Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

[Pattern Ghost]

I don't think the thriller genre is necessarily all about catching serial killers, though. (I could be wrong; it's a genre I don't usually read.) Wouldn't the kind of thing where you drive someone to do despicable things then out them also qualify as a thriller? Like the Black Mirror episode with the internet blackmailer pitting people against each other, then revealing their secrets anyway? Or the thing with Liam Neeson on a train that's coming out? Or other types of psychological thrillers, where someone's pushed over the edge? There are a lot of examples of these types of things featuring male victiims, or victim/protagonists.

[Lucius]

18 hours ago, Sociotard said:

Right, but if the book doesn't use the stakes relevant to the Thriller genre, is it still a Thriller? 

 

 

 

 

So, usually that suspense and anxiety comes from fear of violence.  So the obvious way to get the prize would be to make the victims dudes. I'm not certain any other stakes would work. Fear of losing a job? Fear of secrets revealed/ public humiliation?

 

 

 

Fear of terrorists enacting a biological or chemical attack on a city?

 

Fear of a horrible disease spreading and becoming a pandemic??
 

Fear of an assassin targeting a foreign dignitary on your nation's soil, in such a way as to either cause a serious diplomatic incident or possibly trigger, or fail to prevent, an impending war?

 

Fear of a foreign agent acquiring the plans to one of your own nation's most secret weapons?

 

Fear that you will fail to find the evidence you need to clear your elderly father's name before he is unjustly executed?

 

Fear of the potential destruction of a site or artifact of crucial religious or cultural importance?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

 

The palindromedary says these are only some of all fears

 

[death tribble]

The thing is if you have a female victim or a child then as a society we are more involved in trying to apprehend or kill the perpetrator. It is a visceral thing. Granted fiction can take it too far with gratuitous stalking/murder of women. There was a film that I recall where a female customer in a shop is undressed by villains so she is topless and then stabbed because of her defiance. She was not violated but it did leave a bad taste in the mouth. I believe that the idea is what then happens to the thugs responsible is ok. I think the shop owner who is also killed is in a wheelchair.

[Zeropoint]

Quote

Or the thing with Liam Neeson on a train that's coming out?

 

I choose to believe this is a cute and intimate film about Liam Neeson as an engineer giving emotional support to an anthropomorphic train working up the courage to be open about its sexuality.

[Cygnia]

Sexual Harassment in the Children’s Book Industry

[Cygnia]

Comicsgate Is Gamergate's Next Horrible Evolution

[Cancer]

... why am I unsurprised by all this.

[Lucius]

On ‎2‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 11:29 PM, Cancer said:

... why am I unsurprised by all this.

 

I dunno. Why are you unsurprised by all this?
 

Lucius Alexander

 

Unsurprised to find a palindromedary here

[Cygnia]

http://www.foolreversed.com/why-your-larps-safety-system-will-fail-a-hackers-guide-to-engineering-player-safety/

[Cancer]

Interesting view on the situation, but I admit I've never participated in a LARP.   I've seen them only at cons, and while the premise of the game was sometimes interesting, way too often one or more individuals in them made me uncomfortable almost on sight.  I concede I am perhaps hypersensitive about manipulation, but more or less every LARP group I saw had at least one skilled manipulator in its organizing core, and I avoid that type reflexively.  I haven't read any of the Harry Dresden stories, only seen some of the games derived from them and some game-world chatter, but if there were such things as White Court vampires, my feeling about both them and LARPs is that they would be at the core of a lot of LARP groups.

[Cygnia]

I rarely LARP myself (I'll be doing one this year and it was the GM of the Living Campaign I play in that posted that article on his FB feed that drew my attention) but I found the article fascinating, especially if you apply it to other spaces/groups/forums out there.

[Cancer]

Every group contructs their organization -- it and its rules, written or unwritten -- to perpetuate the perks of its leading elite, and usually directly perpetuate the elite itself.

[Lucius]

5 hours ago, Cygnia said:

http://www.foolreversed.com/why-your-larps-safety-system-will-fail-a-hackers-guide-to-engineering-player-safety/

4. Anyone can be a black hat. There’s no easy test for who is one.

It is tempting to apply broader socioeconomic trends and identity politics to your community of a few dozen or hundred people; and attempt to develop a litmus test for the most likely aggressors based on patterns of historical oppression of entire populations; or adherence to particular ideologies. But that approach will fail. You are dealing on the micro, not the macro. You are announcing a vulnerability and bias in your system to any black hat who looks or acts the right way; and thus can use it against you.

