My Own Struggles With Nuance
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 มิ.ย. 2024
- I talk about nuance again. This time it's about the struggle that I have with it.
Videos I reference:
Listening To My Stories With Nuance: • Listening To My Storie...
Commenting On My Stories With Nuance: • Commenting On My Stori...
Fallout TV Show Review: • Fallout TV Show Review - เกม
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"At some point Intelligence fails you and you gotta go with Wisdom."
*checks S.P.E.C.I.A.L. chart*
Shit.
He’s using the D&D system
If wisdom were a perk, would it rely more on Intelligence, Perception, or Charisma?
@Anubis1101 Wisdom would be proportional to your experience level.
Each year we live is a level up.
@@CainOnGames so that's what it is? Dang, guess I got some grinding to do
Hey Uncle Tim. Thanks for taking the time to be a role model. Many of us outside of game dev are applying your lessons not only to other disciplines, but our personal lives/relationships.
Not knocking you or your comment but very few people want to be role models as that's a lot of pressure to have on oneself. Calling someone an inspiration is fine, but we're all human, we all fail, and as they say, "never meet your heroes" as once you see them as the humans they are, they might not seem so heroic anymore.
Im glad hes a positve fore for you, but i think stuff like calling him uncle leans into being a bit parasocial. Just saying you may wanna be cautious of that and where it can lead
@@Jvid752sure. I should clarify that I only did so because he's introduced himself as Uncle Tim to the audience in previous videos, and my comment was an attempt at speaking for all of us. Parasocial in a different way, I know.
@@CharlesSweet Understandable. My comment could have been worded better. I didn't mean to insinuate that "role model" is an identity that Tim is purposely taking on with this channel and the videos. But I do feel pretty strongly that taking the time to reflect on oft-forgotten aspects of creativity, like working with others, and in turn sharing the wisdom, is role model behavior.
I have to agree his open mindset and willingness to give people chances and be a leader in a positive way are very inspirational
This video reminds me of this quote from The Good Place "Life now is so complicated, it's impossible for anyone to be good enough for the Good Place."
The problem with being good is something missing from games, to few games punish you for being good.
There is sacrifice if you avoid things for personal morals, it's not easy.
This.
Agree. Games should explore this concept instead of making it a "good vs evil" binary choice the majority of the time.
I like how the first Bioshock handled it, if you were bad you got immediate benefit, but saving all the girls the good way gave you a better benefit in the long run.
The "problem with altruism" definitely has a place in some games, especially ones where morality and politics feature heavily as themes and such. But I don't miss it from most games. For fantasies of fun, and doubly so for something like games which largely appeal to younger audiences, 'skepticism of selflessness' is something I might argue isn't the kind of social narrative or commentary it's wise to prioritize. Exaltations of pro-social behavior may produce better outcomes. But then again isn't that exactly the kind of exploration which is necessary to introduce? After all, we need only look into moral paragons like Mother Teresa or Gandhi, and many nonprofit orgs, to realize what you are told is good and moral is often among the most evil and contemptable.
@@harpernerys7345 Your comment is well thought out, but I would argue that the reason so many moral choices in games appear superficial-such as merely looking evil-is that you receive an equivalent reward regardless of your choice. Additionally, in a realistic game, real-life consequences often punish those who do the right thing. Historical figures like MLK and Malcolm X were assassinated, and even philosophers like Socrates faced execution-it’s an integral part of doing what’s right.
I think Tim is wishing there was an irl reputation mechanic like a CRPG you could check at any time to clarify moments like this 😅
Don't we all?
@@lolusuck386 Heard of a social credit score playa?
Some kind of a social credit score (unironically)
@@Cassius609 lol made the same comment and he deleted it. Keep on strugglin'
The programmer brain is flummoxed at the sight of changing opinions.
Just declare your opinions as variables, not as constants.
I tend to separate artistry from its artists. People I don't like can have good views on individual topics. It's pretty rare that I wholesale don't like an entire human from nose to toes. It's even more rare that I like every aspect of any person.
The problem is when the artist is a living person using your appreciation of their art to accomplish things you don't support. If you separate the art from the currently active artist, you financially support causes you don't want to financially support. If I buy a Diddy album because I like the song, I am financially supporting his crimes.
Do you think you'd be able to name a single artist, company, or any entity that has never done a wrong? What is the level of crime or moral indiscretion that you are willing to support? If you've ever bought a Nirvana album, are you now supporting heroin use? If you've ever once shopped at Walmart in your life, are you now supporting tax evasion? I won't support artistry that actively sends a message of hatred, but unfortunately you're perfect business / artist doesn't exist. I guess it's just a matter of what is your line that you're willing to ignore wrongdoing for the sake of personal enrichment? Even our friends and family do wrong but we don't just discard them right out the gate.
@@theebulllYeah its pretty much where your line in the sand is. So people are fine if the CEO says something stupid about taxes but not fine with them using child labor. Seems pretty reasonable to be selective and spend your energy on not supporting bad people when you can afford to, even if that's not philosophically consistent.
@@Doople you are 100% correct. That's why I tend to not weigh in their personal opinions and actions. The judgement is philosophical by nature and there is no way to be consistent with it. It turns into a problem of how many degrees of separation from the problem does it need to be. Diddy produced Biggy and makes money from him, should I not listen to Biggy anymore? Even using TH-cam has its ties to horrible things, but here we all are. I'll watch Harry Potter but I'm not out consuming trans hate content. I'm fine with deplatforming a person who uses their voice to spread hate in an egregious way (not confusing hate with an opposing opinion to mine), but not listening to a good song they put out 5 years ago won't do that. If you see hate, speak against it, don't just run away from it. People fall into those traps of hate because they likely didn't have that opposing perspective when they formed that judgement. The best thing you can do is give that perspective to them and hopefully they can think critically, even if it takes time.
