I'm sure you've heard this plenty already, but if you can push through the base game (A Realm Reborn) story, it gets way way better once you hit the first expansion. I was skeptical, but the story and character development in the expansions legit blew me away
I can't decide if this is better or worse than FFXIV's "Talk to NPC #1. Talk to NPC #2. Watch long cutscene. Point at NPC #3. Report back to NPC #1. Quest complete!"
Per the literal first sentence of the Wikipedia page that appears as the first result when you search "liberalism", liberalism is based on several different pillars, only one or maybe two of which could arguably be reduced down to "what if the king shouldn't be in charge?". The only way it would make sense to describe liberalism as just "the right to self-determination" is if the only thing you have to compare it against is like, feudalism or fascism.
Yeah, sorry, my thoughts on the original question/scenario evolved as we were talking so this ended up being messy and unclear.
I want to retract my response about excluding the non-masker, not because I don't think it's possible to do that in a way that respects autonomy and doesn't leverage power structures, but because the specific way that would be done would be fluid and dependent on factors we can't really take into account in the abstract. My answer to your proposed scenario is, I don't have enough information to make a judgment of the situation.
Another way of putting what I'm getting at: when someone/some group is given power over others, the normal social dynamics of how people cooperate and be in conflict with each other are disrupted, because the power-holders can just wield the authority to enforce their will regardless. In your scenario, a non-masker choosing to go against the community's will is a conflict, and the action to be taken should be based around resolving that conflict under the conditions it's taking place in. If we just say "they'll be excluded from community spaces under threat of violence" or "they'll be locked up and forced to reintegrate into the community", we're wielding authority to bypass the actual conflict with all of its messiness and nuance. Nothing actually get resolved other than the person not physically being there anymore. Resentment grows, and we end up with more violence and wielding of authority down the line.
So are we assuming the non-masker is trying to be somewhere they've been told they're not welcome like, as a statement of rebellion? Do they not understand that they're not welcome or what they need to change to be welcome? Are they trying to be provocative, or are they trying to gain access to the community for some specific purpose?
"Enforcing this exclusion" is really broad. It has the underlying assumption that the situation is already violent, that there is a thing to enforce against someone who is "disobeying" the thing. Which I'd argue comes from the fact that we've really only lived in police states in modern history. Again, humans are social creatures--we want community and we want to feel included. And we don't consciously do things to each other for no reason. I urge you to think deeply about where the need for "enforcement" comes from, and what we mean by it.
If you mandate and enforce it, you'll form/expose the hierarchy, right?
Well, depends on who "you" is and how you "enforce" it. Do you, the person given the systemic authority to do so, throw people in jail/gulags/whatever if they refuse to mask? Then yeah, that's hierarchical. Do you, a community member, organize with other community members to exclude the non-masker from social events and community spaces until they decide to mask? OR do you, a doctor designated via the community as an expert and thus given narrow, organic, retractable social authority to do so, say "you need to wear a mask"? Then no.
This author seems to be confused about what hierarchies are. Hierarchies have nothing to do with division of labor or expertise--you can easily have/recognize both of those things in a horizontal power structure. A hierarchy is about who can coerce whom.
In the factory example the article gives, the presence of a central organizer/administrator/delegator does not necessarily mean the factory operates hierarchically. To determine if it does, you'd need to ask, "does the organizational structure allow the administrator to have their decisions enforced via actual or threatened violence against people who dissent?" In our capitalist reality, this would be things like firing the dissenter (depriving them of basic survival resources) or calling the cops. In authoritarian "communist" regimes, this might be forced labor or re-education camps.
You can organize at scale, abstract out certain parts of the organization, etc. without this coercive element. Humans are cooperative creatures; we want to build things together, and we are fully capable of respecting each other while we do so. Why limit the bounds of our liberation by assuming we need this systemic violence to do what we already want to do?
I'd genuinely like to hear your answer on this, because it's something I think a lot about as an anarchist. Specifically, do you think the problem power hierarchies solve can only be solved by power hierarchies? Do you think that problem necessarily exists and needs solving in all contexts, perhaps because of some innate human nature? Who is it that has told you this is the case--that the fact that history is filled with hierarchies should be interpreted as "hierarchies are inevitable"--instead of, say, "power over others is an unhealthy coping mechanism humans have consistently turned to in the face of the unknown and maybe we should try to build a society that Doesn't Do That before we give up and resign ourselves to benevolent kings again"?
