Friday 1 October 2010

Gevlon the Bully

So Gevlon doesn't believe that "morons and slackers" can benefit from education (his definition of morons and slackers are people who don't want to play WoW the way he thinks they should), and rather than fix his problem, he would rather eliminate them.

Well, I'd rather expel sociopaths, liars, bigots, and bullies from our game, and Gevlon is all of these.

For a long time, I thought that Gevlon was just harmless. Here was a guy with some wacky economic ideas that had been tried out in the 19th century and found wanting (and led to revolution in many of the countries they were tried in), and some weird ideas about how you should play the game the way he wants you to play it. A harmless, bright but ignorant kid, I thought, who doesn't yet know much about the ways of the world. But his lack of education on such matters hasn't stopped him peddling an economic theory from the age of steam and he has been engaged in a political endeavour to persuade WoW players of his socio-economic theory of Eloi and Morlocks (or "socials" and "goblins", as Gevlon calls them). Gevlon thinks of himself and his fellow travellers as Morlocks, and everybody who doesn't buy into his theories of how the game should be played as Eloi, and ripe for exploitation and elimination.

Gevlon the sociopathic bigot

This example really made it concrete to me that he is, in fact, the sociopath that he claims to be. He has no qualms about hurting other people greatly if it makes his life slightly easier. In general he does this by first making the people he is hurting appear subhuman: they are M&S, socials, filth, retards. The subtext is that they deserve whatever he wants to do to them. Once they are labelled and defined as Eloi, then those who label themselves as Morlocks may feast on them without pricking their consciences (many of Gevlon's followers are not the sociopath that he is, and have a conscience). This namecalling and labelling is a constant feature of Gevlon's blog, and its regular readers will by now have become so exposed to this hateful bigotry that they have become inured to it. It is bigotry and prejudice nonethless.

As a sociopath, Gevlon has no affinity for (and only a theoretical understanding of) the underlying concepts and mechanisms of society (perhaps this is because his real-life society exploded so dramatically in 1989. I don't know, and I don't want to make excuses for him). For Gevlon, the only person that counts is number one, and he will do whatever he can to hurt you if it makes things slightly more comfortable for himself. His philosophy is not utilitarian, he is not after the greater good. He is after the good of only himself. Sometimes this also benefits his stooges, but he is just as happy to harm them to benefit himself (for instance, getting his stooges to transfer realms to Inglourious Gankers, then pulling the plug on it once he got bored by it).

Gevlon the bully

Unable to fit into normal society sociably, Gevlon has no idea how to persuade people to see his point of view, and his best attempt is to try to bully them into submission with rudeness and namecalling. See, for instance, his attempts to persuade players to follow his orders in Alterac Valley (this came after this classic pair of posts "sitah and helcsi" and "its not my faliure", where Gevlon completely fails to understand Ten's comments on the leadership skills needed to gel an unco-ordinated group into a successful team, as team-building is a social endeavour). Or his recent attempt to bully people in Wintergrasp into following his orders, by kicking them from the raid if they don't. Gevlon is much more bullying in matters concerning the auction house, of course, where failure to follow his one true path could get you labelled a moron or a slacker or both. And if your game is to collect pets or achievements instead of gold or bosskills, you are labelled a moron by Gevlon. Anyone, in fact, who plays the game differently to Gevlon risks his wrath.

Gevlon the liar

Gevlon is a liar. He has admitted as much and even boasted about it (see LF10M VoA25, if you didn't already read it). He thinks this makes him seem clever. He and his fellow Morlocks feel it is acceptable to lie to what they see as fair game. By labelling the other raid as M&S, in other words subhuman, it's okay to abuse them. Also, he lies to the whole realm. But that's okay, the rest of the realm must be M&S or they'd be in The PuG; and you can lie to the M&S. Even those who join your raid. Well, PuG members, don't be so sure Gevlon doesn't see you as fair game, too. His lies and his bullying behaviour are for the good of one person: Gevlon. And sod the rest of you.

Bullying, lying, bigoted, sociopathic behaviour isn't tolerated in most societies. We should not tolerate it in WoW.

27 comments:

  1. Exceptional write up. I have dealt with Gevlon personally on many levels including some infamous emails. He is a complete psycho.

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  2. I used to think that his morons of the week column was funny. The it got old. Then his attitude, name calling, and elitism wore on me until I removed all links to his blog and basically ignore his stupid rants and ravings.

    Another important thing that Gevlon practices is CENSORSHIP. I have never had a post actually go live to his comments. Most people filter their blog comments to keep spammers away.