@@theebulll I don't really feel it's about if they've done no wrong. More, are they causing an impact with their money, from their art, that is harming others. I'd dare say, that's a SMALL list of artists out there. I only know of one who's dumb enough to be overtly vocal about it, to the point I had to change my spending habits. ty Rowling, for that? I'm sure there's other examples, but that's the one that hit me the hardest. (I'm not big on media in general, and got into reading her before the movies came out)
At that point, I think it's fair to discard - because it's not a mistake or act made out of desperation for financial security. I'd even say you owe it to yourself and others to discard friends and family who engage in harmful behavior, more than a public figure. Because you can intimately know just how bad they are, on a personal level. Doesn't mean we can't pick them back up again- just that there are things so bad, that dumping the whole person in the trash, is the right answer.
Memory is a funny thing. A memory is really just a reconstruction of an event, and every time we try to put a memory back together it comes out a little bit different to the last time we tried to remember. Sometimes it's us that change so much we wonder why we even would care to remember a thing in the first place. Memories are also snapshots of ourselves and how we perceived the world at that time. Rather than relying on memory, I think it is better to build a good instinct for things. It probably doesn't do us any good to carry around all that baggage with us anyway.
You can still quote Diddy it's ok
You brought up Michael Schur and that's a fantastic example, because in the The Good Place, while the system of interdependencies we live in make us complicit in its failings, one of the lessons of the show is we can try to be better than we were before.
It is exhausting trying to keep up with what's known about all the things we interact with, but you're not going to help anyone if you burn yourself up trying to hit perfects in the rhythm game of morality under capitalism. Your best is all you can do
Hey Tim, cool video as usual. Sometimes I think about those things myself. I believe that a lot of people have issues with nuance because they've been taught they need to be right. Sure, it is a very good guideline to seek. But in reality we simply cannot achieve it. Take a look at how many people on the internet think they are ALWAYS right, when they're not. Perhaps we should be teaching people on how to deal with being wrong. There is a very important and distinct line between wanting to be right, and wanting to improve.
I agree. I’ve learned so much from being wrong.
@Schiersner
Yeah, that's also what I thought about when he said "as if - for them - being kind is a lot worse than being mean" - it's not worse than being mean, it's worse than acknowledging they were in the wrong, and not just admitting it to the victim, but even to themselves.
Being wrong sucks, it hurts our pride.
All of us feel that, to some degree, so I suspect most of us are guilty of not admitting our mistakes, at least on occasion.
Hey Tim, thank you for your uploads. They really help. I appreciate you using this medium. Please continue to share stories and perspectives with us.
One of the greatest privileges we have in this life is to learn from the people around us. Whether it’s passive or direct, it happens if we’re open to it.
I love the way you closed the video, trying to be better is the kind of energy we all can benefit from.
Thanks as always for the video and sharing your thoughts!
If you haven't already watched it, I'd really recommend watching "The Good Place", I don't want to spoil it but it's an amazing, funny show that that really gets into nuance, utilitarianism, being the perfect person etc.
Tim speaks about a book in the video that was written by creator of Good Place. Pretty sure he has seen it ;)
I’m pretty sure Tim’s entire last point is almost beat for beat said in a scene from The Good Place
I was about to write the same comment! Definitely watch The Good Place! Also, I live relying on my memory (which is not good). If someone has done something bad enough, I'll remember it and avoid it. If I don't remember the bad thing, either the thing wasn't so bad, or enough time has passed
Another great video from Tim!
The problem is when the artist is a living person using your appreciation of their art to accomplish things you don't support. If you separate the art from the currently active artist, you financially support causes you don't want to financially support. If I buy a Diddy album because I like the song, I am financially supporting his crimes.
'Separate the art from the artist" is a fine concept when referring to past and dead artists, but we live in a time where the creator IS the product. It's a different situation.
The problem with this mentality is you don't control where your money goes as soon as it's changed hands, you may buy something from a company you support & that goes towards paying the wages of a worker who then uses that money to support things you don't support.
If you follow this logic to its inevitable conclusion you would have to track every single purchase everyone has ever made which not only is impossible but you would quickly find out that no matter how careful you are with your financial support eventually it will go to a cause you don't support.
The much better solution is to make sure you are actually supporting your causes, if you find out an artist you like supports a cause that you don't then make sure you are supporting the opposing cause.
You can't control what other people do with their money but you can control what you do with yours.
You're not financially supporting any crimes if you buy, cuz if that's the case then we would all be criminals for supporting the United States government which we have to pay taxes to
Great video, Tim.
Uhm, sorry for a potentially self-centered question (I think you know why), but are you planning on doing a vid about all the Fallout-related memorabilia/merch/... you own? :D
Have a great day!
I certainly plan to do that. Currently I have several weeks of videos in the queue, so it might be next month when it appears.
Btw, because of that queue, I think it’s funny when people think my video is a reaction to something that happened the day (or week) before. If I made a video today, it would air in mid July.
@@CainOnGames Well, that explains a lot :) ... That's fine. Just keep 'em coming. They're part of my daily routine :D
I, too, have this conversation with a buddy all the time.
Unfortunately it's a paradox. To be a tolerant person you end up needing to either tolerate intolerance or become intolerant yourself.
I read a great article many years ago that compared communities (online or otherwise) to walled gardens that caused me to really evaluate how I thought about tolerance. Sadly I have no answers either 😅
Think of it like this: tolerance is a social contract. A person preaching intolerance has broken that contract and is therefore not covered by its terms. That person can and should be excluded, without that exclusion being an act of intolerance. Because they're no longer covered by the contract.
For what it's worth and while I'm still struggling with the results from EU elections and quite frankly, pretty much arguing with everyone, both the people who have voted for very right wing and nationalist parties or for very left leaning parties who are basically saying that the parties on the right are stupid and evil and so are their voters (because they basically deny the problems that lead to the rise of the rights and a lot of stuff was mishandled by their parties):
I think you are doing exactly the right thing.
