MTG Salvation

@leslak

You are completely right with everything youve said and you bring up nothing but solid points and evidence. You cant sway this community bc theyre stuck on vritue signalling, and diversity first and for most and everything else second.

Anything that detracts from that agenda is minimized and diminished like male body image issues. See how they dismiss you and say this isnt the place? Thats exactly the hypocrisy ive been talking about for the last 2-3 pages. Its nothing but hypocritical disingenuous ppl who can put their bias aside bc it detracts from the agenda.

Im done here. This game will be done in a few years, the netflix show will be a flop and the lore will continue to plummet in quality as it has in the last few years. The ONLY thing keeping this game alive is the gameplay. This will go way of star wars, mcu, oceans 8, ghost busters, etc etc unless something is done about the diversity and inclusion politics and this special treatment and over representation and negligence known as “equity” around here.

I never changed the topic i addressed it from the get go from the very first “apologist” comment i posted.

And i said often that this was to point out the inherent hypocrisy in the inclusion and diversity ideology as well as the hypocrisy in the preference for protecting females from body image issues but not men. I addressed all of this in my initial comments.

Theres tons of evidence to support that its damaging to males

The documentary Bigger stronger faster as well as the one prescription thugs wherein you actually see the after affects of suicide from the issues it causes.

The NYT recently published an article of it i think this last week

Cornell issued a study on the phenomenon last year i believe

There are body building documentaries showing the affects its had on the psyche of many males who have embarked on never ending journeys to obtain the ideal physique embedded in their minds by comics, games, movies etc. this is seen on the documentary with greg valantino wherein he suffered such major body image issues that his arms were almost amputated from the amount of drugs.

So there are 4 things you can look at that span 10 years show casing the psychological issues men face from body images shown to them.

You seem to think only lgbtq and women can suffer and face adversity. Now that you have equality you fight for special treatment and diminish the troubles others face. I dont see why right here isnt a good place to talk about this issue. If it bothers a guy he has every right to say it just like you have every right to call me a bigot and what not and complain that there isnt enough representation of lgbtq individuals. And stop acting like its not an issue. Its an issue that has plagued young men for 30-40 years and has been largely ignored.

Yes and I agree with everything you said here! Ive been saying this man just read what ive said. Ive never said i had a problem with lgbtq characters i said that its a problem when their sexual orientation is just there for political reasons within our world and not at all a real addition to the development of good story, plot lines etc etc. thats all i pointed out for gods sakes.

“Egregious”

Lol. Okay.

Everybody? Because there is another user up top saying the same ***** as me. Explain that one? Not to mention the bulk of this conversation was started by another user who said something that was more extreme than what ive said.

So im not the only one who has the sentiments and understands what im saying.

could it be this community is filled with the same mindset people who are too emotional and too triggered by anybody who even hints at anything that is in any way against a gay character..?

I never said that it suffers in quality because its diverse. I said it suffers in quality because the focus is primarily on increasing diversity and everything else is second.

Again this is proof of how you fail to understand what ive said and only interpret what you want and how you want. Youre too emotional and Ive had enough of arguing with you and this method you've chosen of reinterpreting what ive said and my argument.

@leslak

Youve outlined perfectly what ive been saying or at least trying to say.

Multiple people who have failed to answer any of my question, failed to read what ive said, selected bits and pieces and reinterpreted my words.

Ill leave you with this. If you think that wotc and magic doesnt suffer from this mission of diversity over everything then good for you. Stay blind. Look to other media to see the damage this ideology does. Ill point you to star wars as a prime example. And now the mcu, oceans eleven, ghost busters, and the list goes on and on.

This game is great and I dont want the focus to be inclusion. I would rather then focus be quality first with the inclusion mixed in. I would rather they make a badass character that happens to be gay, instead of a gay character that is the gay character and everything else second.

Lastly you saying that thing about insecure men is pretty oppressive of men. Are they not allowed to feel self conscious? Are women the only ones who deserve the protection from seeing ideal unobtainable bodies?

Youre too blind to get any of that so fine.

Youre not oppressed by anything i said so dont act like you are. In fact youre likely not oppressed at all.

See you around.

I guarantee i am smarter than you. You fail to see that when wotc or whatever company makes a gay character for the sake of diversity it would more than likely be a rushed, forced narrative instead Of a well developed character that happens to be gay. This is the same situation that star wars has found itself in but with a different set of people.

When you make anything with the intentions of swaying the opinions of people instead of with the intentions of producing high quality content you will see a noticeable decline in over all quality. Its a simple fact. And is what many other games and media are suffering from at this time.

They make a character gay and say oh look we have a gay character look at us. When instead they could have taken a ral zarek route and made a good well developed character who isnt defined by their sexuality nor is the token gay for the sake of diversity. That is the whole ordeal. You are blind to this and will go any which way virtue is signaled. But you simply dont see the bigger picture. You dont see tht wotc filling some type of imaginary quota will affect other aspects of the game and takes their resources which could be placed developing the game instead of this quota filling mission.

