Troy Maskell

I disagr-- HOF. Look I'm not looking for an argument. I thought I explained this perfectly clear earlier in the thread, have there been trolls in GamerGate? Of course, just as there has been on the other side of the argument. There are plenty of white knights out there who've doxxed GG'ers in the name of Quinn, Sarkeesian and Wu. But I don't believe everyone against GamerGate is that way, because I have common sense, yet everytime GamerGate comes out and takes against this shit (Like the Doxxing of Felicia Day, which was later discover was not done by a Gator) we all get tarred with the same brush. Like I said, Confirmation Bias, you believe GG is a hate group and thus only listen to the arguments that support that view Gators get 'tarred' with that brush because people actually know the real stated goals of those who started the fucking 'movement'! The originators do not care about 'ethics', never have, never will, and you do not get to defend a concentrated effort to drive a woman to suicide simply because you believe their propaganda. Your position is like being a member of ISIS and saying it's about the defense of the Islamic religion. The cognitive dissonance is strong in you. On another note, since Nick Adams responded to it, the fact that Christians in other countries are facing very real persecution does not give you, an American, a Christian in the most Christian nation on earth, the right to co-opt it. They face persecution (and, for the record, that's horrible), you do not, and to act like you do is to have a persecution complex. That's where you're wrong though. Gamergate wasn't started. You're thinking of the #Quinnspiracy. The group that attacked Zoe Quinn over those proven to be false allegations of exchanging sex for positive reviews of depression quest Gamergate started from Baldwin and sites like Kotaku posting articles that screamed "Gamers are Dead" while all the while doing deals with developers for first access and positive reviews. Which got a lot of people upset. The narrative is Gamergate is a misogynistic hate movement filled will adolescent young men who are scared women like Sarkessian, Quinn and Wu will take away their games, their damsel in distress tropes, their power fantasies. While there are people like that who have used the hashtag, they're quickly called out by most Gamergaters and attempted to be shut down, also there are plenty of women, transgender, young, old, whatever race, creed or sexual state you want that are part of Gamergate. You never hear about it for two reasons. 1. Gamergate doesn't have a leader. The Anti GG saide has plenty, Sarkessian, Quinn, Brianna Wu, numerous female journalists who worked for Kotaku and the like. The closest GG has is the youtube critic John "TotalBiscuit" Bain, who incidentally has been raked over the coals, had his family threated, his address doxxed, gotten messages that there would be people waiting at his stepson's school to kidnap him and kill him, his wife threatened to be raped and his own throat cut, but you never hear those things in the mainstream media why? Because he doesn't want to give those people power by publicising the threats and in turn turning his audience on them, which is more than can be said for Sarkessian, who's Retweeted numerous threats to her followers. 2. Even if GG had a leader what good would it do, you show one threat to Sarkessian that she'll be raped or killed, or one anonymous threat that had NOTHING to do with Gamergate, just a troll who used the tag and was quickly called out and banned from Twitter thanks to GG'ers not standing for it that forces a cancelation of a speaking appearance and the argument is over, it's the same tired argument over and over and over, it's called Syllogism, if the first two statements are fact then the conclusion must also be fact. In this case we have this example. Statement 1. Misogyinistic statements and Threat to rape and murder Sarkeesian is made by anonymous twitter user Statement 2: Anonymous Twitter User uses Gamergate Hashtag Conclusion: Gamergate is a misogynistic hate movement who threaten women. It's easy to say go to another tag. We tried. We moved from the Quinnspiracy to Gamergate, you know what happened? The trolls followed, and since they keep getting attention they keep going. Do you really think things would be any different if we who actually want change and aren't taking part in hate changed the hashtag to something like #EthicsInGamesJournalism? What would the narrative be? Would there be rational discourse finally at that point? Or would it simply be "Look at the misogynists changing their slogan to try and avoid their label"? Do I get defensive about being labelled as a misogynist and a member of a hate group just for saying I support what Gamergate are aiming for? Of course I do. Am I going to sometimes have my anger come out and attack people who believe that without actually taking the time to know me> You're goddamn right I am. You'd do the same thing if the shoe was on the other foot. I've never said Gamergate was perfect, no group is. Do we have problems controlling our own sometimes? Of course we do. Could we perhaps try harder to weed out the trolls and the people who are threatening these women? Probably yes. But are we all in the same boat as those people? Hell no. Yet all we hear constantly is "You're Gamergate. You're a hate group". That's not only unfair, it just shows to us you don't want to find a common ground and that is why we fight.

