the sid meiers civilization series - the flow of world history as filtered through the mind of an apolitical 90s american nerd right at the 'end of history', with terminal western highschool textbook brain
and dont even get me started on sid meiers colonization...
and in the first one, a 50% chance that your declaration of war would be overruled by congress, to represent the peaceful nature of dEmOcRaCy
ive always kinda wanted to write a bit of an essay on the intense liberal ideology baked into almost every facet of the civ series (and not just its laughable 'government types'), but never quite got around to it. theres so much, down to how nomadic and non-urban peoples are 'barbarians' to be destroyed so their land can be properly tamed, to the linear flow of technological and social progress as represented by government-allocated beakers or whatever, to even just the conception of the city as the atomic unit of human societal organisation, etc etc etc. and of course the complete lack of any vision of the future or 'victory' beyond either military or soft-power conquest of the globe, or liberal democracy in space for no discernible reason, like it cant even conceive of any greater goal for humanity, like it might as well be francis fukuyamas civilization
I know the dogma for some people here is “politics always flows downstream to culture”
I think that's one thing that a lot of people really take too far, in the same way a disdain for "Great Man Thinking" can get taken too far to the point where people genuinely think that no individual leader can be important or have an outsized influence. Culture is shaped by politics and the ideological environment it's created in, but it also serves the same by spreading the ideas that made it. Like South Park didn't create edgy "the status quo is normal and good and completely apolitical and everything that seeks to change it is cringe politics and bad" chud thinking, but it certainly helped to teach that pre-existing ideological stance to a generation. Similarly, Civ didn't create its terminal lib-brain thinking, but it helped propagate it and teach it to a new generation of nerds.
I think its more likely that culture polishes a person who's shaoe us given by the material conditions of society. Like I don't think south park made anyone a reactionary, but it definitely made a bunch I'd people who were going to be reactionaries anyway into a specific brand of reactionary.
Oh no I am not saying it doesn't affect people's views and influence people. What I am saying is that reactionary media doesn't create reactionaries ex nilio, like if you see transphobic garbage and go "lol yeah that's right" you were already in a place where you find it acceptable to doubt the value of people to begin with. It's also all statistical in nature like the material conditions determine the likelihood distribution of ideological outcomes for a given population.
It is also definitely a reciprocal relationship where being materially more prone to reactionary ideology makes those cultural products more effective, which in turn leads ideologically radicalized people to reinforce the material structure. I just think the process starts at the material.
It's super funny how in Civ V whenever literally any civilization gets a culture victory all the other leaders start complaining about their citizens wearing that civ's blue jeans and listening to their pop music.
Also how in Civ V the science "victory" is just you building a space ship and fucking off into space forever.
Oh almost forgot about Civ V's ideology options. The options aren't Communism, Liberalism, or Fascism. No, the options instead are Order, Freedom, or Autocracy. Too much ideology is baked into that naming scheme to unpack
yeah the science victory bugs me possibly more than anything, like the greatest possible use of science is to be able to use your entire countrys productive capacity to build a big rocket for a pointless space colony impossibly distant from actual earth, fundamentally indistinguishable in both mechanics and intent to just building the pyramids in space to say 'look on my works ye mighty and despair'
and not to use science to build a true post-scarcity society, to eradicate disease and hunger and suffering and want and establish falgsc or anything equivalent because the creators and the game cant even conceive of any societal progress beyond modern neoliberalism but with a bit more shiny shit
and its so american that if someone else is progressing further with their performative space rocket, you need to stop them by going and burning their capital down because its all zero sum and nobody is allowed to have more progress than you
pointless space colony impossibly distant from actual earth
That's the part that really gets me. It's even worse than building a colony on Mars or the moon like Musk wants to do. If by some miracle we ever solve climate change and do falgsc then maybe having outposts and infrastructure throughout the solar system would be useful.
But the rocket in the Civ V science victory is a colony ship headed four light-years away to Alpha Centauri. Most people who left on that ship will be either elderly or dead when it arrives and it'll take 8 years to send a message back to Earth and receive a message back. No significant resources will ever make their way back to Earth from Alpha Centauri and no significant resources will ever reach Alpha Centauri from Earth. In a matter of maybe one or two generations the colony becomes culturally alien to Earth due to lack of meaningful contact.
Now we have people out there living a harsh existence on an alien world just so people back on Earth in whatever nation got the science victory can point to Alpha Centauri and use it to brag to other nations.
the most based Civ game is the one that only lets you build mount rushmore if you are a fascist. uh not because being fascist is cool but because the games like yeah america is fascist
I'm aware it's super problematic etc so I just imagine the game as Imperialism: the video game!
I need to accumulate and exponentially grow my production gold etc etc so I can do more and outcompete other civilizations and get access to more strat luxury resources etc etc
Keep going until there's no unsettled land in the way and its time for war with neighboring empires
Still doesn't make it not a wrong view of history but it makes it more internally consistent to me
funnily enough, the imperialism games, especially imperialism 2, are very fun and much more honest about what they are
but yeah the civ games certainly work as ruling class sims and i do still love them, especially when they embrace their board-gamey origins and dont try too hard for rEaLiSm
the sid meiers civilization series - the flow of world history as filtered through the mind of an apolitical 90s american nerd right at the 'end of history', with terminal western highschool textbook brain
and dont even get me started on sid meiers colonization...
