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I'm starting to think LEGO is evil

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Re: I'm starting to think LEGO is evil

#251

Post by sireat »

sunahsuh wrote: post #78
nostromo wrote: post #53

When I see these stories taking companies to task over why they sell what they do, I always wonder why nobody holds consumers to task. For example: why doesn't Lego sell to girls? Why doesn't Barbie have more realistic features? Why don't car manufacturers offer an electric vehicle? Why doesn't McDonalds sell salads instead of fries? Why do record labels offer such crappy music? It's easy to blame the companies -- bu…

>"why do girls feel a stigma about playing with Legos?" What about marketing and the outsize influence it has on culture? Companies don't just passively follow markets, the biggest ones use advertising to actively create them. Girls feel a stigma about playing with Legos because Lego has clearly signaled it's a "boys' toy" with their marketing. edit: typos

My daughter feels no stigma about playing with the "boys" LEGOs, in fact she does not particularly like the girl oriented Bellville series.

She likes other girl oriented things, so I wonder where LEGO failed with their girls series.

Also, you can still buy regular general LEGO pieces as in the old days, you do not have to buy the latest Star Wars or Harry Potter set.

Problem, with the general LEGO pieces is that about $100 or so can be plenty enough for a kid, while with themed series you can continue selling.

Re: I'm starting to think LEGO is evil

#252

Post by stewbrew »

nostromo wrote: post #53

When I see these stories taking companies to task over why they sell what they do, I always wonder why nobody holds consumers to task. For example: why doesn't Lego sell to girls? Why doesn't Barbie have more realistic features? Why don't car manufacturers offer an electric vehicle? Why doesn't McDonalds sell salads instead of fries? Why do record labels offer such crappy music? It's easy to blame the companies -- bu…

Interesting list. Where I live there are electric vehicles, and McDonalds sells salad. There are even record labels that sell not so shitty music. You're probably rigth on a global level with respect to Barbie though.

Re: I'm starting to think LEGO is evil

#253

Post by einhverfr »

bermanoid wrote: post #246
einhverfr wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gender is entirely a social construct very loosely tied to biology but not at all determined by it. I personally think the same thing is probably true of sexual orientation (which really is sexual attraction to gender not necessarily the same sex ). I would add that many anthropologists don't think people are born with a gender.

Gender is entirely a social construct very loosely tied to biology but not at all determined by it. This doesn't sound plausible. [tl;dr: If evolution didn't build in a powerful urge to make our gender behavior match our reproductive sex, then it made a huge error and missed a very easy and effective optimization.] It may be the case that gender could be very loosely tied to biology in a philosophical or theoretical…

Culture is not determined by biology though. If it did, third-generation Chinese immigrants would be more Chinese than American.

The problem here is that culture determines gender. Some cultures have two, some three, some even have more. Many cultures treat children as genderless and initiate them into genders in rites of passage. In some cases gender is contextual, so among the Norse and among the Greeks, there was a specific gender-based stigma attached to being the penetrated partner in male-male sex. Male-male sex was not stigmatized, only crossing the gender line and being penetrated as a woman.

I think it is a grave error to look at one's own culture and assume that it is biologically determined.

As for the "gay problem" we have to recognize at some point that every culture addresses human sexuality differently, and human sexuality is remarkably malleable. For example there are tribes in Papua which make young boys give oral sex to tribal elders as a part of a rite of passage as a way of them literally ingesting manliness in order to become men.

Once we look at our own sexual taboos involving who and what we are forbidden to have sexual relations with, and we recognize that these are socially contextual, not innate taboos, things change a great deal.

Re: I'm starting to think LEGO is evil

#254

Post by einhverfr »

mbesto wrote: post #155
ericabiz wrote: post #3

As a girl geek who grew up on Legos, this makes me really, really sad. From the NPR article linked to from the article above: "Lego also consciously aimed for boy customers when it embarked on its stunning turnaround. Boys were easier to sell to than girls." headsmash "The new Lego girl minifigures have names like Stephanie, Olivia, and Emma, and the building sets include a veterinary clinic, a hairdressing salon, a…

> By the way, if you ever want a conclusive argument Does it negate any evidence for the fact that for hundreds of years our predecessors were hunter and gatherers, whose roles were distinctly filled by men and women? There is a theory that hunters (men) largely looked for large blue horizons (hence a blue sky) to go hunting for animals and gathers (women) looked for berries (hence red, or a hue of red) and thus why…

Prior to WWII, though, pink was usually associated with boys' clothes and blue with girls' clothes. So that doesn't fly.