    Gevlon censors his comment posts. You only get your comments published if you:
    1) Agree with him
    2) Have an opposing idea suitable for more bashing and flaming from him.

    I tend to think of Gev as the Hitler of the WoW blogging community. Would you follow Hitler's ideas?

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  3. I'm waiting for his inevitable book to appear...

    "Mein Graveyard Kampf"

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  4. Thanks for the link!

    By the way I don't abuse the fellow Morlocks, simply because I can't. They can defend themselves. So the best FOR ME is win-win cooperation. The Eloi on the other hand (who CHOOSE to be one), are indeed fair game. They can choose to be Morlocks if they got enough. I truly wish that one day they will.

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  5. I've posted a number of comments on Gevlon's blog that were critical of him. As far as I know, only one never made it up. I suspect that I am able to do this because I generally am quite specific about attacking his ideas rather than him personally. Trying to paint somebody as a 'psycho' or 'Hitler' isn't doing anything to further a constructive discussion of whatever the issues are.

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  6. I'm not an economics expert, so I think I missed something. What are the "wacky economic ideas that had been tried out in the 19th century and found wanting (and led to revolution in many of the countries they were tried in)"?

    While I disagree with Gevlon on many social issues (and sometimes agree), my understanding of his economic strategy is that of "deep undercutting" to drive the competition out of the market and make your money on low mark up/high volume. If I understand it correctly, that's the same strategy as Walmart, the largest retail company in the world?

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  7. I don't agree with the Hitler comparisons. For one thing, Hitler either accomplished everything he set out to do (rule Germany, eg), or died trying (conquer Russia, eg). Gevlon, on the other hand, abandons his projects after only a few months, then pretends they never happened. He will always be an ass, but genocide is beyond his abilities.

    I get the impression he was raised to believe that giving a damn about others was a sign of weakness, and that his parents used this to justify being cold, unliving fish. As an adult now he has a deep need for attention and admiration, but is unable to admit it, even to himself. So he lashes out, calls attention to himself, and claims to be "asocial". Since there are plenty of people in the world who love a demagogue, he has no trouble finding followers to stroke his ego.

    As far as his censorship goes, I find it quite amusing to write comments at the ragged edge of what he'll tolerate, then place bets with myself on if they'll get approved or not.

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  8. Gevlon this link doesn't help you one bit, stop acting smug when someone calls you for what you are: a bigot and a liar.

    Hitler called the Jews inferior and you call M&S inferior and just like Hitler you lump your opposition into a single category.

    You're a sick love deprived bastard.

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  9. This blog post serves as a textbook example of Godwin's Law.

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  10. @Markco:
    Thank you for your kind words. Gevlon is certainly a sociopath by his own admission. According to Wikipedia, sociopathy is sometimes referred to as psychopathy.

    @Cold:
    Moron of the week certainly was train-wreck stuff. But I always think that introducing Hitler (or Stalin or Pol-Pot) is a quick way to lose an argument.

    @Gevlon:
    I think you didn't grasp my point. The only person that chooses to label people is you and your stooges. I do not choose either label. It is you that chooses it for people, so that you can then abuse them without conscience.

    As for not being able to abuse your fellow travellers, I noticed the fearful atmosphere in your guild - "shhh, here comes the headmaster"! There are many progression guilds that are run by bullies. I don't understand why people stay in them; there are enough progression guilds run by real leaders. Take Larísa's for instance.

    Also, what about that poor hunter Emancro in your guild that you hung out to dry on your blog (and then wondered a week or two later why nobody was turning up for raids any more). That was an abuse.

    And not to flog a dead horse, but in LF10M for VoA25, you lied to every person on your realm. If you don't think this is an abuse, then let members of the PuG beware!


    @Anonymous:
    I agree with you: bringing Hitler into any discussion only muddies the waters, which is why I specifically dealt with Gevlon's verifiable behaviour, with examples of it.

    @second anonymous:
    Gevlon's deep undercutting auction house strategy is not in the least controversial! It's a perfectly valid AH strategy.

    @Wilson:
    I agree. Every time Hitler is brought into any discussion, it always derails the discussion into a discussion of Hitler!

    I don't know what Gevlon's background is, but for myself, as a callow adolescent I thought I knew a lot more than I actually did. What I was missing was an understanding of social interaction. I thought I was cleverer than most other people, when in reality, I was certainly smarter in some ways, but socially I was backward. Gevlon reminded me a little of my adolescent self; but I wised up, and realised how much I don't know. Until he rids himself of his sociopathic behaviour and learns how the real world works (i.e. as a society) he will always be a slacker, socially.