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and in the first one, a 50% chance that your declaration of war would be overruled by congress, to represent the peaceful nature of dEmOcRaCy
ive always kinda wanted to write a bit of an essay on the intense liberal ideology baked into almost every facet of the civ series (and not just its laughable 'government types'), but never quite got around to it. theres so much, down to how nomadic and non-urban peoples are 'barbarians' to be destroyed so their land can be properly tamed, to the linear flow of technological and social progress as represented by government-allocated beakers or whatever, to even just the conception of the city as the atomic unit of human societal organisation, etc etc etc. and of course the complete lack of any vision of the future or 'victory' beyond either military or soft-power conquest of the globe, or liberal democracy in space for no discernible reason, like it cant even conceive of any greater goal for humanity, like it might as well be francis fukuyamas civilization
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I think that's one thing that a lot of people really take too far, in the same way a disdain for "Great Man Thinking" can get taken too far to the point where people genuinely think that no individual leader can be important or have an outsized influence. Culture is shaped by politics and the ideological environment it's created in, but it also serves the same by spreading the ideas that made it. Like South Park didn't create edgy "the status quo is normal and good and completely apolitical and everything that seeks to change it is cringe politics and bad" chud thinking, but it certainly helped to teach that pre-existing ideological stance to a generation. Similarly, Civ didn't create its terminal lib-brain thinking, but it helped propagate it and teach it to a new generation of nerds.
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I think its more likely that culture polishes a person who's shaoe us given by the material conditions of society. Like I don't think south park made anyone a reactionary, but it definitely made a bunch I'd people who were going to be reactionaries anyway into a specific brand of reactionary.
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Oh no I am not saying it doesn't affect people's views and influence people. What I am saying is that reactionary media doesn't create reactionaries ex nilio, like if you see transphobic garbage and go "lol yeah that's right" you were already in a place where you find it acceptable to doubt the value of people to begin with. It's also all statistical in nature like the material conditions determine the likelihood distribution of ideological outcomes for a given population.
It is also definitely a reciprocal relationship where being materially more prone to reactionary ideology makes those cultural products more effective, which in turn leads ideologically radicalized people to reinforce the material structure. I just think the process starts at the material.
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It's super funny how in Civ V whenever literally any civilization gets a culture victory all the other leaders start complaining about their citizens wearing that civ's blue jeans and listening to their pop music.
Also how in Civ V the science "victory" is just you building a space ship and fucking off into space forever.
Oh almost forgot about Civ V's ideology options. The options aren't Communism, Liberalism, or Fascism. No, the options instead are Order, Freedom, or Autocracy. Too much ideology is baked into that naming scheme to unpack
yeah the science victory bugs me possibly more than anything, like the greatest possible use of science is to be able to use your entire countrys productive capacity to build a big rocket for a pointless space colony impossibly distant from actual earth, fundamentally indistinguishable in both mechanics and intent to just building the pyramids in space to say 'look on my works ye mighty and despair'
and not to use science to build a true post-scarcity society, to eradicate disease and hunger and suffering and want and establish falgsc or anything equivalent because the creators and the game cant even conceive of any societal progress beyond modern neoliberalism but with a bit more shiny shit
and its so american that if someone else is progressing further with their performative space rocket, you need to stop them by going and burning their capital down because its all zero sum and nobody is allowed to have more progress than you
That's the part that really gets me. It's even worse than building a colony on Mars or the moon like Musk wants to do. If by some miracle we ever solve climate change and do falgsc then maybe having outposts and infrastructure throughout the solar system would be useful.
But the rocket in the Civ V science victory is a colony ship headed four light-years away to Alpha Centauri. Most people who left on that ship will be either elderly or dead when it arrives and it'll take 8 years to send a message back to Earth and receive a message back. No significant resources will ever make their way back to Earth from Alpha Centauri and no significant resources will ever reach Alpha Centauri from Earth. In a matter of maybe one or two generations the colony becomes culturally alien to Earth due to lack of meaningful contact.
Now we have people out there living a harsh existence on an alien world just so people back on Earth in whatever nation got the science victory can point to Alpha Centauri and use it to brag to other nations.
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Value: Value: Form of Governing
Wonderful
the most based Civ game is the one that only lets you build mount rushmore if you are a fascist. uh not because being fascist is cool but because the games like yeah america is fascist
I'm aware it's super problematic etc so I just imagine the game as Imperialism: the video game! I need to accumulate and exponentially grow my production gold etc etc so I can do more and outcompete other civilizations and get access to more strat luxury resources etc etc Keep going until there's no unsettled land in the way and its time for war with neighboring empires Still doesn't make it not a wrong view of history but it makes it more internally consistent to me
funnily enough, the imperialism games, especially imperialism 2, are very fun and much more honest about what they are
but yeah the civ games certainly work as ruling class sims and i do still love them, especially when they embrace their board-gamey origins and dont try too hard for rEaLiSm