The Giant Beastcast: Episode 294

Yes shortsighted in Vinnie and his 3rd world country slip of the tongue, sure he would retract that. given the chance. Not very worldly but most of America stays put, travels domestically for the most part

@av_gamer@sethmode: Sorry but I just don't believe that some innocent kid plays CoD or whatever, hears someone say the N-word without repercussion, and comes out the other side a white supremacist. I believe that kid would have always become a white supremacist, because of how they were raised, where they were raised, hell their very genetics, and them being a gamer is incidental because gaming is simply an ubiquitous hobby among young people now.

However, I do believe that the internet has provided an avenue for people would have previously been isolated asshole extremists in their local town, find each other, group up, and become emboldened by the knowledge each other's existence. Easy global anonymous communication is bad in some ways, and I don't think we are ready for it; gaming is one among many avenues for that, just a particularly popular one.

People so easily ignore history and always think the current generation's problems are unique to the current generation's interests, when then simple fact of the matter is that this is hardly unique. Hate groups have risen to prominence many, many, many times in the past across many, many different cultures, including several times in US (and usually to much worse and bloodier end than what the current crop has accomplished so far). "Gamer culture" is responsible for jack squat, it's just something enjoyed by this generation's bullies, along with everyone else.

Gaming culture doesn't have a problem. People have a problem. Many people are now gamers. That's all, but people want their neat and clean boogeyman to blame for the current ills of society, instead of acknowledging the depressing truth that you're never going to rid the world of hateful people and some of those hateful people will show up doing things that you like too.

@sweetz: Oh it's a people problem, didn't realize that! Thanks for clearing it up!

@brainscratch: I understand what you mean, and you're definitely right, but I think the idea is more that America pitches itself as one thing and acts like the thing it constantly judges. At least, that's how I took it. Who knows what he definitely meant, it's a weird time.

Discussing important world events is Giant Bomb content and kind of always has been. If some people are bothered by that I assume they can either skip ahead or or choose not to listen.

No reason they should stop talking about it, if it's important to them.

Do you go into grocery stores and say, "I don't care about produce! Remove this produce from the store!" or do you realize you can just avoid the produce section and still get what you want from the store? Guess what, the buttons on your podcast player of choice work the same way. Instead of telling people what they can or cannot talk about on their own show, be a little less self-entitled and just skip the stuff you can't handle so that those of us who can handle it can appreciate it.

The only acceptable way to answer the phone is with "yello"

I don't trust people who answer the phone by saying "talk to me" because that's how the one armed man in The Fugitive answers the phone.

Other people have said it better here but, yeah, that "third-world country" comment is not great :/

Hey vindog, I feelya. I have decided to be silently angry as long as my mind has pieces to try to put together, of which there are many, none of which fit; ; which is to say- it can be an exhausting experience overall, and i care, you care, people should care, but please do not have a heard attack. Much love beastcast

also, third world is a term that is fairly recently went woke, which is great, education is great, but everybody put your flippin pants back on, Vinny was trying to use a word for warzone, or chaotic anarchy state full of morons, which, if you want to say that, third world country actualy works as an imaginary hypothetical. He didn't call any country a third world country, except that we're acting like the idea of how that term rubs people the wrong way.

Don't apologize for shit, vinny. or do f you feel like it i guess; do not feel shame for saying something (you know who you are) the need-to-sensitive-everything overly PC younger generation who only know the ...correct...but also historically universally generalized and ONLY used term for 'developing country', because we didn't fucking say 'developing country' until recently.

So, while I am more speaking to the megawokes in the comment here I guess, while that sentence made me kinda wince, now ya know, but it's not a big deal its just a tinderbox, and if you're super offended over an angry offhand for-his-age's-generation-perfectly-PC-now-redefined-to-reflect-it's-studied-derogatory/inflammatory descriptor-status as a put-down: That's fine, but come on man, thicker skin, or know the man who said it and just say hey, today we say ___ instead, leave it at that. If he said "SOME FUCKIN THIRD WORLD COUNTRY LIKE (country)", we'd be having a totally different discussion. He said "like some third world country", which, when you take the millenial out of it, generally means "fucked up". But he didn't say _ is a third world country, he says we're acting like a country that winds up with the side effects of what would historically have been consequential from long-standing issues that results in violence, a charactleristic of what used to be called "third world'. It isn't anymore, and that's good, but it was, most of my life and in heat of the moment if you asked me to check my semantics, at least on this one, I would suggest you look at the bigger problem rather than the word used improperly.

