Bigotry is a political opinion, but the idea that all political opinions deserve identical respect is really dumb.
Some people’s ideas are bad, actually. It is fine and good to tell them where to shove it.
The kneejerk demand for “civility” confuses polite responses for appropriate responses. Some people are monsters. Some people need to hear, “fuck off.” That is the correct attitude for a worrying number of online interactions, and if moderators won’t step up and proactively remove the bigoted propagandist time-vampires who deserve it, the least they can do is stay out of the way. ‘What you chose to say is fucking awful’ cannot possibly be more of a personal attack than being told ‘everyone like you is inherently broken.’
Being black isn’t political, until bigots like you make it political.
Being female isn’t political, until bigots like you make it political.
Being queer isn’t political, until bigots like you make it political.
Every “identity” I’ve ever been given has come through violent conservative oppression. Sometimes I’m the group they like - sometimes I’m the group they hate. But I’ve never fucking asked for the distinction.
Gender, religion, sexuality, ethnicity… these matter as much as hair color, until some asshole decides there’s a right answer. Every flavor of “identity politics” that conservatives screech about is an abuse they invented and hurled at people until those victims stood up and shouted “Motherfucker I am.”
You don’t need pride until someone’s tried to make you feel lesser.
Get our of our goddamn way, and stop imagining you’re the good guy. You are the entire problem. You can stop, at any time.
Bash.org used to have a “worst of” section, for the lowest-voted quotes. It was mostly racist garbage. At some point the worst went something like, ‘that’s where black people belong: back of the bus, bottom of Bash.’
They nuked that shit shortly after, because why the fuck would you want that on your server?
We can’t be far from text-to-speech tweaking a ton of voice acting. Might have to pronounce or IPA your custom name, to get an AI voice to nail it… but maybe it’s better-off being wrong. There’s disarming verisimilitude in schmaltzy NPCs confidently fumbling your character’s name. Or if some characters heard it, but haven’t seen it, and you catch some mutter ‘so that’s how it’s spelled.’
“Identity politics” always seems to mean “I am upset that different people exist.”
This is a nothing option in a video game. Nobody’s rubbing your nose in it. It doesn’t affect you, at all, but it’s a neat little extra for other people. Do you give a shit about other people? Or does the mere possibility of anyone distinct from you, the protagonist of reality, fill you with emotions you can’t handle? There’s no third option, here. It’s a checkbox for how NPCs choose voice lines, in exactly the same way they’ve done for decades. It’s just separate now.
But of course one glance at your profile shows you’re an unapologetic bigot, and what you mean by “gEnDeR iDeOlOgY” is exactly what every other diet Nazi means by it: you hate queer people, and you want it to be their fault.
Network effect creates barriers to new competitors, regardless of quality. Either for the upstarts or the leaders. See: Twitter. Once some choice is the default, anything else faces an uphill battle.