Can Game Titles Be a Problem?

Sure, but I believe it's possible to navigate waters by observing a philosophical standpoint. I do it often, but it does leave you wide open to people deciding what you're thinking. This isn't a flaw, it's just dealing with ignorance.

They should change their world view to actually understand why it's necessary to be able to project your thinking to different vantage points. It's just logical and impartial, which is why right or wrong I feel dismay at the google judgement.

The human race is still bound to attach meanings of superstition and fear to marks in the dirt and cries on the wind.

 

Which might well sum up the differences between the political ideals our countries. 'let people do what they like and then face the bad consequences' versus 'prevent people from taking the actions that inevitably lead to bad consequences'.

 

What is a political arena?

There are people who legitimately believe, in this day and age, that the world is flat.

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Define "violence" in this age of terms like "micro-aggression."

The reality is there's always a caveat. Always.

 

Sure edge cases exist. Its the job of lawyers and politicians to deal with them. Just because an edge case exists, does not mean that a law can't be made for the general case.

If you look you will find that there are answers for all of those questions already in the countries that don't embrace free speech.

 

I think we should prevent people from being able to drink alcohol. Because drinking alcohol damages dendrites, and in many cases leads to alcoholism, which can cause many personal problems.

I think we should prevent people from eating more than a government-allotted amount of food, because eating too much causes obesity. And obesity can cause serious health complications.

I think we should prevent people with health problems from procreating (probably by sterilizing them), because they may pass on genetically-caused problems to their children.

Do any of these seem like a good idea to you? They are all the result of the line of thought presented in the quote.

 

I believe that the very fact that people have vastly different ideas even regarding such a matter as crucial to democratic society as the concept of freedom speech shows why we cannot simply make it a rule to selectively forbid such speeches as harmful solely based on our 'common sense'.

What our common sense can really teach us is that we need to respect other people's opinions, and be compassionate towards them. But what specific type of opinions or people deserve our respect and compassion might vary between each individuals, just as their idea of a 'common sense' differs from one person to another.

What answers each person gives to such a question defines his or her own personality, and how other people would view that person.

And I think such a matter belongs to the area for personal morality, rather than to any positive legislation of the government.

 

I know this isn't debate club or anything but this is the most goddamn ridiculous slippery slope I've seen in a good long while.

 

I subscribe to "make a choice and face the consequences", and find idea using laws to protect people from everything silly. However I do not live in USA.

This kind of statement/viewpoint can be used as an excuse to do nothing. However, doing nothing is also a choice with its own consequences, which are not necessarily pleasant.

The problem here is that you made an assumption regarding which of the two statements represents BoredMorm... Kiwasi's position. As far as I can tell he did not indicate which one of the ideologies is "his".

 

It is worrying seeing people shout "Nazi" with careless abandon. Firstly, this is hugely disrespectful to people who were affected, in fact the whole world is just about recovering from it. Secondly, writing a forum post is not really on the same level as being a Nazi in any shape or form. No melting of children's faces, or horrific spying is taking place. Merely, someone wrote some thoughts and encouraged feedback.

So I think there's an actual danger here from incredible hubris and arrogance. Who are we to presume a document be of zero value or worse, harmful in some way without actual scientific examination?

Instead "Nazi" gets banded about like candy. Really, these are the people to be taking seriously, or the people wanting a more scientific approach to discourse?

 

I'm not sure where I assumed any of the idealogies were his? I'm referring to the one he introduces as "used on other Western countries." However, this--

--is a pretty clear statement of opinion.

 

In the "slippery slope" post.

Nope, as far as I can tell, you've made an assumption without actually hearing his opinion.

 

How is it a slippery slope?

The problem is that "bad consequences" is completely subjective and everyone WILL have different opinions of what it is. There are people who are okay with being obese and having additional health complications. There are others who aren't okay with it. Same for other things.

He did say "inevitably" which I should have made note of, but my point - that it's still a subjective issue - remains.

I'm sorry, I still don't see it. None of what I said is dependent on any ideal belonging to him or anyone else (in fact, I specifically said "the line of thought presented" which assumes no personal attachment). I was talking about the conclusions of that ideal.

