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Weird everyone knows that the only true justice is that meted out by hammering the nearest crafter for failing to meet production mandates.
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Apr 28, 2024 02:16
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Mantis42 posted:It's a good book but also the moon anarchist should have sided with the USSR analog instead of whining about everything. Look, anarchism can work! You just need to somehow get the capitalists to send you to a completely different planetary body!! I actually can't remember how they even got there it's been so long since I read that book; did they just annoy both the USSR/US analogs enough that they both sent them to the moon (that sounded like it was a pretty lovely place)?
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Apr 28, 2024 04:09
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Yeah the anarchists getting the moon was essentially a compromise deal to try to stave off world revolution by shipping all of the radicals off to the colonies The anarchists got the short end of the stick, too - not only is the moon a barren wasteland that can barely produce enough food to sustain a population, it's also explicitly stated that the only reason the anarchists are allowed to continue existing up there is because they keep the flow of raw materials the moon was originally settled for coming. They're described as a 'resource colony' and it's mentioned that the periodic shipments of mined minerals are major events for the capitalist state's stock market - so not only did sending them up there end the general strike and stop the revolution, the anarchists are actually directly perpetuating the capitalist state's existence and are functionally still participating in the capitalist world-system in every way that matters. This is explicit text, too, it's not just implied. When she calls it an 'ambiguous utopia' it's ambiguous in more ways than one
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Apr 28, 2024 06:42
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Naturally the anarchists think they're totally free and independent, too It really is perfect
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Apr 28, 2024 07:13
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the anarchists also operate under a system of societal pressure more oppressive than an actual authoritarian state would be to force everyone into doing exactly what the non-state state demands, idk if she actually did read it while she was writing but the tyranny of the structurelessness came out while she would have been writing
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Apr 28, 2024 07:20
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fermun posted:the anarchists also operate under a system of societal pressure more oppressive than an actual authoritarian state would be to force everyone into doing exactly what the non-state state demands, idk if she actually did read it while she was writing but the tyranny of the structurelessness came out while she would have been writing beginning to see a pattern here: songs of syx dev made a nazi game by depicting racism le guin wrote an anti-anarchist book by depicting colonialism and poverty (accidentally lol)
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Apr 28, 2024 09:17
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Dont think it was by accident
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Apr 28, 2024 09:46
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anarchists reinventing the state and just calling it something else you say?
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Apr 28, 2024 10:45
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it's a really good book, btw
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Apr 28, 2024 10:46
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depicting racism isn’t the problem; making criminal behaviour a function of race is
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Apr 28, 2024 12:02
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racism is fundamentally a feature of the superstructure; its a generated thought-system to continously enforce the inherent hierarchies and material differences within society, from different groups against others any game or media attempting to model racism that does not understand this relationship is wasting your time Iriscoral has issued a correction as of 12:49 on Apr 28, 2024 |
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Apr 28, 2024 12:22
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throwing Pac-Man in the loving trash for its lack of thoughtful critique of cybernetic racism
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Apr 28, 2024 12:37
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Iriscoral posted:racism is fundamentally a feature of the superstructure; its a generated thought-system to continously enforce the inherent hierarchies and material differences within society, from different groups against others Even unmodded minecraft?