Nuance is hard. Being fair to people who you disagree with fundamentally is hard. Doing tough things out necessity is hard. Staying empathetic with "bad" people is very hard. But for me, I don't really see an option if I don't want to become a "bad" person of a different flavor or at least part of the general problem.
Also: Hey Tim, you're awesome :)
I often listen to political arguments I don't agree with. Sometimes they make a good point. Sometimes they make a Freudian slip and that can be interesting.
11:05 The trick is to never look for facts :P
Realistically, the best you can do is take a breath and think things over again. It doesn't apply to everything but will cover the majority of situations you're jumping to conclusions.
Some truly terrible people spend time and money to do good things. Why should we stop someone from doing something good, that may even actually help, just because they're terrible? If a person isn't given a chance to do something good, or even have that good thing acknowledged, then the world we live in will only get worse and who would even bother trying to improve if there's no redemption?
I'm...half heartened that someone else has had trouble keeping track of all the things/places/people one is supposed to avoid...and also half disheartened that I'm not just some weirdo who can't keep up when everyone else can do it easily.
I guess all we can do is try our best to do good where we can, "be better", as you said, and generally leave things in an improved (or at least equal) state to when we arrived.
Hey Tim,
Thank you for sharing those thoughts with us. Despite having less wisdom or life experience than yourself, I feel compelled to comment to support what you are experiencing.
I would like to begin by saying that it is lovely for you to be willing to listen to people whom have hurt you and extend your empathy. Though it is a shame that we can't always acknowledge what we do with one-another, it is that freedom to apologise genuinely which makes it mean even more. On the same note, I think you should be proud of yourself for just trying to take notes of companies and brands which you believe that you shouldn't give business to.
I resonate deeply with that feeling of being overwhelmed by the list of people and things which have done something wrong or might do wrong. I do want to say that worrying about who might do something wrong is way outside reasonable bounds of worry. You're already doing plenty and trying your best. There will always be people around us who try to encourage us to be evermore morally responsible and their heart is in the right place. Being deliberately ignorant or uncaring is not a great way to be.
There is no silver bullet. I hope you just continue to acknowledge that the scope-creep of this problem should not be an impediment for you to be realistic about what you can actually do as a human. Extend yourself a little grace like you have to others.
Much love from Australia,
Jarrod
Great vid! Would love to hear you talk more about music you enjoy!
Super simple. Quote whatever I want. Even if someone is bad, that doesn't translate to what they say as a rule.
If I'm a "bad" person and I say something that is moral, that doesn't change morality just because I said it. So clearly they aren't related.
The reverse is tribalistic and borderline superstitious.
It's cool to hear you say that. I have a very hard time with doing what's best, and everyone around me always seems so confident that they know what's best about everything, like they've never found out they were wrong before
While inaction or indecision can certainly bring about devastating consequences, I think so too can impulsive action, or taking a stance on every single thing. I think more people ought to find the courage to say “I don’t know”. People are much more complex than what we can ascribe from words alone. For example, my father has said very hurtful things to me that have cut deeply and stay with me. However, he has also saved my life multiple times. Similarly, art can help us when we are in very bleak places. So when an artist says or does something terrible, it’s not so easy or simple to altogether dismiss them from our lives.
you can acknowledge someone for being a bad person, but when it comes to media, art, entertainment we only know them through the lense of their work. I wouldn't judge my bus driver for cheating on his wife, im just happy to get to my destination in a peaceful and swift manner. I wouldn't judge the employee i ordered food from at mcdonalds because maybe she was guilty of stealing from her family at one point in time, i just want my food to be of the quality i paid for.
I think it changes when you actually know someone personally, because then those sort of things can end up affecting you directly but when it's just a transaction of a product or service it falls more on a parasocial interaction. I don't blame people for lumping it all together, but trying to police what others do and label them as bad people is where i believe things get harmful.
But anyways ly tim ur still the goat
I tend to look at roughly the first three information/experience I have with someone and make my judgement from that. As for forgiveness I don't think you can make a rule for all situations. You have to make your own evaluation on the severity and intention of the offense and sincerity of the apology, and see if their actions match their words. We must make mistakes in order to learn!
These days we have tons of people just going with the crowd rather than thinking for themselves. I don't like the idea that I'll get shamed or criticized if I don't automatically go along with a "cancel".
We love you, Tim. You're an incredible beacon of hope and reason!
damn this one was relatable. feels like more and more people just “don’t remember” anything
About the struggle with nuance,
I won't push my intrusion into how other people might want to treat the question beyond this:
personally, I feel I can only try to be fair when direct interactions with actual persons is concerned.
While I don't see how it can be solved when esoteric things like companies, or artists,
or other unreachable entities are to be "assessed"
(I mean, there are points, but they're shifting and not completely formed, for me).
On a more tangible topic from the video,
one thing I painfully learned long ago could be of good use, though:
when you write notes, of ANY kind, you have to do it as if they were meant for ALIENS to understand.
It takes longer as it requires more explicit explanations, and because you have to set your mind to it before writing,
but doing otherwise has proved to be just a waste of time for me, time and again, on the long run.
Thanks for your videos!
"I don't know". That's crucial for open-mindedness and nuance
This is quite a broad topic, but generally I tend to weigh my decisions on stuff like this based more on what harm will be caused if I'm wrong, rather than the potential benefits of me being right. Because the last thing you want to do is make the world a worse place. The worst you want to be is neutral. If you're 100% sure of something then you can just do whatever you think is right, but often you won't be.
This is especially important when dealing with individuals, since you mentioned cancelling people lol. The cost of being wrong about that, or even just unreasonably immovable beyond the point where the person has atoned for their wrongdoing, can be unfairly damaging to say the least.
I think when it comes to big companies and stuff, the cost of being wrong is probably negligible. Like they're not going to collapse if you, alone, take your business elsewhere. You could probably do some damage if you go as far as leaving negative reviews or social media feedback, in which case you'd certainly want to take more care to make sure you've got your facts straight, but if it's just you boycotting them on your own then it's not a big concern imo.
