617 réponses à ce sujet

[Lady Artifice]

 If it's still possible at this point, we should really try to defuse this discussion. It's not that hard to understand why some people might get their hackles up over the phrase "straight white males" entering the conversation. It's just a description, on the surface, but it's no use denying that sometimes it comes with a stereotype attached, like any broad description of any group of people.

[Gothfather]

To be sort of fair, it is annoying when a person or character wont shut up about something. It doesn't even have to be related to sexuality, just have a god damn personality beyond one thing.

 

It's like how I dislike Anders in Dragon Age 2 because everything he says is about how he's a mage being oppressed by the horrible templars.

And none of Bioware's characters ever go on and on about their sexuality. So to be 'fair' this falsehood that the LGBT character's Bioware make that go on and on about their 'gayness' is rooted in homophobia because they don't. Sera in DA:I talks about Qunari woman being big but doesn't go on and on about it. Cortez in ME3 goes on about his LOSE not because he is stressing his fraking sexuality but because he fraking lost his husband. You know maybe losing your spouse to the war might. I don't know, have lasting ramifications? But because his spouse is a man people are like 'eeeeeew he wont shut up about being gay.' Except in this context his sexuality is expressed only in the fact that the gender of his dead spouse is the same as his. So he isn't actually going on and on about his sexuality but rather talking about the loss of family which is a perfectly fraking REASONABLE response.

 

There are no Bioware characters that go on and on and on about being gay. Now there are plenty of reasons to hate Anders, I do it myself but his 'gayness' isn't why i hate the character. I hate the character because he is one of the best written villains bioware has ever made. He whines all the time about mage oppression that I dismissed him as the threat, as someone who goes 'boo hoo mages' all the time doesn't come across as a mass murderer and I turn around and BOOM. It was a very well written twist. Was I surprised? yes and no. Yes that I never expected him to do it he is your companion after all, but no it makes sense he becomes an extremist.

 

People who feel that Bioware is pushing a gay agenda are full of it. They don't push LGBT sexuality onto players, the simple existence of a minority of characters in Bioware games that are gay isn't actually pushing an agenda nor is it forcing players to have to deal with 'gayness.'

 

Despite what some claim (yes i am looking at you 'In Exile' lol) the power of the gay penis is only as powerful as the player makes it, it has no power in and of itself. The truth is that Bioware characters are greater then the sum of their sexuality, Sera is a in a class war, Dorian is brash and overconfident mage, Cortez is a man suffering extreme loss, Anders is an extremist, Fenris is engaged in a revenge fantasy I could go on, but the core aspect of these characters, of all Bioware characters ISN'T their sexuality. And bioware does not go out of their way to somehow create living embodiments of the perfect LGBT person, to be presented the best possible light. They have been assassins, terrorists, mercenaries, slave owners, individuals with robot fetishes, they are all presented as humans with flaws just like all the heterosexual characters bioware makes.

 

The mere existence of LGBT characters isn't forcing sexuality on anyone. To be honest i wish there were more Anders style romance interactions in Bioware games, where the NPC makes the first move rather than always initiated by the player. But immature reactions to Anders nixed that. I will grant that Anders' timing was terrible but the outrage wasn't because of his timing it was because a percentage of my fellow male straight gamers feared that Anders' gay penis would somehow put the wammy  on them, as if that is even possible.

 

Frankly I see no reason to humour homophobia, because if they win I lose out as a gamer. I would miss the line where Sera says we have too much in common for a romance to work between us. 'We both like girls.'  But seriously Diversity brings in more gamers, more gamers means more money, more money grows the industry. A larger industry means more companies and projects making games. More games means I have greater selection and a greater chance of innovations improving the games I buy in the future. Diversity makes my gaming experience better in the long run.

[Seraphim24]

A bullet splitting a particularly ignorant skull is physical, physics is the study of that and other things. Sex is physical, sexology would be the study of it. 

 

Rejecting knowledge is the path of the deluded and insignificant. 

 

On the 1% chance you guys have just interpreted me wrong.. I'll go into this in more detail.

