How about harmful? (nm)

Subject: How about harmful? (nm)
Author: Ozzielot
Posted on: 2019-07-05 00:22:00 UTC

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Cyberpunk 2077 by Crazy Minh on 2019-06-29 00:51:00 UTC Reply

So with CP2077 expected to release early next year, and with some considerable hype around the game, how are people here feeling about the game? I for one am excited, primarily because I played a bit of Cyberpunk back when I was in High School, and I enjoyed it. IIRC, I found myself a little annoyed that the rulebook didn't have very nice pictures of all the cool augmentations and weapons, and now that I look back, the game was a little crazy in that 90's way. Nowadays, I'm more into Shadowrun when it comes to sci-fi TTRPG's, but since it's CD Projekt Red doing the game, and since they're not owned by EA, I'm pretty excited for the game. The question is whether they'll deliver something that isn't just flashy garbage that looks well in a trailer, but fails to deliver on the goods.

Couldn't play it even if I wanted to, which I don't. by Grundleplith on 2019-06-30 15:37:00 UTC Reply

Because I have a potato of a laptop.
I watched a gameplay video of it. by Ozzielot on 2019-06-30 02:57:00 UTC Reply

It does look interesting with how the environment looks and the gameplay mechanics (like shooting through walls, ricocheting bullets, etc.), but personally, I'm not interested enough in it to buy it.
...rant incoming. (cw: transphobia, misogyny, violence) by Delta Juliette on 2019-06-29 16:59:00 UTC Reply

To expand on the content warning: I'm going to quote some transphobic and misogynistic things people have said, and talk about how they're gateways to violence against people like me.

Hi, I'm a queer trans woman, and CD Projekt Red keeps saying things that worry me to the point that I'm solidly wary of both game and company.

The first thing I saw directly connected to CP2077 was this tweet, in which the official CP2077 account tweeted "Did you just assume their gender?!" in response to someone saying "I want more guys!" - which was pretty clearly intended to be read as "I want more content, guys!". "Did you just assume their gender?" is a transphobic meme, for reasons Dr Ashley Nova explains better than I can before coffee.

CDPR issued the usual non-apology ("Sorry to all those offended", "we didn't mean to", etc), and I want to say they fired the PR person who wrote the tweet (no sources on that one, I'm afraid), and that would have been that. Except...

Just about a year later (this month, in fact!), Adam Badowski, the game director on CP2077, had some hideous things to say about womens' bodies. While trying to defend a mission in which the player rescues a kidnapped woman, finding her naked, unconscious, and on ice, said director talked about how augmented bodies are profane, no longer sacred - and I directly quote, "She is not clean."

"She is not clean." Because she dared to change her body. Because she dared to use technology to live a better life.

"She is not clean" will quite possibly be on the lips of the person who beats me to death. For daring to change my body. For daring to use medicine (which is technology!) to live a better life.

The entire thought process there is utterly terrifying to me, because to say that only unchanged, unassisted bodies are sacred is to say that trans people, disabled people, neurodivergent people, anyone who dares use technology or medicine to make their bodies more comfortable and their lives better are profane - valueless, evil, and the deserving recipients of the violence we're already subject to.

The game reduces this woman to a literal object. She has no agency, she even has no awareness, she's completely exposed, and the player is invited to make a moral judgement on her - is she clean or unclean? Should she be rescued or not? Should the player inflict violence on her? The game's director has made it very clear that he intends this to be things the player has to think about, to debate the value of an augmented (read as: trans, or disabled, or...) person's existence.

And finally, the only trans person I've seen or heard of in the game thus far, is a hyper-sexualized in-game advertisement. Trans women are frequently hyper-sexualized in media - we're presented as these terrifying things who want to trick good innocent straight men into having sex with a person with a penis, to the point where our very existence is an active sexual threat. And that's very easy to read into the advertisement - it's presented without context, just a piece of set-dressing, "here, it's the transsexual menace!" thrown into peoples' faces once again.

As of the E3 demo earlier this month, you cannot play a physically gender non-conforming character in Cyberpunk 2077. You must pick, apparently-cis man or apparently-cis woman. There has been no discussion of the nuances of living any other option, either on its own or in relationship to capitalism, technology, surveillance, or augmentation - the key themes of cyberpunk. The game's commentary on transness is scarily un-nuanced, with a trans body being displayed for shock value and an augmented body (thinly-veiled metaphor for transness or other minorities that use technology to adapt) being displayed for the player to judge as clean or unclean.

Unclean. I still can't get over that.

If it was just one of these incidents? Sure. We could talk about it, we could disassemble it, I could have faith in CDPR. But this stuff keeps happening - every time we see a hint of the culture there, of how they think about queer people or disabled people or women, it's horrifying. And we get the usual non-apology, and then it happens again. And again.

