It’s sad that toxic game culture is so prevalent cuz like. As someone who has ended up in random matches with kids before, I can attest to how fucking easy it is to reverse and un-teach shitty attitudes in kids.
Example: I downloaded Friday the 13th because it’s free on psn. I dunno how to play, so I just enter quick play and I’m matched with 3-4 kids on mic. Immediately on mic they’re shitty and disparaging to each other. They laugh at each others deaths, they actively work against team mates and self sabotage, they call each other “fags”, etc. From the sounds of the voices they cannot be older than 13-14.
I put on my mic and just decide I ain’t havin it. I am nice. I thank them for barricading doors or leaving me items. When they break free from Jason’s grasp I say “good job!” or I try to help them. One kid survived for most of the match by himself. When he dies, I tell him he did a fantastic job.
The mood shift is practically INSTANT. These kids almost immediately stop being dick heads. They start encouraging each other and being kind. After the match all of them try to friend request me. Which should tell you a couple of things:
A) kids want to be kind, and they want to have a nice time playing games. But encounters with adults like me or so rare that they’ve trained themselves to instantly put on a toxic, shitty, defensive veneer when encountering any new person online. It’s literally just THAT EASY to not groom a horrible gaming community, it’s just that NO ONE does it.
B) the speed of which they all tried to friend me was cute, but paints for me such a sad picture? Like these kids are SO desperate to find people to play with who aren’t crappy jerks. They played with me for 10 minutes TOPS and all instantly tried to reach out to me.
tl;dr: The kids are alright. Adults are shit heads.
I cant agree with this post more
I witnessed something similar with my younger brother (this was when he was In fifth grade so bear with me here) and his friends. The teacher assigned for them to build a somewhat accurate spanish mission in Minecraft because their school had gotten some iPads and she needed to assign them something other than a PowerPoint.
Now here’s the thing. Most of these boys, my brother included, have ADD/ADHD. About a week into the project all they had in their shared world was chaos. Somebody filled the place with tnt and lit it up. Holes everywhere. Whenever one would attempt to try and build something (mostly wood huts and not the actual project) it would be destroyed within minutes as the boys began to insult each other heavily and complain that the design was ugly.
I brought my own ipad with me and decided to sit with the boys while they continued their reign of terror. I joined the world and built a hallway out of brick at the very center of this war zone. Immediately one of them tried to destroy it under the impression that “it looks bad”.
Anyway, then I showed him some pictures similar to these:
I reasoned that it would be easier to sway this kid toward another pretty block than trying to get him to stick to the materials of the time, so I asked him if he would like to help me replace my brick design with quartz (eh, it’s white).
Bam! One of the ten year old anarchists is dutifully building me a glittering gem hallway for our insanely rich monks.
The other three are off somewhere still yelling at each other and setting off explosives, but we have something built. Much to my surprise the kid asked if he could build the church next because he “wanted to build the most important part”.
Here’s where I learned something important. I don’t have ADD or ADHD but as I said before my brother does. When he gets fixated on something, he’s really gets into it. Once a few minutes had passed and this kid already had four walls up I decided to grid up the entire mission. One gets the church, one gets the farm, etc.
After playing the game with them for an hour, I had a pretty good idea of where each kid should go.
Church kid, I found, was very particular about materials and shape(hence his hangup over the brick). I gave him free reign over the outer walls of the mission and showed him the reference pictures to get him started.
My brother liked the farms most (he was building dirt domes over the cows don’t ask me how I made this connection it just worked, okay), so he was in charge of building pens for the animals.
Another kid was, at first glance, very loud and bossy when it came to decorating (constantly said we were making chairs wrong). Turns out he likes interior design, like putting benches and beds in the little rooms, so his bossiness was just frustration with my brother’s artistic sense I guess.
Another was very good with placing trees and plants around the exterior (I guessed this because he covered the place in a ridiculous amount of trees and I asked him if he would like to know where they are supposed to go). He got to make a vineyard for us and organized how the crops should go.
So how did it turn out?
