Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

Fo Shizzly

@NEStalgia Well, all I saw in that thread is an apparent discussion based upon some "offensive" comments (according to a user who shares part of his name with you), which were already deleted, about amongst other things, "alphabet people" and that apparently has something to do with the whole gender discussion thing and/or the LGBT community and what not.

For me, most of it is total abracadabra, and it makes me either roll my eyes, or shrug and think the exact things that I already stated before: today's generation of people should grow more of a backbone and broader backs, so they won't be so easily offended anymore by any and all things and people that don't agree with them...

And now that I've seen that wonderful video that @HobbitGamer posted, I'd like to permanently use that to emphasize/underline my views. We're getting to a point where even giving someone a genuine compliment could be frowned upon, because it's potentially not wanted by the supposed recipient.

Man, sometimes, I just really wanna beat the crap out of all these pantsies and SJW do-gooders, and make them see the light and the error of their ways. If things keep going like this, then in a decade or so (if not sooner), we're pretty much either all going to be constantly insulted about something, or insulting someone else, and subsequently waging battles in court and/or the media, to be able to sue the other party, or to get the sympathy of like-minded sheep or the media. Yègh!

@ThanosReXXX I'm presuming from the context of what I saw there's history between those two commenters going at it. But that original instigating one was definitely a troll post goading/prodding the second participant who has a visible history of running with any comments on those particular topics. That participant #2 couldn't tell he was being obviously and poorly trolled is really the #facepalm moment there. That it went beyond that is a depressing reminder that this is the internet. That a review about an irreverent shmup featuring a top dollar mainstream voice cast devolved into a gender argument is simply surreal.

I'm not even sure it's about backbone. Nobody should have to "have a broader back" to not be offended by people going out of their way to annoy people, people shouldn't be invasive to begin with. It's that people seem to go actively LOOKING for an argument (insert Michael Palin gif) specifically along the lines of pre-packaged talking points where an argument previously didn't exist. If somebody was talking about carrot cake, nobody comes in and takes over the thread ranting about sustainable farming and Monsanto. But you mention one of the graylisted PC watchwords and it turns into a comment poop storm. The discussion need not be directed at that person. A PC watchword they've selected to champion was being discussed somewhere, their spider senses tingle, and they need to insert themselves as the policing body of correct discussion. In every single thread. On the entire internet. And moreso in real life as well. In this case, I can almost sympathize with poster #2 since he was being deliberately trolled (though, again, how could he get offended by what was an obvious trolling instigation?) But past behavior has no doubt created the desire to troll him, knowing the predictable response.

I'm offended that everyone is offended. And I'm offended at tiptoeing around other people's wants. And I'm offended at conversations of people being offended. That leaves us at a stalemate, doesn't it? They're offended, I'm offended. At that point we either just ignore each other or kill each other. I don't even care which, just pick a path and stick to it.

Of course if it keeps going this way it will be worse than lawsuits. Eventually offensiveness will be legislated. Then you can be held by government force at gunpoint with threat of detainment and rights forfeiture by thinking or saying something that may offend someone else. You may die for having thoughts that might offend someone that thinks they're genuinely a goose after playing UGG. It's really a matter of time before the whole western world mirrors the USSR and it's contemporaries. We're pretty darned close already. Everyone. shares the same, correct thoughts and values. Everyone. Anyone who didn't vanished in the night.

I just want to go back to the 70s and 80s when the world last made some semblance of sense. Since then it's been a 1 way spiral.

@NEStalgia - It’s a perfectly apt description, the green and the blue cloth. Most of the time I’m left wondering if people actually believe what they’re arguing, or if the dung beetle’s poop ball suddenly started rolling down hill, and they have no choice but to grab ahold and go for the ride.

@NintendoByNature - I didn’t realize the Halloween title was also released in a NES cart. Should be a sign it’s at least decent. The Punch Out clone looks like someone got ahold of the rom for Mike Tyson’s Intergalactic Power Punch and re worked the sprites.

@bimmy-lee "I think to a large degree it's more about puffing out their peacock feathers. I'M cultured. Educated. Progressive! ** , informed, and enlightened, and I need to demonstrate to the world my superior progressive stances on the important issues of our time and seek the rewards.

** I have no idea what "Progress" means, but I've been told these assigned views are it. I haven't contemplated what they progress toward and away from. I just know I'm supposed to demonstrate my total belief in this defined set of values to demonstrate it."

