Sense, Sensibility and Nonsense: A Sensitive Inquiry About Race and E:D Idea of the Future
- Thread starter CaptainSeriousFun
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I didn't and I am aware of these things ;p
Just saying how I see it mostly used.
Whether you go for the scientific "variety" the social "race" or domestic "breeds" doesn't really matter.
They all denote groups within a species.
I know "human race" is a nice widely used term, but it doesn't make much sense. And if you separate it from the term homo sapiens as a species then you are readily opening the door for excluding individuals who belong to this species from being human, because you happen to categorize that as a race.
That's problematic to me.
So yeah, that's why I'm saying humans are not a race - they are a species. In scientific terms homo sapiens.
You are correct, prejudice will still exist in 3301, indeed it does exist in Elite, it's in the lore, it's been part of the game since 1984. It's now aimed at where someone is from, not what color someone's skin is. Previous Elites that showed faces showed mixed racial features on those faces, it's been stated for well over 30 years now that racial purity will cease to be a thing within the next thousand years among the general populace, it will only exist, if it exists at all, among small cadres of racists, and that's it.
Some of the most beautiful people in the world today on the media are what race? Go take a look, check the Victoria's Secret catalog, instagram, twitter, various magazines, and tell me what race the beautiful people are. Racism exists, it's real, some of us see it and experience it daily, others only read about it and that's their only experience with it. But it exists because racists MAKE SURE IT EXISTS!
Who actually gave any thought to this subject in Elite Dangerous before the OP? What was the point of the OP? To make us aware of a situation that doesn't exist because this is a fictional universe where race was long ago displaced as the reason people hate each other, something the OP and many of those trying to support his cause weren't even aware of?
People who are actually opposing racism already know that words have no effect on racism, it simply doesn't work to tell a racist they are wrong, no matter how many times you say it, no matter how you word it, it has no effect. Racism is taught, it's not innate, it's not natural, children of all races will play with each other without any regard to other children looking different, they do NOT care, it is NOT an instinct, it is TAUGHT. You can only show racists they are wrong by example, time and time again that lesson has been hammered home by racists around the globe, from the white racists of the US Southern States to the Japanese people in regards to all non-Japanese people, you can talk all day long, it makes no difference what so ever.
And people who bring up racism where it actually doesn't exist, every single time, they are racist themselves, and they'll scream and yell and call you all sorts of things when you point that out, cause they aren't racists, they ARE the minority! Worst racists I've ever meet were minorities, every single time, because it's worse with them, they KNOW what it's like to be treated differently due to their skin color or facial features, they decry it high and wide, and yet...they do it themselves. I've seen black people call other black people high yellow or pale skinned, ebony or african black, they are racist amongst themselves, all while screaming loud and proud about how they are not racists and it's a sin and a crime...when people who are NOT black do it to them that is, it's ok when THEY do it to people of any color at all because, well...because they aren't racist!
Racism is a nasty thing, and it's a taught thing, and the only real way to fight it is to simply not do it yourself and lead by example. You won't be winning any war of words with racists, logical, rhetoric, they don't work with something ingrained from childhood and reinforced by family, friends and community. It doesn't matter what color your skin is, lead by example, treat all people based on their actions and nothing else, that's it. It's not that hard to do, really isn't, just remember that every person you encounter is another human being, look them in the eyes and ignore the rest until you know them by their actions, because that's all that matters, who we are is shown by our actions, and our true selves are shown most in our actions when we think no one is looking.
I think that's enough on that topic. Can we cut back on it?
The thread itself is about representation and how the player relates to the media he consumes.
Sure it's a close topic, but still a distinctly different one.
I agree and it could be done in very interesting ways too. If anyone remembers the leaders of good ole Alpha Centauri I think that it was a great example of how cultural inspiration can be used interestingly. I dont mind there being one of each in that game because it fitted the history and setting perfectly. For ED I'd not necessarily want there to be "one of each"; one must still consider the setting and it should never be multicultural just for the sake of multiculturalism itself in my opinion.
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Thanks for completely missing the point of this thread.
Well that's it then, as soon as frontier gives back the red faction color to Patreus, which was stolen by Hudson, I am joining team Denton-Obama. And now that we can make our own ammo in Horizons, won't the rank bonus freebies at Dento-Co be kind of pointless?
Have you actually read the OP? I did, I've seen similar writing before, local group, the leader, writes stuff like this, he's about as racist as you can get without putting on a white pointy hat and burning crosses...oh..did I mention, he's black, not a local and actively trying to start a race war in a place that had one of the worst race wars in US history in it already, we remember Greenwood, we don't need it repeated, ever, anywhere.
The OP isn't about diversity, he's not about racial equality, he brought up, specifically, the lack of black men or women in power in the PP group, and specifically requests black men or women to be represented as people of power in the future. NOT people of different races, NOT people of various minority groups, black people, specifically, and that's it. That's rather racist from the start to the finish, regardless of whether you want to acknowledge that or not. I'll call it out, racism is racism, I don't give a rat's furry rear end who's doing it, it is what it is and NO ONE has the right or moral imperative to be racist, ever, for any reason.
I want to thank the forum community for their engagement and exploration of the thread's submissions; I value each one of your considered pieces of input, and, I think, have gotten a better sense of some of the community's thoughts on these matters in places where I naturally agree, where I vehemently disagree and where I've been educated to think differently. I also want to say I appreciate the PM outreach from others who have thought about these things from a number of perspectives and celebrated the topic being raised for discussion at all. Here's hoping that FD take a look at this thread, in all its discussion, humor (what has been seen indeed cannot be unseen, lmao) and wrestling with each other's POV, and deploy that as they see fit in the building of their game. Thanks again for the parrhesia.
