D&D General Old School DND talks if DND is racist.

[HJFudge]

You asked, and yeah this looks like justifying child murder to me, pretty clearly.

You're saying it's okay for him to do that. He's just a naughty CG boi. It's moral relativism of a hilarious kind.

Thats because your reading things that aren't there and representing the point dishonestly.

This isn't surprising. This is kinda your modus operandi.

In fact, your absolutism justifies child murder. Cause guess what? Those 10,000 dead, some would be children. Children you murdered, because you could've saved them but chose not to.

What a monster.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

No the deaths are on the Japanese.

Truman made his decision with the information they had. They had no spies in the internal workings of the Japanese high command. He had three options.

1. Do nothing hope for the best. Japan surrenders in a week or two best case scenario. Japan probably doesn't surrender in that time frame.

2. Use the bombs.

3. Invade Japan in a few months ( by then the death toll already exceeded the bombs deathtoll).

An average of 100k died per week in Asia and that was accelerating.

Estimates for death toll were extrapolated from Saipan/Iwo Jima/Okinawa.

Also the allied PoWs.

So he had 3 bad choices on limited information. What's the technical term for that?

There's actually a bit more to it than that. If I might dare recommend a podcaster with a different political alignment to mine (the horror! he's slightly on the right), Dan Carlin's Hardcore History is very good, and specifically his Supernova in the East podcasts (which is a lot of hours, I admit), is really good on the decision they were making re the bomb when they get to it, and doesn't wimp out on it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Thats because your reading things that aren't there and representing the point dishonestly.

This isn't surprising. This is kinda your modus operandi.

In fact, your absolutism justifies child murder. Cause guess what? Those 10,000 dead, some would be children. Children you murdered, because you could've saved them but chose not to.

What a monster.

So I'm quoting you, and you don't like it, and you're having to make stuff up to argue with me? Okay buddy I think we're largely done here

 

[Zardnaar]

There's actually a bit more to it than that. If I might dare recommend a podcaster with a different political alignment to mine (the horror! he's slightly on the right), Dan Carlin's Hardcore History is very good, and specifically his Supernova in the East podcasts (which is a lot of hours, I admit), is really good on the decision they were making re the bomb when they get to it, and doesn't wimp out on it.

As I said I used the university library.
In all of these no win type scenarios depending on the situation I go with least bad option or least bad option for my nation.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

They firebombed Japanese oil product ion but by then they had already run out of oil.

In Europe it cut Nazi production by a third so saved Soviet lives but the killer was German oil facilities.

In every case if it's your people dying vs them every nation went with them.

Stay at home drink beer, smoke a erm nvrmind. War bad.

No.

That's not an accurate representation of the purpose, nature or impact of the firebomb raids I'm describing, nor is it true that "oil facilities" caused the fires. I don't where you're getting this misinformation from, but that's actual misinformation/disinformation/propaganda. It is not historical fact. The areas in Japan were not "empty", they didn't have "oil product" in them at all. This isn't the right thread to discuss this in detail, I but I want to flag for anyone reading this that I dunno why you're saying that, but that's propaganda, not history. If this is from your university library, well I'm scared to think what books they have in there. Sounds like they were last updated in about 1970.

 

[Wicked Woodpecker]

Yeah, both groups shared that traumatic experience, though, didn't they? The ones who talked like hobbits, and the ones who talked like orcs. And one group is lionized, the other demonized.

I agree that he's not trying to dehumanise them, but it's kind of weird, because lore surrounding them does dehumanize them deeply, so it's like he wants to make them human and really, really bad. Not entirely sure what's going on there, not entirely sure Tolkien knew either.

TBH considering how Westron dialects (aside - weirdly High Numenorean) are translated to English/Germanic dialects (Hobbits with their common English, Rohirrim with Old English, Rhovannionians with Gothic / Proto-West Germanic, using specific dialects for orcs speaking Westron (aside of... why would they speak it generally) - is probably meant to make connection with proletariat of big industrial cities. Which Tolkien despised - not proletariat - but big industrialism. Therefore all his big bads - Morgoth, Sauron, Saruman - in a way are industrial forces, so orcs naturally lands sort of as enslaved proletariat in a way - as much as Tolkien rarely goes full allegory - used dialects are closest we have to allegory in his writing.

I think thing is - that his Legendarium is sort of split between Indoeuropean Germanic Mythos and Catholic sensibilities and those are not that compatible. Orcs started their beginning when Melkor was one of gods of Arda, so they were his genuine creation - now later such powers were taken from Valars, but... overall orcs were already all around as villains.

That's what you get when you create fantasy setting based only on specific pseudo-Finnic greetings

 

[HJFudge]

So I'm quoting you, and you don't like it, and you're having to make stuff up to argue with me? Okay buddy I think we're largely done here

Serious question: Do you have a mental disorder? It's reading as if you do. And while my first instinct is to just label you a liar and move on, I don't want to be unkind to someone with an actual severe mental issue.

I am not trying to degrade or be mean. I really am not. I am attempting to understand. Because theres only two options here. Either you are lying about what I am saying to prove your point on the internet (this is what I consider the most likely scenario) or you have cognitive issues.

 

[Bohandas]

D&D isn't racist. Gygax and Arneson simply chose a poor term to describe the characte species.

It's incredibly stupid that people are this hung up on one word being used incorrectly and even stupider that WotC doesn't just swap in a word without provocative connotations.

 

[Umbran]

Hiya.

Orc's are imaginary... humans are not.

Reiterating, what you do in your own home is your business - I'm talking about published works.

Folks have already brought up the Thermian Argument, haven't they?

The fact that orcs are imaginary really isn't relevant. All characters in fiction are imaginary! If that defense held water, then you could always do whatever you wanted with any fictional representations without reproach, but that is empirically not the case. Symbols matter to real humans. You'd have to go much further, and establish that there's a clear line of "imaginary enough", that magically makes it okay. Good luck with that.

In the end, you have one or more real-world humans who have made a choice to depict a thing that looks and operates a whole lot like real-world racism. Why would anyone really want to do that? Make a world that mirrors some of the worst elements of our own, and not for the explicit purposes of having characters fight against that aspect?

Because it is simpler? That's a privilege argument - since we are in a position in which we can ignore it, we will do so, because that is more pleasant. That's either ignorant, or pretty explicitly choosing to disengage your empathy and respect for those who cannot ignore it, because they live it.

Ignorance isn't a sin, and can be rectified. But, once informed, willfully choosing to disengage the empathy is... not a good look. Do that publicly, and you deserve a heap of criticism for that.

 

[Umbran]

Serious question: Do you have a mental disorder?

Mod Note:

Stop right there. Positions of the form, "in order to disagree with me, you must have cognitive flaws" are really presumptuous and insulting. Don't follow that line any further, please and thank you.