Tim's discussion of how new information can alter our opinions and decisions made me think of Bayesian statistics. Not sure if that is useful to anyone, but there it is.
Tim, as long time fan of your work and aging millennial dad, I feel compelled to thank you for this channel. You're musings really brighten my work day, even when you are speaking about programming which might as well be Latin to me. Excellent work sir, both in your games and on this channel.
I always separate the creator from the creation because to not do so is to miss out on content that I might enjoy. If a creation or product is good and I enjoy it, I'll buy it and if I don't care for it, I won't buy it. I do however take note of what aspect of the product or art I didn't care for, so that I may learn from what the creator did wrong, so I don't make the same mistake when I create things. This is coming from me though, I'm cynical.
you can keep track of company's/people's misdeeds with an excel sheet
I appreciate your videos like this. Some of what you say reminds me of an episode of The Good Place that struck me, seems almost too hard to really be a good person. I try to scope control myself in that regard and focus more on the people immediately around me just because it's too much for me to handle what's outside that.
For me I think, I like to have systems and hard lines.. but I’ve had to accept that these things are so incredibly grey and varied, that I can’t set down useful systems or lines.
So at some point I have to go with my gut in many cases, especially regarding “uncancelling”. I can only do my best, and I can’t dedicate all my energy to it.
At the end of the day I pick my battles, and like you, I try.
I also don’t like to hold grudges forever. I certainly have many times been a jerk, especially in my youth. I’d want people to judge me by the ways I’m a jerk today, not by the person I was then.
So sometimes I’ll just uncancel because of time alone, and give the person a chance to show that they’re not still the same. There is no set amount of time.
I’m looking forward to reading other takes on this, this comment section will be interesting.
If someone has done or said something, within reason, and the person makes an active effort to change or rectify the things they've done- I think it's important to not deem people unforgivable. Again within reason.
I think you approached this really empathetically and rationally. There's only so much we can do as people, we learn, we grow, we can't boycott everything, we just have to be as kind as we are able without burning ourselves out with this intense guilt and stress.
The closest thing to an answer i have is that i will always give people the benefit of the doubt if i can see that they're trying to do good or be better.
Often that's meant that i've been let down by people pretty hard.
But just as often, i've seen that people can grow when given the space and allowance to make mistakes.
As an extra bonus, when people see that you're the kind of person who does that, they'll often start doing the same for you. I've learned a lot and grown a lot because the people in my life have been kind enough to be patient and give me the benefit of the doubt for some shitty behaviour.
You ask some really great questions here Tim and I don't think there are definitive, satisfying answers that are universal for everyone. "To what extent can we separate art from the artist?" is a question I know as a heavy metal fan I've had to ask myself often. My thinking comes down to this: How much does consuming their art/creative output advance their position and or ability to do what it is that is so worthy of "canceling" them for? There's little to be gained from never listening to records you've already paid for. (Unless listening now makes you feel differently) However, I think you're right to think twice about shining a spotlight on someone who gives you pause like that since you have a bit of a public influence on this platform yourself. No reason to give them a potential boost if you don't need to.
This happens all the time, public figures on social media who post something really offensive or stupid. I try to keep the art and the artist separate. 😂
A couple of thoughts on this issue:
1) A lot of the time there will be people that will pretend to be smart by saying something is "complicated" or "nuanced" to either avoid expressing an opinion or to muddy the waters in order to bamboozle you and prevent you from having a view that might be against them, especially when the situation is actually clear cut and they don't have an actual argument in the face of evidence. You will see this a lot in politics and I highly recommend reading Orwell's essay 'Politics and the English Language' for more on this type of thing if you haven't already read it. Yes, there can be lots of nuance to things but if you are well informed with reliable information on a given issue, your opinion shouldn't be a shrug of the shoulders and saying 'its complicated', there should be some kind of opinion and judgement as an outcome, otherwise everyone's time has just been wasted. It is incredibly difficult for any individual to get absolutely perfect information about something and if we were to wait until perfect information for every issue, we would never develop a point of view on anything at all, let alone do anything. At the same time, if you're not well informed and you know you're not well informed it is completely reasonable to say that you don't know enough about the topic yet to come to any kind of judgement when people ask for your opinion on this or that.
2) Many companies don't act consistently when they moralistically grandstand. For instance, Sony grandstanded about pulling out from Russia as a result of the war and recently Russian steam users have had their steam accounts get in trouble for activating keys for newer sony releases from third party key sites (as sony pulled their games from sale in Russia) because of Sony's moralistic position regarding the Ukraine war. Yet Sony won't restrict Israeli or American accounts even as these two governments are actively conducting a genocide. Companies should not publicly justify changes like this based on irrelevant moralistic reasoning if they don't want to be held up to scrutiny in relation to other conflicts around the globe, especially well known ones.
3) When it comes from boycotting say, an individual musician for expressing things you find abhorrent, the question i ask is to what extent does that impact my enjoyment of their work and to what extent are these abhorrent things expressed in their work? If the things I dislike are expressed in their work going forward in a prominent way, then it is quite easy to simply not engage with this material and engage with things I do like or I will be more weary of future products from them (as is the case for future Naughty Dog projects helmed by Neil Druckman.) However, it is much more difficult in regard to larger enterprises as you run into the 'ethical consumption under capitalism issue' that other commenters have described, since it is completely unreasonable to expect individual people to keep track of, or research into, all the possible unethical practices enterprises that produce products they use or want may or may not engage in, since people don't have the time or mental bandwith for it. Its like with chocolate. I think it would be good if say brands didn't have slavery somewhere in their supply chains, but it is not reasonable to expect me to research every single brand of chocolate for information on this and keep a mental spreadsheet of which brands do or don't have slavery in their supply chains (if this information is even easily accessible in the first place) for when I'm in the chocolate section of a shop. We can only make decisions based on limited information and reasoning that can be somewhat arbitrary sometimes. Although I wouldn't worry about quoting from a song of someone who said something abhorrent but unrelated. I doubt most people would care.
