Re: [Official!] Project Horizons Comment Crew Chat thread.

[Katarn]

Same here. Also each room gives you bonus resist to whatever room you unlock. IIRC it's spirit, fire and frost only.

[Valikdu]

Just noticed the email. So, Shadowrun: Hong Kong has reached its goal of...

ONE MILLION DOLLARS

[Katarn]

Face: So let me get this straight. I either have to negotiate a contract with the street gang in order to leave my own apartment, or declare a small block war to go to work every morning?

GM: Welcome to Shadowrun

I hope it would be awesome...even more awesome, than Dragonfall.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Imma just leave this here:

http://nanopup.tumblr.com/post/111145719880/female-only-sootyurchin-pardonmewhileipanic

[Frost]

Imma just leave this here:
http://nanopup.tumblr.com/post/111145719880/female-only-sootyurchin-pardonmewhileipanic

Of course, that sort of abuse and manipulation isn't one-way by any measure. There's a guy in my unit whose (now ex-)wife called our CO, 1SG and his PSG and PL to try to get the guy arrested; claiming that he raped and beat her (this occurred during the separation period, even as she tried to milk everything he owned out of him). I was also on ACP guard a few weeks back and subsequently listening to the MP net as they received a call of a man having been beaten by his wife (and had hidden in the bathroom before eventually running out because he knew how very, very bad things would get legally if he retaliated). Another MP mentioned a time in Korea where she saw a woman who'd broken several facial bones and knocked out most of her husband's teeth with a wrench because he'd apparently gotten her a Valentine's Day gift not to her liking.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Of course.

This was simply about the things that were said earlier about how its "just a book".

Not wanting to start a discussion. Just adding a piece to the file.

[Valikdu]

[Guest]

Of course.

This was simply about the things that were said earlier about how its "just a book".

Not wanting to start a discussion. Just adding a piece to the file.

It's just a book

As fifty shades of grey hits the cinemas

sounds like a magazine trying to sell a few more copies by demonizing a popular piece of media. Sounds very familiar. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the cover story.

[Guest]

Does this have anything to do with Fifty shades of grey?

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/i-track-my-boyfriends-movement-because-i-want-to-trust-him-more-not-less-9994583.html#

Assuming this is true I'm not gonna say "Oh poor thing media has influenced you" or "Damn you Fifty shades of Grey". I'm gonna say this person needs therapy to help them get over their posessive/obsessive nature.

[Frost]

Assuming this is true I'm not gonna say "Oh poor thing media has influenced you" or "Damn you Fifty shades of Grey". I'm gonna say this person needs therapy to help them get over their posessive/obsessive nature.

The bulk of today's scientific community grew up with science fiction, particularly Star Trek; dreaming about what technology and science could accomplish.

Starship Troopers is required reading for officers in a few branches of the US military. 

The Lord of the Rings led to an increased interest in medieval history and mythology and the subsequent discovery of a lot of aspects of middle-age culture that were previously unknown.

Books, even fictional ones, have power. Moreso than any other media. More than television or movies, more than video games. By their very nature, they provoke thought. While, by-and-large, their overall effect is generally minimal, there will always be those who take the words they read to heart, for better or for worse.

[Guest]

@Frost

There's a major difference between inspiring someone and effecting their behavior. This to me seems to be shitbirds who don't want to admit they're shitbirds and instead want to scape goat a book.

It's on the level of someone going on a rampage and blaming GTA after the fact or some album they heard.

[Harmony Ltd.]

There's a major difference between inspiring someone and effecting their behavior.

By curiosity, how would you define it?

[Frost]

It's on the level of someone going on a rampage and blaming GTA after the fact or some album they heard.

Investing thought and concentration into a particular work (near-inevitable with books as opposed to other forms of media, which can be more passive in how the consumer partakes in them) and subsequently adopting a bit of its mindset; with a rather minor influence in their own mindset and thought process and eventually behavior? That's on the same level as a spontaneous crime or violent act and blaming it on a less mentally-engaging form of media?

As Harm mentioned, you also need to specify the difference between inspiration and influence; as most would agree they're largely one and the same.

