Orb Dismissed from Evil Geniuses Broadcasts - Page 105

On March 10 2012 00:01 opisska wrote:
Well, this is the page 102 - that is kinda the problem with TL today that there is SO many people that it is humanly impossible to read through all the opinions, even when the topic is interesting. So nor did I do that, neither do I think that many people will have the time and willingess to read through my opinion. Nevertheless I feel the need to state it.

I think that Alex Garfield's post is the essence of what I think is on of the biggest curses of the contemporary society and in a long time I haven't read anything so well written, with what I could so wholeheartedly disagree. Yet it is very difficult fro me to condense WHY is is to wrong into one world or sentence, paricularly in English language.

But first, let me take pon this from practical point of view: I consider it outageously absurd that someone is being evaluated for a certain position based on things that he has done in the past. I am well aware of the fact that this is done routinely, but it does not make it any better. It is the same fallacy as when the childhood/youngster misbehaviour of a politician is brought up during the campaing. Or even the fact that he has had an affair. I do not care what that guy has done OUTSIDE of politics - it has no impact on my life, I want to now about how he is going to vote on the next bill, not who is he gonna f*** in his freetime. As much as Alex wanted to present it as some kind of a "higher issue" EG is just an employer here. And orb is an emlpoyee, NOT a slave. That means that EG has the full right to tell him what he is supposed to do in his working hours, but it is NONE of their business what he is (or was) doing in his free time (or even when he was not an EG employee at all). Isn't there even a law for this? (Maybe not in the U.S., but if you fired a guy because he has said something in past here, you would problaby get sued pretty hard, and lost)

But these are just practicalities. I think that the worst proble here is, that so much weight is being given to everything people do. The Alex Garfield's post is a prime example of this "overthinking" that plagues the whole western society. Everything, every word, every movement, everything people do is being evaluated and assigned a meaning. And to the worst of it, there is someone ready to be offended by it! Everytime I see the world "to offend" or any of it's derivatives, my blood pressure increases (and that is bery bad for me, as the baseline is already 130/70). It is, in my opinion the worst word our society know at the moment, much worst, than, for example, "nigger". If you say "nigger", you may be hurting about a third of the world's population - or just not caring at all (and you may hope that most of the black people are cool enough not to care as well). If you say "X offends me", you are much more egilitarian: you are hurting the humanity as a whole. And there is no way out, once you say it, no redemption. The amount of things that can't be done, said, drawn, written, broadcasted... because there is someon being "offended", plummets exponentially.

I am out of words now. As I have said in the beginning, this is extremely difficult to formulate in English and I am sorry if it does not make any sense to anyone.

On March 09 2012 23:56 Ballistixz wrote:


*facepalm* i really hate arguing with people like you. first off stop quoting only a portion of my post. i said my grief is with THE COMMUNITY AS A WHOLE and not you personaly, so STOP taking it as some personal attack against you.


also dont try to deny the situation. some random dude dug up screen shots from over a year ago, posted on reddit, and then continued to take it out of proportion. even went as far as going directly to the sponsors. this incident occured 1+ year ago, orb has been trying hard to clean up his act the last few monts. so WHY bring something from his past to harm him? WHY start up drama and stir up old demons of the past? what was the reason for this drama? do you all just ignore how clean orb has been for awhile now?

the answer is yes, you have. because all you have to go on is a few year old screen shot.

On March 10 2012 00:06 Seph02 wrote:
I don't get all the commotion about a third rank caster, tbh I never heard about this guy before. We already have the established casters who represent E-sports because of the way they cast and their personality. If some new caster comes along and screws up in casting or representing/promoting e-sports, just give someone else a shot.

On March 10 2012 00:10 threshy wrote:
There is no separation between what Orb said and his "intent." It is transparently sophistic to argue that, although Orb used the word most universally associated with racism, he nonetheless "intended" something more benign. Why should I (or anybody else) believe that?

Orb's defenders are the ones playing semantic games. They urge the rational among us to ignore the universal understanding of words, and to redefine "rage" to be an emotion that absolves the one who feels it from all responsibility. Only on the internet could that make sense to anybody.

Let me give a tip to all the adolescents who are confused and upset about this "overreaction:" say what you mean, because people hold you to what you say. It is easy to communicate anger or frustration without using racial slurs. I do it all the time. In other words, if you don't want to be considered racist, don't say racist things. It's actually pretty easy, if you're not seething with latent racial resentment. People who aren't racist don't struggle to control racist outbursts. If you think it's anything other than trivial to keep from saying something racist, you're probably just a racist.

On March 10 2012 00:10 threshy wrote:
There is no separation between what Orb said and his "intent." It is transparently sophistic to argue that, although Orb used the word most universally associated with racism, he nonetheless "intended" something more benign. Why should I (or anybody else) believe that?

Orb's defenders are the ones playing semantic games. They urge the rational among us to ignore the universal understanding of words, and to redefine "rage" to be an emotion that absolves the one who feels it from all responsibility. Only on the internet could that make sense to anybody.

Let me give a tip to all the adolescents who are confused and upset about this "overreaction:" say what you mean, because people hold you to what you say. It is easy to communicate anger or frustration without using racial slurs. I do it all the time. In other words, if you don't want to be considered racist, don't say racist things. It's actually pretty easy, if you're not seething with latent racial resentment. People who aren't racist don't struggle to control racist outbursts. If you think it's anything other than trivial to keep from saying something racist, you're probably just a racist.

On March 10 2012 00:13 ajabberwok wrote:
I agree with the OP. The starcraft community should remain mature and inclusive.
I'll admit though that a part of me thinks it's pretty rough for a company to fire or punish someone for things they did before working there. (I wouldn't want my current employer to fire me for dumb things I may have done or said when I was in college.)

Are there examples of other companies firing employees for things they did prior to working there?

On March 09 2012 23:58 TheSubtleArt wrote:

Money and sponsorships and all that stuff matter a lot to an organization. Ask yourself how much value Idra brings to EG, then how much Orb does. A caster is easily replaceable, a top player with a massive fanbase isn't.

I'm sorry but you have a very naiive, childish and unrealistic expectation of businesses and the world in general if this honestly offends you.

On March 10 2012 00:01 Carl_Sagan wrote:


This. Maybe it's because I have black friends who call pretty much anything nigguh, but I think it's obvious that intent is everything. IMO the foulness and hatred that a word once embodied can be destroyed by changing its meaning. Get angry at bad ideas and malicious intent, not at words.

As I said before, EG, of course, is free to hire and fire people as they wish, but after some more contemplation, I can't hide that I'm personally disappointed with EG (yet again). In a case that revolves around what usually would be called "progressive thinking" (though I dislike the term, as I find it absurd and relative), issuing any kind of irreversible punishment is disturbing. The whole premise of overcoming any kind of bigotry and segregation is the belief in the human ability to adapt, change, evolve and not be set in stone by the past. In view of this, I find it disheartening to see doors being closed forever, for anyone, even for a murderer, let alone for a verbal abuser. That's not a sign of purity of principles, but rather a sign of fear and weakness. It took me some time to realize what was it that I found so subtly disturbing in EG's official position, and then I realized it was this.

...Now, I just wish you guys would also get this upset when people use the word f----t, so that we could start fighting homophobia, too, and show people that it, like racism, also doesn't belong in our community .