Johann

If you don't wanna deal with arguments, then don't bother talking. You're kinda showing your ass a bit with this. That there are other groups with similar power structures is obvious and doesn't need to be said. That a member of these groups can disagree with the consensus of that group is also obvious but misses the point that by still being a part of that group, they are enabling or supporting the group's ideas by virtue of providing the group itself with more power. For instance, it doesn't mean shit if a person disagrees with what Donald Trump does or says while still votes for him, as they are still an essential part of how Trump is granted power. How trite. I'll say it again: You don't get to be your own judge. What, do you mean like turn down a job offer or something? That wouldn't accomplish anything since you don't know who else is up for the job, let alone their race. If you have privilege, you use it to do all those things I listed with greater efficacy than those who do not. They ultimately didn't want to do it and the excuse you cited confirms that. You don't need to defend it. We're done talking about this. By all means, keep telling yourself you're making a positive change in the world when you're doing nothing.

I hope you read the rest of what I wrote there, was hoping more for a direct response to that. Republicans and the police are not demographics (as black people, women, etc, are), but organized groups that require a consensus on their thinking and methods to exist at all. A person can't be a member of those organized groups without at least endorsing the prevailing ideology of that group in some way. No, not at all, and I don't know how you arrived at that conclusion. Let me explain it again: People have subconscious biases that they might not be aware of. Saying "I don't see race" is to assume that you don't have any prejudices whatsoever, and ignore criticism if someone points out that you do. Failing to address any prejudices you may have perpetuates those prejudices and whatever impacts that may come about as a result of that. With that in mind, if you're not prejudiced, you don't have to announce it to the world, because it'll be clear if yo are to the people who are observing your actions. You don't get to be your own judge. I'm not sure if you're intending it to sound this way, but your question reads as "what are white people supposed to do, throw away their advantages? Lower themselves to the setbacks of black people?" The real aim is equity-- bringing the underprivileged up to the level of the privileged, not the other way around. People can vote, protest, support groups/movements that work against racist systems, educate themselves, pressure politicians and companies to understand and address these things, it's a long list. Basically everything about the the civil rights and BLM movements. I'm not sure what you're trying to argue for here. "Historical accuracy" in video games is just a dogwhistle. There's little expectation for realism in video games, and the capacity for them to be informative is nothing compared to what you could get from other mediums, like books. The argument that it takes up too much effort falls flat when they could've had half of the existing characters be women, rather than design M/F options for every single character. You really don't need to make weak excuses for their decisions, dude. Everything is inherently political. Posting in this section of the forums, especially this thread, is motivated by politics in some way. If you didn't care at all, you wouldn't be posting here. With a defeatist attitude like that, you have no hope of changing anything. No change was ever brought about by simply being nice. Disrupting is necessary and people, even the "nice" ones, are going to push back either because they don't understand or they're benefiting from the problem. Woof, you're really not the philosopher you think you are.

