Interviews: Ask Brianna Wu a Question 727
Brianna Wu is the head of development at Giant Spacekat, a company specializing in cinematic experiences using the Unreal engine. She’s also a frequent speaker on women-in-tech issues and was one of several women subjected to a campaign of attacks in Gamergate. Wu has worked as a journalist and politico. She currently has a patreon campaign which helps to offset the costs of doing speaking engagements and work to further the goals of feminism and women in tech. Brianna has agreed to give us some of her time and answer any questions you may have. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one per post.
College life (Score:2, Insightful)
What was your college life like?
More for slashdot than the subject... (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear Samzenpus, how to you justify click-bait crap like this when you have the discovery of new sub-atomic articles [bbc.com] being announced? I know that this will probably get 500+ comments, but do you realize that you are driving away the really interesting people that will make slashdot sustainable in the long run?
Nobody who matters cares about Brianna Wu or GamerGate. I come here to read opinions of people who matter. Do you care about readers like me?
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure he'll soon be posting a sub-atomic article just for you.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Slashdot is powered by your submissions. Instead of complaining, post the stories you want to discuss. It takes less than a minute to copy/paste some text and a link into the submission form.
Re:More for slashdot than the subject... (Score:4, Informative)
And then Dice will ignore them and shoehorn in what ever the most profitable agenda is at that time.
Right now they're banking on SJWs being profitable. It's a short term solution that is going to alienate a lot of people, especially when the SJW house of cards comes down
For those of you that want to know how Wu plays into this:
So...how did Brianna get involved anyway? All I remember is she just appeared one day making accusations and that whole house thing.
She involved herself. No one knew about her until she tweeted some ridiculous crap, got called out on her bullshit and instantly cried harassment.
Re:What is all of this even about? (Score:4, Interesting)
https://encyclopediadramatica.... [encyclopediadramatica.se]
Yes, it's a bit slanted, but that's the tone of Encyclopedia Dramatica posts. But it's about far slanted the otherway as Brianna's story is slanted towards her.
She's a self proclaimed victim http://selfproclaimedvictim.bl... [blogspot.com]
dome projectors? (Score:4, Insightful)
Are y'all doing anything aimed at dome projectors for a planetarium?
Questions: (Score:5, Insightful)
I never heard much about game developers, but it seems like GamerGate has put many of them in the spotlight, specially women.
Has the Gamergate movement somehow boosted your popularity and of other game developers and benefited you in any way? Do you regret that a big part your popularity didn't stem from the work you've made all these years in your professional life and rather from a political counter-movement?
Sorry for my lousy english.
Re:Questions: (Score:5, Informative)
Related question: Despite everything, can some good come from GamerGate?
Plenty of good [gamergate.me] has come from Gamergate. [deepfreeze.it] The literal salt mine from deepfreeze.it alone shows what good has come from it, not since the 1990's have I seen so much whining and complaining from the press when direct conflicts of interest, and shilling are exposed.
It has certainly drawn attention to the topic of harassment of women online, and campaigns like "Disrespectful Nod" actually seem to have backfired and pushed some of the companies targeted to very clearly state their opposition to the movement.
Citation required, because many companies including game sites have created ethical policies, some have also come out saying that Gamergate was right like Ian Miles Cheong(Gameranx). Some others have even openly come to GG to ask them to give their opinion on their existing, or re-write of their policies. So if you wonder where we would be without it, we'd be back in July of last year and people still getting pissed off at 'games journalism' for being unethical and still trotting down the road that it had been waiting for an even larger explosion.
I'm guessing you either don't play video games, or are pretty young. Otherwise you'd know that a backlash against the gaming press has been building for over twenty years, when you still got your information from magazines.
Transgender voice? (Score:4, Interesting)
You recently tweeted that no one who isn't transgender should voice opinions on transgender issues yet you regularly voice your own opinion on these issues. Is this a tacit "coming out" of your own transgender past, and if so, what does it mean for your own position as a representative and "megaphone" for women's issues and how you speak to the personal history of growing up as a woman?
