I’ve been seeing a worrying number of these people on Lemmy lately, sharing enlightened takes including but not limited to “voting for Biden is tantamount to fascism” and “the concept of an assigned gender, or even an assigned name, at birth is transphobic” and none of them seem to be interested in reading more than the first sentence of any of my comments before writing a reply.
More often than not they reply with a concern I addressed in the comment they’re replying to, without any explanation of why my argument was invalid. Some of them cannot even state their own position, instead simply repeatedly calling mine oppressive in some way.
It occurred to me just now that these interactions reminded me of nothing so much as an evangelical Christian I got into an argument with on Matrix a while ago, in which I met him 95% of the way, conceded that God might well be real and that being trans was sinful and tried to convince him not to tell that to every trans person he passed, and failed. I am 100% convinced he was trolling – in retrospect I’m pretty sure I could’ve built a municipal transport system by letting people ride on top of his goalposts (that’s what I get for picking a fight with a Christian at 2AM) – and the only reason I’m not convinced these leftists on Lemmy are trolls is the sheer fucking number of them.
I made this post and what felt like half the responses fell into this category. Am I going insane?
I suppose my confusion comes from a few different aspects:
Firstly, I don’t even know where I would come across information that a game includes forced labor, nor associate fictional behavior with the atrocities of the real world. Isn’t that the equivalent of blaming murder on first person shooters? It’s a video game, full of Pokemon rip offs that looked absurdly stupid, the last thing I would think of is to review the social context of in game mechanics for their ethical context. Does that make sense? It wouldn’t even cross my mind to look for that.
Secondly, there are endless games full of murder, pillaging, stealing, conquest, and other morally or socially unacceptable behaviors that people don’t think twice about playing.
It seems as though many aspects of society that are now “socially or morally” unacceptable are largely both full of hypocrisy and seemingly random. I can literally find a negative aspect of nearly any video game I play, who determines that Pal World in particular, absurd as it is, crosses the line of morally objectionable?
I tried the game for a whopping 5 minutes and thought it was terrible for what it’s worth, but it has nothing to do with any moral objection.
It’s featured prominently in the storefront/reviews/listing/people talking about it. You can’t possibly know what the game is without knowing that’s an element. Either way it doesn’t matter - someone could buy it, see that, find it it distasteful, and stop playing. Why does it concern you if they have a moral objection? Let them quit for whatever reason they want. It doesn’t impact you.
This is the problem with arguments like yours. It has this strange implication that other people need to enjoy or not enjoy things on your terms or else they are somehow actively judging you. You’re not entitled to people agreeing with your taste or tolerances for certain depictions and most people are not thinking about you in the first place. They are thinking about themselves. Just leave them alone.
I am in no way suggesting anyone must play, or not play any games, so therefore we should not conflate that taking point with the broader discussion. To each their own!
What I am attempting to express, and apparently poorly; I assume, many people, myself included do not scour the Internet for every detail of every form of consumable media.
For example, I’ve brought up movies previously, which I’m told shouldn’t be watched because of some cast or crew members behavior, religious or political affiliation; or that there are products I shouldn’t buy or brands I shouldn’t associate with due to their impact on society, emissions, what have you. Which is all fine and well, I am as much about making my political voice heard as the next person!
However; (deep breath),
What I do not do, is scour the Internet for information about every action in my life to see if my behavior will hold up to the moral scrutiny of other individuals.
It is my view, that this line of thinking is often led by FOTM outrage. Nearly everything we do as humans in western society falls under the “good place” moral dilemma, meaning there are very few if any actions that do not yield a potentially negative impact on another individual, creature or the environment in some manner, no matter how small.
Which is why I find much of the outrage over something as silly as Pal World promoting “forced labor,” farcical.
Who are the moral police, especially for something so trivial as a dumb video game? I train my focus on more significant social issues, but that is again, my personal choice and we all have our own to make!
Are people asking you to dedicate that much scrutiny to your every action?
I respect what you’re trying to say, but I can tell you that from what I am reading it seems like there’s a lot of preoccupation with how other people make you feel about your decisions, but I’m just not sure why you are so concerned with what other people think or if you’re being persecuted over this or something. I’m just curious what environment you’re in where you are under such heavy scrutiny all the time that this is such a concern.
I watched a great video by innuendo Studios that is several years old about vegans. He talks about how vegans get this bad reputation, but often it’s just a reflection on how we feel they perceive us without evidence. That by their very nature of saying they are vegan, they are somehow attacking us and judging us for our actions. The reality is most vegans really do not care what you are doing, they are doing what they want to do for themselves then people get angry when they don’t eat food that doesn’t align with their values as if they threw it in their face and screamed at them with fiery moral indignation.
There is this caricature of the vegan who walks around announcing it through a megaphone and demanding everything conform to what they want. But the reality is most vegans quietly make it work in a world that generally is fine with eating meat and dairy in every setting.
All of this is to say I’m just feeling like that video is really relevant to what I am reading in your comments. I could be wrong though.
I understand what you are saying, and I can see how certain people would feel that way. An inadvertent slight by insinuation of sorts. In this case that is not what I’m referring to.
To answer your question truthfully, it is generally one long time friend of mine that I have determined it is better to simply not bring anything up rather than be instantly met with a negative reaction because of something. Literally, walking on egg shells attempting to avoid a subject matter that might be frowned upon.
I do see a similar sentiment on Lemmy, hence participating in this thread. Based on a book I was reading a while back I think much of it stems from social media outrage culture. By being reactionary and vocal about it, you are often met with positive reinforcement (up votes, likes etc), which can lead to this behavior carrying over to reality, where it simply doesn’t translate in the same manner.