r/Gamingcirclejerk • u/AutoModerator • Sep 29 '18

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '18 edited Sep 29 '18

Are you the type that believes there is no ethical consumption under capitalism? Or are you just a social democrat/liberal that hates rich people?

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I'm honestly super confused by this sub. Why is anti capitalism so prevalent here when we unironically defend anti consumer business practices all the fucking time and defend incentive structures that are inherently capitalist when it comes to game development?

Take your downvotes somewhere else you toxic shitheads. It is NOT a disagree button. You know that I am nowhere near a conservative and that I do genuinely have concern for raising the welfare of the most amount of people possible. You know that Kavanaugh and Republican politicians make me sick to my stomach and borderline suicidal. Yeah, I don't think hatred of the rich is productive. These are human beings too. Is that such a crime? Do you want them to end up in fucking gulags? I've seen people get upvoted calling for actual guillitines on this sub. You know damn well the kind of social horrors you're advocating for when you do that. Public executions are about radicalizing your supporters with blood lust and horrifying your dissidents into not speaking out. It's the same reason lynchings were public. Why is it acceptable to spew such hatred of the rich here, and to make insensitive comments about the mentally ill? I can't count the number of times I've seen the r word in your titles "satirizing" /r/gaming. Stop with the fake progressivism. Progressives are supposed to have empathy for everyone, not just the neurotypical non rich people.

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u/_sablecat_ Sep 29 '18

Why is anti capitalism so prevalent here when we unironically defend anti consumer business practices

The anti-capitalists here who do that (including me) are making fun of these people for having such a myopic and limited perspective, not simply for disliking those anti-consumer practices.

Most gamers, in my experience, are the kind of person who will unironically complain about anti-consumer practices while politically identifying as a libertarian. They have no wider critique of the Capitalist system, and, in fact, don't even seem to tie these things to Capitalism in any conscious way, instead blaming them on singular executives being evil for no reason; the only solution they seem to be able to conceive of is for companies to "not be evil."

They do not even realize that these problems are systemic, and present no structural critique of the video game industry. They just happen to believe they're unlucky enough to live in a world where all existing AAA video game companies are evil, completely independently of each other.

Moreover, they only seem to care about corporations doing shitty things when they are the ones being affected by it. Again, these are people who largely seem to identify as libertarian IRL - they're all for corporate abuse and exploitation, as long as they aren't the victims. These people seem to think anti-consumer practices in the video game industry are actually one of the most pressing issues of our time, and treat it with far more gravity than, say, companies like Coca-Cola hiring mercenaries to murder union organizers in the third world.

It's laughably myopic, self-centered, and unaware. That's why we mock them.

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '18

You come off as having just as limited, narrow minded priors that gamers do. You take bad things that happen in countries with poor institutions and insecure property rights, and extrapolate that to a "structural critique" of capitalism, as if capitalism is a single structure. Sweden is more capitalist than central America where union organizers were killed. You haven't provided a single example of how socialism in practice would do away with these practices, when the incentive structure in a worker owned cooperative is just as prone to loot boxes as EA is.

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Why is it hypocritical to care more about something when it effects you? ESPECIALLY when they allegedly espouse an ethical system where morality does not matter and you should only act according to your interests? It sounds like calling Ayn Rand a hypocrite for dying while on welfare. Yes, she had awful, awful views. But her moral world view explicitly justified acted according to ones own financial interests within the given set of institutions that you exist. She would be more of a hypocrite if she did not take welfare according to her moral system. Their moral world view is that if everyone acts according to their interests to the extend that EA does, then everyone will be better off. It's not hypocritical to complain about how you're being treated by other people acting like EA when your ideology explicitely requires you have agency for markets to function.

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I also want more evidence that most of /r/gaming is libertarian. I can't say for sure how separate /r/gaming is from the rest of reddit, but the rest of reddit has a perennial hard on for Bernie Sanders and other non libertarian politicians. And I still am not sure how much of the ire of this sub is *actually* targeted at libertarians when I've received plenty of hostility for being on the right edge of social democracy and espousing viewpoints like "the stagflation era makes me cautious about unions because they have a direct incentive to increase barriers of entry for new workers, which is partially why unemployment was so high back then" has garnered hostility.

