• axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    2 years ago

    They keep mentioning how Joyce and Kim are helpful to the player as representatives of liberalism, but Evrart and Measurehead are antagonists as representatives of socialism and fascism. And they’re saying the devs accidentally made liberals seem more agreeable this way.

    Yeah no shit the liberals are more polite to Harry, he’s a cop. Evrart is trying to impede the investigation? No shit, Evrart is organizing a strike and you’re some dumbass cop working with a lady who’s on the board of directors of the company he’s striking against.

    And they’re saying the devs screwed up by showing communists as murderers or ineffective? That’s the point, that building communism is hard, mistakes are made, and Harry’s bias as a dumbass alcoholic cop is going to color his perception of the world. I hate these libs so much. I thought liberals were supposed to be media savvy but they completely miss the point

    • Huldra [they/them, it/its]@hexbear.net
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      2 years ago

      This is on the devs for making the communism vision quest not mandatory, but the game literally has a character turn to the screen and monologue about how Communism is the only ideology that promises a better world is possible for each and every human being and that struggling for it is worth it even if you fail or are killed.

      Meanwhile the fascism quest is all about how cope is destroying your life and ability to relate to other human beings, the moralism side quest has you fuck around with dumb bullshit that doesnt matter and almost gets you kidnapped by the state, and ultraliberalism is memes.

      • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        2 years ago
        spoilers just in case

        All the political quests are Harry’s methods of dealing with pain, with varying degrees of success. They’re all cope. However the communist quest is the only one though where he tries dealing with his pain in a productive way, that is, he tries to remain optimistic and tries to at least understand other people. He comes across as goofy and arrogant when he says communist stuff, but that’s to be expected.

        He’s an alcoholic cop who had amnesia and suddenly decided he’s the reincarnation of Kras Masov. He’s never read theory, never organized. His heart is in the right place but he’s a dumbass.

        The other quests are unhealthy ways of dealing with pain, especially fascism. Fascist Harry becomes a shell whose life revolves around racial hatred. It’s the only quest where Kim will chew you out, beyond a professional capacity. He’ll get sick of your shit and will berate you outside the church. Kim is the most patient man on Earth and the fascism quest has you betray even his trust.

        The moralism stuff is just Harry trying to live in the memory of his marriage. Ultraliberal I interpreted as trying to ignore everything that’s happening, compete dissociation. “This is good, actually” as an ideology.

  • Huldra [they/them, it/its]@hexbear.net
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    2 years ago

    The whole setting is cope and seethe by commies about how based globalism is.

    You can’t talk to a person like this, what can you possibly say to someone who goes “I love bombing a country into perpetual poverty and exploitation where children listen to snuff radio and do drugs, thats so based” except how-compelling

  • echognomics [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 years ago

    Damn those moralists and their checks notes good governance.

    The entire game is set in a Moralist-controlled deindustrialised slum area where drug abuse is rampant, and almost everyone lives in abject poverty.

    • star_wraith [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      2 years ago

      The creative team are all Estonian leftists/Marxists who lived through the 1990s. It’s clearly what they draw on - the absolute devastation of global capitalism.

    • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      2 years ago

      Also the large building that used to be full of thriving small businesses is destitute and nearly abandoned except the one dice maker lady. You can literally pick through the remains of the failure of capitalism that has left only a husk of itself behind.

      And yeah, nearly every NPC in the game is living in poverty, is angry all the time, or has resigned themselves to quietly suffering

  • Cromalin [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    2 years ago

    Me, listening to the Sunday Friend: “yo this MF spittin”

    “The Coalition believes in the importance of informing the public about the benefits of ze price stabilité. Transparency is one of our principles. Would you like an informational pamphlet?”

    Me: Ahh yes, price stability.*

    (Does not get it at all.)*

    it’s incredible. they’re almost self aware

  • star_wraith [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 years ago

    The whole setting is cope and seethe by commies about how based globalism is.

    Imagine reading The Jakarta Method and come away with thinking it’s about how based Sukarno Suharto and the CIA are.

  • Graphite22 [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    2 years ago

    i like how they think the moralists or ultralibs or w/e faction they think they are is the best choice

    the world around the player is in utter decay as a result of said factions

    cant make this shit up lmao

    • Huldra [they/them, it/its]@hexbear.net
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      2 years ago

      Someone with some insight might take away something from the fact that their preferred ideologies are both absent and omnipresent from the actual characters of the game.

      The prime rep for ultraliberalism is a cynical billionaire whos company has just sent in a fascist death squad to resolve a labor strike, and anyone else who might be described as an “ultraliberal” in the game are literally on the shit tier of society either grifting for scraps or just completely delusional.

      And moralisms prime rep is a literal occupying warship, followed by a bureaucrat who bullshits you about the economy while secretly engaging in sexual relationships with someone living in a filthy decaying slum, and finally Kim who deliberately refuses to engage in any serious politics and therefore doesnt really count.

