There is no reason to entertain arguments about his hateful world view (and it's not even that, he just hates women). We know they have no merit. His issue isn't one with two sides.

Why does Dids and his ignore list post here? Has this question been answered?

But I still refer to the other part of my comment - I think we can all agree that there are political movements, laws proposed, etc. that are created and/or supported by people with ideas that many would find offensive. But they exist and are part of our world.

One cannot have a discussion about our world without discussing these ideas. One cannot counter an ugly mindset out there if one is not given the opportunity to do so.

Also- the fact that I believe he has no merit doesn't mean that there aren't millions of people who share his ideas. Not only do these people have a right to discuss and advocate the ideas that shape their politics - I say again, by having them argued against you may be influencing some on the border to learn that their ideas are 'without merit.'

I know that I have learned much and been influenced in my years on these forums. I have no reason to doubt that others are being similarly influenced. As such, while Sputty will probably remain the sh*tty little repugnant man he already is, others reading Sputty and those who counter him may become a little more open-minded seeing Sputty so regularly trounced.

Misclick

Discussing ideas with irrational people with hateful beliefs gives the semblance of credence to their ideas. If they are mocked and shamed into silence, those ideas will go away. I think people like Fly take this a level too far, but it is effective. Look at the LGBT movement in the last 10 years, that's been a very effective strategy.

We don't need **** like creationism and whether gay marriage is moral as a part of the public discourse. there's absolutely nothing to be gained by that because one side is clearly and demonstrably stupid.

the problem with topics like racism, here at least, is there are vast differences in opinion as to what constitutes racism, and the bruceZ camp is the one that seems to think comparing mexicans to cockroaches is okay to do, and people like fly that think if you sneeze the wrong way towards a brown person you may be a racist (sorry fly, I do like most of your posts). The first group is impossible to deal with and only deserve scorn. The second group is tolerable because the ends justify the means.

Dids the most hateful person in here calling others out is hilarious.

And once again i have to disappoint you Dids by telling you that feminism isnt women...

I would actually say its the opposite. People see that guys like you dont have any interest at all other than protect the view you have. Its very close to religious fanaticism. Any and all criticism is seen as hate and you feel compelled to defend that with any means necessary and since the arguments are few and far between the personal attacks are raining down on the ones who opposes the faith.

#feelingsbebeatsfacts.

No-one believes its okay to compare mexicans to cockroaches as far as I know.

but lies and personal attacks are allowed in PU so that's okay.

I say again - ideas that you and/or I think are merit less and shouldn't be given any consideration are regularly the driving force behind laws and political movements in our country(s).

To not discuss them and renounce them means that people who hold the same ideas only discuss them in their own echo chambers. The people who hold the meritless ideas never have the chance to have them countered. The divide continues and people become further entrenched in their own partisan worldviews.

There are people who were once racist who are more open minded now.
There are people on this forum who were once swayed by faith who are now more swayed by reason.
etc.

The people who have publicly proclaimed that they have, for instance, become less religious after spending time at RGT discussing things did not do so because religious ideas were not discussed; they did so because they heard both sides over time and the side that reasoned better convinced them.

While there will be people promoting crazy ideas whose minds will never change, that doesn't mean that having the ideas considered and then soundly rejected through reasoned discussion won't sway some participants or lurkers who were on the fence.

The fight for gay acceptance hasn't been succeeding because homophobes were completely silenced - its because positive examples, stories and arguments have over time proved more truthful then the side that promotes homophobia... it is this that has changed our culture.

Pretending that racists don't exist and countering them doesn't make them go away. It simply means they go to a space where they only speak to like minded people. And people who associate with them, who might go either way, don't get to hear the crazy ideas countered by others on the same turf.

If anything, having people like Sputty, unicornlord (whoever the guy is who does unicorn porn is) and even the troll mark### have a voice, as far as I'm concerned, only weakens their movement. When you have idiotic trollish posters countered by someone like dvaut, their stupidity is highlighted.

It would be a better argument if their were charismatic hateful people posting who made clever and convincing arguments to promote their cause. But when the people advocating for various 'isms' generally come across as ignorant oafs, I say they hurt their causes more then aid them.

I have no doubt this fully describes your worldview. You are a man of reason who simply can't convince these people with this religious belief that women haven't been treated as equals and should be. Why can't these religious zealots get that you and your buddy mark see reality while they, lost in their fanaticism, can't appreciate your buddy mark's clever jokes about women wanting to be raped?!?!

And the fact that you believe you are operating in a world of reason while everyone else is just discussing feelings is why I said above that no one expects you to change your mind. But I suffer no illusions that most people who read what you write don't think you're coming from a place of reason at all.

