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Comment by gdy | Hacker News Reader

>I found it a surprisingly insightful social commentary

And how did you determine that it is insightful?

The video starts with the guy confidently saying that Alcatraz is a nickname of a Moscow prison (!!!), apparently having no clue that the Russian name of the game doesn't have anything to do with prisons and the name 'Planet Alcatraz' is given to the English edition of the game. If you have no idea what you talking about -- just make things up, right?

Should I find Manhunt or Postal to be a mirror of American culture? "Interesting perspective", "insightful social commentary"?

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He said no such thing, he said that the planet was named "Матросская тишина" (seaman's silence) after this prison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrosskaya_Tishina .

And you are aware that he's playing the russian version of the game, right? Translating some bits for the english audience. I'm sure he's perfectly aware what the name of the game is in russian (it's literally in the first shot of the video).

Seems like you watched 5min to just quickly find something to discredit and immediately dismiss it.

> Should I find Manhunt or Postal to be a mirror of American culture? "Interesting perspective", "insightful social commentary"?

Not a "mirror" of a culture, but if you were not already versed in American culture and watched an insightful review of those games pulling on various culture trends which make up those games, I see no reason why it couldn't be an "Interesting perspective" or "insightful social commentary".

You are right about the prison, I guess I missed both the word 'planet' and the prison name and filled in the blank, and made an unjust judgement of the author of the video.

'Seems like you watched 5min to just quickly find something to discredit and immediately dismiss it'

That's quite an uncharitable interpretation. You are right about one thing though -- I gave up quite early.

"I see no reason why it couldn't be an "Interesting perspective" or "insightful social commentary""

In the context of judging the American nation as a whole -- of course not.

Considering your lack of charitability you had for my initial comment why would the person you are replying to interpret you as anything other than nitpicky and asinine?

You have added nothing to the conversation.

Also in what way would this ever be at all related to the context of judging the American nation as anything? The article is about a robot is Moscow and the comment I replied to is discussing if Russian subcultures or culture can seem Cartoonish.

Quit inventing battles to lose.

"the comment I replied to is discussing if Russian subcultures or culture can seem Cartoonish."

Why did you inserted 'subcultures' here?

The smsm42 subverted the discussion of the robot fuckup with a russophobic comment specifically saying 'It's a culture-wide thing' and you were replying to the comment saying 'there is no way they are that cartoonish'.

Nowhere subcultures are mentioned except in your comment where you offered a game review as a source of information about Russian culture ('a really interesting perspective on *at least* some aspects of Russian subcultures and their prominence') and partial confirmation of the 'culture-wide thing' comment.

Another great "Gotcha!" from gdy.

You have made no points worth addressing and contributed nothing to the conversation.

My point is that you brought a cherry-picked subculture to the discussion of the 'culture-wide thing' and after that lied that the conversation was about 'Russian subcultures or culture'.

I don't think you can 'address' it in any way except for not doing such things in the future.

You lost any credibility the moment you went off in your original comment. You are in no position to make such assessments.

The video is good, on topic and highly relevant to this discussion.

>That's quite an uncharitable interpretation.

Agree, that was an uncharitable offhand sentence. I think it was prompted by your uncharitable criticism of the video -- immediately concluding that he's making shit up (rather that thinking it was a mistake or something else)

>In the context of judging the American nation as a whole -- of course not.

I don't think video is there judge Russian culture as a whole -- and I don't think that's ever useful. It's there to entertain and present (and judge) various cultural _strands_ of it, which someone outside of Russia/Ex-soviet states may not be aware of.

In the context of this thread, grandparent (smsm42) does seem intent to reduce this particular cultural stand to being _the_ Russian culture and all dominating. I disagree with that, but neither this video nor context of the palmetieri2000 post (he wanted to illustrate that it _can_ be that comical) was about that.

'I think it was prompted by your uncharitable criticism'

Yep, it's only fair.

'nor context of the palmetieri2000 post (he wanted to illustrate that it _can_ be that comical) was about that'

What is 'it' in 'it _can_ be that comical'?

Here I disagree with you -- I interpret 'it can't be that cartoonish' as a reply to 'culture-wide thing' statement. A subculture can be arbitrarily weird, but when a sweeping statement is made about the whole nation it becomes cartoonish.

In this context bringing up a game review is as a valid point as bringing up Manhunt or Postal in a thread about American-wide culture.

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