It's also like being trained like an animal by media and education (remember, kids are indoctrinated with these "truths and values" by an education system comprised almost entirely of people with such beliefs and values. Then they become adults. Rarely does someone who learned from birth as, say, a devout Buddhist going to grow up to reject everything about Bhuddism...their very personality is shaped by those values they were told in development were truths.) And some of it is much more primitive than that. It wasn't uncommon back in Nazi Germany for people to call their friendly local Political Office to report some "Jew-harborers"/"Jews"/"dissidents" living next to them....when in fact the people next to them were not Jewish, accommodating any Jews, and not particularly against the Nazi regime. Why, then? Because people are comforted in receiving praise from authority figures. Reporting "Jews" nearby would warrant praise from the bureau. Nothing meaningful, just a thank you or a handshake. So they just made it up and had the people next door dragged away. Not because they actually had a grudge against the people next door. But just because being thanked by officials in uniforms made them feel good about themselves. This happened often, in fact.

I suspect a lot of "PC culture" is the same. It's not that many actually care at all. It's about being thanked and raised on a pedestal as someone of superior intellect for 40 seconds by someone deemed an authority.

@NEStalgia Except in the case of the oh so wonderful internet crowd of this specific type of "warriors", it far more often seems to be about being praised by peers instead of superiors. They would LIKE to be like someone superior, but they hardly ever are...

I can agree with the whole mid part of your comment to bimmy, although if I were you, I would have found another topic to illustrate the fact that people like their everyday pat on the back, without having to resort to mentioning Nazi Germany. I guess that in that respect, I too am somewhat politically correct...

As for your reply to me: I always wonder how much more I should (or would want) to learn about trolling, because I've seen you mention "obvious" trolling several times before, in various unrelated discussions, and I'm just not seeing that. All I saw was a poor, tender soul with VERY long toes, being oh so offended by a comment about the group of people that are too often discriminated against, and which he happens to be a part of. I found that Hobbit's video illustrated that perfectly, by the way...

Regardless, it actually IS about having more of a backbone, or at least a broader back, less caring about a stranger's brain fart posted online. Sticks and stones, and all that. No online words can touch me, no person knows me, and only I know how my words are intended, so there's often also things going wrong in a discussion by getting lost in translation, something I've often mentioned before as being a pet peeve of mine, is the lack of facial expressions and tone of voice, potentially even making the most polite comment suspicious of insulting or "trolling" by others, who are hell-bent on seeing an ulterior motive or hidden meaning in something.

The whole bit about being offended at people being offended is basically what was so brilliant about the aforementioned video, so in that regard, we actually completely agree.

But erm... Russia? Don't you mean China?

@bimmy-lee Loving the dung beetle analogy. The victims of it will probably still be defending it after getting caught and finally realizing it, by saying "well, but it wasn't just any dung beetle, it was a priceless scarab, so I'm still better than you"...

I love carrot cake.

@HobbitGamer Not just any, I hope. Depends on how it's seasoned.
No more pineapple, then?

You don't put pineapple on carrot cake?

@ThanosReXXX While the reference does mention actions that happened during Nazi power, the example does not illustrate anything done by the Nazis, but rather the nature of the every day common person and the depths of lows they will go to for minimum reward. It's the perfect example. The context of lying about "political crimes" by your neighbors knowing they will be dragged away physically, and quite possibly killed, simply to get a telephone "thank you" by a low ranking government official is the absolute lowest imaginable action. Yet that is precisely the common human reaction as human history has demonstrated. The reason to not mention it would be less about political correctness and more to avoid the common reality that any comparison to anything always references Nazis. But there's a reason for that. It's the most recent example one can use of the maximum extremes of human behavior/acceptance, etc, and like it or not, Nazis actually DID impact the modern world considerably with their policies and creations of mass media propaganda, manufacturing efficiency, etc. So they are both inextricably linked to the functioning and systems of the modern world, and the most up to date example of human extremes. You can compare everything to the rule of the Philistines, Moors, and Saraceans, but that doesn't really help when considering the comparison as vividly and understandably in modern contexts as Nazis. .

Oh for that particular individual that does happen all too often. But in this example, the first post was being directly belligerent, name calling, and dragging issues into the conversation that weren't even in the conversation (but that always rile up poster #2.) It wasn't even good trolling it was pretty cheap and obvious. Much like when people troll Anti with content he opposes, on purpose to get a response.

That said, I have NOT seen the original posts, so there could have been more to it that started it differently than it appears. Deleting posts can change contexts too easily. We see the response to "alphabet people" in response to the phrase "Mr. Letterman" (both terms I do find somewhat humorous, and I find it difficult to respect anyone who identifies themselves with an acronym, so the troll and I agree on that. You can be a person or an acronym. Pick one) but we can't see the original exchange, whatever it may have been.

Well, I said USSR and it's contemporaries, which includes PRC, DPRK, and others that followed their template. Both of the above were born of direct Soviet intervention, after all.