The problem with the lack of nuance is that people nowadays forgot some ideals are not mutually exclusive, and when someone says it is, that's when war begins.
I was about to reference the Good Place and then you brought up Michael Schur 😂
For me, it all comes down to proximity. Temporal, physical, social, emotional, etc. The closer we are in proximity, the more nuance I will consider.
And the reasoning for this is the same reason I don't break down and weep every time there's a tragedy that happens on the other side of the world: we simply don't have the capacity, the time or the mental ability to handle life while trying to juggle the nuance and tragedy of everything going on all across the globe.
So I'll try to remember what companies do the worst practices and avoid them to the best of my ability, I'll try to remember people who've been real shitty, etc. and not support them. But I'm also not going to make big lists or spreadsheets because it would simply be a huge drag on my own limited time for minimal benefit and minimal impact.
Now, the closer we are in one of those proximities I mentioned, the more nuance I consider, but also the more stringent my criteria on "passing judgment" (or, in less loaded terms: my opinion on you and how I react): I might forget that celebrity X was a child molesting psycho simply because I'm not big into celebrity gossip and that shit might as well be happening on the moon, but if you're my best friend and I find that out about you, well, my opinion is going to be orders of magnitudes stronger, and while I'll consider with a lot more nuance than the celebrity (whom I have no problem casting casual judgment, because, as I said, minimal impact, and I don't go around gossiping so I'm not "tarnishing reputations" and even if I did I have essentially no voice) but for an extreme example like that, I can't see any amount of nuance making me think of you as anything less than a monster that I'd like to see arrested.
Now of course, as the examples get less extreme, that nuance has greater and greater weight, so for me I like to think the "judgement" and the nuance are paired, and both rise and fall in consideration with proximity.
It's not a perfect system, and I'm sure there's wacky exceptions, but so far I think it's been working out well.
This is where the expression that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism comes from - it’s impossible to know what every company is doing, especially once you start taking the supply chain into account.
Man, it's so refreshing to hear somebody be honest about trying to be a good person and not really being able to apply momentary judgements across large temporal spaces.
Tim’s character has INT 10 and WIS 10. Karma seems super high too.
i think we all know how evil H.P. Lovecraft was and yet his works have done lots to inspire other works. i really don’t think there is any wrong with separating the art from the artist as long as the art itself doesn’t come from a place of hate
The two types of people you mentioned are finding excuses to avoiding taking responsibility for their actions because they have to overcome to cognitive dissonance created by being confronted with information that conflicts with their view of themselves. In their heads they are a goods person so if confronted with irrefutable evidence that they did a bad thing, a thing that in their mind would make them a bad person, their brain will make excuses to square the two new information with their internal narrative. It comes down to some people just being on autopilot because introspection is difficult and not very many people are good at it. Their brains take shortcuts instead of doing the hard work of listening, understanding and processing.
Perfection is. The enemy of good.
Good enough yends to beat out attempted perfection
You just gotta do you best, stay mindful, and be forgiving.
Hey Tim, it’s me, Martin. You made me remember something about world renowned painter Salvador Dalí: I love his art, but he had some dubious life choices, like expressing his support for spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who allegedly sent Federico García Lorca, Dalí’s friend, to his untimely death. I don’t know if it was out of pragmatism or a change of heart from Dalí, but overall, it seems like a dick move.
In the end, can we just separate the artist from the art? I like to try, and besides, why not? I love Dalí’s work. That doesn’t mean I heve to love him. Olso, even if I personally didn’t like the guy, it doesn’t have to lead me to abstain from enjoying something that that have made. Just my two cents.
It's a kind of enlightenment when you realize you can't be objective.
Whether a person is good or bad often happens to be completely unrelated to the reason why they are being mentioned. If person has a wonderful song, this song wouldn't change in any measurable way no matter how many times said person has beaten their wife or how many children they might have abused. Thinking otherwise is not productive and is usually caused by one's desire to think less or to appear more righteous in front of their friends and family or to appeal to such people. If people do bad stuff then it's either none of your business or illegal (and might also be none of your business). In the latter case justice system should take care of it. If it doesn't work, then it should be fixed/improved and not randomly reimplemented by common folk.
People who acknowledge saying something bad to you and refusing to apologies might be thinking that if they apologize they would admit that their actions were of any significance. They seem to disagree that this is the case (e.g. saying "it's been 20 years who cares") and for some people it is a matter of principle to never admit something they think is false.
5:50 damn that is some evil level people lol
I will still listen to Michael Jackson because his message is so positive but someone like R Kelly talked about what he went to prison for in his music, thats the difference to me it just comes down to how someone conducts themselves.
There is a saying, "There is no ethical consumption under capitalism" and I think this is a good illustration of how that can be true in a sense. Companies, in our current business paradigm, are going to do anything to increase profits that they think they can get away with. In a way that's good, we can companies to constantly be pushing the envelope on what's possible but the flip side is when they find a loop hole or weakness in the safety mechanisms they are going to do a lot of harm. It is almost like getting angry at a bear for mauling you because you walked too close to their cubs. That's why we put things in place to protect us from the bears... I think my analogy went off the rails at some point. Sorry.
Anyways, what I wanted to talk about was how to accept apologies from things like companies. When a company screws up and they get added to my black list there are two things they have to do to get off of it. First, they have to apologize. Easy enough but also too easy. Second, they have to repair the damage they caused. A good example would be a company that donated money to anti-LGBT groups would need to donate twice the amount of money to pro-LQBT groups to make up for it. Maybe not exactly double but clearly an amount that shows they are trying to do better and fix any harm they caused.
To be honest, I think most people's behavior is so dictated by their surroundings and various things happening to them in that moment, that I don't "hold people accountable" for most actions if they seem to have changed.
how to make good world building?
