In other words, your position is that laissez faire capitalism will solve all forms of discrimination?

That's... distressingly naive. We've had capitalism for hundreds of years at this point, and I don't recall it ever solving a form of discrimination.

Not at all. I'm taking this question "as is" now, and I will not consider the rest of the argument in the thread as part of it, and I will also not try to analyze my own psychological state when I wrote the words you quote, but answer your questions separately.

Because of lacking perfection in my writing and my logic, I'm not a perfect rational machine by far, this might not be in line with everything else I've written.

If I could write a coherent explanation to my opinions on everything that has been stated throughout this thread and how they fit together, it would take me a week of doing nothing than writing and analyzing myself. We have come to a point where it simply isn't possible for me anymore. Perhaps I'm not intelligent enough or perhaps I'm just not experienced enough, but there are too many things discussed now for me to coherently put together right now in my head.

But.. on to the answer to the question, as is.

My opinion is not that such capitalism will solve all discrimination.

My opinion is closer to that, once all discrimination is solved, such capitalism will be a very good system.

When applied to the current discussion of game content... I think the main point for me.. is that we're treating two separate issues, or at least issues that I feel should be separate, as equal.

These issues are game content (ethereal), and practical discrimination of real people (real).

If we force real practical changes... in order to change people currently producing game content... in order for the new more diverse content to help lessen discrimination... then we've built such a long string of consequences impacting other consequences that we cannot possibly predict the true sum of those consequences.

This means in my opinion that we have to limit our efforts to change game content to reasonable levels.

I hope I've made clear that I have nothing against game content becoming diverse, nor against suggesting or working for such change.

I object to it being racist not to join in that change though.

There are so many ways to see things... and most of my posts have been constructed by me first reading my last post.. then the reply to that post.. and then trying to analyze what the responder took out of my first post, and what he was thinking when he wrote his post, and then in turn responding to that as clear and rational as I can. I can't say how well I succeeded, but that's what I tried to do.

So again, don't take this post as part of all previous in some coherent string of texts.. because I'm sure they cannot possible be by now.

EDIT: In addition.. I think that part of the reason for discrimination being a problem is that there are latent effects of previous institutions, either in our minds or real in our society, that promoted discrimination. If they had never been there from the start, then we probably wouldn't have these issues.

Current society have few of these issues at heart, and most of them are remnants of previous times. Not all, but many, and I think most.

I understand and recognize there are real issues still here, but they are starting to thin out, a lot, compared to not very long ago. In many ways this has been solved because of measures taken against the issues that used to be a problem. This has left a new issue in society, where we feel that when something appears "wrong", we have to take measures against it. Partly this whole thing is a remnant from the same society that originally started discrimination, but there are also some quite new ideas of "righting wrongs" in ways that haven't been employed in a long time. Something like an inquisition to eradicate racism.

This may so far all be good, but as we approach a society of equilibrium, we have to be very careful not to overdo it. Momentum in these cases usually stick around for about a century or something.. usually until the people that believe in something die off. If we pass the finish line sprinting, we will have introduced a lot more issues that will remain and break the perfect society we just built.

In addition, people fearing those future issues, will start working against us even when they actually agree with us.

I think .. analyzing myself.. that I may be such a person. I could very well work against you on this even though I really don't want anyone to feel discriminated. Apart from regular empathy, which I feel very much, though I try to remove all emotion from arguments where I can, it's inefficient and stupid to have discrimination.

When efforts to stop it appears to perhaps lead to an impact in my freedom however I am very tempted to work against them, even when I support removal of discrimination itself.

This could possibly explain part of why I make the arguments I make. Not entirely sure if it's adequate.. I try to remain rational and not allow myself to be influenced too much.. but I'm not perfect, so perhaps it has influenced me more than I know.

Issues usually start as ideas that are very good, then turn into a reality that the guy with the original idea never ever intended. That's why I support moving pretty much all decisions to individuals, and removing the idea of a "right" and a "wrong", replacing them with just "right for me" and "wrong for me". The only problem is when a person cannot live their own life with what is "right for them".

