"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[Deadpan]

If I may make a tangent upon this already tangential discussion, is that a common narrative? I grew up hearing a lot of "Figure out what job you want, and if it's available, before going into university". 

 

Caveats certainly exist, but the idea that there is a job for everybody (not the job you want perhaps, but always some kind of job) and that you always have agency in this system are baked into it on a very fundamental level. That whole narrative about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is essentially the foundational myth for capitalism. This always wrote over gender, race and class lines in pretty gross ways (See people who've been given every chance in life saying "If I made it to the top, I don't see why everybody else can't do that as well" about people who are systematically discriminated against), and the bleak economic prospects of recent years have only made the issues with this narrative stand out more and more. Regardless, it persists, and you can still see it every time somebody finds fault with the person struggling to find work without ever doubting the system. Should have looked harder. Should have tried harder. This can happen with good intentions. It can be done by people who want to suggest something to try, at least. But it also operates on the assumption that there's always something we can do, that we are always in control.

[Ninety-Three]

I think sexism and pro-torture issues are more prevalent than people thinking they can take a bullet and be fine. As Twig said, the bullet is a fantasy but sexism and pro torture draw parallels to life that people believe.

 

I agree that fiction depicting torture as effective makes people think torture works, but I think we disagree about how much responsibility for that the author bears. People shouldn't reach those conclusions based on fiction, obviously, it's stupid. If the author makes it clear they're presenting a work of fiction and not a documentary, it seems unreasonable to blame the author for people taking their work as representative of reality.

[Ninety-Three]

Is there a Capitalism thread or something? I have more to say about some of the stuff that's been brought up, but this is thread is two or three layers of off-topic from it, so I feel weird about having the discussion here.

 

Also, what is up with the "Show new posts" popup indicator thing working only a quarter of the time? I keep starting a post, finishing later, and finding that someone else has posted in the interim and the forum has forgotten to tell me.

[Reyturner]

It's also the normalizing factor. It's kind of like prison rape. It's a horrific problem, but its so engrained in the publish consciousness that we not only make jokes about it, we actually accept it as part of the punishment we serve to any offender and we accept serious people in real power using the threat of prison rape against real people without power. 

[Mawd]

Doesn't England or Britain currently fund video games that meet a cultural criteria?
I think that's an interesting way to judge funding distribution.

The New Zealand Film Commission does the same kind of thing for the parts of our film scene not run by Sir Peter Jackson.
It changed in the same year I studied it but so long as it had a screenplay and felt culturally rooted in NZ then it was considered for funding grants (for about 30k). About 5 movies a year are made this way.

It's the big level tax breaks for overseas production companies that are gross.
It made sense at first (although a few kiwis in film felt it killed the home grown scene) to have a big studio come in and fund kiwi production companies and all the side industries involved in film.
But by the time of The Hobbit NZ was changing its employment law to disallow contractors from having individual contracts so they couldn't negotiate for employment protections like paid maternity leave. Also NZ GOVT allegedly did some other weird things on behalf of Hollywood but so far no real proof of that. (Kim DotCom claims that he was given permission to enter NZ on the understanding that he could be extradited there; but no proof so far). But other things included winning the right to not have to employ NZ actors & production staff into certain positions which used to be a given with these sorts of deals.

NZ political parties on both the centre right and centre left are floating the idea of providing tax breaks to game companies that set up in NZ and I think they already provide limited funding to culturally distinct works.
For example there's a phone game called Flutter that has people managing collections of native butterflies and frogs. Although looking back I think it was actually funded by Natural History NZ which appears to be an independent company so that example may be bad although I do think they are probably funded in a small part by govt. organisations like NZ Trade & Enterprise..

[SuperBiasedMan]

I agree that fiction depicting torture as effective makes people think torture works, but I think we disagree about how much responsibility for that the author bears. People shouldn't reach those conclusions based on fiction, obviously, it's stupid. If the author makes it clear they're presenting a work of fiction and not a documentary, it seems unreasonable to blame the author for people taking their work as representative of reality.

But I'm not talking about certain people seeing TV and taking it as fact, I'm talking about the normalising effect that media subconsciously has upon consumers, including us.

Drawing a parallel to sexism again, do you think that Feminist Frequency's videos are unnecessary because they're about games and everyone knows games aren't real? Or do you, like me, think that a recurring trend of these tropes reinforces a harmful view of the real world that is worth highlighting.

That's exactly why I feel authors bear the majority of the responsibility. You might feel like the torture situation is different. I certainly feel like it's more specific and less recurring but it's certainly a trope that I believe has a similar effect on how people think.

[Deadpan]

Yeah, those kinds of grants already exist in some places to various extent.

 

For instance, if you've played Secrets of Raetikon you might want to know that that was funded in part on the back of a grant from the city of Vienna. Awarded for showing the beaty of the alpine region, if I recall.

