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"Red Orc" American Indians and "Yellow Orc" Mongolians in D&D
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<blockquote data-quote="Snarf Zagyg" data-source="post: 8490753" data-attributes="member: 7023840"><p>In another time, it was generally considered that some things would be unavailable. Because production costs money, and there are such things in economics as scarcity. If you didn't buy a book when it was available, you might have no opportunity to ever read it (or would have to seek it out in a limited number of locations). If you didn't see a movie when it was out, you might never see it. And so on. </p><p></p><p>Now, for the most part, the actual cost of providing these products to the consumer is close to 0 (not exactly zero- electricity, servers, etc., but close enough). The only thing that matter is ... rights. That's it. Which is why pretty much everything is available, subject to rights. The ubiquity of streaming services and lack of physical media has both beneficial aspects (you can pretty much get anything, any time, provided you have paid for the specific rights-holding service to allow you to get it) as well as exceptionally negative effects (specifically, that because we don't have ownership of these things, for the most part, we end up with situations like Amazon removing books or 'updating' books from a Kindle, or services that remove episodes or scenes from movies or TV shows). </p><p></p><p>Now, there are different ways to approach this. Some might say, "Well, it's just a product of the modern age. Consider yourself lucky you get anything at all! Back in my day, we had to swim across the Atlantic if we wanted to watch any Beeb shows that weren't on PBS!" Yeah, it's true- there is a lot more availability now, but that doesn't mean that we should blithely accept bowdlerization of media just because there's more of it.</p><p></p><p>More importantly, when we are discussing availability, we are looking at companies that are making decisions based on money. Is the controversy worth the money? If they aren't the rights holder, and they have plenty of other stuff, the usual answer is "Nope." That's why companies like Netflix often just remove whole shows - in an easy example, carrying Little Britain for the remaining period of time wasn't worth the hassle. The calculus often changes for rights-holders, however. The Simpsons is valuable! So when Disney+ (the IP holder) makes decisions, it's not going to jettison the whole series. But they do make decisions!</p><p></p><p>Some of them are small and barely noticeable (for example, they remove the word "Catholic" from "the Catholic Church" in one episode). Some are much more noticeable (the Michael Jackson episode they removed was the season opener of S3, so ... it just opens with E2). Others are region-specific (yeah, you don't get to see the "Tiananmen" episode in Hong Kong). But you could keep going with Disney+ and with other properties- of course Disney has Splash on their streaming service, and of course they digitally edited to add more hair because you don't want people thinking Darryl Hannah doesn't have clothes. </p><p></p><p>The point here is twofold-</p><p>1. Yes, profits matter. Which means that it is not "fearmongering" when people are concerned about the remedies requested by the OP. I think that the OP was correct in his analysis (and I think that there are additional problematic elements that he didn't cover, due to the focus on American Indian issues). But I also don't think that any company wants to engage in an iterative process regarding all of their legacy product that <em>doesn't make them much money</em>. There's a big difference between the amount of money a streaming property can get you, as opposed to the amount of money the .pdfs of old TTRPG products can get you- especially when they aren't even part of the core.</p><p></p><p>2. I think we need to be more observant over the very real problems involved in sanitizing things that make us uncomfortable. <u>I know that is not what the OP asked for</u>, instead asking for amends, and money paid to charity, and a specific and detailed apology based on the actual wrongs as opposed to the disclaimer, but corporations always find it easier to remove or sanitize than to grapple with real issues. What, do you think Disney+ is going to have <em>Song of the South </em>available on Disney+ with a full disclaimer? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> I don't think so. And this gets to the even more uncomfortable issue of judgment- I can completely agree with the OP, I can believe that he is right, and I can still worry that this is similar to what happened with the Simpsons Tiananmen episode- in other words, I tend to error on the side of critiquing (sunlight is the best disinfectant) than on removing because I think it is important to have history intact, warts and all. And I have a real worry that it would be much easier for these products, which are not profit centers for the company, to simply be removed. </p><p></p><p>Anyway, I'm ending this digression here. As I wrote, the OP did an excellent and in-depth analysis, which is always appreciated. I disagree strongly with the OP's proposed remedies.