I'm taking this to mean that you're reluctant to apply descriptions to any group on the basis that there may be outliers/exceptions, yes? While in most respects I agree with that, the key distinction for police and Republican politicians is that both groups are intrinsically defined by making a career (which they chose and can quit at any time) out of exerting power and authority in some form, defined by a set of ideas. As such, the power structures that they exist and operate in are intrinsically defined by the majority actions/opinions of those groups. An individual cop or Republican who speaks or acts contrary to the rest of their group has no meaningful sway and is either ignored, silenced, or removed from the group. A political party is more fluid since they, by necessity, change in reaction to the political landscape, but nevertheless the Republican party has an unparalleled ability to get their members to kowtow (the 2016 election has plenty of examples of this). Any meaningful dissent by a member within either of those groups is almost certainly going to require renouncing the group. Ah, you might be misunderstanding. Trying to ignore superficial qualities is good, but it only addresses your own prejudices. It can help to distinguish the terms: Prejudice can be defined as a personal bias towards a group (eg: "I don't like ____ people"). Anyone can be prejudiced, and it's easy to notice this behavior in ourselves or others. It's comparatively easy to fix and usually the point of fiction where people learn to respect people from other groups (eg: Path of Radiance racial tension between Jill and Lethe). Racism can be defined as something that causes a negative impact towards a group, such as through actions by individuals, or ongoing systemic oppression. Arguably, not every group can be racist towards certain other groups. By this definition, a black man not trusting white people is prejudiced, but if his actions have no meaningful impact on white people, then you could argue that it's not racism, but prejudice. It's helpful to not look at "racist" being a hard label for anyone other than those who embrace it (like KKK members) or constantly and consistently perform racist actions (like some politicians), and rather look at individual performing instances of racism (sometimes unintentionally). What separates personal prejudices from racism as a whole is that you might be doing something with absolutely sincere intentions, but causing negative impacts based on race. Technically, that's racism, but it doesn't make you a racist. The other part of it is that white people by default benefit from system racism, regardless of their opinions or awareness. A key thing to understand is that when you say "I'm not racist", you're really saying "I'm not prejudiced". You probably are doing your best to be mindful of your behavior. But it doesn't mean you're not susceptible to making mistakes or benefiting from racist systems. People who try to say they aren't racist when called out on something they did are really just trying to exempt themselves from criticism. In that sense, by claiming "I'm not racist", a person is saying they're above reproach. For what it's worth, history is often whitewashed or sugarcoated, so I think it's worth keeping a critical eye on something that uses accuracy as a defense. This might be getting a bit off-topic, so I don't know if we should keep discussing it here, but the bottom line is always that it's a conscious decision to add, cut, or ignore any design choices. Video game leads are overwhelmingly white (or coded white) male characters and it's both creatively stagnant and rather exclusionary towards audiences if they make little to no effort for diversity. Ah, don't be so sure, if you're participating in this thread, then you do care about politics, ultimately. I don't blame anyone for being burnt out by how shit the world can be and not wanting to get super involved all the time. Yet, there are still ways you can help improve other people's lives without dedicating much if you can, and at the very least, staying informed is invaluable. You're more than welcome to share those thoughts. ------------------------------- I guess I missed a super troll. It's too bad, cuz trolls give mad experience points. Thanks to all of you who had my back.

Terms only oversimplify matters when people have simplified understanding of those terms. White privilege is easy to sum up, but there's a lot to unpack because of how far reaching the effects of racism are. Some of the issues present reach back decades or centuries, and resolving them requires, at the very least, identifying how those issues play out. This isn't as strong a point as you seem to think it is. People don't choose to be black, or female, or gay, etc, and among those groups there's a tremendous degree of diversity. But people do choose to be republicans or police. While their ideologies and intentions aren't uniform between members of either group, they are both, at their core, groups designed to wield power over others. That these two groups also are overwhelmingly controlled by people using that power violently and cruelly means that anyone else in that group is, to at least some degree, enabling that cruelty. It's good to acknowledge your blindspots and question your behavior regularly. Lots of people don't want to do that, and we all suffer for it. One thing to keep in mind is that black people don't get the ability to not think about race. A black person is confronted for their race in everything, whether normal everyday life like going to the store, or major milestones like college applications. When a white person says "I don't see race", what they're effectively saying is "I don't want to think/talk about racism", especially the racism that they may be guilty of or benefiting from. Hiring people is an extremely subjective process. It's not like people have RPG stats that you compare and calculate. Being "more qualified" is ambiguous; keep in mind that the impacts of racism aren't limited to "we picked the white guy over the black guy". Black people deal with extra hurdles throughout their entire lives. To have a practically identical resume as a white person requires the black person to do more or endure worse at nearly every turn. There are also some shady practices like pulling the listing and editing the requirements to match a specific applicant, so that they're the only one technically qualified, even if others who previously applied were as well. This is just one way people try to sweep their racism under a rug. Part of the reasoning behind Affirmative Action is that having a more diverse workplace is in the organization's best interest, as it means the workers have different perspectives to offer. It's also less about trying to "appease" groups and acknowledging that the markets/systems/etc favor straight white cis men over anyone else in basically every metric. If race/gender/sexuality/etc play a role in the story, then they should be cast appropriately. If not, there's no reason to not have diverse casting or characters. Having diverse casts helps normalize diversity. Development issues are a pretty weak excuse as for why there isn't more diversity. The bottom line is that the developers chose to skip over making diverse characters in favor of something else, which is very likely stemming from the lack of diversity in the industry. It's absolutely fair and right to not trust brands and companies (they're not your friends), but hey, a win is a win. If they remove racist thing, it still has a positive impact on the world, even if it was done for selfish reasons. Bottom line is impacts over intentions.

