tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post8605700584569404170..comments2024-03-29T05:27:15.301+08:00Comments on Monsters and Manuals: Playing Games for Fun is OK: An ArgumentUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger87125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-10312678169899412522021-03-27T23:51:29.991+08:002021-03-27T23:51:29.991+08:00Very very late to the discussion - this post was i...Very very late to the discussion - this post was in my backlog of "things to look at seriously when I have the time and energy" - but I did want to point out a major problem in the post: the assertion that "didactic art is almost always bad art."<br /><br />This is just false on its face. Sure, it's easy for <i>blatantly</i> didactic art, with <i>no other purpose or redeeming features</i> to stand out in the consumer's consciousness and memory as an example of Didactic Bad Art. So I can see why the false impression exists.<br /><br />But if you think about it, most of what we hold as "great" art <i>is also blatantly didactic</i>. It's just that the pill is sugarcoated, so to speak: you get moving character interactions, and dramatic plots, and mysteries, and all the other fun stuff instead of just a Very Important Lesson being crammed down your throat.<br /><br />Let me put it this way: essentially every major religious text, whether it belongs to a major modern religion or something that we just think of as "myth," is didactic; its purpose is to teach you how you're supposed to behave to best please or appease the forces that run the world. All the surviving Greek plays are didactic. The <i>Iliad</i> and <i>Odyssey</i> are didactic. The <i>Journey to the West</i> is didactic. The <i>Genji Monogatari</i> and <i>Heike Monogatari</i> are super didactic. Dickens? Didactic. Mark Twain? Didactic. Dostoyevsky? Didactic. Voltaire? Didactic. Tolkien? Didactic. Ralph Ellison? Didactic. <i>Citizen Kane</i>? Didactic. <i>The Godfather</i>? Didactic.<br /><br />The <i>Fallout</i> games are didactic; being satire doesn't mean they don't have a lesson to impart! The <i>Bioshock</i> series, super didactic. <i>Shadow of the Colossus</i>, didactic. Everything with "Sim" in its name? Blatantly didactic. <i>Oregon Trail</i>? Explicitly a teaching tool. Heck, the entire origin of board gaming as we know it is the didactic mode of "hey let's find a way to teach people a lesson without them having to live through X experience in its entirety." Chess is just a tool for teaching would-be leaders about positioning and tactics. Monopoly was literally made to teach players how awful and destructive unfettered capitalism is. Snakes & Ladders was a moralistic game designed to help children internalize the concepts of selected vices and virtues.<br /><br />Most of the art that we recognize as good or great is enduring specifically because it has a didactic aspect! This gives it depth and weight, and probably helped its author(s) because they shaped the work to carry a message that was important to them. It's perhaps easy to counter with specific works that are didactic and bad, but that's just a misapplication of Sturgeon's Law. <i>A thing done badly is bad, yes.</i> Most things are not done very well. But that doesn't make a work with a specific message or "moral" any more likely to be bad than something crafted specifically to be mindless entertainment - quite the opposite, as a rule.Confanityhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10361443460498670841noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-47954731626845732962020-12-22T06:54:07.441+08:002020-12-22T06:54:07.441+08:00Games are art, pop-tarts are sandwiches. I'll...Games are art, pop-tarts are sandwiches. I'll sword-fight dissenters.WrongOnTheInternethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10307593854612561638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-44052818155438366022020-12-20T03:00:03.678+08:002020-12-20T03:00:03.678+08:00I don't always type the best on my first try.I don't always type the best on my first try.HDAhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13506175636615989219noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-41407020529434439012020-12-18T03:39:08.363+08:002020-12-18T03:39:08.363+08:00Kent: Yes, I have a healthy ego, I do not deny it...Kent: Yes, I have a healthy ego, I do not deny it. But being educated and experienced in a subject doesn't mean I'm wrong.<br /><br />Yes, I chose to lean on that education and experience in argument after 10 years or so of hanging around the community, where I have seen an increasing number of these arguments. I was reacting, perhaps unfairly, to my perception that noisms was dismissing my opinion as that of some sort of frivolous dilettante in love with a new theory. That stung a bit; thinking critically about these issues from both sides, and helping the sides understand each other enough to find common ground and practical solutions, has been and continues to be a big part of my career. Yes, it was probably self-indulgent to throw my experience around now. I doubt there will be much patience for me doing it in the future, so I'll try to practice more self-restraint from now on. I will try to be humble and measured, like yourself.Beorichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05179135838206052198noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-62146297684496195722020-12-18T03:10:18.389+08:002020-12-18T03:10:18.389+08:00Noisms: I do recognize and agree that poverty exi...Noisms: I do recognize and agree that poverty exists elsewhere and that it has similar impacts to whomever it occurs, and I have those discussions with people on the other side of this argument. In my experience, however, poor white trash are still higher up on the pecking order than poor minorities. And they face economic and social barriers, but are much less likely to face systemic barriers and have an easier time blending in with greater society.