And you are a huge hypocrite for criticizing me because you think im doing the very thing you are right now, that is judging other for a different opinion or life style. Which is literally not at all what I am doing.

@Xeruh

Again I didnt say that. I said when they make it a main focus of a character or when they focus on diversity for sake of diversity that the lore and game quality suffers bc the quality is no longer the focus. Are you not able to read?
And also im glad you couldnt find a single example of me saying anything against lgbt characters. YOU made the inference because you chose to not read carefully what I have actually said.

@flossed beaver

Homophobia - irrational fear of or aversion, or dislike. Three qualities I dont have. To point out that a focus on diversity for diversities sake harms the quality is not homophobic or wrong. Its true when you drop your focus on something in favor of something else the first thing will likely lack in the quality it had or could have. I dont see what the issue is with pointing this out.

As for your picture of equity. Thats not what is being proposed here. Again like i said this sint a zero sum game. The picture you show is a zero sum game in that all children now can see over the fence. In this situation what is the point to which we stop giving the parties in need a booster seat? When does wotc decide okay enough is enough now lets give everyone the same. Because in your picture that child with two boxes will grow up and so will the other one then both will no longer need the box. So I propose the question again at what point does this impartial help stop?

See you dont understand what I am saying here. You think you do but its flying over your head. The current situation with what wotc is doing one of equity bc like i have been pointing out there is no measure as to what constitutes the “top of the fence” so to say.


Equity implies a percentage that must be reached. Like stocks of a company or the top of the fence this situation is not one of equity and you would be hard pressed to argue this point bc its for the most part impossible to gauge what 100% is here.


Anyways, im gonna bow out now bc its very clear that you cant say anything at all that can perceived to be against a minority class here or its taken as if you are a hobophobe, racist, sexist etc. no matter how much reason you have.

I havent said a single thing against Oko being lgbt. Please find one example in anything ive said that has been against Oko being lgbt.

i have said however that a characters sexual orientation shouldnt be the highlight or the emphasis of that character. I have also stated that this emphasis on “diversity” has affected game and lore quality. But ive never said that I dont want gay characters or that I dont want Oko to be lgbt. Not a single time.

You and the other user have misunderstood my arguement over and over again and its because youre not reading clearly what I am saying or thinking about what im saying. Because if you did you would have noticed that I havent once expressed any hate or anger towards Oko being lgbt. Not a single time.

Firstly that response wasnt to you so im not sure why you thought it was

secondly, you have no idea what equity means because if you did you would realize it means impartial, equal.. and giving one group more to make up for past injustice also isnt equity as its being partial to one group instead of impartial to either or. And if youre attempting to use equity in sense of the make up of a whole I again will reiterate that this isnt a zero sum game so that wouldnt work in this case and would lead to many issues as I have already outlined IE who decides when enough is enough? When can we expect for the balance to be equal? And who decides this?

Look up the definition of words before acting like you know what they mean.

Lastly, you and many others of your mindset have the bad habit of redefining words to fit your argument just like youre attempting to do with the word equity and just like has been done with phobia. Its not disingenuous to stick to a words definition and use words for their actual meaning. in fact its disingenuous to redefine the word to fit what you want it to just like you are doing with phobia now. Im not afraid of the lgbt community nor do i hate it.

The language is not phobic either because hes not showing fear of anything. I agree its hateful to want the PW to die for said reason but it doesnt constitute hate speech nor is it phobic. It isnt reasonable to assume that he wants people in real to die bc wanting a fictional character to die is far different than wanting real people to die. These are two vastly different things and you cannot base that assumption off of such weak evidence.
If he wants a lgbtq PW to die it very well could mean that he looks down upon an lgbtq individual in real life but that doesnt mean he wants that person to be harmed or dead. You simply cant make that jump bc you are making a very very heavy accusation here which i dont think you quite understand the severity of.

And my logic about equality and making the extreme comparisons to slavery seems to maybe evaded you. The argument was made that equality called for a balancing out of past injustices by holding one party In higher regard or given special or greater attention than the other. This I argue is not equality and is a very very slippery slope and flawed practice. Why? Because who decides when the the situation is balanced out? When can we expect for equal treatment of all parties? The argument thus was that since women have generally throughout magics history been objectified more so than men then now in order to balance this out, women will be objectified less while men can be objectified to some degree. So I argue that this is NOT equality and its extending protections to one party while neglecting the other. On the same token its taking the enjoyment of some for the sake of others emotions and feelings in order to right past injustices. So i use the analogy that if we use this logic then we could justify taking from white people to give black people. Its the same concept on a more serious scale. An when looked at in this way you can see very clearly that it is not equality and clearly has an inherent flaw both in its ideology and in application.

on the MPL and hiring practices.

