Maybe you haven’t been convinced by a good enough argument. Maybe you just don’t want to admit you are wrong. Or maybe the chaos is the objective, but what are you knowingly on the wrong side of?
In my case: I don’t think any games are obliged to offer an easy mode. If developers want to tailor a specific experience, they don’t have to dilute it with easier or harder modes that aren’t actually interesting and/or anything more than poorly done numbers adjustments. BUT I also know that for the people that need and want them, it helps a LOT. But I can’t really accept making the game worse so that some people get to play it. They wouldn’t actually be playing the same game after all…
Adding an easy or “story” mode to a game doesn’t inherently make it worse. You can still play it with difficulty cranked up to “Dark Souls” or whatever. The fact that there is a separate mode that others can use does not affect you; you need not use it yourself.
“Story mode” is actually an accessibility option in disguise: it can let people who have difficulty with fine motor control, reaction times, or understanding visual and auditory prompts to enjoy the art alongside everyone else. Instead of cheapening the game, it actually expands its influence on the world.
All that being said, no, no game is strictly obligated to be accessible, but why cheapen your art by not making it so?
“Story mode” is actually an accessibility option in disguise: it can let people who have difficulty with fine motor control, reaction times, or understanding visual and auditory prompts to enjoy the art alongside everyone else.
This is very insightful.
I don’t particularly find the acessibility argument that compelling. Sure, we must make experiences as acessible as possible, but at a certain point the experience gets degraded by it. You can’t make a blind person see a painting, and if you did, it wouldn’t be a painting.
The point I’m making is that you need not alter the painting. Adding an option to a game does not alter it for those that do not select it.
You’re arguing for letting perfect be the enemy of good. The fact that a blind person can’t perceive the visual aspect of an experience doesn’t mean that they should be excluded entirely.
perfect be the enemy of good
Even worse, deciding that perfect is the enemy of good on behalf of another person.
Given the person has no access to “the perfect”, this is basically exclusion on ableist grounds.
Adding an option to a game
(or an alternative modality like audio description)
Mona Lisa is not a good example here because it is a single work. Games are mass-producible. If you steal Mona Lisa no-one can experience any more. If you add a story mode to the game, nothing at all is reduced from other modes of the game.
Additionally, if you consider strictly simulation games, their difficulty is just a configuration of different amounts and pacing of things happening in the game. There is no foundation on which number configurations are more correct than others.
By extension, all games simulate a real or imaginary world, and these numbers’ configuration are in the control of the designer. Again, no one of the possible worlds is inherently more privileged than others.
It would be pretty crappy to never give a description of a painting to a blind person though. Like could you imagine if we never described the Mona Lisa to a blind person and they just to guess what it was a picture of.
That’s pretty much like saying to a person to watch a let’s play of the game rather than play, which is fine but not really the point.
Hi! I’ve had two strokes, and my hands don’t work as well as they should! Should I be excluded from the hobby, so you don’t have to look at an extra menu option?
What you’ve got here reeks of elitism.
Disability comes for everyone. Sometimes death gets there first. You aren’t unique.
I’m sorry to hear that, and I certainly dread the day I won’t be able to engage with the hobby the same way. But there are a million games that don’t require fast reaction times and precise lightning fast inputs.
Dude, just let everybody play everything. And if you have to glance at “easy” real fast to make sure you’re not pushing “hard (developer intention)” then that’s fine. Hard is still there.
And thanks for the downvote. I don’t know if you’re interpreting a downvote as “doesn’t add to the discussion,” or “this makes me angry” or “you shouldn’t be disabled, you fucked up”, but it just goes to show what’s up. No one else came along in the last 33 minutes.
The point is just that how can a developer create an experience where you have the satisfaction of succeeding against overwhelming odds when you offer the easy mode where you win by pressing one button? I understand that people play games for a myriad of reasons, but one of those IS to put in effort.
