saying that that slip of the tongue doesn't necessarily make him a racist person overall." Unless what you mean to say is that there is a less than 100% chance that a person that uses a racial slur in the way that PewDiePie did, and therefore we can't be certain. I'm discounting that, since to demand absolute certainty is absurd.

Thus, when I read your words "I'm just saying that that slip of the tongue doesn't necessarily make him a racist person overall.," I read that as you think that there is some number to attach to P(racial slur|~h). And P(e|h). And P(h|e.b).

I've given you a valid argument and asked you to assess its soundness. You are either unable or unwilling to do so. If that's where you want to leave things, fine. It's the internet. I can't make you engage with me. But I would like to point out that of the two of us, I'm being reasonable, and I'm willing to entertain an argument for why you think the values I've assessed should be reconsidered. All I'm asking is that you be as explicit as I've been, pin down your subjective assessment the way I have, and thus engage with me in mutual criticism. You refuse to engage with me on my assumptions and reasoning, and will not provide your own beyond "He's not necessarily racist." That's actually something I've agreed with. Based on my limited amount of evidence and generous assumptions to justify his behavior on ~h, I'm willing to concede that there's as much as a 44% chance that he's not racist.

You don't seem willing to meet me halfway on this. Take care. That's not sarcasm, btw. Despite disagreeing with you, I'm willing to say goodbye and end the conversation civilly and wish you well in your future endeavors.

Jezabelle

QuoteEeeeh, refugee sentiment is a complicated one. There are justifiable reasons beyond "Don't like the foreigners" that people can be anti refugee considering what's happening in Europe in the wake of mass refugee immigration (I'm kind of on the fence about it; I agree with points from both sides), but that's an argument for a different time.

They were scolding Americans on the very basis of a simplified "you hate the world\are greedy" platform and a self-lionization campaign.  When they finally had to put their money where their mouth was they finally became highly pragmatic.

QuoteWhere? If you're talking about his jokes, that seems pretty ironic to me.

Irony is a convenient shield, but much as rape based humour enables and psychologically reassures rapists

No joke he cracked about Jews on \pol\ or at a Klan meeting would've gone amiss.  There was nothing done to subvert the subject, he simply gave the same antisemetic jokes they would have and hide behind the tepid "shield of irony," which is not the same thing as usage in an ironic context.

QuoteAnd that's kind of all I'm saying. I don't like his content. but I think labeling him as a racist because of these incidents is jumping a little too far for my liking.

Which brings us to:

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 17, 2017, 07:56:24 PM
Of course they do. Apologists for everything exist, if you look hard enough.

Though I'm not sure why you mention it now. Are you implying that I'm an apologist for racism?

Quick to protect the user of offensive terms, quick to find offense?  If Pewdiepie cannot be called a racist off his remarks you can hardly say she was calling you an apologist.

Of course as is fairly obvious she did--and he is.  You ask for proof then reject a literal proof, it is clear that the barrier between you and this realization is ideology.  Nobody here can prove it to you because your world view necessarily requires that this not be true, but further that you challenge it and consider evidence against it.

Oniya

Keep the discussion civil.  Resorting to personal attacks does not make your argument stronger.
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Vergil Tanner

#66
Ok, I am trying very hard to leave this thread and let sleeping dogs lie, but statements like this:

Quote from: Jezabelle on September 17, 2017, 09:51:45 PM
You ask for proof then reject a literal proof, it is clear that the barrier between you and this realization is ideology.  Nobody here can prove it to you because your world view necessarily requires that this not be true, but further that you challenge it and consider evidence against it.

drag me back in, because it's not just arguing this topic, it's questioning and insulting me as a person. You are suggesting here that I am intellectually dishonest and am outright lying about my opinions, positions and motivations. You can roll your eyes until they fall out of your skull, but I am not letting that outright falseness remain unchallenged.


Quote from: Jezabelle on September 17, 2017, 09:51:45 PM
You ask for proof then reject a literal proof,

No, I asked for evidence. Evidence and proof are two different things, and if I did say proof at some point, I simply misspoke. I am not qualified to ascertain the accuracy of mathematical proof. I don't have a good head for numbers and equations, so throwing probabilities and equations at me is just going to result with me staring at the screen with no real idea of what's going on. I'm not qualified to analyse and critique mathematical proof. And even if I was, it wouldn't really change my opinion because it's still using the same evidence that I obviously affix different connotations and values to. I did not reject what I asked for. I said "Beyond the racist jokes - which can and frequently are made by a non-racist person - and the slip of the tongue that he apologised immediately for, is there another incident that I am unaware of that would point towards him being a racist individual?" That is what I asked for, and nobody has presented anything.

I'm not refuting or arguing Regina's Bayesian thingy because I'm not convinced I fully understand the format and mathematics involved to properly make a convincing case. It isn't avoiding the subject to say "I have no idea how this works, so I'm not going to embarrass myself by pretending otherwise." I will say, Regina, that "Pewdiepie is probably racist" and "Pewdiepie is probably not racist" are two different statements, and I am Switzerland in this. I'm staying neutral. I don't know whether he is or not, since I don't think there's enough evidence to say either way.


Quote from: Jezabelle on September 17, 2017, 09:51:45 PMNobody here can prove it to you because your world view necessarily requires that this not be true, but further that you challenge it and consider evidence against it.

No. This is outright false. My worldview does not rely on Pewdiepie not being racist; I honestly don't really care about him all that much. I don't really watch his content, I don't really have a personal stake in his career, I just think it unfair when somebody is dragged over the coals for what seems to me to be an honest mistake.
If you could - for example, hypothetically speaking - point me towards a Facebook Post or a video where he went off on an obviously serious, racist tirade, I would go "....huh. Ok, yeah, he's a racist asshole." And stating that I would do otherwise is calling me an intellectually dishonest liar who refuses to accept new information. That is not what I am doing, and I take great offence at you questioning my character and my motivations in that way.

In my dealings on this thread, I don't think I've been overly aggressive or dismissive. I've gotten irritated at points, true, but I've not once attacked somebody personally or questioned their intentions. Even when saying that somebody is misrepresenting me, I said that they were either misunderstanding or misrepresenting. I didn't presume to assume their motivations were malicious; I simply stated the two options, since I don't know for certain which one it is. And yet, I've been personally insulted several times simply for having a different opinion and I don't think that's fair or reasonable at all.




Quote from: Regina Minx on September 17, 2017, 09:49:48 PM
But I would like to point out that of the two of us, I'm being reasonable, and I'm willing to entertain an argument for why you think the values I've assessed should be reconsidered. All I'm asking is that you be as explicit as I've been, pin down your subjective assessment the way I have, and thus engage with me in mutual criticism. You refuse to engage with me on my assumptions and reasoning, and will not provide your own beyond "He's not necessarily racist."

And your implication is that I'm not being reasonable? I've asked for evidence and arguments, I've engaged with them fairly and with an open mind and remained unconvinced. I'm not engaging with your Bayesian Format because I don't understand it and don't think that I can translate my thoughts properly in that format because numbers, equations and percentages are not my strength. I would be entering into an arena that I know nothing about with somebody who is obviously at least passably good at that kind of argument. I would be a five year old drawing a lightsaber against Darth Vader, for all I know. My strength is in verbal debates and verbal reasoning. My argument was more nuanced than what you claim, but yes, it boils down to "He's not necessarily racist, and I don't think the evidence is strong enough to support the assertion that he is." Not structuring an argument in a format I'm unfamiliar and inexperienced with is not unreasonable. I think I've been perfectly reasonable in my statements and my reasoning, and I dislike the implication that I haven't been. Where, exactly, do you think I've been unreasonable?





