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Bonus languages in One D&D backgrounds goes contrary to their other goals
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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 8743268" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p>Right, so far so good.</p><p></p><p>The problem with this is that it requires weighing every conceivable interpretation, which is not only impractical but also impossible, and then weighing contradictory interpretations against each other to decide which should be given more weight. Hence why the ethicality should be viewed as inherent to the nature of the action unto itself, rather than the consequences that they generate. For instance, murder is inherently wrong unto itself, not because the consequences might be deleterious for people (which correctly notes that it's not okay to murder someone even if they're a "bad person" or if you think no one will care). Of course, this also points out that fictional instances of a bad thing aren't the same as actual instances of it, since RPGs tend to involve murder on a large scale without anyone being hurt by it.</p><p></p><p>The idea that what we consume has an effect on our worldviews is an idea which remains controversial, largely because the exact nature of what that effect is remains difficult (at best) to measure, let alone attribute to any particular source. This is especially true with regard to self-evident fiction (as opposed to, say, media that presents itself as factual in nature), which adults (presuming they don't have mental health problems preventing them from distinguishing between fantasy and reality) will be necessarily predisposed to dismissing in terms of shaping a worldview. For an example of this, notice how (at least until recently) violent crime rates were going down despite a rise in violent video game availability.</p><p></p><p>Which isn't to say that there's no effect at all, but in most cases this results in very short-term changes in mood in response to stimuli, such as sad movies making us feel sad, action films making us feel excited, porn making us aroused, etc. But those are all short-term effects, and are highly obtrusive in nature (e.g. there's no subconscious "programming" going on). To that end, the idea that repeated consumption of fiction will cause people to internalize (and translate, since quite often that fiction doesn't have a 1:1 parallel between what it presents and the real world) the messages it contains, which as noted often need to be translated anyway, is a much harder row to hoe. While I have no doubt that people have <a href="https://owenkcstephens.com/2022/04/21/an-essay-from-matt-daley/" target="_blank">strongly held feelings</a> about what they find personally off-putting in an RPG, to bring this back around to the context under discussion, I don't think that's necessarily a compelling argument unto itself for changing the presentation of the material in question.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 8743268, member: 8461"] Right, so far so good. The problem with this is that it requires weighing every conceivable interpretation, which is not only impractical but also impossible, and then weighing contradictory interpretations against each other to decide which should be given more weight. Hence why the ethicality should be viewed as inherent to the nature of the action unto itself, rather than the consequences that they generate. For instance, murder is inherently wrong unto itself, not because the consequences might be deleterious for people (which correctly notes that it's not okay to murder someone even if they're a "bad person" or if you think no one will care). Of course, this also points out that fictional instances of a bad thing aren't the same as actual instances of it, since RPGs tend to involve murder on a large scale without anyone being hurt by it. The idea that what we consume has an effect on our worldviews is an idea which remains controversial, largely because the exact nature of what that effect is remains difficult (at best) to measure, let alone attribute to any particular source. This is especially true with regard to self-evident fiction (as opposed to, say, media that presents itself as factual in nature), which adults (presuming they don't have mental health problems preventing them from distinguishing between fantasy and reality) will be necessarily predisposed to dismissing in terms of shaping a worldview. For an example of this, notice how (at least until recently) violent crime rates were going down despite a rise in violent video game availability. Which isn't to say that there's no effect at all, but in most cases this results in very short-term changes in mood in response to stimuli, such as sad movies making us feel sad, action films making us feel excited, porn making us aroused, etc. But those are all short-term effects, and are highly obtrusive in nature (e.g. there's no subconscious "programming" going on). To that end, the idea that repeated consumption of fiction will cause people to internalize (and translate, since quite often that fiction doesn't have a 1:1 parallel between what it presents and the real world) the messages it contains, which as noted often need to be translated anyway, is a much harder row to hoe. While I have no doubt that people have [URL='https://owenkcstephens.com/2022/04/21/an-essay-from-matt-daley/']strongly held feelings[/URL] about what they find personally off-putting in an RPG, to bring this back around to the context under discussion, I don't think that's necessarily a compelling argument unto itself for changing the presentation of the material in question. [/QUOTE]
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