I believe its more sensible to be good and correct our own actions, rather than trying to judge/exile everyone around us. If you tried imagining yourself in that situation, you'd probably prefer the opportunity to apologize and correct your misbehavior rather than being ostracized from the rest of society. That infinitely growing blocklist you mentioned is the proof that shows the opportunity for forgiveness is more reasonable than making the decision to cancel someone
Ignorance is bliss. Sometimes, i'm jealous of the type of people you mentioned. They live vicariously without caring about the consequences of there action, even if they make more harm then good in the world. There is sadly no solution....my philosophy has been actually the one schools taught us: be better than the average. And that mentality applies to everything in life; how nice you are to the people around you, how good you should be at your job, how much you should exercices ,etc. Not a perfect way to see things, but im doing more good then harm without the mental strain on thinking about nuances of things all the time. Like you said, at some point, it gets exhausting.
There's this saying that goes something like "there is no ethical consumption" and while I see a lot of truth in that, I think the closest thing to an 'answer' is to finish that statement with "but we should try our best anyway." To expand on that, we should always try our best while also acknowledging we are not perfect beings. Just going off of what I've seen in videos and interviews, I would personally consider Tim a good person, because from what I've seen, he puts in that effort.
I don't find it difficult. I know it's impossible to never cause harm, so I simply seek to minimize the harm I do. If both choices are harmful, I choose what I judge to be the least harmful. I don't sweat it either way.
Hey I just finished the other worlds and I loved it. Loved the romance with junlei and those quests around it. Loved the ending of the game.
Can't wait for the next installment and I hope I get to visit earth again.. See what's going on since it's been quiet..
Regarding the "don't remember that", the alcoholic's tune.
"Too many people have opinions on things they know nothing about. And the more ignorant they are, the more opinions they have"
and in another layer of irony, the character who said this quote is a very flawed person too.
I'm with you Tim, nuance is one of the higher level skills that is incredibly hard to master, what with everyone around us sapping away at our intelligence and sanity. But it's what differentiates us from wild animals.
The best I've got is: nothing is black and white, trust yourself, do the best you can, learn from regret, and turn lemons into lemonade! 😉
This the funniest video I've seen on this channel by far. It's also very relatable. I sure hope nobody's being weird about it in the comments, though.
Yeah, I've run into similar problems keeping track, so I just resorted to the principle of, if I've boycotted a company for so long I can't remember why, they they've done their sentence. It ends up with me avoiding companies that are unforgettably bad, frequently bad or recently bad, and gives possibly reformed or changed ones another chance.
9:08 just do the best you can within reason is what I try. I can avoid buying Harry Potter products, avoid Russian products as far as I'm aware. I'm sure I buy products from a bad company at the supermarket, but I can't check everything. Somethings are easy for me to do, so I do that at least.
Things change over time and people also develop and become better or worse at things
My main compass is that, whenever minority or victim create a tool to protect themselves, if such tool works, it will be used against them after a while, because people who like power will seize it for their own agenda, that's the meaning of pendulum swings. Currently meetoo and cancelling are failing prey to this.
The only solution is imagination to anticipate and build resilience, to not be overwhelmed, by building support structure.
Punching the bad guy is the easy way out, better is to make sure people are safe. It's easier to keep track people and things that matter, than whom and which to cull.
Eventually, support structure become mature enough to replace the old structure of power, that's how democracy won over kings. When the ground got fertile, the seed were ready to be sown.
From my experience, apologies go a lot further than some people are willing to admit. Which is still a very good thing!
I think actions of artists or people who create things doesn't have to apply to whether or not i enjoy what they create
In recent experience I'm seeing that there are disagreements that stem from very fundamental concepts that are the roots to these burgeoning expressions that differ. For example, I had to recently dive into having decision makers describe:
A) what is an immutable property of an individual vs an inherently changeable philosophy a person holds.
B) what's the difference between discrete and continuous?
C) what is relative vs absolute morality?
Hi Tim,
very interesting topic and talk. My thoughts on it (without getting too political):
I tend to separate the art from the artist. Think I have to. Otherwise, I probably could not watch most of my favourite films, play most of my favourite games, listen to music etc. Yes some people are worse than others, but at the end of the day - how many actors or directors we've heard of being bad people - cheating on their partners, having 'bad' political views (however we define bad in this case), are nasty and difficult to work with etc. Yes, there are extremes - I probably wouldn't be able to look at Hitler's paintings without thinking of what kind of person he was, but generally I tend to separate these. Chances are, if I knew all your opinions, they'd be very different from mine - but I don't need to know them to enjoy Fallout. Many of my favourite artists probably did drugs or are / were bad people in some way - the law should punish them if they got things too far but other than that, there's no reason to enjoy their art.
I'd be careful about boycotting companies because of a moral stance. First of all, as you rightly say, there are many 'bad' companies out there - we just don't know it (yet). Even the companies which seemingly 'only' sell products and services, without any political message / virtue signalling are often treating employees like garbage or do other 'bad' things in the background (late payments to vendors, firing hundreds of people only for the CEO then to give himself a nice bonus etc.). Or might be virtue signalling just for the sake of it, as a PR stunt, and still treat employees (or even customers) like garbage - such as many utility companies I had the 'pleasure' of having to interact with.
It can also a bit of a slippery slope potentially - just last week, a violent mob decided to break windows of a bank in UK because they decided that just boycotting this evil bank (for doing business with Israel in this case) was not enough - more violent action needed to be taken, apparently. Same with the kids destroying statues of historical figures because they were involved in slave trade, or destroying art to protest against the climate. I'd be very careful about 'forcing' my political views on the world like this. It is everyone's choice not to buy from a company which doesn't align with one's views, but it often leads to many issues further down the line (for example to many companies nowadays feeling like there's only one 'right' opinion - the woke one).
