Empty insults mean less than nothing.

Epic offering a game for free, only to be treated as advertisement for its sale on Steam, is the headline of this submission. What do you mean, what? Do you speak English?

I’ve demonstrated I keep notes on these arguments. Not that it seems to matter, when even the people who agree that Steam is a monopoly pile on, like I’m the asshole for pointing it out. I have asked you, specifically, what I should say differently, and your response was ‘well I dunno.’ Great! Thanks! How distinctly useful!

Troll.

If I have demonstrated anything in all my years online, it is that I am ready and willing to argue. But it’s not an argument if the other side is just saying words recreationally. That seems to be the case here, when no amount of pleading for specifics or alternatives results in anything besides ‘shut up.’

Meanwhile:

The actual topic remains that Valve is a monopoly. In what universe is that not relevant to this article about their largest competitor being so unimportant they can’t give things away? If everyone here takes that for granted, great… so why am I getting the same response as the many times people deny it? Even the meta discussion about phrasing is fraught and confrontational, regardless of what I’ve actually said. Have I offended you in some way?

If you want to warn, then warn directly

What would that look like, besides what I’ve done?

I don’t think any of you know what you want. You act like I’ve done something wrong, and when pressed on what exactly that is, you cannot provide a reason, but will not re-examine the assertion. Any amount of context is the wrong amount, any approach is the wrong approach, any tone is the wrong tone. The nature of bad faith is that there is no right answer.

And this is over agreement. I’m used to people getting weird when they insist Steam isn’t an obvious monopoly. The exact same weirdness becomes novel when it’s from people insisting it’s too obvious. I’m getting shit on both for explaining why being a monopoly is not intrinsically evil, and for explaining why we should be concerned about them anyway… and I’m getting shit on as though I did neither of those things… in the same comment. Baffling.

Further abuse.

They said, continuing to make this about me, instead of the actual topic.

Still offering a fat lot of nothing in terms of constructive criticism for this tone-policing.

People fall over themselves to demonstrate what I’m saying.

I mention that it’s a monopoly - ‘shut up, no it isn’t.’ I mention the people who say it isn’t - ‘shut up, of course it is.’ I start from scratch - ‘shut up, what are you talking about.’ I provide two years of context - ‘shut up, that’s not in this thread.’

What sequence of words would avoid this abuse? What possible sentence would address the actual issue, without people acting like I’ve insulted their mother’s cooking?

Then it’s not a me problem. And you shouldn’t act like it is.

Even when I ask what should I say instead?, people go ‘ooh, no, I wouldn’t say it like that’ instead of answering the fucking question.

I’ve had this argument in a wide variety of contexts and tones-of-voice. All of them get the same asinine responses. This goes beyond resting bitch font, where people interpret whatever I write in the shittiest way possible. I’m starting to think the topic is just cursed. Like it’s impossible to have a sensible conversation about Valve’s market share. All efforts descend into snipping about the commenter, or spiral out into nonsense and denial.

I beg of you, prove me wrong. What should I say instead?

And which angle would not receive the same “information?”

I refuse to be shamed on tone when every approach sees the same response.

A coy eye-roll which you cannot imagine anyone disagrees with gets brusquely scoffed at. Pointing out that people absolutely disagree with it gets treated like heavy messing.

Dry statements get downvoted.

Direct responses get downvoted.

Detailed overviews get downvoted.

Oblique implications get downvoted.

Direct application with context gets downvoted.

If I can’t win I don’t play. Steam is a monopoly and people are fucking weird about it. You supposedly agree with me and you’re still treating me the same way these “dumbasses” do. If I pretend they don’t exist I get more predictable bullshit. If I acknowledge they exist it’s my fault somehow. How about no?

I’ve had dozens of people pile on to insist Steam is not a monopoly. They’re the ones I’m quoting about it being the only store they use. They’re the ones downvoting me, and only me, for pointing out it is a monopoly, while they upvote you for also saying it’s a monopoly, but in a yeah-but phrasing.

But Steam’s totally not a monopoly, you guys.

No, the word does not mean competitors don’t exist. It means they don’t matter.

No, the label does not mean we have to shatter Valve. Having market dominance and abusing it are different things, but we still need to recognize when a company fffuuucking obviously has it.

If Gaben suddenly announces he’s sold it all to Larry Ellison, that has ruinous implications for the entire PC gaming market, despite the fact Valve does not strictly own PC gaming. They don’t have to, to be an outsized influence, to the point most people will readily admit they only buy from one store. We have a word for that.

