Chinese Government Burns Cthulhu RPG Print Run

Tonguez · Mar 28, 2019

billd91 said:
Maybe... but before offering them too much benefit of the doubt, there's a difference in them suppressing materials designed for their own market and suppressing materials being processed for foreign companies for a foreign market. They've usually been pretty compliant with American businesses exploiting their labor force and lax environmental regulations. Too much of this kind of behavior loses them business that will probably go to the next cheap country (like India or Vietnam). Kind of makes me wonder if there's an additional factor involved in this case.

to be honest this is the most surprising part to me, that the PRC would intervene with a processing job intended for a foreign market, which makes me think that there's either something more involved or its some local official being a bit too overzealous.

Either way I guess they didn't like the particular depiction of Shanghai

Dannyalcatraz · Mar 28, 2019

Kind of makes me wonder if there's an additional factor involved in this case.

Well, there’s this grey fella. His name is “Trade War.”

LuisCarlos17f · Mar 28, 2019

We aren't talk to talk about serious matters, this isn't the right place. But we can talk about the link between speculative fiction and real world, or with the History.

If we talk about a cyberpunk RPG then we talk about the reports against abuses by oligarchies and corporatocracies, or how current sci-fi needs its equivalent to "Atlas's shrugged" by Ayn Rand. Not always is "fault by OCP" or "Umbrella Corp is the evil corp".

I hope I can say this: Speculative fiction should teach us about economy shouldn't be controlled totally by politicians because as Thomas Sowell said (with other words) the worst mistake is allowing to choose for you who don't worry about suffering consequences to be wrong.

China can't rule the world because they will lose the cultural war. The censure and lack of enough self-criticism will block the necessary creativity to dominate the industry of speculative fiction. Japan and South-Korea have got better tools to thwart Chinese tries of using speculative fiction as a propaganda weapon for example videogames where the main antagonists are a satirical allegory about Maoist dictatorship, like George Orwell's "Animal Farm".

Yaarel · Mar 28, 2019

China is a totalitarian dictatorship with technological ambitions.

Even as we speak, Google is continuing its collaboration with China to give China complete control over Chinese access to internet. The project is called Dragonfly, a kind of search engine that uses AI to flag and black out anything vaguely relating to human rights or peaceful protest. Google collaborates to remove human rights and to search and destroy any human rights activists.

Google kept the project secret, even from most of its own employees, who Google correctly believed would be horrified by such a project. The project was exposed, and there was outrage, resignations, and public condemnation.

Google said that it discontinued Dragonfly. But recently it was exposed that Google continued to work on the Dragonfly project, secretly, with only the highest management in the loop.

Think twice about ever trusting Google again. Anything can be used against you, if using Google search engines. Especially if you are innocent.

Yaarel · Mar 28, 2019

Ironically, the motto of the Google corporation is, "Dont be evil". Most of its employees feel strongly about this ideal.

Turns out. Google is evil.

Sadras · Mar 28, 2019

charlesatan said:
Without reading the book in question, grounds for destroying the print run might include:

* Time travel

Why would time travel be an issue?

billd91 · Mar 28, 2019

Dannyalcatraz said:
Well, there’s this grey fella. His name is “Trade War.”

It had crossed my mind, but torching a game's supplement's print run seems too small to be worthwhile... unless we start seeing lots of other little issues crop up - as in a low-level harassment campaign.

Umbran · Mar 28, 2019

Yaarel said:
China is a totalitarian dictatorship with technological ambitions.

Even as we speak, Google...

Even as we speak, Google is not relevant to this discussion. It was a *game book* from a small company that got burned. Is Google producing RPG books? No? Then it isn't relevant here.

Folks - yes, this is a news report about a government action, so it is hard not to be commenting on that government. But please keep it at least in bounds for a board that is focused on discussion how to pretend to be elves, please and thank you.

Sepulchrave II · Mar 28, 2019

Sadras said:
Why would time travel be an issue?

Suggesting that prior periods of Chinese history or alternate timelines might provide a better reality than the current communist utopia is counterrevolutionary poison.

Ovinomancer · Mar 28, 2019

billd91 said:
Maybe... but before offering them too much benefit of the doubt, there's a difference in them suppressing materials designed for their own market and suppressing materials being processed for foreign companies for a foreign market. They've usually been pretty compliant with American businesses exploiting their labor force and lax environmental regulations. Too much of this kind of behavior loses them business that will probably go to the next cheap country (like India or Vietnam). Kind of makes me wonder if there's an additional factor involved in this case.

Really? This surprises you?

Let's say that cocaine is legal in another country. Is it okay to produce cocaine in your country, so long as it is only for export to a country where it is legal? Laws rarely consider end-user of illegal activities because it's so hard to actually police who the end-users are.

Sepulchrave II said:
Suggesting that prior periods of Chinese history or alternate timelines might provide a better reality than the current communist utopia is counterrevolutionary poison.

"This is the best of all possible worlds."

Somehow, I don't think Voltaire had in mind the future Chinese government when he wrote Candide.

Chinese Government Burns Cthulhu RPG Print Run

Tonguez

A suffusion of yellow

Dannyalcatraz

Schmoderator

LuisCarlos17f

Legend

Yaarel

He Mage

Yaarel

He Mage

Sadras

Legend

billd91

Not your screen monkey (he/him)

Umbran

Mod Squad

Sepulchrave II

Legend

Ovinomancer

No flips for you!

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