[clyde]

Is there a Capitalism thread or something? I have more to say about some of the stuff that's been brought up, but this is thread is two or three layers of off-topic from it, so I feel weird about having the discussion here.

https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/8878-philosophy-economics/

[tberton]

Doesn't England or Britain currently fund video games that meet a cultural criteria?

I think that's an interesting way to judge funding distribution.

The New Zealand Film Commission does the same kind of thing for the parts of our film scene not run by Sir Peter Jackson.

It changed in the same year I studied it but so long as it had a screenplay and felt culturally rooted in NZ then it was considered for funding grants (for about 30k). About 5 movies a year are made this way.

It's the big level tax breaks for overseas production companies that are gross.

It made sense at first (although a few kiwis in film felt it killed the home grown scene) to have a big studio come in and fund kiwi production companies and all the side industries involved in film.

But by the time of The Hobbit NZ was changing its employment law to disallow contractors from having individual contracts so they couldn't negotiate for employment protections like paid maternity leave. Also NZ GOVT allegedly did some other weird things on behalf of Hollywood but so far no real proof of that. (Kim DotCom claims that he was given permission to enter NZ on the understanding that he could be extradited there; but no proof so far). But other things included winning the right to not have to employ NZ actors & production staff into certain positions which used to be a given with these sorts of deals.

NZ political parties on both the centre right and centre left are floating the idea of providing tax breaks to game companies that set up in NZ and I think they already provide limited funding to culturally distinct works.

For example there's a phone game called Flutter that has people managing collections of native butterflies and frogs. Although looking back I think it was actually funded by Natural History NZ which appears to be an independent company so that example may be bad although I do think they are probably funded in a small part by govt. organisations like NZ Trade & Enterprise..

 

In Canada, Quebec and Ontario both have big incentive systems for game companies. I think BC probably does too. Quebec's tax breaks are the reason why Montreal has such a big development community.

[Merus]

So in more "supposed allies are being cockheels" news, Maddy Myers is getting attacked on Twitter for having a dim view on the 'anti-Gamergate' subreddit, GamerGhazi. In case you needed any more proof that thinking Gamergate is terrible doesn't make you any more righteous.

[Deadpan]

That sort of takes us back to the art vs. product conversation though because those kinds of grants and incentives are usually targetted at companies, not individual artists.

[Mawd]

The film commission grants can go to small indie teams. I wouldn't be surprised if when a game grant is set up there's similar room for small developers.

Path of Exile Devs Grinding Gear Games were a small collection of students who ended up working with their university and they eventually snowballed into what they are today even taking on a Diablo 2 dev or two.

Though I'm not 100% on the details small weird things can happen for the individuals.

I remember reading about this one Kiwi guy who makes small experimental games and writes about games academically. I don't remember if he gets funds for games alone but he's finding work as a solo artist in games related fields to allow him to develop.

I'll try to dig up who he is later.

[Deadpan]

Grants are on a much smaller scale than incentives usually, and even if they're hypothetically open to all, their structure often benefits small companies regardless. There's often a specific goal to these ("make a game about X") or just a general need to pitch or show a prototype, and that's easier to do when you have a team to back you up. Plus the sheer scale of these alone can put them on a level that makes it very hard for individuals to compete for them. Committees want results to show off fast, since they too are often under pressure from above to show their usefulness, and giving one person a lot of cash on the grounds that they'll have something great in a few years doesn't look that great. Plus it's just much more beaurocratic hassle to split your efforts and keep track of many applicants and projects instead of using your funds on a few big hitters. So there's just all sorts of structural barriers that prevent small, weird stuff from being slow-cooked over a long period time.

[Mawd]

I don't see why a small development team couldn't be described as an art collective. Although that's probably beside the point.

 

The dude I was talking about was Pippin Barr.

[Ninety-Three]

But I'm not talking about certain people seeing TV and taking it as fact, I'm talking about the normalising effect that media subconsciously has upon consumers, including us.

Drawing a parallel to sexism again, do you think that Feminist Frequency's videos are unnecessary because they're about games and everyone knows games aren't real? Or do you, like me, think that a recurring trend of these tropes reinforces a harmful view of the real world that is worth highlighting.

That's exactly why I feel authors bear the majority of the responsibility. You might feel like the torture situation is different. I certainly feel like it's more specific and less recurring but it's certainly a trope that I believe has a similar effect on how people think.

 

I'm not familiar with Feminist Frequency's videos, but I see the overall point you're making. Unfortunately, I'm not well-informed on the "Does sexism in media cause sexism in life?" question, so I can't contribute much more to the discussion on that axis. I guess that's a question to be answered by the social scientists (or maybe they already have answered it).

 

Regarding torture vs action movie injuries, I don't understand what you mean by the fantasy vs reflection of reality distinction. If one action movie features both torture, and Hollywood-style trivialized injuries, what is it that makes one of those things a fantasy, while the other is a reflection of reality and A Problem?

[SuperBiasedMan]

Regarding torture vs action movie injuries, I don't understand what you mean by the fantasy vs reflection of reality distinction. If one action movie features both torture, and Hollywood-style trivialized injuries, what is it that makes one of those things a fantasy, while the other is a reflection of reality and A Problem?