Also it was just a mistake, I don’t really care to upvote or downvote people unless it’s something egregious or great. You really shouldn’t care about it, especially since lemmy doesn’t even keep track of it.
You have your satisfaction by selecting hard. You don’t need to deny an easy difficulty to others.
Or are you the sort that would pick easy if you saw it?
Also this whole conversation is dumb because, until you get off your ass and make a game, you have literally no input whatsoever.
I’m gonna go back to my PS2 Silent Hill play through on beginner difficulty, where I can whack guys once instead of five to nine times. It’s the vibes and the environment.
I’ll answer your question!
Pretty sure I’m on the wrong side of vegetarianism. I love animals, I think they’re worthy of love and consideration from us. I know becoming a vegetarian or vegan would reduce harm to animals, and I’m pretty sure it’s the morally correct thing to do. It’s also hard, it’s alienating, and I know every time I’ve attempted it in the past it’s triggered disordered eating.
My current stance is that society should embrace vegetarianism. If the government were to make a law granting animals status that protected them from being killed for food, I’d support that as a moral good. However, I’m not willing to be fully vegetarian in a carnivorous society, there are too many drawbacks. I know this is hypocritical and kinda intellectually pathetic of me but there it is :(
Good example. I also feel like vegetarianism is probably correct, but I still haven’t gone that way.
I definitely commiserate with this. This is almost certainly the biggest moral quandary in my life. I think in my lifetime there will be a tipping point where vegetarianism will be a large enough minority to make it personally viable for me, but for the moment I reduce consumption where I can. Breakfast sausage will be the hardest thing to give up for me - but I continuously try meat alternatives in hopes of finding something I like.
I’m in the same boat. My girlfriend is pescatarian, mostly because she thinks animals are too cute to eat. She loves pigs and thinks they are adorable.
I agree that vegetarianism is more sustainable and humane, but I also really like carnitas burritos. I eat way more seafood now and, though she says she doesn’t care, I try to avoid “farm animal” meat when we go out.
I’ve definitely reduced my meat consumption and I will probably continue to do so, but I’m not ready to cut it out yet. I had prime rib for Thanksgiving and it was amazing. Apologies and thanks to the cow.
I’m all in on lab grown protein
OP, you’ve made the classic mistake of putting your opinion in the post instead of as a comment, now everyone is replying to your opinion in top level comments instead of your question.
Veganism. I don’t have any problems with most vegans. Most go through a phase of trying to convert you, but the ones I know and associate with have come out the other side. We all know that these positions would make the world a better place. I don’t think I have the will to do it. Might be wrong though.
What about not trying to annoy vegans?
Asking (paraphrasing) “hey what are you wrong about but unwilling to admit?” and then sticking a (metaphorical) “I think Nickleback is a pretty good band” opinion in the middle of it feels like a harder challenge than the designers of AskLemmy were intending
I thought about it a bit when making this post and I felt like not giving an example would make people come with crazy political opinions which would probably be a bad time. Maybe it still wasn’t the best approach, admittedly.
Maybe giving the example in a separate top-level comment would have worked better. Interesting discussion either way, though.
Pronouns. I get that they matter a lot to some people, and of course it’s super annoying (if not worse) to be referred to in the wrong way, but I find it unreasonable to demand being referred to something outside of the gender binary, simply because that’s the way language works.
I am aware that English has used “they” for a person of unknown gender for ages, but for one, I don’t think it’s something that you should demand people call you when they actually know your gender, but also I really hate that this is making its way into other languages like my own, that has never had this convention. Inventing entirely new pronouns is just ridiculous, I have a hard enough time to remember your name.
I am also aware that language evolves, but this is not evolution, it’s forced, and if one group of people can try to force a change they prefer, I’m as much in my right to resist it if I don’t like it.
People are super passionate about this though and in fifty years I’m sure I’ll be seen as a fossil for not getting with the times now - in fact I’m sure certain people see me like this now.
