Bioshock 2: The political debate

[Arkhangelsk]

Okay, so now Bioshock 2 is out and many of us have now gotten the chance to play it. For those who have, you'll know what I mean by the title. The game's plot focuses on Sofia Lamb, the new communist leader of Rapture who took over after Andrew Ryan, the (seems to be) capitalist who built Rapture. What I mean through the title, is that throughout the game, you'll stumble across various scribblings on the wall, audio messages, etc. Many of them talk about the regime of Rapture. Messages from Andrew will tell of how the people stop the progress of science and the individual, while Sofia speaks of Rapture as one big family, and condemns Andrew for his "egoist" ruling while saying how we must fight against "the self". And I was honestly intrigued.

On a certain level, it's almost like we've jumped right into an election where the game asks "What do you believe in?". While most of this can be looked over, it's certainly interesting to listen to the battle between them. 'Tis only a shame that the game has an Ayn Rand-esque bias on the game, since they make the communist the bad guy by default.

Anyway, the point that I'm trying to reach is: What do you think of this kind of thing, where the game makes you think in this way, politically, logically, and philosophically? Did you ever take a moment to think about who's side you really was on? Did Bioshock implement it well?

I myself think it's quite perplexing. In my own opinion, I'm on Andrews side. I was already a capitalist before, thinking that "the self" comes first. But to see this kind of thing makes you think over what's really going on. I liked it a lot. But it could be better if they made Sofia a character you want to listen to.

(Also, no spoilers, we're not discussing the story itself in the game, and I am yet to finish it.)

 

[Axolotl]

'Tis only a shame that the game has an Ayn Rand-esque bias on the game, since they make the communist the bad guy by default.

What? They had the collectivist be the bad guy because they'd already done objectivism in the first game, the wholoe point is the collectivism isn't a better system than objectivism.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

'Tis only a shame that the game has an Ayn Rand-esque bias on the game, since they make the communist the bad guy by default.

What? They had the collectivist be the bad guy because they'd already done objectivism in the first game, the wholoe point is the collectivism isn't a better system than objectivism.

Actually, if you pay attention to the end of the first game:

Spoiler

Andrew and objectivism wasn't the bad guy. Frank Fontaine was. Rapture was a successful project, but Frank Fontaine caused the entire downfall. Andrew was the good guy, just a bit of a madman.

 

[Axolotl]

Actually, if you pay attention to the end of the first game:

Spoiler

Andrew and objectivism wasn't the bad guy. Frank Fontaine was. Rapture was a successful project, but Frank Fontaine caused the entire downfall. Andrew was the good guy, just a bit of a madman.

Did you play the game at all or did you read a plot synopsis from wikipedia? The whole of the first game is a deconstruction of Objectivism how it fails as a political system.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

Actually, if you pay attention to the end of the first game:

Spoiler

Andrew and objectivism wasn't the bad guy. Frank Fontaine was. Rapture was a successful project, but Frank Fontaine caused the entire downfall. Andrew was the good guy, just a bit of a madman.

Did you play the game at all or did you read a plot synopsis from wikipedia? The whole of the first game is a deconstruction of Objectivism how it fails as a political system.

I played the game. I can't remember the exact reasons, but it was Fontaine who rebelled against Ryan. It is deconstructing Objectivism until the end when you realize that it was for entirely different reasons that it all failed.

 

[MercurySteam]

Cause I'm Mr. Nice Guy I save the Little Sisters every time, which also makes the game a bit more challenging.

Spoiler

I saved Grace cause I thought her hate was misplaced, killed Stanley cause he was a fag and killed Gil Alexander cause it was his last request (or at least the last request from who he once was).

 

[setting_son]

As far as I could gather from playing Bioshock to death when it came out, life in Rapture wasn't that great even before Fontaine threw a spanner in the works. Even in a city populated only by the elite, where everyone is at the top of their field, someone has to clean the toilets - Im sure someone said that in one of the diary recordings.

Sure, on the surface a millionaire surgeon might be relatively richer than their fellow man but remove him from the surface and put him in Rapture with billionaire specialist surgeons and suddenly he's relatively poor. Prices adapt to the circulating wealth, there's inflation and suddenly his million doesn't seem so much anymore. Before you know it, he's scrubbing floors for a living.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

Cause I'm Mr. Nice Guy I save the Little Sisters every time, which also makes the game a bit more challenging.

Spoiler

I saved Grace cause I thought her hate was misplaced, killed Stanley cause he was a fag and killed Gil Alexander cause it was his last request (or at least the last request from who he once was).

Um, that's not what this thread is about. We're not talking about the moral choice system, we're talking about the politics in the game.

 

[oppp7]

I'm a socialist, so I'm going against the whole self is everything ideal.

 

[Babrook]

Objectivism is shit and always has been. It will never work in real practice on anything larger than the tinyest of scales.

 

[Axolotl]

I played the game. I can't remember the exact reasons, but it was Fontaine who rebelled against Ryan. It is deconstructing Objectivism until the end when you realize that it was for entirely different reasons that it all failed.

But Fontaine never rebels, in fact Fontaine is pretty much exactly what Ryan wants people to be. Rapture falls apart largely because Ryan abandons his ideals when he realises Fontaine is outcompeteing him, thats the whole point objectivism as a belief only wworks when your the best when faced with somebody better than him by his owns standards Ryan completely lost control.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

Would politics really matter to a mentally defunct man in a scuba suit?

