What's your pet peeve in RL?

[DakAttack]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

He's either sympathetic, or he's ignorant like Takelli suggested.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

You have to think about it this way, though:

If I factored in the politics, practices and donations of every CEO to every company's product I consumed, I'd never get anything done. What's more is I'd likely be taking a lot of employees that might feel differently and end up throwing them under the bus.

Do you like Earthworm Jim? His greater is a card-carrying homophobe. Tommy Tallirico - the game's composer - is also an obnoxious dickhead. So I don't like either of them, but I did play EJ on SNES and GBA before ever knowing that. So do I boycott the game on the basis of those two now if I like the series, but hate homophobes and dickheads? Other people worked on the games, too. They might not share their opinions or political motivations.

Chik-fil-A pays more per hour than most fast food restaurants do, their employees enjoy nice benefits, too. Some of them are gay, too.. So where do I draw the line on this one.

Its not that black and white. Nothing is.

[DakAttack]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

It is for me. I can't support their stance on marriage equality, therefore I will not eat there. There are probably a lot of things I don't know about the business I do frequent, but if I were to learn something about Red Robins or Safeway that I couldn't support, I wouldn't give them any business either. I was on the edge of boycotting Safeway when they fired a man for protecting a shopper from her abusive boyfriend. I came a little closer when the CEO or some such made disparaging remarks about females. But they rehired the guy and apologized for the remarks.

[Taskmage]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

I do a lot of things that almost certainly produce negative externalities I'm unaware of. It's impossible to know what all of them are and to expect anyone to try is unrealistic, but when you're made aware that you're supporting something that is wrong and refuse to change your behavior, that's the point where you become complicit in doing wrong.

[Armando]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

If I factored in the politics, practices and donations of every CEO to every company's product I consumed, I'd never get anything done.

What TM said. This is a valid excuse for unknowingly contributing to a problem. Once you contribute knowingly, you're part of the problem.

Do you like Earthworm Jim? His greater is a card-carrying homophobe.

There's a difference though. Unlike Chick-fil-A, Earthworm Jim or its copyright owner didn't have an anti-gay agenda (to my knowledge.) You could pay them money and not be contributing to gay hate. Chick-fil-a directly donates to gay-hating organizations, so you know every dollar you give them contributes to that.

What's more is I'd likely be taking a lot of employees that might feel differently and end up throwing them under the bus.

That argument would immunise any company from wrongdoing. Those that work at Chick-fil-A knowing what the company does with that money accept the risks that come with supporting them. Those that contributed unknowingly are unfortunate collateral damage, but there's always going to be some of that when you punish a company financially.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

I do a lot of things that almost certainly produce negative externalities I'm unaware of. It's impossible to know what all of them are and to expect anyone to try is unrealistic, but when you're made aware that you're supporting something that is wrong and refuse to change your behavior, that's the point where you become complicit in doing wrong.

So ignorance is bliss except for defined ignorance.

Like I said, Chic-fil-A isn't along my way, not a favorite of mine or earning much love from me for this stuff, but its not the CEO handing out sandwiches in the drive-thru. Potentially killing people's jobs for one man's politics just doesn't seem right to me. Its like trading one set of damage to innocents for another. Demanding the CEO change or step down, however, seems fair game. Its fine to boycott, though. I just hope its based on facts - that's your motive, by the way - rather than the hearsay Feba is running on.

[Taskmage]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

So ignorance is bliss except for defined ignorance.

I'm not sure what you're saying by this. Ignorance is bliss. It's also irresponsible. Perfect ignorance and perfect responsibility both being impossible, we have to settle on a balance.

To the rest, I guess it's like the difference between murder and manslaughter. The CEO is doing willful and targeted harm based on his prejudices to a group of people. If another group of people comes to harm in the process of stopping that, I find that situation preferable even if the amount of damage done is the same. Like, if a terrorist was going to fire a missile that would kill 1000 innocent people, and to stop him the missile was detonated at its launch site instead, killing 1000 innocent people as collateral damage, I would prefer that to allowing the terrorist to fire. Now, to be perfectly clear, it is completely obvious that the ideal resolution involves nobody getting killed, or losing jobs, or having their society turned against them, but we're working on the assumption of some damage being done either way, and making that number equal just makes it easier to come to the moral meat of the matter.

At any rate, it's not like we're sentencing people to poverty either way in this case. The people at the bottom can move into a different food service job easily. The people in the middle may or may not have similar mobility, but being in a position of greater power and lesser ignorance within the company makes them more responsible for the consequences, so I don't feel too bad if they take a greater share of the blowback.

[Ketaru]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

Like I said, Chic-fil-A isn't along my way, not a favorite of mine or earning much love from me for this stuff, but its not the CEO handing out sandwiches in the drive-thru. Potentially killing people's jobs for one man's politics just doesn't seem right to me. Its like trading one set of damage to innocents for another. Demanding the CEO change or step down, however, seems fair game. Its fine to boycott, though. I just hope its based on facts - that's your motive, by the way - rather than the hearsay Feba is running on.