Using someone’s preferred pronouns is a sign of mutual respect, your refusal to do so is a sign of disrespect to those around you. It’s really that simple, bud.
Do you call people Johnny when they tell you their name is John? It’s literally the same thing, they’ve explained how they’d like to be addressed, and deviating from that uninvited is just rude.
I get that they matter a lot to some people, and of course it’s super annoying (if not worse) to be referred to in the wrong way
It’s dehumanizing and disrespectful, it’s not annoying. I’ve had family members refuse to use an individual’s pronouns, but in a heartbeat correct themselves for referring to a pet by the wrong pronoun. I’ve had people go out of their way to call me “man, guy, dude, bruh” when I’m fem presenting, and I’m the only woman they’re speaking to that way while I get the “I talk like that with everyone, bruh,” excuse.
and if one group of people can try to force a change they prefer, I’m as much in my right to resist it if I don’t like it.
Correct, but then you don’t get to complain, like you are, that people get upset with you about it. You’re not free from the consequences of those around you simply because you have the right to feel differently on something like basic human respect for your fellow people.
I don’t get to complain that no one wants to have dinner with me just because they don’t like me taking food off their plates, even though I don’t agree with that societal norm.
There’s a guy on here with great opinions and I like to hear him talk, but he refers to himself in the third person all the time and it makes it hard for me to take him seriously. It can be a real drag on the conversation to suddenly be conscious of the pronoun of an individual, when you just want to speak to them like an equal.
I know who you’re talking about, drag, drag has called me a racist, Trump supporting fascist who wants drag and all of drags friends dead because I had the audacity to criticize Harris and the DNC. Drag backed off that when I pointed out to drag that I’m a trans veteran who voted for Harris.I’ve never had difficulty understanding drag, and as much as I think drag is full of hot air, I respect drag enough as a fellow human to refer to drag in drag’s preferred way. Drag is using the third person, this has been a trope in popular media for years and no one has complained about it.Did y’all have a hard time relating to and understanding The Boulder in Avatar the Last Airbender? He refers to himself as “The Boulder” instead of his pronouns, where’s the uproar around that?
Let’s take it to real life: I googled it, pro wrestlers The Rock, The Big Guy, Santina Marella, Kanyon, and Stone Cold Steve Austin all regularly used the third person to refer to themselves. They used other pronouns as well, I’m not denying that, but you all act like this is some completely unheard of new thing that only these woke leftists are doing.
It’s respect, full stop. It’s the equivalent of someone saying their name is Rajesh and you say, “Eh, Steve is easier, I’m used to the name Steve, I can’t pronounce whatever you just said so the only way we’re equals is if I can just call you Steve.” That’s insane, y’all need to stop making excuses as to why showing respect to another individual is sooooooo hard.
And FYI, in writing this, I only had to go back and make three changes where I used an improper pronoun in when referring to drag. Again, if I can show basic respect to someone who called me a fascist nazi, why can’t y’all do it for your friends, family, and coworkers?It’s not hard, and I’m 30, so it’s not like I was brought up with zhe/zher/zhers and all this other stuff either my entire childhood, I didn’t learn what transgender was until I was in the Navy.Edit: Drag told me I insulted drag and lied to Lemmy by defending drag here, so I’ve crossed it out and will let drag defend drag’s pronouns alone. Drag doesn’t want my help because, in drag’s own words, I’m a Nazi who purposefully misgendered drag and only wrote the above to insult and hurt drag.
Yet refuses to apologize for falsely calling me a Nazi:
Is “dude” actually still considered gendered? I literally call everyone dude
Language evolves because people force it to. It’s not a natural organism independent from our choices. We choose taboos, we choose meaning, we choose pronunciation, we choose loanwords. It’s all evolution. The idea that it’s “forced” is ludicrous because no one can take words from you nor force you to use them. Your words are your own and no one is capable of stopping you from speaking them. But, if you choose not to respect the wishes of others, you will suffer consequences.