And that really is it. I want to get out of this thread, but the comments above besmirched my character in such a way that I just could not leave them unanswered. I dislike being accused of dishonesty and unreasonableness when I have not acted in that way, and I don't think anybody could blame me for defending myself against those allegations. And now that I have defended myself against those accusations, I will take my leave of this thread before I become any more annoyed over how people are attempting to paint my character as dishonest, unreasonable, close minded and ideologically incapable of entertaining new ideas or information. None of those things are true, and I don't think it is unreasonable to become offended when people claim that they are.

And with that, I'm well and truly done with this thread. I hope you all have a lovely day (Not sarcasm).

Sorry, Oniya. I just needed to get that out there in my own defense, because I hate not being able to refute attacks on my character. I really am leaving the thread now.

Have a good day, guys :-)
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Men in general judge more by the sense of sight than by that of touch, because everyone can see but few can test by feeling. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few know what you really are; and those few do not dare take a stand against the general opinion. Therefore it is unnecessary to have all the qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

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Skynet

#67
Dunno if it's kosher to respond to someone who bowed out of the convo, but this is more for the benefit of other readers here.

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 17, 2017, 07:08:05 PM

Well, 1) I don't think it qualifies as Number 4 just because he had no way of knowing whether that person was black IRL, but regardless.
What he said WAS racist. I'm not arguing that. Using a racial slur as an insult is obviously racist. But saying one racist thing in a moment of anger doesn't mean that you are a racist person overall. And making racist jokes doesn't mean that you are a racist person. I agree it's poor form and utterly stupid considering the shitstorm that just died down from the WSJ, but does it inherently, irrefutably prove that he has racist sympathies and white supremacist opinions? No.

The reason I linked it was in order to gain a common ground on what is racist, considering the discussion.

QuoteTrue. But then again, people who AREN'T racist can also accidentally say racist things, or say something horrible that they don't mean in the heat of the moment. So how do you differentiate between the two? Or is anybody who says something racist by mistake a horrible, filthy racist? That doesn't allow for many shades of grey there.

Intent. What I'm speaking of in that context was intentional racism and the fanbase/defenders surrounding PewDiePie more than the man himself. Given how taboo the subject matter is, most folk aren't trained to "sniff it out" as it were, or end up going overboard and read ill intent where there is none.

But much like learning to read body language or coded statements, there is a pattern to separating intent. Reading up on the Southern Strategy by the Republicans in the 1960s is a great example of this. Or look into this very good YouTube video discussing how fascists disguise their talking points in "nicer" language for plausible deniability.


I recently found out that PewDiePie used the n-word back in January of this year regarding a "sexiest man alive" video

Apologies if I can't find the direct video, but this is my best source at the moment.

So it ain't a one-time thing, and is not a man who seems to learn from his mistakes. It makes the accident thing seem less and less.

QuoteAnd that's PDP's fault...how?
That's like saying that PDP is a Nazi because the Daily Stormer put him on their banner. He has no control over what the Alt Right does on his behalf or says about him, so really I don't know why it matters when it comes to PDP and his Nigger Stream.

Maybe as a one-time thing, but when you bash the Gender Wage Gap* in a video, and when you said the n-word before 8 months ago, and when you make anti-semitic shock value humor, this all adds up over time. It is then read as code by white nationalists that you are one of them. As for how gender wage gap comes into this, a lot of neo-nazi types hate feminism and view it as a Jewish/Marxist plot. So they enjoy that aspect too.

*which tb has its own problems, the real problem is that women are less willing to accept promotions and higher pay due to social conditions than explicit "pay you less cuz you are a girl" thing

DominantPoet

I think it's pretty clear at this point that PDP can do no wrong in Vergil's eyes, so there's really not any point in trying to use any kind of logic, facts, reality or any other sort with him. Best just to leave it be, he's going to believe whatever he wants. Just like the people who are defending a florida cops racist comments because they happened to be from before he was a cop, and because they were from years ago (despite the fact they were still available on his FB page).

Some people just don't seem to understand, no matter how much you explain it to them.

Vekseid

Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 17, 2017, 07:05:35 AM
Um...no offence, Vek, but that's going into tinfoil hat territory. I mean...again, have you got any evidence that that's what he's doing? Because I highly doubt that this is all a calculated ploy by Felix, the secret leader of the Illuminati.

The line was at the end of a Stick of Truth preview video. My first exposure to him.

It is exactly what I said it is - language used to instill a sense of dependence in a vulnerable person.

Trying to belittle me or the point by engaging in hyperbole does you no favors.

Suiko

Just to stand up for Virgil for a moment - he's trying to bow out of this conversation which is veey difficult when people keep dragging him back in woth dismissive attitudes and rude comments.

I get that it's a difficult issue to talk about without getting heated because of the world used, But this is meant to be an adult site. Both sides of the argument have got personal and it doesn't help either look goos.

For my part, I think that a word is simply a word, whatever it's historical context. Using a word doesn't make someone racist - it makes them an idiot, but that's a big difference. Corporations are free to do as they like in response since its their priority to make money, individuals are also free to voice their opinion by either watching the guy or not. I've never watched one of his videos, But he's an e-celeb so controversy is really par the course.

People slip up and say shit when they're angry all the time. I bet if every single one of us here were judged by things we've said in the heat of the moment, we would all have said some bad things.

Tldr: both sides chill out, words are not racist, people can just be stupid.
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WindFish

Quote from: Khoraz on September 18, 2017, 06:44:02 AMPeople slip up and say shit when they're angry all the time. I bet if every single one of us here were judged by things we've said in the heat of the moment, we would all have said some bad things.

Tldr: both sides chill out, words are not racist, people can just be stupid.

I hope I won't get in trouble for saying this, but I got to disagree with this point. Slurs are by definition racist and bigoted, especially when you look into their historical context. They are meant to belittle and put people down because of their race, orientation, gender etc. So when a popular YouTuber uses a racial slur as an insult (on more than one occasion), it normalizes that word. It makes people think that it's okay for them to use, so that's why we take issues with PewDiePie saying it (especially considering his history of racist incidents) and when people try to defend him, especially with the "it's just a joke" defense. Those words can be very hurtful, and as a grown man with a large following, Pewdiepie should know better.

I'm pretty sure that when most adults are angry and in a heated moment, those slurs aren't the first words that come to mind. I know they aren't part of my vocabulary.
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Suiko

It's fine to disagree, I don't mind.

There are many words that have historical context to them, But does that mean we should wipe wipe them all from the dictionary because of how they used to be used? Much as you disagree with me, i disagree absolitely that using certain words automatically makes you a bigot or anythinf like that.

Words can be hurtful, but if everyone was punished or dragged through the crowds whenever they 'hurt' someone else then it would never end.

I think the guy is a moron who got too carried away and blurted the first thing that came into his head. It's not in your vocabulary, but you gotta accept that other people are exposed to it more, so they have it in there.

I don't like using personal anecdotes because they're iffy, But I will just this once. I use the word 'fag' with some of my real world friends, most of whom are gay, and no one bats an eye. The intention should mean more than the word since isn't racism a state of mind, like homophobia? By that logic I'd be a raging homophobe, which isn't true because... well... my writing here <<
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Regina Minx

#73
Quote from: Vergil Tanner on September 17, 2017, 10:30:27 PM
And your implication is that I'm not being reasonable?

Yes. And because I want to be very precise with what I mean, I'm going to explain what I mean and why I think it.

You are hesitant to assign probabilities because it seems arbitrary and subjective. The point of reasoning with BT is to translate your actual beliefs into a more precise language. You already have some belief on this evidence. Translating that belief into numbers does not make them any more arbitrary and subjective than they already are. Whenever you say one theory (PewDiePie is not a racist) explains the evidence better than another, you are saying it has a higher consequent probability than another. Whenever you say “I do not believe this evidence proves that PewDiePie is likely a racist,” you are saying “On the basis of this evidence, the probability of h is less than 50%.”