Regarding the character design in your game: (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Regarding the character design in your game: (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, that just goes back to one of my points that the Game industry is just the tip of the tail of the dog here. This stuff starts with Madison Avenue and "feminist" glamour magazines.
Even women don't want to watch ugly girls.
They aren't any better about this stuff than guys are.
I'm so getting downmodded for this (Score:5, Funny)
On your Patreon, it says you're the Godzilla of Feminists. Do you have any concept/fan art of this? Because that would be incredibly awesome.
"Developer" or "Journalist"? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm interested in what development languages you excel in and how you mastered them - as head of development for a gaming company, I think that's my first question. Follow-up side-points would be when you transitioned from journalist to game developer, and why game development? Was it related to some of the 'sparks' and 'movements' by some other females 'in the gaming community' - and seen as an easy way to jump on a bandwagon that was clearly going to make waves? Journalist to developer just seems like a very strange transition to me, so I'm curious about the particulars.
Do you have a github account where you publish some of your code?
Why? (Score:2)
Capital (Score:4, Interesting)
How did you secure the capital to start Giant Spacekat? How did you do it in 3 months, and what obstacles did you face?
On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog (Score:5, Interesting)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Serious question: How do women and minorities get selectively harassed online when it is usually impossible to know their gender or race?
Blind auditions for orchestra positions are now standard. Can we not have the same for gaming and technology?
Easy to filter (Score:3, Insightful)
Well at least the mods will have an easy time filtering out the questions as the usual drivel is, unsurprisingly, posted by anon cowards.
I don't have a question, but jesus christ people grow the fuck up.
inc.com article (Score:2, Informative)
Is what a friend of yours says in this article [inc.com] true?
But one of Wu's friends in the gaming industry has suggested that her story may be more complicated than she lets on--that as bad as the situation has been for Wu, she "wasn't dragged" into it. "She taunted Gamergate for weeks," this woman continued, who asked that her name be withheld. "She baited them, and then they finally came after her, which is exactly what she wanted them to do."
Memes (Score:3)
Do you think someone running with a meme you might have created is harassment?
Do you feel it's ok to make fun of autistic children to score political points?
Good luck with the rest of the questions.
False allegations against police (Score:4, Interesting)
Brianna, you alleged that you are the the target of an online harassment campaign, and that law enforcement has done nothing about it [themarysue.com], and yet it has come to light that you never contacted the police [breitbart.com] in the first place.
Would you explain why you made those allegations? Is there anything you wish to say in defense of your article?
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It appears to have been a mistake, but the complaint has now been filed and an investigation started [bizjournals.com]. She was getting so many threats she had staff reporting them, and one of them goofed.
Question: Did the $11k reward help? Was anyone prosecuted as a result?
An honest question (Score:5, Insightful)
in light of your recent behavior on reddit that had you removed from a subreddit aligned with your own cause...
Have you ever been diagnosed with a personality disorder, and if so, which one?
Serious question (Score:2)
Don't you wish sometimes that a person's suitability for a particular field depended on their actual skill rather than where their genitals happen to be situated?
Game Design (Score:2, Interesting)
I am a "neutral" in the Gamergate debacle, preferring to observe more than directly interact, but in one case I watched the somewhat-infamous interview between Wu and Reddit KotakuInAction mod TheHat2. In it, they discussed the points of her iOS game "Revolution 60" and game design in general. One of the questions asked there was why she decided to work with iOS first versus the popular PC platform Steam. I don't remember the exact answer, but I think it revolved around developing for a platform that more w
Besides Advertising Your Patreon On Here... (Score:2, Troll)
(1) Troll GamerGaters at the very beginning, when they were fighting for ethics in Games' Journalism.
(2) Get b***h slapped by a torrent of angry gamers.
(3) Cry on the roof-tops that you're being harassed by "men."
(4) That "men" are scaring "women" from the industry (when you are a trans-woman btw).