    @Anonymous 3:
    I'm sure Gevlon thinks this is just more dissemination for his madcap theories!

    All the same, I'd appreciate it if we could keep name-calling and Hitler out of the comment section.

    According to Gevlon he is sociopathic. Wikipedia defines this as a disorder. I'm not sure it is quite the same as a sickness, and in any case I doubt the rest of your last comment has any validity.

    @Anonymous 4: Absolutely! It moved into Nazi territory pretty fast!

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  11. Second Anonymous2 October 2010 at 02:53

    @Dàchéng

    I think I may not be reading your comments correctly. In your original post you stated "a guy with some wacky economic ideas that had been tried out in the 19th century and found wanting (and led to revolution in many of the countries they were tried in)". Which I understood to mean that you thought his economic theories were incorrect or lacking.

    In my comment I restated how I understand Gevlon's economic theory and you agreed that it is a good theory. Am I misinterpreting your original comment?

    Aside: I'm not qualified to discuss psychology, but I do appreciate that at least someone sees that using the Hitler and genocide stuff detracts from the arguement.

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  12. You just don't WANT to understand why people stay in groups ran by bullies. They do, because suffering "nice freindly ppl" is worse than suffering a bully.

    I'm sure many of my guildmembers hate the "you can't lol ever" rule. But they hate the lolling filth who do 900DPS "itza game lol" more.

    The sociopath could not exist if the society wouldn't be severly compromised.

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  13. Dacheng says:

    "The only person that chooses to label people is you and your stooges. I do not choose either label. It is you that chooses it for people, so that you can then abuse them without conscience."

    and:

    "...sociopaths, liars, bigots, and bullies from our game, and Gevlon is all of these."

    Each of those is a label just as much as Gevlon's treasured "M&S" label. In other words, you're doing exactly what you accuse Gevlon of doing: labeling people.

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  14. First, some clarifications:

    Gevlon usually refers to 3 types of players in WoW, the goblins who, akin to him, are sociopaths, only caring about themselves, the socials, who, while they are good players, gevlon feels they are being held back by an invisible "obligation" to help the third group, the M&S, the bad players of a game, people who are either too dumb to figure it out, or who don't care enough to do so. When i started reading gevlon, I was a social, and I still am, although I certainly am more of a goblin these days then I was back then.

    From the wiki you linked: "A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, especially one exhibiting intolerance, irrationality, and animosity toward those of differing beliefs or genetics"

    I would say that Gevlon has one of the most rational, unbiased playing philosophies of any WoW player I know. M&S stands for morons and slackers, he doesn't discriminate based on beliefs, race, sex, or culture, he discriminates based on intelligence. If you think that blood DW dps is the way to go, he'll call you out on it, not because he has made some sort of judgement about you before he evaluated your spec, but because your spec is provably wrong.

    "for instance, getting his stooges to transfer realms to Inglourious Gankers, then pulling the plug on it"

    This makes no sense at all, if you got to level 20 in that guild gevlon would give you FREE bags and 200g (I believe, perhaps 100). Seems like a GIGANTIC waste if he planned on pulling the plug just to make some people halfway across the world slightly annoyed for 2 seconds.

    Now, the meat of what I'm saying:

    WoW is a virtual world, with an almost completely deregulated market and where every player starts out at level 1 with no gold or advantage over any other new player starting out. This is free market lovers like gevlon's utopia. The ABSOLUTE worst thing he could EVER do to a player within the confines of World of Warcraft is hurt their feelings. He loves to mess around in WoW, seeing what works and what doesn't, and he loves reveling in the knowledge that, when he sees a truly bad player, that person is just bad at the game. So he makes fun of them. Why? because they have no excuses for being bad. Everyone starts at the same level, but these people did not excel not because of some outside factors, but because they ARE M&S. And if you say "It's just a game, gevlon shouldn't be so mean" Then why be angry when your virtual character gets kicked from a group of other virtual characters, or when someone tricks you out of your virtual money, or when some virtual character in a virtual battleground sits around doing nothing? If "it's just a game" why let these things bother you?

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  15. @second Anonymous
    I think you read me right. I do think Gevlon's economic theories are wacky, especially where he attempts to apply them to the real worwld. However, deep undercutting in the AH is a tactic, and a good one at that. There is no single post I can point to of Gevlon's where he summarizes his economic theories, but you could take a read of his posts labelled Philosophy to get the idea. To be honest, even though I don't love his theories, it's not these I am addressing in this post. It's his behaviour.