So. All that to say: I predict Cyberpunk 2077 will be Yet Another White Male Power Fantasy. It might even be good at that. But the themes they're using that comment on people like me, and the messages the average uncritical player will take away from the game about people like me, scare me.

Seems like these are the kinds of questions the game wants by NewKryptonite on 2019-07-03 17:15:00 UTC Reply

I watched the trailer, read the pertinent pieces of the interview, and it kind of seems like the kind of discussion you kicked off here, with all of the important questions, (what is a human? what is humanity? is it wrong to hurt something that isn't? what is clean/unclean? who gets to decide?). Is exactly the kind of discussion the creators want. I think it's ok to have a piece of media that asks the player to think about these questions, and even provide answers that the player can either accept or reject.

That particular member of the dev team obviously has some of his own beliefs regarding using frivolous augmentation to remake the body: cheapening the inherit value of the body, disconnecting it from where it originally came from, losing touch with nature, losing touch with the spirit (sacredness). just looking at what i read, he may or may not even hold this belief with all augmentation or just the utter frivolity and ridiculousness with which it is apparently used in cyberpunk.

Ideally the game will present the player with ideas and stories that are hard to swallow and ask them to sort them out, think about them, make decisions. if the game is well made, it will probably present all the arguments and portray augmented characters in humane light, while maybe also presenting something in the other extreme, maybe a person who's brain has been replaced with a super computer, all the memories are there, but maybe it doesn't have humanity anymore. Maybe there will be people who are just piles of parts, no more body even left. is that still human? is it wrong to destroy it? abuse it? is it just an object now? the holder of the body seems to have been treated like it didn't matter, so why should i treat it like it matters?

as uncomfortable as these questions can be, i like at least that the game would like to approach the subject. And even though i'll never be playing it, hopefully they have tact in the final product.

PS I just remembered that the trailer presents someone who HAS augmentation in a completely human light, very sympathetic, very personal, obviously protagonist material. (this being said i have not seen the game-play, i have no idea who the protagonist actually is)

I'd like that to be the case, but... by Delta Juliette on 2019-07-04 03:49:00 UTC Reply

From what I've seen, I don't trust CDPR to approach those questions with the tact necessary to do anything interesting or meaningful - they've treated trans people like a joke on twitter, spread gender non-conforming bodies on in-game advertisements meant to be shocking, and not even begun to discuss nuance in interviews.

And without nuance and understanding, just asking those questions can get into some nasty territory. It's a pattern that minorities see, over and over again - some privileged person just wants to have a nice reasonable discussion about whether or not we're human. Or clean. Or if it's wrong to hurt us. And what they're seeing as a nice civil discussion is, for us, a fight for survival - we can't just walk away because the people who are arguing against us will take it as admission of defeat, we have to play, once again, as people demand that we prove that we have the right to exist to whatever standard they want.

To angry-type for a moment: The humanity of my augmented body should not be up for debate. (And my body is literally augmented! I have rebuilt it with technology in order to live a better existence, that is the definition of augmentation!) I am not unclean, my existence is not profane nor "out of touch with my inner nature", and trying to raise those questions, to ask people to decide if maybe I shouldn't be considered "clean", is an act of violence.

I would play, and love, your ideal game. There's really interesting questions that can be asked here, and queer cyberpunk gets into amazing territory. But... CDPR, at this point, has a track record of cataclysmically un-ideal takes on queer and especially trans experiences. I don't trust them to have any of the nuance and understanding necessary to actually present these questions in a way that will be meaningful to people - I fully expect the game will be a massive, shiny, expensive megaphone that blasts doubts and uncertainties that anyone who doesn't fit its mold of "normal" might not be deserving of respect, or rights, or... existence. And that'll be in metaphors and symbolism, sure, but... it's not terribly far to go from "we're questioning the humanity of people who rebuild their bodies with (fictional) technology" to "we're questioning the humanity of people who rebuild their bodies (slightly more subtly) with (real) technology."

That's Stinks. On the subject of questions... by NewKryptonite on 2019-07-04 16:20:00 UTC Reply

before my post proper I would like to thank you for your passion and respectfullness, I think you are a good example of why i like this community, beyond the PPC.

I don't have the research or experience to back up an opinion on CDPR, so i wont cast doubt on your take on them, if they are that way that sucks and i hope they figure their stuff out. I do think the jump at the end of your last post is actually a long one, but i can see why you would think otherwise.

I personally hold the opinion that the essence of humanity goes beyond the body, and that every human everywhere has same rights regarding...well...life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness (i know it's cheesy to use that, but it's a pretty good summary of unailiable rights). Cleanliness doesn't even factor in, to subjective.

-This next part is getting into broader territory-
I think anyone who is seriously trying to question the humanity of real life augmented folk, AND trying to bring the sanctioning of hate crimes into law is a) messed up, and b) in our current climate going to lose that battle by a huge landslide. I do however think the question of why is a valid one. Why is humanity inherent?

