Females as Characters

[Oktobermensch]

Ok, discounting the amount of vitriol, I think i've been quite cleary misunderstood, and that Aarek actually took time to read my post(thank you for that).

I mean really, is it wrong to be aware of things like biological predisposition? And again, don't misunderstand me, its NOT the same as inability to do anything else or some kind of inferiority. If a tall guy and a short guy both play basketball, am I wrong to expect the tall guy to be better? And look, I haven't discounted the other guys' ability to play, I said nothing about it. I do not dismiss it, I am merely looking at physical factors and differences that may influence ability to play, but in no way are set in stone and are liable to change if someone has the talent or skill to play regardless of those differences.
Same goes for work and everyday life.

Also

your misogynist eugenics

Really? eugenics? Do you even know what that means? and please, contextualise within the discussion and what you thought was to do with "eugenics" in my posts.
Otherwise i'm liable to discount you as someone who is really frustrated and just throws words around without understanding them.

If you stated that biological differences have some influence at what profession we seek and try to learn and make a living with and so on... i would agree.

Yes Hiver, this is EXACTLY what I'm pointing at this whole time. This is exactly what "on average" and "predisposition" mean. I'm glad you understand my point. Because the rest seems as if you are looking for a fight and try to artifically generate pointless argument, especially with words like "closet misogynist" and "eugenics". You try to look serious but you come across as frustrated.

[Hasenklein]

I mean really, is it wrong to be aware of things like biological predisposition?

It's the wrong question. The question is whether these differences should translate into ingame differences and subsequently to make gender a relevant factor in character creation. The point is that whatever biological differences may exist in the real world, the devs may simply decide that they are completely irrelevant in the gaming world. They have done so in Wasteland, so I suppose it's likely that it won't change in Wasteland 2.

I can understand that you feel offended by certain replies. But in this case, it might be wiser to report the posts in question rather than to continue the debate.

[Oktobermensch]

Well, I suppose rephrasing the question would be helpful. But I don't think that these things should affect in-game stats and character actions, because they never really did in most games. For all purposes female characters play the same and do the same things as male characters (save for the "special actions" like in Fallout 2) and I don't see the point or need in changing that.

I suppose that the idea here was to determine how would those things influnece characterisation and creation of female characters that are believable and reasonable without going into one extreme or the other (Princess Peach vs. Lara Croft(the old one, not the new one, which is a whole different kettle of fish that I won't discuss)), since they do not reflect real women at all. So I think its rather important to at least aknowledge the existence of said differences between sexes when writing characters, but that in no way should become a dominant characteristic of what should be a human personality first and foremost.

And that would be it from me. I think there is nothing else to be said here.

[Hiver]

I mean really, is it wrong to be aware of things like biological predisposition?

Yes it is in the way youre doing it! Not only wrong but blatantly stupid and disgraceful.

your misogynist eugenics

Really? eugenics? Do you even know what that means?

I SAID misogynist eugenics. Not just "eugenics" - to illustrate just how ridiculous your "position" is and where it leads to.

And again, don't misunderstand me, its NOT the same as inability to do anything else or some kind of inferiority.

Yes Hiver, this is EXACTLY what I'm pointing at this whole time. This is exactly what "on average" and "predisposition" mean.

Oh really? I say its all complete bullshit you invent to excuse yourself. "On average" means = shit.
Its a worthless made up excuse based on NOTHING real. No data, no facts! Nothing!

And also,
because you know... quoting?:
AGAIN!

You can have female miners or male child minders, but they won't be as good or they will take considerably more time to become good at those tasks as opposed to men being miners and women child minders.

As humans we all have the same hands and feet and are capable of doing the same jobs, but our biology does tend to define the tasks we are simply better at as men or women.

I see no such thing in this misogynist garbage, sunshine.
But maybe you just need to learn to actually express what you "really wanted to say all along"... or maybe just maybe...

- use google!

http://www.google.hr/search?q=succefull ... 20&bih=839

[Woolfe]

You can have female miners or male child minders, but they won't be as good or they will take considerably more time to become good at those tasks as opposed to men being miners and women child minders.

I'd just like to point out that you said the above.