 

1. If Physics were the study of the physical, and sex is physical, then really, the study of sex would be physics, and sexology as the study of sex would be a redundant concept, and redundancy which is a concept which I think is universally regarded as a bad concept.

 

2. Physics, a science devoted to understanding matter, has produced as you (although, I'm not actually sure on the specifics of this) guns and bullets. It's also produced the ability to mass murder massive amounts of civilians with no real precision and commit genocide. Call me crazy, but it sounds like Physics as a whole can be argued has somewhat questionable value. So we landed on the moon, what is that ultimately than another factoid in a prideful measuring contest that means nothing to really anyone? All that money could of spent on feeding the population, instead, we landed on a rock in outer space. I can see more obvious practical applications, such as flight, but which seemed to be guided by much more rudimentary understandings of physics, almost just strictly mechanics and more common sense, than the big bang theory.

 

3. Science as a whole is derivative of the classical greek socieities, where it's arguably a branch of philosophy. Much of modern medicine, science, and law descended from antiquity where arguably each of those people filled multiple roles, they weren't engaged strictly in the practice of science necessarily but more as abstraction as a means to obtain greater and more certain knowledge about matters related to more grounded human affairs.

 

Modern scientists somewhat share this notion, some of the most famous some as Einstein viewing what they do not as science but as a branch of philosophy.

 

4. When I took physics in college, I was intrigued by the immense theoretical structure, and I got a good grade, in fact, I took it twice really, once, even considered majoring in it. But it also just left me feeling empty and isolated, these weren't people we were talking about.

 

5. In more practical terms, the tendency to value guns and the bullets and technology (sort of like the Hound's character and his big sword commentary in GoT with the big sword and armor discussion with Arya) also has many practical limitations. Since I believe you are somewhat familiar with WW2, I'll go with analogy from there. I don't, by the way, in any way, imply that your discussion of science or technology or abstraction or reason isn't really focused on balls rolling up and down ramps, which I did with some degree of pleasure and interest, and which those who transport large goods are forever valuable for, and not on weapons technology, which as far as I know is the greatest fascination not of Germany or France or even former USSR, but probably America and the UK, or wars founded on racial ideology, which, I suppose we'll never really know which countries favor that to the utmost, for fear of recrimination..

 

However, it happened to be something I came across some time ago and unrelated to this thread, and happens to involve both WW2 and military technology so......

 

In the Battle of Crete, the Nazis were experimenting with crack troops and elite technology, airborne troops parachuting from the sky, but it was a failure. Why? Because no matter how far you get away from people, if you want to embrace them, or hate them, or anything in between, then you have to go to them, close, physical, personal. They lost to peasants and farmers and people with knives borrowed from the kitchen, it was a disaster, and coupled with the defense against the Italian army, which relied specifically on physical things like geography and the terrain to change the nature of the battle, which caused suffered an also large number of losses, Hitler actually ultimately blamed his failure in Operation Barbarossa not on the Soviet Union but on Italy's failures in Greece, and some Historians also point to the Battle of Crete as central in shifting Germany's strategy from an aerial and crack army focused one to a more typical and conventional type, meaning the war against the Soviet Union was uniquely different compared to the Battle of France and Greece. On that point, actually, the Battle of France was interesting to me personally because, while the battle had always been presented to me as an unqualifed triumph for the Germans, it was actually pretty much an even battle all the way up to and including the capitulation. Moreover, a huge percentage of Germany's air and armored forces were destroyed. These are points I actually had to research on my own exactly, I simply noticed that the casualty figures for German aircraft in WW2 was absurdly high, in ways that didn't seem to be recognized by any historian I had come across. 

 

Moreover, Aircraft didn't even really determine the conflict in France, Hitler was constantly fretting the whole time and when France launched a single counter-attack, he panicked completely like a total whining ninny and wanted to throw all their gains away. It was only because of generals like Rommel (who was noted for his habit of ignoring Hiterls' explicit racial policies) and Guiderian, who completely ignored direct orders from High Command in several instances, that Germany was able to break through at Sedan and ignite the processes of encirclement.