 

[Leodiensian]

Would politics really matter to a mentally defunct man in a scuba suit?

He's not mentally defunct; he gets his mind given back to him at the start of play, although you don't learn that until later. It's why he's able to use tactics and make the moral choices throughout.

And yeah, I think the use of Collectivism as an opposition to the previous games focus on the individual via Objectivism had potential to be interesting but was done.. not as great as it could have been. I get that the point is "strike a happy medium between the two" but the gear shift between one and the other just felt really awkward and forced.

 

[bassdrum]

Actually, if you pay attention to the end of the first game:

Spoiler

Andrew and objectivism wasn't the bad guy. Frank Fontaine was. Rapture was a successful project, but Frank Fontaine caused the entire downfall. Andrew was the good guy, just a bit of a madman.

Did you play the game at all or did you read a plot synopsis from wikipedia? The whole of the first game is a deconstruction of Objectivism how it fails as a political system.

I played the game. I can't remember the exact reasons, but it was Fontaine who rebelled against Ryan. It is deconstructing Objectivism until the end when you realize that it was for entirely different reasons that it all failed.

Precisely. Had Frank Fontaine not had the freedom to do as he pleased (there's an audio log somewhere about him taking advantage of Ryan's loose take on law enforcement) under the objectivist regime, Rapture may have never fallen to civil war.

Additionally, it's sort of ironic to see how badly all of this is Ryan's fault as well.

Spoiler

There's an audio log in Fontaine Futuristics about how Fontaine is dead, Lamb is imprisoned, and Ryan is 'alone in his city', but we all know how that works out for him

Would politics really matter to a mentally defunct man in a scuba suit?

Maybe, maybe not, but the political intrigue is there for the benefit of the player.

 

[jedizero]

I'll warn you now, I do not know how to do the spoiler thingie as of yet. So...yeah, read at your own risk.

According to the makers, if Andrew hadn't gone crazy and had stuck to his guns, he'd have ended up winning.

I think what it is, is that its saying "Pure objectivism, is not the way to go. there has to be some caring for others."

Meanwhile on the opposite end of the spectrum, Collectivism, won't work because even if we managed to stop thinking about ourselves first, We'd end up not getting *anything* done. The reason we do things nowadays is that we want to improve ourselves/get something for ourselves/need money.

It wouldn't work without extensive mind control. For example, as it is said in the first one. Everybody came to Rapture thinking it was going to be awesome. But the diary of Peach Wilkons adds in "You know, we all came here thinking we were going to have it made...But we all forgot that they'll need someone to do the dirty work..."

Without that mind control, why would someone do dangerous and nasty work? They're not getting anything from it.

Now, politically, its a video game. We should take its views with a grain of salt. Video games 9/10 times take everything to the absolute extreme, including politics. Sure we might get one or two people who espouse things much like the characters in the game, but I doubt highly if they'd ever get into any place of power.

 

[DancePuppets]

One of the things I find really interesting about the politics of Rapture is that its downfall was partially caused by the objectivist philosophy embodied by Andrew Ryan. As there were no laws to force safety upon businesses, when ADAM was found it was put straight into production and sold, earning Fontaine a very large fortune, which meant that he now challenged Ryan as the "ruler" of Rapture. On top of this, the ADAM itself had a few fairly nasty side effect leading to large chunks of the population going completely insane and having pretty scary powers to boot. This led to Andrew Ryan going against his philosophy by bringing in loads of sweeping laws and leading to a fascist state, against which, the people, led by Fontaine, rebelled. Ironically, if Ryan had followed capitalism more as it is seen today (ie. linked and controlled by the state), which is that from which he was trying to escape, and instigated some minor laws to check for safety of ADAM, then Rapture may not have collapsed.

 

[Terrorist_school_drop-out]

Objectivism is a nice little idea but similarly to "comunism" and "one true love" and "rights" the idea itself is far to full of holes to actually work properly.
As for whom I'd choose given the obligation betwen objectivism and Sofia Lamb's version of comunism I would go with obejectivism. What can I say, no taxes and no censorship at least SOUND like atractive points.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

One of the things I find really interesting about the politics of Rapture is that its downfall was partially caused by the objectivist philosophy embodied by Andrew Ryan. As there were no laws to force safety upon businesses, when ADAM was found it was put straight into production and sold, earning Fontaine a very large fortune, which meant that he now challenged Ryan as the "ruler" of Rapture. On top of this, the ADAM itself had a few fairly nasty side effect leading to large chunks of the population going completely insane and having pretty scary powers to boot. This led to Andrew Ryan going against his philosophy by bringing in loads of sweeping laws and leading to a fascist state, against which, the people, led by Fontaine, rebelled. Ironically, if Ryan had followed capitalism more as it is seen today (ie. linked and controlled by the state), which is that from which he was trying to escape, and instigated some minor laws to check for safety of ADAM, then Rapture may not have collapsed.

I agree, Andrew was a bit of an anarcho-capitalist. If he would have loosened up a bit on his philosophy, it would have worked better.

 

[jamesworkshop]

Rapture falls mainly in the first because they abbandon Objectivism, Ryan knows how to make a pretty speach but cannot really uphold his ideals and acts in extremly unobjectivist ways the problem with Atlas Shrugged and all the other Ayn Rand books is the characters are flawless portrails of how men should behave in Rand's eyes rather than realistic portrails.
The problem with Fontaine in this that he fully believes in self-interest but lacks the objectist moral that people do not exist for you to exploit them rather that you yourself should only exploit your own abilities