<br /><br />As a modern example, Indigenous lawyers in Canada are often mistaken for, and treated like, social workers, parties or accused when they go to court; but if a white factory worker throws on a suit, everyone assumes he is a lawyer. The same sorts of things happen in encounters with the health care system.<br /><br />To be clear, I am not trying to stigmatize people who play Colonization, or even the people who made it. I just don't think we should dismiss the impact that ANY media has upon our collective understanding of the world. I am ALSO critical of media and tropes that vilify colonial powers and colonists through inaccurate portrayals of them, or inaccurately lionize the colonized, although a certain amount of it is inevitable and may even be necessary while members of oppressed groups find their voices and their confidence. "Ignorant, dirty savages who live in squalor" is an inaccurate trope and deserves to be discredited, but "noble savages living in harmony with nature" has other problems and may do almost as much damage in its own way.Beorichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05179135838206052198noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-6143127871779732942020-12-17T21:01:47.642+08:002020-12-17T21:01:47.642+08:00The pacification of the Scottish Highlands - the &...The pacification of the Scottish Highlands - the 'Highland Clearances' - used a very similar model to that used with the Amerindian tribes. Make legal agreement with clan or tribal leader, treat them as 'owner' of the land, gives legal justification to then clear the clansmen/tribesmen off the land.<br /><br />Anglos definitely do/have done bad things, including genocide, like everyone else. I think they're more likely to take a legalistic & moralistic approach to doing so than are most other groups. Sometimes the moralism is genuinely felt - the do-gooder liberals who take Aboriginal & Amerindian children from their drunken & abusive parents certainly believe they are doing it for the best, and maybe they are. Or deferring to very white 'Aboriginal' academics as genuine representatives/champions of the Aboriginal peoples - on the one hand those white Aboriginal academics speak the right language & are very effective at getting what they want; OTOH they seem to have at best a limited connection to & understanding of the peoples with whom they identify & for whom they advocate.Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01173759805310975320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-11010936522727729802020-12-17T19:11:45.986+08:002020-12-17T19:11:45.986+08:00Beoric: Fair enough, some things are still persona...Beoric: Fair enough, some things are still personal, but it's not that I don't think those things are bad or that I'm denying they have happened. It's that they do, as Simon pointed out, happen everywhere. Do you think people from poor socioeconomic backgrounds aren't forced into abusive schools, forcibly taken from their parents and given up for adoption, trodden down by 'the system', in every country on earth? I live 5 minutes' drive away from one of the poorest post code districts in Britain. I can show you women who have had their children taken from them, kids who have been dumped out of the school system or locked up in abusive 'young offender institutes', streets of abandoned houses from which people have been forcibly relocated to out-of-town estates because the council has some development project in mind. Until pretty recently kids in the Scottish Highlands and Islands were forbidden to speak Gaelic and had their wrists broken for working on whisky distilleries. I don't mean to dismiss misery by just saying that "shit happens", it's that the world can be very, very mean. And we all know that. And all of that meanness has its roots in history. <br /><br />In other words, if you start pulling at that thread you end up in a situation in which history only exists as a list of stern lessons we are all supposed to learn about how terrible everything used to be and still is. I would rather have a more balanced view and accept that it is okay to play Colonization for fun and not think about it too deeply - while obviously not remaining ignorant of the awful things that were done in the past, and which one can read about in books.noismshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09933436762608669966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-78554616139498235522020-12-17T18:59:59.102+08:002020-12-17T18:59:59.102+08:00Bosh: That's a fair observation. What I think ...Bosh: That's a fair observation. What I think is important about it, though, is that the makers of Colonization probably didn't set out deliberately to make people think in that way. It happened to you organically, which is why it influenced you. Explicit attempts to teach lessons are much less likely to be successful in my view.noismshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09933436762608669966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-32663470646536983802020-12-17T18:56:00.885+08:002020-12-17T18:56:00.885+08:00Beoric: This is why one should never argue on the ...Beoric: This is why one should never argue on the internet. I was forgetting the importance of that principle. If you'll scroll back, you'll see that the context of this discussion is my original statement to the effect that "a lot of what happened was outside anybody's control". All I have sought to do was give evidence for that, and I have done. There's no attempt to explain everything - it's just a pointer to historical complexity. If you'd like to disagree with the observation you are of course free to.noismshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09933436762608669966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-83699290937188797072020-12-17T13:06:44.042+08:002020-12-17T13:06:44.042+08:00Nope that last comment wasn't directed at me. ...Nope that last comment wasn't directed at me. I'm VERY well aware of how much horror was caused by the diseases. Diseases obviously had a bigger body count than colonialism as can be seen in how the population of many areas collapsed WELL before there was any meaningful colonialism in the area.