Questions are questions, not violence, they can be threatening to ideas and mentalities, but they are still just questions in the end. I support the honest asking of questions, in all cases, period. [ To call this idea into question is, of course, ok ;) ]

Maybe "violence" is the best word we've got for it. by Neshomeh on 2019-07-05 00:09:00 UTC Reply

To be honest, I feel uncomfortable seeing it used this way myself, because it seems to equate words to deeds, which seems like the sort of logic that would see someone thrown in jail just for talking about doing something, even if they never intended to actually do it. It makes me anxious about expressing a doubt like this out loud, because I don't want to hurt my friends or make them think I don't want them to be able to live their best lives in their own way, free from fear.

However, I have learned from my friends that context matters. Not all questions are innocent, and I don't know how else to describe the kind of questioning by a privileged majority that feeds a zeitgeist of lazy tolerance if not active support for systemic injustice of the sort that turns a blind eye when less privileged groups are economically, psychologically, and physically harmed just because they have the temerity to exist. What else can you call that without blunting the alarm it should cause?

~Neshomeh, processing out loud in case it helps anyone else.

So - backing up a step here... by Delta Juliette on 2019-07-05 07:53:00 UTC Reply

There's definitely a spectrum, from "genuinely good-faith, trying-to-learn questions" through "exhausting labor that really could be asked of Google instead" and "veiled demands for assurances that the demander isn't a bad person" to "bad-faith attacks on peoples' rights."

I don't have a good word for the middle there, for all that it's very definitely a thing. Your description there is really good - one of the hallmarks of our Very Enlightened and Totally Post-Prejudice Privileged Majority is wanting to sit down and civilly debate other peoples' experiences and rights and existences. And that feeds systematic injustices, as you've noted, because people keep wanting to find a nice civilized compromise...

Yeah, "asking questions is violence" is itself a position to be far more careful with than I was in that (rather hyperbolic) paragraph. Sharing knowledge is, in the abstract, a good thing. But... it's a spectrum. There are "questions" that are, as NewKryptonite said, rhetorical - they exist to carry a message that's harmful, that incites violence, and the people asking them from the very darkest end of the spectrum have gotten rather good at using those midpoints as cover. (To the point where, on the other side, people like me are hyper-vigilant for questions that smell like such. And someone pointing at a fictional woman and saying "maybe she isn't clean," is... wow.)

-Delta, tossing a few more thoughts into the processor, in hopes that they'll help explain her reactions earlier

What other solution is there? by NewKryptonite on 2019-07-05 21:35:00 UTC Reply

Nice, very succinct, very well put together comment there Delta.

So if systemic problems perpetuated by prejudice exist in the current system, what solution is viable other than sitting down and having a frank conversation about: inherent humanity, what qualifies, what doesn't, why do people have a problem seeing it in others, what incongruities exist in the current system, and where do we tweak the system to manage it?
(this is not rhetorical - if this is a bad solution, what other solution is there?)

I realize that these conversations don't HAVE to start at the question of what is inherent humanity, but as fringes keep pushing the idea that hate against 'other' is OK, then we might NEED to establish, and re-establish that "all men are created equal" foundation.
Which I suppose can be very frustrating now that I write it down.

-----

WAIT! I just realized your not necessarily saying the broader political conversation is a bad solution to systemic injustice, but that this particular instance, CyberPunk 2077, is probably not going to give the subject the credit it's worth and might even make the problem worse by virtue of being high profile AND from biased developers!

'CyberPunk 2077' is the 'nice civil debate' in your thought process! Is this correct?

-NewKryptonite, *shaking his head for accidentally dismissing the topic at hands relevance.

But this isn't even a question worth asking? by Larfen J. Stocke, esq. on 2019-07-06 00:21:00 UTC Reply

I don't know what to say, man, but the plain fact is that humans are humans, no matter what's going on with their bodies. Questions and discussions aren't inherently politically neutral, as mentioned earlier a bunch - - the simple act of attempting to determine whether or not a certain group is 'human' is already dehumanising them.

Determining boundaries as to what humans are and when somebody stops being human is damn stupid as well because at that point, you still have major body policing going on. You're still in the process of othering people in contrast against a 'normal' human and are basically just picking what level of otherness this society can withstand. As if you stopped being human just because a societal group decided you weren't. What crap.

The judgement of somebody's body and life choices and identity is up to damn well nobody except for them and a big problem nowadays is the fact that a lot of very privileged people think they have the right to do so, and the right to then go make decisions about these people. My problem with Cyberpunk 2077 and things that ask this sort of question is that they reinforce this privileged position. They invite the player to come in and make judgements and decisions about somebody else's humanity and emphasise that this is an ok and reasonable thing to do, when it bloody well isn't and bloody well shouldn't be.