Actually very nice!!
So what did we learn? Kids actually like to play games and be praised for their creativity and intuition. If I had just told them to stop messing around rather than direct their attention to areas within their interests, they never would have gotten anything done.
After an hour of gaming they:
Mirrored my language; “thank you!”, “which part are you working on?”, “I like this block.”
Realized each other’s strengths; “hey [kid name] can you help me with the roof?” “How do you make the big trees [kid name]?”
Were able to articulate exactly what they did or didn’t like without using force; “that looks good!”, “how about we put it there?”, “I don’t like that block, how about this one?”
On the plus side, since we moved the game file to my device for safekeeping, I now have a cute little souvenir of the time I played Minecraft with four ten year olds.
This is a really long post, but it’s super important. In games like Fortnite where you’ll find lots of kids, it’s important (if you can) to steer them away from toxicity. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run into kids who talk like toxic adults and the act of just being nice to them completely turns them around.
WILL BE BLOCKED BECAUSE of SOME OLD POLITICIANS “that know the youth and the internet the best then anyone else” IN THE SENATE THINKING THEY KNOW BETTER SHUTTING DOWN YOUTUBE AND OTHER SOCIAL PLATFORMS FOR ME AND PEOPLE LIVING IN THE EU FOREVER!
PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE I REPEAT THE ARTICLE HAS BEEN CHANGED COMPLETELY NO FUCKING JOKE GUYS! LAST TIME IT WAS ALL ABOUT PROTECTION NOW THEY ADDED SOME STUPID STUFF AND THEY WILL BE TAKING AWAY MY YOUTUBE; SOCIAL MEDIAS AND EVERYTHING!
PLEASE SIGN UP IN THIS PETITION IF WE DON´T HIT 5 MILLION GERMANY AND SO MANY EUROPE COUNTRIES WILL LOSE THEIR SOCIAL AND MORE!
SHARE THIS POST AND SIGN UP AND VOTE THE MORE THAN BETTER! Let’s SHOW THESE OLD PEOPLE THAT YOUTUBE, TUMBLR, INSTAGRAM AND ALL THESE GREAT OTHER SITES AREN´T FUCKING USELESS AND SHET BECAUSE THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT SOCIAL MEDIA IS! INSTEAD OF TAKING THESE PRECIOUS THINGS THEY SHOULD WORRY ABOUT OTHER.STUFF ( Migrants, new school system) BUT NAH THEY WANT TO TAKE AWAY OUR SOCIAL MEDIAS
I REPEAT article 13 HAS COMPLETED CHANGED AND IN A FEW MONTHS IT WILL TAKE AWAY OUR SOCIAL media LIKE TUMBLR AND YOUTUBE HERE IN EUROPE PLEASE SIGN UP FOR US GUYS I BEG YOU!
PLEASE HELP US GUYS I BEG YOU and PLEASE! reblog IT ISN´T ANYMORE A JOKE THEY HAVE COMPLETELY TURNED THE ARTICLE AROUND FOR THE WORST THIS WEEK!
YO NON-EUROPEANS CAN ALSO SIGN GET IN LINE FOR YOUR EURPOEAN HOMIES GUYS CMON
PLEASE HELP THEM
Yo OP you’re a real piece of artwork, ya know that?
So, first of all, this is pure hyperbole, but i’ll get to that in the end. What I find especially bad is that you only link to the change.org petition that is really vaguely worded.
These above links have on the left side the original text and on the right the most updated version as of september 12.
All good? Nice, let’s take a look inside them!
TL;DR: The Directive’s new amendments on Articles 11 and 13 have actually enstrenghtened consumer rights and defused to a large degree the ticking time bomb that was the bots. Also, the EU has no Senate!
So, first off, Article 11 - the apocalyptic attitude of the OP is already disputed because we see right in Section 1a that, and to quote:
“
The rights referred to in paragraph 1 shall not prevent legitimate private and non-commercial use of press publications by individual users.
“
Which means, if you’re not making money off it, then it’s all good - you can share it online, or keep it for yourself on your phone or computer.