Many local/state governments enforced lockdowns on restaurants, etc with threats of fines, losing their liquor license, etc. No need to involve the police, really. As @Excellen Browning pointed out, the BLM protests haven't been a problem. I posted some links in the COVID thread about a few major places not seeing any change in their downward trend of new cases, check 'em out: Minnesota Chicago DC

Spark system? Did the players come up with a term that I missed? Is it in reference to the free 5* after 40 summons?

Haha no, it belongs here. If you want to ask questions and discuss it further, by all means, be my guest.

Republicans only care about having control over others. Their typical anti-union, anti-regulation thinking is based on how it limits their ability to dominate industries, and thus people. They like the police because they have the ability to subjugate people in a way that is generally accepted, or at least until recently. It's also why when they talk about handling crime, it's all about punishment and not about rehabilitation. Many cops share that thinking and vote Republican knowing they'll be given more power, whether through legal protections or through funding/equipment.

All our spending means nothing if our allies don't trust us, which they don't. They are publicly talking about ways to address global threats without our support. If you're going to link an entire broad subject Wikipedia page like that, at least point to what I'm supposed to be focusing on. I'm all for spending on cyber defense, though I don't think we're that great at how we operate that. Here's the bottom line: Most of our military spending isn't about national security. It's about an empire built on neoliberalism. The same neoliberal thinking that pushes the US to spend absurd amounts of money on fighter jets so Lockheed Martin stock can stay up is also driving the housing market, the private health insurance market, and so on. Ultimately, the US government is more a vehicle to help maintain wealth for certain people than it is to provide basic human needs to as many people as possible. We've installed dictators when they do what we like and we've helped remove those get in the way of our profits. The empire relies on people, such as yourself, arguing that we need the military to be overwhelmingly powerful. It relies on you being afraid of the threat that Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran are all biding their time, waiting to strike. But even with a fraction of our military capabilities, these countries wouldn't dare start anything major because of the toll a direct conflict would take on them and/or their own profits. So instead, we have the weaponry to "police" to world, which is about as helpful to the rest of the world as our own police are to our people. That parallel is not a coincidence, as the same thinking that drives our military also drives our police force. Wanting to cut funding for both is to want to see an end to that abuse of power. You aren't listening at all, and I'm done wasting my time with you on this.

Too late, I already called Tommy, he's all "fuck that internet guy"

There is no such thing as politically neutral. At best, that means you're politically ignorant or politically selfish-- you either don't understand the discussion, or you don't really care. Or both.

The video directly addresses your argument about peaceful protesting. You're doing yourself a huge disservice by not watching it, and also stifling the discussion we're trying to have with you.

What was your post? What am I missing here? And why are you even posting if you're not going to engage with the materials we're presenting to you?

You totally missed the point. Watch the video I posted. There is a limit to peaceful protesting when it's directly against a violent faction where there is no appealing to their morality. Even MLK and Ghandi said as much. Yeah no shit, that's not in dispute. Watch the video.

If you can point to an example where that's been the case, I'd be intrigued, but otherwise it sounds like you're making an assumption about how many people are upset with the protests. Which mass peaceful protest are you referring to? What does that mean? You have so much to learn about how all of this works, but for now here's a short video that might help: