[davidw]

Let's rewrite it. Say it's some conservative commentator like Bill O'Reilly:

"To me video games are the so-called 'real France,'" he said. "The real France operates according to a video game logic, and that game logic is socialism"

That doesn't strike you as overtly and primarily political in nature? Beyond that, it's simply inane.

[7952]

There is a tendancy to treat real world problems in an overly abstract way. That you pursue an argument because of a particular dogma rather than actual empathy for the victims of a problem. For example people love to debate funding of healthcare (which we can all disagree on) whilst loosing site of its actual purpose (which we mostly agree about).

The same is true of homelessness where it is easy to discuss it in broad economic terms that can be dogmatic. But actually it is a social problem which means that it is caused by people breaking the agreed rules of the game. If a family member has no home you are supposed to let them sleep on the couch until they get back on their feet. When these basic societal rules break down we are only left with the state which is not a good replacment for family and friends.

[cturner]

[Getting this in early - I'm not an American.]

  > healthcare .. which we mostly agree about

Reading this brought to mind a Reagan speech. Found it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUKC9E04Sck), complete with propaganda slides. The final example he gives goes right to it.

Social democracy is the mainstream worldview at the moment in educated debate. Even the US moves in that direction. A social democrat will look at opposition to public healthcare with disbelief, "can anyone really be so mean?" Or disbelieve it altogether as you do.

Well-funded public healthcare is central to the socal democrat worldview. It's easy to argue towards at the moment, because it aligns with the momentum of public policy.

For freedom-centric people, it's uncomfortable. The person opposing it will often be inarticulate, to the point of appearing to be crazy. Their task is hard: they are not merely opposing one policy, but the whole momentum of worldview that's driving it. That's hard to do well. But beneath the rambling, there's probably a legitimate philosophical position that's not understood properly even by the speaker.

[Spooky23]

You got it. I have relatives who work with the homeless, and one of the striking things is the population that is growing now: veterans.

Politicians love waving flags and "supporting the troops". But when some if these men come home and can't adjust, the flags get out away. Many turn to alcohol and start a spiral the ends on a street somewhere.

[happyscrappy]

In Boston goes around to pick up the homeless and bring them to Pine Street or another shelter but you cannot force them to get into the van and they still die on the street. I don't know what the solution is but you will never be able to pass a law forcing them into the van.

[palmer_eldritch]

Except current France doesn't operate according to socialist logic. It's much closer to neo-liberalism too (as most of today's world).

Just because the current president has the label "socialist" for historical reasons it doesn't make it socialism.

[davidw]

"Socialist!" is one of those meaningless code words, like "neoliberal!" that just means "bad!" for the intended audience.

[TeMPOraL]

Totally. Those labels are instant mind-killers and in my book they are tools of the Dark Arts. When someone calls you a "socialist" or "neoliberal" or whatever, they imply you believe everything some ideology has to say, so they can go ahead, point any random weak point (every political ideology has some) and call you a moron.

This is so totally dumb behaviour, that I can't even begin to describe it. What's equally dumb is assuming that if you agree with some group on one thing, then you should also agree on everything else.

Basically - for me, giving yourself a political label is a sign of subpar thinking. Giving others political labels is disingenuous.

[djur]

"mind-killers" and "Dark Arts" are self-describing labels, though. They don't avoid being political rhetoric just because they were coined by a guy who purports to be opposed to political rhetoric.

[rat87]

neo-libreral means pro free trade

neo-conservate means pro war especially against non-democratic regimes they don't like seeking to remake them into democracies.

[Malarkey73]

I don't think it is inane at all. Lots of games since Monopoly, Elite and running through Civilisation and SimCity have model economics, free trade, and free thinking ideas in-built into the game mechanics. And a lot of economics and free trade ideas seem to be justified by game theory and the naturalistic fallacy.

And a lot of chasing GDP or national wealth or Educational policy sometimes seem to be maximising some goal - like a game- rather than just running countries for the benefit of people.

I think its actually a very telling analogy if you think a little more deeply about it.

[davidw]

It's a totally made-up analogy with no supporting facts. What does it even mean that "the real America operates according to a video game logic"? Does France operate that way? How about Morocco or Mongolia? It's nonsense.

[popeshoe]

In America if you collect 100 coins you get an extra life.

In America if you get seriously hurt you get taken to hospital and lose some money

In America you can only carry 2 guns

In America if you try and run forward and sideways at once the two velocities are combined and you run twice as fast

I guess some of them work

[iopq]

you run sqrt(2) as fast

[TeMPOraL]

What does "gamification" means? I say answers to those two questions are very relevant to each other.

[brazzy]

Um, yes. It is indeed overtly and primarily political once you have rewritten it to be.

[davidw]

> Um, yes. It is indeed overtly and primarily political once you have rewritten it to be.

I changed two words - I replaced America with France and "neo-liberalism" with "socialism".

[anon1385]

Actually at first you used the word "communism", which is why I downvoted you and flagged your comment. You are just using inaccurate emotive language to rage wildly against a line in the article that offended your zealous patriotic/conservative sensibilities. You loudly complain about pretty much any article that contains a hint of politics you dislike. It just fills the comments with useless noise (I know I'm adding to it, but after seeing you do the same thing dozens of times it's getting pretty tiresome). If you don't like a submission, move on, don't post dozens of whining comments about how it hurt your feelings and how such submissions need to be banned from the site.

[davidw]

I actually flag all politics here, even the articles that agree with my political views, which are not at all what you seem to think they are, either.

It helps to get rid of these articles and keep the site a good one for startups/hacking/interesting articles, so for me it's worthwhile.

The article doesn't hurt my feelings: I think it's genuinely silly and low-quality.

[DanBC]

An important part of flagging - and it is mentioned in the guidelines - is to avoid commenting that you've flagged the article.

Look at the low quality sub-thread that your comment spawned.

[davidw]

If no one explains that something is off-topic, how are we supposed to propagate that information, and the culture of what is on-topic to new users of this site?

That's an honest question, by the way. Since there is no barrier to entry to joining this site, there's nothing preventing masses of people arriving and crowding out the good content, which is of interest to far fewer people than politics are.

I'm more than happy to sacrifice otherwise useless karma in order to call stuff out, as the karma points serve no other purpose.