Finally, none of us is perfect. Some of us are dishonest, some make bad jokes (including racist / homophobic) that can hurt people, some are cheating on their partners, slack at work, lie to their friends... The older I get, the more I realise that very few people are actually evil - most of us are 'just' weak. Weak to resist temptation, weak to stand up to evil, or just too stupid to differentiate between what's evil and what's just someone's different opinion. Let's all find the strength to fight evil within our own hearts, forgive others and find a way to live with one another - despite our (many) flaws.
Tim, can you give any backstory on the Troika logo?
I've heard it said that people don't get more conservative as they age, but that they fail to progress. I wonder if that informs people's inability and unwillingness to be held accountable on the interpersonal level.
It's not that people become more conservative as they age but that people become more conservative the more successful they are, for instance most unsuccessful people are very happy for taxes to fund everything but when they start making enough money for high tax rates to affect them they want to lower taxes.
Obviously success is linked with age but not everyone becomes successful, & some people become less successful as they age.
This is just a symptom of human nature, people want help but don't want to be the ones giving the help.
@@MannerdDesert7 That's a valuable perspective, I think! For me, it highlights that people don't really understand taxes or the role they play in what might be called success.
If you have a literate customer and/or employee pool, then that's a benefit of taxes. Same thing when it comes to roads, or any other infrastructure, really.
I think, with some structural analysis and systems critique, it's pretty apparent that "successful people" have success that is built on the backs of the so-called unsuccessful people wanting.
And, like, we have the numbers. We don't have to guess it speculate. There are plenty of people without means that vote and act against their best interests in service to capital (money) and the monied class.
I also think it's kinda weird to make it essential to human nature to want to help, but not to give help when we see people help all the time. From neighbors with their cups of salt and sugar, to protests, to charity. Like, GoFundMe campaigns have made headlines.
I think it's funny that any quality a person might possess would be essentialized to the entire species in the comments on a video about nuance.
Of course, this is just my interpretation of what you said. Feel free to address anything you feel I've misunderstood. You may have different working definitions of things like "success," "human nature," or "help."
"You do what you can, that's all you can do" is my go-to take on this. The world is too big for any one of us to shoulder such a burden; perfection is too idealistic a goal.
Try to think about whether you should listen to an artist or talk about an artist. Think about which brands are good to buy and which aren't. You'll miss some, not know about some, or even just be wrong.
And that's okay.
What's important is that you're making the effort in the right direction, so that hopefully, collectively, we can try to influence society to move in a better direction. If you make a mistake, course-correct. If you find new information, reevaluate. Don't worry about the things you can't do anything about, and focus on the things you can at that moment.
It has happened where I wronged someone, was regretful about it but never apologized. How? I only apologize when I owe some someone something like to "owe them an apology". If I've already been punished then the debt has been paid so I no longer owe them an apology, but we shouldnt have any problems personlly since we're even.
Some excellent words of wisdom and contemplation in this video. It certainly is difficult to live by one's morality and ideology in today's age of data and international corporations. There are many times that I forget why I'm not buying a certain brand or going to a certain store, only to contemplate why as I enter the store or pick up that product.
As far as art and the artists go, I think it's best to make some form of separation of the two, while still being mindful of their connection and the influence that the artist's ideology may have had on the piece. I think it's easier to do this when it comes to art that is put together by a multitude of actors, such as film, animation, music and video games. While there may have been an overarching director to these pieces, I think it's a disservice to dismiss such pieces due to a sole actor, when there are so many other individuals who have worked on these products as developers, writers, artists, programmers, editors and composers. Critique should be placed where the bad actor's influence seeps through, but shouldn't be representative of every aspect of such works.
Just my personal thoughts.
I have two general philosophies regarding this. First, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, so while I will boycott some companies that demonstrate egregious behavior (WotC is one example), I know I can’t avoid giving money to all corporations who do terrible things, because there’s so many and I have to survive in the world they’ve created.
As far as individuals go, when it comes to celebrities I try to remember not to hero-worship anyone (anyone still living, anyway), and keep in mind the limitations of parasocial relationships. If someone demonstrates bad behavior, I’m not gonna be their booster, but I’m also not appointed to be their judge. I’ll probably never meet them, so it’s a bit of a moot point. If it’s enough to turn me off of their work (music, movies, etc.) then I probably just won’t enjoy them any longer.
If it’s someone in my life, I want to balance compassion and patience with keeping myself (and those I care about) safe from any further abuse.
In all cases (well, maybe not corporations), if they show themselves contrite about their misdeeds, I’m likely to take them at their word and forgive them. As for people who say “I just don’t remember that,” I tend to agree with you-it seems like someone people have picked up from politicians because they’ve seen that there are rarely ever consequences for just flat-out lying and denials. Older parents seem to do it a lot, too, though I’m never sure if they’ve just forgotten or if it’s a defense mechanism (I read an article talking about how many of them go based on emotions rather than facts, so if something doesn’t match up with their emotions surrounding an event, the factual details are irrelevant to them. This is a common tactic of abusive parents, apparently…). In any case, I stop trusting them and probably avoid them in general.
"I don't remember" in the context you provided that I see more and more these days is simply an unwillingness to accept responsibility, or the experience of people other than themselves. We live in a society that has far too many people for what we're used to and being able to hold each other accountable on a more individual basis, so adaptations (arguably maladaptations such as cancel culture) pop up to try and deal with it as a larger collective. For better or for worse.
I feel like, with many situations like that, I look for patterns. There's more than one way to apologize, and there's ways to see if an apology is genuine or not. Do they change their behavior? Do they keep doing the same thing? Do they proactively try to change? Have they become a different person from whatever not so great thing they did some time in the past? Are they exhibiting behaviors that other offenders have done? It's a web, but there are common traits that tend to pop up in those situations; unfortunately, they can be difficult to see online. And the older I get, the more I realize that no one is perfect, and sometimes we fall into things that hurt others, other times we see something as horrible that we do anyway because we have a more serious problem that has no better solution to our knowledge. Then there are moments where we just... don't do the right thing.