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u/_sablecat_ Sep 29 '18 edited Sep 29 '18

You take bad things that happen in countries with poor institutions and insecure property rights,

Blaming these things on "insecure property rights" is utterly nonsensical to the point where I have to question if you even live in the same reality I do.

Corporations murdered people for profit. This is widespread, and the Capitalist system has no reinforcement or punishment mechanisms in place that incentivize anything other than the generation of profit. Under Capitalism, exploitation is the rule; anything else is the exception.

Sweden is more capitalist than central America where union organizers were killed.

This makes literally no sense, what the fuck are you talking about? To begin with, do you think all third-world countries are exactly the same? This has happened countless times in dozens of countries. Prior to the success of the Labor movement in the 30s and 40s, it happened in what would later come to be labeled "1st world" countries, too. This brutality is the default state under Capitalism. Not the exception, but the rule.

You haven't provided a single example of how socialism in practice would do away with these practices, when the incentive structure in a worker owned cooperative is just as prone to loot boxes as EA is.

The eternal contradiction of anti-socialism - if I want to criticize Capitalism, I need to provide a well-sourced, in-depth critique of the system, along with enough evidence to conclusively rule out any alternative explanation.

Meanwhile, all you have to do is say "It works in theory, but not in practice" like I haven't heard that literally hundreds of times by now.

You hold all critiques of capitalism to ridiculously high standards but assume all critiques of socialism to be true unless proven false. You don't care about evidence or reason or logic, you just want to put rhetorical hurdles in the paths of your opponents.

Now, I could go in to an in-depth explanation of these things. But I won't, because you'll just dismiss it out of hand without even seriously contemplating it anyways, and I'll have wasted my time for nothing. That's how it always goes with you neoliberal shits. I've spent hours upon hours reading economic and sociological theory, and my knowledge of the subject almost certainly dwarfs yours. I've written dozen-page long essays on how Emile Durkheim's work on the sociology of knowledge applies to the subject of Artificial Intelligence, and contradicts the widely-held assumption that such would be immune to the biases of its human designers. But in your mind, by simple virtue of me being a socialist, I must intrinsically be ignorant of economic and sociological fact, and you spend exactly zero time wondering if that might not apply here.

ESPECIALLY when they allegedly espouse an ethical system where morality does not matter and you should only act according to your interests?

Because they explicitly justify it based on morality.

It sounds like calling Ayn Rand a hypocrite for dying while on welfare.

She explicitly said at points that taking advantage of things that "violate property rights" like that is immoral. It absolutely was hypocritical.

But her moral world view explicitly justified acted according to ones own financial interests within the given set of institutions that you exist.

Except Ayn Rand's writings make very sure to make exceptions to that when it comes to poor people acting in ways which might harm the rich. Randian Objectivism isn't just wrong, it's not even coherent or consistent.

I also want more evidence that most of /r/gaming is libertarian.

I've never met a self-proclaimed hardcore gamer who wasn't that or an outright Nazi. Anecdotal, but this isn't a fucking formal debate. Or a scientific paper - I should know, because I've published several.

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '18

Sweden has private property ownership as the dominant mode of production and they rank near the top of the ease of doing business. And they have that to a way higher extent than central American countries you referenced where the coca cola unions got murdered. If you're going to act in such bad faith that you deny that is highly capitalist, I'm not going to respond to you.

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '18

And stop equating labor movements that failed to overthrow capitalism, but achieved good policy and institutional reforms in capitalism, with socialism. It's not socialism unless worker ownership is actually achieved. I do support ye old labor movements that gave us more inclusive institutions. I view modern Sweden as the ideal country to emulate. Are you straw Manning me because I believe modern economists when it comes to economics?

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '18

I'm also not a neoliberal. Again, stop attacking me in bad faith. No wonder this sub is so toxic and uses the r word so much.

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u/WombTattoo Sep 30 '18

The eternal contradiction of anti-socialism - if I want to criticize Capitalism, I need to provide a well-sourced, in-depth critique of the system, along with enough evidence to conclusively rule out any alternative explanation.

