{"id":9290,"date":"2010-09-02T09:03:34","date_gmt":"2010-09-02T14:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=9290"},"modified":"2010-09-02T09:03:34","modified_gmt":"2010-09-02T14:03:34","slug":"spoiler-warning-3x5the-flame-war-plasmid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=9290","title":{"rendered":"Spoiler Warning 3×5:The Flame War Plasmid!"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this episode we talk about both Objectivism and<\/em> religion. I notice there have been a few skirmishes over this stuff in earlier episodes, so let’s get this out in the open. And over with. <\/p>\n

Hello, person from the future. This space used to have an embed from the video hosting site Viddler. The video is gone now. If you want to find out why and laugh at Viddler in the process, you can read the entire silly story for yourself<\/a>.At any rate, the video is gone. Sorry. On the upside, we're gradually re-posting these old videos to YouTube. Check the Spoiler Warning page<\/a> to see the full index.<\/div><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

About a year and a half ago we had a thread where an Objectivist weighed in on Objectivism in BioShock<\/a>. It made for an interesting thread and was surprisingly civil, given the subject matter. I usually discourage or shut down discussions about politics and religion here on the blog because they generate anger without really contributing anything. But we can’t very well discuss a game that supposedly features this philosophy as a central theme and not talk about the philosophy. <\/p>\n

And now that I’ve played the game I’ll pose this question: In the game, Andrew Ryan sets up this place with a certain degree of totalitarian thugishness that runs antithetical to Objectivism. Specifically, banning certain types of trade and religion<\/em>. The idea of regulating thought and trade are about as counter to Ayn Rand’s philosophy as you can get, even if you’re dealing with ideas and trading in things she would have disagreed with. <\/p>\n

So… is this showing that Andrew Ryan wasn’t really an Objectivist? Or did the author of BioShock just not understand Objectivism? <\/p>\n

Before we get started I’ll repeat my earlier warning:<\/p>\n

Please remember that this is a geek blog. We have a nice community here. We get along well enough, and I’d hate to see bitter feuds appear over previously obscured fault lines in the group. Keep it civil and don’t make it personal. Don’t post angry. I’d rather get along and talk about gaming than have a fight which will cause division without changing anyone’s mind.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this episode we talk about both Objectivism and religion. I notice there have been a few skirmishes over this stuff in earlier episodes, so let’s get this out in the open. And over with. Hello, person from the future. This space used to have an embed from the video hosting site Viddler. The video […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[188],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spoilerwarning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}