@StableInvadeel Most carrot cake does include diced pineapple in the recipe, so, yes, yes, indeed it does have pineapple!

@NEStalgia I got that, but the essence of the message would have been the same, if you had mentioned office people trying to lick themselves into favor with their boss by backstabbing their colleagues. Something I've seen happen quite often, by the way...

Ultimately, the moral of the story was "everybody likes a pat on the back", and that message could definitely have been relayed without choosing such a harrowing topic to illustrate it. Not that I'm offended, by the way, I'm just not a particular fan of copious amounts of war-related topics to illustrate modern day issues. Especially not when there's plenty of other examples around.

As for that comments section: the trolling comment must have already been removed before I entered, then, because I thought you meant that "the other nes" was the troller, so that's why I was wondering where the heck the trolling bit was. Oh, well...

And I actually found it to be somewhat comical as well. And the insane amount of b***hurt about it was just pathetic, which is also what prompted my "backbone and broader backs" analogy...

Point well made, and taken about Russia. (tips hat)

@NEStalgia By the way: who the hell puts pineapple in what's supposed to be a savory cake?

Let's drop the subjects not related to pineapple.

@StableInvadeel Dang, so we can't even talk about carrot cake anymore? Things really ARE spiraling downwards fast...

@NEStalgia - That makes sense to me, though it does seem to be more about like minded peer acceptance than a pat on the back from an authority figure, like Thanos mentioned. My main issue is the ceaseless injection of personal politics into everything. It’s reached a point where it seems sort of disingenuous. Like you said, a peacock fanning his feathers. It looks amazing, but he only does it to intimidate another peacock or attract a mate. It’s not really what the peacock looks like 98% of the time. Why not keep our feathers folded until the appropriate time arises that they should be fanned instead of wasting all this energy trying to strut around with them out in an attempt to convince others that this is what we really look like all the time?

I guess I could be the old guy who wants to keep the kids off his lawn, but I don’t see it that way. I’m all for the advancement of the human race and allowing people to be themselves, which is why mindlessly injecting personal politics bothers me. It’s sort of the opposite of those two things. NL is kind of the last place where this should be happening incessantly. It’s video games! Video. Games. An escape. I mostly avoid the comment sections now, but they used to be pretty fun. I just went in on the one in question assuming we could crack some jokes together, but within 35 comments we were calling people pedos, and generally acting like spoiled kids who are upset that not everyone else in the world is exactly like them. I just had a middle finger joke. Jeez.

@ThanosReXXX - Haha, thanks man. The dung beetle/scarab analogy is perfect. “You all are just lowly dung beetles, but look at me, I’m a gorgeous emerald scarab. I’ll just post this thing I think people think I should be posting... oh no, someone called me on it! How would someone who actually believes this respond? Nothing left to do now but dig in and hang ooooonnnnnn!”

@HobbitGamer - While I kindly respect your love of carrot cake, it’s not very high on my list of delicious desserts. I like the icing, and how moist it tends to be, but I’m not a big fan of walnuts or raisins, though recipes vary. I’m not going to turn it down if it’s the only dessert available, but I’ll usually choose something else given options. TLDR, you’re wrong. Love the dessert I love or get out.

Edit- Sorry @StableInvadeel , I was hunting and pecking this response when you posted. I’m done. My favorite cake is pineapple upside cake!

@ThanosReXXX Carrot cake isn't supposed to be savory. It's generally sweet. At least as done in the US. And since it's a cake of US origin....that stands. Carrot, zucchini, pumpkin, etc cakes are not savory once they're are drowned in copious amounts of brown sugar.

@bimmy-lee It's become a pastime among kinds in some areas, effectively the "I'm more PC than you, and I'm telling on your PC incorrectness!" They don't use or understand the term "political correctness" of course, but that's the effective result of it. Kids have learned to censor each other's political correctness as a competition. What happens 20 years from now? It also goes along with the tone of NLs reviews on games like Senran Kagura. I always think of Orwell's "Junior Anti-Sex League" and the sashes.

Of course usually the person in the room screaming about "tolerance" is the only one actually being intolerant....

@NEStalgia Then what's the use of putting carrot in it in the first place? Color?
To me, carrot cake just sounds like the English/American equivalent of a quiche, which IS a savory pie/cake.

@bimmy-lee You're welcome. While I thought of that, I was also reminded of a saying, which I know as Dutch, but is probably known in some form or another in other countries as well, which goes like this:

"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king"

I'm just going to trust in your skills to interpret that one in the context-appropriate way, instead of explaining it to you. So let that sink in for a bit, and the light will come on, and people WILL be home...