Can you describe it specifically?

 

We have several government initiatives in place to reduce problem alcohol consumption. In particular consumption by young people and binge consumption. This is done through education and through the tax system.

The current Australian tax system incentives fruit, vegetables and other unprocessed foods. This system was deliberately built with the express purpose of promoting healthy eating.

Reproductive rights are very sensitive and complex. I'm not aware of any active policies designed to prevent people passing on genetic disorders. The idea has been floated a few times, but in general the harm to the individual from sterilization is seen as more significant then the harm to society from breeding. That said there are plenty of people who choose not to have children on their own for this reason. And prenatal screening for possible defects is quite common.

That said there are government initiatives in place to encourage working couples to have children. Which is kind of similar. And again, mostly done through the tax system.

Remember my earlier quote that there are thousands of shades between any two extremes? Leaving one extreme does not automatically mean you must adopt the other extreme.

Should the government send soldiers to knock down your door if you put too much sugar on your breakfast cereal? No. In general that sort of system does more harm then good.

But should the government tweak the tax system to promote eating more fruit and vegetables? Yes. They are going to tax you anyway, might as well make you live slightly longer as they do it.

 

From two ideologies presented, you chose to criticize one, while quoting Kiwasi's post which gave impression that you see this statement as his opinion. That's a bit of a stretch, thinking about it.

"good" vs "bad" probably doesn't even matter in this context.

The difference is that that "let people do what you want" essentially means that "you're responsible for your own actions", while "prevent people from..." essentially means "the government will decide what is better for you".

By the way, government usually regulates alcohol consumption via (at least) establishing minimum drinking age.

 

You won't find me disagreeing with the idea of positive reinforcement over negative reinforcement - everything you've mentioned being done is an example of the former.

And I apologize if I'm repeating myself, but taking "prevent people from making decisions with inevitable bad consequences" literally requires certain approaches such as those I mentioned (though again I apologize, I ignored the word "inevitable"). It requires that you define bad consequences in an absolute way. It requires that you actually "prevent" them.

I certainly see no problem with discouraging some actions. But preventing them altogether is entirely another issue.

 

I'm not sure where you're trying to go with this line of reasoning.

"Bad" can usually be defined as a "causing harm to society". Likewise when you start talking about "preventing" people will usually remember crimes like murder.

Also, I think we have strongly derailed original topic. Probably beyond any hope of recovery.

 

@neginfinity I hope I'm not making a mistake in ignoring the rest of your post...it looked like you were concluding the first argument rather than continuing it. If I'm wrong point that out.

Good point. However, whether they do this as a buffer against personal consequences (negatively impacting an individual's life) or against public consequences (negatively impacting the public good) is debatable. In general, they're less concerned with personal consequence and more with public consequence.

The more I think about these things the more I feel like a libertarian - not in what I think is "right," but in what I feel the government should control.

 

I'm still arguing his initial statement there, about preventing certain actions. I'm not trying to argue towards any one thing.

And, again, "causing harm to society" is a subjective statement because one must define what is "good" for society. Is it "good" for society to spend their time on frivolous entertainment when they could be contributing to it (through production - work)? Is it "good" for society to spend their time in production (work) when this doesn't necessarily contribute to their well-being as an individual?

You mentioned before that following my line of thought leads to paralysis, to not making any choices at all. I don't dispute that. And I don't think that one necessarily has to act on that conclusion. I'm just trying to avoid any claims of idealism, of any one ideal being "good." The reality is that all of them are varying degrees of poor.

Regardless of my opinion of democracy itself, I like the quote about it: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."

Edit: And yeah, I'm sorry...I used to have the nickname "EA, slayer of threads."

 

... Hopefully this is not an attempt at sophistry.

If you're going to go this route, it is possible to define desired state of society as:
1. Population isn't dead.
2. The country is still here and not conquered by anyone.
3. People are not rebelling.
As a bare minimum.

That leads to:
1. People are content with their lives.
2. The country has sufficient military strength or allies to repel possible invasion.
3. The trade is going on and people are paying taxes.

Or something like taht.

Starting from here, you should be able to derive traditional altrusitic moral systems like christian 10 testaments.
For example, murder and stealing makes people feel less safe and less likely to trade. Which will hurt trade. Which will hurt the military. Which will hurt the country. Therefore it should be punished.

Likewise, failure to provide healthcare will result in shorter lifespan, less taxes, and people migrating away. Which will hurt military, and will hurt the country.

Likewise, having a purpose in their lives makes people happier, so you could invent religion which will provide greater purpose for the populace. Or state ideologyh. It doesn't matter. Human rights work too. Thinking that you're a good guy feels great and makes people happier, happiness make them content, which reduces their chance of rebelling and destroying the country.

So, given desire to live and monetary system of exchange you can build up the whole ideologies.

As to "what is good", it is an ultimately meaningless government, because "good" is a label slapped by society on things they like. So there's not much sense arguing about correct definition, because "good" can be redefined when it is convenient.

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So, to summarize, I fail to see a philosophical conundrum here. From "there are only actions and consequences" position Good and Evil do not exist, and are simply labels used by people to approve or condemn things. So they call things they want to happen "good", call whatever they don't want to happen "evil", and then can spin laws and moral codes from there.

Likewise, when effect of something is uncertain, people usually will try it out, see what happens, and then either condemn or approve that, extending their laws a little.

 

Apologies. I read most of the thread, and figured it was broken from the start.

As an exercise, why not throw up a bunch of slippery slope arguments for the other position? They are just as easy to come up with. In terms of politics, its always good to understand the other sides position, even if you don't agree with it.

My personal opinion tends to follow a more moderate path then is presented by either of the statements. I do tend to fall somewhat on the prevention side instead of the cure side, but only slightly.

 

I don't get the people who are always crying about political correctness. If you are about freedom of expression, just what exactly is upsetting you when people get upset about you for saying certain things?

If you like being a brash jerk, just be one. Be yourself. So what if 90% of people don't like you? Maybe you could be president? Just don't go crying on the internet when people whose mothers didn't neglect them call you a bigot. They get to say what they want to.

Freedom means you get what you deserve. Act unfriendly, you lose friends. Being a tough guy doesn't have anything to do with being insensitive to other peoples feelings.

 

This is from the perspective of the government. Subjectively comes from multiple perspectives. A citizen, and different citizens, will have completely different ideas on whether some or all of this is beneficial to society.

I don't think it's a slippery slope to say you get exactly what we have today - situations where people who need help can't get it because of other crying wolf, people falling through the cracks. People being deliberately hurtful (as we've seen in this thread a teensy bit, to angle this back a little on topic) because they can and no one will stop them.

I don't really think it's a good system, to be honest.

Don't think that my arguments for or against a stance mean I think it's right or wrong. I'm doing what I mentioned in my previous post--pointing out problems with positions others don't typically point out problems with, to level the playing field.

I want to use another video game analogy, but you've only played Mass Effect 1 and I don't want to spoil the final game. Suffice it to say, I think one eventually has to move beyond ideals when it comes to reality.

 

Does it matter?

Humans only have access to subjective perspective to begin with, and rather than arguing "whose perspective is correct" (nobody's) a good idea to find one that works. "Country-level" perspective produces decent enough guidelines for maintaining a populace.

If someone has different opinion, there's no reason to think that their opinion is right.

 

Agreed, and I tend to fall that way as well. There are people out there who are rude individuals with little to no concern for how they treat others, but at the same time there are people who are quick to take offense at the smallest of things.

 

Yet we americans still eat pie ant turkey on thanksgiving, go out in the yard with the kids to play cowboy and indian. We celebrate genocide. But it was genocide of barbarians that had no right to live anyway right so its ok.

Personally I think this is not good. Never encourage an overpopulated world to breed.

Problem is most people and especially anyone who has gained the popularity and funding to hold office do not follow an altruistic path. They aren't really worried about your best interests unless it benefits them to do so.

Correct but there is also no reason to think its wrong. Opinions have no value of correctness.

This is all personal opinion here and I'm more than sure alot of people dont feel this way. But I also feel I should be allowed to feel like this and even publicly voice my opinion in case others feel the same. I should not be able to act on an opinion if it harms others. I should be able to act on my opinion if it only harms me. But wait harming myself harms society as a whole right? Added health care reduced input from me, I become a burden. So should I be allowed to harm myself? No seems to be the general opinion and we have laws against all manner of self harming acts like suicide and drug abuse. What happens when the general opinion says gluten is harmful and we prohibit it. Will we have gluten runners building hotrods to outrun the cops on their way to the speakeasy where people enjoy their forbidden luxury in hiding? What hapens when general opinion says an entire race of people needs to be extinguished? Do we begin spoiling their livlyhoods and killing them off asap? I know extreme cases and wouldn't ever happen but even thinking this may be possible scares me. Less government is better. People expect their government to take care of them, feed them when they can't feed themselves, provide healthcare, provide housing, assistance, help me government I deserve it. This is a wrong thinking in my opinion. Any government with the power to give you what you want has the power to take anything you hold dear. Less is more in my opinion.

All of this is just different opinions and no one is required to feel one way or another about it. The wide difference in attitudes toward how life should be lived is what gives us the diverse set of people we have in the world. Anything that prevents someone from doing what they feel is right because it harms society in general is a bad idea. Who is to say what harms society. Who is allowed to make that call. Do we vote on it? Then you have mob rule. 57% of people think we should send everyone with latino background back to mexico so we do. Thats not good. Instead we need laws to specifically protect individuals from harm being caused by other individuals. Again just opinion and we should all be allowed to voice ours no matter how hurtful or out of the norm they seem.

 

Jesus, this thread... Nobody cares about my opinion on this, but here it is anyway.

You absolutely have the right to call your game whatever the hell you want. I could name my edgy political simulator "Donald's F***ing P***y Grabber 2017: Not For F*****s, N****rs, and R*****s".

And then Apple, Google, Steam, Itch.io, GoG, et al have the right to deny me publishing rights on their stores for my content not meeting their standards.

So yes, titles can be a problem if you insist on using emotionally-charged words. And that's something you'll have to deal with. I guess it's a matter of deciding if you'd rather make a game or a statement on society.

 

Forgot mexicans. Let me know when it gets started, I got 5 bucks to put on the kickstarter. Sounds like a riot, the good kind.

 

I'm not trying to argue "whose perspective is correct?" I'm trying to argue your conclusion (nobody's), by pointing out flaws in ones that are introduced.

It matters because we're talking about the different approaches taken in different places, and how one may or may not be better than another. That so-called "betterness" is the result of having a perspective that aligns more with that other approach.

This entire argument (I use the dispassionate definition of the term, a discussion) was not started on the basis that one approach (America's) is less effective for the country itself. It was started by the statement that that approach is less effective in general. All I was ever attempting to do was point out that the statement was flawed because it necessitated certain assumptions (such as what "bad consequences" are). Allow me to point out again that I don't think the approach I was "defending" is necessarily better - it's just not worse by virtue of what I just mentioned.

And glad somebody got this back on track. Feel free to ignore this all, just wanted to explain myself.

 

Riot with margaritas and tacos! Count me in!

 

Was agreeing and backing you up.

 

Since we are chewing the philosophical fat, one problem that arises with the prevention method is what happens when you get it wrong. With the individualistic consequence based approach, its easy to point to an individual and say 'you messed up, you must deal with the consequences'. On the prevention based approach this becomes much more challenging. Occasionally the system won't prevent some fairly obvious harm that it was meant to prevent. At other times the system can actively cause harm, despite intentions to do otherwise. Both of these situations pose some interesting philosophical questions.

 

I don't see the harm in the first reply being along the lines of "OK... please provide evidence and data". Using a scientific approach to new data is the same for anything else. A memo like this, if it gained interest, should have been examined with science and great interest as a curio. If it turned out to be genuinely obnoxious the common sense response would be to engage the person in discussion.

Assuming it's a curious thing worth time, otherwise for trolls or whatever, simply calmly ignore. If it's really important, it'll return.

I mean, it's as if the entire F***ing planet is immature. There's so little common sense and reason that I find most of the internet simply a bewildering place.

And a terrible waste of resources. Imagine a place where the coolest thing was to come up with a novel idea, method or way of thinking? Where something progressive was held in the highest esteem.

I don't think anyone understands each other. There's several dialects of gibberish and hooting.

 

Opinions have a value when person in quesiton actually explains why they have this specific opinion.

It is possible to derail this kind of reasoning by asking you to define a "flaw", repeatedly requesting you to define every single term, arguing to the death about correct meaning, and in the end asking you to prove that universe actually exists, because solipsism cannot be disproven.

I think things are supposed to have at least some practical reason, in other words when you question something in order to acheive something. For example, looking for better laws to make people happier, or looking for a game title that can piss off larger number of people, generating publicity this way.

Arguing about "abstract goodness", "objective opinions", "perfect political correctness" is not doing something useful, because those kind of questions tend to spawn a simplified abstract "model" of reality which is completely detached from the real world. It is "talking about flying pink elephants" thing - mental gymnastics without little practical application.

I see that statement differently, and in my opinion, you concentrated too much on the "bad" part then trying to route the discussion into "does good and bad exists and what it means to be good/bad and who decides what good and bad is", rendering it ... significantly less useful.

I see "bad" as irrelevant it that statement, and view the whole statement as "you're responsible for your own actions and by making a choice, you accept all the consequences". Given that human perception of reality is subjective, and "good"/"bad" are subjective labels people slap onto things they agree/disagree, one, for example, coudl decide that for any kind of consequence there exists a perspective from which said consequences is deemed "bad".

The actually important quesiton is what is someone who is defining good/bad is actually trying to achieve by introducing this classification.

 

I did not say opinions have no value. I said the have no value for correctness. Your opinion can't be valued as more correct than someone elses. It may be seen as more correct to you but someone else sees it different and who are we as opinion holders to judge others as wrong. Because of my condition I see things in a different manner than most, my opinions are quite different on several matters because I generally lack true emotional connection with humans. I dont feel the way I see things as wrong as it all makes perfect sense to me. You on the other hand will have empathy for your fellow man, somewhat feel their emotional pain, and see things in a different light. Dosent mean either of us is wrong just different.
Opinions do have value. They mean something to you. You can use them as a compass to gather your facts in order and make a case that has a specific direction toward that opinion. The opinion had value to you. You can state your opinions to others and use these facts that support it to change the minds of others. Its valuable to them. Yes opinions do have a purpose, value, whatever you want to call it but they do not have any level of correctness overall. They can be seen as 100% correct by the opinion holder while seen as 100% incorrect by another which cancels it to a meaningless phrase overall. People give value to meaningless things all the time.

 

I'm now considering changing my company name to that.

 

Further clarity never derails a discussion as long as people remember what they're discussing. In this kind of format it's very, very easy to start arguing things and totally lose track of what you were initially talking about. But if you remain aware of that, explaining things won't hinder it at all.

I enjoy discussions of solipsism, but I think if one's even willing to enter the conversation at all (by pointing to specific things one agrees or disagrees with, or pointing out flaws in some argument), one forfeits the "right" to move the goalposts like that. The only way to win that game is to not play, and if *you're* (the general you, not you specifically) not playing, then why are you arguing about it?

I am trying to achieve something. I am trying to achieve a state where we can view each possible path (I apologize for being vague there) in its entirety, without merely making surface observations.

I'm a scientist, and a scientist (a true scientist) is a skeptic.

I apologize, BoredMo...Kiwasi, I'm going to spoil a little bit of the ending to Mass Effect 3. The very last words of Shepard (at least before the EC) are perhaps the wisest a man ever utters.

"I...don't know."

I may have focused too much on good/bad. But it wasn't to make this into a "what is good?" discussion, not at all. I was trying to bring things around to the idea that "preventing harm" by one man's standard is CAUSING harm by another's. One of the most egregious problems I see is the imposition of one's will upon another. Of course it has to happen to some degree; anarchy has never worked. But it's the root to many problems I have witnessed.

And what you call the "important question" I would definitely not agree with. I'm sure you've heard the saying, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." What you intend is important. But what's more important is how you do that.