Why would it take a woman considerably longer to become good at mining? Where in the biological predisposition is there a learning difficulty in how to dig a hole (I am assuming you are referring to old school mining with a pick axe, because modern mining techniques have little to do with raw strength).

Whilst I am not as angry as Hiver, your comments certainly seemed to be derived from our western tendancy to assume women are "weak" which is frankly a load of bollucks.

I do happen to agree that this thread may be better being locked, but mostly because if you read back the comments have all been made before, and you are bringing nothing new to this argument.

Which is the issue, there just doesn't seem to be anything new being brought to this thread at all. We are not here to debate sexual politic or biological disposition, we are here to discuss Wasteland 2.

Mostly people just don't want 2 dimensional characters, Male Female or Mutant Bunny. (ok maybe the mutant bunny)

So I agree with Drool once more....

GOOD WRITING!!!!

[Aarek]

The thing is everyone is thinking way too deeply into this topic regarding females. None of this really matters because at the end of the day, it all really boils down to the writing. If they have a rich cast of different companions and normal NPCs you get to come across in the game, and they have plenty of varied personality; everyone should be happy.

Also I didn't make anything up, I only brushed on basic human biology. Males on average are naturally built more muscular than females because that is apart of our survival strategy. And It'd take so long to explain but literally after googling for a minute or two, I found something that made perfect sense without hurting anyone's feeling.

So here's a copy and paste of a little bit on what's up with the biology of humans:

Men and women have two different survival strategies. Evolution is all about reproductive fitness, or who can have the most children that survive to have children themselves. Women can only bear a few children in their lifetimes, while men can impregnate pretty much as many women as they want. As a result of this, men have evolved to compete against other men for who gets the rights to the most women.

These roots in reproductive strategy can be seen clearly by looking at the animal kingdom. Among warm-blooded animals, the parent who raises the children tends to be physically smaller and less naturally muscular, while the parent who has to compete for this limited supply of mates is bigger and stronger. There's one interesting bird species in which this is reversed; females lay eggs all the time and leave them for the fathers to take care of. As a result, in this species females are the bigger and more aggressive sex.

Women ARE stronger than men in some important ways. Women have higher pain tolerance and more fat stores, which means we survive famine better. Women's brains are also better at multitasking, so as to keep track of multiple children. Muscular strength and speed, though, aren't essential for childbearing and may actually be a waste of a woman's energy. Lacking muscle leaves more energy and protein from the diet available to go into making babies and running around after them once they learn to walk.

Men are stronger than women in terms of muscle and athletic ability because these traits are important to competing for wives. Strong, fast men make good hunters and good providers of food, so women would favor strong men for mates by choice. Strong, fast men are also better at fighting other men, so as to defend their mates from other men who might want to steal their wives or harm their children to reduce competition. These are the kinds of behaviors we see in many primate species, like gorillas in which only the biggest, strongest man gets rights to mate with all of the females.

We have to be careful in making these statements about men being stronger or women being better multitaskers, though, because these are things that the genders are better at -on average-. So while all men as a group are naturally stronger than all women as a group, for example, there are some individual women who are stronger than some individual men. Likewise, even though women's brains are naturally more nurturing and less aggressive than men's brains, there are some men who are naturally more nurturing than some women. In the past these averages have been applied to individuals--assuming no woman can be stronger than a man, or that no man can be as nurturing as a woman. Using averages to make assumptions about individuals is not only annoying, but it's a grievous misunderstanding of statistics and biology.

Read it, I know it's a pain but that's just how biology is, it's not saying "women can't do this" or "men can't do that". So I didn't make anything up. And I do agree with Hiver in your last post, what you quoted was a little bit too much on the "women cannot do this better then blah blah" but he did change that viewpoint in the post I quoted him so there's no reason to go hating anybody now.

[ButchinMelancholy]

Please shut up Hiver, now. You are blatantly struggling with your own idiocy and act so immature. You don't offer something worth any consideration, as there is not much thought in your holler but sheer emotional overreaction. As I usually say, when you know how to interpret it, what we think of things is more indicative of what one is than of what these things are... In this case, it means that the way you are interpreting Oktobermensch's words is clearly extrapolated, and the heated passion accompanying it ends to reveal your susceptibility on this matter.

