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.

I know there's this big push to believe that somehow we're living in the worst of times, but, seriously, by every possible measure, we are better today than we were fifty years ago.

Better than 50 years ago? Agree.

Better than 10 years ago? Harder sell.
 

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Better than 50 years ago? Agree.

Better than 10 years ago? Harder sell.
10 years ago and 25 years ago both have arguments to be made.

But there are a lot of other positive things not making a lot of news. Like the massive advancements in things like stem cell research and renewable power in the last few years, including solar and wind passing nuclear for electricity generation in the US for the first time this year. And the signs that China's CO2 emissions may have actually peaked and be coming down, with the massive growth of cleaner energy there.
 

10 years ago and 25 years ago both have arguments to be made.

But there are a lot of other positive things not making a lot of news. Like the massive advancements in things like stem cell research and renewable power in the last few years, including solar and wind passing nuclear for electricity generation in the US for the first time this year. And the signs that China's CO2 emissions may have actually peaked and be coming down, with the massive growth of cleaner energy there.

Yeah, those things give me hope... but then I wonder how much they are going to get lost as we seem to be increasingly hurtling towards a variety of cliffs.

It isn't that I'm trying to downplay good environmental news, just that in terms of socio-economics, things seem to be getting bleaker, and we seem to be refusing to enact programs we KNOW work and would do good, because of ill-conceived opinions of retribution or morality.

Just as a simple example, we KNOW that clinics that provide safe spaces for drug users to inject drugs reduce drug related deaths and help get those individuals within reach of programs to assist them in combating their illness and getting them to a better place. But instead of doing that, we insist on having cops break down doors, throw people to ground, then throw them into a cell where every problem they have contributing to their addiction is magnified and their chances of getting a better life plummet. Why? Because drug users "are bad people who deserve to be punished" and therefore helping them out of bad situations isn't popular. Even though it works, even though it is more humane, even though it reduces drug problems, and we KNOW these things are true because we have seen these programs working. No one cares about the facts, they care that the morally bad people got punished for being bad.
 

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
Actually! there is another point that I had forgot when I was replying to this, I think if people understood rhetoric, how debates should address a premise and the various rhetorical devices that can be employed to obfuscate the point, politicians and many journalists and all forms of professional agitators would have a harder time
 


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.
I'm thinking that it's a bit less extreme than being sterilized or murdered. And, it's not like this was the distant past. This was going on in my lifetime.
 


10 years ago and 25 years ago both have arguments to be made.

But there are a lot of other positive things not making a lot of news. Like the massive advancements in things like stem cell research and renewable power in the last few years, including solar and wind passing nuclear for electricity generation in the US for the first time this year. And the signs that China's CO2 emissions may have actually peaked and be coming down, with the massive growth of cleaner energy there.
Again, overall, I think that there's a pretty solid argument that things are getting better. Granted, it's never just a straight line. There are stops and starts and right now, things are a bit... err... not great. But, I do believe that the overall trends are upwards.
 

Again, 30's or 40's? Try 70's and 80's. This isn't ancient history. This is my generation's actions. People my age did this stuff or had this stuff done to them.

I meant in reference to Nazi germany. I grew up in the early 80s so I remember how things were then as well
 

I'm thinking that it's a bit less extreme than being sterilized or murdered. And, it's not like this was the distant past. This was going on in my lifetime.

No one is saying that is less extreme. But other things being worse in the past doesn't make this a non-concern either.
 

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