Re: [Official!] Project Horizons Comment Crew Chat thread.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Haven't played Dragon Age Inquisition, but here's a crossover fanart from pixelkitties:

https://31.media.tumblr.com/e9b1b78fdaac42c177e57a871993a802/tumblr_ngjxj52JlU1rorj6qo1_1280.png

[Frost]

@Frost

on racism:

I'm sorry, but the politically correct term is "Pure American"

[Katarn]

I'm afraid that would be the case, if addressing native Indians

[Harmony Ltd.]

It is well possible. I just didn't install it and then promptly forgot about it.

As I said, I just buy too many games I then never play and forget about.

[Scienza]

Haven't played Dragon Age Inquisition, but here's a crossover fanart from pixelkitties:

https://31.media.tumblr.com/e9b1b78fdaac42c177e57a871993a802/tumblr_ngjxj52JlU1rorj6qo1_1280.png

I'm truly astounded that it's taken this long for someone to do an Iron Bull/Iron Will crossover.

[Kippershy]

Hello everyone. Hope you have a good Christmas. Hope you're all okay.
I'm off again now, just came to say hello / merry Christmas since I just came online to send a (surprisingly friendly) message to Somber about Shadowrun since I was talking about it to someone else - don't worry about me disturbing the peace, not this time.
Best wishes you all. Merry Christmas.

[Scienza]

Cheers, Kip.

[Vinylshadow]

Native Americans are "Pure Americans"

Everyone else is European/African/Asian/Canadian

-

Army reveals new winter designs for Tanks:

[Katarn]

does Jesus listen to prayers?:

[Vinylshadow]

*prays in death metal*

Am I doing it right?

[Tytan]

I think it's time Americans faced facts.

The white people conquered the natives.

Fucking get over it.

[Vinylshadow]

Can't really say I care one way or another

White, black, brown, orange, red, yellow - we're all human of one kind or another

I think the politically correct term is 'relocated and reeducated the natives'

[Guest]

Finished Far Cry, that has to be without out a doubt the most frustrating turret scene. Had the privateers been equipped with slings I think they would still have had a good chance of killing Riley and Jason.

Anyway, the game got a lot better. As soon as I got the upgrades that just made the game less annoying to play.

[Vinylshadow]

Slings are some pretty badass weapons

it's a shame you don't see them ever used in games


-
Maxie doesn't need no silly Santa Hat to be Christmasy

Although maybe I should make his turtleneck white...

(Why they wear thick poofy sweaters when they're orientated around Magma baffles me; at least Aqua's pirate/sailor theme makes sense)

And there's a few moments when Magma uses sailor lingo too

"I'll keelhaul you!"

[Scienza]

Can't really say I care one way or another

White, black, brown, orange, red, yellow - we're all human of one kind or another

I think the politically correct term is 'relocated and reeducated the natives'

Well, no, we fucked them over. Pure and simple. Every chance we had, we fucked them over. We're still fucking them over.

[Vinylshadow]

Aren't they getting their revenge with their Casinos though?

[Tytan]

Can't really say I care one way or another

White, black, brown, orange, red, yellow - we're all human of one kind or another

I think the politically correct term is 'relocated and reeducated the natives'

Well, no, we fucked them over. Pure and simple. Every chance we had, we fucked them over. We're still fucking them over.

For a while we were barely one step above nazis.

[Vinylshadow]

Instead of calling it National Socialism, we called it Manifest Destiny

[Frost]

Yes, we fucked people over. 

History is essentially one long train of people fucking people over. Everybody, even those poor, victimized, oppressed Native Americans, have been ripping the shit out of each other since they figured out that hitting someone with a sharp stick enough made all their blood fall out.

It just offends our precious modern sensibilities that no, not everything gets solved by everyone sititting down, sipping hot coco as they talk about their fucking feelings, and singing some goddamn songs about magic and love. 

Since the dawn of modern humanity, we've pretty much constantly had war somewhere in the world because "Fuck you; got mine" is about the only way you weren't going to fucking starve and die out.

Yes, our ancestors (no, not us. Our fucking ancestors. I don't know about you, but I didn't March anyone down the trail of tears. I never went out on the plains hunting "Redskins". Some assholes a hundred-fifty fucking years ago did that. I'm not shouldering someone else's actions out of some misguided white-guilt complex)--yes, our ancestors conquered their homeland. They expanded, grew, and thrived on land they'd seized by force. And by modern times' equally subjective ideas of morality and civilization, that was a dick move. They'd be equally disgusted at us if they looked forward and saw what they took as a nation of soft, weak-willed, entitled children protesting from the safety of their couches, crying about 'injustice' while the "real men" took what their nation needed through force. 

