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Comment by Rubix117 | Hacker News Reader

Cause the death threats are so real...

A death threat doesn't become less real by not being followed through it, otherwise it'd be called murder, not death threat.

The implication (dubious as it is) is that the threats were made by people on her side in order to garner sympathy. I think that would make the threats "not real", if it were the case.

I mean I very doubt they are real, she has been shown time and again to be a liar.

This is a shitty gamergate meme and has no basis in reality.

The evil "women in gaming" conspiracy would have to be very, very well organized to fabricate the amount of false flag abuse they're constantly subjecting themselves to just on twitter.

Do you have a source or owt for that? You can't just drop something like that without any evidence.

Do you doubt that she has received death threats? Do you doubt that other women recieve death threats?

Even if they aren't real at all, how is that an appropriate response?

Because lying about death threats causes more problems. I honestly can't believe people take this woman so seriously. As I have commented before she has been shown to be a liar. Nothing she says has any credibility.

I'm sorry, I've been following this story for a while and every single one of the instances where she has been accused of lying that I know of has been debunked.

I'm not calling you a liar, merely asking for you to point me to what I've been missing. I run in circles that are pretty pro-sarkeesian and may have suffered from selection bias.

Do note, however, that simply stating that she's a liar is not an actual proof of anything. I'm asking for actual articles from reputable outlets, not quotes from Guest11743 on 4chan.

Maybe less direct lying and more by omission, but the one I always think of is but one of her videos points out a few supposedly misogynistic portions in the Hitman series of games - while forgetting to mention that the game penalizes you for doing what she's complaining about.

There are other instances of this kind of failure to research - see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwwFx-tz9TY&feature=share, starting at about 5:33.

Right, I see where we misunderstood each other. You're talking about conclusions she reached that are debatable - and, indeed, debated rather a lot. I also disagree with some of them, but don't feel that qualifies her as a liar, just someone with whom I don't agree on everything. Possibly even someone that sometimes uses hyperbole to make her points. I'm most likely guilty of the same sin myself and don't begrudge her this stylistic shortcut.

I was talking about, for example, accusations that: - she made the threats up - she was the author of some of the threats - she never actually did report the threats to the police

These lies have either been debunked (the police report was produced, for example) or "proved" by nothing stronger than "it stands to reason", which I read as "there is no proof and never will be".

We do not necessarily disagree on your points, just on whether that makes her a liar. Facts tend to show that, on average, she's much less of a liar than the people who attack her.

In my mind, intellectual dishonesty equates to lying; especially considering how she absolutely refuses to accept any kind of criticism or address the very real and concrete problems with her conclusions.

Some of these things aren't "debatable", she's completely ignorant (either willfully or not is another question, and i'm leaning towards 'willful' due to either the total lack of response or personal attacks that anyone disagreeing with her gets) of information that completely invalidates her arguments.

And saying "well gamergate is worse" is just a cop-out.

In case the "lack of response" was directed at me, for the very specific Hitman thing: yes, the game penalises you for killing the dancers (hookers?). I'm pretty sure the penalty is lifted if you hide the bodies, though. So, yes, you're penalised, unless you are not. One might almost think you willfully witheld that particular piece of information.

As for the "well gamergate is worse" thing.

It was not what I meant, although I see how it could come off that way. My point was: the people who accuse her of lying have been repeatedly shown to be lying themselves. On the whole, I'd rather trust the person who has not (yet?) been proven to be a liar than the ones who have.

Lastly, it's usually the case that when accusing someone of something, said accusation looses all credibility if its author is guilty of the same thing - regardless of the initial accusation's merit. If you want your argument that she lies to be listened to, then you need to stick to the truth, hard as it can be. If you want to accuse her of witholding information, make absolutely sure you're not doing the same thing.

And, and this should go without saying, if you want to have any credibility, do not willingly associate yourself with people who threaten to rape and kill someone over games (I realise that you haven't explicitly stated you were part of gamergate - you're using the rethoric, but I apologise is my assumption is incorrect).

Nono, the "lack of response" was directed at Sarkeesian - there is not one instance in which she or her supporters respond to criticisms of her arguments with anything other than silence or personal attacks.

You gotta realize that at the point where you observe a women fearing for her safety and having to manage her life around constant harassment and threats of violence and your public reaction is "clearly she must be making it up for attention and all those benefits she's getting from being a public target", you've gone so far off the rails of the process of forming conclusions from reasonable assumptions that your implicit agenda is showing really, really flagrantly.

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