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Snarf Zagyg, post: 8490753, member: 7023840"] In another time, it was generally considered that some things would be unavailable. Because production costs money, and there are such things in economics as scarcity. If you didn't buy a book when it was available, you might have no opportunity to ever read it (or would have to seek it out in a limited number of locations). If you didn't see a movie when it was out, you might never see it. And so on. Now, for the most part, the actual cost of providing these products to the consumer is close to 0 (not exactly zero- electricity, servers, etc., but close enough). The only thing that matter is ... rights. That's it. Which is why pretty much everything is available, subject to rights. The ubiquity of streaming services and lack of physical media has both beneficial aspects (you can pretty much get anything, any time, provided you have paid for the specific rights-holding service to allow you to get it) as well as exceptionally negative effects (specifically, that because we don't have ownership of these things, for the most part, we end up with situations like Amazon removing books or 'updating' books from a Kindle, or services that remove episodes or scenes from movies or TV shows). Now, there are different ways to approach this. Some might say, "Well, it's just a product of the modern age. Consider yourself lucky you get anything at all! Back in my day, we had to swim across the Atlantic if we wanted to watch any Beeb shows that weren't on PBS!" Yeah, it's true- there is a lot more availability now, but that doesn't mean that we should blithely accept bowdlerization of media just because there's more of it. More importantly, when we are discussing availability, we are looking at companies that are making decisions based on money. Is the controversy worth the money? If they aren't the rights holder, and they have plenty of other stuff, the usual answer is "Nope." That's why companies like Netflix often just remove whole shows - in an easy example, carrying Little Britain for the remaining period of time wasn't worth the hassle. The calculus often changes for rights-holders, however. The Simpsons is valuable! So when Disney+ (the IP holder) makes decisions, it's not going to jettison the whole series. But they do make decisions! Some of them are small and barely noticeable (for example, they remove the word "Catholic" from "the Catholic Church" in one episode). Some are much more noticeable (the Michael Jackson episode they removed was the season opener of S3, so ... it just opens with E2). Others are region-specific (yeah, you don't get to see the "Tiananmen" episode in Hong Kong). But you could keep going with Disney+ and with other properties- of course Disney has Splash on their streaming service, and of course they digitally edited to add more hair because you don't want people thinking Darryl Hannah doesn't have clothes. The point here is twofold- 1. Yes, profits matter. Which means that it is not "fearmongering" when people are concerned about the remedies requested by the OP. I think that the OP was correct in his analysis (and I think that there are additional problematic elements that he didn't cover, due to the focus on American Indian issues). But I also don't think that any company wants to engage in an iterative process regarding all of their legacy product that [I]doesn't make them much money[/I]. There's a big difference between the amount of money a streaming property can get you, as opposed to the amount of money the .pdfs of old TTRPG products can get you- especially when they aren't even part of the core. 2. I think we need to be more observant over the very real problems involved in sanitizing things that make us uncomfortable. [U]I know that is not what the OP asked for[/U], instead asking for amends, and money paid to charity, and a specific and detailed apology based on the actual wrongs as opposed to the disclaimer, but corporations always find it easier to remove or sanitize than to grapple with real issues. What, do you think Disney+ is going to have [I]Song of the South [/I]available on Disney+ with a full disclaimer? :) I don't think so. And this gets to the even more uncomfortable issue of judgment- I can completely agree with the OP, I can believe that he is right, and I can still worry that this is similar to what happened with the Simpsons Tiananmen episode- in other words, I tend to error on the side of critiquing (sunlight is the best disinfectant) than on removing because I think it is important to have history intact, warts and all. And I have a real worry that it would be much easier for these products, which are not profit centers for the company, to simply be removed. Anyway, I'm ending this digression here. As I wrote, the OP did an excellent and in-depth analysis, which is always appreciated. I disagree strongly with the OP's proposed remedies. [/QUOTE]
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