He says as if Star Trek never went back in time to a period of the 20th to 21st century and looked around wondering when the fuck people are going to get their shit together.
The Perfect Apolitical/Politics Free Video.
- Thread starter BrawlMan
- Start date
War is hell and sweeping for mines is the most shitty and one of the most dangerous jobs in war!
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And making a cutesy "I'll just leave this here" post which provides naught but a caricature of those you disagree with is nuanced in what way?
Can you point me to an instance of this happening?
The title and theme of minesweeper is a reference to landmines, which are explosive devices placed in combat areas and typically concealed with the intention of killing or injuring enemy combatants. Landmines are a serious social and economic problem in many current and former war zones, often injuring civilians even decades after hostilities have ended and requiring large investment to locate and remove which is often beyond the scope of poorer countries. The game minesweeper is an abstract representation of landmine clearance, a dangerous role often carried out by NGOs and charities, but sometimes by military forces, in which people attempt to locate and disarm landmines safely. The player takes on the role of such a person and must use basic mathematical logic to determine the locations of mines without revealing and "detonating" them. This lose state references the risk of accidentally detonating a mine while attempting to clear them, and the real risk of injury or death associated with mine clearance.
Minesweeper is based on some of the earliest computer games ever created, but the version most commonly referenced is Microsoft Minesweeper. Microsoft is a multinational technology corporation and one of the largest technology companies in the world. A corporation is a feature of capitalist economies, and is a legal entity representing an association of people, often with the intention of generating profit. Microsoft has been associated with several controversial business practices, such as anti-competitive behavior and tax avoidance, and has faced criticism over its internal work environment. Leaked NSA documents allege that Microsoft has also allowed the US government to access the hosted data of non-US citizens without consent or a warrant.
Microsoft Minesweeper was created by two Microsoft employees, and included in the first Microsoft Entertainment Pack, which is one of the first instances of games being marketed as "casual" games, in this case aimed at office workers with access to workplace computers. From 1992, Microsoft Minesweeper began to be included with Microsoft Windows as bundled software. Windows Vista included a version made under license by a third party developer of casual games, Oberon Media. Due to controversy around the landmine theme, this version featured an alternative appearance in which the mines were replaced by flowers. This alternate appearance was regionalized, and the game was also renamed to "flower field" in some regions which where landmines were deemed to be a controversial issue.
From Windows 8 onward, minesweeper has not been included in Windows installations, reflecting the growing access to cloud based services such as Microsoft's online storefront.
Although Microsoft Minesweeper is the best known version of minesweeper, the gameplay and mechanics of minesweeper are not intellectual property of Microsoft and numerous clones and alternate versions exist.
TL;DR. Minesweeper was produced in the real world, and its production and distribution has involved many economic processes, business practices and changing features of the world about which a person could quite reasonably have a political opinion. It also references the real world both in its name and theme, to the point that both have actually been changed at times to avoid controversy.
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So the game itself has no politics outside of what someone chooses to interpret from it. I look at it and see a math game meant to fill time. You choose to make a political statement out of it in order to make a point. It's Shrodinger's Politics and is one of the stupidest things you see come out of hipsters trying to sound smart and justify their existence.
It's something that still kills people in Europe even to this day. Old mines and undetonated shells from WWI, over 100 years ago, are still getting people killed.
The game itself isn't a game unless someone chooses to interpret it as a game.
Some things are meant to be interpreted. If you want to pretend that the name "minesweeper" is just a random sequence of letters with no relation to either mines or the practice of removing ("sweeping") them, then God bless.
And you are correct.
There are potential political implications even to that statement, because another word for a game meant to fill incidental time is a casual game, and a lot of people who have created political identities around playing games have strong feelings about casual games.
What point am I making, exactly?
Are you saying it's untrue to say that the name minesweeper is a reference to mines? Is it untrue to say that the version of minesweeper most people are familiar with was created by Microsoft? Is it untrue to say that Microsoft is a corporation?
These are all true statements which can have political implications. Even if the content and theme of minesweeper was entirely politically neutral (which it isn't, it's been a controversy in the fairly recent past) then a person could still have political views on the conditions under which minesweeper was created and distributed, because these conditions involve collective decision making and relations of relative power between individuals and institutions. In other words, politics.
"All games are political" is not the same thing as "all games have a single, deliberate and explicit political agenda." It simply means what it says, all games are political. Again, the issue with the statement "all games are political" is that it's so obvious as to be essentially meaningless, and only relevant because some people have such an intense dislike of the word "politics" (a dislike which, again, is itself politically motivated) that they will still attempt to fly in the face of the blindingly obvious.
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Turnabout is fair play for all the "Keep politics out of media" posts people have been using to strawman people for fucking year.
In before these are deemed not relevant enough
Well lets start with (though not a video game) how ham fisted some Chibnall's Doctor Who episodes were.
Then show yourself to be the better person instead of turning it into a strawman-construction contest.
They are relevant, but they mostly do not show what you claimed.
You said that the statement that "all games are political" is used as a counter argument to people complaining about overt or badly implemented politics.
The first two tweets are in response to press releases, hardly people complaining about politics in games.
The third tweet seems to be an assertion that all art is political and pointing out two titles the player enjoys for their politics. Followed by a strawman of the previous poster...although when I follow the chain the first poster seems to not be serious.
