OliveTapenade
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User ID: 1729
OliveTapenade
25d ago
It frustrated me a great deal because ME1 goes to some effort to show us the disaster of the genophage for the krogan through Wrex's eyes - we see what the effects of this were through a sympathetic, beloved character. Then ME2 shows us the other side of the story - we see the case for the genophage through the eyes of another sympathetic, beloved character. Mordin is obviously very humane and cherishes life, and argues for the necessity of the genophage out of what seems like genuine concern for the krogan. Without the genophage, the krogan would either overrun everyone else, or provoke such a brutal reaction that they would be exterminated.
That seems like it's setting up a confrontation between the two of them in ME3, where the player, after having investigated the genophage deeply in the first two games, now has to make a final call on it - and no matter which call you make, a character you probably like, trust, and want to help is going to feel profoundly betrayed. That's excellent.
But BioWare cop out at the last minute, Mordin changes sides, and oops, his old position is now evil. It's lazy and undermines all their previous work.
Tali and Legion are the same issue - two brilliantly sympathetic, beloved characters, each serving as the face of one side of a genuinely challenging conflict, and once again BioWare swerve at the last minute. I find ME3's writing pretty cowardly.
OliveTapenade
25d ago
I'm not in the business of awarding 'points', whatever that's supposed to mean.
I presume that in this case Hanania is making an argument about populism that he believes is both true and useful. It seems far more productive, to me, to either accept or critique that argument. Who cares what imaginary score he may or may not have? The only thing I can reasonably ask of a pundit is that they attempt, to the best of their ability, to say things that are true, useful, or insightful. As far as I can tell Hanania is doing that. What else ought he do?
OliveTapenade
25d ago
Possible? It's difficult to date exactly when BioWare 'went woke', and it probably depends on how you define 'woke', but I'd say it's probably the early 2010s when they started to get aggressively preachy about it. KotOR and Jade Empire start to dip their toe into the idea of same-sex romance, but very little. DA:O and ME1 have some in the way of social commentary, with ME1 noticeably in favour of liberal humanitarian and cosmopolitan norms (the pretense that Renegade is not the evil path was never very convincing, even in 2007), but DA:O is surprisingly nuanced and fair.
I think DA2 and ME3 are probably where it gets bad, with DA2's ham-fisted approach to social strife, and ME3 was the one that, with Cortez, started directly preaching about marriage. (I note that ME2 and TOR were BioWare's last games to contain exclusively straight romances.) In general ME3 is noticeably more morally simplistic than its predecessors - where in ME2 the genophage was a complicated, ambivalent issue with Mordin making a persuasive defence of it, in ME3 Mordin has switched sides between games, so now all the good guys are on the one side and the pro-genophage camp is just evil. Likewise ME3 is just pro-geth in a way that strips out any kind of nuance from the issue. The writing has noticeably gotten worse. And then DA:I obviously has a couple of preaching scenes, and Veilguard is a dumpster fire.
OliveTapenade
25d ago
Entirely possible. I am not asserting that in terms of content, Hanania, or for that matter Scott Alexander, are frequently correct. I think they both get lots of things wrong. I'm asserting that the mere fact that Hanania has a consistent worldview or agenda, in itself, is not a reason to dismiss him.
OliveTapenade
25d ago
You didn't. I was just picking a few examples of similar internet pundits with different viewpoints to Hanania. DeBoer is frequently wrong, but I don't think he's dismissed simply because he has an overall direction to his thought. Every online writer has some kind of direction or narrative to their thought. Hanania ought to be treated the same way as deBoer or Alexander or Yglesias.
OliveTapenade
25d ago
Why would you think that this is a criticism unique to Hanania versus just most pundits in general? Most pundits in general should have their arguments for their preferred narratives discounted.
Because I don't think most citations of pundits here are met with this kind of backlash. I perceive Hanania to be singled out as particularly lacking in credibility. My response is not that Hanania is necessarily correct on any issue, but rather that he should not be dismissed for reasons unrelated to his actual positions.
For what it's worth I find the argument about assessing counter-arguments and changing one's views to be an odd one to apply to Hanania, because Hanania is somebody who changed his preferred narrative in response to experience, surely? Hanania used to be an edgy racist, and wrote about how he changed his mind. If changing one's mind is a sign of intellectual honesty, he seems to meet that bar.
To your objections towards the end, I'm happy to revise any of the specific language, but I read you as suggesting that a person who has consistently advocated for a single position or narrative without changing it is less trustworthy than a person who has changed their position. This seems unintuitive, to me.
