OF GAMES, REPRESENTATION, AND WOMEN'S CHEEKBONES

First and foremost, I apologize for not literally quoting you guys, there wasn't any one particular sentence or paragraph that you guys said that I wanted to address that fit, however I do want to address the general sentiment that I got from your posts on the last page, so I apologize again for condensing your words. Here we go;

author=mawk
marketing is wack, homie

I'm not sure how I feel about that. I know part of my feelings are biased since I'd like to pursue marketing once I get out the military, but I don't think that it's unilaterally bad. I guess I'll try to explain.

I do agree in many ways that marketers aren't our friends when it comes to pandering things to the general population that we don't need and influencing how we think in subversive ways, but due to capitalism (more on that later) marketing and advertising has gotten a bad rap as being objectively negative no matter what, and I disagree.

Everything has to be marketed. People have to 'market' themselves to get a date. Researchers have to 'market' their findings to get capital and resources. Your favorite game? Your favorite band? A TV show you like? A cause you care about? It has to be marketed. Due to the finite amount of time, money, space and other things competing with everything else out there in the ether, if someone isn't good at presenting their idea, then nobody is going to know its there.

Marketing, or if that term makes you queasy, presentation, is just a benign tool just like anything else. Hell, we all here have user profiles to market our games so people know they exist and people will play them. An altruistic cause (such as this one) can and has to be marketed as well.

I guess I'm going on a tangent too, but my ears perk up whenever I get the impression that "MARKETING=EVIL". All it is is competing for attention, which everyone does, and that's how anything gets done.

author=emmych
capitalism is wack, homie

I have a lot of conflicted thoughts with capitalism. On one hand, we all know the evils of capitalism. Income inequality, corporate oligarchy, and the mash of money into the political process are obvious casualties of capitalism. But on the other hand, capitalism is the single most effective economic and political system humankind has ever seen, and almost every single modern advancement of civilization has capitalism to thank, launching the most people from consigned poverty into the middle class, or at least the possibility of middle class, than anything before it.

Capitalism is fucked, sure, but so is everything else so far. Agrarian society? Feudalism? Should we go back to monarchy? Communism was great, right? Democratic socialism works out pretty well, but even that has capitalism as a heavy, necessary foundation. I'm not saying civilization should rely on capitalism forever, but it has a lot of trophies on the wall. So what's the real problem here? I'd say human nature, it's human nature that poisons any theoretical perfect system of government and economics that can think up.

That, and it feels somewhat disingenuous tearing down capitalism when I'm pretty sure everyone here is using laptops, cell phones, internet, the clothes on their backs, driving (or being driven by) vehicles, and entertaining themselves with items and institutions that are really only here and could be here via capitalism.

I mean how much room do I have to talk shit when I'm texting "CAPITALISM SUCKS" from an iPhone?

author=emmych
First of all, I probably wouldn't say "wack" or "homie" since I am white and it would be obnoxious for me to be using AAVE.

I'm not sure I agree; I've lived in major cities all my life where how people speak leaps racial boundaries because it's usually just the result of natural cultural exchange. Something as fluid as language doesn't have racial ownership!

author=emmych
idk man it's super hard for me to say "yeah alright capitalism's chill" when most of the world has been steamrollered over and exploited for resources in its name.

Like most other political and economic systems since...ever? I totally get what you're saying but my main point is that for all of the negatives of capitalism I just don't see a presently viable alternative that human nature wouldn't buttfuck over down the line. Perfect socialism is ideal but as we all know the ideal really doesn't exist.

I am totally fine with the mindset that capitalism will or already has run its course but if the argument that it hasn't brought humanity positively forward, then I mean...that's just not true!

author=quote
When we talk about the benefits of capitalism, it's important to remember that it's never the lower classes who see those benefits

I'm not so sure. I was born and grew up dirt poor. Now at the age of 27 I am...quite not! It's hard to say whether that is a result of capitalism or luck (or mostly luck) I feel pretty confident in saying from a historical precedent that in previous historical social paradigms I would have pretty much zero social mobility if I was born in the feudal era, or the early Industrial Revolution, or a medieval monarchy. I am aware of the dwindling middle class but I'm unsure if that's merely the fault of capitalism or a number of other social and economic factors.

