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Cheers, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome back to Top Hats and Brain Drain, the show
on Top Hats and Champagne that deals with real life, that horrible game they sell as
an economy simulator in the west, as a visual novel in Asia, and as a multiplayer
shooter in the middle east.
Today, I want to talk about a phenomenon that has become quite annoying for me: the propensity
of some anti-SJWs to throw wild accusations of SJWdom around, like there was
no tomorrow. Overwatch has a racially diverse cast of characters? SJW conspiracy!
Somebody mentions a problem in an industry related to sexism? SJW cuck! Stellaris' default
human portrait is female? SJW pandering! An initiative to encourage girls to go into
STEM? SJWs ploy! The behaviour of these people kinda reminds me of this:
There are various things that irk me about such gross generalisations and accusations:
they are eerily close to the identity politics of the regressive left. Dismissing
an argument because the argument was made by someone belonging to a group of people
you don't like, and even worse, dismissing an argument because the argument was made
by someone YOU DECLARED to belong to a group of people you don't like, is not only intellectually
dishonest, it is also quite dangerous. I mean, we already have ONE faction
not being able to hold a rational discussion, we don't need ANOTHER faction to lose that
ability as well, for that would be a horrible barrier for any progress to be made.
Let me therefore state the following: a game designer valueing racial and gender diversity
in their games is not automatically a social justice warrior. Being 'inclusive',
as horrible as that term may be, is not automatically being a social justice warrior.
Campaigning for women's issues whilst NOT taking men's issues into account is not automatically
being a social justice warrior. Yes, I am aware that at this point in history,
men's rights is the more pressing concern in our society, but that doesn't mean
that everyone who DOESN'T see that as their main priority is AUTOMATICALLY A SOCIAL JUSTICE
WARRIOR.
This minority, and the broad generalisations that they spout, are certainly doing no one
a favour, especially when the same people proclaim that they are on the side of reason,
facts and open discourse. Fact is: even if laws and societal norms are skewed
towards women, even if ethnic minorities don't nearly face as many problems as the regressive
left wants to make us believe, there ARE still problems with sexism and racism
in the world. Denying this, and dismissing complaints that may or may not be valid with
the blanket statement of 'social justice bullcrap', is denying oneself the possibility to see
life through the lens of other people, and the opposite of said open discourse.
The same blanket statements also drive genuine victims of oppression into the arms of those
who want to exploit them for victim cred, white knighting and bogus statistics.
If we don't listen, if we don't try to keep an open mind, we create enemies that
shouldn't be our enemies. We create enemies that become just as bigoted and hateful as
the REAL SJWs, eventually turning into them, fueling this conflict even more. I realise
that sometimes, it can be hard to not just handwave everything that looks like SJWdom
from the outside away, to NOT fall victim to one's own confirmation bias and preconceptions,
but it's vital in order not to drift into crazy loonie territory.
The majority of the people that I criticise in this video seem to be part of what I have
dubbed the internet mind reader brigade. People for whom it is not enough to stick
to the facts, and to show the opposition how their supposed facts are wrong, but people
who go that one big step further and declare to know everything about people's intention.
News flash, little ones: you don't know ANYBODY's intention or agenda, except your
own. You may think you got it all figured out, but guess what, it seems like you have
to learn the same lesson SJWs have to learn: people are not black and white. Perhaps the
spectacled, bearded hipster defends his feminist friend not because he wants to score
***, but because he grew up in a household in which his mother was physically
abused by his father, and he swore to never let that happen again. Wouldn't that be a
good reason to be mislead to join the cult of feminism? And if you KNEW his history,
wouldn't you say that calling him a SJW cuck is counter-productive?
Or what about that fictional game developer who proudly stated they would like to see
more diversity of skin colors in their game? Perhaps they are NOT part of the San Francisco
clique, perhaps they are genuinely interested in promoting a positive outlook on
race relations? Perhaps they just find it aesthetically pleasing? Perhaps they are NOT,
in fact, part of the group that you think you are attacking when you criticise them
for being a lying SJW shill? It doesn't matter how much you think you know about people's
intentions and their inner workings of their mind, chances are, you are *** wrong,
and proclaiming you know somebody's inner workings is pretentious at best, and downright
ridiculous at worse. As a YouTuber, the internet mind reader brigade is a daily
part of my comment section, and so far, not ONE of the comments that claimed to know my
intentions for the things I do, not ONE of the comments that tried to tell ME what
my motivations are, was correct or even close to correct. So please, those who should
feel addressed by this video, give back your internet psychology diploma. You have not
earned it.
Of course, this doesn't mean that NOTHING we see in the media or in our surroundings
is part of the bigger, pink and fat and wobbly SJW blob. All I'm suggesting is to perhaps
not act like a brainless hate machine, but rather like a TRULY rational person. Thinking
about what MIGHT be the reason for people's behaviour first, and reflecting on whether
our first reaction to stuff that on the surface LOOKS like SJW nonsense is indeed
the RIGHT reaction, should be standard behaviour for all of us. Trying to calculate the
chances of us actually being right with our assessments should be mentioned as well, because
in the end, if we're not absolutely sure of someone's intentions, perhaps we should
abstain from making a judgment call.
Let me end this video on a flamebaity note, because I'm disgusted at own my non-offensiveness
today: anyone who uses the word 'cuck' unironically is an unoriginal, idiotic sheep.
There, now I feel better.
I thank you very much for watching, cheers ladies and gentlemen, and I see you soon!