This new stand alone release based on the legendary War in the Pacific from 2 by 3 Games adds significant improvements and changes to enhance game play, improve realism, and increase historical accuracy. With dozens of new features, new art, and engine improvements, War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition brings you the most realistic and immersive WWII Pacific Theater wargame ever!
Not at all, just basic social psychology. The demographics of the wargaming community are well known, and with that comes a set of associations with a whole range of factors, same as any other group that you'd care to define.
What we're seeing here is the power of normative social influence establishing a particular pattern of behaviour, and the resulting backlash when such a behaviour is challenged.
maybe where you live that may be the case i live in sydney my local war gaming shop is anything but old and white and its a very good community
Worth exploring some of the links in the article below:
Feel free to take umbrage with some of the wider findings, but the demographic section is not misaligned to my comments, in so far as the trend for older white males certainly holds firm.
ORIGINAL: RangerJoe
ORIGINAL: mind_messing
Not at all, just basic social psychology. The demographics of the wargaming community are well known, and with that comes a set of associations with a whole range of factors, same as any other group that you'd care to define.
What we're seeing here is the power of normative social influence establishing a particular pattern of behaviour, and the resulting backlash when such a behaviour is challenged.
You commentary is interesting when you make a comment that I have violated laws in certain parts of the world yet you offer no proof of such when I asked for it. I am calling on Edmon, Eric Rutin, and/or Iain McNeil publicly to ban you permanently for making such unsubstantiated claims and ignoring my request for such proof.
To be frank, when the forum denizen with a known penchant for posting swastikas publicly calls for me to be banned, I'm taking that as an indication I'm doing something right.
Apparently you do not know what the swastika means.
Seek peace but keep your gun handy.
I'm not a complete idiot, some parts are missing!
“Illegitemus non carborundum est (“Don’t let the bastards grind you down”).” ; Julia Child
Having read all of the posts regarding Matrix's new policy, there are a couple of things I'd like to point out. One, context matters. The picture posted of the fruit that looked exactly like a woman's vagina with a note "remind you of anything" is clearly meant to show a woman's vagina and inappropriate for a WWII game forum, I don't care if it's off topic or not. I certainly would not want my wife/daughter walking up behind me with that post there. Anyone who says different is hiding behind calls of censorship, which I adamantly oppose. Two, Matrix has decided to descend down a slippery slope that we see happening across the globe, where "fact checkers" decide what's true/untrue, but who checks the checkers? Three, back to my first point about context. Do historical-based nose art pictures belong in a WWII-based game? Of course they do, it's part of history. Do modern nose art pictures that would have been deemed pornographic in WWII belong...that I'm not so sure.
Rewriting history so it passes today's politically correct standards is simply wrong. How does one learn from history if one rewrites it? I think it is a mistake on Matrix's part to censor anything that can legitimately have come from history. For example, I use one of the swastika flag mods in WiTE2, not because I'm a Nazi or a sympathizer, but because I'm a history buff and it takes away from my immersion to see the Iron Cross flag. I understand it used to be illegal in Germany, but not anymore. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45142651
I would also point out that the hammer and sickle killed more people that the swastika did as both were run by sociopathic monsters, yet there's never any issue with that. Changing history is very, very dangerous as it allows those changing to also change or rewrite out the atrocities as well.
While I have no issue with Matrix trying to apply some standards, I would caution them that their customer base is largely history buffs like myself. I for one, am not interested in games that have "sanitized" to the point that they no longer represent historical facts and while pictures on women on planes may not be PC today, they were in fact history. I would ask that Matrix at least consider using a historical lense when deciding what is pornographic or objectifying women. I spent 6 years in the USAF as an Arabic translator and as one post noted, there are parts of this world where a women in shorts is pornographic so we need to be very careful when heading down this path.
actrade - This was a really good post, and those at Slitherine who are pushing the most extreme aspects of this agenda would do well to take notice.
All very good points, and well stated. While this feels like home to many, it does not belong to them. The people to whom it does belong have duties and responsibilities beyond making a few customers happy.