"You're Catholic" is absolutely a valid criticism of someone trying to convince you that some piece of information proves that Catholicism is true. The piece of information truly might prove that Catholicism is true, but an already-believing Catholic can't be trusted to make that judgment call.
I'm ambivalent on how reasonable this is.
On the one hand, a Catholic would seem to have a natural bias towards the truth of Catholicism. If we are evaluating some novel piece of information that may or may not bear on the truth of Catholicism, we should expect the Catholic to be predisposed to interpreting that evidence in ways that support the truth of Catholicism. In that sense knowing that the person is Catholic should make us more skeptical of any Catholicism-supporting conclusions they draw.
On the other hand... I would expect people who encounter evidence that Catholicism is true to be disproportionately Catholic, because factual beliefs can be motivating. Suppose there's an argument that, if correct, shows that Catholicism is true. Obviously people who think that the argument is correct are going to convert to Catholicism - I'd question anybody who didn't. To say that we can't trust Catholics on the subject of Catholicism is to stack the deck. People who find Catholicism convincing become Catholics. If by doing so they remove themselves from the community of people with whom we can have reasonable discussion about Catholicism, well, then we would seem to have an arbitrary prejudice against Catholicism. The same applies, mutatis mutandis, for any belief or ideology.
For instance - you can't trust evolutionary biologists on the subject of whether evolution is true. They're evolutionary biologists! We should immediately distrust the testimony of people who believe evolution is true on the subject of evolution. That seems absurd. So too with everything else.
The problem is that both these points seem compelling to me, to an extent, especially because for an overarching ideology like Catholicism, people are likely to adopt Catholicism for reasons unrelated to the merits of any given argument. This is less the case for a specific theory like evolution, though ideologies like rationalism, conservatism, socialism, etc., are more like Catholicism than they are like evolution. I think where I end up is that we should not rule partisans of a particular ideology out of discussions of that ideology, though we should be aware of their biases and take them into account. Thus, say, Catholics can and should be consulted on the subject of whether or not Catholicism is true (we can hardly expect anybody else to make the case for Catholicism!), but we should be more critical than usual of their assessments of new information.
On Hanania specifically:
Now, it's possible that it is factually not the case that it's his schtick, but rather that he genuinely takes a skeptical look at each new piece of evidence and is helplessly forced to conclude, despite his best efforts to prove otherwise, that his narrative is shown to be correct yet again.
I guess I don't see a valid criticism of Hanania here relative to other pundits. Yes, I'm sure it's true that his positions are a combination of sincere assessment of new data and his best interpretation thereof and a retrofitting of that new data into his existing conceptual framework. He has an existing view or narrative of the world, he will think that narrative is correct or at least the best, most plausible one available, and when he obtains new information, he starts by trying to fit that information into that narrative.
But the last I checked that was how everybody thinks. Everybody has narratives or interpretative frameworks that they apply to experience, and first interpret new evidence in ways that fit with their existing categories. It's only when new evidence becomes overwhelming, or else so dramatically contradicts the existing framework as to be undeniable, that they are forced to reconsider.
I'd say that, by default, everyone should be presumed to be falling prey to confirmation bias all the time, doubly so if their preferred narrative is self aggrandizing, triply if that person is particularly intelligent and thus better able to fit evidence to narrative. It's only by credibly demonstrating that they are open to other narratives that they can earn any sort of credibility that their arguments have any relationship with reality. That's where showing oneself to be capable of undermining one's preferred narrative comes in, and there's no better way to demonstrate this capability than by doing it.
Can you think of any particular examples of this? The thing is, what this sounds like to me in practice is the idea that everybody should be presumed to be dishonest except for people who have radically changed their belief systems.
That seems like a heuristic that will easily lead one astray - it would imply, for a start, that inconsistent opportunists are more (intellectually) trustworthy than people who stick to their principles. Doesn't that seem bizarre?
OliveTapenade
26d ago
How can that be distinguished from any pundit who has a consistent worldview, though? Certainly we should take all pundits with a grain of salt, but I can't see anything that makes Hanania worse or less trustworthy than any comparable pundit. Scott Alexander has a bunch of narratives that he's selling - rationalism, effective altruism, AI nonsense. Freddie deBoer has a bunch of narratives he's selling - Marxism, socialism, education reform. Matt Yglesias has a bunch of narratives he's selling - YIMBYism, economic centrism. It feels to me like you're holding Hanania to a higher standard that every other Substack bloviator out there.