But they HAVE been, you're just not seeing it and that's my point. There's been campaigns on twitter to report burn accounts that post harassment, there's been countless people in the moderate side who've come out and said "I support GamerGate. I do NOT support Harassment". And it's not like the Anti-GG side is not innocent in that shell at all, they've bullied and harassed people on the GG side, they tried to get Baldwin banned from the Supernova pop culture festival in Australia because of his views on GG. Yet when the moderates on the Anti side don't stop them, they're given a free pass because "They're misogynists who deserve it anyway". That's not just a confirmation bias, that's a double standard Just going back to this...PLEASE tell me your not comparing getting a public appearance cancelled to receiving threats of RAPE AND MURDER I'll answer this point. I'm not comparing the two for a second, my point was this: Has Baldwin himself ever given threats of Rape and Murder? What exactly is his sin besides creating the hashtag? And more importantly what does Gamergate have to do with a pop culture festival where he's there to talk about Firefly? Just because he's associated with the movement he should get harassed and his livelihood threatened? Or is just once again the confirmation bias of "If you're with GamerGate you must hate women"? My point is simply this is NOT a one way street, yet one side gets a pass because "Misogyny"

I could make one just fine, but why waste my time? You lot clearly have made up your mind and thus won't listen. As for the "Snippy" comments, I apologise, I just find it a tad hypocritical that people who believe that things should more open for females in the industry and want more inclusion could be so close-minded

I disagr-- HOF. Look I'm not looking for an argument. I thought I explained this perfectly clear earlier in the thread, have there been trolls in GamerGate? Of course, just as there has been on the other side of the argument. There are plenty of white knights out there who've doxxed GG'ers in the name of Quinn, Sarkeesian and Wu. But I don't believe everyone against GamerGate is that way, because I have common sense, yet everytime GamerGate comes out and takes against this shit (Like the Doxxing of Felicia Day, which was later discover was not done by a Gator) we all get tarred with the same brush. Like I said, Confirmation Bias, you believe GG is a hate group and thus only listen to the arguments that support that view

And once again the hypocrisy and confirmation bias of those on the Anti-GG side never ceases to amaze me...

Affleck was da bomb in Phantoms. I think we can all agree there

I go back to what I said earlier, if you believe that supporting the main argument of Gamergate and that Gamergate is a harassment movement when the majority aren't doing it, you are the living breathing embodiment of "Confirmation Bias"

But they HAVE been, you're just not seeing it and that's my point. There's been campaigns on twitter to report burn accounts that post harassment, there's been countless people in the moderate side who've come out and said "I support GamerGate. I do NOT support Harassment". And it's not like the Anti-GG side is not innocent in that shell at all, they've bullied and harassed people on the GG side, they tried to get Baldwin banned from the Supernova pop culture festival in Australia because of his views on GG. Yet when the moderates on the Anti side don't stop them, they're given a free pass because "They're misogynists who deserve it anyway". That's not just a confirmation bias, that's a double standard

Here's my two cents on the whole debacle. If you believe that ALL of GG is misogynistic and hateful and that they don't have a valid point because of it, you are pretty much the living breathing embodiment of "Confirmation Bias" At the same time, if you believe that no member of GG is guilty of making threats to people like Quinn, Wu, Sarkeesian and co and any women who threatens their video games, then YOU are pretty much the living breathing embodiment of "Confirmation Bias" Does that mean that the members of GG who don't do that shit actually don't have an argument? No, they have a point, they're going about it the wrong way, but they have a point. Does that mean if you disagree with Sarkeesian you are automatically a woman hating misogynist who should "Die in a fire with the rest of your gator friends" (Note: Not my words, hence quote marks)? No, she has a lot of points that deserve to be critiqued and debated but at the same time she doesn't deserve death threats, however again just from my own views on it, not all GG'ers are doing that, it's just a shield that the Anti side hides behind because "We won't give in to misogynists" when literally 90 percent of the GamerGaters AREN'T DOING THAT Like any argument that goes political, the conservatives, the people who actually want to discuss ideals rationally and peacefully are getting lost in a blanket of white noise by the extremeists. Once again, is every GG member innocent? Fuck no, there's plenty of assholes in that movement, just like there are on the Anti-GG side. But assholes do not invalidate the core argument, the Quinnspiracy, the thing that started all this bullshit may or may not be true, don't know, wasn't there, don't care but that doesn't change the fact that there have been shady dealing on games sites in the past and there should at least be some transparency there. I'm not saying GG is right, there's a lot of things they do wrong, and there are a lot of people that it's hard to actually like because of things they've said or done about Quinn, Sarkeesian and Wu. All I'm saying is that doesn't invalidate the argument, to say that ALL of GG is tainted and misogynist and that the movement is just a hate group is to simply put your head in the sand. Just like saying all of GG is about ethics and parts are NOT misogynistic is to simply put your head in the sand. The problem lies in we're only hearing one side of the argument in the mainstream press, the Anti-GG side. And we keep running around in circles avoiding the issue. The minute that changes is the minute GG dies.