I do defend you from banning, but don't think I think you are a good poster. I don't think you post well reasoned arguments. You don't post facts and make compelling arguments from corresponding data. I simply separate you from Mark because you at least attempt to engage in dialogue and express your worldview as opposed to just bad trolling. But I don't actually think you've really even tried all that hard to make any specific arguments. You express a general disregard for feminism in general and attempt to paint any arguments about against men as some bad argument that its all creating false victimization and blaming men for everything... but its not actually a cohesive argument based in any facts. And its not even that unique. Its just the general prattle that we hear from a lot of people like you. But its not really all that articulate or compelling.

Again, I only support you because I think you're being honest about your views and I don't think you're trolling.

Yes speak more about feminism.

Dids, Anais, et al,

I don't believe you are helping the fight against trolls and racists by incessantly claiming your standards for offensive posts are objective and/or enforceable. Churning the issue of what should be outlawed as offensive in a theoretical framework seems to just derail the discussion when what actually is offensive to you and others comes up. There's not much need for such meta discussions. When you see stupid posts, there's plenty of folks who are happy to call them out or ignore them.

My opinion is just my opinion, of course. And it is shaped in large part by my intolerance for the whiny defenders of offensive posters (chiefly spank and AlexM)*. It's pretty easy to confront bigoted posts directly. And generally entertaining to read. But these meta discussions of what is or isn't offensive in objective sense are pointless. They aren't entertaining to read and just feed the likes of spank and AlexM who love to roll in **** all day.

This thread is yet another example of a thread that has devolved into this same topic.

* Although I have both on ignore now, so really none of this bothers me that much anymore.

We manage to discuss plenty of viewpoints that few posters here actually represent. There's plenty of people out there retweeting and writing think pieces about that stuff. The dialog will still happen. Look at the Tragic Death of the Republican Party thread in Alpha- a thread that sustains itself just fine with mostly one-sided input.

We'd still be talking about Gamergate if sputnik wasn't here to tell us in the first person. If he was banned not only would we still have dialog, it would be a much better dialog, because it wouldn't get interrupted every 6 posts to tell him that he's dumb and wrong.

Idk if this is true. I think the fact Republicans make crackheaded remarks and what not is what sustains that thread.

Since I saw this I feel the need to respond.

Hey dickcheese- when the "view" people have is "basic respect for human beings" then yeah- it's a pretty one sided debate and one that I'd hope people approach and protect with a degree of fanaticism.

You're an ignorant sack of crap, so perhaps you simply can't understand that all your arguments are rooting in nothing but misogyny, but they are, which renders them meaningless.

I have actually thought before that the one actually funny thing about sputty is he knows a lot of good gifs. This is actually a mistep of yours since its not clear how that gif in any way relates to feminism.

Also- I'm happy to speak of feminism in appropriate threads. I'd prefer not to continue the tangent of you defending your horrible views here as that's not really what this thread is about.

sidenote- its kind of funny that you try to engage me here in literally the only place where I'm trying to defend you to a crowd that, I'm pretty sure, all think you're a lousy person. You'd think you'd have the better sense to pick your battles better... or at least in a better place.

Not that I'm saying we do or should exclude Republicans from the thread- but if we did and the thread was just copy/pastes from liberals of Republicans saying dumb **** elsewhere (which mostly it is, which was my point) it would still exist in something pretty close to its current form.

It's not a perfect example, but it's a big ass thread that's sustained itself for a while.

We could talk sexism without having an actual sexist around. There's plenty of it out there.

Fair.

I will not post about that for 1 week and you get to have a dialogue. Just remember to have a dialogue and not a monologue. I want to see you brilliant minds come up with answers and not just pointing at some random tweets saying how bad gamers are.

Sputnik comes from the types of places on the internet that have good gif game. Those are the same places on the internet that drive gamergate. I'm not sure "tolerance for 4chan" is really a winning quality.

You defend free speech and not me. You made that pretty clear by adding some very nice words about me as a person. Leave them out next time and you might persuade me that you care.

That's his entire spiel. Post a random utoobz or link, wait for people to respond and then maybe decide on a position, possibly but probably not.

Link or utoobz was from a noted bigot or hate site, WHOOPS! Oh well, no one seems to care, so maybe the points was in the comments or something. Who can know? It's all just "content" added with no comment.

Tumblr?

kurto, as Dids rightly points out, you are supporting misogynists and 4chan culture by finding gifs humorous. You should be ashamed of yourself or something.

Thanks, Dids, for defending the walls of 2+2 from being made filthy by funny pictures.

Yes, that's EXACTLY what I said.

kurto's not wrong to laugh at stuff, but nobody should pretend that it's some special skill exclusive to sputnik.

in fact, for sputty's frequent use of stuff like this:

it's even more ironic because he always resorts to gifs when he's making an ass out of himself and has lost the ability to communicate on any intelligible level.

It would be like ikes resorting to gifs instead of semantiking it up