OliveTapenade
27d ago
I'm sorry, I don't follow the actual criticism here, or what you think I need to prove.
This tangent began with hydroacetylene writing:
Richard Hanania’s whole schthick is ‘republicans are dumb but I’m stuck on the same side of the aisle’. No matter the news of the day, he has to come up with that take.
You should, accordingly, downgrade the weight of evidence of him coming up with that take.
I read this as stating that it is unsurprising that Hanania states things consistent with things that he has stated previously. Well, yes. But this hardly seems to make sense as a criticism of him. Intellectual consistency is not a vice.
This was followed by Dean stating:
Equivalent to the Pope claiming Catholicism is the one true way. If he wasn't saying that, he wouldn't be the Pope.
Hannia's brand is basically to present himself as the much neglected wiseman that the right should be listening to. Leveraging this self-styled reputation is how he makes money.
Again, it's not clear how this is any kind of valid criticism of Hanania - any more than "you're Catholic!" is a valid criticism of the pope. Hanania's articles tend to be consistent with articles that Hanania has written in the past. The pope's statements tend to be consistent with the pope's previous statements. If there's a difference between the two of them, it's that Catholicism is explicitly formalised as an ideology in a way that Hanania-ism is not.
And, yes, Hanania makes money from people paying to read his writing, but I missed the part where that was a criticism.
My objection is that these criticisms prove too much. It's bad when authors give takes consistent with their previous takes? It's bad when authors make money from their writing? These criticisms, if generalised, exclude almost every writer.
Now, to your comment specifically:
Show examples of him holding to his principles, whatever you propose them to be, in a way that undermines Dean's view of his 'brand'.
Yes, Hanania has a financial interest in catering to his readership. This is true of every author who gets paid for their writing, including every Substacker in the world. We do not automatically dismiss all writing on this basis.
I am aware of no compelling reason to believe that Hanania is insincere in the top article here, and at any rate, even if he were, that wouldn't invalidate any of the observations in the article itself.
So I am left very confused at what seems to me to be a desperate and unproductive groping for an ad hominem. What is the point?
OliveTapenade
27d ago
I'm not sure how to distinguish this from Hanania having a consistent view and Hanania believing that he is correct. That seems like a standard that would rule out pretty much everybody.
OliveTapenade
27d ago
It's amazing - it's the sheer, corny sincerity of it, I think?
OliveTapenade
27d ago
I think that's actually a good example of the general Blizzard problem, when it comes to storytelling. Blizzard make amazing cutscenes, but it's very obvious that what they do is create a couple of pre-set 'high points' for their stories, the dramatic moments that will have cutscenes, and then fill in everything between those moments - and the fillings are largely nonsense. Even in Warcraft III, all the cutscenes are amazing, but then you play the missions in between them and get to enjoy awful, wooden dialogue and endless plot contrivance. Very little in Warcraft III's story makes sense, and the dialogue is cringeworthy, and it has only gotten worse from there.
Thus with Starcraft II or Diablo III or World of Warcraft - the usual course is a farrago on nonsense leading up to a dramatic, technically excellent four or five minute film, and then back to nonsense, perhaps on the logic that people will only remember the cutscenes.
Let me take a specific example - Battle for Azeroth is widely considered a terrible expansion, with a nonsensical plot that engaged in rampant character assassination, and where entire factions were derailed. Nonetheless, consider a few cutscenes. The BfA trailer is amazing. You need practically zero context for it, but if you enjoy random high fantasy people fighting each other in spectacular ways, wow, that trailer delivers. Now 'Old Soldiers'. That orc and that troll look fantastic, extremely human and emotional, and it's a powerful, quiet moment as they reflect on the loss and sacrifice of war, and it puts the BfA trailer in a new context. Now 'Warbringers: Jaina'. Obviously lower production values than the others, but a genuinely haunting moment, as a character once known for her empathy and pacifism, to the point of once siding with the orcs over her own father out of a desire for peace, realises she was wrong and embraces a militant mindset. This then led up to an in-game cutscene at the battle in the trailer where she appears with the ghost ship and, again, without context it's genuinely cool.
And look, those four cutscenes without much context all string together in a way that might seem excellent, right? The Horde and the Alliance are at war, we've got some complicated emotional journeys on both sides, real ambivalance around the necessity, even glory, but also the horror of war, and so on.
But trust me, if you have played Battle for Azeroth, you will know that all the connective tissue between those moments is horrible. There are potentially interesting moments here, like Jaina's or Saurfang's development, but the game constantly whiffs on the execution, or changes its mind and goes back on what the cutscenes seemed to imply, or even just forgets about what it was doing; and I haven't even mentioned Sylvanas yet.