<br /><br />Just that colonialism also did bad stuff and killed people. Don't think that's too controversial either. It also often exacerbated the effects of plagues by making it harder for societies to hold together and recover in the wake of the mass disease-related die-offs.<br /><br />Also tangential to the point I was originally making in that games like Colonialism let us see the bad things that happened and, more important, see WHY people did them. I generally played the English in Colonization and usually was pretty nice to the Indians and didn't pick fights with them. However I slowly squeezed them out of their lands as my population increased and as I kid that helped me get a grasp of how colonization function as I could see how bad stuff what happening to the Indians due to economic motives and simply not giving a shit rather than through moustache-twirling villainy (in many cases at least). So Colonization served a useful didactic function for me personally as a kid.Boshhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06908715118408289864noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-89019912675946031342020-12-17T12:02:00.073+08:002020-12-17T12:02:00.073+08:00I'm staying on your level :-)
I did point out...I'm staying on your level :-)<br /><br />I did point out your deficient view of history, btw. And I haven't really seen any arguments from your side on why empathizing with collective pain (which in your examples of long ago events I also deny is genuine) is harder. All we get from you are smug assertions, and when they're challenged, the tone immediately condescending & fairly aggressive. <br /><br />Nevermind, talking to the woke is a waste of time.Ricardo Bastardonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-17798273629665439682020-12-17T10:07:23.710+08:002020-12-17T10:07:23.710+08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Kenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11165997449776226774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-88538731915775400922020-12-17T09:42:17.671+08:002020-12-17T09:42:17.671+08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Kenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11165997449776226774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-8044697244671563622020-12-17T08:42:23.826+08:002020-12-17T08:42:23.826+08:00Beoric is self-indulgent and vainglorious but you ...Beoric is self-indulgent and vainglorious but you Noisms are rejecting his lived experience and passive-bullies are not tolerated in these trying sentimental times.Kenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11165997449776226774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-54448751162984347962020-12-17T08:05:34.409+08:002020-12-17T08:05:34.409+08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Kenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11165997449776226774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-36174799009073249362020-12-17T08:02:40.476+08:002020-12-17T08:02:40.476+08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Kenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11165997449776226774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-60265234175668812752020-12-17T06:56:15.288+08:002020-12-17T06:56:15.288+08:00Just to stick my foot in the bear trap, US Slavery...Just to stick my foot in the bear trap, US Slavery was not that long ago. People alive today are the grandchildren of slaves and slave owners. Lynchings have happened in my lifetime. The KKK is still around. These things linger for multiple generations.StevenWarblehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12697680166430879676noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-36033385233046237442020-12-17T06:12:17.967+08:002020-12-17T06:12:17.967+08:00"It's harder to "personalize" t..."It's harder to "personalize" the consequences of generations of slavery or of forced relocation, though."<br /><br />"That's because those things are not personal, now. They're historical. That makes a big difference."<br /><br />Its pretty recent history where I come from. The last residential school was closed in 1996; many of the people who suffered those abuses are still alive and still dealing with the consequences. Indigenous peoples in my country still have reduced access to education and health care in their communities, even while a narrative continues alleging that the access they get is greater. It still requires the navigation of a massive federal beaurocractic process for First Nations to grant licenses or leases of their own land. (Try doing business when it takes two years of red tape and a plebicite to get a lease signed.) The requirement for Federal approval of local bylaws enacted by First Nations governments was only ended 5 years ago. I can't remember when First Nations peoples living on reserve got the right to sell their cattle without getting a special permit, but it was recent enough that I know people whose businesses were affected by those and other discriminatory regulations.<br /><br />Treaty obligations are still in force, and there are hundreds of lawsuits currently being pursued over historical and current breaches by the Federal government of its obligations. Indigenous children are still being removed from their parents homes and alienated to non-Indigenous families - an activity which is considered to be genocide under article 2(e) of the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. <br /><br />Indigenous people are more likely to be stopped if they haven't committed a crime, more likely to be convicted if they have been accused of a crime, and consistently receive harsher sentences if they are convicted of a crime. <br /><br />Trust me, it's still personal.Beorichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05179135838206052198noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-32329559233762155182020-12-17T05:52:36.680+08:002020-12-17T05:52:36.680+08:00I think your position may be "reduc[ing] the ...I think your position may be "reduc[ing] the unbelievably complex and rich tapestry of human history to a fairly pat formula".Beorichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05179135838206052198noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-71395754341923909172020-12-17T05:46:23.987+08:002020-12-17T05:46:23.987+08:00"And I think it lets us off the hook in askin..."And I think it lets us off the hook in asking why any single individual woman is subject to violence in any single incident, at the hands of any particular individual."