D&D General The Art and the Artist: Discussing Problematic Issues in D&D

[HammerMan]

Second, I'm sorry, but I don't agree with your principle. If I buy a kitchen knife, or even a fork, and harm myself by using it, is it really the fault of the knife ? It all depends as to HOW you are using it. Evidence of the majority of people over the world not being harmed by kitchen knife is not trumped by the few harming themselves with it, and even in the US, I don't think that people are suing firms producing kitchen knives.

now we get to weigh the usefulness against the potential harm.

we need knives to cut things (or scissors or blades of some sort) but these tools can be used as weapons. (Most tolls can and many of our favorite pole arms are farming tools). So then we bring this back to a D&D product (funny that is what we are supposed to all be here fore) and is the book as a tool more useful or more harmful?

 

[Mannahnin]

True. However, anecdotes about some people being harmed are (if true) proof of harm.

Anecdotes of some people not being harmed are (if true) not proof of the absence of harm.

So some anecdotes are more useful than others.

interesting though. why would anecdotes be more useful when they are in your favor? Now this also leads to my favorite joke that "The plural of anecdote isn't evidence... but it is, because with enough (normally alot) of anecdotes you can make a testable survey of how many times something can happen"

It has nothing to do with whose favor it's in.

It's a simple logic statement.

If one person is harmed by a thing, that's proof that someone was harmed.

If one person was NOT harmed by a thing, that's proof that THEY were not harmed, but no evidence one way or the other for whether anyone ELSE was harmed.

 

[HammerMan]

It's almost like sociological and emotional harm were difficult to quantify

yeah almost like even professionals who get PHDs can disagree on things a bunch of peeps who want to play make believe(with structure but still make believe) are trying to make sense of.

 

[Umbran]

So we can imagine ...

Mod Note:
And here, folks, we have someone who has either forgotten, or chosen to ignore, the rules regarding commenting on moderation posts!

Is someone running numbers in the back of the room, over how many times folks ignore the rules before someone gets booted from the thread, gets a temporary site ban, or the thread gets closed? Because that's what it feels like.

 

[HammerMan]

It has nothing to do with whose favor it's in.

It's a simple logic statement.

If one person is harmed by a thing, that's proof that someone was harmed.

If one person was NOT harmed by a thing, that's proof that THEY were not harmed, but no evidence one way or the other for whether anyone ELSE was harmed.

but if one person in 10 is harmed by something it is VERY different then if 1 person in 25,000 is harmed by something...

the difference between banning peanut butter in your country and banning nukes... yeah some people can be hurt or even die by eating peanut butter...but it is NOWHERE near the same thing...

If tomorrow I invent a replicator that can feed the world and end all hunger (and in the process do a major blow to capitalism) but 20% of people will be poisoned no one will use the replicator... well someone will but it will be rare. If .001% of people will be poisoned by it (in a world of billions that is still a heck of a lot of people) you will find it more useful then harmful (most likely)

edit just for fun 7,953,952,567 is the curent estimated population of earth... I am going to round up to 8,000,000,000
25% is 2 billion people
.001% is 8 million people
I stand by my belief that more people would risk the .001% then the 25%

 

[payn]

now we get to weigh the usefulness against the potential harm.

we need knives to cut things (or scissors or blades of some sort) but these tools can be used as weapons. (Most tolls can and many of our favorite pole arms are farming tools). So then we bring this back to a D&D product (funny that is what we are supposed to all be here fore) and is the book as a tool more useful or more harmful?

So, we need to clear up the dichotomy. Just because knives are useful, but dangerous, doesn't mean we cant design safer models.

 

[Umbran]

All right one more...

Mod Note:
And, here we go. A threadban for failing to listen to moderator requests! Check your bingo cards, people!

 

[HammerMan]

So, we need to clear up the dichotomy. Just because knives are useful, but dangerous, doesn't mean we cant design safer models.

correct, but even the safest modal (I don't know do we really improve knife tech that much?) is still a weapon

 

[CleverNickName]

So, we need to clear up the dichotomy. Just because knives are useful, but dangerous, doesn't mean we cant design safer models.

This. We design safer knives (knives with hand guards, non-slip grips), we develop better safety practices (don't cut toward your hand, don't use a dull knife), we invent better protective equipment (kevlar gloves), proper training, and so forth.

We are surrounded by harmful and dangerous things. We don't take that as a invitation to ignore them; we take it as a challenge to improve. D&D is in the middle of this process right now, with developing new tools (safety tools, no less) and better practices for dealing with sensitive topics, inclusivity, and representation.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This. We design safer knives (knives with hand guards, non-slip grips), we develop better safety practices (don't cut toward your hand, don't use a dull knife), we invent better protective equipment (kevlar gloves), proper training, and so forth. We don't just shrug and give up.

But knives and art are different. You can directly harm someone with a knife. You can be directly harmed by a knife. Art doesn't harm, it influences. And the line between influence and bad things in the world is hard to measure. It is even harder when you have to weigh, not just how many people go and do bad things because they got an idea from a book, but how many people didn't go and do bad things because of it, how many people went and did good things, because of it. This is a classic argument you see around religion for example. When I was young and developing a skeptical mind about religion, I remember having a conversation with my father where I pinned many of the ills of the world on it (and there were many, many I could point to), but he was also able to point to the amount of good people did, that they might not have done, the amount of people who didn't engage in war or violence, they might otherwise have engaged in, because of religion. My declaration was overly simplistic. And obviously that is a deep and complicated topic, not one we can resolve here. But I think it is a similar type of moral reasoning. And I think there is a bit of a problem with the way we use the term harm in these discussion. It is very vague. It tends to stop conversation (this caused harm, it is bad, end of story). And I think a lot of us, feel like these claims are exaggerated and not critically examined.