The reality is that all governments rely on coercion to maintain their authority.
Yeah, and isn't that a problem? Like, why just take for granted that all governments we've tried so far are coercive, instead of trying to build one that isn't?
It could also be them making fun of you for having a goofy and ignorant worldview, in which case constantly swarming the comments with r/atheism style pseudo-intellectual groupthink is... a choice
Ah, we're on to Chapter 2 of the playbook. "Tell me where you think I'm wrong so I can regurgitate Daddy Marx gospel about why it's actually the undeniable truth."
In case you're actually engaging in good faith, you (MLs, collectively) do this thing where because you see everything through the scientific lens of historical materialism, you can't really acknowledge or refute differing philosophical interpretations of historical facts beyond dismissing them as bourgeoisie propaganda. Which like, you're right a lot of the time! Particularly when it comes to western thought and mainstream interpretations of history. But then you have situations like this, where two sociopathic world powers are fighting each other via competing interpretations of history that both just serve to keep the respective ruling people in power. And it's like you can't let go of the idea that the power that most represents capitalism has to be the single villain in a good vs. evil fight in every conflict it gets into. So you state facts about the west's villainy, which are true, but then you get angry when someone questions what the U.S. being a villain has to do with the villainy of the other party--do things like imply they're stupid or didn't read what you said, when really they just have a more nuanced understanding of the world than you do.
Behold the tankie, who uses their big ol' unpropagandized brain to cartwheel through a series of sociopolitical facts that sound like they're relevant to the conversation but that if you think through for more than a few seconds, you realize are not actually saying anything
Maybe He created the universe and then the universe took on a life of its own? In the same way that a parent may create a child but doesn't then have absolute power over the child or their behavior?
Ahh I see--that makes sense. I wish they'd do more to make the game more accessible for people not interested in the story
I really wish FF14 would steal from games like this
I'm sure you've heard this plenty already, but if you can push through the base game (A Realm Reborn) story, it gets way way better once you hit the first expansion. I was skeptical, but the story and character development in the expansions legit blew me away
I can't decide if this is better or worse than FFXIV's "Talk to NPC #1. Talk to NPC #2. Watch long cutscene. Point at NPC #3. Report back to NPC #1. Quest complete!"
Per the literal first sentence of the Wikipedia page that appears as the first result when you search "liberalism", liberalism is based on several different pillars, only one or maybe two of which could arguably be reduced down to "what if the king shouldn't be in charge?". The only way it would make sense to describe liberalism as just "the right to self-determination" is if the only thing you have to compare it against is like, feudalism or fascism.
It's way more complex than that, and I say that as someone who hates tankies but also hates liberalism.
You can just say you don't understand what I'm saying. It's okay.
Yeah, sorry, my thoughts on the original question/scenario evolved as we were talking so this ended up being messy and unclear.
I want to retract my response about excluding the non-masker, not because I don't think it's possible to do that in a way that respects autonomy and doesn't leverage power structures, but because the specific way that would be done would be fluid and dependent on factors we can't really take into account in the abstract. My answer to your proposed scenario is, I don't have enough information to make a judgment of the situation.
Another way of putting what I'm getting at: when someone/some group is given power over others, the normal social dynamics of how people cooperate and be in conflict with each other are disrupted, because the power-holders can just wield the authority to enforce their will regardless. In your scenario, a non-masker choosing to go against the community's will is a conflict, and the action to be taken should be based around resolving that conflict under the conditions it's taking place in. If we just say "they'll be excluded from community spaces under threat of violence" or "they'll be locked up and forced to reintegrate into the community", we're wielding authority to bypass the actual conflict with all of its messiness and nuance. Nothing actually get resolved other than the person not physically being there anymore. Resentment grows, and we end up with more violence and wielding of authority down the line.
I'm confused by your last sentence. Can you say more?
So are we assuming the non-masker is trying to be somewhere they've been told they're not welcome like, as a statement of rebellion? Do they not understand that they're not welcome or what they need to change to be welcome? Are they trying to be provocative, or are they trying to gain access to the community for some specific purpose?