The reason some languages have a gender binary is often because that society forced a gender binary on people to control them. There are plenty of non-Euro languages that have no gender binary built in. Language is an active participant in social oppression and changing language is an active countermeasure to that oppression and indeed a tool in shaping future society.
Inventing entirely new pronouns is no more ridiculous than inventing yet another television show character or yet another tiktok dance craze or yet another romance novel or yet another $15/month subscription service that does the same things other service do or writing yet another magazine column.
We put effort where we care. That’s how we work. Where you put your effort shows you what you care about.
Based
Language evolves because people force it to.
Sometimes, yes, often, no. New slang is naturally picked up and often makes it into the common vernacular, not because people are forcing other people to use it, but because people voluntarily start using. The same goes for loan words. The enter the language, and sometimes get mutated over time in that particular language. When “tablet” became popular someone tried to pick a Danish word for it, but it didn’t stick. Same goes for many other computer-related words, which ended up just being the English word.
But, if you choose not to respect the wishes of others, you will suffer consequences.
This is the aggressive attitude that immediately makes me reluctant to adhere to any special pronouns people may choose. I don’t know if you meant this as a lightly veiled threat, but people can become very aggressive if you “misgender” people.
The reason some languages have a gender binary is often because that society forced a gender binary on people to control them.
I haven’t heard this before, do you have some reading material I can explore?
Inventing entirely new pronouns is no more ridiculous than inventing yet another television show character or yet another tiktok dance craze or yet another romance novel or yet another $15/month subscription service that does the same things other service do or writing yet another magazine column.
I would tentatively agree, if not for the fact that “the consequences” you mentioned above for ignoring any of these things are that I don’t have to suffer them. The consequences for misgendering Elliot Page is ostracization, even if he isn’t in the conversation or likely to ever hear about any conversation I will ever have about him.
Where you put your effort shows you what you care about.
That is true. And I really don’t care that much about trans people. I want them to live a life without oppression with the same freedoms I have, but aside from that I care as much about them as do about the guy who lives in the apartment down the street, whom I’ve never met. And to that end, I think there are things that are reasonable to request from others in society, and I think there are things that are not. And changing the language for them I don’t find reasonable, just like I would ask anyone to change the language for me, and shame them if they didn’t. In the same vein, if people are so horrified about trans people using the wrong bathroom, just stop gendering them. To me, the only reason why we gender them anyway is because men take their bits out in front of everyone, so if we remove that part, they are virtually identical.
Your definition of “force” sounds like “anytime I am uncomfortable”. Someone made a choice to invent slang, someone else picked it up. Not using youth vernacular as a youth often results in mockery. Someone brought in a loan word, others chose to use it. In business or political spheres, failing to adopt the style of the times often led to mockery, ostracization, or diminished station. None of that is force. It’s all just choices.
You think suffering consequences for misgendering someone is aggressive but you don’t think suffering consequences for being a “square” is aggressive. When we raise young people in the sales professions we tell them to get interested enough in sports to be able to talk about it to build rapport. Same for TV. There was a time when if you didn’t watch TV you were cut out of conversation regularly.
Aggression is when bigots beat transpeople to death. Not when trans people ask to be respected through use of language. Aggression is when neo-nazis block access to drag storytime, not when someone asks you to use the pronouns they have chosen for themselves.
If you haven’t read anything about how gender is a system of control I would recommend starting with any of bell hooks’ work on patriarchy. Here’s a short PDF summarizing some of the legacy of colonialism and its impact on gender-nonconforming people. https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/cfi-subm/2308/subm-colonialism-sexual-orientation-cso-ilga-world-joint-submission-input-2.pdf
And finally, you don’t care that much about trans people. That’s the insight. You need to start seeing everything else you’re saying through that lens. You’re not rationally correct on each of your points, you’re justifying your emotional position. The reason we are having this argument is because I do care about trans people and we can argue about the use of language, which makes you uncomfortable, to advance the relationship. I can get you curious about the topic, I can share things you wouldn’t have heard before. The debate is the point. It’s a social evolution, and one of the ways we are doing it is through language. There are other ways, like fashion, literature, drama, academia, sexual relations, legislation, court cases, public spectacle, conflict, solidarity, etc. But it’s all evolving and there are people actively pushing that evolution in a direction that allows themselves to be safer being who they are as opposed to afraid for their lives on a daily basis.
