D&D General On Early D&D and Problematic Faves: How to Grapple with the Sins of the Past

I dunno. It's been a few generations since the last time we had large groups of people act on final solutions. The idea that somehow people were less likely to believe garbage and live in an information vacuum in the past seems a bit out of sync wiht history, considering what widespread beliefs of the time led to.

My sense is humans adapt to new media over time. When propaganda posters first came out, they were effective, but who really is persuaded by them to the extent people were in the old days? When the printing press was invented you had religious turmoil in Europe (there were lots of reasons for that, but the printing press and rapid dissemination of ideas I think was part of it). Now we have another massive shift in communication technology. I think it is taking us time to adapt to it (and you see it when you look back and think about the kinds of arguments and memes that were influential a few years ago that have lost their persuasiveness over time). But instant communication on a global scale is probably going to take us time to get use to. I agree, that there is something unique about now, versus the 30s and 40s, is not accurate. People clearly were wiling to believe all kinds of nonsense in that time
 

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My sense is humans adapt to new media over time. When propaganda posters first came out, they were effective, but who really is persuaded by them to the extent people were in the old days? When the printing press was invented you had religious turmoil in Europe (there were lots of reasons for that, but the printing press and rapid dissemination of ideas I think was part of it). Now we have another massive shift in communication technology. I think it is taking us time to adapt to it (and you see it when you look back and think about the kinds of arguments and memes that were influential a few years ago that have lost their persuasiveness over time). But instant communication on a global scale is probably going to take us time to get use to. I agree, that there is something unique about now, versus the 30s and 40s, is not accurate. People clearly were wiling to believe all kinds of nonsense in that time
I think we're only now starting to see skepticism over claims in all forms of media. It's taken a firehose of dis/misinformation over the past 6 years to do it, but people are starting to ask for more forms of confirmation before accepting the first report out of Twitter or CNN or Fox or YouTube.
 

My sense is humans adapt to new media over time. When propaganda posters first came out, they were effective, but who really is persuaded by them to the extent people were in the old days? When the printing press was invented you had religious turmoil in Europe (there were lots of reasons for that, but the printing press and rapid dissemination of ideas I think was part of it). Now we have another massive shift in communication technology. I think it is taking us time to adapt to it (and you see it when you look back and think about the kinds of arguments and memes that were influential a few years ago that have lost their persuasiveness over time). But instant communication on a global scale is probably going to take us time to get use to. I agree, that there is something unique about now, versus the 30s and 40s, is not accurate. People clearly were wiling to believe all kinds of nonsense in that time
This will help, but many people seem to have forgotten or perhaps never learned to have an proper argument where the premises are properly engaged with. Another thing is we the people, need to figure out how to pay for good quality journalism. Where an interviewer is properly briefed and knows enough to ask pertinent questions instead of whatever fluff the other person offers.
It is astonishing to live in an age where some comedians conduct better journalistic investigation than some major new outlets.
 

This will help, but many people seem to have forgotten or perhaps never learned to have an proper argument where the premises are properly engaged with. Another thing is we the people, need to figure out how to pay for good quality journalism. Where an interviewer is properly briefed and knows enough to ask pertinent questions instead of whatever fluff the other person offers.
It is astonishing to live in an age where some comedians conduct better journalistic investigation than some major new outlets.

Part of it though is people are having conversations and not structured debates. People can throw out a premise on a forum, but others are free to completely ignore the premise and the discussion can drift. And many people are coming into these discussions with wildly different sets of assumptions (often feeling those assumptions are foundational fact), which makes it harder.

I don't think comedians are doing better journalism. I think we have a lot of bad journalism for sure, and I think people like comedic journalism because it is funny and washed down well, but I would throw in stuff like the Daily show as contributing to the problem myself (and I loved the Daily show and Colbert, and the Onion was great, but people shouldn't be using those as primary news sources). I think both comedic forms of journalism and cable journalism play to the same type of dopamine hits people are looking for and the same "I agree with that so it is true/funny" mentality
 