 

Combined with the points about Greece and Crete,I realized that these "battles" that Germany supposedly won were based entirely on their own artifical impression of the value of their toys, combined with an albeit somewhat unrelated point to our discussion about a sense of racist/nationalist divisions in the first place, and over-reliance on technology and science. They won battles over the "French" and the "Greeks" in their respective countries and these arbitrary political processes, but that racist/nation-state approach and their fascination with gimmicky planes was also exactly the reason they lost, major portions of the French army, and also Greek citizens who evacuated to various French Foreign colonies or Egypt which was British controlled at the time, they conquered "countries," they developed fancy toys that maybe made some things easier, for a time, or in some ways, perhaps, and they saw and viewed themselves as masters of the "European political process" at the time, the process of subdividing and classifying people according to the arbitrary factors like ethnic origin..

 

..but it was precisely their toys and way of viewing the world that also undermined them in the end.

 

Even though the Free French forces had the 4th largest standing army by the end of the war, and is actually a super interesting story of equality given that it was composed of people from like 20 different countries or something, it's almost impossible to read in any great detail about their role in the offensives through France in the later stages of WW2, given that it's mostly dominated by literature on the British and the Americans.

 

Ignornace of knowledge or history or personalities, or even technology or science, is a common and lamentable thing, a tendency to over-value or otherwise centralize it's importance above all else is a much less common, but still problematic and flawed thing. I have a habit of.. I don't know.. maybe coming across to people like some kind of... well.. I have no idea what I come across as, so maybe I'm just not getting the memo that you people don't want to talk to me. I guess I'm just saying, if you guys don't want to talk to me, ok, but please don't hate me...

 

I would like for it to be possible to read more about these conflicts, the fact that Germany's perception of themselves as incipient rebels is actually just a bastardization that was a consequence of a total jerk and reject like Frederick the Great (who actually wanted to run away from his life as heir to the throne) ascending to the throne and establishing a poor precedent that was also followed by other big time jerks like Bismarck and the big H, and which unfortunatey obsfuscates a much more engaging and compelling history stemming from the Teutonic Knights as well as the Hohenzolleren dynasty, which were at least successful in maintaining order and promoting the general welfare. Maybe the country of Germany just wasn't lucky in having a kind of Capetian miracle, I don't know all the details, but I do know that the diplomatic revolution as a consequence of the First and Second treaties of Versailles and which Frederick was instrumental in influencing, was also instrumental in triggering a series of wars and counter-wars, counter-conflicts that left millions dead and only a lingering sense of seeing the conflict continue on afterwards.

 

I would like to be able to read more about random things like Marshal Saxe's conquest of the Netherlands, Maria Theresa's role in preserving the flailing Austrian Empire, and a different perspective on the notion that the French lose every battle they fight, because for every fight I read about from Crecy to Reims during Napoleon's Six Days Offensive, they were pretty much on the winning side, and why Napoleon called the battles in Spain his "ulcer." I also wouldn't mind reading about how in every conflict involving the Dutch, they invariably end up doing something positively inept like engaging in conflicts and sustaining casualty rates primarily from their own friendly fire...

 

I would like people to point out that Poland adopted a bear as a corporal and that bear transported ammo crates very successfully, to remind us all that even the darkest moments are filled with more relatable moments.

 

I would also like to read more about how the greed of a cadre of Americans, from the likes of JP Morgan and others animated the Dawes plan, which was ultimately a massive thorn in Weimar Germany's attempts to maintain economic stability, as linking their economic fates would have disastrous consequences in light of the severe uncoupling of the American economy during the Great Depression.  I would also like to read about the Racial Equality Proposal of 1919 put forth by Japan, which purported to make Japanese people seen as equal with European and American/UK powers on a political level, and which France, Greece, and Italy voted for, but the UK and US voted against, a factor seen as transforming US's relationship with Japan and ultimately dovetailing into WW2. Or the fact that Austrailia went so far as to announce that 95 out of 100 Australians rejected the notion of racial equality. Or the fact that most Germans actually were very supportive of Hindenberg, and it was only due to his extremely advanced age and eventual death that a snot like Hitler ever won anything at all. Or the fact that

 

I also would occasionally like to read or hear about things other than WW2, or eve be a bit more daring and go beyond European history, or at least the notion that human history started with the Rennaissance, and certainly the insistence that Germany = Nazis or = Bad, or any European country for that matter is filled with a tragic histories involving this invisible concept of race, or that America has a perfectly clean and unapproachable history in that regard, or just the notion that people are in any definied by this arbirtary system of invisible lines someone happened to surround them with.