This statement and any statement like it you ever make for the rest of your life will entail some form of probability. Like I argued earlier, we all think in math. Sometimes we even do so using numbers. For any belief you have about anything, you must believe it has some probability of being true or false. Given any theory, you must believe that the probability (P) of that theory being true must be 0, 1, or some value in between. And since only things that can be absolutely proven or disproven can have a P of 1 or 0, most of the time you will say that P is some value between 0 and 1. Where between? If you genuinely have no reason to believe P is higher or lower, then that entails that you believe P is 0.5. This is literally and necessarily true.

If you disagree with P=0.5, you must be doing so for some rational reason. If you have a rational objection to the conclusion that P is 0.5, then you must have a valid reason to make P higher or lower, in which case you should raise or lower P accordingly and tell us what you think it is. This is true by definition. If you have any objective reason to believe P is not 0.5, then you must believe it is either higher than 0.5 or lower than 0.5.

Therefore, if you disagree with my conclusion that P=0.56, you must be doing so for some rational reason. If you have a rational objection to the conclusion that P is 0.56, then you must have a valid reason to make P higher or lower, in which case you should raise or lower P accordingly and tell us what you think it is. This is true by definition. If you have any objective reason to believe P is not 0.56, then you must believe it is either higher than 0.56 or lower than 0.56.

When your language gets more precise (and you start using adverbs like “probably not”, “I don’t think that…” “slightly,” “very,” or “extremely”), this, too, entails numerical equivalents. For any ordinal ranking of likelihood (ordinal meaning in order, therefore I mean a ranking of probabilities. “It’s going to rain tomorrow” has a higher probability than “I am going to be murdered tomorrow” even if we don’t know how likely rain or murder is tomorrow, we still recognize that one is more likely than the other), there is some probability that you already mean by it, into which it can be translated. BT or not, either you could back up all these adverbs and assertions when you used them, or you couldn't. If you couldn't, then you were being as subjective as you could ever accuse me of being.

I have done my best to make my reasoning transparent and explicitly identify the assumptions and weight I give to the evidence. I have not used any math more complicated than what you would find outside of an introductory level statistics course. Since BT is formally valid and you cannot say that it is unsound, that logically entails that you cannot say that my conclusion is unsound. And yet that is exactly what you are doing. So yes, by refusing to use the same qualifier about my argument’s conclusion that you do about my argument’s soundness, you are being unreasonable. By definition.

Regina Minx

Quote from: Khoraz on September 18, 2017, 06:44:02 AM
For my part, I think that a word is simply a word, whatever it's historical context. Using a word doesn't make someone racist...

I'm pretty sure I addressed this twice already. Both when I talked about Michael Richards, and as a formal part of my argument. It is true that using a word doesn't make a person racist. I'm not arguing that it does. What I AM arguing is that it is 100% expected to be used if a person is a racist. If a person is not a racist, they still might use the word that PewDiePie did in the way that he did. But it is unexpected. And unexpected means improbable.

Suiko

QuoteWhat I AM arguing is that it is 100% expected to be used if a person is a racist. If a person is not a racist, they still might use the word that PewDiePie did in the way that he did. But it is unexpected. And unexpected means improbable.
(I'm not sure how to put a person's name in the quote)

Still, I agree to an extent that if someone uses a racially-charged word then it out to be looked at a bit more closely, because it is a potentially offensive choice. But then I think that people need to be open to the idea that using the word equally doesn't mean a racist.

Yeah, It's unexpected to use that word, but... does that matter? I might be missing the point so feel free to spell it out for me. It's improbable, but he said it in a spur of the moment situation - and immediately corrected it with a... less offensive swear, I guess?
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Regina Minx

Quote from: Khoraz on September 18, 2017, 08:30:01 AM
Yeah, It's unexpected to use that word, but... does that matter? I might be missing the point so feel free to spell it out for me.

Yes, it does matter. It means that the theory ~h ("PewDiePie is not a racist") becomes less likely. Because you don't expect non-racist people to say shit like that. If we encounter unexpected evidence, we must adjust our assessment of a theory's probability accordingly.

Suiko

Quote from: Regina Minx on September 18, 2017, 08:37:20 AM
Yes, it does matter. It means that the theory ~h ("PewDiePie is not a racist") becomes less likely. Because you don't expect non-racist people to say shit like that. If we encounter unexpected evidence, we must adjust our assessment of a theory's probability accordingly.
Ah right, I get it now.

I understand that your probability statistics are sound, so I can't really argue with them at base value - but I would say that it's barely over 50% if I'm reading them right. So on balance there isn't much either way.

I think that statistics are also a bit ambiguous at the best if times - you'll find many statistics saying different things for the same issue, and I'm not sure it's right to judge everyone on one statistic. But it doesn't really matter.

Honestly I don't expect anything from people. Vocab changes all the rime, and on the internet people often say things they wouldn't in real life, that's the effect of the internet. At the end of the day i don't think he's racist and to be honest I don't think a word is racist. It has historical baggage, but that's it.
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Regina Minx

Quote from: Khoraz on September 18, 2017, 08:43:53 AM
I understand that your probability statistics are sound, so I can't really argue with them at base value - but I would say that it's barely over 50% if I'm reading them right. So on balance there isn't much either way.

You do read it right. But what I made very clear when I was making the argument is that I was making the argument as far in favor of PewDiePie as I was willing to go. I put my thumb on the scale in PewDiePie's favor. And I still could not reasonably come to the conclusion that he was probably not a racist. My 56% represents my personal "best case scenario." Best case for PewDiePie within the bounds of the argument I outlined. I actually think the real probability is much less than that, not only because of this weighting in his favor but because of the other incidents I couldn't assess because of the Wall Street Journal's paywall.

Would I vote to convict a person of murder on a 56% probability that they did it? No. But for purposes of internet discussion, I'm comfortable with the limited information and provisional conclusion that I've reached.

Suiko

That's fair enough, I guess it's a case of agreeing to disagree on it. I believe that words are typically tied too close to emotions and knee-jerk reactions overall - not just in terms of potentially-racist ones. Words can be hurtful, But they can equally just be poorly-chosen, which I think is the case most of the time.

I see that your stats say otherwise, but again, stats have notorious issues with reliability and validity so it's not changing my mind... just like my belief isn't changing your mind ^^;
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Regina Minx

Quote from: Khoraz on September 18, 2017, 09:03:00 AM
That's fair enough, I guess it's a case of agreeing to disagree on it. I believe that words are typically tied too close to emotions and knee-jerk reactions overall - not just in terms of potentially-racist ones. Words can be hurtful, But they can equally just be poorly-chosen, which I think is the case most of the time.

I see that your stats say otherwise, but again, stats have notorious issues with reliability and validity so it's not changing my mind... just like my belief isn't changing your mind ^^;

I disagree to agree to disagree. Because I think I've just identified a contradiction in your thinking.

When I said that using a racial slur is unexpected on the theory that a person is not a racist, I said that that means improbable. You agreed with me on that point, which means that you agree that P(racial slur|~h) (the probability that a non-racist person would use a racial slur) is less than 50%. That must be what you agreed to earlier, because, again, you agreed that it is unexpected. And unexpected MEANS improbable in this case.

But then in your most recent post, you said the exact opposite. You said that most of the time when people use poorly-chosen words (and let's limit ourselves to racial slurs in this case), it doesn't mean that they're racist. Thus, you are now saying that P(racial slur|~h) is greater than 50%.

You cannot simultaneously believe that it is improbable for a non-racist person to use a racial slur while at the same time believing that it is probable for a non-racist person to use a racial slur.

So let me ask you to clarify this contradiction that I think I see. Do you think that it's improbable that a non-racist person would use a racial slur? I'm not asking you exactly HOW improbable you think it is. Just whether or not you think it's more than 50% likely that a non-racial person would use a racial slur?

