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You know I really like your ideas here. Once a while ago I told people to leave twitter for the same reasons. It's pretty much a cesspool and doesn't foster worthwhile communication or in depth discussion. I’ve since looked at all social media through this lens. I know it’s bleak. I won’t deny that.

I was actually reading a comment on Reddit that basically complained that Reddit didn’t foster a sense of community. The main complaint was that there was less emphasis on who was talking rather than what they were saying. I thought, well isn’t that backwards? Don’t want we want the free flow of ideas without being tainted by comments like ‘that guy is believes this or that, so his contributions are irrelevant’?

I think you’re right. Let it burn. Just walk away.

Still I sort of wish there was someone studying the cultures that grow in these places. I find the inside jokes and relationships (even on Reddit) between the users, mods, and admins to be very interesting. I think that kind of study could help us understand how we communicate on social media. We could use a Jane Goodall of internet social media communities.

I don't know why we get dragged into these arguments. It's not natural. I strongly doubt the stress is healthy.

Actually I think it's very natural. If not femenism and journalistic ethics it would be communism and witchcraft. This is what people do. We form teams. We are 'us' they are 'them'.

What I've noticed from this latest battle is that once it get's off the internet and is talked about in normal venues it just fails. Outside of Twitter and Tumbler no one seems to care either way.

Are you complaining that the anarchists seem extreme?

This entire discussion is ahistorical. Anarchists have murdered dozens of policemen, dozens of bosses, an American president and dozens of elected officials, and dozens of people for what they said all over the world. Anarchism is not about a fantasy of organizing society after the zombie apocalypse, it's a body of thought with a few hundred years of tradition. Feminism is central to that tradition.

Gamergate is some bizarre internet misogynist media panic from last year.

> Are you complaining that the anarchists seem extreme?

Not complaining about anarchists at all. I'm fairly uneducated about their beliefs but I have come to understand that they are not completely unreasonable.

> Gamergate is some bizarre internet misogynist media panic from last year.

It's this that's spilling over into every discussion that I'm talking about. The origin of the anarcha-feminists on Reddit is most likely GG backlash. There is concern on that website that anti-GG extremists are taking over and it looks like /r/anarchism is yet another subreddit in the crosshairs; it's yet another completely unrelated discussion getting dragged into this internet misogyny/misandry.

My advice to you is: if you really care about anarchism then let /r/anarchy burn. Just leave. I don't care if you go to Voat. I don't care if you start your own website. I don't care if you leave the internet. Just abandon ship and rid yourself of this argument. You can't win because your opponent is not interested in a decisive outcome: your opponent is interested in noise and harassment.

You're mistaking me for an internet anarchist. I don't know anything about reddit, or much about anarchist discussion on the internet.

There are many wonderful archives of historical anarchist thought on the internet, making sources that were really difficult or impossible to find when I was young (before the internet) available to everyone in a few keystrokes.

Gamergate is completely insignificant, but positive in that the ensuing media panic exposed people to how difficult it is to be a woman or a minority on the internet.

Since when do anarchists care about "tradition"? Tradition is central to right wing ideology. And since when is feminism central to anarchism? I guess since marxist-inspired leftists (and now SJWs) hijacked it distorting the meaning of this word beyond recognition in the process. Where's the feminism in Bakunin, Kropotkin or even worse Proudhon?

Participants on both sides are just as vile as the other. Have anti-GG been harassed? Yes. Have GG been harassed? Yes. On equal terms of severity. There are a few sane participants but they tend to be quieter and also seem to be taking a step back from it all.*

Eh no. Look globally. Are men-as-a-class second class people in any country? Nope. Are women-as-a-class? Yep (e.g. Saudi Arabia)

What does Saudi have to do with this discussion?

It's an example of a country where women are legally treated much worse than men. There are no examples of where men are legally treated much worse than women.

Yes, but what does that have to do with this discussion? If you're just going to expand the scope like that we might as well include the entire animal kingdom. Female spiders eat their mates. How is that for unfair treatment?

We're talking about "internet people." Stay on topic. Anyone can successfully argue any point by simply presenting a moving target and by veering off-topic.

I fail to understand how Saudi has anything to do with GG and anti-GG harassing people. If you think that harassment can be excused because Arab countries marginalize a gender you are delusional. You don't fix problems by making more problems.