 

I would like to read about how Joan of Arc wasn't just some transcendental female symbol of French resistance during the hundred years war,  she was an actual down to earth general, with tremendous tactical and strategic skill in the actual mud of battle, capable of winning great victories that would make Patton gape and go slackjaw. She was so talented she actually made devoted followers of some of her male companions such as Jean De Brosse.

 

I would like to read about nuances of political systems, such as how historically speaking "democratic" forms of governance were often associated with centralization and mega level states (the opposite of openness), while feaudal systems, which were theoretical I guess monarchial and hyper controlling, could often be highly de-centralized in practice. It seems to me that rather than take a country's statement about it's "democracy," at face value, it would be good to analyze on a case by case basis whether that notion of democracy is actually associated with a rise in centralization or is in fact an attempt to permit more diverse channels of discussion.

 

Heck, I wouldn't even mind hearing about how Hitler himself had a pretty horrible life, parents who didn't really get him, surrounded by illness and death his whole life. How he gave his Jewish doctor honorary Aryan status even after he failed to save his mother from dying. How Mein Kamp, despite being noted for it's extreme racial and ideological poison, was also an expliciation of Hitler's understanding that no matter what, he would respect the concept of a poltical process, one that accorded authority according to people's ability to believe in it, and not to base usurpration and radical violence.

 

I would also like people to pick up on my suggestion the "Stop trying to be cool" thread about the IT nerd who is just super excited and interested in telling you about sattelite rays from space synchronizing your clock or something, something that seems to have died out somewhere, to say that like Bill Nye the Science guy would promote, the idea that science can be fun and exciting.

 

And above all I would like for us to stop having to deal with my admittedly undesired foray into politicking and history and gender and all this other jargon, and which rest assured you don't really have to persuade me to do.

 

And would like me and you and the people who liked your post to be friends. If that is too much to ask, then at least to respect each other. If nothing else, at least the ability to go our separate ways and respect the ability to be different. Any of those would satisfy me, although in descending order of preference. But whatever happens, I hope you and others can find ways to be happy, every day of your life. Especially you Ms. Sardaukar, you seem like a good person..

 

..But with all that said I'm not going to concede the notion that abstraction, and systems, are not the end all and be all, personal and yes physical experience is our ultimate guide in more ways than just sex.

 

...I also may or may not have been listening to Rammstein this entire time...

 

Finally, to bring it back to the topic more directly, this games most definitely should be made..... for "softies," people who despise conflict in all it's forms, and want nothing more than the ability to have a calm and happy existence. It should be made for the goofy Kaidans of the world, not the unrepentently jerkish Jacks, and whatever it ends up being, people should respect that these things are ultimately the province of their creators, that opinions are cheap, and if things don't satisfy you, it's every person's responsibility to find their own way to make the things they care about a reality, and not to forcibly impose their own worldview on others.

 

It's also the province of those creators to embrace and accept those underlying facts, that they are the ones who control the magnitude of their expression and message, how it should or should not be displayed or whether people should be allowed to distort it...

[Seraphim24]

I guess you're the expert.

 

I know that something as powerful as sex is not to be viewed through the monocle of an academic, that it is much closer to a spiritual center than any god in Christian religion, that's what I know.

 

If it must be, then at least it must be given deference who view it in a more physical sense.

[Steelcan]

Oh Maker, I take a short nap and this happens...

[FKA_Servo]

On the 1% chance you guys have just interpreted me wrong.. I'll go into this in more detail.

 

In light of your well-documented intelligibility issues, this might be one of the funnier things you've put down here.

 

As for the rest, my god.

[straykat]

I know that something as powerful as sex is not to be viewed through the monocle of an academic, that it is much closer to a spiritual center than any god in Christian religion, that's what I know.

 

If it must be, then at least it must be given deference who view it in more physical terms.