    @Gevlon:
    Now you're trolling! My current guild is run by a competent leader who is both nice and friendly, and doesn't have to bully people. There are many guilds run by people who are nice and friendly and are great leaders.

    Though I do ICC25 exclusively in PuGs, I have never met any 'lolling filth who do 900DPS'. I think there may be something in your personality that attracts them to you, or brings out the worst in people.

    @Anonymous 5:
    No. I am using the four terms I chose descriptively, not as labels, and I have given links to their normal meanings to emphasize this fact, given examples of Gevlon's behaviour that confirms my analysis, and Gevlon has indeed chosen to appy two of these to himself.

    The terms Gevlon uses "M&S", "socials", "filth" "retards", he uses not descriptively, and certainly not with their normal English meaning. He uses them to label people as appropriate subjects for further abuse, so that, for instance, in the Moron of the Week series, we could feel safe in laughing at his public execution of someone, because that person wore the label that allowed us to recognise they were not "one of us", and therefore fair game for torture.

    @Daniel:
    The definition of what "bad" is depends on what game you are playing. If I decide to play WoW as a pet collector, Gevlon's autocratic ruling about what my spec should be has no relevance to my game.

    Gevlon, however, wants to force people to play according to his criteria of what is good and bad, and uses the bullying tactics I described above to single out and dehumanize those who play according to different criteria.

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  16. @Dacheng, if you are a pet collector, of course you don't need a great spec for that. it's when the pet collectors decide to do raids that I become concerned. When a 0/0/71 DK comes into my raid, the pets he has collected matter nothing. His spec, gear choices, rotation, and situational awareness do. Gevlon thinks that pet collecting is a waste of time, but he's never going to actively search for people that play the game to collect pets and single them out for that, that would be a gigantic waste of time. When these people decide to engage in group PvE, and they have provably wrong specs, gear, or rotation for that activity, that's when he will put them up on his blog.

    When people talk about "I play the game for fun" (Implying that people like Gevlon play the game for some other purpose, which is ridiculous), that's great, we just have different things that we consider fun. Gevlon and I like killing bosses, and they like collecting pets, for example. And that's fine, but when they decide they want to kill bosses and are hampering our ability to kill those bosses, that's when it becomes a problem.

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  17. Dacheng, the distinction you attempt to create between words that describe and words that label makes no sense at all. A label is simply a short word or phrase that is descriptive of a person, place or some other thing. Either way, you condemn Gevlon for using words in the same manner that you do. As my previous post suggested, there is a word for that too: hypocrisy.

    If you believe that the difference is in the fact that Gevlon uses terms such as "M&S" in a negative sense, you are again doing the exact same thing you are accusing Gevlon of doing. Terms such as 'sociopaths', 'liars', 'bigots', 'bullies' and 'stooges' -- all terms you have used to describe Gevlon or those like him -- have explicitly negative meanings.

    Furthermore, you have confused the words "execution" and "torture" for "ridicule". There is an enormous gulf between poking fun at somebody and ending the life of another human being. This degree of hyperbole suggests to me that your arguments here are based on some sort of emotional reaction and not any sort of clear-headed consideration of the issues. Perhaps next you will tell us that Gevlon isn't just *figuratively* Hitler but that he is literally, in essence, in substance and actually Hitler?

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  18. Second Anonymous3 October 2010 at 04:04

    @Dàchéng,

    I apologize for taking my comments on a bit of tangent from your orginial post, but just so you know where I'm coming from: I generally agree with Gevlon's economic ideas as it pertains to wow and have used them to become gold capped. I often agree with them IRL also, although not always when he applies his economic ideas to areas outside of economics, such as sociology.

    When you said his economic ideas were "wacky", "found wanting" and "led to revolution" what exactly were you refering to? Maybe it was just a bit of over-done hyperbole? Or maybe give some examples of economic ideas that have led to revolutions?

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  19. @Daniel:
    At the moment, Gevlon has a bee in his bonnet about raiding, and so he picks on people who are bad at raiding. I don't mind him educating such people, I do mind him ridiculing them.

    Before that, it was gold, and he was quite happy to pick on players who may have been excellent raiders, but didn't have enough money for his tastes, or who got their money in an inefficient manner.

    Frankly, I'm all for educating such people, but Gevlon says he isn't.

    @Anonymous 6 (and 5?):
    Ah, there you go bringing Hitler into it; so I'm afraid we are going to have to differ.

    @Second Anonymous:
    Naked exploitation of the poor is one of the causes of revolution in many countries (though often if the revolution fails, it is labelled rebellion, terrorism or just unrest). You could take a look at "Leviathan" by Thomas Hobbes (written during the English Civil War).

