You may all remember James Damore, who was summarily dismissed from Google this year after writing a controversial memo about Google’s hiring practices and internal policies on women. If you were thinking he’d take his 15 minutes, and sink quietly into oblivion, boy were you wrong.
His premise, if I understand it, is that if we can’t admit that “Grand Wizard” is a cool title, than we’re just driving people into the KKK. It’s on us!!! Oh those poor, misunderstood youth with a yearning to play at wizard. Will no one think of the children! No, dipshit. There are many, many places in today’s world to get your inner wizard on. You join the KKK for one reason: to celebrate your white supremacist self, with the added benny of time with racist losers who make you feel important. You might even get to carry a tiki torch, if you’re really lucky and follow all the chapter rules.
Yes, James is a peach alright, and I am shocked, shocked I say, that Google let him get away. May he find the hellish existence he so richly deserves.
Many years ago when I was a counselor-in-training at Girl Scout camp,I knew a young camper. Her name was, shall we say, Kelly Knudsen. One day we talked about middle names. She told me hers was Karen :eek:
Not her fault, of course, but what the hell were mom and dad thinking? James Damore must be from the same family.
I wonder if Damore is related to this other bigoted piece of shit. And Damore’s apology? Utter nonsense. Of course he knew what he was doing and saying. He’s a simple bigot.
I’ve heard people say that the Nazis had great uniforms. I don’t think that means they support or agree with Nazism. It’s odd, in a way, to see evil market itself so well, and maybe the branding (ugh, such a mundane term for such a vile movement) had something to do with its rise.
Maybe the Democratic Party needs to modernize its image by futurizing its wardrobe. I’m thinking tunics with big wire-and-aluminum foil hoops at the shoulders…
I’m not sure of your point. Yes, people have said that Nazis had great uniforms. But no one argues that not being willing to say that leads people into becoming Nazis.
The titles also aren’t cool. They just aren’t. They fail for non-nerds for sounding too nerdy, and they fail to real nerds for sounding too on the nose. You might roleplay as a wizard, but you don’t claim to really be one. Both of us would make fun of someone who called themselves a “grand wizard,” even if the KKK hadn’t coopted that term.
Yeah, it was marketing back then. I presume the terms sounded cool. They don’t now.
But those terms being marketing for the group is all the more reason to not use them. Just like you don’t wear Nazi uniforms.
(1) A factual discussion, separate from any historical context, about if (or how) titles like “Grand Wizard,” are cool
(2) A factual discussion about how discussion (1) should be squelched, because any value in (1) is outweighed by the danger of accidentally praising anything KKK related – basically the claim that it’s not actually possible to have (1) because there’s no separating the historical context
(3) A non-factual discussion in which the participants assure each other than each poster’s revulsion at the ideals of the KKK exceeds the prior poster’s, and thus each poster’s fidelity to the cause of opposing white supremacy and bigotry is beyond question
And I believe you on all counts: you think it’s a cool title, and this doesn’t mean you have any admiration for anything the KKK stands for. It’s perfectly possible to have both reactions in one human mind without the universe imploding.
James Damore would go away if it weren’t for Google alerts. He’s only influential as long as the United States of the Offended keep tabs on him.
He strikes me as somebody who wants to stand out from the PC hipsters, so he’ll say shit he knows will push buttons.
It can be frustrating when you always have to guard your tongue from blurting out something non-PC. Some guys just say fuck it, if they get mad at one thing I said inadvertently, may as well go all in and get some laughs out of it.
I once got heat on another message board for saying the Europeans called natives of the Americas “noble savages.” One, I didn’t say it, Europeans said it centuries ago. Two, I’m not advocating the use of it or trying to be racist. I was just stating what I thought was an interesting fact. Still didn’t go over. So, I had a meltdown, called them all thin-skinned pussies and other less polite terms, and never went back.
I’m honestly confused at the idea that slapping the title ‘wizard’ onto someone who doesn’t do magic or claim to do magic is not just “cool”, but so cool that no one could disagree with its coolness unless they were wearing PC blinders. To me, calling yourself a ‘wizard’ when you don’t do anything that could be called wizardry is just lame and confusing. If there was some reason for using wizard it would be different, like a ‘pinball wizard’ or a ‘wizard at hacking’, but just arbitrarily slapping it in does not evoke any feeling of coolness. Also I don’t think that saying that the Nazis had cool uniforms or eye-catching iconography is controversial. I’ve literally never seen someone taken to task just for discussing uniform design or the effectiveness of the stark, simple red-white-black symbol.
Since no one has mentioned it: “Grand Wizard” is not actually a D&D title. AD&D had class titles in 1st edition, but “Grand Wizard” wasn’t actually one of them - the base game just had “Wizard” as the highest class title, and later expansions to the list had “Mage” and “Arch Mage” as higher level title than Wizard. As far as I know “Grand Wizard” hasn’t ever been used in anything that would qualify as being D&D (some weird specific add-on might have used it, but not any of the core books), probably in part because of its association with the KKK. Then again, it would be hard for the KKK to have taken the title from D&D, since the KKK is older by around a century.
You’ve got who’s squelching who backwards - the original tweets included the argument “If you make the KKK the only place where you can acknowledge the coolness of D&D terms, then you’ll just push people into the KKK”, which seems to say that discussion (1) should be squelched on the basis that if you disagree with the tweeter’s premise that calling yourself a grand wizard when you can’t actually work magic is cool, you’re pushing people into the KKK. I think that pointing out the utter stupidity of the argument ‘if you don’t think a person using ‘grand wizard’ as their title is cool, you’re pushing people into the KKK’ is squelching any sort of remotely worthwhile discussion, and that accusing people who point out that a stupid line of argument is stupid are ‘squelching’ discussion doesn’t actually make much sense.
Also the first tweet included “can we admit that their internal title names are cool” which seems to do more squelching of discussion than anything in this thread. The tweets opened with the idea that everyone knows that the title names are cool, and that anyone who claims to disagree with the claim must really just be afraid to admit it because of PC-ness or some other force. So, again, it seems that the squelchee is the one starting off the squelching.
Pantastic has it. Google-boy, seems to me, is trying for his second 15 minutes of fame by stirring controversy using the “magic” term KKK. No one rational really thinks that you can’t discuss wizards, that the KKK is the only place to discuss them, or that failing to discuss them drives people into the KKK.
Does he come off a tosh racist by insisting that the KKK is put upon? Maybe. Haven’t thought about it much. Mostly that he’s a douche who’s willing to do anything to reach for fame.