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Apr 28, 2024 12:39
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Oh gently caress I just remembered the endermen
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Apr 28, 2024 12:41
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Endman posted:depicting racism isn’t the problem; making criminal behaviour a function of race is They're different species created by different warring gods, not humans with different colour skin. The different species aren't a veneer or analogy for real-world cultural groups, they're the result of an alternate natural history influenced by supernatural forces. We recognise the impact of isolation and lack of sunlight on human behaviour, 'culture shock', etc. Why do you expect pacifist pig-men or communal insects not to commit crimes when wars of conquest force them to integrate into a civilisation that outlaws their longstanding customs and even biological imperatives? Why would you expect good behaviour out of a species that gets moody in the absence of water but is forced to live in the desert? This is all before you consider that elves are natural cannibals The main issue, it seems like, is the game's genre. You can create apartheid rather than simply inhabit and navigate it like you would in an RPG, so you feel more responsible, and you don't think the option should be there. But other games in the management genre do similar stuff. Frostpunk famously allows you to be very cruel to people. You can go full fascist, or theocratic, or enslave workers, or create dependent colonies through coercion. But allowing you to govern that way isn't endorsing that kind of government even if it happened to become a meme hit on 4chan. Being able to create an Elves First empire in Songs of Syx that butchers humans like cattle doesn't mean the game is taking a pro-cannibalism stance; nor, obviously, does the game plausibly draw any analogy to a real-world culture/haplogroup with cannibal elves (or amphibian lizards, or giant demigods, or whatever)
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Apr 28, 2024 13:48
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the King of Dragon Pass/Six Ages series is another good point of comparison, in that you manage a neolithic tribe in a world where their mythology is true, and not just gods and spirits but trolls, elves, giants, demons, etc. all really exist. nobody to my knowledge seriously calls that game racist even though for mechanical reasons, depending on your traditions and who you worship, it's sometimes a good idea to discriminate against nonhumans or humans with different cultures
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Apr 28, 2024 13:54
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in rimworld i only accept baseline humans and pigmen in my colonies.
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Apr 28, 2024 14:06
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so the difference here is mostly that the dev is both fully aware of the game's popularity as a racist meme and is fully embracing it because it makes him money - per his own posts when the sseth video came out he made six months of normal sales in a single day over time the racism system has been getting more and more fleshed out and made a bigger and bigger part of the world, and there's an obvious and annoying glee to it (there's a patchnote that's literally 'added more hate and racism.  ' with a cutesy little smiley at the end) and it's starting to seriously skeeve me outI don't even dislike the game, it's a very unique and compelling take on the genre, but sorry, when something in it is worth criticizing I'm going to criticize it like, the developer chose to put a detailed slavery mechanic in the game, and then chose to include levers in the game's systems that allow punishment to be meted out unequally based on race in such a way that race-based slavery is possible, and that's fuckin weird, so I am going to say it's fuckin weird. it's not a real universe, it is a fictional property someone made up, so it was a conscious choice to do those things, and it's one that's worth talking about Mister Bates has issued a correction as of 14:43 on Apr 28, 2024 |
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Apr 28, 2024 14:35
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Cassian of Imola posted:the King of Dragon Pass/Six Ages series is another good point of comparison, in that you manage a neolithic tribe in a world where their mythology is true, and not just gods and spirits but trolls, elves, giants, demons, etc. all really exist. nobody to my knowledge seriously calls that game racist even though for mechanical reasons, depending on your traditions and who you worship, it's sometimes a good idea to discriminate against nonhumans or humans with different cultures They have metal tools and weapons they are more bronze age than neolithic
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Apr 28, 2024 14:40
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you could, if you absolutely had to include systems like that for some reason, handle them in an interesting and thoughtful way, depicting them without implying endorsement of them, but I don't think he really did here why is this system here? like, from a game design perspective, why is there a racism system in the game? it is mainly to make building a cosmopolitan multi-species city more difficult, to require you to put more effort into urban planning than just cramming everybody into blocks of the same buildings in the same layout in the same places, and introduce some costs to balance out the fact that different species are good at different things, which would by itself make having as many different species as possible just a straight-up upgrade over a city of a single species. that's not a bad idea, it makes sense, it adds an additional complication that makes for more interesting gameplay decisions - but it was not necessary to do it in that way, there were other ways you could have served up those same challenges and those same strategic decisions, without making an entire system to handle racial animosity. there should be a good reason you did that if you are going to do it. now, does it make sense, in the lore of the setting? yes, absolutely, it does. of course it does. he wrote it. it's made up. he wrote it in such a way that it makes sense, but did not have to. that was a conscious and deliberate decision someone made. asking why you did that is something we should be allowed to do.
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Apr 28, 2024 14:59
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I played the demo months ago and liked it. I bought it during the sale but haven't played yet. Looking back at patch notes it's exactly as you say and it feels bad. I always thought the way the Witcher world did racism was interesting because of how hosed up the world was and it all seemed plausible during times of war, migrations, and economically. But then it also let you take stands to protect folks. This feels different in tone and intent.