So I started off Season 2 with the Astros after David Rollins single handedly kept me employed (Seriously, we finished something like 75-87 and Rollins was 13-4, would've probably gone close to RoY but for Yordano Ventura winning 22 or something stupid like that) and I have a 35 million dollar warchest. First guy to sign on. Max Scherzer, actually I didn't think I had a hope in hell of getting him, he wanted something outlandish like 200 mill over 8 and I just threw in a token 55 over 3 offer the first day of free agency while thinking of working a trade for a young gun, surprisingly he came back a week later and took it....okay. So at that point I just grabbed Josh Beckett for 1 year, 3.5 mill while my young farm guys develop. Bullpen was a mess, Marinez isn't ready to come up yet, so I signed Jason Motte (Actually got him cheap too, managed to talk him down to 1.2 over 2 years) as well as Chris Perez to work setup with Chapman, my closer from last year. Also got Phil Coke to help my sagging middle relief, because Jesse Crain hasn't throw a pitch over the plate yet Batting wise, we're fine, added Chris Young to give some veteran help in the outfield and signed Justin Smoak to play first, because Singleton is just plain NOT ready. Oh and I signed Derek Jeter as a coach from under New York's nose (He rates REALLY high in hitting and fielding as a coach in my game)....because fuck the Yankees So far so good, month in we're 13-9, good enough to lead the West for now, real star of the team though hasn't been a signing, hasn't even been a guy that played for the big league team last season. I invited Preston Tucker to Spring Training despite the coaches saying he wasn't ready and he crushed it, so I thought I'd start him in a platoon at Left with Yorman Rodriguez, who I picked up in the Rule 5 Draft. 1st month Tucker's hitting .358 with 7 homers and 24 RBIS. Rodriguez for his part on the other side of the Platoon is hitting .306 with 4 Homers and 15 RBI's, Young is just about to find himself anchored to the bench if this keeps up (My Center Fielder is Springer, who considering he's hitting .289 with 4 homers himself isn't going anywhere) The problem though is....the exact reason I made such a token offer at Scherzer. He's lost his strikeout power and he's starting to get shelled, which sucks cause every other one of my starters is doing great, even Oberholtzer who I figured was only there till I could either sign Dempster or Shields when they're due back from injury.

Sounds like a lot of fun. The new manager only mode sounds interesting, somewhat like letting your director of football controls transfers in FM I'd guess. Meanwhile in 15 I've at least got some respectability out of Houston, we still suck but we're not the worst team in the league, currently 40-45 and I finally dumped Dexter "Like Hell I'm giving you 7.5 mill for a .186 BA" Fowler's salary, worked a deal with a couple of low rated prospects to get some pitching help out of the Tigers, got Robbie Ray, Casey Crosby and Jhan Marinez, my bullpen is sweet now, and that's still with Chad Qualls on the 60 day DL. Guy who's really been responsible for the turnaround though is David Rollins, brought him up in the middle of May because Bonderman predictably went Bonderman and he's 4-1 with a 2.75 ERA so far. I expect they'll hammer him soon, he's not THAT good, I'm just hoping he can hang till the deadline then I might be able to flip him. Setting up for next season though, currently have 25 million in budget room for FA's next year, hoping to make that 30 by season's end.

Baseball? You mean overpaid rounders right?

Well, anyone got any advice on things to do other than watch the game on Superbowl Sunday?

I actually always liked most of St. Anger. The main songs on there match up to any of the other albums but I think the answer of why is it so divisive? lies in the whole sphere of where they were at the time, with Hetfield going to rehab and the whole learning to feel and finding a new bassist I don't think even they knew what they wanted with St. Anger. It's still not the worst Metallica album though, we live in a world where Load and Reload exist after all.

Unter the table cash payments to the selection committee wins! PRAISE BE TO THE CARTEL!

Like me and Dexter Fowler, 7.5 mill for a .143 average. The prick

We're now 4-20...yet old ass Jeremy Bonderman (Who I signed more just so I had an arm when starters started going down) is 3-0 with an ERA of 1.05.

I hope you're right, even without my Indy allegiance I can't stand the cockiness of some Seattle players and Tom Brady is the Antichrist in football form, I could never watch THAT superbowl

One. Me. And I wouldn't worry. Peyton will just morph into Superbowl Winning Peyton considering the shit Irsay caused him

I found it in the end. Started a new game with the Astros. The first month isn't even over yet, my two top starters, my closer and Springer are all on the 60 day DL, Singleton is batting .065 and we're a glorious 1-14. The game is trying to tell me something. I think it's "Stick to Atlanta"

Lightning Returns even BEING on the list is a crime

Drive fast in the other direction online and record that shit. You make the Youtube monies

If it helps, Saturday Morning RPG is now $1.39