Basically my point is I'm not defending capitalism so much as I'm skeptical that there's a better option. But it's objective that capitalism as a system has brought the fastest and most efficient leap in almost every field for humanity collectively. It's also a bastion of greed, so even if it's run its course, try telling that to a billionaire. I know it sucks.

Basically, yeah. This is a really complex issue that I think is sullied by going simple "CAPITALISM=BAD". I'm not saying that's what you're doing, but it's said often enough.

author=emmych
..anyway we didn't come here to talk about capitalism. How did we get to capitalism. Jesus.

...You mentioned it first? My point was only meant as a sidebar to an already diluted conversation.

We're 18 pages deep in this topic. To expect every single post to be 'on topic' at this point is pretty reaching.

author=emmych
First of all, I probably wouldn't say "wack" or "homie" since I am white and it would be obnoxious for me to be using AAVE.

Wait what white people can't say whack??

Huh, thought it was just a word invented by stoners. Shrug!

Welp, this is probably gonna be my last post on the thread, seems I'm all worded out so yeah you nerds have fun talking about... capitalism??

HOW THE FUCK DID WE GET TO THAT!?

Incredible, ah well, don't care. You guys have fun.

author=Feldschlacht
I am totally fine with the mindset that capitalism will or already has run its course but if the argument that it hasn't brought humanity positively forward, then I mean...that's just not true!

I guess I'm trying to look at the whole picture, and my view is that any benefit capitalism may have brought is outweighed by the harm it has caused and continues to cause. I'm not even saying that I'm aware of a better option, or that better options have been presented! I just know that what we have isn't working for Most People, and since that's the case, it needs to change. Capitalism is inherently violent and has been violent from it's conception. It does not provide the average person with the means to survive, and this is unacceptable to me.

(Also you keep bringing up feudalism and monarchies as if someone has suggested those are other acceptable options: they are not. They are also violent and do harm to the average person, so nope I'm with ya on that those are trash systems that belong in the past.)

author=Feldschlacht
...You mentioned it first? My point was only meant as a sidebar to an already diluted conversation.

I did not, actually! Someone else did, and like the filthy socialist hound I am, I sniffed it out and began hollering about how much I hate capitalism. The mystery remains a mystery.

bahleted

author=Sated
Humans are inherently violent and have been violent from their conception.

This is an incredibly lazy statement intended to relieve people of the burden of working to be better than they are.

Humans are not inherently violent. I sincerely believe people can live together harmoniously and look out for one another without it going against our nature, because I have seen people do this. We currently live in a world where it is natural to be selfish and violent towards others, but if we did not live in such a world that encouraged that, I'm certain that people would behave differently.

And Feldschlacht, my beef isn't just with pure capitalism. It is with all forms of capitalism, the whole capitalism, nothing but the capitalism, any system that prioritizes profit over human beings. When things are controlled by private interests that work for profit, it is inevitable that this will cause harm, because the priority is not the well being of other people. This is unacceptable to me. I take issue with it. There's really no arguing me off this point because I have done a lot of reading and thinking about this and this is the conclusion I currently have come to.

That's really all I have to say on the subject atm so just a warning, I'm probably not gonna debate this further. Ollie outie.

feudalism didn't necessarily 'make' people violent either, but abolishing it improved things nonetheless! when someone says a system is violent, and contributes to violence, it's possible that they aren't saying that system is literally the root of violence

'but human nature!' defenses of the abuses of capitalism are boring, though. ask three people what 'human nature' is and you'll get three different smarmy, firmly-held answers. human nature doesn't exist, except as an excuse to defend the bad decisions of the past.

author=LightningLord2
>clicks on thread about a character redesign
>enters discussion about capitalism

haha epic meme my le bro :^3c

author=Sated

Humans used to kill each other because they didn't know better. Now many societies live in relative peace and don't kill their neighbors because they want their land. (Though governments still sometimes do) People can learn to change.

sated I'm going to be honest I can't engage seriously with a post where I say 'abolishing feudalism was good' as part of an example and someone inmediately tries to 'OH REALLY' me

especially with such a nonsensical example as WWII, like???? are you saying that World War Two would have been impossible under a feudal system? that the end of feudalism directly led to it? like, it's in incredibly bad taste to use WWII and the Holocaust as a smug 'gotcha' in an argument in general, but the way you've invoked it here is so poorly-done that it's basically a nonsequitur