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Apr 28, 2024 15:10
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(also Glorantha, the setting KODP and Six Ages are based in, is really not a good counterexample because much as I love that silly dumb setting and its associated games it's also racist as gently caress lmao - not in a malicious way, but the setting was written by a white self-described 'shaman' in the late 1960s so yeah) you just kind of have to accept that it comes with the territory if you're going to read fantasy literature as an indigenous person, and grit your teeth and try to find the fun anyway - I also love the poo poo out of Shadowrun and its depiction of indigeneity is a hilarious cartoon caricature written by white men who were really really earnestly trying not to be racist and missed so hard Mister Bates has issued a correction as of 15:25 on Apr 28, 2024 |
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Apr 28, 2024 15:14
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Cassian of Imola posted:the King of Dragon Pass/Six Ages series is another good point of comparison, in that you manage a neolithic tribe in a world where their mythology is true, and not just gods and spirits but trolls, elves, giants, demons, etc. all really exist. nobody to my knowledge seriously calls that game racist even though for mechanical reasons, depending on your traditions and who you worship, it's sometimes a good idea to discriminate against nonhumans or humans with different cultures Marchen aren’t racist per se, but they’re about the ethnogenesis of a race
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Apr 28, 2024 15:23
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Cassian of Imola posted:They're different species created by different warring gods, not humans with different colour skin. The different species aren't a veneer or analogy for real-world cultural groups, they're the result of an alternate natural history influenced by supernatural forces. We recognise the impact of isolation and lack of sunlight on human behaviour, 'culture shock', etc. Why do you expect pacifist pig-men or communal insects not to commit crimes when wars of conquest force them to integrate into a civilisation that outlaws their longstanding customs and even biological imperatives? Why would you expect good behaviour out of a species that gets moody in the absence of water but is forced to live in the desert? This is all before you consider that elves are natural cannibals i think a bug-person, a pig-man, and a beardy-guy should get along pretty well together
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Apr 28, 2024 18:30
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How can I be racist when I've got loads of pork friends?
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Apr 28, 2024 19:32
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is the racism simulator fun
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Apr 28, 2024 20:00
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yes
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Apr 28, 2024 20:38
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lumpentroll posted:is the racism simulator fun it's fun yeah. wish it had multiple building layers and generated histories like my other favourite ethnostate sim, Dwarf Fortress, but it's good and fairly deep
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Apr 28, 2024 22:25
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Cassian of Imola posted:it's fun yeah. wish it had multiple building layers and generated histories like my other favourite ethnostate sim, Dwarf Fortress, but it's good and fairly deep Dwarf Fortress ascribes a lot of things to culture instead of race. Any dwarf children stolen by goblin babysnachters will grow up with goblin values and might become babysnatchers themselves. Goblins that grow up in dwarf or human civilizations will also adopt their values. Now that I think about it, it's weird that the player's fortress is the only settlement that's required to be an ethnostate.
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Apr 28, 2024 23:45
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Cassian of Imola posted:The different species aren't a veneer or analogy for real-world cultural groups Are you absolutely sure about that
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Apr 28, 2024 23:45
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oh it’s humans who are racially ‘criminal and mentally unstable’
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Apr 28, 2024 23:47
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Endman posted:Are you absolutely sure about that pretty sure
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Apr 28, 2024 23:51
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BearsBearsBears posted:Dwarf Fortress ascribes a lot of things to culture instead of race. Any dwarf children stolen by goblin babysnachters will grow up with goblin values and might become babysnatchers themselves. Goblins that grow up in dwarf or human civilizations will also adopt their values. Now that I think about it, it's weird that the player's fortress is the only settlement that's required to be an ethnostate. No it isn't, I've got elves, goblins, and humans all living together in mine, no mods.
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Apr 29, 2024 00:52
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Virtual Russian posted:No it isn't, I've got elves, goblins, and humans all living together in mine, no mods. Neat, i hadn't realized that had been added. It's been a while since I played.