Part of it though is people are having conversations and not structured debates. People can throw out a premise on a forum, but others are free to completely ignore the premise and the discussion can drift. And many people are coming into these discussions with wildly different sets of assumptions (often feeling those assumptions are foundational fact), which makes it harder.
I am not really talking about forums, not just forums but it seems to me that many people still go with the impression a speaker makes rather than the substance of what was said. For instance, the famous Nixon- Kennedy debate where most people that listened to the debate on the radio believed that Nixon was the more persuasive speaker and the majority of people that watched it on television considered Kennedy the winner.
I don't think comedians are doing better journalism. I think we have a lot of bad journalism for sure, and I think people like comedic journalism because it is funny and washed down well, but I would throw in stuff like the Daily show as contributing to the problem myself (and I loved the Daily show and Colbert, and the Onion was great, but people shouldn't be using those as primary news sources). I think both comedic forms of journalism and cable journalism play to the same type of dopamine hits people are looking for and the same "I agree with that so it is true/funny" mentality
Well, I did not say that comedians were doing better journalism, in general, I said that "some comedians were conducting better journalistic investigation than some major new outlets."
In general comedians are focusing on topics that interest them, not a general coverage one would expect from a news outlet. A lot of news articles I come across are more op-ed pieces than reportage. A lot of TV interviews are very soft, with a lot of interviewees left to make very handwavey claims and they are accepted at face value.
I believe it is exacerbated by the current pay walling of most major new outlets. I understand why paywalling occurs but back in the days of print media dominating one could buy an issue of a journal for one article of interest but now one has to subscribe to a whole year.
 

This will help, but many people seem to have forgotten or perhaps never learned to have an proper argument where the premises are properly engaged with. Another thing is we the people, need to figure out how to pay for good quality journalism. Where an interviewer is properly briefed and knows enough to ask pertinent questions instead of whatever fluff the other person offers.
It is astonishing to live in an age where some comedians conduct better journalistic investigation than some major new outlets.
It would also require the primary goal of journalism to be reporting facts over opinion and over amassing revenue for the parent media outlet.
 

It would also require the primary goal of journalism to be reporting facts over opinion and over amassing revenue for the parent media outlet.
Yes, which is why I think that it should be reader/viewer/crowd funded, paid for rather than advertiser/rich person influencer paid for. How to get from here to there I have no idea.
I also believe that the 24 hour news cycle is bad, especially when advertiser funded. It overhypes everything to retain engagement and it does no follow-up.
 

I believe it is exacerbated by the current pay walling of most major new outlets. I understand why paywalling occurs but back in the days of print media dominating one could buy an issue of a journal for one article of interest but now one has to subscribe to a whole year.

I agree paywalling is a very big issue
 

For me, separating the art from the artist is purely on a case by case basis and I hold no standard other than the way I feel about it to whether I enjoy the work or throw the artist along with their work into the garbage. Actively profiting off of it, like Rowling, is pretty much a guarantee to end up in the latter.

I think there is a difference between books and other products. I have no choice in buying food or clothes. I do have a choice in buying books or games. Yes, I can't be perfect in my consumption to avoid my money going to any bad actors, but perfect is the enemy of good, and I try to do what I can.

Sure, but 80 to 90% of people don't care about dead authors and their opinions.

Even Hussar, who has been very very vocal in their dislike of H.P. Lovecraft and their virulent racism, has never once said that someone cannot enjoy works in the Mythos... the most they have ever stated is that they cannot enjoy them (because of the racism) and that they wish DnD didn't recommend the books to people (because of the racism).

And stating that Lovecraft was a racist, and that you don't want to read his works, because they are full of racism... really no one I have ever seen has seriously said that they can't understand the that viewpoint.

Where we tend to get a lot more muddled and complicated, is living authors. Because then there is no historical events to research and see that we live in a different Era. No... they live today, in our era. They are actively working in the industries they are in, they are actively shaping conversations around them. And sometimes those "alternative takes" on their work is important.