I know a few trans or nonbinary folks. They either go by he, she, or they. I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t. Then again I live in a weird progressive rural community.
But if someone asks me to refer to them a particular way, sure what not? It means more to them than it means to me.
But if someone asks me to refer to them a particular way, sure what not? It means more to them than it means to me.
And it costs you nothing. :)
Yeah I support trans rights. If you are consistent I’ll use your preferred pronouns. I don’t care what bathroom people use. Health care is between you and your doctor. I only care about what genitals you have if we are going to be doing things with each others genitals.
That said so many trans people are complete assholes about it. I’m on your side but fuck so many of you are annoying jerks.
I remember when gays started coming out of the closet and they handled it better. Polite but firm about being treated fairly. The trans community is making more foes then friends the way they are acting.
They aren’t referred to as “preferred pronouns”. That concept doesn’t exist. They are just pronouns. The pronouns for this person are x, y, and z. There’s no preference, just a declaration.
You know you don’t have to play the easy mode right? You can just change the mode in the settings. Most games default to the standard version anyway.
Yes, but by that same argument if the experience doesn’t work for you as it was intended, perhaps the game isnt for you.
Not that arguing this point is the question here anyway.
Why wouldn’t the developer want as many people as possible to buy the game though?
From a purely financial view, they don’t. There’s a reason why games have become as handholdy as possible. And one of the reasons why the Souls series stood out was because it went in a different direction.
Games used to be art and done for passion.
Having to include an “easy mode” in your game has powerful knock-on effects that change how normal and hard difficulties play too. Timings and quantities that would normally be finely tuned and hand-crafted suddenly need to be highly-variable and detract from the freedom of developing for just one difficulty.
How can you tell which mode was developed first and which one was tacked on?
In FE: Echoes SoV, for example, I’m pretty sure they developed easy mode first and hard mode got tacked on. But I only played hard mode. Did I play the game “wrong”?
That sounds like an entirely surmountable engineering problem.
It’s not like games are being written in assembly any more.
It goes deeper than just simple engineering though. It affects tone and overarching game design. It is multiple extra dimensions that have to be considered across every aspect of the entire game. If it is done poorly, you get paper dolls on easy mode and damage sponges on hard and nothing of merit to compensate for these facts. The difficulty of the game goes from being genuine to artificial.
That’s why you design for accessibility, and don’t try to cram it in at the last moment. It’s not actually difficult, it just requires engineering discipline.
There are also plenty of Dark Souls clones for people like you who demand nothing but punishment.
I don’t need a game to be hard, I need it to be consistent and well thought-out. Animal Well for example is a rather easy game, but because it only has one difficulty, the developer was able to keep a very tight focus on the world and puzzle design. Everything is layered there, because they don’t have to be containerized and sliced into pieces to account for adjustable difficulty settings.
Why wouldn’t the developer want as many people as possible to buy the game though?
I’ve never made art (incl. games) with the intention of having as many people view it as possible. Many developers make games as a hobby rather than for mere profit, and some try to draw a compromise in the middle.
I know this doesn’t apply as much to major well-known games created by professional game development companies, but there are other incentives guiding development beyond maximizing purchases.
And how many boutique niche Indy games made solely for their artistic merit have you played that actually had an easy mode?
made solely for their artistic merit
There’s a huge middle-ground between pure artistic pursuit and callous profit maximization.