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Apr 29, 2024 01:06
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sullat posted:They have metal tools and weapons they are more bronze age than neolithic All the bronze is technically the bones of dead air gods killed during the Gods War. So all their tools are technically made of wood and bone. Whether or not this means it is a bronze-age setting shall be left as an exercise for the reader.
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Apr 29, 2024 01:42
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So yes then, as our metal tools are made from flesh of dead gods, since people used to worship a star as one.
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Apr 29, 2024 01:54
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BearsBearsBears posted:Neat, i hadn't realized that had been added. It's been a while since I played. if you build a tavern you can give it rooms for foreigners to "rent" (just kind of hang out because nobody is charging them anything) and they become long term residents of your fort - just hanging out in the bar mostly, or visiting temples or libraries youve also built if you let non-citizens have access. after a few years they can apply for citizenship and be ordered around just like the rest of your dwarves, even if theyre an elf or human or sentient aardvark man. the only mechanical difference is that you need to make them bigger clothes when their current ones deteriorate
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Apr 29, 2024 01:57
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Want the Regiments dlc to drop already so i can do endless custom operations >:[
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Apr 29, 2024 02:27
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DF is actually an extremely good example of how to do the poo poo that Songs of Syx does in a gross and creepy way well Beliefs and values are culturally determined, and a person's values will in large part reflect the society they were raised in, with some variation for personal convictions that might differ from societal norms. These norms also can and do change over time from the situation at game start, so while multiple dwarven civilizations, for example, will have broadly similar ethical outlooks, they will almost never believe exactly the same things about everything. None of it is inherent - it is possible to, for example, raise a goblin in a dwarven civilization, and they will have dwarven cultural values such as highly valuing craftsmanship. Some individual personality traits are species-determined - goblins are, on average, less altruistic than dwarves, for example - but it's a range, not an absolute value, so you'll still see a lot of variation among members of any given species. People also transfer between civilizations extremely frequently, through a number of different mechanisms, from war to kidnappings to simply moving to a new location, and these transfers are not species-restricted, so it is almost impossible for any civ in the game to remain an 'ethnostate' for very long unless they're just extremely isolated. It is completely normal for a 'dwarf' civilization to only have a plurality of dwarves, especially in a world with a long history - and goblins' propensity for kidnapping people and raising them in the goblin civilization means it's entirely possible for a goblin civ in a long-history world to have no goblins in it at all. For that matter, positions of political authority are not species restricted either, so it's not unheard of to end up with, say, an elven king of a dwarven civilization, or a dwarven lord of a human hamlet, or a cockatiel man baron or something. This applies to the player's fort as well, where you are all but guaranteed to end up with non-dwarven citizens sooner or later unless you actively try to keep them out. The game actually does model racial animosity in its world simulation, and even systemic oppression, as well as responses to that - people can be oppressed for religious beliefs, chafe under the alien cultural values of a foreign civilization, launch rebellions against those foreign ways, etc. - but it's just part of the simulation, it's one more lever that can be pulled, it doesn't get any special emphasis. The end result feels pretty plausible. On average, most civilizations are going to be majority from one species, but not necessarily; on average, most civilizations of the same species are going to have similar ideologies and codes of ethics, but not necessarily; on average, most people living in a certain civilization are going to have values and cultural beliefs that match that of the civilization, but not necessarily. You'll see kind, altruistic goblins, dwarves who love nature and the natural world, elves who hate it and value craft and industry. When civilizations - or people - do diverge, it will often be for a specific reason, and you can often track that reason (in fort mode the game will just straight-up tell you the cause of any ethics shift an individual has, in legends mode it can be harder to track down). Comparing a game unfavorably to Dwarf Fortress, one of the best video games ever made, is a bit unfair, but it really does compare especially poorly there
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Apr 29, 2024 02:31
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BearsBearsBears posted:Neat, i hadn't realized that had been added. It's been a while since I played. You should check it out, imo some of the charm of the older versions has been polished away. The game simply is much easier, but is still loads of fun, and you can still lose a whole fort to a jammed door or something silly.
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Apr 29, 2024 02:42
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