The main benefit of this forum is matching PBEM, and the insane wealth of knowledge shared freely by members. If that were to end because a few people find the benefit of posting a certain type of imagery outweighs those I’ve noted, well, I’ll always disagree with the moral decision that they’re obviously free to make. I would hope that after tempers cool, they recognize that there is benefit to this community beyond the fleeting pleasure of being naughty in public.
Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. - Miles Kington
thank you for the article is interesting I wasn't having a go at you just saying what it is like in my nek of the woods i do live in one of the most multi cultural city's in the world and its good to see people from all walks of life when i first started out it was mainly people from an ex military back ground like you said white in there fiftys to now all walks of life
Ok, a few points that go through my mind to go deep into the whole "depictions of women that are attractive to men are evil" thingy:
1. Sexuality is not inherently evil. It is as natural as eating, drinking, sleeping and all the other things animals do to sustain their species.
2. Pagan religions often celebrated sexuality but when the concept of churches was originated, those religions decided they needed to control their parishioners so they would spend more time worshipping. Keeping them at home procreating to make more parishioners was the end result. To do that, they needed to declare most forms of having fun as evil things (like "the demon rum").
3. The more you try to suppress human curiousity, the more humans will obsess on the subject. When I was a child sexuality and childbirth were hidden topics - we got the stork treatment. I knew nothing about sexuality except what I learned from older kids in the street - which was crude and objectifying to women. Ditto for the men's magazines we would sometimes get a peek at.
4. Hollywood and other types of media did a nudge-nudge wink-wink treatment of sex that told youngsters there was something interesting going on but it was a buried treasure they could not access.
5. Because of these influences, those of us born in the 50s did grow up with objectifying views of women because we rarely saw them depicted otherwise. Their lack of power enabled men to define what they could be and it was big news when a local woman became a doctor or politician.
6. Over succeeding generations to the present women have struggled to change the view of them to a more wholesome one - that they have minds that are as capable as mens' are, that they can be stellar athletes and performers, that they have a personality that must be reconned with if you want to befriend them and that they must juggle many roles to fit in the society we have.
7. And besides the accomplishments in point 6, they still want to be seen as attractive people. Biologically, men are wired to first assess physical attractiveness, so imagery/impressions are important. Evidence of women's interest in making themselves attractive:
(a) the cosmetics industry
(b) the fashion industry
(c) the diet industry
(d) to some extent the fitness industry
8. Women's own sexuality has only recently been acknowledged as "normal", but the things men learned to call sexually active women have carried on - and should be called out whenever they are used. I cringe when forumites use the term "that rhymes with witch", even if they are referring to unpleasant behaviour of a woman rather than her social life. This disparagement of women is what can be picked up by children and carried on into their adult life,
9. Today's children are learning a healthier way of looking at the role of women and how to relate to them as persons, not objects. That includes learning about their sexual biology and some of the sexuality that comes with it. It is no longer shocking to children to see a depiction of a women with breasts bared or kissing their partner in public. The cage of evil that religions built around women's sexuality is finally almost removed. But as evidenced in the censorship of pin-up art here, the old attitudes are still with us because that is what we learned when we were growing up.
10. We really ought to look to women to tell us what they find objectionable and what is objectifying. There will be a range of opinions from them, but I suspect they would allow enough to show the contours of their bodies without showing their private anatomy. That is what they do in public every day.
11. And a point on objectification - it happens to all of us. To the salesperson trying to make a deal you are a customer - an objectified wallet if you will. To the bus driver you are a rider - an object to be picked up and delivered (unless you are such a regular that the driver gets to know a bit about you over the years). Objectifying women as sexual beings is not totally wrong, it is just a very incomplete picture of who they are.
No matter how bad a situation is, you can always make it worse. - Chris Hadfield : An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth
Well, I learned very early on that those chest swellings were for feeding babies when my Mom would feed my sister. [:'(] Why are men still so interested in them? [&:] Well . . .
As far as the bus drivers go, they have learned about me . . . [8|]
Seek peace but keep your gun handy.
I'm not a complete idiot, some parts are missing!
“Illegitemus non carborundum est (“Don’t let the bastards grind you down”).” ; Julia Child
Ok, a few points that go through my mind to go deep into the whole "depictions of women that are attractive to men are evil" thingy:
1. Sexuality is not inherently evil. It is as natural as eating, drinking, sleeping and all the other things animals do to sustain their species.