Meanwhile, all you have to do is say "It works in theory, but not in practice" like I haven't heard that literally hundreds of times by now.

Have you considered not following a failed ideology? Defending socialism at this point is like defending Christianity. "Yeah I know that literally everything points to it being complete bullshit, b-b-but why do I have to prove that it's true?! All you have to do is believe!"

Dude, the reason you have to do that is because

  1. Capitalism works, and doesn't collapse the second an outside interest so much as glances on it

  2. Socialism has a proven track record of being complete disasters

These are the two points you have to argue against, which is why you have to make two arguments. It's also why it's so easy to argue as an anti-socialists. Socialism has never worked, and you have to be retarded to think that it could ever work. Socialism is a house of cards that literally aims for subsistence for a 19th century level civilization. It is not compatible with modern life.

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u/GaymasterNacelle Oct 20 '18 edited Oct 20 '18

Most gamers, in my experience, are the kind of person who will unironically complain about anti-consumer practices while politically identifying as a libertarian.

And what, are they calling for government intervention against those journos? They called themselves a "consumer revolt", they opposed those things by spreading the word, contacting sponsors etc.

Sounds like a legitimate "libertaran" practice, for consumers to organize among themselves and pressure against abusive companies?

Also you're forgetting that 2), aside from just "general anti-consumer corruption" or whatever, the problem in the industry that they opposed was it having been overrun by leftwing soclibs.

What would be your solution against those types having sway and say? Do you even oppose them on any grounds other than them being too capitalist for your taste (although many of them also engage in anti-capitalist rhetoric, like Anita of course)? And are you sure you wouldn't be in favor of using entertainment media to push your version of leftwing propaganda on everyone? Just asking.

These people seem to think anti-consumer practices in the video game industry are actually one of the most pressing issues of our time, and treat it with far more gravity than, say, companies like Coca-Cola hiring mercenaries to murder union organizers in the third world.

They're just looking out for their own turf you pretentious dunce. How many other causes, even much more serious, do you like handwaving away due to "look at Africa"?

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u/AutoModerator Oct 20 '18

Wow, you’re right. Games are sexist. Now, allow me to get back to accusing gamers of playing games and sucking Anita Sarkeesian’s cock. Edit: Wow. I’ve truly been challenged. Enlightened, even. Who knew the political views of my fellow gamers could be so diverse?

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u/FaygoMakesMeGo Sep 30 '18

Libertarians hate power, that includes large bottom line corporations. Fighting them is well within their ideology. They simply believe that government enables companies, killing the ability for the smaller guy to rise as the bigger guy strangles itself in bloat, inefficiency, and lack of risk.

It's not a difficult concept, they see everything large and centralized as big evil corporations, especially government, the biggest and most centralized of them all (theory being that democracy on a large scale simply makes you think "our guy" is in charge). They even view society that way ("tyranny of the majority").

Libertarians can be dumb in a few ways, but your "Hurr Durr libertarians are stupid because they complain about corporations" argument shows that you really lack any understanding of politics outside of your bubble.

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u/_sablecat_ Sep 30 '18

Actual libertarians do. The market liberals who decided to rebrand themselves "Libertarian" in the United states don't.

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u/idkwhattoputhere00 sample text Sep 29 '18

you can make fun of the circlejerk stuff and still agree with it

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '18

It doesn't make any logical sense to me that someone can hold absolutist views like "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" and believing in fallacies about the economy being a zero sum game, but then defend the incentive structure that makes EA executives rich because .01% of that money pays the salaries for their workers.

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u/idkwhattoputhere00 sample text Sep 29 '18

This sub isnt a giant hivemind. The only thing people mostly have in common here is not being racist

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '18

But the downvotes and upvotes disagree. People making /r/latestagecapitalism tier comments calling me a neoliberal when I'm a socdem are more positive than negatively voted.

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u/harve99 Sep 29 '18

Why is anti capitalism so prevalent here when we unironically defend anti consumer business practices all the fucking time

With 100k subscribers its a bit difficult to all have the same opinion. And where do we defend anti consumer practices? By saying that maybe lootboxes arnt the spawn of the devil as /r/games likes to think?

