•  Hugh_Jeggs   ( @Hugh_Jeggs@lemm.ee ) 
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    4824 hours ago

    “Bethesda covers its arse in anticipation of a bunch of terminally online American teenagers who just learnt the word ‘nazi’ and would use it to describe a fuckin nun if it made them feel a bit morally superior for ten seconds”

    • I’ve heard plenty of people try to say WOLFENSTEIN glorifies nazis

      I’ve had one idiot tell me ANY media that paints them as competent or successful is glorifying them. And setting anything in a world where they succeeded and progressed technologically instead of collapsing is basically saying Hitler’s world view is valid.

      I still don’t know how to respond to that beyond “if you think the nazis were incompetent you don’t know history, and if you think showing a future where fascism took hold is unrealistic I have some bad news for you”

      It’s fantasy, and specifically a fantasy in which you get to go on a massive killing spree against some of the worst people in history, how you can somehow pull “this game is making these guys look good” from that, I’m not sure.

      • I’ve had one idiot tell me ANY media that paints them as competent or successful is glorifying them. And setting anything in a world where they succeeded and progressed technologically instead of collapsing is basically saying Hitler’s world view is valid.

        And people still wonder why I pick so much on the wishful thinking fallacy… I mean, that’s basically it, right? “Nazi are morally bad, I hate them, thus they must be incompetent”. And if you correctly highlight that this is fucking stupid, you’ll get some kid saying stuff like “I dun understand, why are you defending Nazi?”.

  • Murder?

    I think not. Murder is a crime. And it’s bad. (crime doesn’t necessarily mean bad, see Robin Hood for more details)

    Nazis don’t count, all you’re doing is cleaning up the trash.

    You can’t murder a nazi. You can certainly kill them though.

    It’s an important distinction, in my opinion.

    •  araneae   ( @araneae@beehaw.org ) 
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      920 hours ago

      The scariest thing about Nazis is that they’re human and even pretty smart sometimes. To reiterate what others are saying: dehumanization leaves you in a blind spot for the humans around you who can silently undergo vast transformations from people you thought you loved into Nazis. They throw away their humanity yes, but they had to be human to throw it away. Dehumanization is also how the process of becoming a Nazi starts. Don’t even mirror it in jest, try on radical empathy and face the truth: humans are horrifically complex. Nazis are unfortunately humans.

        • Justifying the murder of someone by dehumanizing them is exactly what the nazis did. It’s what Israel is doing in Gaza, etc., calling everyone Hamas and dehumanizing them. Nazis may be terrible people who need to be fought against and whose ideology needs to be stopped, but it’s never good to start dehumanizing groups of people over any criteria. All that said I love playing Wolfenstein and Indiana Jones games and killing hordes of nazis.

  • [off topic]

    One of the biggest mind fuck novels I ever read was "The Iron Dream’ by Norman Spinrad.

    On one level it’s a ‘hero’s journey’ story about an exiled prince who returns to his homeland and defeats a bunch of evil mind controlling wizards. Lots of excitement and adventure and terrific battles.

    The fucked up part is that it’s the last novel Adolph Hitler wrote after migrating to America in 1921.

    Hitler was a popular illustrator who eventually felt confident enough to start writing in English. He was a popular figure at conventions and had a huge fandom.

    https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-iron-dream-norman-spinrad/7751155?ean=9781490439457