(5) Claim to have received death-threats and was too afraid to live in your own home but still gave copious number of interviews from it.
(6) Eventually got ar
question (Score:2)
egalitarian? (Score:4, Interesting)
Influence of corruption in media (Score:4)
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This will end well. (Score:2)
I guess page views are all that matter.
Why do exaggerate hardships and block those who qu (Score:2)
Good places to work (Score:2, Insightful)
Customization / Modification of Unreal Engine (Score:3, Interesting)
Hi Brianna,
No idea if this will bubble near enough to the surface for you to see it, but I'm curious how much, if any, work you and your team had to do in the "guts" of the Unreal Engine to get your game out the door, or if all of your work was done at the Unreal Script / editor level.
Political anti-harassment action question. (Score:2, Informative)
I've got some (Score:5, Interesting)
Was it tough going from being a journalist and politico to becoming a hard-working developer at a legendary game and media studio like Giant Spacekat?
What engine do you develop on? DO you have an on-site rendering farm that you work directly with, or do you outsource it?
How do you find the time for public speaking with all the 60+ hour weeks that you must put into developing Giant Spacekat's massive games and interactive media library?
Are you tired of ignorant people saying your "developer" title is just a joke and that your game company is just a sad front for your real job of gender hustling?
What's a good alternative to Slashdot? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been reading daily since 1997, but I can't condone pandering to a professional victims and hatemonger and giving out a patreon link to fund more of this crap
Reddit was destroyed by SJWs in a matter of weeks, if Slashdot wants to follow the same route and promote safespaces after almost 20 years of being a respected destination, fine.
Any good suggestions?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
SoylentNews [soylentnews.org] is a Slashdot-knockoff which appeared during the protest against the "beta" interface. The site runs on a fork of slashcode and has a very similar moderation system. Predictably, the community consists largely of former and current Slashdotters and the overall culture is very similar.
Favourite arcade classic? (Score:3)
As a game designer, I assume you've spent a fair bit of time playing games. What's your favourite arcade classic, and why? Or, if you can't choose one, what's the list of your favourites.
Are custom engines dead for 'normal' developers? (Score:3)
Steam Greenlight (Score:3)
You recently ran a successful campaign to get your game approved on Steam's greenlight. What approaches did you use to get your game ranked high enough to be greenlit. What do you feel had the biggest impact in getting the numbers? What suggestions do you have for other Indie Game Developers who want to get their games approved on Steam's greenlight system?
Hi Spacekat (Score:4, Insightful)
What are your own thoughts about the sexist manner in which you were banned from /r/gamerghazi? Is the misogynistic toxicity of that community reflective of the anti-gamergate faction?
Technical (Score:4, Insightful)
Downvote Spamming (Score:3, Interesting)
Just as an aside everyone, either this article got brigaded by Ghazi or some other SJW hugbox, or some specific user with 6+ accounts is running through hitting things repeatedly with -1 Flamebaits. Two of my questions that were critical of Wu that were +5 are suddenly -1 Flamebait.
http://slashdot.org/comments.p... [slashdot.org]
http://slashdot.org/comments.p... [slashdot.org]
As you can see, it's very obviously someone abusing multiple accounts, as both comments were -1ed into oblivion before moving on to the next one:
http://i.imgur.com/jK54m0Z.png [imgur.com]
In addition every other question that was critical of Wu has been docked down to -1 or 0 Flamebait as well:
http://interviews.slashdot.org... [slashdot.org]
http://interviews.slashdot.org... [slashdot.org]
http://interviews.slashdot.org... [slashdot.org]
http://interviews.slashdot.org... [slashdot.org]
Granted, this doesn't surprise me as having happened, as sockpuppet abuse is a very common tactic of these Social Justice Warrior Trolls, but it's still amusing to see in action.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:You have got to be kidding me (Score:5, Insightful)
It does bring up a good question, though... (Score:4, Interesting)
Ms Wu, you've been accused of exaggerating the scale of the harassment against you. For example, you've stated that you were so scared that you moved out of your home, but a number of people were able to reconstruct the location of your various online broadcasts and establish rather conclusively that they were all made from your home.
