@totalbiscuit is one of the #GamerGate guys whose heart is more or less in the right place, but has never grasped the underlying issue. He released a joint statement with some other guy with whom he has been sparring. Most of the points are banal enough, but two require comment:
Diversity is important among game creators, players, and characters, and this is an important conversation that must be encouraged, not punished. Diversity leads to better stories, better stories lead to better games. If someone posts an article or video that you disagree with, the correct response is to write a comment, write to the editor, or create your own opposing article or video. It is not appropriate to threaten his or her safety, family, or anything else along those lines.
No. Diversity is not even remotely important among any of these people. Nor is it an important conversation that must be encouraged. It is simple SJW entryism and Totalbiscuit has fallen for it. If Diversity led to better stories, then SF/F would be better than the SF/F of 30 years ago. It’s not. It is considerably worse, by virtually every standard.
But yes, it is not appropriate to threaten people simply because you disagree with them. Or to spend hundreds of hours trying to hack their server; we are still seeing the hacker bounce off our security.
Gamers have endured attacks from the mainstream media for decades and we should be doing everything we can to bring that ignorance to an end, not further fuel it with incendiary rhetoric.
Again, @totalbiscuit is wrong. Only rhetoric can fight rhetoric. I cite Aristotle: “Before some audiences not even the possession of the exactest
knowledge will make it easy for what we say to produce conviction. For
argument based on knowledge implies instruction, and there are people
one cannot instruct.”
In other words, you cannot use dialectic to convince anyone who cannot be instructed of anything. It will not work. Only rhetoric will suffice.
PS: Do to some various distractions, I will be posting my answer to “what can I do” tomorrow. In the meantime: join Twitter, follow, 1 #GamerGate retweet, 1 #GamerGate favorite. That’s a 10-second daily commitment. If you can’t do that, you can’t do anything.