The fourth tweet actually is what you claimed (I think, the person they interacted with has quit twitter) so thanks for that.
To be political is to be considered relevant to the government. Fuck the government, left, right, up, down, black, white, now, then, tomorrow. I've dealt enough with people demeaning my hobbies when it's those that I can choose to walk away from and not interact with, fuck this idea that my hobby needs to be scrutinized and used as a fucking tool by people who don't give a damn about it or me. And you willingly engaging in this sophist trash that you'll, AND HAVE, cause I've seen you do it, ditch as soon as it doesn't serve YOUR particular needs makes you just as bad as them. That's why I chose minesweeper as my example, because only a tool would decide to do what you did with fucking minesweeper. Something with as much relevance to the government as tic tac toe.
Not necessarily. Even when someone does not work nor is relevant, politics can still happen. Said person can talk about or involved with politics that don't have to do with the government. We are all involved with politics at some parts in our lives whether we want that way or not. You can't hide, nor bury your head in the sand forever (not referring to you Specter).
How do you think I feel, or those that are marginalized and hated on for just existing? You think you have that bad? There are plenty of others that got it so much worse. It does not invalidate your complaints, and I understand your frustration, but something to keep in mind. You are going to have idiots that see politics in everything, or only want to see things or not for the sake of their own selfish, petty, convenience. It's always been there. Doesn't matter if it's games, books, tv, movies, or the web. This has been going on since the dawn of man.
Look, @Terminal Blue, I disagree little of time, but I've yet to see them steer wrong, derail, or goal post. They usually have a point. Now I don't know the history of Minesweeper, or the corporate politics behind it, but they must of had a good reason for doing so. I highly doubt they had that explanation to get your panties in a bunch. It's something we're probably going to have look up at some point. Your choice of course. I'll look at a later time. I just wanna chill tonight.
You both take care.
No, it's not, and if it were we would not be having this discussion.
Very few of the things that people cite as evidence of "politics" in video games are actually relevant to the government. It's not relevant to the government whether a game has a black protagonist, or features queer or trans characters, or a female character with big muscles. What it is relevant to is the perceived distribution of power.
Again, politics is about the distribution of power within any given social context, the way in which collective decisions are made and the rules and principles which do or should govern these processes. People who get mad about women in video games not wearing skimpy enough outfits believe that their desire to see boobies should determine the decision making process behind the creation of video games, and that if this is not happening it is because they are being deprived of power which they believe is rightfully theirs. As batshit insane as that argument is, it is a political argument.
If you are starting from a fundamentally bad position, it's no wonder you are arriving at bad conclusions.
Is it "demeaning your hobbies" to point out that the people who create your hobby are salaried employees of corporations run by people who don't give a damn about it or you?
You are not entitled to a world where noone is allowed to criticize things you like, even if the criticisms are political. Grow up and deal with that, or don't and wonder why noone takes you or your hobbies seriously.
Any of governments’ good qualities are ultimately overshadowed when it devolves into a bunch of spoiled brats seeking power and control over others. As an entity it is often worse than the largest of corporations. Pig-headed, incredibly irresponsible, arrogant and wasteful, slow to adjust to change, and a prime example is its treatment of video games as a medium, hobby, etc.
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That's not a strawman though. That's what those people literally say. ''Don't shove politics in our media'' ''Don't force politics down our throat'', etcetera.
Now they claim that they don't sincerely mean ALL politics when they say that, but their slogan certainly doesn't say ''don't shove politics into our games when we think its overt, but keep it around when we think we don't''. No, the slogan is just ''keep politics out of our media''
And while those people might say ''but we don't mean ALL politcs'' that doesn't really matter much when their view on what's political and what isn't political is constantly shown to be very warped.
Politics in video games is a euphemism for progressive politics in video games. Normal people don't say the latter because they would rather avoid the negative implication. If you go on not-so-normal videogame websites, they'll say the latter.
Why this and only this? Well less than 10% of the US are progressives, while progressives are over-represented in the arts and entertainment.
MGS is interesting. If you think about it, it's about a cabal of transhuman globalists controlling the populace through media and internet censorship. They perpetuate international conflicts using PMCs for profit, influence, and resource control. That sounds like something Alex Jones would say, but it's also something socialists would say.
So these games are not mainstream progressive politics. Certainly progressives talk about them... sometimes, but their interests are more towards race and gender inequality.
Why this and only this? Well less than 10% of the US are progressives, while progressives are over-represented in the arts and entertainment.
Bioshock is like if Walt Disney built Disneyland at the bottom of the ocean to escape the feds, but then everyone went insane from bath salt laced Dippin' Dots. It's a criticism of anarcho-capitalism, but it's not necessarily divisive. Nobody likes capitalists except for libertarians.
MGS is interesting. If you think about it, it's about a cabal of transhuman globalists controlling the populace through media and internet censorship. They perpetuate international conflicts using PMCs for profit, influence, and resource control. That sounds like something Alex Jones would say, but it's also something socialists would say.
So these games are not mainstream progressive politics. Certainly progressives talk about them... sometimes, but their interests are more towards race and gender inequality.
I mean I have zero interest in games that are message mongering either way. I'm betting I'd find Zog's nightmare pretty disagreeable too (for those who haven't heard of it it's a game that was made / being made by a literal neonazi group to push their politics)