One of the many things I appreciate about you Tim is the fact that you see things in nuance, and want to see things in nuance - despite also wanting an easy answer. The difference is, you don't accept an easy answer if it doesn't actually help anything, and you are trying to improve. I always appreciate seeing it, and I hope more people come into that state of mind.
That sort of fatigue you mentioned in the latter part of the video is why I basically gave up on boycotting most things and instead switched to a method of just evaluating the merits of the product now vs when I first came across it. I greatly enjoyed the first few Halo and Fallout games but by the time they'd reached their 4th entry they'd changed in many ways that I actively disliked so I simply stopped purchasing the games and spent my money elsewhere. If we get a 1:1 version of F3 or NV that doesn't crash every 5 minutes in the future then I'd be happy to purchase them again but I'm not gonna throw away money on something and simply hope it improves.
For foods I think it's even easier, it doesn't really matter if coke is more pro-LGBT than chikfila, neither of them are particularly healthy for you and so if you consume either then you're being personally harmed.
I go by "If they continue to be an a-hole. Then they're an a-hole." (Ex. Dave Chappelle continues to be an a-hole.) If someone said or did something in the past and then immediately or later apologized for it, I would still be skeptical of them, however this was if the person did it against a group of people and the majority accepted the apology.
I will never forgive those that has done or said anything to me. For me, it's been years, and the damage is done, there's no going or taking it back.
Corporations is another thing, definitely tricky. Especially if their fingers/claws are in practically everything...
Tim is giving the exact reasons why a company should just focus on their products and not do anything outside of making their product the best it can be. Otherwise a company is going to end up on someone's morality boycott list.
Now, what's funny is when someone's boycott list becomes another's buyer's guide. It works both ways.
I don't scrub bad people's works from the world. I don't need people whose products i enjoy to be good people.
What you've described is at the heart of the sentiment some people express about there being no ethical consumption under capitalism. Also its a thing I think everyone struggles with to a certain extent in terms of living their life not being in some way complicit in some form of human suffering. The only sane way to deal with it is what most people do which is some form of moral relativism. We all draw our lines in the sand differently based on a lot of factors. You also mentioned having to rely on wisdom rather than intelligence well for me the first step towards wisdom is knowing that there is no singular answer to these problems. There is only the best you can do as an individual. And no one is any more right than anyone else inherently.
I'm a bad person, and I agree with the last words to try each day.
I’ve always struggled to engage in (positive) cancel culture because I don’t feel powerful - as in, it feels like for many decisions, you could look at every possible action I could take, and all those world will be identical from an even slightly elevated view. Whether I buy an apple machine or a windows pc or if I use Linux will not affect Microsoft or Apple or anyone but me at all because my $300-$1500 is truly petty.
Socially informed consumption is also costly to do. It takes time, thought, sacrifice (if often small sacrifice - but they add up!).
That said, I don’t believe in being completely amoral as a person or a consumer. So instead I try to be judicious about where my habits actually have a meaningful impact and to focus on really getting those right while not thinking too hard about the larger evil system I can’t budge.
There’s a risk this makes me complacent about the big evil system, but I really don’t know if my life or the world would actually be better if I weren’t complacent.
It seems to me that previous generations were quicker to accept the good with the bad. They saw that people made mistakes, choose wrong sides, were flawed, and they expected them to move on and continue being productive. Now it seems we want to cancel someone, and we want them to fade into obscurity with no chance of redemption. I'm torn because I absolutely believe there are people who have caused enough harm that they need to be removed from society. But I also know we are all flawed and if we dig deep enough, we could find a reason to hate anyone. I believe cancel culture is just an excuse for the mob of people to hate on various targets instead of society attempting to correct and bring these people in line with modern social norms.
1. Judging too fast - Yeah, it's a common problem lately. Does anyone still remember the Amber-Johny thing? People just jumped between camps, but the torches were lit for the whole time. It's pretty sad, let the judge be the judge.
2. Canceling - I'm generally strongly against cancelling. I believe it may have something to do with cultural differences, but where I'm from, the "Cancel Culture" is considered harmful by many people.
3. Not remembering - yeah, that's a hard one. If the person doesn't remember, then it doesn't change his or her guilt. But in that person's perspective, the guilt is questionable. And the witnesses are not something too believable, especially if the case is against you and if it happened, it was many years ago. I understand that it might be frustrating but the most you could demand is imo acknowledgement that "X is bad" and something like "If it really happened, then I'm sorry, but I can't honestly say that I really FEEL sorry at the moment, because I really don't remember doing anything like that." It's not really satisfying now, is it? But for the person on the other side, if the "not remembering" is truthful, it's probably the maximum that can be said honestly.
4. I believe a creation is separate from a creator. Even if you, Tim, had done some terrible things, I would still enjoy Fallout and say it's one of my favourite games. If I like the song, I don't care if the author said or did some horrible things, I'm not saying he's great as a person when I'm saying that he's a great artist. A great 3rd Reich tactician is still a great tactician, even if he fought for the wrong side.
You’re awesome tim but you can only control yourself, don’t worry about these people, the ones who won’t apologize are clearly insure so they see it as a power play. You have a brilliant mind, thus is not the best use of it! The best way is to live an example of a good person. That’s how I’ve been infected the most to better myself
The part where you talked about the list of brands and businesses becoming untenable reminds me of the phrase no ethical consumption under capitalism. I think that untenable list may be what that phrase was originally about. It is extremely difficult to keep up with everything in regard to my morals and beliefs, to a point that it can be extremely discouraging to try to have a conscience.
Bad people can be talented. I judge artistic works on their own merits. If it's a case of not financially supporting that person, that's one thing, but to deny that they have talent by making a judgement using factors outside the art is another.
Ice Floe. We just need to put them on an ice floe. Problem solved.