Can you tell me with a straight face that hiring based on color for any reason leads to the best quality work and products? Or does hiring based on qualifications and merit? And by that can you honestly say that if they hire based on race instead of qualifications that the quality of work would be the same than the other way around? And dont try to reinterpret what he said to fit your argument he straight up said “we are too white we need color” he never said anything about still looking at merit or qualifications.

Lastly I never said it the mpl sucked or was a joke because of putting a trans as the face. I said that not including their beloved clearly more qualified players in the MPL and opting for pandering was a joke.

But then again they hire based on color and would rather have the trans players instead of the life long die hard players in the mpl. Both of these things send the message thats its diversity first and all else second. And that is the problem. Honestly I feel bad for all the players that have grinded for 10-15 years to only be pushed on the back burner for the sake of diversity. That was despicable of them to do.

Wow

Thats actually a really well thought our analysis of this. Sound reasoning youve brought forth with this and I cant disagree with what youve said.

Of course you can come to the conclusion that he hates in real life or at the very least dislikes the idea in real life but you cannot come to the conclusion that he wants those in real life to share the same fate because those are two different things and have two very different impacts on people. So I can agree that if a person dislikes some details about a character in a game are dislikes they have about people in real life, but the fate they wish upon either or are completely different. So by that its not hate speech. Unless he explicitly states that Oka should die and all homosexuals should die in real life along with him then yes its hate speech. But only saying Oka should die does not constitute hate speech and jumping to the conclusion you have is dangerous to say the least. I dont recall what his original post said but I dont remember him explicitly stating he wanted Oka to die BECAUSE he was effeminate or homosexual. I do remember him implying that it would be a useless character.

Equality and equity does not mean you balance out past injustices, it means everything is equal. Thats literally where the word comes from EQUAL in EQUALity. You cant have equality by doing more or less for some due to what was done in the past. That is not equality, maybe its a move towards equality sure but as it stand that is not equality. By that logic one can advocate all white people be enslaved to make up for the enslavement of african americans thus balance it out. Or the other way around all white people today have to give african americans their property to "balance it out" is that equality to you? Is that how you balance it out? give less to some and more to others..?

Provide evidence that the Men are more sexualized than women these days, and that it is equatable to the sexualization of women in MTG in the past.

This new planeswalker is the proof. Hes shirtless dude. Show me one shirtless female from the last two years. Show me art depicting an attractive shirtless female. you cant. So that right there is evidence that men are more sexualized at this moment. and you seem to think only women have been sexualized in magics history. Men have been sexualized for as long as the women have and now its only men who are persistently sexualized. Simply because the players dont see the men as sexual objects is a different story but they have been depicted just as naked, just as fit, just as sexualized for the entirety of the existence of magic so by that, how can you make the argument that now wotc is attempting to balance it out by showing less sexy women and more sexy men when both sexes have been portrayed as such since the beginning..?

What makes you feel threatened by this turn of policy?

Well ill point to the racist hiring practices from wotc as described by their own employees on twitter explicitly stating that they are hiring based on color. So thats a pretty blatant form of racism and political pandering that threatens the quality of the game at the very least. and is a threat to me and people who look like me. which is fine i dont mind them doing that but dont do it under the guise of equality and diversity. Its racist and a regression to jim crow like practices. Also when a store refuses to give service to a homosexual or a person of color no one who supports wotc doing this has the right to speak on the matter because they are in favor of it when its racist to some but cry when others are racist towards them. I say any business can do as they please and if you stand against the practice dont be selective or hypocritical.

You also have yet to demonstrate how WoTC's policies towards inclusion and diversity has made their products, creative and design, worse. How is the OG player-base excluded or abandoned by such practices??

Well for starters the puritanical art is bland. The complete and utter shunning of Terese Nielson is another one ive already brought up. The inherent hypocrisy that comes with inclusion and diversity ideology is another one ive already brought up. The story line has been pretty bland lately and unsatisfying as compared to before all this started. And i cant imagine their focus on inclusion and diversity hasnt affected game development any since the complete and utter failure of hogaak in modern points to just straight up negligence. The MPL is a joke because instead of supporting their die hard OG players like Reid Duke, LSV, jensen, etc they made a trans woman the face of it. I can keep going man i really can just keep this list going but i think you should get the picture by now unless youre being willfully blind.

You make may good points but youre not seeing the bigger picture of what is actually happening. Many many players have left magic dude. There have been many stores shutting down and very very few new ones opening up. There are you tube channels that focused on mtg that have straight up shut down bc they quit the game. Many stores FNM's were dead prior to horizons. Talk to store owners about how difficult it is to have a store dedicated to MTG and how they hardly see anyone from the old days. Its very obvious how many ppl have left the game and have felt abandoned by wotc. This is akin to many star wars fans now. Its the same tune on a different instrument.