This is further corroborated by Sections 2a, 4 and 4a, which in turn talk about sharing hyperlinks (aka links from websites), how long the rights are retained for commercial use (which number has been reduced from 20 years to just 5 years - a bit much, but not apocalyptic again), and about the Members of the EU having to accomodate for these compensations.
To quote again:
“
2a. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 shall not extend to mere hyperlinks which are accompanied by individual words.
“
4. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 shall expire 5 years after the publication of the press publication. This term shall be calculated from the first day of January of the year following the date of publication. The right referred to in paragraph 1 shall not apply with retroactive effect.
“
4a. Member States shall ensure that authors receive an appropriate share of the additional revenues press publishers receive for the use of a press publication by information society service providers. “
This is a good time to remind that Articles 11 and 13 and the entire legislations ARE NOT LAWS. They are DIRECTIVES, which is basically EU law from what i know for making a list of rules that member countries can check, see if they comply, and then choose for themselves if they find their current laws adequate or need to update them to fit the definitions set by the directive. For more on that, check an actual law student’s post on the subject here - she honestly tells it much better than i could ever hope to do so:
Right, now onto Article 13. So, the big important boi here is Section 2b, which, to quote a brief excerpt:
“
Members States shall ensure that online content sharing service providers referred to in paragraph 1 put in place effective and expeditious complaints and redress mechanisms that are available to users in case the cooperation referred to in paragraph 2a leads to unjustified removals of their content. Any complaint filed under such mechanisms shall be processed without undue delay and be subject to human review. Right holders shall reasonably justify their decisions to avoid arbitrary dismissal of complaints.
“
THIS RIGHT HERE PROTECTS YOUR RIGHTS FROM CORPORATIONS FROM CLAIMING IT AS THEIR OWN.
It also serves another purpose as it demands that all content that has been claimed MUST be reviewed by a HUMAN PERSON, not a bot. This is monumental news, for the mere fact that what we feared with Article 13 was that the directives was gonna utilize bots like YouTube and Google do exclusively, and mandate they be used. This section basically says “yo, whatever you use, if something is claimed, you gotta have a human review”.
These views are further strengthened by the rest of Section 2, 2a and 3, which goes in length about how current streaming and video/content-hosting services’ code of conducts will be enforced. This is where the argument about how the EU will go full dictatorship and will censor the internet falls apart. To quote briefly again:
“ 2. Licensing agreements which are concluded by online content sharing service providers with right holders for the acts of communication referred to in paragraph 1, shall cover the liability for works uploaded by the users of such online content sharing services in line with the terms and conditions set out in the licensing agreement, provided that such users do not act for commercial purposes.
“ 2a. Member States shall provide that where right holders do not wish to conclude licensing agreements, online content sharing service providers and right holders shall cooperate in good faith in order to ensure that unauthorised protected works or other subject matter are not available on their services. Cooperation between online content service providers and right holders shall not lead to preventing the availability of non-infringing works or other protected subject matter, including those covered by an exception or limitation to copyright.
“ 3. […] When defining best practices, special account shall be taken of fundamental rights, the use of exceptions and limitations as well as ensuring that the burden on SMEs remains appropriate and that automated blocking of content is avoided.
“
So, in conclusion, Article 13 and Article 11 is not the devil it once was, and its recent amendment has made it a lot more user-friendly!
Now, I wanna address the original post directly, cuz the language used is very telling. First of all, it’s all caps, so, unless you’re @factsinallcaps, your credibility is automatically lowered imo. Secondly, the lack of direct links to either articles, or even news pieces from websites about net neutrality is very telling. The fact that only the link to the change.org petition is linked is highly suspicious.
Now, let’s go into details; First of all, the EU has no Senate. This isn’t the United States. And there was never any talk about shutting down social media - this is not a situation like in Turkey, where YouTube has been taken down and replaced with a local one.
