Comment by mam2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mam2 | Hacker News Reader

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> I've grown up in a period when pop culture didn't care much about cultural sensitivity.

Same, and as unpopular it may be, i firmly believe it's kind of better to not care. Because the opposite is precisely what happens here, which is caring only about a specific set of 'aspects' that are currently fashionable in the society, while failing to cover for the large majority of inequalities that are not "visible".

It's the exact same than positive discrimination, you end up only caring about women or color people in the name of "equal opportunity" and no one care anymore about economic inequalities that are largely the main factor of inequality at birth. In the end it's still the same rich people from the same parents but they just look more diverse, and no one care of young people from trailer parks & getthos.

I don't blame prejudiced people fighting agaisnt their prejudices tho, imo it's more a consequence lazy politics and politician trying to get votes instead of taking on more complex and deeper problems.

Quoting the article:

>Does all of that matter? Yes, I think it does. As I have argued here many times, fiction is often how the public conceptualizes the past and that concept of the past shapes the decisions we make in the present. Is one video game going to lead to a return to colonialist thinking? Of course not. But a culture in which such sanitized narratives are common is a culture far more willing to make those decisions; these stories matter in the aggregate. And so it is incumbent on designers and developers to construct their stories and their worlds with care, especially when they are set in the very real past.

>> I've grown up in a period when pop culture didn't care much about cultural sensitivity.

>Same, and as unpopular it may be, i firmly believe it's kind of better to not care.

As a white dude, I've found that "not caring about it" means "only white male characters are allowed"

I've noticed that folks who "don't care about it" actually care A LARGE AMOUNT, A VERY VERY LARGE AMOUNT, when a non-male or non-white protagonist is the only option. And heaven forbid we not let you play a straight character...

Just saying, in my experience, "don't care about it" is literally identical to "marginalize everyone but me", as that's our history.

Its not really true.. 99% people will not care if you play a black guy or woman.

People made the same argument about women representation in video games but hey have you heard of "tomb raider" ?

There's other: "Urban chaos" with a black female, some character of unreal tournament were poc...

Most people dont care and when they do they find diversity cool. The point is that as a political fight its useless and may actually be on the side of harmful for society.

> when a non-male or non-white protagonist is the only option

There’s a difference between a racist or sexist reaction (anger about a character’s race or sex) and anger that the studio picked the character’s race or sex as a nod to their own identity politics (or perhaps kowtowing to the broader identity politics that are so fashionable these days). It’s the same difference between racism and equality. It’s hard to tell from your comment whether you object to the racist reaction or the egalitarian reaction or both, but at least in my opinion the racist reaction is very uncommon.

> Just saying, in my experience, "don't care about it" is literally identical to "marginalize everyone but me", as that's our history.

That’s not our history though; our history was literally “marginalize blacks, women, native americans, italians, irish, eastern europeans, asians, etc”. We have made remarkable progress toward equality, and that’s due to egalitarianism—teaching people that superficial characteristics oughtn’t matter—not merely a different identity hierarchy. “Not caring about it” is precisely the key innovation and the catalyst for so much progress.

That sexuality of a character in a game is even known is problematic; this implies the sexuality is being acted on. I wish developers would stop exploiting the four Fs to induce us to buy, and sadly my minimal consumption of video games is only a splash against the tide.

I don't think there's anything wrong with a video game character being gay, straight, or otherwise. for the most part, I do think video game romances are incredibly poorly done. I have not yet played a game where the romantic/sexual tension was not intensely cringey. we are still deep in the uncanny valley here. usually it's a fully optional side arc (eg, mass effect), so I can't say it's much of a problem in practice.

Baldur's Gate 2 ? Though not having fully animated 3D models (so you have to imagine it) probably helped a lot !

Some (many/most?) rp-games do not fix sexuality, allowing to choose any option available at playtime. The earliest that I remember is fallout 2 where you can play both guy and girl and marry/engage with both.

But it's unclear why you see that "sexuality being acted on" is problematic. It depends and is very situational, imo.

Not sure why you’re being downvoted because you have a point. Remember the controversy that ensued when a black girl was cast as Rue in the Hunger Games movie?

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/white-until-prov...

But controversy on the internet doesnt represent any reality. Like at ALL.

Get off the internet forums

As another white dude, I call BS. The world has changed. Even in the backwards semi-rural area where I live there is enough diversity to beat it into my head that "people are just people". Let alone connecting to the internet, where you have no idea what another commenter looks like. So, it boggles my mind that people still care about this so much. It's self evident to me that people need to be treated based on what they do or say and not oddities of their genetic structures. I tend to think that if people stopped pointing out those differences, the problem would eventually grow much smaller. Some people are always going to not like each other for trivial reasons at some level, but why point out such differences to them?

It also undermined the ideal of people being treated fairly. Some HR departments currently fail to uphold these basic tenets in my opinion.

I am aware that ideals aren't enough for policies. Example is accessibility. Everyone who hasn't a bad day right now is for it, but can you make sure you always hold up to your own expectations? Probably not, so there is a need for mechanisms that ensure that.

But the impetus to "positively" discriminate in HR actually stems from a feeling of superiority that isn't warranted at all. And it is also lacking elegance and understanding and I don't even have high expectations. I just don't work with them.

Sorry, but you're just not looking for it. I'm personally a part of many social circles that talk about discrimination and diversity from Marxist lenses and it seems to be exactly what you're talking about. The people tweeting about More Female CEOs might be the majority in the US but fortunately they're far from the only group that talks about these issues.

I’m the opposite of a Marxist but they get class critique correct as the major difference between people. A privileged white male who went to private school and the Ivy League has tons in common with a privileged black woman who went to private school and the Ivy League than he does to a poor white man in a rural area. Celebrating success based on identity means a lot less through the class prism.

I personally don't think it means less, it just leads to different conclusions. While I still see class as the predominant factor, I still believe everyone would benefit from seeing "different" people in more spaces, regardless of class. For example, a rich black man still has things to add that a white man doesn't, for example, simply because of how being black influenced their own experiences which in turn mold the person they are now.

So someone black is just different enough to admitted to these spaces, but someone poor isn't?

Economic apartheid isn't just endemic in the US, it's a core value and seen as a positive thing.

And gender/race identity politics are not a serious threat to it.

Because it means corporations can carry on being corporations as long as they have a couple of privileged middle class women in the boardroom.

It's an improvement of sorts, but only in a very limited way. Time and time again in the US we've seen this does nothing to alter the predatory values that make corporations so toxic.

Ultimately it's not about tribal identity at all. It isn't even about class.

It's about values. Is your culture driven by generosity, maturity, open-mindedness, and curiosity, or is it motivated by greed, narcissism, selfishness, competitive snobbery, and naive tribal identification which is relentlessly hostile to out groups?

Identity politics without value politics is a superficial band-aid which can't fix the political and economic hemorrhaging caused by the unaddressed underlying condition.

> So someone black is just different enough to admitted to these spaces, but someone poor isn't?

Yes they are. I'm not sure where you got the idea that I was arguing against that, but to be clear I'm advocating for "identity politics" complimenting the class struggle, not the two being mutually exclusive.

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