Vinny didn't mean to say Developing Country. He meant to say warzone or country in violent civil unrest, which, if the term Third World refers to the older understanding of a war-torn, backward, suffering country, the shoe fits for how he said it. Not so much the woke version of the current times, where it literally translates to 'developing country', which is a compassionate replacement term for third-world, which was a shit term to begin with, but we decided that along the way well after Vinny and even I hit my late 20's. Language changes, and that's fine, we can change too.

But if you're going to hang this over Vinny's head, comments; it's fuckin' VINNNY. He is a literal bleeding heart and if you think he meant to say anything of a put-down, clearly you don't know Vinny, and also possibly need to know that there are generational term-gaps that will bother you, and be..quite literally the only known term for the same thing, only outdated, and frankly, in 2021, a nonsense term anyway.

@nokami: Maybe this isnt the website for you.

Seeing this sort of viewpoint is incredibly important to a lot of people. Especially those living outside of the US who only hear about America, for the most part, through news media. Love to the team.

On the 3rd world comment - It is ignorant, and I'm sure Vinny knows that. The man is upset; gets a pass from me.

@mops: Oh get off the high horse. He's not wrong.

They are entitled to their opinion, but not sure they get to dictate what the team editorialises about. But thanks for a really well thought out response!

@typhy: As someone who truly cannot be categorized as being either left or right, I'd like to point something out.

Calling for fascist tactics to be used against someone you vehemently disagree with, but who has been perfectly polite in his discourse (and frankly, even if he had not been polite), makes you the fascist. Everyone has their opinions and they're entitled to them regardless of whether you agree with them or not. Trying to silence or "cancel" people because of those opinions is part of why the political discourse in this country has devolved to the point it has. Don't perpetuate it. If you disagree, announce it and move on. You don't have to engage with any of it. But calling for fascist tactics to silence someone you're basically asserting is a fascist is...not a good look.

This entire thread is full of easily-verifiable-as-being-incorrect claims being spewed by both sides of the argument. But, calling for an outright ban of an account because you've determined their opinions and presence is unacceptable, regardless of your political stance, is what is truly unacceptable.

@mops: As someone that feels like he knows where Vinny was coming from, I still think your post was fine and that other poster was weirdly hostile. Normally, this isn't something I would respond to, but things are weird here and being kind seems more important than ever.

@thej6m: In the simplest terms I can manage, the BLM movement represents the will of the people. The Capitol Riots represented an attempt to derail the will of the people.

@swazzyswess: right on

Third world is a term that was perfectly normal during a great part of many people's life. Just because suddenly some people decided it's a "bad word", doesn't make it actually wrong, just outdated, since the countries originally seen as Third world countries are often no longer in that situation (and some countries devolved to such a state). It suggests corruption, lack of democracy or development in general. Countries that often saw scenes like this week, in which election results were met with violence and a refusal to give up power by the losing side. So calling it a "third world scene", is perfectly apt, even if there no longer is something as a "third world".

It's really disheartening to see so many in the liberal spectrum trying to one-up each other, and attacking what should be comrades. There are 70+ million people who voted for a terrible, vile person, people here that think that protesting against racism is pretty much the same thing as protesting in favour of racism, but sure, keep yelling "do better" and "don't use that word!" every chance you get at those who are actually in your camp. The day the big discussion is about *how* tolerant we should be towards things, is a good day. Up to that day, how about we start by unifying against those who are completely intolerant, ok?

Nicely said, the only thing I might tweak though is that 'gamer culture' i think, like 'third world' is that there is a new-variable aspect to video games, which are pretty much universally mainstream at this point- but not always, and even 15 years ago, 'gamer culture' as it would have been known now, was basically 4chan. That was the demo, and honestly, it hasn't changed much, as far as people who want to claim themselves as 'the gamer', who knows all, sees all, argues all. So yes. It's people, but video game players historically act like they are caught in some long, unending fight to preserve some hobbyist exclusive identity. It's stupid, and mirrors a lot of the dumb shit in politics, so 'gamer culture' can fuck right off. Brands as a priority, preying on another generation without a war, just as unhappy as the punks of 80's but instead of songs, 360 noscopes, being, in this age, from the time they can hold a phone and play fortnite, are shuttled into some appealing and colorful loyalist identity life-course-deciding sponsorship't bullshit and all, and it makes them tune into VERY different channels in life, that are (sigh) surprisingly stupid. and young. and outspoken, as is this generation in general. I'm not entirely sure you actually can separate the two- media culture, and the 2000's born generation. Obviously, most in that bracket on this site don't fall into that category cause this site doesn't tolerate this shit as much as everywhere else, but, in that everywhere else, gamer culture, while not synonymous with aimless-angry-misinformed-and-'left-out' self-percieved outsider groups like white nationalists or the incel community; boy, do they share a lot of the same people. I just feel like this is noteworthy, because if there were a time in history where younger people are both hyper intelligent and able to find information, there sure is a lot of dumb coming out of people instead.