Mel
Mel
Zing. Lol, I don't get why people are offended that people want to see themselves in the video games they play. I don't think it's even about race, but about feeling like someone who looks like your reflection in the mirror somewhere in the game. Whether its skin color, or hair (or lack thereof), sex(uality), glasses, fashion sense, taste in music, or even just someone with a similar sounding name. Is it shallow? Maybe it a little, but it is also a very normal and valid human response.
For the people talking about avatars, I have some interesting experience with this. I did a non-scientific test in WOW and DAOC where I created different types of avatars to see how many party invites and random chats I could engage in. This was before VOIP so your avatar and your text were the only things people saw or heard about you. Ergo, you could successfully pretend to be any "race" or gender.
The average number of interactions per hour in the starter zones with social archetypes (conducted in the same year WOW initially launched):
White skinned female human: 15 per hour
White skinned male human: 8 per hour
Dark skinned female human: 2 per hour
Dark skinned male human: 0 per hour
Balding white male human: 1 per hour
Night elf female: 10 per hour
Night Elf male: 7 per hour
Dwarf Male: 4 per hour
As a "black male" walking around Azeroth starter areas, I couldn't get anyone to answer my questions or respond to my chat. As a white female, I would get multiple responses, and even had people giving me gifts without any prompting. On the flip side, as a white female it was harder to get into groups, and people assumed I couldn't play and often lectured me condescendingly. I was also harassed more often as a white female.
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What? No dwarf female? I object! Study is flawed due to the lack of female dwarf reprenentation! I bet there are female dwarves out there, sat at home stroking their soft silky beared bemoaning this very fact!
In other words, a game developer can be as non-racist/non-sexist/non-whatever as they can try to be, and someone will still find fault with them.
Why do we have no disabled powers? Why do we have no non-human powers? Why do we have no openly homosexual powers?
This to my mind is the biggest problem with this whole thread. If you want, you can find a dozen reasons to start a thread with how FD are not representing a particular group, and then people will spend over 10 pages disucssing it.
Yes, i realize the irony that i'm now adding to this discussion.
Human race is ambiguous, because we also say "Caucasian race", which means the same name is used for two levels of organization, species and variety. Bad form.
Of course, this problem may only exist in English, since we have a horrible tendency to overload words.
Oh okay. It's used like that in German too, but to me it makes most sense to only use it for variety.
I have.
I cannot comprehend how you manage to paint/view diversity/representation as such a negative thing.
If Brennan had asked for others to be removed/replaced I'd understand you. But that's not the case.
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The color palette is fairly biased in the pale direction. So you're right, FD kind of opened themselves up to this kind of criticism by favoring their own country's version of a rainbow. I don't blame them. I think they were just "writing what they knew".
But how can you tell if someone is disabled or gay? Or human? For all you know, the empress Arissa Lavigny Duval is a thargoid lesbian cyborg with a bum hip and a glass eye.
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Btw, I like your new warmer fuzzier avatar.
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While I will applaud the OP for approaching this topic in a level-headed manner and striking an appropriately inquisitive tone, I doubt the question will serve much purpose other than driving an interesting discussion. We have, after all, watched this movie before, and know how it ends. At least those of us who have been around on the forum for a while.
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I don't believe that Frontier should invest a single penny in attempting to represent the racial demographic of earth (or any country on earth) as it stands today, in NPCs. In a galaxy with hundreds of billions of systems, I believe the odds of us being the only intelligent life form is one is six sextillion (according to some conservative maths by some clever-clogs who have posted this on the Internet, and so it must be true!) I'd much, much, much rather see FD invest in creating more varied alien races - as I personally believe that to be more realistic to assume that the "gazillions" of other races don't look anything like us. Heck, we know we're far from perfect. We're also all in the minority relative to other races. That's my hypothesis, which I think is rooted in a mathematical inevitability.
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Don't get me wrong: the character creator should support race/gender as we see ourselves today - though I would love to make myself non-human. But as it relates to major/minor NPC, I think we need non-humans beyond Thargoids.
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I don't believe that Frontier should invest a single penny in attempting to represent the racial demographic of earth (or any country on earth) as it stands today, in NPCs. In a galaxy with hundreds of billions of systems, I believe the odds of us being the only intelligent life form is one is six sextillion (according to some conservative maths by some clever-clogs who have posted this on the Internet, and so it must be true!) I'd much, much, much rather see FD invest in creating more varied alien races - as I personally believe that to be more realistic to assume that the "gazillions" of other races don't look anything like us. Heck, we know we're far from perfect. We're also all in the minority relative to other races. That's my hypothesis, which I think is rooted in a mathematical inevitability.
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Don't get me wrong: the character creator should support race/gender as we see ourselves today - though I would love to make myself non-human. But as it relates to major/minor NPC, I think we need non-humans beyond Thargoids.
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Thargoids sure. But please, no Boron.
A very interesting and thought provoking thread.
My take on it, by 3301 we'll have the scientific know-how to be any shade of the visual spectrum we want to be for any given day of the week.
Or if you're aligned with the Alliance. Beige
Putting my future cap on, I can see the human race intermingle to such a point that we'll all become fantastically gorgeous with a glowing cinnamon complexion.
My take on it, by 3301 we'll have the scientific know-how to be any shade of the visual spectrum we want to be for any given day of the week.
Or if you're aligned with the Alliance. Beige
Putting my future cap on, I can see the human race intermingle to such a point that we'll all become fantastically gorgeous with a glowing cinnamon complexion.
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