    Enlightened self-interest is a practical economic philosophy that many western democracies now follow (see Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations"). I don't think this is Gevlon's approach to economics. He mainly just wants a bigger police force to help him in his
    "unenlightened self-interest" (to put down any uprisings that may result from his self-enrichment). But as I say, I'm not unhappy with Gevlon having a different political or economic opinion to me, and I'll discuss economics with you another day, if you like. It's Gevlon's behaviour that I want to focus on in this post.

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  20. Second Anonymous4 October 2010 at 03:21

    Again I know this is not your main point with this post, so it'll be my last comment about economics unless you choose to post on that in the future.

    However, I take issue with your description of Gevlon's economic ideas. I suspected this to be the case and that is why I tried to get you to explain what you meant. "Naked exploitation of the poor" and "wants a bigger police force" are not even applicable to wow economics. You could not make a more level playing field than wow. There is no police force as there is no way to "cheat" or "exploit" gold or services from anyone. No one has to do anything they don't want to do.

    I'll just chalk your original comment up to hyperbole and make no more comments unless you choose to engage this topic in the future.

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  21. Well this was a fun read! One thing I have found is gevlon is a bit of a bully but some of his methods I find unjustified. Some are fairly good in their use.

    Running a guild without vent for one will always cripple a group, I always wondered if his legions are all on vent somewhere else. I mean yes you can down regular lich king and halion but many of the hardmodes need snap reactions. I would rather read about a raid not using any dbm or dvx type raid warnings then no vent. But to each his own.

    As far as deep undercutting, yeah walmart method works but I know the guy who reset all our glyphs did 3x what gevlon did by not going deep. I really feel going with one strict method can cripple a buisness,where diversity in your methods can keep you one tier above the competition. I mean hell I made 55k off of my glyphs in 2 days posting 3 of each twice a day with only 2k glyphs.

    The moron of the week... I still lol at some of them and if not for a bit of ocd I wouldn't be too far from starring in these types of posts.

    While I don't think you have to be a bully to lead raids, there is a certain amount of douchebaggery that is required for a "hardcore" progression guild. Carebear leaders tend to lack the backbone to bench a guy who ain't cutting it or standing in fire, but I'm sure a balance would make for a decent raid leader.

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  22. Thank you, Coggi, for your comment. As you say, there is usually a middle path. I'm sorry to take so long to respond. I only noticed your comment when I updated the original article to reference Gevlon's latest idea for bullying people into playing their game the way he wants them to play it!

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  23. Wow, can't believe I missed this. Gevlon is an extremely complicated person, and like everyone here, he is right on some points, wrong on others and has differing opinions on still more.

    Gevlon is definately right when it comes to the fact that we really do have some godawful players that I have no problem kicking from a group -- A certain 80 rogue running in a heroic putting out a whopping 850 dps comes to mind. I think he is honest about wanting people to improve and change, but I disagree in some of the draconian approaches that he takes.

    I personally think he is very bright and plagued with a severe case of attention deficit disorder. As often as he finds new things that interst him, he gets tired of old projects and drops them. While it may be infuriating (even unfair) to others around him, this IS one of the traits that characterizes and inventor ;)

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  24. @ Xinge
    I too thought briefly about ADD, but I only want to attribute to him that which can be demonstrated. It was Gevlon himself who said he was a sociopath and a liar; and I believe I have shown that he is a bigot and a bully.

    @ Second Anonymous (tardily)
    I was specifically talking about real-world economics - they're the only kind likely to cause a revolution in any of the counties they were tried in. Apart from his attempts to bully (here's where he calls users of QuickAuctions noobs; of course now he loves QA3, so he has silently forgotten his previous rudeness) and cheat, I don't care what his economics are in WoW.

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  25. I thought I'd point this out here. A commenter on Gevlons blog recently stated (about this post):
    "So I read your comments now...

    Lots of confirmation bias. People in the comments agree with you, they only support you.

    In Gevlon's comments, discussion is more objective, with disagreement when need be, contradicting him and calling him out."

    Amusingly Gevlon filters out a vast number of comments. Anything he doesn't think he will be able to counter, he will moderate out.

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  26. Oh, and in addition to the above (me stating that Gevlon filters comments) my comment about Gevlon filtering comments that I posted to Gevlon's blog got filtered.

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  27. Anonymous 2014-08-28@16:24 is referring to the comments section of an article that Gevlon wrote:

    http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2014/08/greater-internet-f-theory-vs-4-fun-ppl.html

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