Even if there is evidence one group has more black hats than others, no type of person is excluded. And if you show or say that you will not be expecting this behavior from certain groups, you will attract those black hats who know they can fly under your radar. Remember Rule 1 – if you are vulnerable to them, black hats will sense your weakness and target you.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Checking the palindromedary's hats

[Vondy]

 

On 2/7/2018 at 1:55 AM, Pattern Ghost said:

I don't think the thriller genre is necessarily all about catching serial killers, though. (I could be wrong; it's a genre I don't usually read.) Wouldn't the kind of thing where you drive someone to do despicable things then out them also qualify as a thriller? Like the Black Mirror episode with the internet blackmailer pitting people against each other, then revealing their secrets anyway? Or the thing with Liam Neeson on a train that's coming out? Or other types of psychological thrillers, where someone's pushed over the edge? There are a lot of examples of these types of things featuring male victiims, or victim/protagonists.

 

You would be correct. Thriller as a genre is incredibly broad and crosses into multiple sub-genres. The legal thriller, spy thriller, action-adventure thriller, medical thriller, police thriller, romantic thriller, historical thriller, political thriller, religious thriller, high-tech thriller, military thriller. Ad infinitum. To reduce thrillers to "serial killer thillers" would be irresponsibly reductive and result in a meaningles and inaccurate claim. By definition thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety. The goal of the thriller is to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. Its about generating SUSPENSE. 

 

Noir cinema, for instance, is rife with films that qualify thrillers. One may or may not object to the femme fatale vs goodwife archetype that frequently appears, but these movies generally feature men in danger and men under threat. I've read hundreds of hard-boiled and noir supense novels, and watched scores of the films. Most of Hitchcock's films (excepting Psycho) featured men in danger. Rear Window and North by Northwest are significant examples. Thrillers do not shy away from male-on-male violence. In fact, violence inflicted on men in thrillers is so gratuitiously common as to pass without comment. Let's take Predator, for example. The chick survives. We just couldn't have her die. Its a bunch of men who die. The same is true in Alien. The chick surives. 

 

Most Tom Clancy books are thrillers. They're just military thrillers. I do not see a great deal of violence directed towards women because they are women inthat genre. Indeed, more often than not, the violence and torture in military thrillers is strictly male on male. If women are harmed its usually because they are bystanders or a part of "the public" the heroes are trying to protect. The protagonist under threat in legal-religious-political-tech-medical-spy thrillers can be male or female. In psychological thrillers Its not about violence towards women. Its about violence towards the protagonist. Unless you want no female protagonists, or protagonists who are never hurt or threatened, a woman will have to find herself in harms way at some point. That's equality, right?

 

I've also read more than one best-selling thriller with a male stalker and a female protagonist that were written by women for women. Because, disturbingly, chicks dig that? What does that have to do with us menfolk? Now, it is true that the sub-genre of SERIAL KILLER thrillers almost always focus on violence against women and a sadly disproportionate number of badly mutilated female bodies hit the floor in these shows / movies. To some extent that may be because art mimics reality. Real life serial killers skew male and they mostly prey on women. Its a movie that is sensationalizing that kind of misogyny. It could also be because a movie about a serial killer who targeted men would not generate the same horror, shock, outrage, and fury. Because, Womyns. 

 

A notable exception is slasher films. A great many of those have a lone female survivor and an otherwise even distribution of male/female. Dudes die. Chicks die. Everyone dies. Except, typically, the good girl chick. She usually lives. The number of male victims tends to be female victims +1. 

 

But lets be fair: there is far more to the thriller genre than Hannibal Lecter. Oh, wait. He mostly ate men. With fava beans. Yum.

 

 

[Cygnia]

https://medium.com/s/trustissues/the-deadly-incel-movements-absurd-pop-culture-roots-e5bef93df2f5

[Cygnia]

We Can’t Trust Hollywood to Fix Toxic Fandom

[Lucius]

On ‎6‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 9:18 AM, Cygnia said:

https://medium.com/s/trustissues/the-deadly-incel-movements-absurd-pop-culture-roots-e5bef93df2f5

 

"Incel" supposedly is for "INvoluntary CELibate" but I can't help thinking it could be "IN CELls" would be a good place to put some of these people.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Voluntary Palindromedary

[Cygnia]

Among Cries On The Medieval Battlefield: ‘Me Too’

[Cygnia]

The Comicsgate movement isn’t defending free speech. It’s suppressing it.