If you can't be reasonable then spare us your vociferous sourness please.

[Hiver]

@Aarek
I dont hate people. I hate their opinions.

...garbage...

fixed.
I would advise reading a bit on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection in your case.

[Aarek]

@Aarek
I dont hate people. I hate their opinions.

Touché.

[ButchinMelancholy]

...garbage...

fixed.
I would advise reading a bit on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection in your case.

See? You did it again. What are you trying to demonstrate with this link? What I see is that you can't formulate a consistent argument, and you just try to insinuate some discrediting assumptions based on nothing accurate (or simply real) towards anyone that opposes you. This is ridiculous and immature antagonism. Bad for you that it doesn't affect me that way, because I am not like you actually.

PS: I guess your link could have help you if you had a functional brain...

[Hiver]

Ridiculous and immature antagonism you say?

And you cant see anything in that wiki link...?
Riiiiiight...


of to ignore you go.

[ButchinMelancholy]

What, because I told you to shut up? It doesn't explain more the parallel you made with this notion (which only intersects what I was talking about initially), and the difference is that I've argued my point, with relevant observations, whereas you still continue to hide behind sarcasm and acrimony without giving any substantial reasoning. This is basic behavior, when you have nothing to prove your point, try to persuade that you hold the obvious truth (funny concept) somewhere that is hidden to everyone that disagree with you and that someone else will possibly manage to justify for you with any luck. But the fact is that pretention is of no value when it comes to prove something to others with a mind, so unless you can offer some valid arguments, any of your assumptions is insignificant and you have no right to bother us with that.

[Hiver]

I have a few more suggestions for you.

First is to stop assuming your re-interpretation of what i said and what arguments i used - is of any relevance - just because it is your holly self that invented it all. (or because youre a closet misogynist yourself so you found yourself insulted too)

Second: im not really interested in anything you say. your projection is blatant and ultimately boring. if anything, it may serve for some people to go

Third: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXg6UB9Qk0o

[ButchinMelancholy]

Sweet music (the song only). Though it's what you did more than anyone else here...

EDIT: Ok, I'm too much tempted for not answering nevertheless.

So, first of all I have not "re-interpretated" your comments since I didn't deal with the ideas, but considered the substance, and only assumed some likely intentions that you didn't disproof yet, so I just failed to extort any argument from you in the end... When I am saying that you didn't offer some developed, precise and detailed arguments but mostly invoked other concepts that you didn't bother giving a substantial context or explanation, as if it could be dropped in the middle of a speech without putting it in perspective, this is pure observation, not opinion (except how subjective is the line we draw between a hollow and a consistent argument), so there's nothing I have invented (that's more what you do actually). However, I could think that the misuse of the prefix "re" that I have quoted above reveals your lack of intellectual rigor to the benefit of a (repeated) narrow vehemence as you insist on the word supposed to incriminate myself, and your parenthetical remark highlights what you apparently prefer to assume from me because it would more comfortably support your point I guess. Now tell me how you think it's sheer intellectual garbage, that would so much prove my point.
Secondarily, again, you think it's not worth demonstrating the veracity of your point, because it is "blatant", any sensible person can only recognize it and agree... But presumptions as obvious truth is the merits of ignoramus and fools. I am not going to repeat myself endlessly, in vain, prove me wrong or shut up please. I would rather think that your "projection" is blatant, and so much that you even attribute it to me...

[snakeoil]

Seriously, you guys should read the crap you are writing in this very idiotic topic. Muscles!!! What kind of retro brainlessnes is that? Muscles? Are you serious? The differences are so marginal... Naive people have a tendency to compare bodybuilders to untrained fatasses, but is comparing humans on such a low level really valid in any way? No, when it comes to survival its the brain that counts. The gender does not estimate anything in the context of a videogame. All these counterproductive energy wasted in such a crap and for the game useless topic should finally be stopped just like the mindless gay topic. So please moderators stop it, it should have been locked ten pages ago. Nothing productive will come from it.