Suiko

I think in real life it's less likely for racist words to be used by everyone - but online people's inhibitions can fly out the window, so such words become more common and their meaning becomes almost meaningless. Whether that's right or wrong is by-the-bye.

Sorry for confusion, I think that settles it?
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Regina Minx

Quote from: Khoraz on September 18, 2017, 09:17:29 AM
I think in real life it's less likely for racist words to be used by everyone - but online people's inhibitions can fly out the window, so such words become more common and their meaning becomes almost meaningless. Whether that's right or wrong is by-the-bye.

Sorry for confusion, I think that settles it?

Ahh. I understand. You are saying that, "In the real world, yes, it is unlikely that a non-racist person would use a racial slur. Online behavior, however, is different and therefore it might be probable that a non-racist person would use racist language."

Personally, I think that my allowing that there was a 40% chance that a non-racist person would do the 'kill the jews' thing that PewDiePie did and a 35% chance that a non-racist person would use a racial slur the way he did already 'baked in' into my assessment of the evidence. Like I said, I allowed that there was a 40% chance that a non-racist person would do the 'kill all the jews' thing, and I lumped together proposed explanations (shock tactics, joking, ignorance of history). That list was not meant to be exhaustive. I allow "general internet dickwadery" to account for some of that 40% probability space.

In essence: I was already accounting for the very objection you raise, and it still doesn't change my reasoning. You are essentially arguing that P(e|~h) is higher than what I take it to be. I personally can't see the need to be more generous than 40% and 35%, but I now understand the source of the disagreement.

Cognitive Brainfart

From talking about a YouTuber with a squeaky voice, we went to math equations that are meant to prove why someone is wrong in what they think and why they should think the same as someone else does because that is apparently the only right and reasonable way to think. Yay.


Quote from: la dame en noir on September 17, 2017, 09:41:11 PM
Hearing someone defend racist shit as a black woman is fucking awful. I've seen this narrative in more than one issue and I'm honestly not surprised by your opinions, statements, and otherwise - even if I think it's all BS. It's sickening to me and lots of other people.

Man, to know that there is a black woman on the other end of the interwebz, one must have some crazy psychic skills. But regardless of that, there are also plenty of black people who don't care about what pdp said or they don't see him as a racist. I understand that for some people it may be awful, but one can't assume that it would be the same for everyone. There are videos online of black youtubers talking about the issue. A question then. If you imply that people who don't think pdp is a racist for saying nigger are racist apologists, then would that also apply to those black people?

Suiko

Yeah, that's the one. Internet dickwadery is definitely a mediator in things - that should be an official name for it, ha ha.

But yeah, that's my take on it.
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Darkcide

#85
Quote from: Cognitive Brainfart on September 18, 2017, 09:44:54 AM
From talking about a YouTuber with a squeaky voice, we went to math equations that are meant to prove why someone is wrong in what they think and why they should think the same as someone else does because that is apparently the only right and reasonable way to think. Yay.


Man, to know that there is a black woman on the other end of the interwebz, one must have some crazy psychic skills. But regardless of that, there are also plenty of black people who don't care about what pdp said or they don't see him as a racist. I understand that for some people it may be awful, but one can't assume that it would be the same for everyone. There are videos online of black youtubers talking about the issue. A question then. If you imply that people who don't think pdp is a racist for saying nigger are racist apologists, then would that also apply to those black people?

I cannot speak for her, but sure why not? I know black people that are apologists for a lot worse, like redlining, racial profiling and even slavery.

There are also varying degrees of racism. Not every racist is a neo-nazi.

Suiko

Anyone can be a racist/apologist. Doesn't matter what race you are.
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Regina Minx

#87
Quote from: Khoraz on September 18, 2017, 09:46:00 AM
Yeah, that's the one. Internet dickwadery is definitely a mediator in things - that should be an official name for it, ha ha.

There is! It's called John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory:



Actually, it's called The Online Disinhibition Effect if you want to be serious about it

Suiko

It is interesting, in all seriousness. It's a lot easier to have a poor slip of the tongue when you're talking to a camera or screen, rather than a person.
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Oniya

I've gone over my previous diction to see if there were excessively repeated consonants or fricatives.  Since there were not, I'm going to leave this in even clearer terms:

If one more person uses this thread to take a pot-shot at another Elliquiy member, it will be locked for no less than 24 hours.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
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la dame en noir

Quote from: Khoraz on September 18, 2017, 06:44:02 AM
Just to stand up for Virgil for a moment - he's trying to bow out of this conversation which is veey difficult when people keep dragging him back in woth dismissive attitudes and rude comments.

I get that it's a difficult issue to talk about without getting heated because of the world used, But this is meant to be an adult site. Both sides of the argument have got personal and it doesn't help either look goos.

For my part, I think that a word is simply a word, whatever it's historical context. Using a word doesn't make someone racist - it makes them an idiot, but that's a big difference. Corporations are free to do as they like in response since its their priority to make money, individuals are also free to voice their opinion by either watching the guy or not. I've never watched one of his videos, But he's an e-celeb so controversy is really par the course.

People slip up and say shit when they're angry all the time. I bet if every single one of us here were judged by things we've said in the heat of the moment, we would all have said some bad things.

Tldr: both sides chill out, words are not racist, people can just be stupid.
Words are not racist? And there that "chill out" thing comes into play. Wow. Ha okm
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Suiko

Quote from: la dame en noir on September 18, 2017, 11:07:34 AM
Words are not racist? And there that "chill out" thing comes into play. Wow. Ha okm
Well no, I don't think words are racist - being racist is a mindset, like any kind of negative perception. I get that certain words are loaded with historical baggage, but like I've said before, I don't think a person saying a specific words automatically makes them racist.

And as for the chill out bit... well... yeah, to be honest. There has to come a point when a line is drawn, or else things can never be recovered from. At least that's my opinion.
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la dame en noir

Quote from: Cognitive Brainfart on September 18, 2017, 09:44:54 AM
From talking about a YouTuber with a squeaky voice, we went to math equations that are meant to prove why someone is wrong in what they think and why they should think the same as someone else does because that is apparently the only right and reasonable way to think. Yay.


Man, to know that there is a black woman on the other end of the interwebz, one must have some crazy psychic skills. But regardless of that, there are also plenty of black people who don't care about what pdp said or they don't see him as a racist. I understand that for some people it may be awful, but one can't assume that it would be the same for everyone. There are videos online of black youtubers talking about the issue. A question then. If you imply that people who don't think pdp is a racist for saying nigger are racist apologists, then would that also apply to those black people?
lol uhm yes. What are trying to get at? There was a black woman sporting Confederate everything and saying that black people chose to be slaves.

There are apologists everywhere. I'm speaking with my experience, not my entire community and you will not push me down like that. I didn't care for Felix when he said sexist shit, I hated him when he said antisemetic crap, and now im not even surprised by this.

So what the heck is your point?
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Suiko

Quote from: la dame en noir on September 18, 2017, 11:11:56 AM
lol uhm yes. What are trying to get at? There was a black woman sporting Confederate everything and saying that black people chose to be slaves.

There are apologists everywhere. I'm speaking with my experience, not my entire community and you will not push me down like that. I didn't care for Felix when he said sexist shit, I hated him when he said antisemetic crap, and now im not even surprised by this.

So what the heck is your point?
I'm not trying to push anyone down, really. It's just my opinion based on what I've seen in the news or in articles and things like that.

In the example of someone waving a flag and saying that black people chose to be slaves, I would argue that it's a combination of actions, attitude and words. A man blurting out the n-word in a fit of internet-anger isn't the same - again this is my opinion.