 

Neither of us are basing this on figures (I think that's what makes this an internet argument) but I believe that not that many people are really being harmed from a misguided perception about how much an injury will harm them, however a justification of torture making a more widespread belief in its efficacy makes it acceptable to people. Instead of questioning whether or not it works even, people start from the assumption that it works and as a result might be willing to think it's an acceptable move for people in power to take. Obviously random individuals are not making the decision to torture people, but the way democracy works is by majority opinion, so if the majority is predisposed to conceding torture as acceptable then it's not a point that needs to be argued or defended the way it would if it was widely considered to be ineffective.

[tegan]

Regarding torture vs action movie injuries, I don't understand what you mean by the fantasy vs reflection of reality distinction. If one action movie features both torture, and Hollywood-style trivialized injuries, what is it that makes one of those things a fantasy, while the other is a reflection of reality and A Problem?

 

There's a lot of little subtleties that go into painting the tone of a piece and affecting how a person interprets potentially the same actions of a given character. The protagonists from Drive and Batman Begins are both overwhelmingly cool men: they drive cool cars, they wear cool clothes, and they're out to take down the mob and get the girl. But one of them is classically aspirational and the other one, while still arguably a good person, is someone you would never want to be, doing things you would never want to do.

[Gormongous]

Neither of us are basing this on figures (I think that's what makes this an internet argument) but I believe that not that many people are really being harmed from a misguided perception about how much an injury will harm them, however a justification of torture making a more widespread belief in its efficacy makes it acceptable to people. Instead of questioning whether or not it works even, people start from the assumption that it works and as a result might be willing to think it's an acceptable move for people in power to take. Obviously random individuals are not making the decision to torture people, but the way democracy works is by majority opinion, so if the majority is predisposed to conceding torture as acceptable then it's not a point that needs to be argued or defended the way it would if it was widely considered to be ineffective.

 

It might help to introduce the concept of the Overton Window to this conversation. Because the vast majority of mainstream media depicts torture as effective, the window in people's minds shifts from "Is it justifiable to use a morally objectionable technique that will probably yield no results" to "Is it justifiable to use a morally objectionable technique that will yield definite results." Those are vastly different questions, as is the window of permissible behavior under their different assumptions.

[Ninety-Three]

Neither of us are basing this on figures (I think that's what makes this an internet argument) but I believe that not that many people are really being harmed from a misguided perception about how much an injury will harm them, however a justification of torture making a more widespread belief in its efficacy makes it acceptable to people. Instead of questioning whether or not it works even, people start from the assumption that it works and as a result might be willing to think it's an acceptable move for people in power to take.

 

At this point we're just saying how we think the world works, which I don't think is a discussion that can go much farther than "I think X" "Well I think Y", since neither of us have evidence.

[Mangela Lansbury]

It's a well documented (the documents are redacted, but they exist???) fact that torture doesn't work, yet fiction tells us that it does. Even supposedly based on real life stories like Zero Dark Thirty show that torture kinda works, when torture super didn't help in the actual events. These kinds of narratives cause real harm, as seen in Pew research that shows rising support for sometimes using torture as an interrogation method through at least 2011, or just looking at the highly polarized reactions to the torture report released in December for a more up to date feel on public perceptions.

I lost track of what y'all were arguing about, but I think that's still relevant and at least vaguely based on figures and examples?

[Ninety-Three]

Oh yes, I agree that torture doesn't work very well, and is commonly depicted as working. What I'm less certain of is that those depictions of torture lead to increased support for it, and I'm not aware of any figures on that.

[Nachimir]

This New Yorker piece on torture and 24 is interesting. West Point Academy sent someone to specifically ask them to stop depicting torture the way they were, because they were getting students turning up to learn interrogation with a far from useful "Torture! Fuck yeah!" attitude.

 

(The relevant section begins "This past November". Pretty sure I've linked it in other past discussions here, but the link has changed since)

[Gaizokubanou]

I totally forgot that season 2 of 24 starts with a heavily hinted torture scene... and that's how viewers are exposed to the central element of the entire season 2 (imminent nuclear attack).

 

Cool article Nachimir.  As that section points out, I think it's a problem with kids (new recruits, the officers had no problem discerning how the show was pretty much a fantasy) who grew up watching the show without proper context.  Overall I think for adult audience, adults ought to know better than to build up their world view through fictions... but it's different for kids (kids are dumber).  So rather than blaming fantastical fictions themselves, I would lay blame on distribution network (mainly the parents!) that let kids be influenced by fantasy in such ways.

[Fingus]

To get back to laughing and crying over GG; Mark Kern grumming it up harder than ever.

Source: https://twitter.com/notfaulty/status/576446869653622784

[syntheticgerbil]

So what is the context? Your link goes to someone else's Twitter and I can't even see what was originally posted or what kids are about and instead it's like 60 people just echoing the original sentiment.

 

Jesus Christ, Twitter, argh.