The wording especially of the final phrase, “
INSTEAD OF TAKING THESE PRECIOUS THINGS THEY SHOULD WORRY ABOUT OTHER.STUFF ( Migrants, new school system) BUT NAH THEY WANT TO TAKE AWAY OUR SOCIAL MEDIAS
“, also has me severely troubled. The EU cannot implement a pan-european EU-licensed new school system. That’s just not how it functions! This is up to each individual country comprising the EU to make up.
Also the migrants crisis and the way they’re thrown nonchalant here reads like a very reactionary right-wing talking point. And this is a big deal when it comes to the Article 13 debacle - the talking points have been hijacked by anti-eu personas (like Computing Forever) who espouse views that are anti-semitic, islamophobic, sexist, transmisogynist and racist. So, despite Article 13 being a really obvious sticking point and in need of proper debate, especially after the tragedy that was the rollback of net neutrality in the United States, we had the discourse surrounding the Article and what it does poisoned by Far-Right discourse, which in turn has produced the meme about the EU coming to censor all memes and, in this post’s case, take down all social media.
And it’s sad.
And I’m tired of it.
Now, what is happening with Article 13 right now? Because, remember, these amendments happened in early September, and it is November the 8th right now, 40 minutes past midnight in Greece. So, according to Julia Reid, the head of the EU pirate party and overal extreme badass is in negotiations with the rest of the EU council, discussing further amendments, and judging from her twitter, things are going pretty good!
(quoting the tweet in case you can’t open the link:
Good news, Council did not insist on its wording on the relationship with existing #copyright exceptions in Article 17a today. It looks like we may be able to solve this problem in the next round of negotiations. #FixCopyright )
(I’ve never looked into Article 17, so I can’t speak about that, but I trust her)
And that’s about it! Votes are set to come in like early 2019, which will finalize the Articles, and then the directive will be shipped to each member state, where each parliament will decide on how to implement those articles
Don’t fall for the reactionaries tumblr, and research before you reblog! The current version has 20k notes and it tells a grossly misleading version of the Directive, one influenced by anti-EU, far-right reactionary elements.
And sorry for the long post! Have a good evening ^_^
please do reblog this version of the post if you see it, cuz the post has 30k notes and it’s still misdirecting people as to how art13 has changed
jesus christ finally someone caught this dang misinformed person.
Yes it has changed and the changes are a step in the right direction!
Glad to see people calling out fear-mongering bullshit.
Honestly, the whole Tumblr flagging debacle reminds me of nothing so much as the official White Wolf forums back in the 1990s, whose automatic profanity filters were so overzealous that they ended up censoring terminology from some of their own games.
(For the uninitiated, the starkest example was probably the filter that automatically converted “ass” to “butt”, including when the string A-S-S appeared as part of another word. The trouble is that White Wolf’s most popular game, Vampire: The Masquerade, included in its lore a prominent vampire clan called the Assamites, who stock-in-trade was assassination. Under the forum’s profanity filter, players were reduced to referring to them as the Buttamites, and their missions as – you guessed it – buttbuttinations.)
Even IF the boys were cursing at the White man, why would the police
need to get involved??? The police are supposed to protect and serve,
not be customer service for White people who need someone to assuage
them.
The myth that panic, looting, and antisocial behavior increases during the apocalypse (or apocalyptic-like scenarios) is in fact a myth—and has been solidly disproved by multiple scientific studies. The National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program, a research group within the United States Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), has produced research that shows over and over again that “disaster victims are assisted first by others in the immediate vicinity and surrounding area and only later by official public safety personnel […] The spontaneous provision of assistance is facilitated by the fact that when crises occur, they take place in the context of ongoing community life and daily routines—that is, they affect not isolated individuals but rather people who are embedded in networks of social relationships.” (Facing Hazards and Disasters: Understanding Human Dimensions, National Academy of Sciences, 2006). Humans do not, under the pressure of an emergency, socially collapse. Rather, they seem to display higher levels of social cohesion, despite what media or government agents might expect…or portray on TV. Humans, after the apocalypse, band together in collectives to help one another—and they do this spontaneously. Disaster response workers call it ‘spontaneous prosocial helping behavior’, and it saves lives.