I have never been to one. And given what I know now, am even less inclined to. If anything should come of this, it really should just be people refusing to eat at these places. Local governments stepping in and actively trying to prevent a business like that leads us in a dangerous direction. I think this controversy has done enough. Company comes out in support of equal rights for gay people? Good for press and good for business. Company donates to anti-gay organizations? Bad for press. I don't think it'll affect their bottom line though.

Chik-fil-A, of course, happens to be a fast food chain. Highly disposable in our daily lives. I'm still waiting for groups like One Million Moms to boycott Microsoft or Google. Yeah...let's see how that turns out.

[Raydeus]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

Agreed, it should be the people who decides what to do in these cases and whether they care enough or not to boycott or support them with their business.

Problem is that kind of informed decision is beyond most people, specially with a corrupt mainstream media and complacent people that does not care about informing themselves about issues and instead settle for consuming whatever regurgitated information the corrupted MSM gives them.

If people were more analytic and more demanding about the information they obtain and were more responsible about the consequences of their reaction to said information the world would be a way better place. And I say the world because when I say people I'm talking about everyone, not just this specific US case. Because the only difference between this 1st world and third or whatever world issues is the amount of money involved. Because the complacency, apathy and laziness seems to be exactly the same no matter where you are or how superior/inferior you consider yourself compared to other cultures.

[Ketaru]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

I'm sure even companies like Chik-fil-A will change its tune soon enough. It pales in comparison to the companies that are coming out in support. Organizations like the AFA are talking about boycotting Google, which even they admit is pretty much not doable now that everything Google has become so integrated into our everyday lives. Personally, I support their efforts. They can go ahead and boycott Microsoft and Apple too and stop using computers while they're at it. Then boycott JC Penny, Levi, and the Gap. Very soon, they'll have no clothes to wear.

As far as gaming goes, unfortunately, I'm disappointed that Electronic Arts and the creator of Minecraft are the only two big names that have put in a word on this. I'm even cynical about EA because, given their reputation these days, it feels more like grasping for any praise they can get. And they do get praise for at least trying to incorporate these kind of elements into their games. For everything else, not so much. Though, it's not as if they need to wave a rainbow flag in front of HQ in order to show support. All developers really have to do is include those kind of options into their games. Like games such as Fable, Skyrim, or Dragon Age have done. Basically, just say, "Hey gamers, we know it's not just straight guys that play our games. So for you dudes that are into other dudes, here's a shout out!" Not playing politics, not donating money to organizations with their respective agendas. Just put the option in there.

That's all they really have to do, since some people will still insist on being dumb about it anyway.

[Taskmage]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

By the by, I had home made Chick-fil-a tonight and it was delicious. This (Chick-Fil-Gay Sandwich – Chick-Fil-A Copycat Recipe) recipe strikes very close to the flavor of their chicken, and I substituted Panko bread crumbs for some of the flour to give it a little more crispiness. Home made lemonade went just perfect with it.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

Personally I feel Persona 4 and Catherine did matters of gender and sexuality better than Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Fable or Skyrim have.

In Dragon Age and ME gay people just feel tacked on. DA get negative marks for still making fun of trans people. ME3 did better by fleshing out a cast member's loss of his husband, but he was such a bit part in the scope of the story. Yes, its cool Shepard gets any kind of relatioship he/she wants but the romance is shallow on a Hollywood level.

Skyrim, well, its a big world with hundreds of dungeons, things to find and dragons dropping out of the sky. Romance doesn't get deep because there's too many character and ways to spin it its just hard to make it seem special. Right now I'm holding out for a patch that lets my female werewolf marry her female vampire follower. I can actually cure her vampirism, too, but I don't think she'd like that. Serana is seriously the only character in Skyrim that plays out like a romantic interest kept at arm's length.

Persona 4 has the benefit of really fleshed out characters. They're not bit parts or token characters, they're just integrated into the main cast really well. Whether its the tomboy aspects of Chie or the gender deviations of Kanji and Naoto. They all become pretty human characters and the story progresses and I wish we had more of that.

Catherine gets there with a small subplot twist, its not as well-executed, but the acceptance within socialization is there and I consider that progress.

Deus Ex Human Revolution can easily be analogous to a lot of issues - race, sexuality, gender. Adam Jensen is regularly othered and berated. Sometimes he has privilege and sometimes he's stripped of it entirely because of those fancy new augments he never asked for.

Lollipop Chainsaw emasculates main squeeze Nick for the entirely of the game and he is literally reduced to an object and just dragged along anywhere on Juliet's whim. Her sisters treat him like an object, something to start at. So the shoe's on the other foot with sexism. And here people decry it as anti-feminist juvenile tripe because the female lead is sexy.

I'll give EA a C for effort on LGBT issues, but they have a ways to go and Bioware's community may have a little further to go on such matters.

[Jarre]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

I hate this tooth and jaw ache / sore throat thingy that has invaded me over this weekend and still going strong, hope the docs tomorrow can give me something strong to make it go away!

[Narachan]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

Mondays. :-|

[Squiggs]

Re: What's your pet peeve in RL?

Had my short work weekend ruined because my boss got fired later Friday evening. Ten hours over 2 days turned into more than double that.