Sandy Petersen criticizes Atlantic article on colonialism in board games, etc.

[Lurkndog]

1) The idea that Puerto Rico is cheerleading for colonialism is asinine. The game is a basic historical economic sim.

2) The idea that colonialism is automatically evil is asinine. It's a complex historical situation with a wide variety of outcomes for a wide variety of people. You can certainly point at specific cases where evil was done, but you can't use those to condemn other, better situations at different time, with different actors, on the other side of the world. It's a child's argument. Really, it's not even an argument, just propaganda.

3) Good for Sandy Peterson. I agree with him on these points, and I fondly remember the one time I heard him give a talk at I-Con on Long Island back in 1993. I got to hear him tell the "gazebo" story in person. Good times!

[Ghostmaker]

Everybody likes to bash colonialism, but they get awfully quiet when you bring up the British, India, and the practice of 'suti'.

Lurkndog has it right: the issues are never cut and dried.

[Reckall]

Well, I posted my reply on BGG where I tried to articulate why I disagree with the original post. Bye bye BGG 

I guess that I'll end up being "canceled". I was never canceled before. I wonder how it will be...

[Cola]

Where does it really logically end?

We can wage pretend war but not have colonies in game?

For fuck's sake!  I was raping China when I played axis and allies?!  That's right!  Logically if A then B.  A theme about anything can be related to other bad things and that means 'c' you approve of it, promote it or are callous and have problematic ideas.

So if you pretend x in game, no matter from how far removed, it means you are glorifying real world happenings.

Sure, makes sense.  Everything is problematic.  Should have known.

Meanwhile some of these same crusaders go and take in a movie that includes problematic things.  But that's ok.  As soon as you move meeples, chits and roll dice it all becomes too real.

Check and check.

[Reckall]

Boy, that was fast!  My post was removed as "dismissive", but a mod assured me in private that "I'm not a bad person and I'm not getting a warning".

I wasn't even able to save it 

Anyway, interesting: true, my post was about why this problem, IMHO, doesn't exists, so, true, it was "dismissive"...

...Which means that you cannot dismiss the problem. I know forms of cancer that are less pernicious.

[Ratman_tf]

Boy, that was fast!  My post was removed as "dismissive", but a mod assured me in private that "I'm not a bad person and I'm not getting a warning".

I wasn't even able to save it 

Anyway, interesting: true, my post was about why this problem, IMHO, doesn't exists, so, true, it was "dismissive"...

...Which means that you cannot dismiss the problem. I know forms of cancer that are less pernicious.

Dude. At least TBP will rub your face in it and make their bias public. That is so spineless.

[Reckall]

Boy, that was fast!  My post was removed as "dismissive", but a mod assured me in private that "I'm not a bad person and I'm not getting a warning".

I wasn't even able to save it 

Anyway, interesting: true, my post was about why this problem, IMHO, doesn't exists, so, true, it was "dismissive"...

...Which means that you cannot dismiss the problem. I know forms of cancer that are less pernicious.

Dude. At least TBP will rub your face in it and make their bias public. That is so spineless.

You know what is scary? As a human being, many a time a friend came to me with a problem. When this happens, one thing is to respect that your friend has a problem, but it can also be of help to point out that the problem is not as big as your friend friend thinks that it is. Or that there are different - and less worrying - ways to look at the thing. Or maybe even that there is no problem at all and it was all a misunderstanding.

No two problems are equal. Flatly banning any opinion that, maybe, it is all a storm in a teacup is simply dangerous.

[Lynn]

Go Sandy!

FWIW, I would play a boardgame of inter-tribal warfare of NW Native American tribes. You got territories, slave capture and possibly even cannibalism - and whale hunting!

Game companies already know about globalization. Apparently "Winkie" doesn't.

[BoxCrayonTales]

Everybody likes to bash colonialism, but they get awfully quiet when you bring up the British, India, and the practice of 'suti'.

Lurkndog has it right: the issues are never cut and dried.

The sati was controversial and provincial (not widely practiced) in India even before the British colonized it. There are no circumstances in history where colonialism had a net positive or mostly positive effect on the people who were colonized. Even under the best circumstances, colonialism was overwhelmingly horrible for every indigenous culture that suffered it and those cultures still suffer the consequences today.

[RPGPundit]

Everybody likes to bash colonialism, but they get awfully quiet when you bring up the British, India, and the practice of 'suti'.

Lurkndog has it right: the issues are never cut and dried.

The sati was controversial and provincial (not widely practiced) in India even before the British colonized it. There are no circumstances in history where colonialism had a net positive or mostly positive effect on the people who were colonized. Even under the best circumstances, colonialism was overwhelmingly horrible for every indigenous culture that suffered it and those cultures still suffer the consequences today.

Without British Imperialism, the nation of India wouldn't even exist.

Also, neither would Uruguay, which would just be part of Argentina. And believe me, it's pretty obvious that 3 million Uruguayans would be much much worse off if Uruguay was just a province of Argentina.

[GeekyBugle]

Everybody likes to bash colonialism, but they get awfully quiet when you bring up the British, India, and the practice of 'suti'.

Lurkndog has it right: the issues are never cut and dried.

The sati was controversial and provincial (not widely practiced) in India even before the British colonized it. There are no circumstances in history where colonialism had a net positive or mostly positive effect on the people who were colonized. Even under the best circumstances, colonialism was overwhelmingly horrible for every indigenous culture that suffered it and those cultures still suffer the consequences today.

Without British Imperialism, the nation of India wouldn't even exist.

Also, neither would Uruguay, which would just be part of Argentina. And believe me, it's pretty obvious that 3 million Uruguayans would be much much worse off if Uruguay was just a province of Argentina.

Please remind me, what nation just finished paying off the debt it acquired to stop slavery?

[GriswaldTerrastone]

Does anyone think the Zulu empire was achieved by peaceful means?

EVERYBODY conquered and enslaved. Whites were just better at it for a time.

If I was black and could prove my tribe had been conquered by Shaka Zulu could I demand an apology from Zulu-descended, even reparations?

[ponta1010]

Boy, that was fast!  My post was removed as "dismissive", but a mod assured me in private that "I'm not a bad person and I'm not getting a warning".

I wasn't even able to save it 

Anyway, interesting: true, my post was about why this problem, IMHO, doesn't exists, so, true, it was "dismissive"...

...Which means that you cannot dismiss the problem. I know forms of cancer that are less pernicious.

I love the fact that a post saying the 'problem doesn't exist'..... doesn't exist!

[Eirikrautha]

Everybody likes to bash colonialism, but they get awfully quiet when you bring up the British, India, and the practice of 'suti'.

Lurkndog has it right: the issues are never cut and dried.

There are no circumstances in history where colonialism had a net positive or mostly positive effect on the people who were colonized. Even under the best circumstances, colonialism was overwhelmingly horrible for every indigenous culture that suffered it and those cultures still suffer the consequences today.

Not only is this false, it is stupidly false.  One word will prove its falsity.  Rome.

[Ghostmaker]

Everybody likes to bash colonialism, but they get awfully quiet when you bring up the British, India, and the practice of 'suti'.

Lurkndog has it right: the issues are never cut and dried.

The sati was controversial and provincial (not widely practiced) in India even before the British colonized it. There are no circumstances in history where colonialism had a net positive or mostly positive effect on the people who were colonized. Even under the best circumstances, colonialism was overwhelmingly horrible for every indigenous culture that suffered it and those cultures still suffer the consequences today.

I'm sure this would be a great comfort to a widow burned to death that at least she wasn't being colonialized by dirty British.

Tell us more about your hatred of women.