How do you respond to this? Were you actually scared out of your home or not? When?
Re: (Score:3)
That's not creepy at all.
If you take information posted in public, and can figure out it was all done from one location then it's not creepy. Maybe people should be asking why the press didn't question it, and why the continued to push a victim complex for them, when it was obvious they didn't leave their home. It's not any different then Zoe Quinn which the press reported "she fled her home..." while conveniently forgetting that she had publicly posted that she had a trip to Europe planned...and just happened to leave the day th
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Way to miss the point. This post is bait. Slashdot does fine as a respite from the gamergate and all associated bullshit. Would like to keep it that way.
User since 1998.
Re:You have got to be kidding me (Score:4, Informative)
No kidding. When I read the summary of her wonderful achievements all I could think was DUH. Is this stuff that matters? Really Slashdot?
I am sure there are plenty of other women you could interview who actually did something that matters in the tech world.
Re:You have got to be kidding me (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You have got to be kidding me (Score:4, Insightful)
Wu is part of the sausage fest (Score:2, Informative)
Wu is not a woman. [breitbart.com] and their birth name is John Flynt.
Re: You have got to be kidding me (Score:3)
Re: You have got to be kidding me (Score:3, Interesting)
Great point. Let's look at actions.
In 2010, a number of fellow UMiss alums recalled their impression of the person now calling themselves Brianna Wu. This is over 4 years before Brianna Wu was publicized in public media. They didn't even know about the existence of a person named "Brianna Wu".
In it, several recount the actions of John Flynt (who now goes by Brianna Wu). John Flynt at one point came into the student paper office, and when his comic strip was rejected, blew his lid. He called one woman a "fat
Re: (Score:3)
http://gamergate.community/t/b... [gamergate.community]
Re:You have got to be kidding me (Score:4, Insightful)
she was caught faking her own harassment.
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Re:You have got to be kidding me (Score:4, Informative)
How is the criminal investigation into harassment going?
Last I heard, that Mass. prosecutors office isn't too happy with Wu lying about filing court documents about the people harassing her. I always find it funny that people lie about things that are public records.
Do you find law enforcement generally believes you, or do they accept the other side's claims that you ran an elaborate false flag operation against yourself? What kind of evidence is most effective, most likely to be understood and accepted? Can you recommend the best way to report criminal harassment?
Oh, this stuff. The best way to report harassment? Actually go down to a court house and file paperwork. The only problem is that you can't file harassment reports when you are harassing yourself or when people disagree with you on the internet.
Re:You have got to be kidding me (Score:4, Insightful)
Disagreeing with Ms. Wu is not harassment.
Asking Ms. Wu hard questions is not harassment.
Informing people about Ms. Wu's potentially criminal fraud in regards to her business, her online ventures, and her faked harassment, as well as her history of using racial and homophobic epithets before her latest persona as a Third Wave Faux Feminist, is not harassment.
Criticism of Ms. Wu is not harassment.
Debate with Ms. Wu's supporters is not harassment.
NONE of the discussion here has been harassment. This is a public forum and if bringing up Ms. Wu's name causes an outcry of disgust, that is the price of being a professional victim and a "polarizing" personality on social media.
Harassment is not a catch all word meaning "someone was mean on the Internet." It is not a shield against any debate, criticism, or disagreement. Don't play into the professional victims like Ms. Wu trying to use it as such.
Re:You have got to be kidding me (Score:5, Informative)
Who's taking about harassment? I'm clearly talking exclusively about the wacky claim made by the AC inexplicably modded +5, which seems to only be supported by a few crazy fringe sites.
By analogy, the AC is claiming we faked the moon landings, and you're talking about monuments on Mars.
And I was pointing out that your being skeptical of her faking her harassment is doubtful due to the comments in here doesn't mesh, as I haven't seen any harassment going on. Perhaps I jumped the gun.