      Edit: Just remembered Trant, whos technically listed as a moralist on the wiki I guess but whos also an apolitical coward more than anything, and a crypto-social democrat.

      The actual people of Martinaise are neither ultraliberals nor moralists, makes you think huh?

        • Huldra [they/them, it/its]@hexbear.net
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          2 years ago

          Of course! He talks about economic responsibility to people who are suffering so badly from the economy they are blaming a supernatural curse for their misfortunes!

          Its a neoliberal wet dream. I have to assume somewhere in the thread they are gushing about the vision of a future IKEA-fied Martinaise that the new ZAUM added with the photo mode update.

          • Orannis62 [ze/hir]@hexbear.net
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            2 years ago

            Here I though the guy praising a disconnected economic metric while sitting in a bombed out ruin where people live in abject poverty, where he goes for basically sex tourism was too on the nose

  • Poogona [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 years ago

    This is bringing out something that occurred to me the second time I played the game and met Joyce. She really is the liberal of the game.

    When you meet Joyce early on, she is, at that stage of the game, one of the most directly helpful NPCs. She talks to you respectfully instead of (rightfully) calling you a pig, she makes jokes with you, she’s even willing to discuss reality with you, and some of her most likeable lines come out during that little philosophy talk. She’s got an education, and she clearly likes a deep conversation. She even shows that she has a little perspective on her position in the world, and she has some sympathy for the failed revolution and for the conditions that necessitated it. Wow what an intelligent and reasonable mature woman she is!

    Try and ask her for money, though?

    NOPE

    • Huldra [they/them, it/its]@hexbear.net
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      2 years ago

      And also shes a board member of the company that hired a fascist death squad that has literally literally no experience outside of committing gruesome sexual and physical cruelties on colonized peoples, to “deal with” a workers strike.

      She’s very sneaky about her responsibility and involvement in that stuff, its easy to overlook while she makes jokes about being a great wyrm upon a hoard of the worlds wealth or something, what that actually involves.

    • captcha [any]@hexbear.net
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      2 years ago

      Try and ask her for money, though?

      First play though I screamed at her to give me a million billion réal and she eventually relented and gave me a hundred. Didn’t die in a dumpster.

      • Poogona [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        2 years ago

        Yeah and doing so involves almost turning yourself inside-out, but damn I do enjoy going all caps and saying GIVE ME MONEY NOW

  • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 years ago

    The Kingdom of Conscience will be exactly as it is now. Moralists don’t really have beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child’s toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded. Centrism isn’t change – not even incremental change. It is control. Over yourself and the world. Exercise it. Look up at the sky, at the dark shapes of Coalition airships hanging there. Ask yourself: is there something sinister in moralism? And then answer: no. God is in his heaven. Everything is normal on Earth.

  • ProfessorAdonisCnut [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 years ago

    The correct answer to their original question is definitely Sim City. Claims to be an impartial reflection of innate natural truth, while imposing a bizarre worldview straddling the line between technocracy and libertarianism within a context of a universalized of post-war American car dependence, all while desperately suppressing the role of factors like class and race.

  • Tachanka [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    2 years ago

    >it's r/neoliberal again

    don’t make me tap the sign

    expand

    r/neoliberal was created by and is astroturfed by a fossil fuel think tank called the Progressive Policy Institute, as part of their “Neoliberal Project”

    PPI has been around since 1989 and views itself as Bill Clinton’s “idea mill” aka think tank. Why I call them a fossil fuel think tank is detailed here. They oppose climate action, defend fracking, and receive donations from Exxon Mobil.

    it’s safe to say that their upvotes are farmed, and their organic support is mostly bourgeois economics and political science majors and interns who hope to work for PPI or a similar think tank one day. It’s basically a Neera Tanden farm.

    The creator of r/neoliberal, Colin Mortimer, is the Director of the Center for New Liberalism at PPI, which seeks to “develop a salient identity around the center-left values that have increasingly come under fire in this age of populism.”

    • Gosplan14_the_Third [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      2 years ago

      I always play this game as a neoliberal. It has an extra challenge to try to make the galaxy a peaceful, cooperative, populous and diverse place compared to just easily genociding everyone

      Ah yes, “everything will be incredibly good as long as the white man’s burden succeeds world is made to follow the same ideology as us”.

      And if this person believes in Khrushcev style peaceful coexistence? Lol, lmao. They follow a worldview whose goals are incompatible with the goals of the ruling class they support.

    • Philosoraptor [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      2 years ago

      Yeah, in the late game you basically need Council Republic because the Investment Pool contributions get artificially nerfed the larger your GDP gets. And nerfed in such a way that the capitalists money just disappears into the void it doesn’t recirculate. So you want to have as few capitalists as possible then. Capitalism so good it suffers from it’s own success.

      The problem with capitalism is that it makes the investment class too rich. This shows that capitalism is actually an extremely good system with no flaws. very-intelligent