Plenty of the bigger non-profit games (like FOSS games) have easy modes. I’m actually having a hard time trying to think of ones which don’t. And I’d call them all niche and indie, made primarily for enjoyment over market interests. In games like STK, it’s clear from the bug tracker and forum that the primary devs (passionate and experienced players) are trying to balance their intended experience against accessibility - if some of them just made the game how they think it should be played, it would be very different.
That human rights really matter in the coming upheaval. The doomsday glacier is probably insurmountable for civ to overcome and that level of change in sea level within a decade to century and a half is going to change everything. Most of the worlds cities are not viable. From what I have seen, the long estimates are all biased and unreliable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yEj9JVRhjA
On the bright side, speculative long term land investments might yield a large sum of money. Shallow keel ferry and airboat operators stand to make a fortune.
Well, this thread was entertaining until I read this comment
Not mad though, this is what people should be talking about
Sorry depression is rather strong ATM. Basic needs not getting met hurts.
I’m not sure how the impending climatic doomsday is going to make human rights unimportant?
It is an abstraction, an anecdote really. When ordinary people are collectively in dire straights, there is little time or voice for those on the edges that become collateral damage. It is like the military when an army is being pursued in the field by another superior force–the wounded and baggage train support that are unable to fight are left behind. The ethics of the primary force are only circumstantially applicable. No one cares about the disabled or outliers when the attorneys judge and jurists are in crisis mode. While those examples are poor in their applicable timelines and the medium scale big picture. If one abstracts another few layers higher, at the decades to more centuries and even lifespans of civilizations perspective views, the overall stresses and strain on a civilization alter the landscape of the philosophical and morality. Civil rights struggles had little meaning or traction during a world war. Martial law is a mechanism that extinguishes all civil rights in a single mechanism.
I’m not taking sides to making excuses for the behavior of others. It is just my intuition and curiosity allowed to roam freely in the good and the bad without distinction in an attempt to think without bias.
When someone tells me of an unprecedented population displacing event, I see the refugee crisis and disproportionate effects on the poor and disadvantaged. The larger the scope of the poor people problem the larger will be the numbers of people on the edges that fall through the cracks. The experience is empirical from someone that has fallen through the cracks.
I think the logic is essentially right wingers keep winning elections. Their supporters tend to argue first and foremost it’s a win against “woke” while the money/interests behind it tend to be “let’s burn this planet down and get ALL the oil.” If the Left conceded on say trans issues or whatever, maybe we’d win, whixh would undoubtedly benefit the billions who may die because of climate change issues.
(Unsure if this would work or if it’d just split the left etc myself but I think that’s the logic.)
An analogy a friend made while making this argument was that the Civil War was essential for Black emancipation etc and we can all agree it was a good thing. BUT, especially in those days, if abolitionists had also demanded trans recognition or whatever, maybe fewer states would’ve joined the Union or maybe the movement would’ve never gotten off the ground and there’s a possible future wherein Black people might still be slaves because, even with the best intentions, we didn’t pick our battles.
It’s a utilitarian answer to a Sophie’s choice.
Wow, this should be downvoted more.
conceded on say trans issues or whatever
What if we conceded on your rights or whatever?
Plus the idea that trans rights lost Democrats the election is ridiculous. There were zero trans speakers in the DNC, and Harris did cater to transphobes by saying she will go with state laws.
So the question remains, who else are you willing to throw under the bus because you think that their rights are too edgy?
Go-slowism leads to do-nothingism - Malcolm X
Utilitarian is not what you think it is. Your comment just shows a complete lack of empathy for people living in the same social space as you.
I think people who think that the rights of any group’s rights is “too much” to appease and appeal to a society of oppressors are complicit to the oppression.
Plus the idea that trans rights lost Democrats the election is ridiculous. There were zero trans speakers in the DNC, and Harris did cater to transphobes by saying she will go with state laws.
You think republicans were watching the DNC or are listening to Harris on trans rights?