My point is the words are villified, rather than the attitude behind them being scrutinised. Knee-jerk reactions are good for no one.
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la dame en noir

Quote from: Khoraz on September 18, 2017, 11:14:51 AM
I'm not trying to push anyone down, really. It's just my opinion based on what I've seen in the news or in articles and things like that.

In the example of someone waving a flag and saying that black people chose to be slaves, I would argue that it's a combination of actions, attitude and words. A man blurting out the n-word in a fit of internet-anger isn't the same - again this is my opinion.

My point is the words are villified, rather than the attitude behind them being scrutinised. Knee-jerk reactions are good for no one.
that wasn't towards you
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Suiko

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la dame en noir

#96
And my opinion, based on experience from racial profiling, and racism etc...all that crap as a woman of color is that this crap is not ok. People who do not experience it the same way I do will go unaffected, feel like this is all overreaction, everyone needs to calm down, and continue to tell others what isn't and is racist.

I do not agree with your statements, I'm just being as polite as I can because this is the same narrative I see all the time. It's like a cis person telling a trans individual what isn't and is disciminatory against them.

Just like there are trans people that do not get bothered by everything or they're like Caitlyn Jenner and her contradicting beliefs considering they she is trans.
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Suiko

Okay, I can absolutely accept that it doesn't impact me in the same way because I'm white, but that doesn't mean I can't try to be empathetic.

What would the solution be to this, then? Ban certain words all together?
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la dame en noir

You can't ban words, but you(in my honest opinion) have more power over dismantling racist behavior. That's what allies are supposed to do. They're supposed to speak out and call out problematic behavior. Not coddle and protect someone as ignorant as Felix. His behavior won't change.
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Suiko

I suppose the issue is that I don't see just using a word as being racist - he had no intention behind it, he was just pissed off and chose a stupid word.

I'll stand up and say he's an idiot, and that he shouldn't have said it - again because it was stupid - but I don't think he was racist.

If I did see someone waving a confederate flag and shouting how all black people should be slaves, then that definitely would be racist, and I wouldn't hesitate to condemn it, but I feel that some perspective is being lost in the drama of it all.
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Lustful Bride

Quote from: Khoraz on September 18, 2017, 11:32:01 AM
I suppose the issue is that I don't see just using a word as being racist - he had no intention behind it, he was just pissed off and chose a stupid word.

I'll stand up and say he's an idiot, and that he shouldn't have said it - again because it was stupid - but I don't think he was racist.

If I did see someone waving a confederate flag and shouting how all black people should be slaves, then that definitely would be racist, and I wouldn't hesitate to condemn it, but I feel that some perspective is being lost in the drama of it all.

The problem that seems to be messing us all up comes twofold.

1: this is not the first time he has courted racial drama. It is possibly the second or third time.

2:His usage of the word was also spur of the moment rather than a deliberate pre planned use.

Its like that one channel model (or whatever beauty product it was) who wrote a post about all whites being racist from birth regardless of circumstance.

It is spur of the moment emotions overriding thoughts and reason. There is a difference between doing it under emotional turmoil and sewing soemown and walking up to tell them something bigoted. Or just using it casually without a care.

Pewd used it in anger at s game and it sets up a different scenario than pre meditated.

Apologies for errors am typing on phone. And sorry if I used any circular logic I'm an idiot 80% of the time. :P

la dame en noir

This has a lot to do with all the build up. He spat at one margalized group and now another. Both he gave cheap, weak apologies.

I've already said I'm not surprised by his stupidity. I'm moreso upset that I keep seeing the same narrative of 'well, I don't see it...lemme protect him" in my eyes.

This is why I said it doesn't affect you the same way it does me.

I think if I keep repeating myself, I'll just sound like a broken record. The majority of people in this thread have their set opinions and some of that can't be changed.
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Suiko

Quote from: la dame en noir on September 18, 2017, 11:42:14 AM
This has a lot to do with all the build up. He spat at one margalized group and now another. Both he gave cheap, weak apologies.

I've already said I'm not surprised by his stupidity. I'm moreso upset that I keep seeing the same narrative of 'well, I don't see it...lemme protect him" in my eyes.

This is why I said it doesn't affect you the same way it does me.

I think if I keep repeating myself, I'll just sound like a broken record. The majority of people in this thread have their set opinions and some of that can't be changed.

Hmm, it does make a difference that he's been a dick before... I think the reason why I might seem to be protecting him is simply because I like to try and see the best in people - I don't watch his videos, I don't know him at all so I've got no stake either way in this.

I think I would point the finger more towards the fact that doing these controversial things gets people talking about him, and more views for him=more money. The very fact that I looked him up after this is a sign that it's worked.

You're right that it doesn't affect me the same, and I really don't want to seem like I'm being dismissive, I'm just trying to explain my thought process in the same way you are yours.
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la dame en noir

I understand. I'm sorry. I take it as dismissive because that's what I encounter, in fact...it already happened twice in this thread. You're definitely welcome to your opinion.

I mean, I'm the person that plays cards against humanity, so I'm not always bothered...but this guy is just...he...lol

On my FB my white friends are the most upset when I first saw the article I said "I'm not surprised, he's an idiot". And my black friends were the same way, we discussed it and we're tired lol.

It's a constant battle.
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la dame en noir

I also agree, just giving them at attention isn't great...but...but at the same time, problematic behavior should be called out.
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Darkcide

Quote from: Khoraz on September 18, 2017, 11:10:31 AM
Well no, I don't think words are racist - being racist is a mindset, like any kind of negative perception. I get that certain words are loaded with historical baggage, but like I've said before, I don't think a person saying a specific words automatically makes them racist.

And as for the chill out bit... well... yeah, to be honest. There has to come a point when a line is drawn, or else things can never be recovered from. At least that's my opinion.

Words do matter though, and even if you might not have an adverse reaction to them, a lot of people do. That word at least to me? Represents hundreds of years of oppression, it is dehumanizing, and it also still used frequently to disparage us. I cannot speak for all black people, but I definitely have a reaction to the word. But I am also cognizant of my history, I am aware of what named relatives have endured, and I am able to contextualize the racism that I have faced in my life. So when people say it is just a word? That is great that you're able to feel that way and that it doesn't affect you. I have a reaction to the word.

As far as whether or not the guy is racist? Shouting racial slurs in anger means something. I can't say for certain he is a racist, but my gut says probably. But there are varying degrees of racism. Whether you actively want certain members of a race to die, or you believe in negative stereotypes or you compare BLM to the KKK. Sometimes? It is even having a 'friend' of a different race, and making it very clear to them that they are of a different race.

la dame en noir

Quote from: Darkcide on September 18, 2017, 11:51:48 AM
Words do matter though, and even if you might not have an adverse reaction to them, a lot of people do. That word at least to me? Represents hundreds of years of oppression, it is dehumanizing, and it also still used frequently to disparage us. I cannot speak for all black people, but I definitely have a reaction to the word. But I am also cognizant of my history, I am aware of what named relatives have endured, and I am able to contextualize the racism that I have faced in my life. So when people say it is just a word? That is great that you're able to feel that way and that it doesn't affect you. I have a reaction to the word.

As far as whether or not the guy is racist? Shouting racial slurs in anger means something. I can't say for certain he is a racist, but my gut says probably. But there are varying degrees of racism. Whether you actively want certain members of a race to die, or you believe in negative stereotypes or you compare BLM to the KKK. Sometimes? It is even having a 'friend' of a different race, and making it very clear to them that they are of a different race.
100% Agree with this statement.
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Oniya

I know his name because the little Oni is a gamer and watches game-oriented videos.  (Not his, but other channels.)  Every so often, I'll see a mention of him in a comment section, or see a link to an article about him after viewing a different 'this YouTuber done fucked up' article.  And like I said before, there are some words that reveal you to be a 'not-nice-person'.  Even if we assume (extremely charitably) that PDP used those words because he has no filter, the only way he's going to get a filter is if he sees there is a negative consequence.  His legion of fan-twerps are doing their level best to ensure that he doesn't.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
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Regina Minx

Quote from: Khoraz on September 18, 2017, 11:32:01 AM
I suppose the issue is that I don't see just using a word as being racist - he had no intention behind it, he was just pissed off and chose a stupid word.