2. Pagan religions often celebrated sexuality but when the concept of churches was originated, those religions decided they needed to control their parishioners so they would spend more time worshipping. Keeping them at home procreating to make more parishioners was the end result. To do that, they needed to declare most forms of having fun as evil things (like "the demon rum").
3. The more you try to suppress human curiousity, the more humans will obsess on the subject. When I was a child sexuality and childbirth were hidden topics - we got the stork treatment. I knew nothing about sexuality except what I learned from older kids in the street - which was crude and objectifying to women. Ditto for the men's magazines we would sometimes get a peek at.
4. Hollywood and other types of media did a nudge-nudge wink-wink treatment of sex that told youngsters there was something interesting going on but it was a buried treasure they could not access.
5. Because of these influences, those of us born in the 50s did grow up with objectifying views of women because we rarely saw them depicted otherwise. Their lack of power enabled men to define what they could be and it was big news when a local woman became a doctor or politician.
6. Over succeeding generations to the present women have struggled to change the view of them to a more wholesome one - that they have minds that are as capable as mens' are, that they can be stellar athletes and performers, that they have a personality that must be reconned with if you want to befriend them and that they must juggle many roles to fit in the society we have.
7. And besides the accomplishments in point 6, they still want to be seen as attractive people. Biologically, men are wired to first assess physical attractiveness, so imagery/impressions are important. Evidence of women's interest in making themselves attractive:
(a) the cosmetics industry
(b) the fashion industry
(c) the diet industry
(d) to some extent the fitness industry
8. Women's own sexuality has only recently been acknowledged as "normal", but the things men learned to call sexually active women have carried on - and should be called out whenever they are used. I cringe when forumites use the term "that rhymes with witch", even if they are referring to unpleasant behaviour of a woman rather than her social life. This disparagement of women is what can be picked up by children and carried on into their adult life,
9. Today's children are learning a healthier way of looking at the role of women and how to relate to them as persons, not objects. That includes learning about their sexual biology and some of the sexuality that comes with it. It is no longer shocking to children to see a depiction of a women with breasts bared or kissing their partner in public. The cage of evil that religions built around women's sexuality is finally almost removed. But as evidenced in the censorship of pin-up art here, the old attitudes are still with us because that is what we learned when we were growing up.
10. We really ought to look to women to tell us what they find objectionable and what is objectifying. There will be a range of opinions from them, but I suspect they would allow enough to show the contours of their bodies without showing their private anatomy. That is what they do in public every day.
11. And a point on objectification - it happens to all of us. To the salesperson trying to make a deal you are a customer - an objectified wallet if you will. To the bus driver you are a rider - an object to be picked up and delivered (unless you are such a regular that the driver gets to know a bit about you over the years). Objectifying women as sexual beings is not totally wrong, it is just a very incomplete picture of who they are.
Well put. I grew up on a farm so I saw the way animals reproduced. My parents were children in the mid 40s through the 50s. Things must of been starting to change at that point because my brother's and I learned early....GP
To be frank, when the forum denizen with a known penchant for posting swastikas publicly calls for me to be banned, I'm taking that as an indication I'm doing something right.
Well your own forum history is well know to most too...
And I DO NOT want to defend RJ, however he is right with the swastika. I looked into this a while ago and it is a symbol that was used by severall cultures long before the "Nazis". I only asked RJ that he did not post his pics in normal forum threads butin OT ones, cause they were also too big and too much scrolling...
Nazis recycled the symbol and also some other stuff eg. from the romans (like the US also does btw. you can see clearly some buildings are roman influenced plus the "fasces" are widely used too):
IMO to consider a pin-up in a plane pornographic or the like is just insane, stupid political correctness.
Just go to any beach, anywhere any summer and you will see more "porn".
I wanted to say this already there are always 2 involved...
I mean (some! or even many) women/girls obviously are totally fine w/ it. Or would they work in the pron industry otherwise ? Or as half naked "modells"? What about all these online girls showing themselves half naked? And cam girls and girls that sell their underwear or even bathwater(!)...[:D]
And note these are mostly "western" women not from poor countries, so even if they would desperatly need to show themselves as such "sex objects" I do not buy this.