I find it interesting how many people assume the current cultural preferences that are less than a century old have some hundreds-of-thousands of years of biological conditioning behind them...... Why is there a need to ground these things in biology? Why not look at culture as culture, and recognize that large parts of it are entirely biologically arbitrary, but that they fit together in meaningful ways?

Re: I'm starting to think LEGO is evil

#255

Post by WickyNilliams »

JonnieCache wrote: post #170
arctangent wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered if Steve was inspired by the movie "Network": "We'll tell you any shit you want to hear. We deal in illusions , man! None of it is true! But you people sit there, day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds... We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality, and that your own lives are unreal. You…

The second episode of Charlie Brooker's current Black Mirror series of scifi dramas contains elements of Network, but set in a future dystopia where people sort of live inside an ipad that's stuck running farmville. It's a lot better than I've just made it sound. In fact, it's incredible, and terrifying. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Black_Mirror_... Also highly recommended. To be honest the whole th…

I watched this last night, really good viewing. Especially poignant was the ending where the protagonist traded in his morals for a comfortable life and fame. It evoked feelings of disappointment that he was so cheaply bought off, the same kind of disappointment i felt at the end of 1984 when Winston was re-educated.

In some ways it was a case of reductio ad absurdum, but the more you look how popular culture is evolving the more it seems like a logical, yet depressing, conclusion - people's constant pre-occupation with celebrity culture and seeking fame even if it means selling themselves cheaply. I also enjoyed how it captured how people like Simon Cowell are exploitative and manipulative when it comes to shows like the X factor, it's audience and it's contestants.

The big irony was that i watched it online, meaning the show was interspersed with adverts which i could not skip. Made me laugh, i expect Charlie Brooker foresaw this as to further solidify his vision

Re: I'm starting to think LEGO is evil

#256

Post by s8qnze982y »

hvass wrote: post #128
nostromo wrote: post #53

When I see these stories taking companies to task over why they sell what they do, I always wonder why nobody holds consumers to task. For example: why doesn't Lego sell to girls? Why doesn't Barbie have more realistic features? Why don't car manufacturers offer an electric vehicle? Why doesn't McDonalds sell salads instead of fries? Why do record labels offer such crappy music? It's easy to blame the companies -- bu…

"When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give peo…

That's too much of a simplicistic view. I'll give an example.

A family brings their children to McDonald's, often. McDonald's blasts large amounts of marketing in the children's head. The children grow up and become adults. The adults frequently go to McDonald's.

Is fast food what they want? Or is it what the past generation's powerful marketing wanted?

It's a grey area, without any obvious answers.

Naturally, kudos to Steve for his pompous rethor... ahem, for his powerful and revealing words.

Re: I'm starting to think LEGO is evil

#258

Post by RyanMcGreal »

> We will put it together once and we will play with it a lot and that will be that. It won’t get remixed, won’t get hacked.

My kids have gotten their share of Star Wars and Harry Potter themed Lego over the years, and in every case the original set was eventually taken apart - usually bit by bit in a kind of salvage operation for needed parts - and incorporated into the Lego bin. Once the pieces go into general circulation, they're used to build an arbitrary collection of original ships, buildings and so on.

Re: I'm starting to think LEGO is evil

#259

Post by RyanMcGreal »

hvass wrote: post #128
nostromo wrote: post #53

When I see these stories taking companies to task over why they sell what they do, I always wonder why nobody holds consumers to task. For example: why doesn't Lego sell to girls? Why doesn't Barbie have more realistic features? Why don't car manufacturers offer an electric vehicle? Why doesn't McDonalds sell salads instead of fries? Why do record labels offer such crappy music? It's easy to blame the companies -- bu…

"When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give peo…

The problem is that the people who watch TV aren't the customers. Advertisers are the customers and viewers are the product being sold. To the extent that TV gives viewers what they want to watch, it's a case of optimization-by-proxy, with all the attendant pitfalls.

Re: I'm starting to think LEGO is evil

#260

Post by rufibarbatus »

JonnieCache wrote: post #170
arctangent wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered if Steve was inspired by the movie "Network": "We'll tell you any shit you want to hear. We deal in illusions , man! None of it is true! But you people sit there, day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds... We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality, and that your own lives are unreal. You…

The second episode of Charlie Brooker's current Black Mirror series of scifi dramas contains elements of Network, but set in a future dystopia where people sort of live inside an ipad that's stuck running farmville. It's a lot better than I've just made it sound. In fact, it's incredible, and terrifying. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Black_Mirror_... Also highly recommended. To be honest the whole th…

And here's Aaron Sorkin's first attempt at a hommage to The Network (his second attempt being, of course, The Social Network): http://youtu.be/5zyOhZsvIzI (warning: lots of cursing).
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