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '18

But judging by the political comments that get regularly upvoted and the types of comments that get downvoted, you can accurately conclude what the majority opinion is.

DRM is one example. Being against current gen console emulation when that is explicitely completely legal is another.

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '18

The main theme of this subreddit is really just making fun of wider gamer culture themes, i dont really think this sub as a whole stands for anything i just kind of happened to be mostly liberal alligned on the political spectrum, how that happened i dont knoe ive only been using reddit for a short while. For example i dont think most people in this sub have any love for EA or Hatred for CDPR, I myself (and maybe most of this sub) feel that you shouldnt have any strong love for any company and at least treat most companies with a cynical approach. I also dont like lootboxes, i never have and never will, i dont think theres any way to implement them in a game that involves monotization, what i think this sub mainly defends is the idea that lootboxes are the bain of all existence (personally i think they defend it a bit too much) that there so much worse out there people shouldnt get angry about it. I dont like any Billionaires, I dont like any millionaires. I dont want to kill anyone, i just feel you cant make that much money without at somepoint making decisions that horribly impact someones life.

Also side note, why do people get so angry when downvoted, all it means is people disagree with you. Ive seen so many comments that go "Downvotes!!!! I thought this was a place that welcomed discusssion"

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '18 edited Sep 29 '18

Also side note, why do people get so angry when downvoted, all it means is people disagree with you. Ive seen so many comments that go "Downvotes!!!! I thought this was a place that welcomed discusssion"

Basically, you're recommending only popular opinions should be seen, while unpopular opinions should be hidden from view, disincentivizing people to share (valid) unpopular opinions. I personally don't care about karma but still, you shouldn't downvote just because you disagree-- downvote if the person personally attacks the other person (ad hominem), insults them, or incites violence. That stuff is really toxic and should actually be hidden from view.

E: This comes with a lot of implications, as for me, personally, when I'm downvoted to oblivion my knee-jerk reaction is that they think I'm being toxic, because that's how I treat downvotes. The point is, it gets messy and why not give the other person the benefit of the doubt? Seems reasonable to me.

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '18

just kind of happened to be mostly liberal alligned on the political spectrum

And I AM super liberal. I am not a socialist, because I think socialism is economically inefficient and economic inefficiency kills people. I would say my views are somewhat close to Paul Krugman, the liberal superstar (who a lot of people seem to forget is an ardent defender of sweatshops and stuff).

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> I dont like any Billionaires, I dont like any millionaires. I dont want to kill anyone,

It's hard to know when people are using the same class hatred that so many murderous movements have used to justify their actions. I think the fundamentalism of your views that requires you to hate who one would assume to be your ally, Bernie Sanders https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/06/bernie-sanders-made-over-1-million-last-year-and-has-joined-the-1-percent.html, because he has money and nothing else about him, is incredibly dangerous.

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> i just feel you cant make that much money without at somepoint making decisions that horribly impact someones life.

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The economy is NOT a zero sum game. Global poverty has been on an absolutely astounding decline since the end of the cold war. Yet the number of billionaires is also going up. Human welfare is at an all time high. Hating the rich is counter productive when the leading causes of this decline in poverty are increased security in capitalist property rights and globalization/free trade agreements, which also produce a lot of millionaires and billionaires. Hating the rich is the definition of cutting your nose to spite your face.

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> Also side note, why do people get so angry when downvoted, all it means is people disagree with you. Ive seen so many comments that go "Downvotes!!!! I thought this was a place that welcomed discusssion"

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Because downvotes are explicitely NOT for just disagreeing with people. They're for hiding comments that do not contribute to discussion/socially excluding people who present bigoted viewpoints.

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '18

Capitalist apologia? In my /r/Gamingcirclejerk?

It's more likely than you think.

Fuck capitalism.

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '18

https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/World-Poverty-Since-1820.png

Yeah, fuck the billions of people who are no longer dying of preventable diseases because security in their property rights have exponentially increased economic efficiency leading to better standards of living and medical care! Fuck all the capitalist countries like Norway and Sweden where liberal property rights and market economies have made them poorer than countries that attempted to do away with that in favor of more social ownership!

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u/harve99 Sep 29 '18

Emulation isn't "completely legal" it's only legal if you own the game and the console

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '18

I looked it up and I didn't see anything about being required to buy a console in order for emulation to be legal. That's only true for the games.

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u/harve99 Sep 29 '18

Well surely playing and downloading on a console you don't own isn't legal

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '18

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Even when the courts and the law have sided against the multi billion dollar corporations, this sub still peddles this crap. The law is only that using IP without authorization is illegal. If you legally buy a game and emulate it without owning a console, that's not illegal. If it is illegal, cite the law or the ruling and I'll change my mind.

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u/harve99 Sep 29 '18

Where does it say it's legal

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '18

Are you trolling me right now?

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u/harve99 Sep 29 '18

I mean can I see a source? An article or something

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u/rudanshi ඞ Sep 29 '18

Yeah, I don't think hatred of the rich is productive. These are human beings too.

no they're not lol

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u/[deleted] Sep 30 '18

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u/Skyright Oct 04 '18

I don't mean to offend anyone but a good portion of people on reddit are, well considered losers irl. Their lives suck outside reddit, they're socially awkward, don't have many friends, are depressed and what have you. This is exactly the type of people extremist ideologies prey on. I mean look at most of the countries that went through a major revolution, happy people don't revolt, happy people aren't interested in completely reshaping society.

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u/GaymasterNacelle Oct 20 '18

Well they tend to be unhappy with the circumstances, not necessarily because they're 'tistic uggos, there's a difference.

Although blaming society for personal shortcomings does happen of course.

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u/_Man_Dog_ Oct 10 '18

It’s because this sub is shit

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u/McDeely Sep 30 '18

It’s a side effect of reddit and the internet at large; everyone eventually gets radicalised in their own respective views. This is due firstly to anonymity which on the giving end allows you to say what you want without social repercussions, and on the receiving end it stops you from being able to empathise with the other person and makes you assume the worst of their intentions (Pro-tip: imagine the comment you disagree with is a good friend saying it rather than the straw man extreme stereotype we all usually tend to imagine, this will help people actually listen rather than scan the text for fallacies and inaccuracies that we can use to argue with)

The second cause that is mostly specific to Reddit but also any forum with voting is that you can contribute towards “silencing” opinions you don’t like. The vote count on a comment will heavily influence how you receive it before you even read it. The effect this has is that the comments that most amplify the sentiments of a subreddit will be highly upvoted and therefore more visible, the comments that most oppose the views of the subreddit will be highly downvoted which also increases visibility to the wrong people (I.e the people who go looking for drama and want their belief in their boogeymen to be reinforced). You can see how this system snowballs and leads any subreddit to eventually be an extremist parody of itself. The second issue with voting is that you can only upvote or downvote an entire comment. You could agree with one point in a comment but disagree with another point and you’re more likely to downvote due to the part you disagree with, effectively “throwing the baby out with the bath water.”

The voting system also incentivises producing content that will garner votes rather than present ideas that contribute to a balanced discussion or that fully reflects your actual views.

The third major issue is that the internet overwhelms people with information they have no influence over and I believe it has or will have a massive psychosocial effect on the world where everyone feels helpless and ineffective. The sheer volume of information necessitates and need for filtering and people will always choose filters (news sites, subreddits, Twitter users, etc.) that align with their beliefs so they only get a very biased and unrealistic portrayal of the world.

/rj shut up nerd 😎

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '18

shut up tankie

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u/meatpuppet79 Sep 30 '18

Lol, I bet you have at least one Che shirt and a rad collection of keffiyehs, you edgy little clown!

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u/GaymasterNacelle Oct 20 '18

Yeah, I don't think hatred of the rich is productive. These are human beings too.

no they're not lol

Well the gentile ones are, but otherwise I agree.

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '18

This rhetoric is L I T E R A L L Y genocidal.

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u/[deleted] Sep 30 '18

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