Shyfer
At least he sounded a lot more energetic and present in this speech. What happened on stage?
I agree. It doesn’t mean we ignore all the good they did, but it does give us a more well-rounded view of our heroes, which I think is useful to humanize them. We can take the good and evolve from the bad. This blog post isn’t asking anyone to quit D&D, it’s asking people to recognize the flaws of our forefathers of the hobby, recognize that the hobby has changed from that time, and to look forward to further change, growth, and inclusion for all of us. They created a game that will live beyond them, which is kind of awesome. At least that’s how I read it.
Hell maybe one day I’ll have kids and grandkids and they’ll think I’m backwards in some way, and I’ll be worried or skeptical because I think they’re too radical or weird in some way. But in the end, I’ll hope they’re right despite my misgivings, because the world is better that way - if the world’s next generation is able to carry things on and improve the state of affairs at the same time. We should want that and cheer it on. And looking back at things like this, including acknowledging the flaws of our progenitors and ourselves in addition to their great works, it let’s us see all that and celebrate it, the path we’ve taken from there to here.
Yet apparently a bunch of people need to learn that, because according to the author when they brought up his flaws in a book, people were falling over themselves to say he was besmirching his good name or slandering Gygax and stuff like that. People need to learn their heroes aren’t perfect, even now, and that’s why I think it’s good this article is spread and read. Not everyone knows to separate the author and their work.
I would blame social media for encouraging parasocial relations, but this is the kind of stuff that existed before the internet, with other musicians and artists and authors, and it’s brought up in academic courses on similar work, so I guess it’s just a human thing that people need to be aware of.
The revealed their code to a US company already: Oracle.
They just don’t like that the youth use it to see what’s happening in other parts of the world, like Palestine. They want to be able to keep the US populace within their propaganda bubble, in the state we were in when we didn’t know about things like the Irgun or The Great March of Return.