"Enforcing this exclusion" is really broad. It has the underlying assumption that the situation is already violent, that there is a thing to enforce against someone who is "disobeying" the thing. Which I'd argue comes from the fact that we've really only lived in police states in modern history. Again, humans are social creatures--we want community and we want to feel included. And we don't consciously do things to each other for no reason. I urge you to think deeply about where the need for "enforcement" comes from, and what we mean by it.
Well, depends on who "you" is and how you "enforce" it. Do you, the person given the systemic authority to do so, throw people in jail/gulags/whatever if they refuse to mask? Then yeah, that's hierarchical. Do you, a community member, organize with other community members to exclude the non-masker from social events and community spaces until they decide to mask? OR do you, a doctor designated via the community as an expert and thus given narrow, organic, retractable social authority to do so, say "you need to wear a mask"? Then no.
This author seems to be confused about what hierarchies are. Hierarchies have nothing to do with division of labor or expertise--you can easily have/recognize both of those things in a horizontal power structure. A hierarchy is about who can coerce whom.
In the factory example the article gives, the presence of a central organizer/administrator/delegator does not necessarily mean the factory operates hierarchically. To determine if it does, you'd need to ask, "does the organizational structure allow the administrator to have their decisions enforced via actual or threatened violence against people who dissent?" In our capitalist reality, this would be things like firing the dissenter (depriving them of basic survival resources) or calling the cops. In authoritarian "communist" regimes, this might be forced labor or re-education camps.
You can organize at scale, abstract out certain parts of the organization, etc. without this coercive element. Humans are cooperative creatures; we want to build things together, and we are fully capable of respecting each other while we do so. Why limit the bounds of our liberation by assuming we need this systemic violence to do what we already want to do?
I'd genuinely like to hear your answer on this, because it's something I think a lot about as an anarchist. Specifically, do you think the problem power hierarchies solve can only be solved by power hierarchies? Do you think that problem necessarily exists and needs solving in all contexts, perhaps because of some innate human nature? Who is it that has told you this is the case--that the fact that history is filled with hierarchies should be interpreted as "hierarchies are inevitable"--instead of, say, "power over others is an unhealthy coping mechanism humans have consistently turned to in the face of the unknown and maybe we should try to build a society that Doesn't Do That before we give up and resign ourselves to benevolent kings again"?
Yeah, and isn't that a problem? Like, why just take for granted that all governments we've tried so far are coercive, instead of trying to build one that isn't?
It could also be them making fun of you for having a goofy and ignorant worldview, in which case constantly swarming the comments with r/atheism style pseudo-intellectual groupthink is... a choice
Y'all really can't help yourselves but to come into every anti-tankie post in the fediverse to call the OP stupid, huh?
Ah, we're on to Chapter 2 of the playbook. "Tell me where you think I'm wrong so I can regurgitate Daddy Marx gospel about why it's actually the undeniable truth."
In case you're actually engaging in good faith, you (MLs, collectively) do this thing where because you see everything through the scientific lens of historical materialism, you can't really acknowledge or refute differing philosophical interpretations of historical facts beyond dismissing them as bourgeoisie propaganda. Which like, you're right a lot of the time! Particularly when it comes to western thought and mainstream interpretations of history. But then you have situations like this, where two sociopathic world powers are fighting each other via competing interpretations of history that both just serve to keep the respective ruling people in power. And it's like you can't let go of the idea that the power that most represents capitalism has to be the single villain in a good vs. evil fight in every conflict it gets into. So you state facts about the west's villainy, which are true, but then you get angry when someone questions what the U.S. being a villain has to do with the villainy of the other party--do things like imply they're stupid or didn't read what you said, when really they just have a more nuanced understanding of the world than you do.
Behold the tankie, who uses their big ol' unpropagandized brain to cartwheel through a series of sociopolitical facts that sound like they're relevant to the conversation but that if you think through for more than a few seconds, you realize are not actually saying anything
I mean. Yeah
Maybe He created the universe and then the universe took on a life of its own? In the same way that a parent may create a child but doesn't then have absolute power over the child or their behavior?