[Cygnia]

The Other Side of the Spider-Man Proposal Story

Quote

“Basically Tyler and I had been together for over 5+ years,” says Gamble. “We started dating when I was 15 1/2 and we moved into my parents’ house together shortly after due to unforeseen circumstances. Us moving in together so young was I think really hard on our relationship. We were living like the Brady Bunch with eight people in our house.

Our relationship was great for a long time, but I started to realize about a year ago that I was not happy. I kept it going because I wanted to make it work, but he has done some things that I realized I really shouldn't have forgave him for. Our relationship had issues both mentally and physically... He never understood me unfortunately.

Even the proposal which he thought was the save all of our relationship was never the way I would have like to be proposed to. I never liked video games, but I sat through them because I loved him. Our relationship turned into a mother and son relationship where I had to remind him about things, I had to deal with his financial mistakes, his violent outbursts etc. We never did things normal couples would do like go out, dance, parties, sit under the stars.

I told him in July that he had a month to change my mind and it didn't happen, so I broke up with him. I have big prospects in life and I am a highly motivated individual, but it was extremely challenging to have to be someone else's motivation to simply get out of bed or get off of his video games. As far as his half-brother goes, Tyler had asked him to check in on me and ask me how I was doing after I broke up with him, so of course we got close. And our relationship just built from there. I did not leave Tyler for his half-brother and I have never been unfaithful to Tyler.” Update 09/11/2018 - 3 p.m.: Gamble clarified later that she is not now nor has she ever dated Schultz's half-brother, and that they are just close friends. Update 09/12/2018 - 2:13 p.m.: Gamble has deleted her her social media accounts due to harassment. 

 

[Cygnia]

Inside Barstool Sports’ Culture of Online Hate: ‘They Treat Sexual Harassment and Cyberbullying as a Game’

 

[Cancer]

From Nature (today):

 

Nobel committee reminds nominators that women exist

 

For the first time, the Nobel Prize committee will explicitly call on nominators to consider diversity in gender, geography and topic for the 2019 prizes. They will also remind nominators that they can put forward names corresponding to three different discoveries (as well as multiple names for a single discovery) — which evidence shows leads to more-varied choices. The diversity measures are not about improving the statistics, says Göran Hansson, secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, but about ensuring that outstanding scientists are not overlooked.

[archer]

18 hours ago, Cancer said:

From Nature (today):

 

Nobel committee reminds nominators that women exist

 

For the first time, the Nobel Prize committee will explicitly call on nominators to consider diversity in gender, geography and topic for the 2019 prizes. They will also remind nominators that they can put forward names corresponding to three different discoveries (as well as multiple names for a single discovery) — which evidence shows leads to more-varied choices. The diversity measures are not about improving the statistics, says Göran Hansson, secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, but about ensuring that outstanding scientists are not overlooked.

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06879-z

 

I really like the idea of encouraging selectors to nominate up to three candidates rather nominating only one. Many times the difference between first choice and third on various Hall of Fame ballots is so narrow that the choice of who takes first place is subjective rather than objective. I doubt that Nobel nominations are much different in that respect (in most years at least).

 

On the other hand, I don't really care for the push to encourage people to nominate a woman because a woman hasn't won in a while or nominate someone from Australia because someone from Australia hasn't won in a while, or nominate someone who contributed in some particular topic because that topic hasn't won in a while, etc.

 

Excerpt from Nobel's will which established the prizes:

 

Quote

https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/alfred-nobels-will-2/

 

“All of my remaining realisable assets are to be disbursed as follows: the capital, converted to safe securities by my executors, is to constitute a fund, the interest on which is to be distributed annually as prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The interest is to be divided into five equal parts and distributed as follows: one part to the person who made the most important discovery or invention in the field of physics; one part to the person who made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who, in the field of literature, produced the most outstanding work in an idealistic direction; and one part to the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses. The prizes for physics and chemistry are to be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences; that for physiological or medical achievements by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm; that for literature by the Academy in Stockholm; and that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be selected by the Norwegian Storting. It is my express wish that when awarding the prizes, no consideration be given to nationality, but that the prize be awarded to the worthiest person, whether or not they are Scandinavian.”