I'll stand up and say he's an idiot, and that he shouldn't have said it - again because it was stupid - but I don't think he was racist.

The beauty of arguing about conditional probabilities is that it sheds light on precisely this kind of fuzzy thinking. You've already agreed with me in principle that using racial slurs is 100% expected on racism. But it's not AS expected on non-racism. Even if you disagree with me that using racial slurs is only 35% likely, you still have some estimation on how likely you think it is. Let's go all the way up to 60%. You are being almost twice as generous as I am in this estimation, but this is for illustrative purposes only.

If you think something is 100% likely on h, but 60% likely on ~h, then that still means that there are 5:3 odds of it being racist. That means that the evidence we have (racial slurs being used) is STILL more expected on a theory of racism than non-racism.

Here is why I go Bayesian. There are two competing theories under discussion. H and ~h. They are constructed in this argument to be both all-encompassing and mutually exclusive. We then must consider how likely EACH is under any piece of evidence. That is, what is the probability of having this evidence under theory h? What is the probability that we would have this SAME evidence under ~h?

What you are doing is over-emphasizing the P(e|~h) (the probability that PewDiePie would use a racial slur if he's not a racist) while at the same time failing to acknowledge P(e|h) (the probability that PewDiePie would use a racial slur if he was a racist).

I hesitate to speak for her, but what I think bothers la dame (and me too, for that matter) is the fact that people who want to overemphasize the chance that this signifies that PewDiePie isn't racist will not acknowledge that we encounter masked racism in our lives all the time.  We are subject to looks, tones of voices, changes of body language, and other subtle indications that we are suspect because we're ethnic minorities. These are things that whisper racism. PewDiePie using a racial slur SCREAMS it.

We don't expect you to hear the whispers. But for you to say that you can't hear it when it's screamed diminishes us and our experiences as women of color.

la dame en noir

Omg - the comments are rich on the youtube video lol

"Blacks have so much privilege these days"

"Everyone say Nigger"

"Why is everyone butthurt"

"The Swedes oppressed my people and I'm not butthurt"

"You don't have to be black to be a Nigger, you just have to piss of Pewdiepie, lmao"

Also followed by a troll saying that black people are aggressive and rough up cops and that's why we get shot every time.






If this isn't proof as to why lots of black people get agitated so fast, I don't know what is. Lol God.
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Suiko

Quote from: la dame en noir on September 18, 2017, 11:49:40 AM
I understand. I'm sorry. I take it as dismissive because that's what I encounter, in fact...it already happened twice in this thread. You're definitely welcome to your opinion.

I mean, I'm the person that plays cards against humanity, so I'm not always bothered...but this guy is just...he...lol

On my FB my white friends are the most upset when I first saw the article I said "I'm not surprised, he's an idiot". And my black friends were the same way, we discussed it and we're tired lol.

It's a constant battle.

It's totally okay. It's more personal to you, so of course you're going to react more strongly. He definitely is an idiot, so we can agree on that much ^^;

Quote from: la dame en noir on September 18, 2017, 11:51:27 AM
I also agree, just giving them at attention isn't great...but...but at the same time, problematic behavior should be called out.
It's a tricky medium to find. I think, hard as it is, in this case the best thing to do is ignore him. Because I really do think he is doing it for the views, for the publicity... and the more it works the more he'll do it, if he's done it before too. Again, he's a dick, but that's all he is.

Quote from: Darkcide on September 18, 2017, 11:51:48 AM
Words do matter though, and even if you might not have an adverse reaction to them, a lot of people do. That word at least to me? Represents hundreds of years of oppression, it is dehumanizing, and it also still used frequently to disparage us. I cannot speak for all black people, but I definitely have a reaction to the word. But I am also cognizant of my history, I am aware of what named relatives have endured, and I am able to contextualize the racism that I have faced in my life. So when people say it is just a word? That is great that you're able to feel that way and that it doesn't affect you. I have a reaction to the word.

As far as whether or not the guy is racist? Shouting racial slurs in anger means something. I can't say for certain he is a racist, but my gut says probably. But there are varying degrees of racism. Whether you actively want certain members of a race to die, or you believe in negative stereotypes or you compare BLM to the KKK. Sometimes? It is even having a 'friend' of a different race, and making it very clear to them that they are of a different race.
Like I asked la dame earlier, what's the solution? I'm afraid I'm a strong advocate of being able to use whatever words you like - freedom of speech, but not freedom of consequence. We have hate crime laws and anti-discrimination laws... but at the end of the day you can't force a change in mindset, which is what racism is.

Shouting the word in anger is going to get a reaction, it's going to cause controversy, and that is always good for the bank. That's my gut reaction.


Quote from: Oniya on September 18, 2017, 11:55:12 AM
I know his name because the little Oni is a gamer and watches game-oriented videos.  (Not his, but other channels.)  Every so often, I'll see a mention of him in a comment section, or see a link to an article about him after viewing a different 'this YouTuber done fucked up' article.  And like I said before, there are some words that reveal you to be a 'not-nice-person'.  Even if we assume (extremely charitably) that PDP used those words because he has no filter, the only way he's going to get a filter is if he sees there is a negative consequence.  His legion of fan-twerps are doing their level best to ensure that he doesn't.
But you can be a bad person and not a racist <<;

I feel awkward because it's sounding even to me like I'm defending the guy personally. I'm not. And the filter stuff comes back to the internet being a very... liberating place, for lack of a better word. Do we want to equate things people do online with things in real life? That idea makes me a bit uncomfortable to be honest.
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la dame en noir

Quote from: Oniya on September 18, 2017, 11:55:12 AM
I know his name because the little Oni is a gamer and watches game-oriented videos.  (Not his, but other channels.)  Every so often, I'll see a mention of him in a comment section, or see a link to an article about him after viewing a different 'this YouTuber done fucked up' article.  And like I said before, there are some words that reveal you to be a 'not-nice-person'.  Even if we assume (extremely charitably) that PDP used those words because he has no filter, the only way he's going to get a filter is if he sees there is a negative consequence.  His legion of fan-twerps are doing their level best to ensure that he doesn't.
Man, his fans are the absolute worse! You should see the comment section.
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Suiko

Quote from: la dame en noir on September 18, 2017, 12:04:06 PM
Man, his fans are the absolute worse! You should see the comment section.
My morbid curiosity makes me want to look <<
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Lustful Bride

Quote from: Oniya on September 18, 2017, 11:55:12 AM
I know his name because the little Oni is a gamer and watches game-oriented videos.  (Not his, but other channels.)  Every so often, I'll see a mention of him in a comment section, or see a link to an article about him after viewing a different 'this YouTuber done fucked up' article.  And like I said before, there are some words that reveal you to be a 'not-nice-person'.  Even if we assume (extremely charitably) that PDP used those words because he has no filter, the only way he's going to get a filter is if he sees there is a negative consequence.  His legion of fan-twerps are doing their level best to ensure that he doesn't.

+1

Famboyism of anything is close to fanaticism. It reputed the glory of anything to the point of its detriment. He won't change because his fans will flip the bill for him and he doesn't have to change. He is stuck in a bratty mindset.

Saying sorry isn't enough. It just doesn't make the problem go away. But until he actually acts like an adult in sure irk be repeated again in the future in some way. As adults we all take personal responsibility for our words, behaviora, and feelings.

@La dame. Well to be fair it is YouTube. The site where the comment sections charge a rate of five brain cells per letter. :P

Some of those are sadly real. While others are just people throwing gasoline onto the fire because they find all the outrAge numerous.