 

It's nice to view sex in such serious terms (and I don't know why you put in the Christian comment there.. because they do the same), but I think most people don't. "It's just sex" - is how many people see it. Even a lot of serious couples get a little bored with it or casualize it.

[Lady Artifice]

Sexuality is linked to biology, and thus study-able.

Simple.

[Master Warder Z_]

Oh Maker, I take a short nap and this happens...

 

Liquor?

[Nattfare]

On the 1% chance you guys have just interpreted me wrong.. I'll go into this in more detail.
 

Spoiler

1. If Physics were the study of the physical, and sex is physical, then really, the study of sex would be physics, and sexology as the study of sex would be a redundant concept, and redundancy which is a concept which I think is universally regarded as a bad concept.
 
2. Physics, a science devoted to understanding matter, has produced as you (although, I'm not actually sure on the specifics of this) guns and bullets. It's also produced the ability to mass murder massive amounts of civilians with no real precision and commit genocide. Call me crazy, but it sounds like Physics as a whole can be argued has somewhat questionable value. So we landed on the moon, what is that ultimately than another factoid in a prideful measuring contest that means nothing to really anyone? All that money could of spent on feeding the population, instead, we landed on a rock in outer space. I can see more obvious practical applications, such as flight, but which seemed to be guided by much more rudimentary understandings of physics, almost just strictly mechanics and more common sense, than the big bang theory.
 
3. Science as a whole is derivative of the classical greek socieities, where it's arguably a branch of philosophy. Much of modern medicine, science, and law descended from antiquity where arguably each of those people filled multiple roles, they weren't engaged strictly in the practice of science necessarily but more as abstraction as a means to obtain greater and more certain knowledge about matters related to more grounded human affairs.
 
Modern scientists somewhat share this notion, some of the most famous some as Einstein viewing what they do not as science but as a branch of philosophy.
 
4. When I took physics in college, I was intrigued by the immense theoretical structure, and I got a good grade, in fact, I took it twice really, once, even considered majoring in it. But it also just left me feeling empty and isolated, these weren't people we were talking about.
 
5. In more practical terms, the tendency to value guns and the bullets and technology (sort of like the Hound's character and his big sword commentary in GoT with the big sword and armor discussion with Arya) also has many practical limitations. Since I believe you are somewhat familiar with WW2, I'll go with analogy from there. I don't, by the way, in any way, imply that your discussion of science or technology or abstraction or reason isn't really focused on balls rolling up and down ramps, which I did with some degree of pleasure and interest, and which those who transport large goods are forever valuable for, and not on weapons technology, which as far as I know is the greatest fascination not of Germany or France or even former USSR, but probably America and the UK, or wars founded on racial ideology, which, I suppose we'll never really know which countries favor that to the utmost, for fear of recrimination..
 
However, it happened to be something I came across some time ago and unrelated to this thread, and happens to involve both WW2 and military technology so......
 
In the Battle of Crete, the Nazis were experimenting with crack troops and elite technology, airborne troops parachuting from the sky, but it was a failure. Why? Because no matter how far you get away from people, if you want to embrace them, or hate them, or anything in between, then you have to go to them, close, physical, personal. They lost to peasants and farmers and people with knives borrowed from the kitchen, it was a disaster, and coupled with the defense against the Italian army, which relied specifically on physical things like geography and the terrain to change the nature of the battle, which caused suffered an also large number of losses, Hitler actually ultimately blamed his failure in Operation Barbarossa not on the Soviet Union but on Italy's failures in Greece, and some Historians also point to the Battle of Crete as central in shifting Germany's strategy from an aerial and crack army focused one to a more typical and conventional type, meaning the war against the Soviet Union was uniquely different compared to the Battle of France and Greece. On that point, actually, the Battle of France was interesting to me personally because, while the battle had always been presented to me as an unqualifed triumph for the Germans, it was actually pretty much an even battle all the way up to and including the capitulation. Moreover, a huge percentage of Germany's air and armored forces were destroyed. These are points I actually had to research on my own exactly, I simply noticed that the casualty figures for German aircraft in WW2 was absurdly high, in ways that didn't seem to be recognized by any historian I had come across. 
 