<br /><br />I believe the reverse to be true, or perhaps also true. Reducing every transaction to a consideration only of the individuals involved lets us off the hook from considering why some things happen disproportionately more to individuals belonging to one group than they do to individuals belonging to another group. It lets us avoid looking critically at the bias in our institutions, or even in ourselves.<br /><br />Yes, my comment on your blog is somewhat simplified and perhaps lacks some nuance and detail. That is because it is a comment in a blog post and not a scholarly article. Nor did I suggest that these factors were the only factors at work, merely that they are real factors with continuing impacts. <br /><br />I cannot comprehensively detail for you the primary source historical evidence I have reviewed over 20+ years of working in this industry, not can I explain to you the pain I see in the eyes and hear in the voices of my clients when they are confronted for the millionth time in their lives with narratives that demean them and their way of life. I can tell you in the matters upon which I have worked (not the slavery issue, but First Nation issues, with which I have direct experience) the evidence has invariably sways those who have seen it, in a formal setting and subject to rigorous testing, regardless of their starting position. <br /> <br />But you do not know these things. You have no experience, yet you dismiss theirs without any real consideration of it. Whereas I ALSO acknowledge the role in individual responsibility, you dismiss my argument entirely. Perhaps it is not I that is choosing a position based on the comfort it gives.Beorichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05179135838206052198noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-22036800279441881432020-12-17T03:41:09.814+08:002020-12-17T03:41:09.814+08:00Guys..you do know that Old World diseases were pro...Guys..you do know that Old World diseases were probably the major contributing factor in the conquest of the Americas? Smallpox, measles, chicken pox and the like killed something like 60-90% of the population of the continent in the decades after European arrival. Smallpox saved Cortez's bacon and allowed him to escape destruction in Tenochtitlan, and then brought down the Aztecs. An epidemic is almost certainly what precipitated political crisis and civil war in the Inca Empire on the eve of Pizarro's arrival. It was the biggest factor in the conquest of Peru. Plagues brought by de Soto devastated North American societies. When the English colonists arrived they were arriving on a continent which had been completely devastated by disease - where entire civilisations had collapsed because of it, and without in many cases even seeing a white man. It's not 'shaky data'. It is what happened. Societal collapse didn't cause plague - plague caused collapse. And the reason is simple: no prior immunity to the new diseases Europeans unwittingly brought with them.noismshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09933436762608669966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-22020571561377505962020-12-17T02:41:20.368+08:002020-12-17T02:41:20.368+08:00"hey, it's harder to empathize with pain ..."hey, it's harder to empathize with pain when it's communal and thus harder to think it's real"<br />"Hah you idiot I don't empathize with communal pain and so obviously it's not real"<br />Great post, such debate.Annon #8107https://www.blogger.com/profile/16869484989966434932noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-28555969932211481642020-12-16T21:59:01.255+08:002020-12-16T21:59:01.255+08:00Yeah, I mistyped. Happens to the best of us. Can&#...Yeah, I mistyped. Happens to the best of us. Can't help noticing the switch from pseudo-empathy to aggression in your posts, but that was entirely expected. It's how SJW roll when faced with direct criticism. And you're not exactly short on assumptiosn either :-p<br /><br />I know what your point is about, and I think you are plain wrong and understand nothing about history. The past contains many atrocities, perpetrated by many people on all sides. If they're recent, yes, the scars matter. If we're talking stuff that happened long ago (slavery in the US for example) and of which there are no living survivors, I don't accept the emotional hysterics. These people are simply indulging in fantasy hurt. Ricardo Bastardonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-79126710587623573072020-12-16T20:31:48.626+08:002020-12-16T20:31:48.626+08:00"It's easier for people to generalize &qu..."It's easier for people to generalize "bad things happen everywhere" when they're not experincing or up close with the day to day consequences of that stuff"<br /><br />But it's still true.Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01173759805310975320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-4304727256834509762020-12-16T20:30:40.070+08:002020-12-16T20:30:40.070+08:00There was a disease apocalypse in the Americas, bu...There was a disease apocalypse in the Americas, but it happened in the 1500s, not the 1800s. It predated and facilitated Anglo colonisation.Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01173759805310975320noreply@blogger.com