[Frost]

Reference:

Inspiration:
1. an inspiring or animating action or influence. 
2. something inspired, as an idea. 
3. a result of inspired activity.
4. a thing or person that inspires.
Influence:
noun
1. the capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others 
2. the action or process of producing effects on the actions, behavior,opinions, etc., of another or others.
3. a person or thing that exerts influence:He is an influence for the good.

[Guest]

It's on the level of someone going on a rampage and blaming GTA after the fact or some album they heard.

Investing thought and concentration into a particular work (near-inevitable with books as opposed to other forms of media, which can be more passive in how the consumer partakes in them) and subsequently adopting a bit of its mindset; with a rather minor influence in their own mindset and thought process and eventually behavior? That's on the same level as a spontaneous crime or violent act and blaming it on a less mentally-engaging form of media?

As Harm mentioned, you also need to specify the difference between inspiration and influence; as most would agree they're largely one and the same.

You know that's not what I was saying. If someone is claiming that becoming posessive of their partner, tracking them and demanding their passwords and usernames was the result of FSoG (which is to best of my knowledge what we're talking about. The link Harmony posted) that is the same the exact same as going on a rampage and blaming GTA. It's the same if news outlets make that claim.

And I thought about what I said about inspiration. And I concede, I could not think of a way to explain it in anyway that made sense. Though I still think there is a massive difference between someone seeing science fiction stuff on TV, thinking it's neat and going into that field versus seeing a man being gun downed on TV and enacting in that in real life. One that goes way beyond morality, one of these is much more vague to start.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Yo, Last, can I ask you something? I'm curious to hear your opinion:

Do you think Culture has an impact on Society?

[Tytan]

Yo, Last, can I ask you something? I'm curious to hear your opinion:

Do you think Culture has an impact on Society?

That's like asking if bread has an impact on sandwiches.

[Guest]

Not in the direct "Woman/Men are reading about this material. They're gonna think that abusing/being abused by your partner is okay" manner that you or these articles are proposing. No. Absolutely not.

Especially, especially not when referring to this specific piece of culture.

But to skip to the chase Harmony what specifically is it that you're wanting to compare FSoG to?

[Frost]

Not in the direct "Woman/Men are reading about this material. They're gonna think that abusing/being abused by your partner is okay" manner that you or these articles are proposing. No. Absolutely not.

Especially, especially not when referring to this specific piece of culture.

But to skip to the chase Harmony what specifically is it that you're wanting to compare FSoG to?

So your plan here as far as a debate or conversation goes is to basically just go "Nu-uh" to any statement with given examples and often sources and try to shift burden of proof onto the other party? 

You sure you've never run for office?

[Tytan]

Elaborating.:

[Guest]

Big fuckin' wall of text:

In other news! There's a bird nest outside my window and the two little birds are clearing snow off it. :3

Also! As a nation, I am ashamed of us. We have been overstating the length of our national penis by ten inches. For shame, America.

[Frost]

Big fuckin' wall of text:

In other news! There's a bird nest outside my window and the two little birds are clearing snow off it. :3

Also! As a nation, I am ashamed of us. We have been overstating the length of our national penis by ten inches. For shame, America.

If I may strike to the boss-guarded treasure that is your argument rather than negotiate the zombie/bandit-filled dungeon that is its context and lead-up--and this goes for both your and Ty's arguments:

You're right that ideas do not come from vacuum. Life informs Art--but Art, too, informs Life. Are any sane citizens going to start abusing women because they read Fifty Shades of the Greymarch any more than they're going to up and join the Klan after watching Birth of A Nation? Prolly not. Are that relationship, those interactions, those "romance" scenes, going to stick with the reader and become one of the many factors that influence every one of us? Absolutely. And the more they took the work to heart; the more it's going to effect them. They're not getting "duped" or affected "subconsciously" by it--it's something they see coming and (due to Society, as Cobalt alluded to) don't reject it outright even if it presents an extreme of current norms. And, through that, it (through long months and years) becomes normal and commonplace, even romantic and noble. 