History happens; times change; and people get fucked over. That's pretty much the anthem of life. Fucking get over that. 

[Tytan]

I think feeling a sense of responsibility for your ancestors wrong doings is important for society.

Just look at Germany.

West Germans are dour motherfuckers that are by and large taught they need to live to make up for their grandfathers sins.

East Germans were taught they were good little communists that were victims.

Take a guess where all the neo-nazis came from.

[Frost]

I think it's time Americans faced facts.

Everyone already knows. Everyone already acknowledges that. I hear it every goddamn day from, in particular, self-righteous little teenage SJW's listing it between "I'm oppressed because I'm a woman/black" and "I can't legally smoke pot" as the reasons why America is a fascist hell. I don't here even the most bleeding-heart apologist, though, offering to pack up and move out so they can have their land back. Because they, like virtually everyone, are happy to take the moral high ground so long as they can do it from their couch, sipping a latte as they blog about it. No one attempts to deny or reject the prosperity and opportunity that they have in a nation that seized its territory, they just whine about it so they can feel superior and accomplished and "more developed and civilized" while never doing anything of permanence in their goddamn lives, because this is the culture that invented the participation trophy; the culture that says you're special and important just for fucking existing. You don't need to work or accomplish anything, because you're already a fucking snowflake

[Frost]

I think feeling a sense of responsibility for your ancestors wrong doings is important for society.

Just look at Germany.

West Germans are dour motherfuckers that are by and large taught they need to live to make up for their grandfathers sins.

East Germans were taught they were good little communists that were victims.

Take a guess where all the neo-nazis came from.

I'm pretty sure that's an outright quote from a book I've read. 

But...no. Call me crazy, but I'm rather a fan of personal responsibility. I don't claim credit for inventing the light bulb because an American did. I don't claim to have cured Polio because an American did. I don't claim to have stormed Utah beach because my grandfather did. I am a grown-ass man. My accomplishments, my failings, and my mistakes are mine and no one else's. I will not shoulder centuries-old crimes, bear guilt and punishment for actions I never even considered doing.

[Guest]

I'm with Frost on this one, if I were to add anything I think I would say I'm starting to hate this use of we. The only way you can include yourself in the we in this context is through your nationality or race. That is your only connnection to them the people that have done this. Which includes me and I'm not taking responsibility for anyone's actions but my own. Or if I ever have kids theirs too.

I think our ancestor's wrong doings and mistakes are important to learn from not take responibility for.

[Downloaded Skill]

I think feeling a sense of responsibility for your ancestors wrong doings is important for society.

Just look at Germany.

West Germans are dour motherfuckers that are by and large taught they need to live to make up for their grandfathers sins.

East Germans were taught they were good little communists that were victims.

Take a guess where all the neo-nazis came from.

I both agree and disagree with this notion. On the larger scale, like politics and other large group interactions, this kind of has to come into play  because of the realities of politics. Doling out punishment on an individual level often isn't possible or wildly impractical because large scale actions like these typically aren't done by one man or it happened in the past and the perpetrators aren't alive anymore. A statement and token reparation efforts can help smooth things out and prevent further hostilities. Politically useful lip service really.

On the more personal level I think this line of thinking is utter bullshit and very harmful. I should not be held accountable or responsible for fixing any mistakes my father or grandfather made unless I directly contributed to them. Why should I shoulder the blame for the mistakes of another? It inhibits personal choice and freedom over some misguided sense of justice. Worse still is when other people use this line of thinking to discriminate against others. Yes it is appalling that my forefathers had slaves, no that doesn't mean I condone it or should be discriminated against. It feeds a kind of victim complex where people use past offenses to justify present atrocities and hostilities against people who aren't even involved. It feeds a complex where people can be utter assholes and feel completely justified and right.  It's downright dangerous to believe that line of thinking on a personal level.

[Scienza]

Modern day sensibilities might be subjective and hypocritical, and undoubtedly our grandchildren will be tearing into us over the choices we made today, but that doesn't mean that we can just hand-wave off all the fucking over. I don't believe in collective guilt of a society for the actions of their ancestors; today's Germany is not Hitler's Germany. However, there's fucking over that we can control and fucking over that we can't. We can't undo the past, but we can sure as fuck affect the present. We are responsible for the choices of the people we continue to put in office because any ideal of democracy falls the fuck apart if we aren't. You can either be an American or you can be free of all responsibility.

