Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications • Hacker News Board

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#321

Post by free_rms » Tue, Nov 24, 2020, 1:31 AM UTC

narrator wrote: post #76

sergj wrote: post #3

This is the problem with historic games. Either you acknowledge the bad and good things, or you white wash the past. As the author notes at the end: „As I have argued here many times, fiction is often how the public conceptualizes the past and that concept of the past shapes the decisions we make in the present.“

"Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past… The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the mind…

Owell was a Democratic Socialist, FYI. There used to be a lot more nuance to these things before the cold war.

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#322

Post by Cantbekhan » Tue, Nov 24, 2020, 9:36 AM UTC

narrator wrote: post #76

sergj wrote: post #3

This is the problem with historic games. Either you acknowledge the bad and good things, or you white wash the past. As the author notes at the end: „As I have argued here many times, fiction is often how the public conceptualizes the past and that concept of the past shapes the decisions we make in the present.“

"Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past… The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the mind…

“History is a set of lies agreed upon.” ― Napoleon Bonaparte.

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#323

Post by ivanhoe » Tue, Nov 24, 2020, 10:13 PM UTC

Fnoord wrote: post #130

xalava wrote: post #38

The most relevant point of this article is not about historical accuracy, but on the contradiction of claiming cultural sensitivity by including gender and origin diversity while totally missing the point on deeper issues. I've grown up in a period when pop culture didn't care much about cultural sensitivity. With proper education anyone can compensate and treat them as pure simplistic fiction, but I do think that th…

> I've grown up in a period when pop culture didn't care much about cultural sensitivity. I wonder when that was, cause pop culture has always cared about that in one way or another. I believe you are projecting. > The most relevant point of this article is not about historical accuracy, but on the contradiction of claiming cultural sensitivity by including gender and origin diversity while totally missing the point…

> I wonder when that was, cause pop culture has always cared about that in one way or another.

Maybe they've cared of their own white-western culture sensitive issues, but not much about anybody else's, especially not about foreign cultures perceived as less civilized...

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#324

Post by goto11 » Thu, Nov 26, 2020, 5:06 PM UTC

etripe wrote: post #320

goto11 wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Political correctness" is just what you call it when you notice it. You probably don't think of it as political correctness when there are no black cowboys, but that is just political correctness of another time.

A lack of representation isn't the same as political correctness in my book. Political correctness to me is the cultural elite's group-think, mainly in terms of moral judgements. Nothing about that group-think says it's taboo to have black cowboys, per se. It sounds like you're using it more like a Zeitgeist?

I was referring to how political correctness changes over time. The Hays code was the political correctness of its time. Western movies with only white cowboys were political correct in their time. It is just the term "political correctness" that is new, not the concept.

You can call it "group-think" or you can call it "cultural values".

I was responding to the suggestion that there was a time and place without "political correctness". I dispute that. Every time and place have some ideas of what is and isn't morally acceptable. But if you are born into it, it may be invisible. The majority of the audience at the time did not wonder why there were so few black cowboys in movies. But they noticed it when more black cowboys started to appear.

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#325

Post by shusson » Fri, Nov 27, 2020, 9:47 PM UTC

gelert wrote: post #110

shusson wrote: post #70

> I think the problem can be neatly summed up in just one thing about the game: the game will ‘desyncronize’ you (meaning produce a game over) if your character kills civilians While I agree this broke immersion completely for me, I don't think you want 10 year olds killing civilians.

But it's okay for 10 year olds to kill combatants? Edit: That statement alone is underdeveloped but I wanted to provoke a reaction. Given that the above comment says that killing civilians is what would make this game inappropriate for a ten year old it implies that the rest of the game is appropriate.

> But it's okay for 10 year olds to kill combatants?

An adult should understand that killing civilians is morally/ethically wrong. Where as a child might not. So while you probably don't want any child to simulate killing combatants, you can morally justify it from the perspective of the character in video game.

> Given that the above comment says that killing civilians is what would make this game inappropriate for a ten year old it implies that the rest of the game is appropriate.

I did not mean to imply that the rest of the game is appropriate, rather that there are certain moral principles that game developers will not cross because they would lose a large audience or break regulations.