I feel like the internet has facilitated a decrease in human empathy in the last decade.

la dame en noir

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Suiko

Quote"You don't have to be black to be a Nigger, you just have to piss of Pewdiepie, lmao"
??? I feel worse off for having read that.
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la dame en noir

Quote from: Lustful Bride on September 18, 2017, 12:04:35 PM
+1

Famboyism of anything is close to fanaticism. It reputed the glory of anything to the point of its detriment. He won't change because his fans will flip the bill for him and he doesn't have to change. He is stuck in a bratty mindset.

Saying sorry isn't enough. It just doesn't make the problem go away. But until he actually acts like an adult in sure irk be repeated again in the future in some way. As adults we all take personal responsibility for our words, behaviora, and feelings.

@La dame. Well to be fair it is YouTube. The site where the comment sections charge a rate of five brain cells per letter. :P

Some of those are sadly real. While others are just people throwing gasoline onto the fire because they find all the outrAge numerous.

I feel like the internet has facilitated a decrease in human empathy in the last decade.
Yeah, of course - I didn't expect intelligent posts under that video, but I also see that on FB and I hear IRL. People are a trip. I've honestly learned to just laugh. Before I would rage, but my medication helps - I'm still upset though.
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WindFish

The problem is that Felix wanted to insult someone. He easily could have said "asshole" or some other word, but instead he instinctively went for a racial slur. That tells me something about him - that he's comfortable using that word and that it's likely something that's in his vocabulary. That's why I'm inclined to believe that he's probably racist and why I think the "it's a heated gaming moment" and "it's just a joke" excuses don't hold water. He could have said any other insult, but he chose that word.

Let's keep this in mind:

1 - He's an adult who should know better. He does not get to claim ignorance, especially when he's been caught in racist incidents before.
2 - In regards to point 1, he has been caught in racist incidents before. Apologies are meaningless when he keeps on doing the same thing got him in trouble initially.
3 - He's a popular YouTuber with a massive following, and many of his fans are children. He needs to do better than this, otherwise his fans will start to emulate him and normalize that language.
4 - He's very popular with the alt-right, and I haven't seen any evidence that he has distanced himself from that group. I don't think he's an alt-right Neo-Nazi, but if he wants people to not believe he's racist, he should denounce these groups defending him.

You should see the comments section any time another YouTuber is critical of PewDiePie. There's a podcast I listen to and the hosts posted the video over the weekend. I posted a comment where I agreed with them and called out PewDiePie for his behavior. The hosts and myself were viciously attacked by his fans, including one alt-right troll who went so far as to stalk me across my YouTube comments over the weekend.
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Oniya

Quote from: Khoraz on September 18, 2017, 11:59:45 AM
But you can be a bad person and not a racist <<;

I feel awkward because it's sounding even to me like I'm defending the guy personally. I'm not. And the filter stuff comes back to the internet being a very... liberating place, for lack of a better word. Do we want to equate things people do online with things in real life? That idea makes me a bit uncomfortable to be honest.

The filter thing is more a question of knowing your audience and knowing what lines exist.  Some lines are hard-coded to a person (I won't do/say {x} because it makes my stomach turn.)  Some are coded to the audience (I'll show smut-stories to people on E, but not to my parents.)  Some of those are coded to personal safety/security (I won't say/do {x} at work, because I'll get fired.)  PDP - like most celebs - has more people seeing his actions than the rest of us.  Therefore, he needs to consider that broader audience.  (Which - spoiler alert - he doesn't seem to.)
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And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
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la dame en noir

Quote from: WindFish on September 18, 2017, 12:08:44 PM
The problem is that Felix wanted to insult someone. He easily could have said "asshole" or some other word, but instead he instinctively went for a racial slur. That tells me something about him - that he's comfortable using that word and that it's likely something that's in his vocabulary. That's why I'm inclined to believe that he's probably racist and why I think the "it's a heated gaming moment" and "it's just a joke" excuses don't hold water. He could have said any other insult, but he chose that word.

Let's keep this in mind:

1 - He's an adult who should know better. He does not get to claim ignorance, especially when he's been caught in racist incidents before.
2 - In regards to point 1, he has been caught in racist incidents before. Apologies are meaningless when he keeps on doing the same thing got him in trouble initially.
3 - He's a popular YouTuber with a massive following, and many of his fans are children. He needs to do better than this, otherwise his fans will start to emulate him and normalize that language.
4 - He's very popular with the alt-right, and I haven't seen any evidence that he has distanced himself from that group. I don't think he's an alt-right Neo-Nazi, but if he wants people to not believe he's racist, he should denounce these groups defending him.

You should see the comments section any time another YouTuber is critical of PewDiePie. There's a podcast I listen to and the hosts posted the video over the weekend. I posted a comment where I agreed with them and called out PewDiePie for his behavior. The hosts and myself were viciously attacked by his fans, including one alt-right troll who went so far as to stalk me across my YouTube comments over the weekend.
That 100% sounds about right
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Darkcide

Quote from: Khoraz on September 18, 2017, 11:59:45 AM
It's totally okay. It's more personal to you, so of course you're going to react more strongly. He definitely is an idiot, so we can agree on that much ^^;
It's a tricky medium to find. I think, hard as it is, in this case the best thing to do is ignore him. Because I really do think he is doing it for the views, for the publicity... and the more it works the more he'll do it, if he's done it before too. Again, he's a dick, but that's all he is.
Like I asked la dame earlier, what's the solution? I'm afraid I'm a strong advocate of being able to use whatever words you like - freedom of speech, but not freedom of consequence. We have hate crime laws and anti-discrimination laws... but at the end of the day you can't force a change in mindset, which is what racism is.

Shouting the word in anger is going to get a reaction, it's going to cause controversy, and that is always good for the bank. That's my gut reaction.

But you can be a bad person and not a racist <<;

I feel awkward because it's sounding even to me like I'm defending the guy personally. I'm not. And the filter stuff comes back to the internet being a very... liberating place, for lack of a better word. Do we want to equate things people do online with things in real life? That idea makes me a bit uncomfortable to be honest.

As far as racism? People are always going to be racist. I know that and accept that. I believe people should be able to say whatever they want, and I also believe that people have to stand by what they say. You see videos of white kids getting beat the hell up for racial slurs, that is what happens. When some celebrity drops the n bomb and has to apologize? I am all for their career going down the crapper. I don't know if there is a right way to confront racism and to combat it. I personally do not believe in reaching out to them and trying to bridge any sort of divide, and I am fully aware my lack of empathy towards them encourages their bullshit. I think that it is just something we have to be vigilant about, and that is why I have a zero tolerance policy towards it. I see racism? I call it out.

WindFish

Quote from: la dame en noir on September 18, 2017, 12:12:21 PM
That 100% sounds about right

Yup, I wasn't surprised when I saw that behavior. If Felix doesn't want to be seen as racist or as a Neo-Nazi sympathizer, he needs to disavow these fans and discourage this behavior from them.

Although what struck me as strange is that YouTube seems to encourage it since they apparently got rid of the feature that allowed you to block trolls from replying to your comments.
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Suiko

Quote from: WindFish on September 18, 2017, 12:08:44 PM
The problem is that Felix wanted to insult someone. He easily could have said "asshole" or some other word, but instead he instinctively went for a racial slur. That tells me something about him - that he's comfortable using that word and that it's likely something that's in his vocabulary. That's why I'm inclined to believe that he's probably racist and why I think the "it's a heated gaming moment" and "it's just a joke" excuses don't hold water. He could have said any other insult, but he chose that word.

