I have said very little about gamergate because it saddens me and makes me an...

I have said very little about gamergate because it saddens me and makes me angry and then I feel hopeless. These are violent narcissistic terrorists.

I honestly feel that the the daily damage that women (and other minority groups) suffer online and in person is a far greater manifest threat to national security of the *citizens* of the USA, than ISIS, Al-Queda or any of the other usual terrorist threats that freak us out and cause us to borrow a $1T a year to feed the GOP fear trolls.

I feel despondent, and I just cannot think of any solutions. For climate change - the solutions are obvious - just difficult. But for anonymous sociopaths with nothing to lose, I do not have any solutions that I have confidence in.

Do any of you?

I am at the point, that I am doubting that the 1st amendment protections are actually net useful with modern technology. Then, I think of how you could possibly censor terroristic threats and my head explodes.

Maybe *anyone* who makes a threat of violence against anyone immediate gets NSA & FBI drill down, and civil forfeiture of their whole family's house and cars??? I personally think that would be a huge step up from civil forfeiture for trivial "crimes" of personal, recreational drug use. At least with these sociopaths they are actually attacking another person whereas the War on Drugs is just silly morality police covering up for massive state fraud.

Would that work? Civil Forfeiture? You raised an asshole teenaged son who made an "innocent" rape threat against a woman online? You lose your house. Is that too harsh? I dunno. Maybe after 1,000 houses were seized we would get some cultural change?

I romantically miss the times when someone said something vile, you or someone who cared for you could challenge the asshole to a duel and kill the human pimple.

We need something like that.

We cannot *ask* them to stop being asshole. I reject the "solution" of just ignore the trolls. I have had many of my own game forums and ignoring the trolls just doesn't ever work.

We need some sort of global moderation. You make threats and your shit gets deleted and the cops start coming after you. Take away the $75B a year we spend on the War on Drugs, and turn it into a $10B a year War on Trolls. Wouldn't that be a net win?

Tell the cops that they get to keep 80% of the seized assets from assholes that threaten people online, and I would bet that shit would stop in a month.

Of course, soon we will be dealing with police departments making shit up in order to get the cash.

For that I guess we gotta then put cops in prison for 25+ years for abuse of power.

I dunno. I am struggling here. Feels like I am trying to grab oil in my hand.

My posting style has been more combative over the last year, and I am comfortable with it. When I see people being casually sexist, or racist, or classist I will call them out on it. No one I know uses the "N" word. But I remember as a kid, many people around me did. But they stopped. It no longer was cool. Using the word "Gay" as a pejorative also has dropped (but not yet eliminated). So I see some progress.

But if I know anyone (close to me or not) threaten a woman or be misogynist I will give them grief. That's all I got right now.

Does anyone else have better ideas?

Raph Koster has spent tones of time discussing the issue with the assholes on Reddit. Damion Schubert has posted a ton of scathing essays that I agree with.

Somehow, I think we gotta keep pushing until being misogynist gamergates feels like raising your hand and saying you are KKK. It should feel dirty, small, and criminal.

Originally posted on Facebook on October 14, 2014.