AzulCrescentlil tidbit about Solar
Not a funni comic and a bit nerdy, but i wanted to write about something that i find cool lol.
C-27733@AzulCrescent hey btw the factorio devs are lowkey problematic so yeah ,,,
@minekpo1
das unfortunate. sigh.
das unfortunate. sigh.
@AzulCrescent yeah ,,, sorry 'bout that , tbf who would have guessed that the devs of imperialism simulator would have shitty political ideas ...
digimint (ECC-988287E1B)@minekpo1 @AzulCrescent i mean, satisfactory is as (arguably more) imperialist in concept, and i've never heard anything bad about any of their devs.
@digimint @AzulCrescent haven't played satisfactory but from what I know , the way the player interacts with the native life is somewhat different .
like even before learning that the factorio devs were right wingers , I was like "yeah I'm committing genocide" , the game design makes it quite clear that its not only that the biters are in the way , but its either you or them .
also pretty sure satisfactory doesn't have automated turrets and artillery that kill all native animals in range :P
yeah there is "these devs did not take the time to reduce the effect of our current sociopolitical climate influence their game" and there is "these devs think imperialism is based"
@minekpo1 @AzulCrescent the thing is, in satisfactory, you're working for a corporation with the explicit goal of colonizing the planet and exploiting its resources (there's even a little informational video at the start about it). in factorio, you crash-landed on the planet and are trying to build a rocket to get off of it. plus, in factorio, the native animals attack you specifically because you're polluting - in fact, you can actually avoid most conflict by designing your factory in a way that minimizes pollution and preserves trees and grass. you're rewarded for this, because killing them is strictly a waste of resources, with no material benefit. in satisfactory, you kill the native animals because (a) they're in the way, and (b) you can turn their flesh into DNA capsules to get tickets that let you unlock cosmetics. in factorio, conflicts with the native life are a punishment - a consequence of the way you're ruining the world, which the game communicates to the player in several ways. in satisfactory, the native life is just another resource to exploit.
that said, i don't really think either game could be reasonably read as pro-imperialism. it feels like a stretch to say either game wants you to think that what you're doing is good or noble - plus, to my knowledge, neither game states or implies that its respective enemy species are sapient, which is probably the most important factor that makes real-life imperialism so bad.
(also, has something come up that i missed showing that the devs are actually right-wing? all i've seen is a reddit thread where one specific dev recommended a video from someone who was a shithead (but who you wouldn't know was a shithead just from watching the video), and then reacted really badly when someone told him about it. my read after reading through most of the thread wasn't "this guy's right-wing and so is the rest of his dev team" so much as "this guy doesn't know how to handle someone he likes getting criticized." it feels like i'm missing something).
that said, i don't really think either game could be reasonably read as pro-imperialism. it feels like a stretch to say either game wants you to think that what you're doing is good or noble - plus, to my knowledge, neither game states or implies that its respective enemy species are sapient, which is probably the most important factor that makes real-life imperialism so bad.
(also, has something come up that i missed showing that the devs are actually right-wing? all i've seen is a reddit thread where one specific dev recommended a video from someone who was a shithead (but who you wouldn't know was a shithead just from watching the video), and then reacted really badly when someone told him about it. my read after reading through most of the thread wasn't "this guy's right-wing and so is the rest of his dev team" so much as "this guy doesn't know how to handle someone he likes getting criticized." it feels like i'm missing something).
@digimint @AzulCrescent AFAIK the devs also didn't back down , saying shit like "just because he says bigoted things doesn't mean he's a bigot" and used culture war talking points plus when recruting they mentioned how a benefit of moving to Prague is the women . there are also allegations of kovarex (head dev who also made the previous problematic comments) saying some transphobic stuff but receipts have been lost
yeah satisfactory also seems kinda fucked up fair enough , though I'll add that I never really felt incentivized not to pollute to avoid loosing resources , may be my play style though
@minekpo1 @AzulCrescent idk, i tend to be pretty careful about accusations like this - i've seen it go wrong in the past (which is why i read through the whole reddit thread in the first place).
i went through the thread again and it seems to me like kovarex has some fundamental misunderstandings about how the right uses dogwhistles and insincere arguments - misunderstandings which seem to be in large part due to cultural and linguistic differences. rather than trying to help him understand that, people started dogpiling and making exaggerated accusations or even outright threats
he repeatedly said he wasn't right-wing and he didn't have anything against trans people (even going so far as to say that positive comments he got from transphobes made him deeply uncomfortable). i don't think he's a particularly cool guy, but i also haven't seen anything that implies he isn't being genuine when he says those things.
similarly, i think that an off-hand misogynist comment on a job posting is off-color and disrespectful, but it's not really a concrete indicator of right-wing views.
tbh, it seems like this whole situation got really heated and personal for everyone in that thread, to an extent that makes me hesitate to accept broad and severe accusations without strong supporting evidence.
kovarex said things in that thread that were rude, disrespectful, and immature, and i think it's totally justified to not want to play factorio because of that, but i don't think that "the dev team is right-wing/transphobic" is a statement supported by the evidence i've seen. if someone has a record of transphobic statements kovarex made, or something that could reasonably imply that he was being dishonest when he said he wasn't right-wing, then that's an entirely different matter, and i would really like to see that evidence so i can finally get some clarity on all this.
small aside, not directed at you but just in general - this is why it's so important to save evidence. ideally using the wayback machine to create a neutral, third-party account from a trustworthy source, but even screenshots provide a specific record of what was said. it's easy to take things out of context, even unintentionally, and all it takes is one person doing so for misinformation to spread. i always try to go back to the original words that were said, since a lot of context often gets lost. having concrete evidence really helps distinguish between simple cases of malicious bigotry and cases with more nuance, and not having the full context muddies the water.
(also, sorry for replying with an essay - i'm an academic, i can't help it)
i went through the thread again and it seems to me like kovarex has some fundamental misunderstandings about how the right uses dogwhistles and insincere arguments - misunderstandings which seem to be in large part due to cultural and linguistic differences. rather than trying to help him understand that, people started dogpiling and making exaggerated accusations or even outright threats
he repeatedly said he wasn't right-wing and he didn't have anything against trans people (even going so far as to say that positive comments he got from transphobes made him deeply uncomfortable). i don't think he's a particularly cool guy, but i also haven't seen anything that implies he isn't being genuine when he says those things.
similarly, i think that an off-hand misogynist comment on a job posting is off-color and disrespectful, but it's not really a concrete indicator of right-wing views.
tbh, it seems like this whole situation got really heated and personal for everyone in that thread, to an extent that makes me hesitate to accept broad and severe accusations without strong supporting evidence.
kovarex said things in that thread that were rude, disrespectful, and immature, and i think it's totally justified to not want to play factorio because of that, but i don't think that "the dev team is right-wing/transphobic" is a statement supported by the evidence i've seen. if someone has a record of transphobic statements kovarex made, or something that could reasonably imply that he was being dishonest when he said he wasn't right-wing, then that's an entirely different matter, and i would really like to see that evidence so i can finally get some clarity on all this.
small aside, not directed at you but just in general - this is why it's so important to save evidence. ideally using the wayback machine to create a neutral, third-party account from a trustworthy source, but even screenshots provide a specific record of what was said. it's easy to take things out of context, even unintentionally, and all it takes is one person doing so for misinformation to spread. i always try to go back to the original words that were said, since a lot of context often gets lost. having concrete evidence really helps distinguish between simple cases of malicious bigotry and cases with more nuance, and not having the full context muddies the water.
(also, sorry for replying with an essay - i'm an academic, i can't help it)
@digimint thanks!