Archive for 2014

ED MORRISSEY ON GAMERGATE.

I start off with these two lengthy and skeptical articles because Rhodes and Kain at least did something that the hundreds of gamers who piled into the chatroom complained that the rest of the gaming-journalism world refused to do: cover the topic seriously. Kain laments that the political-media world (myself explicitly included) got involved in this debate, but that may be because we were at least willing to have the debate. As Kain notes, when gamers tried having these debates in their usual channels such as Reddit and YouTube, they found their debates deleted and censored.

When thousands of gamers sit through an hour of unrelated political talk to watch a 51-year-old political blogger host a roundtable on GamerGate, then something is clearly dysfunctional with the media relationship to the community it covers. And while Kain argues with plenty of justification that I’m not part of that community, media condescension towards its audience looks very, very familiar to conservatives who engage the media that covers politics, complete down to the lecturing and assumptions of them based on the fringiest elements it can find. . . .

The cultural think pieces to which Auerbach refers are part of what Kain calls the “social justice warriors” who push political/cultural activism as part of their critical look at games and the industry. There is nothing illegitimate about cultural and artistic criticism in any art form; there’s been plenty of such analysis aimed at the film and television industries by all sorts of commentators, from feminists to family-values conservatives. The problem, at least as it’s been perceived by the gamers, is that the media covering the industry has taken sides, and has done so in large part because of undisclosed relationships between the journalists and their editors and the activists who want to make a point of finding misogyny in gaming culture, and to paint everyone in it with the same brush.

It would also help if the criticism was informed and accurate, not just in dealing with the gamers but also the art itself.

Journalists think they are our betters, and that they should improve us. In fact, they are often, it seems, not even capable of performing their own jobs.

THE FUTURE OF WEATHER OBSERVATIONS: Cell Phones?

THIS IS WHY THE TECH SECTOR HAS A BURGEONING TRUST PROBLEM: GoFundMe, Officer Wilson, Daniel Holtzclaw, And The Myth Of ‘Neutral’ Technology Platforms.

Technology companies are fond of presenting themselves as neutral, and GoFundMe, the crowdfunding website that lets users raise money for almost anything, is no exception.

Last month, amid intense pressure to remove a campaign raising money for Darren Wilson — the Ferguson, Missouri, police officer who killed Mike Brown — GoFundMe braved boycott efforts, online petitions and days of social-media fury while shielding itself in a cloak of don’t-shoot-the-messenger detachment.

“GoFundMe is a neutral technology platform,” the company maintained.

It’s an understandable stance, but it’s not the whole story. Earlier this week, when a campaign for another police officer began attracting attention, GoFundMe promptly yanked it down. And it wasn’t because the campaign violated its terms of service; it was because it apparently violated its sense of decency.

I’m not sure that’s quite the correct phrase. Here’s more on Silicon Valley’s trust problem.

BARISTAS WANT A $15/HOUR MINIMUM WAGE? Express Starbucks Stores Are Coming To Manhattan. “The new stores would feature a reduced menu of coffee products and food items—take that time sucking venti mocha double shot Frappachino elsewhere, pal—and a mobile ordering and digital payment system that would further speed up the caffeination process. More Starbucks outlets and less human interaction—just what New York needs!” Stealth robotization.

THOUGHTS ON MANUAL TRANSMISSIONS AND RESALE VALUE. “Even in this degraded era, this dark age, there are still drivers who want to shift for themselves. There is no surplus of cars for them.”