Let's keep this in mind:

1 - He's an adult who should know better. He does not get to claim ignorance, especially when he's been caught in racist incidents before.
2 - In regards to point 1, he has been caught in racist incidents before. Apologies are meaningless when he keeps on doing the same thing got him in trouble initially.
3 - He's a popular YouTuber with a massive following, and many of his fans are children. He needs to do better than this, otherwise his fans will start to emulate him and normalize that language.
4 - He's very popular with the alt-right, and I haven't seen any evidence that he has distanced himself from that group. I don't think he's an alt-right Neo-Nazi, but if he wants people to not believe he's racist, he should denounce these groups defending him.

You should see the comments section any time another YouTuber is critical of PewDiePie. There's a podcast I listen to and the hosts posted the video over the weekend. I posted a comment where I agreed with them and called out PewDiePie for his behavior. The hosts and myself were viciously attacked by his fans, including one alt-right troll who went so far as to stalk me across my YouTube comments over the weekend.
It's a fair argument, I won't lie. I'm still gonna look at your points though, because I'm actually liking the conversation ^^;

1. Yep, he should know better and it was a dick move. No argument there.
2. Yep, again he should know better.
3. Here is where I get iffy - are most of his fans children? Though even if they are, is any creator responsible for their fanbase? If a filmmaker makes a racially-charged film or something, are they responsible for all the thousands of people who watch it? Surely no?
4. The alt-right thing makes me cringe. I've seen it batted around an awful lot - to the extent that it feels watered down to me. Kind of linked to the above comment, is he responsible for what other people decide about him? I bet that if he had denounced it, plenty of people would say "Oh he's just covering!" or something like that.

Also stalking is shitty and that shouldn't happen.

Quote from: Oniya on September 18, 2017, 12:10:18 PM
The filter thing is more a question of knowing your audience and knowing what lines exist.  Some lines are hard-coded to a person (I won't do/say {x} because it makes my stomach turn.)  Some are coded to the audience (I'll show smut-stories to people on E, but not to my parents.)  Some of those are coded to personal safety/security (I won't say/do {x} at work, because I'll get fired.)  PDP - like most celebs - has more people seeing his actions than the rest of us.  Therefore, he needs to consider that broader audience.  (Which - spoiler alert - he doesn't seem to.)
But why should any creator be responsible for who views their things? He gives people a product that they want - I don't get it myself, but millions of people do. There's no way he can know the mindset of so many people <<;
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Blythe

Quote from: WindFish on September 18, 2017, 12:08:44 PM
3 - He's a popular YouTuber with a massive following, and many of his fans are children. He needs to do better than this, otherwise his fans will start to emulate him and normalize that language.

4 - He's very popular with the alt-right, and I haven't seen any evidence that he has distanced himself from that group. I don't think he's an alt-right Neo-Nazi, but if he wants people to not believe he's racist, he should denounce these groups defending him.

True. Makes me think about how upthread Vekseid mentioned how Felix's language is tailored to instill dependence. I do know I've seen unthinking fanaticism from a very vocal subset of Felix's followers (la dame's quotes from one of Felix's videos show exactly what sort of racial fanatical bullshit that Felix empowers when he repeatedly does this offensive racial crap), the kind that does comes from people who are extremely dependent and who do not like having their worldviews challenged.

Suiko

Ahh I am bad at keeping up with posts! Sorry.

Quote from: Darkcide on September 18, 2017, 12:15:09 PM
As far as racism? People are always going to be racist. I know that and accept that. I believe people should be able to say whatever they want, and I also believe that people have to stand by what they say. You see videos of white kids getting beat the hell up for racial slurs, that is what happens. When some celebrity drops the n bomb and has to apologize? I am all for their career going down the crapper. I don't know if there is a right way to confront racism and to combat it. I personally do not believe in reaching out to them and trying to bridge any sort of divide, and I am fully aware my lack of empathy towards them encourages their bullshit. I think that it is just something we have to be vigilant about, and that is why I have a zero tolerance policy towards it. I see racism? I call it out.
I agree with everything you said there - apart from where you say that violence is 'just what happens'. I'm afraid you should never punch a person because of what words they use. Nope.

Call it out, protest it, make people aware that it's not okay - but don't assault people.
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la dame en noir

Quote from: WindFish on September 18, 2017, 12:19:37 PM
Yup, I wasn't surprised when I saw that behavior. If Felix doesn't want to be seen as racist or as a Neo-Nazi sympathizer, he needs to disavow these fans and discourage this behavior from them.

Although what struck me as strange is that YouTube seems to encourage it since they apparently got rid of the feature that allowed you to block trolls from replying to your comments.
They certainly did. I hate that they won't let me block people.
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Oniya

Overall, YouTube subscribers as a whole are younger, mostly because older viewers tend to browse more than focus on a particular 'tuber.  (There's a reason the TV remote was invented - click..... click..... click......)  You can follow a channel 'unofficially', simply by hitting it when it pops up in the 'Recommended For You' - which it will when you've watched a particular person a few times.  There are a few channels that I return to periodically, but I haven't clicked the 'Subscribe' button.  So, yes, PDP knows that most of his 50 million subscribers are youngish.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
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WindFish

Quote from: Khoraz on September 18, 2017, 12:19:45 PM
3. Here is where I get iffy - are most of his fans children? Though even if they are, is any creator responsible for their fanbase? If a filmmaker makes a racially-charged film or something, are they responsible for all the thousands of people who watch it? Surely no?
4. The alt-right thing makes me cringe. I've seen it batted around an awful lot - to the extent that it feels watered down to me. Kind of linked to the above comment, is he responsible for what other people decide about him? I bet that if he had denounced it, plenty of people would say "Oh he's just covering!" or something like that.

The key point is that Felix is a role model for children. They look up to him and want to emulate him. Most children aren't going to give a shit about a filmmaker. He needs to be mindful of what he says especially for this reason. It's much easier for children to watch a PewDiePie video than a racially charged movie that would probably have a R or NC-17 rating.

I can't speak for all of his critics, but if he said that he denounced the alt-right and discouraged the racist and abusive behavior from his fans, I'd have taken his apology much more seriously.

Quote from: la dame en noir on September 18, 2017, 12:25:00 PM
They certainly did. I hate that they won't let me block people.

Another reason why I think YouTube's gone down the crapper. They care more about hits and likes than they do about protecting their users, although that's probably a different topic for a different thread.
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TheGlyphstone

hits and likes = advertising views, after all, and ad views = $$$.

SINless

Quote from: WindFish on September 18, 2017, 12:47:19 PM
The key point is that Felix is a role model for children. They look up to him and want to emulate him. Most children aren't going to give a shit about a filmmaker. He needs to be mindful of what he says especially for this reason. It's much easier for children to watch a PewDiePie video than a racially charged movie that would probably have a R or NC-17 rating.

I can't speak for all of his critics, but if he said that he denounced the alt-right and discouraged the racist and abusive behavior from his fans, I'd have taken his apology much more seriously.
There were bad people on both sides.....

Sorry, couldn't help myself there.
Quote from: WindFish on September 18, 2017, 12:47:19 PM
Another reason why I think YouTube's gone down the crapper. They care more about hits and likes than they do about protecting their users, although that's probably a different topic for a different thread.

That was always the case. Protecting the user is a bad businessmodel, unless they're a paying user. Getting as many hits as possible is what attracts ad agencies. Well, this may change now that big brands are finding conscientiousness attracts consumers

Oniya

Quote from: SINless on September 19, 2017, 09:35:56 AM
There were bad people on both sides.....

Sorry, couldn't help myself there.
That was always the case. Protecting the user is a bad businessmodel, unless they're a paying user. Getting as many hits as possible is what attracts ad agencies. Well, this may change now that big brands are finding conscientiousness attracts consumers

As Windfish said, the YouTube situation itself is probably a rant for another thread, but YouTube isn't even really giving a damn about the bulk of its producers - the people who create the content that the advertisers advertise on. 
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
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