There is a reason that one of the ads the trump campaign ran most heavily was about trans issues and casting Harris as too liberal on them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3BXYjoAzq0&ab_channel=TheJimHeathChannel (it’s a horrific ad, so uhh, trigger warning but you can see what they’re doing.)
How many conservatives do you know socially and how many of them didn’t say this was a victory against woke?
so the question remains, who else are you willing to throw under the bus because you think that their rights are too edgy?
I mean, I just answered the logic of the question. I’m not sure what the answer is, nor am I confident abandoning part of the Dem coalition works as we’d split the progressive vote which is death in a 2 party system.
BUT. If the Far Right keeps winning elections, which they generally seem to do by killing the Left on culture issues (this keeps playing out across the world) this will doom billions of the poorest on Earth.
I’d ask you a similar question. Forget trans rights, say the abolitionists had included gay rights but back in the 1800s. Unless you have a wild perspective of history, it’s pretty safe to assume they wouldn’t have won nearly as much popular support as they did. So, how much longer would you have allowed slavery in order to be morally right but unable to help either slaves or homosexuals?
Do I wish the world were better? Absolutely! But, we live in the world that is, not the world we wish it was.
Finally, this is exactly what utilitarianism is. Utilitarianism is trying to promote the maximum good for the maximum number of people. The chief criticisms are generally around situations much like this, where the philosophy implies you are willing to inflict unfair suffering on a small number of people to maximize the collective gain of everyone else (technically including the small number.) What do you think Utilitarianism is?
this keeps playing out across the world
Sorry, I won’t cater to the anti-woke majority. They are shaped by decades of well-funded fascist propaganda and complicit media and social media outlets.
This is how “woke” was even introduced in our vocabulary in the first place.
These efforts were never matched in breadth and throughput by those on the anti-anti-woke side. Saying that Democrats should cater more to the anti-woke lynching mob does not cut it. It is the quintessence of the ratchet effect. It only leads to greater success rate of said propaganda efforts.
So to translate your argument, the fascist propaganda apparatus indeed has shaped an anti-woke majority, but leftists should not yield to them under no conditions: it will only normalize bigotry. Plus they already did lower the tones on trans issues. It did not win them the elections. Biden did take on the bigots with pro-trans policies and he had won, on the other hand.
So what leg does your argument even stand on except sharing some of the bigotry? We should push the narrative more and more towards equality, not conceding that absolute equality is utopian. The more you annoy the bigots the better.
The Democrats never addressed the propaganda apparatus that brought us to this. And now we should focus more on organizing rather than retrospectively catering to transphobes and racists to win elections. That is why I think your argument is despicable and comes from a position of privilege. If it was your rights/survival on the line and not someone else’s you wouldn’t be suggesting political trade-offs.
Right enough, you are doing this right now: Because your life is at threat now, you say “shiiit we should have sacrificed the trans pawn to win the political chess after all”. Guess what, this is the dog-eat-dog mentality that fascism instills in people, having its way already.
The answer is solidarity and organizing, not trade-offs.
So, again, I’ll ask a fairly simple question.
Say the abolitionists had included gay rights but back in the 1800s. Unless you have a wild perspective of history, it’s pretty safe to assume they wouldn’t have won nearly as much popular support as they did. So, how much longer would you have allowed slavery in order to be morally right but unable to help either slaves or homosexuals?
Edit: Becaude its not just trans folks at risk, it is the billions of poor people who will die from climate catastrophes. They don’t have our privilege of knowing that even if the climate goes bad, we’ll be basically okay.
We have two vulnerable groups to protect, one is much larger than the other, by orders of magnitude.
The non-crackers are a much bigger group than the genocidal crackers so from an utilitarian standpoint we should kill all crackers
I already said no. We have a totally different mind model here. You think that there is a static majority with crystalized opinions, a conservative inertia that we have to adapt to. I believe that the revolutionary powers compete with fascist propaganda to win over the majority, who is bound to different material interests.