I mean, Rowling can state she had no alternative motives with her crime novel, but as a very active voice declaring that all transwomen are really predators seeking to harm women, and pushing for laws against their existence, making the murderer in her story a mentally unstable (and ugly) man who dresses as a woman (but is clearly an ugly man) to sneak into women's spaces to murder women.... Well, she can state that she wasn't pushing an agenda, but kind of hard to defend that, isn't it? And for many people, it becomes really concerning when people go and buy that particular book "because it is such a good story"

Or when the guy behind Shadiversity published his book that was practically pro-rape, right around the time his misogynistic beliefs were coming to light. Makes it really hard to say that you want to go and buy his book and support him, because it is REALLY clear what was motivating some of his writing. [I haven't read the book, but passages of it were read in a review I watched, and it was HORRIFYING]
Oh damn. I hadn't heard about Shad.

But yes, for me, the main dividing lines are 1. mandatory consumption like food and shelter and food and health insurance vs optional like books and games and entertainment, and 2. Living vs dead authors/people I'm supporting.

Lovecraft can't spend any royalties on lobbying to hurt people he was prejudiced against. Rowling has openly confirmed that she spends her money on her causes and opined that people buying her stuff means they agree with her.
 
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Sorry to answer it this way, but, define "accurately judging".

After all, we can look at actual evidence - direct quotes, various other sources - and present our arguments for whatever point we're trying to make. And, if those arguments are compelling enough to the reader, then we are "accurate" for a given value of accurate. Of course, later on down the line, someone else may come up with a different interpretation, even from the same direct quotes and sources, and that may also be "accurate".

Thus The Lord of the Rings both is and is not an allegorical work of the Second World War.

Depends on whose interpretation you favor.

The true problem is in thinking that there is one and only one conclusion to be found.

To be clear about my previous statements, I wasn't saying there is one true meaning of a work. There can definitely be lots of different meanings found. I just don't believe in cutting the author out entirely, or having the exercise of understanding the author's intended meaning not be important (I think that should be our first effort when we read something).

In the case of Lord of the Rings I always assumed it was allegory for WWI, but that aside, when it comes to stuff like this, there are areas of a work that are 'reasonable debate territory'. Tolkien may have rejected the idea that it was allegorical, but it is hard not to see how stuff like trench warfare wasn't working its way into the book, and how concerns about a large scale existential conflict wasn't also working its way into the book. I think what is important in those kinds of discussions is to at least note Tolkien's statements and try to give them a fair hearing. But author's can have subconscious things that make their way into a work. I would just generally be cautious about it

I could see reading it as allegorical of WW1. People can judge the work that way, Death of the Author style, despite Tolkien's saying that he despises allegory in all forms, and explicit statements that the work was not intended to be allegorical. The allegorical readings I've seen have not seemed to stand very well or match the text aptly.

Tolkien did distinguish between allegory and "applicability", and say that certainly elements of his stories are inspired by and do parallel things in the real world. His war experiences obviously informed his views on war and how he wrote about war. In his letters he likened orcs to real people, though said that such people are on all sides in real world wars.

I think we shouldn't minimize how much a regular person's life can be ruined by public shaming or attention on social media. A job is everything. That is a roof over your head, that is food on your table, and jobs are hard to get for a lot of people (especially jobs that pay all the bills). Being ostracized, in an age of global interconnection through social media and the internet is one of the worst things a person can experience (even in ancient greece that was considered an especially cruel punishment----though there it was a formal punishment so there is clearly a difference). It is true people aren't getting dragged from their homes and murdered, but I don't think that is a reason to be happy or okay with how cruel we are being to one another in this age. Also suicide is a very real byproduct of this kind of social media behavior. Many people are one bad day on social media away from taking their lives.

I think it is unwise to compare the present situation to say Nazi Germany or forced sterilizations of the past. Those are objectively much worse. But I look around and I do not like what people are becoming in their interactions with one another, in the levels of cruelty folks seem comfortable with when there is keyboard distance between themselves and the life they are trying to ruin
I think this is more a matter of visibility. When I was a kid, literal gay bashing was still a pretty common thing. There are real problems with social media and I agree that anonymity and the feeling of distance and insulation enables some awful behavior. But it's still not taking a brick or bat to someone's skull.

Ostracization was much more brutal and punitive in the past when it was harder to move to a new community or have transferable skills. One silver lining to our more atomized society is that it's easier for people to pick up and move, maybe somewhere more accepting, or a big city where you won't stand out so much, than it once was. As many vulnerable kids and members of disadvantaged and persecuted communities have done over the years.
 
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