(Reading through this, I see it has turned into.. I don't know what :) may give more insight into how I think that may better explain my reasoning so I'll leave it in)

This cannot possibly be applied to society and culture as a whole. I think i may have to reject society-wide culture as a reason to apply change to entertainment content.. though I'm not entirely sure. I sort of get the feeling that if we demand society-wide culture to always fit everyone we cannot possibly have a free society where people actually have many different cultures. Though perhaps I'm actually against the idea of a society-wide culture in itself.

I somehow feel we discuss something along the lines that world-wide industry have to adhere to a certain idea that fits everyone. It's just not possible. Games by Chinese people will be Chinese, and games by White people will be White. It is what it is.. so somehow I suspect that in the particular case of game content.. even now after this thread.. I still believe in my original assessment that it's a non-issue. If it is an issue then it's a psychological issue that itself is a product of a society that hasn't transferred enough control to the individual, and make too many decisions as one huge institution.

This is probably actually part of capitalism.. so.. it's a difficult question. It's related to the matter of how we counteract monopolies.. do our current anti-monopoly efforts even work anymore as intended, now that everyone in the world sees everything a few minutes after it happens?

No big business can possibly do anything but follow the statistical economical graph or they simply won't remain competitive. Google does one thing that makes the news and Apple and Microsoft have to respond the same, as not doing so would cost a billion dollars. I don't know how to solve it.. I do think that freedom is threatened by technology, our technology has improved so much, but the space we live in remains the same size so the world is starting to become really small. This is a difficult problem for people who want to remain entirely free, such as myself.

Long-term I think that our descendents can't possibly have true freedom on earth, it's unattainable given a much higher level of technology. Maybe if we manage to move off earth during the coming century there will be some hope.

Perhaps I should just give up on this and simply stop playing games. I've already stopped reading any regulars news years ago, maybe time to switch my phone to some off-brand embedded Linux and stop using Windows and just try to find alternative ways to lead my own life completely ignoring big business.

I don't know the answer to these questions, but they trouble me a bit.

That's... distressingly naive. We've had capitalism for hundreds of years at this point, and I don't recall it ever solving a form of discrimination.

We've had a regulated capitalist market. While it's typical education curricula throughout High school to teach that America had a truly open market solution, this was never really the case. Pretty much right off the bat we had one-way tariffs/trade restrictions.

That being said, capitalism has given us enough comfort (and technological prowess) to let us decide how to deal with discrimination. Typically everyone was too busy worrying about surviving to care about such things.

If you liked that video, you might enjoy like to check out Greg Johnson's post. (He's one of the co-creators of ToeJam & Earl.) Personally, I thought his was one of the best pieces on the subject. As for the video, the fact that some players are finally experiencing what it's like to be the other is a reaffirmation of the power of games.

At the end of my post, I will propose a solution to the problem of the depiction of race in games, but first I will expound on the problem, which is lack of information.

The problem

Reading through numerous comments online, it appears me that a number of whites erroneously believe that the end goal of diversity is their exclusion. Another common belief is that minorities are only interested in media that features them as a majority. (The Sony hacking incident confirms this.) I feel confident in saying that most minorities do not feel this way. To most, diversity is about inclusivity.

In virtually all media, certain minorities are almost universally portrayed as adhering to a certain culture. In general, society seems to assume that people who look a certain way tend to adhere to a certain culture. This goes for all races. It's a natural tendency for humans to make assumptions like that, I suppose. The problem is when you confine people to a box. Just as an example, can you name one US sci-fi/fantasy game or movie made within the last year that featured a primarily minority cast? Personally, I can't think of one. First, studios have this notion that minorities other than have Asians are less likely to enthusiasts of sci-fi/fantasy. Second, studios have this notion that their target audience would not watch such a movie. My belief is that these decisions are largely based off of guesses. There's no reason for guesses in the 21st century. Anyway, the solution I will get into shortly will address both of those problems.