Because of the sentence you just quoted.

I’m making an explicit argument about the purpose of the term, as a necessary component of dealing with some of the worst crimes imaginable. I didn’t figure I’d ever have to explain to someone why abusing a human child is fundamentally different from and worse than drawing on top of a fuckin’ JPEG.

If y’all manage to stomp the meaning out of “CSAM,” the same way y’did for “CP,” we’re gonna be right back here, where there’s some bespoke term for the visual evidence of actual assault that physically occurred, yet people insist that a fictional rendering is-too VEOAATPO.

Diluting the impact of these terms is antithetical to protecting children. That stupid Horses game had people lobbing the term “CSAM” at it… for a game you can buy on GOG. If you can casually say “I bought some CSAM at Walmart the other day,” then the term’s not doing its fucking job, describing the kind of imagery you go straight to jail for.

Depictions could somehow be twice as illegal as the real event, and they still wouldn’t be the same thing. It literally did not take place.

Are you honestly asking me why child molestation is worse than rendering an image?

This term was already developed to distinguish evidence of criminal events. I should fucking hope everyone here understands why preventing or punishing such events is a leading goal, but apparently that’s asking too much, if y’all really do not believe there’s a difference between pasting someone’s head onto a magazine centerfold… versus sexually assaulting them. I am fucking bewildered by this lack of consensus on the topic of child rape. Really thought it was a gimme, for everyone to go, yeah, this thing over here is bad, but obviously it’s not as bad as child rape.

Didn’t expect to fire up the computer and have Lemmings sincerely ask me, why are crimes that happened worse than crimes that didn’t?

Do you understand that’s a different thing than telling me you’ve fucked her?

Show me where anyone said that. Circle it in red.

True enough - but fortunately, there’s approximately zero such images readily-available on public websites, for obvious reasons. There certainly is not some well-labeled training set on par with all the images of Shrek.

It’s big fucking news when those datasets contain, like, three JPEGs. Because even one such JPEG is an event where the FBI shows up and blasts the entire hard drive into shrapnel.

Y’all insisting there’s gotta be some clearly-labeled archive with a shitload of the most illegal images imaginable, in order for the robot that combines concepts to combine the concept of “child” and the concept of “naked,” are not taking yourselves seriously. You’re just shuffling cards to bolster a kneejerk feeling.

Threats are a crime, but they’re a different crime than the act itself.

Everyone piling on understands that it’s kinda fuckin’ important to distinguish this crime, specifically, because it’s the worst thing imaginable. They just also want to use the same word for shit that did not happen. Both things can be super fucking illegal - but they will never be the same thing.

‘This too is a crime, but it’s a different crime.’

‘Why are you defending this?’

Wrong.

Incorrect.

And you think it’s short on images of fully naked women?

You think these billion-dollar companies keep hyper-illegal images around, just to train their hideously expensive models to do the things they do not want those models to do?

Like combining unrelated concepts isn’t the whole fucking point?

And what if neither happened?

AI can draw Shrek on the moon.

Do you think it needed real images of that?

A threat of murder is a crime without being the same thing as murder.

Meditate on this.

My definition is from what words mean.

We need a term to specifically refer to actual photographs of actual child abuse. What the fuck are we supposed to call that, such that schmucks won’t use the same label to refer to drawings?

Your likeness depicted on the moon does not mean you went to the moon.

Nothing done to your likeness is a thing that happened to you.

Do you people not understand reality is different from fiction?

CSAM is material… from the sexual abuse… of a child.

Fiction does not count.

They’re wrong.

As evidenced by what those words mean.

RAINN has completely lost the plot by conflating the explicit term for Literal Photographic Evidence Of An Event Where A Child Was Raped with made-up bullshit.

We will inevitably develop some other term like LPEOAEWACWR, and confused idiots will inevitably misuse that to refer to drawings, and it will be the exact same shit I’m complaining about right now.

‘These several things are illegal, including the real thing and several made-up things.’

Please stop misusing the term that explicitly refers to the the real thing.

‘No.’

You can insist every frame of Bart Simspon’s dick in The Simpsons Movie should be as illegal as photographic evidence of child rape, but that does not make them the same thing. The entire point of the term CSAM is that it’s the actual real evidence of child rape. It is nonsensical to use the term for any other purpose.

There cannot be material from the sexual abuse of a child if that sexual abuse did not fucking happen. The term does not mean ‘shit what looks like it could be from the abuse of some child I guess.’ It means, state’s evidence of actual crimes.

What, taking child abuse seriously?