When this deceptively mild approach of appeasing the majority used, it legitimizes that the fascists are somehow in the right to a degree.
That is what I cannot stand about centrists. I am an anarchist, there is no middle ground between me and, well, a number of things that are utterly unacceptable. There is no middle ground to nazism, and corporatism, for example. By upholding these standards, I am dragging society towards absolute equality.
With your appeasement approach, you legitimize fascists, which is called the ratchet effect. Without revolutionary powers dragging people leftwards, centrist appeasement pushes the mainstream rightward.
Having said that, the proposed example is completely out of historical context, and is wrong on so many levels. I can’t go into all the details right now, but the very idea of “throwing homosexuals in the mix” is preposterous given the historical context.
Let me direct you to the fact that the British Empire paid reparations to slave owners, but even to this day if you try to mention Reparations to the Caribbean and African nations you will be met with vile harassment from hordes of nazi trolls. So I cannot educate you in Marxist political economy right now, but you comparing abolitionism to gay rights is comparing apples and oranges, and the equivalence is unwarranted.
Only under the concurrent prism of anti-wokeism these are deemed comparable, from the viewpoint of being “not cisgender heteronormative germanic/anglo/saxon Christian male”. So you would not be bringing this even remotely up if you were not ever so slightly affected by anti-woke propaganda yourself.
Actually people had much less of a beef with homosexuality before the 50’s and the pink scare. Lord Byron was like, an open bisexual. Victorians has nipple rings as a fad.
Also abolitionists and suffragettes and the like weren’t exactly wildly popular.
Your hypothetical scenario is not only uninformed, but also a false equivalence. We don’t live in those time periods, we can focus on more than one thing at a time, and you’re also fixing blame on the movement to make things better rather than on the people who are actively making things worse. You should be blaming the rich for making global warming worse, not the people who are fighting against it and losing because they are daring to say trans people shouldn’t be a problem.
Tailism never works
There isn’t really a “right” side to that one. If developers want to disappoint some potential customers and leave money on the table by not creating an easy mode, that’s their prerogative.
Maybe? I feel like the developers have the prerogative to decide to include it or not, but with the way the discourse has gone it certainly feels like I’m in the wrong here.
Point 1: If adding an easy mode legitimately degrades the “hard core” game, that’s one thing. But unless you were on the development team, how would you know if it had?
Point 2: I don’t think it’s wrong, but I do think it’s… let’s say unskillful in the Buddhist sense. Not immoral so much as clumsy.
People who self-identify as gamers and tie their sense of pride/self-worth to their gaming prowess are cringe. It’s cringey to not want there to be easy modes when nobody’s forcing you to play them.
Imo, games shouldn’t have an easy or a hard mode. They should progress from easy to hard. Think super mario world.
The right way to comment on this post is not to answer OPs question, but rather offer your take on their take.
I did all the things at once!
I don’t think any games are obliged to offer an easy mode.
That’s a valid stance. It’s ok to make art which is not intended for everyone, or even the majority.
However, if you’re charging people money for it and they are surprised by the difficulty and can’t enjoy it as a result, I think that could be a potential ethical issue. But if you make it clear it’s a difficult, challenging game, then I see no problem.
Good point on the ethics issue. Youngsters these days don’t know what hard games really are. Games used to be diabolically hard, design holdovers from when quarter-munching games moved to home consoles and every game you paid full price for was essentially a gamble on whether or not it was going to be good or even playable, but finishable was almost not a consideration back then because it was pretty rare to actually ckear a game from start to end.
These days to think it’s important and walk a line between challenging and entertaining not just for the sake of capturing a larger market share of players, but also to avoid bad publicity from having a game be too difficult to o complete.
As a Gen Xer, I would agree. When we had games, you had to figure it out. From there, it just got harder and harder until you died. No pretty graphics, no saves, no easy mode.
Now get offa muh lawn!
E: words are hard