It might also to have a bit of background: Ms. Wu specializes in antagonizing people, especially over social media, and then crying harassment whenever anyone takes the bait. She has been doing this for as long as I've been aware of her.
Given that this is the internet and it's trivial to make a twitter account, this usually invariably results in Ms. Wu getting some troll upset with her who will attempt to hurt her feelings based on any number of perceived weaknesses - doing so is not sexism. Indeed it would be the very definition of sexism to put on kid gloves just because of Wu's gender.
Ms. Wu has also admitted to creating twitter accounts to troll herself with, and some of the screenshots she has taken of this harassment are suspect -- for example, taking a screenshot within seconds of a tweet being posted, which is unlikely unless you are aware the tweet is about to be posted.
She then complains about this harassment publicly, links to her patreon page, and goes back to antagonizing people online. Pity farming or professional victimhood in a nuthsell. Granted, Ms. Wu is hardly alone, several of these fake feminist trolls have infested the Third Wave Feminism movement as of late, and are pushing a narrative of women being poor widdle fragile things that must be coddled and protected at all times because they're just so fragile.
Re:You have got to be kidding me (Score:4, Interesting)
I have no problem with asking a women in tech (even one that experienced an abnormal amount of ill will or perhaps even overt sexism) about their experiences and how being a woman has affected their career and how they look at the world of tech. Having a less masculine perspective is fine, I want women to feel welcome and their ideas represented... But my number one question in this case would have to be why THIS person?
Did Wu contact Slashdot first for some reason? If so, why? Was this meant to go well or did Wu intend on this going badly?
In the case that Slashdot contacted her, the same questions apply.
Of ALL the women, they chose one of the very few that would get the most adverse reaction possible at this time. If that isn't fishy, I don't know what would be.
Also, not posting as AC because I legitimately feel like these are important questions to ask. I don't know if this is malicious, or simply not thought through well.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:You have got to be kidding me (Score:5, Interesting)
Regardless of what you believe Ms. Wu experienced, do you truly not know any women in software or gaming who've experienced the kind of awful "boy's only club" attitudes and sometimes downright literal sexual harassment?
regardless of which, supporting a scam artist is not helping your cause and will only serve to de-legitimize it.
Or mabey the body size shaming, ableism about mental health, and even classist attacks on the typical software engineer through the "neckbeard" stereotype don't help much. 10-15 years ago, this would most likely include some underhanded homophobic attack(i.e. 'question' their sexuality), and 5 years ago, some form of genderphobia would also be present.
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Re:You have got to be kidding me (Score:4, Insightful)
What you originally said and what you said in this post are two different things. Once you figure that out you'll understand the downmod.
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Heh. "Respectfully." Right.
Re: You have got to be kidding me (Score:5, Interesting)
Wu, how do you justify your claim of being a feminist when your game has females depicted as an adolescent boy might draw them, play the victim card all the time, have been caught exaggerating and outright lying so often and then hiding behind claims of sexism, etc.
Follow-up question: your male past is easily found by anyone doing a cursory search. Do you refuse to talk about it because you are afraid that others won't see you as a "real woman?" Wouldn't a real feminist embrace their trans experience to provide a more inclusive view of, and insight into, the female experience from the viewpoint of a transsexual?
note ... I was outed on Slashdot a decade ago, and overall the experience was very positive. Being open about it has presented opportunities to help others reach a better understanding of who we are.
Re: You have got to be kidding me (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a suggestion of a transsexual I would actually like reading an interview about in Slashdot. Sophie Wilson (ARM chip designer). I respect that work.
What I do not respect is reading about people who make their career around politically correct bullshit and produce nothing of value. This isn't news for nerds and it isn't stuff that matters.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You have got to be kidding me (Score:4, Insightful)
For the record, I had never heard the claim that Brianna Wu is a transwoman before today, and I have no idea if it's true or not. I have followed GamerGate only minimally and can't say I understand all the issues.