No, not every milennial or later is screaming racial epithets over xbox live- but they might be posting longform arguments about a game's 'goodness' or worse, 'how aloy looks too manly' on reddit. Just saying. Stupid is always in style in the gaming world. The problem, and to get to my point to your point, is that this spills into voting season. It's not solely responsible, of course, and people obviously should know how to make good decisions and or be educated, but man, we already asked them to put the games down; beginning to seem like a tall ask. Here is hoping though.

. Also, if gamer culture in it's best form, means twitch, reporting sites, and general online discourse, yeah, it fucking sucks. But at the end, yes- it is people that are the problem. They just have a 24/7 soapbox available to them in a way they never did- myself included, and what an absolute quality use of time I must say. What's worse, a bad game/bad game industry thing, or the insufferable wall of noise from ages 8-70, that inarguably more intense/toxic/neurotic/alt-wing the narrower the cone gets on the ages 15-30?

You said what i've been trying to type better, yes. To my knowledge, every country is on the rise, i'm sure anyone could instantly undercut this statement out of my ignorance, but yes, nobody says third world anymore mostly because it doesn't really refer to an actual situational contexual space in which that term originally (and problematically) was formed to describe 'suffering, unstable, and long-standing issues leading to violence' prone countries. In fact, I might even go as far as to say by that metric, if you take out the conflation of the economics and racism placed on what people react to, with the actions of those in what were referred to as third world countries, in the sense, serious problems SOS; Half the THE USA (take a guess) IS ACTING ON THE MOST INSUBSTANTIAL BULLHEADED MISUNDERSTANDING of what it actually means to be opressed, thus, yes, from a glance- I only vaguely winced when vinny said third world, because yeah dude, it's pretty fucking third world to bomb the capitol. It is not very Developing country to do that.

That's the point vinny was trying to make (actually he wasn't, he was just trying to find a word for 'fucked up country state we were led to believe we're better than, but are not' - which Vinny of all people very fully understands

. I'm liberal, but yyyyyeezus, my fellow bleeding hearts, bleed less at those on your side.

It's also how Uncle Jessie from Full House answered the phone though, so maybe that tips the scale back toward trustworthy?

Hearing Vinny say they had to go down on their bitrate, but this file is 192kbps which is crazy for a mono podcast. You could easily reduce that to 96. Remember that the bitrate is shared per channel, so 192kbps mono is the equivalent of a 384kpbs MP3, which is way overkill. In fact the max bitrate for MP3s is 320kbps, so you're really going out of your way with the bitrate here.

Either that or actually go to stereo, I'd love if you could mix it so that people have different pannings.

I also don't trust Beach Boys fans post-Kokomo.

It's a crime there isn't already a Muppets pinball machine.

There's a fair number of folk in this thread essentially saying they'd be ok with racist oppression so long as white supremists are like polite about it

America's Been Coup'd

@tomba_be: The original comment I saw about "third world country" was from someone who lived in a country often identified as one. Hearing a podcast host you like say "third world country" like Vinny obviously didn't feel great, and I can understand why! It's true that American exceptionalism has a long history and some people are only now starting to grapple with the problems of that mindset, but I don't see anything to gain by denigrating those pointing out those problems, particularly when they're personally affected by it.

Tactics can be difficult to navigate. Many people point to Karl Popper's "paradox of tolerance" which points out that "tolerance" is a weapon that can be dishonestly wielded by the intolerant (fascists, racists, etc):

Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.

I think the South African policy of apartheid and how that was fought is an interesting example of a struggle here. In much of the Western world, acceptance of apartheid was the polite policy position (at the same time a lot of POC in South Africa were being murdered by the regime), until activist organizations started urging boycotts, sanctions, and deplatforming of South Africa on the international stage. People who were in no way responsible for apartheid were nevertheless barred from operating in the UK (one of the main partners of South Africa) because of, frankly, impolite behavior by protesters. Was that wrong? Certainly not, and in comparison to the oppression and murders committed by the South African regime, some would say that the response was paltry indeed.

