What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[Hussar]

Again, no.

My point had nothing to do with spreading lies. My point is about insisting that the inclusion of certain content will lead to specific results throughout an entire population.

Or in other words, it is wrong to make blanket claims.

blanket statement - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

en.wiktionary.org

Ah, so, completely off topic and having nothing to do with the conversation. Ok, fair enough.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

This seems to fall within the impossibility of proving a negative territory.

In the course of conversation, it is important to be able to distinguish between a rhetorical flourish and a logical assertion which is central to a position. That way, you don't end up missing the thrust of the argument and wasting your energy on things which can otherwise be passed over.

It is also impossible to prove no act of racial violence has ever included early exposure to Gandhi as a contributing factor.

Gandhi's legacy is huge and billions of lives have been shaped by his words and actions. We are fortunate that a clear articulation of ahimsa was central to his philosophy. It is sad when people selectively read him, and somehow manage to ignore this basic fact. Perhaps it would be reasonable to place the blame for violence squarely on the shoulders of the perpetrators in this case.

Though as a side note I think it extremely unlikely the author of the Protocols forgery did not intend to cause deaths.

Perhaps if the author of the Protocols had anticipated the Holocaust - and his role in fomenting the climate which precipitated it - he might have chosen not to publish them.

 

[bloodtide]

Has that actually to you, or someone you know?

I'm sorry, sounds like a bad bunch of guys.

I've seen the 'bad guys' react to a female all too often. A lot of guys act up when a woman joins a game. I could fill a thread of horror stories.....

No, my statement had nothing to do with slavery or Lovecraft. I was responding to another posters insistence that the inclusion sexualized content would lead to widespread sexual harassment.

That is not going to happen. The jerk guys are hardwired in, they are not triggered by a picture.

And that's how it goes with all of these conversations. We were talking about the SPECIFIC ISSUE of Dark Sun.

But what make Dark Sun so wrong?

Slavery is found in other D&D books.

Evil cities ruled over by evil rulers is found in other books.

Canabal Halflings? Well, plenty of others, like giants and goblins "eat people", not to mention dragons and such

A post apocalypse setting? Well this is a bit unique, but is it really "controversial?"

 

[Lanefan]

I brought up a specific issue - using Lovecraft in a list of inspirational reading in the 5e PHB.

I'm not the least bit a fan of Lovecraft the person nor of Lovecraft the author (I find him almost completely unreadable), but his works were the foundation others built on to give us the whole tentacle-laced Cthulhu-esque mythos and atmosphere that runs deep through D&D and even deeper through some other systems. As such, whether we like it or not, he was undeniably inspirational; and thus including him in such a list is IMO justiified.

It's also worth noting that much (or all?) of his work is now in the public domain, so it's not like he or his descendants (did he have any?) are benefitting from its use.

But, again, you're ignoring history. The use of pepperoni, to use the analogy, MAKES PEOPLE NOT FEEL WELCOME IN THE HOBBY. Do you honestly not get that? Do you honestly not care? When people tell you, directly, that placing someone like Lovecraft in a privileged position in the books makes that person (me) feel unwelcome in the hobby, is your honest reaction simply, "Well, it doesn't bother me, so, I don't give a toss about you?"

Then who do you put in his place? Where should people go to find the source of the inspiration behind all the elements in the game that his work ultimately brought about?

 

[Minion X]

You didn’t mention that story at all. Nor did I. So this is a bit of goalpost shifting.

I don't have a goal beyond engaging in intellectual debate and exploring the topic at hand. I mean, why would we be discussing Lovecraft and the fear of finding out you have a non-white ancestor outside of the context of the Deep Ones in The Shadow over Innsmouth? I believe I brought it up in response to Hussar mentioning that he believed it was a criticism of miscenegation.

White supremacists didn’t fear miscegenation only with blacks. “Finding a Jew in the woodpile” (a euphemism for discovering jewish ancestors in your ancestry) was at least as horrific as finding non-Caucasian ancestors. So using that as the basis for your discounting the miscegenation hypothesis is shaky.

I believe I have pointed out that nothing in the story really matches with miscenegation, but closely matches a creeping fear of one day going insane like your parents. For example, how does hybrid children appearing normal until slowly beginning the transformation into a Deep One reflect on miscenegation? South Park did an episode where Cartman is fooled into thinking he has suddenly turned "ginger" one morning, or you hav the M.A.S.H. epsiode where a prejudiced soldier is afraid of getting "dark" blood and turning black, but you would have to be very ignorant to think you could wake up one morning and suddenly have dark skin or curly hair because one of your ancestors turned out to be African.

 

[Minion X]

When we were talking about blacks being considered “nonhuman”, we’re talking about white supremacists’ attitudes only, not the general population. This is a position absolutely nobody was taking.

You have me lost me here. What position was "nobody" taking on what? I believe we were talking about if there was anything particularly unique about slavery in the US.

 

[Janx]

It sounds like you are suggesting that Yasuke was fated to be a samurai, which is pretty out there.

Also, I do not get why you are bringing Keanu Reeves into this.

Because Keanu Reeves did a movie as a white guy in Japan, and we all that that was interesting.

It's very telling then, when a Black person is doing it, we zoom in on the slavery angle.

 

[cranberry]

Ah, so, completely off topic and having nothing to do with the conversation. Ok, fair enough.

I was responding to a comment from another poster. Topical drift happens...

But then again, efforts to pigeonhole a group of people is relevant to the conversation, as doing so would (should be) controversial.

I know that you're hyper focused on slavery and Lovecraft, but "controversial content" covers a wide variety of topics.

 

[Kaodi]

At this point I would totally be onboard with WotC publishing a new setting scrubbed of all controversial content and then coming back to this idea in 5, 10, or 15 years so we could talk about whether they had made a whole new set of mistakes.

 

[cranberry]

At this point I would totally be onboard with WotC publishing a new setting scrubbed of all controversial content and then coming back to this idea in 5, 10, or 15 years so we could talk about whether they had made a whole new set of mistakes.

Yes, It occurred to me that WoTC discovered that they could use the "scrub stuff of controversial content" initiative as a way to churn out substandard products and spin it as "we provide the structure so the DM's can fill in the rest".

And as I said before ,IMO, such a move by WoTC will be beneficial to third party content creators.