BUT, if it's true that Brianna is a transwoman, that is certainly not off-topic. It's the same as Rachel Dolezal claiming to be black, and to have suffered her whole life for being black, when she is white and grew up in a racially accepting family. If Dolezal wants to make herself look black and claim to be black, that's fine with me, but it stinks of hypocrisy for her to lie about her past, her experiences, and her identity while at the same time claiming to be a spokesperson for people with that identity!
Likewise, if Brianna Wu is a transwoman but also claims to speak towards a personal history of suffering gender prejudice and so forth, it doesn't exactly look kosher.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:You have got to be kidding me (Score:5, Informative)
Oh boy probably one of my favorite tweets and was quoted directly to her feed...by her. Funny how there was never any investigation about it right? Never mind they've been caught attempting to victimize themselves [imgur.com], or lie about pretty much anything. [imgur.com] Not even hitting the tip of the iceberg here.
Re: You have got to be kidding me (Score:5, Informative)
Re: You have got to be kidding me (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:2)
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Don't give Netflix any ideas. They've already given us genres like "Imaginitive Time Travel Movies from the 1980s"
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Re:THANK YOU For Being an Inspiration! (Score:5, Informative)
Yea, they're called Goons. They really want you to think that certain people are a hate movement.
She's been caught several times posting harassment to herself. For example, on her steam greenlight page she forgot to log out of her developer account and posted a message attacking herself.
She's probably here, seeding this right now.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
But my God man, how many hate-filled tweets of vitriol aimed at these women, tagged with #GamerGate have you seen?
In medical speak, the real question is if this symptom is specific. If it isn't, then those tweets may not matter all that much.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not that I really want to take the GG side, but how is it about misogyny (hatred of ALL women) when the accusations were leveled at exactly ONE woman?
And while there were other very, very specific women targeted by people using the hashtag (note here that I am being very careful here not to blame an entire group for the actions of a few), if there were more women, where are they? The media is in the tank for women and stories of harassment (rightly or wrongly - as we learned from the UVA case, and the case
Re:THANK YOU For Being an Inspiration! (Score:5, Insightful)
Or because she was a hateful, sociopathic, gaslighting asshole before being a woman?
Re: THANK YOU For Being an Inspiration! (Score:3)
Re: THANK YOU For Being an Inspiration! (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
GG has not been around since the 90s...it refers to a specific event. While it's true that gamers have gotten a lot of flack, myself being a gamer since the 80s I've got to say the amount of hate shot at women by the GG community is unacceptable. Just look at the posts here. Half are misogynist and hateful trolling, a good portion attack Brianna being transgendered, another portion accuse her of lying...if you can't see how poisoned a fruit GG is you're willfully turning a blind eye to abuse and it makes yo
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Thanks for clarifying, but isn't that precisely what an asshole would say?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
If someone isn't an asshole, they generally don't have to go around assuring other people that they're not an asshole. And if you feel you have to explain to others that you're not an asshole, despite appearances, then you should ask yourself, "Why does everyone say I'm an asshole? Is it possible that they're right?" Doesn't that make sense?
It's like when Richard Nixon addressed the nation to say, "I am not a crook", thereby v
Re:An actual question (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with what you're saying is that it makes accusations tantamount to guilt. Someone says something bad about you, or worse still, starts some kind of smear campaign to get something bad about you widely believed? With your attitude the possible responses are (1) deny the accusation, thereby "proving" the accuser right, or (2) lie down and accept that the world now believes something bad about you and there's nothing you can possibly do about it because anything you try will only make you look more guilty.
The good news is, now you can say bad things about people who want to hurt or discredit and there's nothing they can do to defend themselves, either!
Re: (Score:3)
Completely proving my point. This young man will go on to wonder why anyone would think he's an asshole.
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Actual nominally-female gamer here. You've been demonized since the 90s? Welcome to my 80's (Atari 2600), where as a girl who liked games I was spit on, shamed, shunned, and all the rest of the stuff that GGers complain about. I put up with parents who didn't think video games were for girls, same for computers and programming.