Moreover, Aircraft didn't even really determine the conflict in France, Hitler was constantly fretting the whole time and when France launched a single counter-attack, he panicked completely like a total whining ninny and wanted to throw all their gains away. It was only because of generals like Rommel (who was noted for his habit of ignoring Hiterls' explicit racial policies) and Guiderian, who completely ignored direct orders from High Command in several instances, that Germany was able to break through at Sedan and ignite the processes of encirclement.
 
Combined with the points about Greece and Crete,I realized that these "battles" that Germany supposedly won were based entirely on their own artifical impression of the value of their toys, combined with an albeit somewhat unrelated point to our discussion about a sense of racist/nationalist divisions in the first place, and over-reliance on technology and science. They won battles over the "French" and the "Greeks" in their respective countries and these arbitrary political processes, but that racist/nation-state approach and their fascination with gimmicky planes was also exactly the reason they lost, major portions of the French army, and also Greek citizens who evacuated to various French Foreign colonies or Egypt which was British controlled at the time, they conquered "countries," they developed fancy toys that maybe made some things easier, for a time, or in some ways, perhaps, and they saw and viewed themselves as masters of the "European political process" at the time, the process of subdividing and classifying people according to the arbitrary factors like ethnic origin..
 
..but it was precisely their toys and way of viewing the world that also undermined them in the end.
 
Even though the Free French forces had the 4th largest standing army by the end of the war, and is actually a super interesting story of equality given that it was composed of people from like 20 different countries or something, it's almost impossible to read in any great detail about their role in the offensives through France in the later stages of WW2, given that it's mostly dominated by literature on the British and the Americans.
 
Ignornace of knowledge or history or personalities, or even technology or science, is a common and lamentable thing, a tendency to over-value or otherwise centralize it's importance above all else is a much less common, but still problematic and flawed thing. I have a habit of.. I don't know.. maybe coming across to people like some kind of... well.. I have no idea what I come across as, so maybe I'm just not getting the memo that you people don't want to talk to me. I guess I'm just saying, if you guys don't want to talk to me, ok, but please don't hate me...
 
I would like for it to be possible to read more about these conflicts, the fact that Germany's perception of themselves as incipient rebels is actually just a bastardization that was a consequence of a total jerk and reject like Frederick the Great (who actually wanted to run away from his life as heir to the throne) ascending to the throne and establishing a poor precedent that was also followed by other big time jerks like Bismarck and the big H, and which unfortunatey obsfuscates a much more engaging and compelling history stemming from the Teutonic Knights as well as the Hohenzolleren dynasty, which were at least successful in maintaining order and promoting the general welfare. Maybe the country of Germany just wasn't lucky in having a kind of Capetian miracle, I don't know all the details, but I do know that the diplomatic revolution as a consequence of the First and Second treaties of Versailles and which Frederick was instrumental in promoting was also instrumental in triggering a series of wars and counter-wars, counter-conflicts that left millions dead and only a lingering sense of seeing the conflict continue on afterwards.
 
I would like to be able to read more about random things like Marshal Saxe's conquest of the Netherlands, Maria Theresa's role in preserving the flailing Austrian Empire, and a different perspective on the notion that the French lose every battle they fight, because for every fight I read about from Crecy to Reims during Napoleon's Six Days Offensive, they were pretty much on the winning side, and why Napoleon called the battles in Spain his "ulcer." I also wouldn't mind reading about how in every conflict involving the Dutch, they invariably end up doing something positively inept like engaging in conflicts and sustaining casualty rates primarily from their own friendly fire...
 
I would like people to point out that Poland adopted a bear as a corporal and that bear transported ammo crates very successfully, to remind us all that even the darkest moments are filled with more relatable moments.
 