That's not to say Fitty Shaydez is some nefarious plot and/or should be banned or censored. If you can enjoy shitty writing and the erotic fantasies of bored housewives, go right ahead. The main factor is that even a normal, healthy, mentally sound person has to take care how much they let a given idea take root--You'll forgive the invocation of Godwin's Law, I hope, as the Nazis make such excellent and clear-cut examples of so many sociopolitical points--but the notion of shipping Undesirables off to (to the masses) parts unknown didn't happen overnight. It was years of propaganda and smear campaigns that swayed the public mind enough for the Reich to have its way with their, uh, "foes"

[Guest]

Not in the direct "Woman/Men are reading about this material. They're gonna think that abusing/being abused by your partner is okay" manner that you or these articles are proposing. No. Absolutely not.

Especially, especially not when referring to this specific piece of culture.

But to skip to the chase Harmony what specifically is it that you're wanting to compare FSoG to?

So your plan here as far as a debate or conversation goes is to basically just go "Nu-uh" to any statement with given examples and often sources and try to shift burden of proof onto the other party? 

You sure you've never run for office?

Burden of proof is on the accuser, in this situation Harmony is the accuser and Fifty Shades of Grey is the accused. It was never on me so I'm not shifting it.  What evidence have you given that FSoG (The thing we're discussing) does influence anyone into being in one of these relationships? So far it seems only a crappy cellphone image of a partial article. To which in response I linked an article of someone doing the exact same thing without any need of the book or the movie. I think we can all agree that person has an extremely posessive/obsessive personality and needs a therapist's help. I think you can agree that logic would follow through with someone who would do this because they'd say a book told them to.

[Harmony Ltd.]

My thesis, if you could call it that, is simply that succesful cultural products influence culture, and that culture in turn influences society; and thus that it is society's responsibility to acknowledge which part of its culture are """problematic""", in order to avoid it (society) be affected negatively.

In short, I am advocating:

1/ for people to be critical of the cultural products they consume
2/ for succesful cultural products to be critically analyzed for any """problematic""" element they may contain; such that people become aware of said elements.

[Guest]

@Frost
You've got the most important part of my post down, which is that creating new slang titles for the book is super entertaining. :P Seriously, though, I think we're pretty well on the same page. I think I was more talking about conditioning readers to accept abuse rather than promoting abuse itself, because the book's POV is whatsherface's, not not-Dorian Grey's, and the target audience also tends to be the abused rather than the abuser (though that's not to say less likely means irrelevant, just why I was focused in on that side of things).

To expand on my conclusion (and yours, I think) with some hypotheticals, I think that with the furor around whether or not Shifty Fades requires a moral panic, we (as in the nation, not the forums) may have missed a golden opportunity to actually talk about sex, fantasies, relationships, kinky stuff, and abuse. It's a shame that the book didn't create that conversation on its own - not necessarily a failing, since that would have been a very different book and it would have to have been written by a very different author - but I think it is a failing on our part that this opportunity was by and large missed in favor of bashing the book. Because that would have the potential to help sort out some of those Society things, and would defuse some of the bad stuff the book shows in a positive light while allowing the twenty trillion readers of it to have their transgressive-lite smutty fantasy novel. If Off-White Thru Dark-Slate is going to be somewhat of a zeitgeist for a while, might as well make gray while the sun shines.

[Guest]

My thesis, if you could call it that, is simply that succesful cultural products influence culture, and that culture in turn influences society; and thus that it is society's responsibility to acknowledge which part of its culture are """problematic""", in order to avoid it (society) be affected negatively.

In short, I am advocating:

1/ for people to be critical of the cultural products they consume
2/ for succesful cultural products to be critically analyzed for any """problematic""" element they may contain; such that people become aware of said elements.

You mean a ratings system. Movies and Games already have that, music kinda does to if you count the parental advisory sticker some CDs have. Pratically I think you're saying that books get a ratings system (I've never seen one with a rating sticker slapped on it) and that extra factors be added onto games and movies? Is that about right?

[Scienza]

Speaking of the interplay between cultural norms and individual action:

[Valikdu]

I was supposed to be doing something productive.

Instead, I've watched EvAbridged repeatedly.

And Hellsing Abridged.

[Guest]

Anyone planning on getting MH4U? I started to download it on my 3DS but quickly found out the SD card that comes with it isn't even big enough to hold one 3DS game.

[Tytan]

I'm playing it

[Sponsored content]