Firstly we still have social security in the west, normally no one would starve (I know in the last years this got worse), secondly they have a chance to find other means of making money then undress or make cam vids etc.? One could understand it if these were all women from Africa or China where they might be forced to do this.
Just some food for thought[;)]
(in short I want to say many women "objectify" themselves evidently without anyone forcing them too)
IMO to consider a pin-up in a plane pornographic or the like is just insane, stupid political correctness.
Just go to any beach, anywhere any summer and you will see more "porn".
I wanted to say this already there are always 2 involved...
I mean (some! or even many) women/girls obviously are totally fine w/ it. Or would they work in the pron industry otherwise ? Or as half naked "modells"? What about all these online girls showing themselves half naked? And cam girls and girls that sell their underwear or even bathwater(!)...[:D]
And note these are mostly "western" women not from poor countries, so even if they would desperatly need to show themselves as such "sex objects" I do not buy this.
Firstly we still have social security in the west, normally no one would starve (I know in the last years this got worse), secondly they have a chance to find other means of making money then undress or make cam vids etc.? One could understand it if these were all women from Africa or China where they might be forced to do this.
Just some food for thought[;)]
(in short I want to say many women "objectify" themselves evidently without anyone forcing them too)
Getting money to feed yourself is covered by social security, but getting money to enjoy the good things in life is not. Often the only jobs open to women are the lowest paid ones, and they have to work more than an 8 hour day to feed their family. At least part of this is the system that did not consider women for "men's work" until recently. I am thinking of the construction industry where it was assumed a woman could not handle heavy construction vehicles. Maybe some can't but that applies to men too. Given the chance, women have proven they can do the job diligently and precisely - just like they built airplanes in WWII.
Some women do enjoy making money off their sexuality, but many more only do it because they don't see another choice.
At any rate, the people in charge at Matrix have decided it will be much better to avoid the topic of sex in postings here and I can't say I blame them. Things can get a whole lot more complicated when sex is brought into the environment because there are so many ideas of what is tolerable and what is not.
No matter how bad a situation is, you can always make it worse. - Chris Hadfield : An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth
"It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.”
¯ Primo Levi, writer, holocaust survivor
There's been an awful lot of arguing going on about some rather simple things. One forumite in particular just loves making point after point after mind numbing point, but he does that with everything, the subject doesn't matter. The outcome is always the same. He convinces no one. The crux of this matter is about a picture of a milkweed flower. Edmon says it is NSFW. If I put up ten pictures of milkweed flowers on an office wall and that cropped close up were one of them would the long knives come out? I doubt it. Edmon said it was my intent that mattered, not his reaction to it. It's been pointed out as hypocrisy that Matrix/Slitherine uses sex to sell. Everybody does, that's nothing new and it isn't going to change. That hypothetical office with the flower pictures on the wall might have a TV turned on with an ad running talking about bent carrots. I thought about posting a pic of a bent carrot but I don't want this thread locked. Can Edmon do anything about those ads? I hate them, I wish he could. But then I'd be hard pressed to think of an ad that doesn't annoy the heck out of me.
Another angle of objection brings up "family". I know this has happened to everyone or nearly everyone. Remember when you were say 6 years old and you were with a parent when they said to another adult "You're acting like a 6 year old. Grow up!" Remember how it felt? Your parent thought he was insulting the other adult. We tend not to give kids credit for anything. Would I get banned from the forum if I said Santa Claus isn't real? We men tend not to give women credit for anything too.
On the other hand (and I don't mean to offend anyone missing a hand or two) I remember when I was a kid knowing what those giant statues of R.E.Lee and the like were meant to do. I could imagine how they must make "black" people, "people of color" feel. Intimidation. Intent does matter. Back in '68 after MLK, Jr. and RFK were assassinated my parents banned toy guns from the household. We couldn't have so much as a squirt gun. They were right. What are we training our kids to be with all the make believe violence on TV? The incident in Oxford Michigan comes to mind. Despite my parents I took an interest in military history and began (adult?) wargaming and have maintained an interest since. What exactly on Matrix forums is safe for work or our homes for that matter? Why is sex so awful and violence so much fun?
You are bringing up a valid point that I have also observed over the years. For some reason sex is seen as something worse in our current society than violence.