You know why I don't agree with GamerGate? Because so much of the hatred spewed in it's name is targeting women for having an opinion about the way women have been portrayed in video
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't realize parents giving their children some of the money they've earned is a problem, but I guess I'm wrong and it's up there with institutional racism, lack of parity in pay between sexes etc.
Remind me; why is it a problem, again? And what's it got to do with you, anyway? Are you jealous?
A very nice strawman. I didn't say it was a problem, I said it was a privilege. since being "privileged" is supposedly the most evil thing you can be in Ms. Wu's worldview, I am merely asking why class privilege does not seemingly count.
Re:Priveledge (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is it a problem that whites enjoy privileges (read: don't face problems that people of color do)?
Why is it a problem that men enjoy privileges (read: don't face problems that women do)?
Why is it a problem that the rich enjoy privileges (read: don't face problems that the poor do)?
The answer is... nobody is claiming any of those things are a problem. It's not a problem that men don't face problems, it's not a problem that whites don't face problems, and it's not a problem that rich people (including children of rich parents like Brianna here) don't face problems.
It's only a problem that the opposite groups (women, minorities, the poor) do face problems.
And it's a problem when the people who don't face those same problems blow off the problems as being non-problems, just because to them, in their privileged positions, they aren't problems. It's not a problem that anyone is in a privileged position; it's a problem that other people aren't, and it's a problem for the people who are to blow off the problems of the people who aren't.
And to get back to GP's point: the problems that the non-rich face are probably more important and influential than the problems that the problems that non-men and non-whites face. I would much rather be a rich black woman and deal with the disadvantages of being black and a woman (that'd mostly amount to people saying and thinking things that would hurt me emotionally) than be a poor white man and deal with the disadvantages of being poor (that mostly amount to constant material threats to my continued health and safety).
Re:Why Did you Slander Brad Wardell (Score:5, Insightful)
Just curious, Why did you Slander Brad Wardell? StarDock
And call for a Boycott of His efforts?
I suppose this is a troll because, the unstated purpose,, is to only ask questions that let Wu promote their agenda.
They might as well just give us the list of questions they have decided will be answered, instead of playing this game of guess the questions on the list.
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Good question. I am amazed it got you a +5, but very well put.
Re: (Score:2)
Baltimore would be a good spot. Aside from the incidents over the summer, it is usually a pretty safe place, has a good convention center and plenty of hotel rooms. Also, a large international airport within 30 minutes of downtown.
Re:TheRalph (Score:4, Informative)
No need, Ralph already explained it himself:
I surreptitiously took few pictures, and decided to tweet one of them out. Now, Iâ(TM)m not a stupid man when not blind drunk, so I knew there was a chance someone would see this on Twitter. But, I did that shit anyway. Why? Well, I knew that they would look terrible for kicking me out over taking a picture of a panel speaker at a public convention. How big of a fucking baby do you have to be to kick out an adversary?
(from his blog at http://theralphretort.com/full... [theralphretort.com])
Note that the organizers asked people not to take photos. It was clearly stated, and in the events leading up to this they tweeted the rules to him twice during their conversation. It appears that's where he got the idea from, in fact.
His goal was to get kicked out by breaking the rules. That's why he "surreptitiously" took the photos, because he knew that the organizers had asked him not to. His scheme, which some people apparently fell for, was to make out he was the victim when he in fact went out of his way to be booted out.
It's their convention, they make the rules, he knew them and broke them deliberately.
Re:TheRalph (Score:4, Informative)
To be absolutely clear, the convention place is not a public place. It is a private establishment, hired out to the conference organizers. The organizers can set whatever rules they like within their private conference hall, unless those limits are discriminatory.
Re: (Score:3)
What's next for slashdot? Will we have breaking news stories about Nigerian princes, forced to flee their homes, who just need a bank account to store their millions?
Oh man sorry you ran afoul of the asshats and got modded into the cellar. I don't have points but that was +5 funny for me.