Are any and all means taken against fascists, racists, and sundry acceptable? No, obviously not; we should not drag anyone into the street for summary execution (which is what several of them want to do with us)!

Is banning polite arguments (and the people making those arguments) for disenfranchisement and dehumanization of minority groups in the category of means that is inappropriate? Definitely not, particularly when we remember that in accepting those polite arguments, we create an extremely hostile environment for targeted groups.

@druv: See the part where I specifically said "even if he had not been polite?" If all you got out of my statement was the "polite" part, then you missed the point entirely.

If you call for the silencing of someone you disagree with, regardless of your alleged moral justification, then you're using fascist tactics. Period. It's in the definition of the word. It needs to stop. Every fascist personally believes their actions are morally justified. That doesn't make them correct. The oppression of any group is unacceptable, even if you feel morally justified in doing so. If you refuse to communicate with your "enemies" then you'll never have peace. Don't silence them, put forth your facts and make them look like fools, or let them keep talking and make a fool out of themselves.

Also, show me where anyone in this thread condoned or encouraged the disenfranchisement of any group, aside from the people calling for the outright banning of accounts because those accounts have an opinion which differs from their own. Expressing an opinion that differs from your own doesn't mean that the person with the differing opinion should automatically be assumed to be at the far end of the political spectrum, opposite yourself. Yet, that's the knee-jerk reaction of both sides, and both sides need to stop doing it or this country will continue to descend further into chaos, with neither side getting what they want.

My response to you was for the entirety of your post. I'm sorry if you can't look past some snarky italics.

Fascist/racist/sexist harassment should obviously be banned. The same sentiments being uttered in a polite fashion should also be banned, because otherwise you essentially make a forum that is not welcoming to the groups targeted by it.

Pulling people out in the street and executing them is a fascist tactic. Saying "our forum is not one where fascists can be buddy-buddy with each other or spread disinformation" is quite far from it. Calling for boycotts and ostracizing apartheid regimes are also not fascist tactics.

@druv: Back to the polite thing, again? My mistake was including that word in my post, as you seem hung-up on it.

And btw, you're right about apartheid, but that isn't what we're talking about here. They were not silenced, they were boycotted and ostracized, like you said. Big difference. It was the publicizing of the issue and allowing the world to see the situation which garnered massive support to finally fight against it and bring it to an end, not silencing them or attempting to remove them from the face of the earth. If they had been silenced and heard-from-no-more then the end result would have taken much longer than it did, if it happened at all. I know this for a fact, as in my youth I was associated with a group of artists who banded together to let the world know that we "ain't gonna play sun city!" which served to draw more attention to the problem.

I've been more than clear on the points I've been trying to make, twice now. Take what I said to heart, or leave it, or continue to try and insult me and argue about it with yourself. I'm not here to change your mind, merely to point out what should be obvious. "Morally justified fascism" (whatever the hell that is), is still fascism. and counterproductive to whatever your cause may be.

Enjoy. Stay safe.

This is where you are just plain wrong. I also used to think that bad people should be allowed to speak their mind, because it makes it plain to see they are bad or stupid people. I thought that people should be free to deny the holocaust for example, because it seemed as dumb as denying Napoleon existed or that grass was green.

Today it seems that obviously stupid or plain evil ideas, seem to take root in large parts of the population. Confronting people with facts also no longer helps, because they are happy to call facts "opinions". Denying the holocaust is a fairly accepted idea among those on the far right.

So yes, as a society we need to protect our democracy from fascism, even in that requires us to be less democratic by banning those wanting to live in a fascist regime. We need to protect a tolerant society, by being intolerant to intolerance. Not doing so, would be as ignorant as refusing to fight against the nazi's because waging war is not a peaceful action, although war was needed to gain peace.

Hey, y'all. Just got here. What did I miss?

Hey, I’d watch Peter Falk dialing numbers on an old rotary phone all day long

Patrick Klepek over at Waypoint had the same issues with Umurangi Generation that Vinny did - and he said he pushed through the gameplay to get to the story and loved it. I hope Vinny does too considering how awesome that game is

Moderating comment sections on a website for video games is not fascism.

An excellent way to handle this.

194th!

I'm glad you're all here, despite it all. Thanks for everything, gents.

I know we are all talking about the Capitol stuff, and I could get in to that. But what I want to mention is that everyone should play 13 Sentinels. Its really good. But yeah, fuck fascists.