 

The criteria are "greatest benefit" and "worthiest person". Whether you are male or female doesn't make you more worthy or less worthy nor change the amount of benefit which your discovery or invention provides to mankind. Which continent, region, or nation you come from doesn't change the level of of your worthiness nor change the amount of benefit to mankind. The topic you worked on doesn't make you more or less worthy nor change the amount of benefit your work provided to mankind

 

I think that reminding the selectors of the criteria for the selection established in the will should be emphasized yearly (and dis-inviting any of those "at-large" selectors who seem to be systematically year-after-year ignoring the criteria is certainly in order if that isn't already being done). But some of the proposals mentioned in the article which would artificially promote diversity would directly violate the terms of the will (such as requiring a selector to nominate an equal number of men and women or to pick out certain years and require that all of the nominees in that year be women). The Nobel Foundation doesn't really (legally) have the option of ignoring the terms of the will which established it.

 

 

Here's a description of the selection process for the physics prize if anyone wants to see how the process works.

https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/physics/

 

 

 

[Cancer]

Physicists at CERN-organized event stunned by sexist presentation

 

I've encountered that attitude before, though it's been a while.

 

Sigh.

[massey]

On 6/4/2018 at 7:10 PM, Vondy said:

 

 

You would be correct. Thriller as a genre is incredibly broad and crosses into multiple sub-genres. The legal thriller, spy thriller, action-adventure thriller, medical thriller, police thriller, romantic thriller, historical thriller, political thriller, religious thriller, high-tech thriller, military thriller. Ad infinitum. To reduce thrillers to "serial killer thillers" would be irresponsibly reductive and result in a meaningles and inaccurate claim. By definition thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety. The goal of the thriller is to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. Its about generating SUSPENSE. 

 

Noir cinema, for instance, is rife with films that qualify thrillers. One may or may not object to the femme fatale vs goodwife archetype that frequently appears, but these movies generally feature men in danger and men under threat. I've read hundreds of hard-boiled and noir supense novels, and watched scores of the films. Most of Hitchcock's films (excepting Psycho) featured men in danger. Rear Window and North by Northwest are significant examples. Thrillers do not shy away from male-on-male violence. In fact, violence inflicted on men in thrillers is so gratuitiously common as to pass without comment. Let's take Predator, for example. The chick survives. We just couldn't have her die. Its a bunch of men who die. The same is true in Alien. The chick surives. 

 

Most Tom Clancy books are thrillers. They're just military thrillers. I do not see a great deal of violence directed towards women because they are women inthat genre. Indeed, more often than not, the violence and torture in military thrillers is strictly male on male. If women are harmed its usually because they are bystanders or a part of "the public" the heroes are trying to protect. The protagonist under threat in legal-religious-political-tech-medical-spy thrillers can be male or female. In psychological thrillers Its not about violence towards women. Its about violence towards the protagonist. Unless you want no female protagonists, or protagonists who are never hurt or threatened, a woman will have to find herself in harms way at some point. That's equality, right?

 

I've also read more than one best-selling thriller with a male stalker and a female protagonist that were written by women for women. Because, disturbingly, chicks dig that? What does that have to do with us menfolk? Now, it is true that the sub-genre of SERIAL KILLER thrillers almost always focus on violence against women and a sadly disproportionate number of badly mutilated female bodies hit the floor in these shows / movies. To some extent that may be because art mimics reality. Real life serial killers skew male and they mostly prey on women. Its a movie that is sensationalizing that kind of misogyny. It could also be because a movie about a serial killer who targeted men would not generate the same horror, shock, outrage, and fury. Because, Womyns. 

 

A notable exception is slasher films. A great many of those have a lone female survivor and an otherwise even distribution of male/female. Dudes die. Chicks die. Everyone dies. Except, typically, the good girl chick. She usually lives. The number of male victims tends to be female victims +1. 

 

But lets be fair: there is far more to the thriller genre than Hannibal Lecter. Oh, wait. He mostly ate men. With fava beans. Yum.

 

 

 

Regarding slasher movies, I've heard it proposed that the reason we have a surviving female is because it's easier for the audience to empathize with her fear.  It's okay for our protagonist to run from the monster, because we don't expect her to "man up" and fight him.  The entire audience, including the biggest manliest men, can place themselves in her shoes and so it's okay for us to be afraid.