Divisions

It's depressing how everything becomes a battlefield now, a 'them' vs 'us' war, a 'pro' versus 'anti' thing. It might be somewhat palatable if there were two even sides that each had their own merits, but usually we get one side that's utter shit, and then there's everyone else, if we're lucky.

Politics is kind of a given, what with two party systems, but increasingly what we get is not an even match between competing ideologies, it's... well, here in New Zealand, the best I can say is it's a race to the bottom, one side is selling out as fast as they can while the other side is just fractured and incoherent, last I looked. I could be wrong, I don't usually pay attention to politics... mostly because that's the impression I get.

And America is worse, where one side is just increasingly... well, evil... but the other side has it's own bad track record, even as they try to pretend they're the good guys.

Gaming? We have Gamergate, which claims to be about journalistic integrity but is, I think, at best mostly about whining about political correctness. At worst it's about harassing women and making death threats and all that completely unwonderful stuff. If Gamergate has actually achieved any substantative gains in journalistic integrity I would love to know, because all I see is a bunch of assholes and a bunch of people who claim not to be WITH those assholes but still gather under the same banner. And then there are the people who claim to be avoiding taking sides... but honestly, seem really sympathetic to the bullshit Gamergate spins.

Then there's a group currently aggravating sci-fi fandom. Two groups actually, the Sad Puppies and the spin off, Rabid Puppies. It's unclear to pretty much everyone where the divider between the two is... and I think even for the Puppies it's not clear. It's a bit like Gamergate in that the Sad Puppies claim to be about noble things like bringing under-valued authors to public attention, etc., but all they really seem interested in is whining about 'social justice warriors' and political correctness. One of their leaders especially has a persecution complex big enough to be seen from space, having on several occasions spouted bile about how conservatives like him are oppressed by the nasty liberals, and how he and his fellow travellers live in fear of being rounded up and incarcerated... it almost makes you wonder if it's projection and that's what THEY would do to people they don't like.

As for the Rabid Puppies, they also complain about social justice warriors and all, but they just seem to want to cause havoc. Their main leader and one of their major figures each have a track record of saying some pretty horrible things.

And even World of Warcraft isn't safe. Recently Blizzard, the company that produces the game, decided that they would not be allowing flying in the current content. Ostensibly it's to make it so that players engage more with the world rather than flying over obstacles. This caused a lot of protests with some people complaining because they like flying in game and others saying it's a great idea because they like running around the map, and others who can't care less. Recently Blizzard announced that they WOULD put flying in, but as a compromise you basically have to do several activities that require exploring the world... such as doing all the quests in each zone and discovering all the major areas of the map. This does not seem to have changed the protests much, as people claim to have left the game because they can't fly (or because they reckon it's the latest in a line of issues they have with Blizzard's decisions), and there's still vitriol being flung about towards 'you anti-flying people' or 'you pro-flying people'. Thank god they don't have catchy nicknames like Sad Puppies and Gamergate...

Seriously, tonight I read a comment where a guy claimed in all apparent seriousness that Blizzard got a shock to their 'huge egos' when they realised they were wrong about flying, but because they refuse to back down they're punishing the player base by making them jump through hoops. Or something. Basically, Blizzard as a whole are assholes who hate their players.

What kind of sense does that even make? It's like some of the playerbase think they're actually at war with the company. It boggles the mind to think that they claim to love the game and yet actively hate the people that make it.

Which is not to say that I agree with everything Blizzard does, but geez, it's just a game.

But this is the world we live in, this is the path we're travelling. My way or the highway, if you're not with me then you're scum. Let's not even start on the wingnuts that twist their religion into an edifice of hate...

I can't even.