[Aarek]

Seriously, you guys should read the crap you are writing in this very idiotic topic. Muscles!!! What kind of retro brainlessnes is that? Muscles? Are you serious? The differences are so marginal... Naive people have a tendency to compare bodybuilders to untrained fatasses, but is comparing humans on such a low level really valid in any way? No, when it comes to survival its the brain that counts. The gender does not estimate anything in the context of a videogame. All these counterproductive energy wasted in such a crap and for the game useless topic should finally be stopped just like the mindless gay topic. So please moderators stop it, it should have been locked ten pages ago. Nothing productive will come from it.

I agree that this topic has gone way off course and wasn't really needed in the first place but I think you misread or didn't read my post at all. If by "muscles" you mean by what I was saying about the human biology, that's not what it was all about at all. Read what I quoted which I took from another source since I don't have a degree in biology myself but I know enough to know as humans, male and females are built slightly differently through the course of evolution. It doesn't mean just because men are built more in this way and women are built for that way that they are stuck doing what their evolution evolved them to do.

We used to be a primal race, I'm sure a very long time ago you could compare humans to that of how gorillas, lions and other mammals act and lived. We just happen to be smarter and technologically advanced now to seperate ourselves from other animals.

[ffordesoon]

Oh, brudder...

@Hiver:

Maybe tone it down a notch, huh? I know you're rather disdainful of decorum, as you should be, but you're coming across as the extremist here, which ain't exactly great for me, seeing as how I more or less share your views, if not your anger. There's a hell of a lot of ad hominem being flung by you at a guy who, whatever his opinions, is not generally resorting to those same tactics (the part where he advised you to "think" aside). He's winning the argument right now by default, because you're blowing up at him and he's not blowing up at you. Whatever the validity of the actual points being stated on either side, there's something to be said for "knowing the room", if you catch my drift.

@Oktobermensch:

Hiver's vitriol aside, it is true that what you said was rather absurd, or at least farcically simplistic. Yes, genetic predispositions do exist, but you're picking on just one of a whole host of factors that determine a whole host of things about a human being, and you're saying that that one factor can be isolated from all others to determine two very specific things. While it may be true that the statistics do favor women being "better" at child-rearing than men, and they may favor men being "better" at physical labor ("mining" was a weird way of putting that, simply because it's been around for a small number of generations, evolutionarily speaking) than men - even if your assertion is factual, in other words - you cannot claim that it's "simple biology", because it isn't.

The science you presumably mean to refer to is statistics; biology is very different from statistics, and though the two disciplines do intersect on occasion, even a consistent statistical correlation across time periods does not necessarily imply causation. Myriad factors determine our genetic traits; "physically deficient" is a separate trait from "woman", and you cannot simply propose that one is definitely and without argument the cause of the other. That's just poor science, and any scientist of any discipline would tell you the same thing.

If you have some compelling evidence that will make me change my tune, I'll happily look at it and give it a fair shake. I probably still won't agree, but as a writer, I always welcome more data on subjects which interest me.

EDIT: And yes, this has precisely nothing to do with Wasteland 2, but it is an interesting subject when looked at rationally.

That said - good writing.

[Oktobermensch]

I suppose I may have not been entirely clear and that my examples are deficient, but I'm not disputing the validity of your explanation, ffordesoon. If anything, perhaps my deficiency in English (its my second language) may have contributed to the trouble and for that I am sorry.
I have already made my arguments and I believe that I did make myself more clear in the subsequent posts ( Aarek can be seen to pick up on that, I wrote more than just that one post after all and I admit it was rather underdeveloped thought). Once again, sorry for any misunderstandings and I encourage everone to be more careful when reading each other's posts. As seen in my case, it can be a pain in the ass for everonye involved when both the writer and the reader aren't careful.

[ffordesoon]

@Oktobermensch:

It's fine. I appreciate your measured response.

Also, your English is quite good!

[Woolfe]

@Oktobermensch:

It's fine. I appreciate your measured response.

Also, your English is quite good!

Agreed, but this can be a very passionate subject, so I can understand why Hiver was so incensed by it.

Your English is bloody good. I wouldn't have guessed it as a second language. Which may also be part of why assumptions have been made as well. Sometimes the assumed inflections can make a huge difference. It happens even in countries with English as the first language.