I would also like to read more about how the greed of a cadre of Americans, from the likes of JP Morgan and others animated the Dawes plan, which was ultimately a massive thorn in Weimar Germany's attempts to maintain economic stability, as linking their economic fates would have disastrous consequences in light of the severe uncoupling of  I would also like to read about the Racial Equality Proposal of 1919 put forth by Japan, which purported to make Japanese people seen as equal with European and American/UK powers on a political level, and which France, Greece, and Italy voted for, but the UK and US voted against, a factor seen as transforming US's relationship with Japan and ultimately dovetailing into WW2. Or the fact that Austrailia went so far as to announce that 95 out of 100 Australians rejected the notion of racial equality. Or the fact that most Germans actually were very supportive of Hindenberg, and it was only due to his extremely advanced age and eventual death that a snot like Hitler ever won anything at all. Or the fact that
 
I also would occasionally like to read or hear about things other than WW2, or eve be a bit more daring and go beyond European history, or at least the notion that human history started with the Rennaissance, and certainly the insistence that Germany = Nazis or = Bad, or any European country for that matter is filled with a tragic histories involving this invisible concept of race, or that America has a perfectly clean and unapproachable history in that regard, or just the notion that people are in any definied by this arbirtary system of invisible lines someone happened to surround them with.
 
I would like to read about how Joan of Arc wasn't just some transcendental female symbol of French resistance during the hundred years war,  she was an actual down to earth general, with tremendous tactical and strategic skill in the actual mud of battle, capable of winning great victories that would make Patton gape and go slackjaw. She was so talented she actually made devoted followers of some of her male companions such as Jean De Brosse.
 
I would like to read about nuances of political systems, such as how historically speaking "democratic" forms of governance were often associated with centralization and mega level states (the opposite of openness), while feaudal systems, which were theoretical I guess monarchial and hyper controlling, could often be highly de-centralized in practice. It seems to me that rather than take a country's statement about it's "democracy," at face value, it would be good to analyze on a case by case basis whether that notion of democracy is actually associated with a rise in centralization or is in fact an attempt to permit more diverse channels of discussion.
 
Heck, I wouldn't even mind hearing about how Hitler himself had a pretty horrible life, parents who didn't really get him, surrounded by illness and death his whole life. How he gave his Jewish doctor honorary Aryan status even after he failed to save his mother from dying. How Mein Kamp, despite being noted for it's extreme racial and ideological poison, was also an expliciation of Hitler's understanding that no matter what, he would respect the concept of a poltical process, one that accorded authority according to people's ability to believe in it, and not to base usurpration and radical violence.
 
I would also like people to pick up on my suggestion the "Stop trying to be cool" thread about the IT nerd who is just super excited and interested in telling you about sattelite rays from space synchronizing your clock or something, something that seems to have died out somewhere, to say that like Bill Nye the Science guy would promote, the idea that science can be fun and exciting.
 
And above all I would like for us to stop having to deal with my admittedly undesired foray into politicking and history and gender and all this other jargon, and which rest assured you don't really have to persuade me to do.
 
And would like me and you and the people who liked your post to be friends. If that is too much to ask, then at least to respect each other. If nothing else, at least the ability to go our separate ways and respect the ability to be different. Any of those would satisfy me, although in descending order of preference. But whatever happens, I hope you and others can find ways to be happy, every day of your life. Especially you Ms. Sardaukar, you seem like a good person..
 
..But with all that said I'm not going to concede the notion that abstraction, and systems, are not the end all and be all, personal and yes physical experience is our ultimate guide in more ways than just sex.
 
...I also may or may not have been listening to Rammstein this entire time...
 
Finally, to bring it back to the topic more directly, this games most definitely should be made..... for "softies," people who despise conflict in all it's forms, and want nothing more than the ability to have a calm and happy existence. It should be made for the goofy Kaidans of the world, not the unrepentently jerkish Jacks, and whatever it ends up being, people should respect that these things are ultimately the province of their creators, that opinions are cheap, and if things don't satisfy you, it's every person's responsibility to find their own way to make the things they care about a reality, and not to impose their own worldview on others.
 
It's also the province of those creators to embrace and accept those underlying facts, that they are the ones who control the magnitude of their expression and message, how it should or should not be displayed or whether people should be allowed to distort it...

 
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[SnakeCode]

I'd argue that in order to get real variation in feedback they'd ideological diversity more than gender or racial

 

Don't be silly, all of these hactivists are pro diversity in everything, except it seems, diversity of thought. That's actively discouraged.