Blizzard are very good at making "pretty awesome" cutscenes. But cutscenes alone do not a compelling story make.
OliveTapenade
27d ago
Some time around 2010 seems like the inflection point, yeah.
With BioWare in particular it's shocking how well that cut off-works. You have Baldur's Gate II (2000), Neverwinter Nights (2002), Knights of the Old Republic (2003), Jade Empire (2005), Mass Effect (2007), Dragon Age: Origins (2009), and Mass Effect 2 (2010), all of which are excellent. (I'd accept a quibble on NWN, but even so, the standard is very high.) But once you get past 2010, you have Dragon Age 2 (2011), The Old Republic (2011), Mass Effect 3 (2012), Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014), Mass Effect: Andromeda (2017), Anthem (2019), and Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024). The decline in quality is both large and rapid.
OliveTapenade
27d ago
It is entirely true that native Japanese discussion of most issues, including Assassin's Creed, is different to what you can get by reading English language media. This is true for pretty much every country in the world. English language media by itself will give you a distorted picture of pretty much anything, but Japan is especially bad. For gaming in particular, I'm fortunate enough to know a couple of native Japanese people who pass me gossip so I have a slight inkling of the scope of the misrepresentation.
That said, the top level post here is very strange. Very strange indeed.
OliveTapenade
27d ago
I'm not sure what your point is. Intellectual consistency is... bad? Uninteresting? Something else?
OliveTapenade
29d ago
It's a short, four episode UK TV series about a teenager who murders a classmate. It's being interpreted as a penetrating look at the radicalisation of young boys by social media.
OliveTapenade
29d ago
Oh, and to that I should add works like Blade Runner or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, or even Frank Herbert's original concept for the Butlerian Jihad, where even perfectly well-behaved thinking machines might challenge what it means to be human metaphysically. Even that has been considered potentially existentially threatening. It's not literal destruction, but what if machines change our very concept of what it means to be alive, or to have a soul?
Less Wrong asked some of these questions in the 2010s, but then, so did Mass Effect. It's a genre staple.
I was struck, thinking about it for this, by just how diverse the genre is?
You have the classic 'killer robot' trope, where the machines are just plain evil and intentionally want to destroy humanity - thus Skynet or AM.
You have the machine that is faithfully executing the commands given to it in good faith and threatens to destroy everything out of ignorance - thus WOPR.
You have the machine that is attempting to fulfil its designed purpose in good faith but which suffers some kind of fatal error and goes crazy - thus HAL 9000.
You have the machines that genuinely want the best for humanity and try to achieve that even contrary to our explicitly stated preferences - think 'With Folded Hands' (1947), or Asimov played around with this. 'The Evitable Conflict' (1950) was about machines taking charge of the future with humanity's welfare in mind, and seems ambivalent about whether that's desirable.
It seems like these categories cover most plausible AI fears. The AI could be actively hostile to humans, the AI could be indifferent to or ignorant of human life, the AI could be schizophrenic or malfunctioning, and the AI could be benevolent in ways that we do not desire.
Obviously none of these stories map perfectly to contemporary worries, but there's enough, I think, that the concept of AI or robots or machines going wrong in a dangerous way was firmly stuck in the public consciousness long before an autodidact started a blog in 2009.
I don't think this does a great job of relaying Douthat's thesis specifically, but I will say that it was delightful to read the second half, where he gives a fresh glance at the gospels.
One of the first pieces of advice I give to anybody interested in Christianity is to sit down and read a gospel, in one sitting. If possible, find a printing of the gospel without section headings or verse numbers, because those just confuse and aren't authentic to the original text anyway. Then read it. Hold all your questions until the end - jot them down if you like, but keep reading. Get through the whole thing in one sitting. And then see how it affects you.
Unfortunately even for churchgoers, one of the most frequent ways to experience the Bible is to hear it chopped up into tiny morsels, and then for each morsel to be surrounded by so much sugar and honey, in the forms of prayers and sermons and hymns, as to make them palatable. But how much scripture can you really get that way? Put all the extras aside, and have a full course meal of nothing but scripture.
Often, I find, when people do this they are shocked by what they find. Perhaps the story is much more dramatic than they thought, or it's much more bizarre and incomprehensible, or they find themselves drawn to or repulsed by characters they never thought about before, or they just realise that the puzzle pieces fit together in a way that they had never registered. But it usually does something, and that something, whatever it is, is worth exploring.
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