Maybe humanity will always fuck people over. But even you accept that, it becomes a question of what we're getting out of it. Fucking over the Middle East, fine, wave it off as national security and oil. Fucking over the developing world, resources and labor. But Indian reservations are fucking third-world nightmares directly because of how our government deals with them. Our (and yes, I say "our" because if you're a fucking American, it's yours too) criminal justice system is astoundingly bigoted and broken. We get very little net benefits from either. The American government doesn't even get fucking taxes from the reservations, and the best that can be said about the way our criminal justice system determines guilt is that our rate of serious crimes is roughly the same as it would be otherwise, even as our prisons overflow.

[Tytan]

I regret opening my stupid mouth.

[Guest]

I don't claim credit for inventing the light bulb because an American did.

I am willing to claim credit for inventing the light bulb. I feel that this would very much be in the spirit of Edison's style.

[Scienza]

I regret opening my stupid mouth.

Eh, it's inevitable whenever we discuss politics in a forum with people as diverse as this. We'll inevitably go back to talking about the futility of lightsaber quillons and/or I'll just get muted and everything will be back to normal. I'll admit, I'm more than a bit too aggressive in these things.

[Frost]

Maybe humanity will always fuck people over. But even you accept that, it becomes a question of what we're getting out of it. Fucking over the Middle East, fine, wave it off as national security and oil. Fucking over the developing world, resources and labor. But Indian reservations are fucking third-world nightmares directly because of how our government deals with them. Our (and yes, I say "our" because if you're a fucking American, it's yours too) criminal justice system is astoundingly bigoted and broken. We get very little net benefits from either. The American government doesn't even get fucking taxes from the reservations, and the best that can be said about the way our criminal justice system determines guilt is that our rate of serious crimes is roughly the same as it would be otherwise, even as our prisons overflow.

Oh, I'm not denying my affiliation with the modern-day government, considering I work for it. 

The modern problems plaguing our society are rather a different discussion than actions in the 19th century, but a'aight. 

The Middle East, I'd say, is more about national security than oil. We get most of our oil from South America and Canada rather than the Middle East--long-term, losing trading access to those reserves would have been more cost-effective than a large-scale invasion and long-term occupation. The instigator, if we'll recall, was 9/11. The nation's invaded were harboring international terrorist groups that had targeted the US--and were themselves exactly the sort of oppressive, despotic theocracy that many of the war's critics point out as problems in the Third World that the West should somehow feel responsible for and aid in bringing down. 

The Justice system's and other problems exist because America is not a homogenous mass of like-minded people. No one can decide what's right and wrong cohesively enough to institute reform of the system, so it stays for lack of agreed-upon alternatives--in addition to vengeance-driven notions of 'Justice' rather than interest in actually preventing repeat offenses. It's agreed upon that the system sucks, but the problem is that no one can get together and fix it. 

As for the reservations; the ones that don't have casinos on them are indeed poor--and nobody forces the native Americans to live there. They aren't internment camps; they're nowadays a half-assed form of reparations that exist as a guaranteed place for the displaced tribes to live. No one keeps them there and no one stops them from leaving. Hell, any Native American who goes to college can get it virtually entirely paid for by government grants. Most who live there do so to maintain their "cultural identity" with their tribes. 

Which in itself is quite ironic. In modern times, in dealing with other cultures, it's always the West that is expected to adapt and be understanding; in no sort of mutual compromise (or, God forbid, them behaving with Western cultural norms while in Western society). Fuck, in-theatre GWOT operations get hit with this--you don't touch a woman, or even look at her, without her husband's explicit permission. This includes during checkpoints and suspicious-activity stops, where they're being searched for weapons or other threats as a matter of peacekeeping and security (because the Evil West Evilly invaded just to destabilize and cause chaos, and they do that by being the police force for a decade.) Yes, the woman could have fifteen pounds of explosives strapped on under her Burka. She could have a firearm she's waiting to use on the first soldier to turn his back--and no one can search her until a female soldier (even one not trained in personnel searches) arrives and does the search. Because it's 'culturally insensitive'. A bit of an extreme example, but far from the only one.

[Ironmonger]

This is my reaction to this thread at the moment.

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