[straykat]

I grew up in a diverse home (Asian and White/Scandi), as well as being a traveled military brat.

 

And I still would rather just say I'm an "American". It's a very broad term most aspire to. I'd say my religious beliefs actually distinguish more than anything. I doubt anyone like myself would even get to write for Bioware on that alone.

[Master Warder Z_]

I grew up in a diverse home (Asian and White/Scandi), as well as being a traveled military brat.

 

And I still would rather just say I'm an "American". It's a very broad term most aspire to. I'd say my religious beliefs actually distinguish more than anything. I doubt anyone like myself would even get to write for Bioware on that alone.

 

You have a point.

[SentinelMacDeath]

I step out for 10 mins to get food...

 

[Han Shot First]

A thread titled 'don't make this game for softies' was always bound to go places. I'm surprised it took this long. 

[Lady Artifice]

So, I guess we're not considering the defusing option.

[Steelcan]

So, I guess we're not considering the defusing option.

nah wouldn't be fun

[Gothfather]

I grew up in a diverse home (Asian and White/Scandi), as well as being a traveled military brat.

 

And I still would rather just say I'm an "American". It's a very broad term most aspire to. I'd say my religious beliefs actually distinguish more than anything. I doubt anyone like myself would even get to write for Bioware on that alone.

Ironically the LAST thing I aspire to be is "American" and i would go out on a limb and say that includes 99% of Bioware staff as well because I am and they are mostly CANADIAN. So I don't think 'most aspire to' is really all that accurate given the context of the talking about the writing staff.

 

Seriously the world doesn't actually revolve around America, despite what fox news might believe. The rest of the world doesn't actually sit around wishing they could all be American.

[Han Shot First]

So, I guess we're not considering the defusing option.

 

I'm in favor of the Dr. Strangelove option. 

 

[straykat]

Ironically the LAST thing I aspire to be is "American" and i would go out on a limb and say that includes 99% of Bioware staff as well because I am and they are mostly CANADIAN.

 

I don't see the big difference. We're both historically founded on many of the same French/Enlightenment ideals. We're both very mixed culturally. We both like rock and roll and hamburgers.

[Master Warder Z_]

I'm in favor of the Dr. Strangelove option. 

 

I just can't help but think of this every time I recall that movie now.

 

Spoiler

[Master Warder Z_]

I don't see the big difference. We're both historically founded on many of the same French/Enlightenment ideals. We're both very mixed culturally. We both like rock and roll and hamburgers.

 

It's like people say, their the United State's hat/little half brother.

[SentinelMacDeath]

Ironically the LAST thing I aspire to be is "American" and i would go out on a limb and say that includes 99% of Bioware staff as well because I am and they are mostly CANADIAN. So I don't think 'most aspire to' is really all that accurate given the context of the talking about the writing staff.

 

Seriously the world doesn't actually revolve around America, despite what fox news might believe. The rest of the world doesn't actually sit around wishing they could all be American.

 as a non US citizen but green card holder, whenever I get asked when/if I want to become a citizen and I say "HELL TO THE NO" I always get this baffled look of disbelief, how could someone not want to be a US American. 

 

I don't ever want to be American. I'll always be Austrian and nothing else. 

[Master Warder Z_]

I don't ever want to be American. I'll always be Austrian and nothing else. 

 

That's sad but understandable, but given the two countries very good relationship that's likely why there is disbelief, you aren't a resident of Russia, or Tunisia or Angola. But one of the strongest pro american forces in Oceania. I'd presume so anyway, I mean that's why I'd be surprised if I worked in immigration.

[straykat]

 as a non US citizen but green card holder, whenever I get asked when/if I want to become a citizen and I say "HELL TO THE NO" I always get this baffled look of disbelief, how could someone not want to be a US American. 

 

I don't ever want to be American. I'll always be Austrian and nothing else. 

 

That's cool. But when I said "many people aspire to be", I meant here. I'm not all that different from many white/black/mexican kids I grew up around. They might have been more racially "monochromatic", and I was a mutt.. but in the end, we're all similar.. and would just call ourselves "American".

 

The things that actually distinguish me have nothing to do with race.