A while back, I was watching an interview with one of the writers for at least one of the Justice League series. He remarked that it was deemed okay to have an episode featuring, for example, one black character, even two. However, he remarked, once you get to three or more, the powers that be, DC/Warner Bros., would consider the show to be a black show. I believe that this same practice is occurring in games. It's not even exclusively a race issue. I could say the same thing about gender. How many hero teams have a majority of females? X-men? No. The Planeteers? Nope. Power Rangers? Not from what I remember. I mean, they have a considerable representation of females, but what is stopping these teams from having a majority of females? The execs have a belief is that it will be viewed as a female show. Now, is that something which actually turns off a male audience? If so, why?

One Solution

One solution I have to the problem of a dearth of information is controversial, but I believe it to be an elegant one. Data-mining social media and polling players can only get you so far in coming up with demographic data. Because games have shifted to digital, I propose that digital game stores give players the option to indicate their race on their accounts, just like many sites do with gender. At the very least, this will enable publishers see how well their particular games are trending with particular demographics, which will help developers to diversify their content. I advise that the motivation for this data collection be made transparent to players. People often complain about the prices of digital games, compared to their retail counterparts. Well, maybe publishers can slash digital prices to incentivize players to buy digital games so that they will have more of the valuable data they need.

Do you think it is wrong for minority consumers of McDonald's hamburgers to demand that advertisements for Big Macs and McCafé feature minorities? Because that is the argument you're making.

I guess that depends on the definition of "demand", I may have used the word wrongly. I have no problem with stating that you want it and if you don't get it you can boycott McDonalds all you want.
I object to the idea that McDonalds is some God given right that must exist and must exist in the form you see fit. If you don't like it, tell them, and if they don't change then create your own alternative.

Don't be a drama queen.

This is the crux of the matter: you think that when people agitate for change, they are viewing it as "some God given right that must exist and must exist in the form they see fit." You're being ridiculous, and it's almost entirely because the majority/mainstream media reflects your identity, so you're oblivious to the marginalizations.

I don't want you to try to write my story. I won't stop you, but I think you'd suck at it. What I want is for the "gatekeepers" who make decisions about what gets published, to stop assuming that nobody wants to hear my story. That the creator whose background is more similar to mine doesn't have an audience. THAT is the core of diversity agitation. The activism, the protests, the hashtags, the sloganeering, the boycotts—they are all meant to demonstrate the size of the addressable and ignored market to the bean-counters, and in so doing create a realization of consumer surplus waiting to be tapped into.

Nobody is going to take your games away. Nobody is going to make you make games you don't want to. Nobody cares about you. People care about themselves.

That's... distressingly naive. We've had capitalism for hundreds of years at this point, and I don't recall it ever solving a form of discrimination.

We've had a regulated capitalist market. While it's typical education curricula throughout High school to teach that America had a truly open market solution, this was never really the case. Pretty much right off the bat we had one-way tariffs/trade restrictions.

That being said, capitalism has given us enough comfort (and technological prowess) to let us decide how to deal with discrimination. Typically everyone was too busy worrying about surviving to care about such things.

Or, you know… exploiting the literal bodies and lives of others as grist for their mills, chattel and slavehands for their farms and plantations. It isn't just tariffs and trade restrictions that have made our market non-free; it's the actual lack of freedom that some contributors had.

I hope I've made clear that I have nothing against game content becoming diverse, nor against suggesting or working for such change.

I object to it being racist not to join in that change though.

You keep speaking of accusations of racism for resisting change, but I don't think anyone is making them. People are making the affirmative argument of why such change is just, and why the status quo is unfair, but I don't see that being extrapolated to say that anyone content with the status quo is racist. Maybe it's happening, though; some people are very childish and very stupid, treating every issue as a litmus test of righteousness.

It's not racist not to join the change. It's selfish. It's saying, "Things are great for me; I don't care about your problems." It costs you little to consider a larger audience when creating your works. You may still choose your original path, because creating media with white male protagonists is absolutely valid, but to say that even being asked to consider others is an unfair burden on you is just petulant.