I’ve been sharing this article a lot recently! I think it’s important
Humans are a communal species that have banded together and cared for their sick, disabled, and elderly since before we were ever modern man. Resources were shared even as skills specialized.
Capitalism isn’t natural. A community should not have members dying of starvation or exposure while there is an abundance of resources. That isn’t how it works. That isn’t how it’s supposed to work.
ok so my roommates are anthropology students and their favorite example for debunking the ‘survival of the fittest’ bs is shanidar 1. (x, x, x)
shanidar 1 is a neanderthal who, at a pretty young age, was hit in the head hard enough to blind him. this also led to that side of his brain shutting down and withering his right arm, and possibly crippling his entire right side. not only that but his skeleton also shows that at some point, he broke a bone in his foot and, in addition to the other factors, resulted in a noticeable limp. there are some sources which say he likely had degenerative diseases. (arthritis was really common in neanderthals)
going off of widespread ideas of “”primitive”” (no longer the word used in anthropology/academia to describe early-modern humans) societies, shanidar probably died really young, deliberately abandoned or killed. i mean, he was severely crippled, blind, etc., he couldn’t contribute anything, he would have been a “”burden to society””, right?
except he lived to be between 40 and 50 years old. (about ~80 in human years)
this means that his social group had to have taken care of him for a minimum of two or three decades without his ‘contributing’ anything significant to the group. this discovery (and Shanidar III’s) was huge because it basically proves that early humans had a concept of hospice. early modern humans cared for the sick and the elderly, greatly extending their lifespan, simply because they cared.
tl;dr: the concept of someone needing to be ‘’useful’’ or ‘’’productive’’’ in society in order to be valued and cared for is a very modern concept and our quasi-predecessors would be ashamed
Also, Shanidar I was buried with flowers. They cared about him after he was dead, too.
For the record? As a self-employed small business owner with a preexisting condition, my pre-ACA health insurace suuuuuuuuucked. My current plan actually provides substantially better coverage than the old one and costs half as much. I only wish I’d done it sooner– getting on the exchange was, tbh, entirely a spite-motivated action on my part, and probably the sole positive impact of 45′s presidency on my life.
Please boost. ACA/Obamacare sign-up for next year ends December 15.
Brookhill Village in Charlotte, NC, is being demolished. Hundreds of African-American families are going to be evicted, and their are no plans to offer them any sort of affordable alternative to their homes, which are now being demolished.
Developers like Shook Kelley are actively demolishing the neighborhood and replacing it with higher-end housing that will “attract millenials” without a second thought of what will become of Brookhill’s current residents.
In other words, this is another step in the process of gentrifying Charlotte, making it essentially unlivable for all of the communities that have lived here throughout its entire history.
The developers and architects of this project to displace an entire community have continued shamelessly and unchallenged, what little publicity this event has received has been glamorous news reels, talking of plans to “revitalize” a working-class community.
This Thursday, December 13th, I hope that I can help change that.
A small organization has gathered around the purpose of offering some kind of meaningful resistance - I am proud to say that I have been doing what I can to aid in these efforts.
The main goal of everyone involved has been to organize a community meeting this Thursday in order to rally the community to defend their homes.
However, as you can imagine, this is not as simple as handing out flyers and expecting everyone to be there - I must once again stress that the residents of Brookhill are working class families who work long hours, and need a material reason to show up in opposition to a developer who is literally burning down flyers and posters that mention the event.
The organization, STP Charlotte, has vowed to do their best to
provide transportation to and from the meeting as well as provide food
and child care at the meeting itself.
As you can imagine, this costs money.
If you have the money to spare, I ask that you send what you can to help organize this meeting. This really means a lot to me, but it would certainly mean a whole lot more to the families living in such a precarious housing situation.
Google Pay: ServeThePeopleCLT@Gmail.com
Venmo: @STP-CLT
If you can’t spare any money, consider reblogging this post, and if you know anyone in the area, be sure to let them know.