One example that came to my attention was on the website patreon (a site to financially support content creators of all kinds), at some point the site started to ban content creators who were doing something erotic, I am not even talking about models or anything, but just artist who drew lewd art for example. At the same time content creators who created content with sometimes disgusting violence(subjective of course) were spared.
I don't fully understand why it makes sense to ban pictures with half-naked women, but to think it is totally okay to allow pictures where someone was shot in the head.
I also know that steam doesn't allow 18+ lewd games on their store, but they do allow 18+ game with extreme violence.
I guess it is something emotional that we perceive sex and violence differently, but it is only a wild guess on my part.
Maybe allowing such content to be considered normal would only lead to more objectification of woman, maybe it would have the opposite effect. I am not really in a position to tell for certain.
And to be fair, that is not something matrix or any moderator here can be hold accounted for, as this behaviors seem to be universal.
You are bringing up a valid point that I have also observed over the years. For some reason sex is seen as something worse in our current society than violence.
One example that came to my attention was on the website patreon (a site to financially support content creators of all kinds), at some point the site started to ban content creators who were doing something erotic, I am not even talking about models or anything, but just artist who drew lewd art for example. At the same time content creators who created content with sometimes disgusting violence(subjective of course) were spared.
I don't fully understand why it makes sense to ban pictures with half-naked women, but to think it is totally okay to allow pictures where someone was shot in the head.
I also know that steam doesn't allow 18+ lewd games on their store, but they do allow 18+ game with extreme violence.
I guess it is something emotional that we perceive sex and violence differently, but it is only a wild guess on my part.
Maybe allowing such content to be considered normal would only lead to more objectification of woman, maybe it would have the opposite effect. I am not really in a position to tell for certain.
And to be fair, that is not something matrix or any moderator here can be hold accounted for, as this behaviors seem to be universal.
Good points Maallon. I think part of the failure of western society is our focus on "having stuff" and "being entertained" rather than having relationships with family, neighbours, and workmates or schoolmates. Our schools teach the classic topics - reading, writing, arithmetic, and a smattering of art and history. They do not teach communication and body language which are key in learning how to handle disputes without violence. They do not teach how to approach someone you are interested in and make a connection without being crude or overbearing or too timid and obtuse about what your intentions are.
Most of all they do not show our kids how to de-escalate the anger of a situation. Instead they make every situation about "winning" and mocking "losers" which just encourages escalation of violence. A Communications expert taught me some things about this that allow me to put my ego aside and deal with a situation objectively without feeling the need to come out on top. Sometimes that means agreeing to disagree and move on.
No matter how bad a situation is, you can always make it worse. - Chris Hadfield : An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth
Yeah that's definitely true. We are currently often more focused on materialism and entertainment and less focused on interpersonal relationships.
And how to conduct interpersonal relationship is often something that everybody has to figure out on his/her own and results tend to vary.
I think even though we have such awesome technology nowadays that make communication so easy, we probably also live in an age where never before so many people were so lonely.
What you describe as de-escalation is something I personally had to learn over the years through life experience. (and I am still by no means a master of this art)
But this kind of behavior is often the exact opposite of what mainstream media normally displays.
I don't think censoring this stuff would achieve anything good though, as censoring is only a tool to mitigate symptoms, not to solve the root problem.
I would also agree that teaching our children how to de-escalate a situation and that it is okay to not always come out on top would be a good thing.
At the very least to achieve a more balanced approach to conflict than the currently very one-sided one.
But how exactly to achieve this, I don't know. But I also don't have any education as a teacher.
I know that back in my school days we got some few lessons about conflict solving at some points through our school career, but I also remember that absolutely nobody took them seriously.
It sounds like your lessons in conflict management came when you were a teenager - too late to really sink in because teenagers spurn most adult attitudes then. [8|] Start them in Kindergarten, not just telling them to be nice but showing them how to do it would help a lot.
No matter how bad a situation is, you can always make it worse. - Chris Hadfield : An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth
ORIGINAL: geofflambert
There's been an awful lot of arguing going on about some rather simple things. One forumite in particular just loves making point after point after mind numbing point, but he does that with everything, the subject doesn't matter. The outcome is always the same. He convinces no one.
; Julia Child