I have to agree with this. by Neshomeh on 2019-07-06 04:11:00 UTC Reply

It really shouldn't be that difficult to come to the conclusion that all human beings are human beings.

These days, I don't personally know how much value I really ascribe to any one human life, but that's just cynicism talking. I'd like to believe I'd take a punch or a bullet for someone who needed it, because if human life isn't all that special, then why prize MY insignificant life over someone else's?

That's sort of a tangent, I guess, but also sort of not? Eliminating the ego is an important part of recognizing other people as people. It's not easy, but IMO it's better than being the kind of selfish jerk who would, I don't know, separate children from their families and hold them indefinitely in horrible conditions because they're so-called "illegal aliens" and therefore don't need basic commodities like toothbrushes or room to lie down and sleep.

Okay, NOW it's a tangent. But seriously, whether X people are people who deserve to be treated like people shouldn't ever be a debate. {= |

~Neshomeh

And not to mention, by Larfen J. Stocke, esq. on 2019-07-06 08:09:00 UTC Reply

In letting this question (with a very obvious answer) come up in a 'harmless debate', all you're really doing is giving legitimacy to the arguments against it. You're suggesting that, yes, there are perhaps certain conditions in this society in which case you could convince me that somebody, purely because of who they are, what their body is like, isn't human.

Nah mate I'd rather not.

It's giving a platform to people who would argue this kind of poison, and they really absolutely don't warrant a platform, because this kind of argument is absolutely never worthwhile. Even if you're only giving them that platform so that you can go ahead and disprove them with Facts and Logic and suchforth, you're still suggesting that the argument 'these people aren't human because of who they are' is an argument that somehow belongs in the public consciousness, as if there were anything about it that could be gently picked at or carefully critiqued other than the fact that, no, it's garbage.

I think "rhetorical" is the right word. by NewKryptonite on 2019-07-05 01:39:00 UTC Reply

as in full of rhetoric, designed to inflame, or dramatize, not really looking for an answer.

Yea, i don't think all questions are created equal, just that they all should be allowed to be asked, hopefully by people actualy searching for answers. Some people use them as sheilds against critial thinking and alternate perspectives, or even as atagonistic rallying calls, those questions are garbage and should be devoutly ignored, because they're not really being asked at the end of the day.
(i suppose you could also counter them with opposing rhetoric, much like the post that inspired all this! my mind is blown)
How about harmful? (nm) by Ozzielot on 2019-07-05 00:22:00 UTC Reply

Re: ...rant incoming. (cw: transphobia, misogyny, violence) by Cicada on 2019-07-01 01:57:00 UTC Reply

That's absolutely horrible. And I don't mean to detract from your very legitimate points about transphobia, but I also think there are plenty of points about ableism, as others in the thread have mentioned, that stand out to me even more. Like, prosthetic limbs exist, and they don't detract from "the sacredness of the body"??? Did the designers just forget about that?
I remember hearing some stuff about how they're trying to enable designing trans player characters (https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/344732/CyberpunkdesignersaysCDPRisworkingontransgendercharacter_options.php), but... ok cool, that doesn't make what they said any less inexcusable.
I had only heard the "design trans characters" buzz, which made me think they'd be at least well-meaning. It's a shame. I'm sorry you had to hear that garbage.

We had a brief discussion about this on Discord... by Thoth on 2019-07-01 13:30:00 UTC Reply

From one angle, at least, it seems like they are trying, but aren't thinking it through and are generally being hopelessly clueless.

Of course, there's the other option as well... we may only hope.

Technically, all that refers to transhumanism, not gender by Crazy Minh on 2019-06-30 00:39:00 UTC Reply

While I cannot (and will not) purport to understand what you’ve gone through; I can say that a lot of the things you mentioned purport to the concept of the technological singularity and the idea of transhumanism. The director - as I understand it- was reffering to cybernetic enhancements making her unclean in the eyes of people opposed to the singularity.

Is this really a fight you want to have? by Neshomeh on 2019-06-30 02:02:00 UTC Reply

Because that's a pretty hair-thin distinction you're drawing. If the concept of transhumanism (defined, as I understand it, as humans being augmented in any way by any technology) is being portrayed as "unclean," that assumes that there is such a thing as a "pure human" to begin with, which is plenty messed up with or without explicitly bringing sex and gender into it. Who decides what's a "pure human," eh? Based on what criteria? This is how we get that one episode of Babylon 5 where we learn an organic AI (not even a wholly mechanical one!) slaughtered an entire species because no one 100% fit the impossible standard of purity it was programmed to protect.

Or, more likely, such a thing would take its standards from the privileged elite with the power and resources to create it, and any part of society with less privilege would be wiped out because the designers just didn't consider the existence of lives much different from their own. Privilege is myopic like that.

The point is, if you're arguing that it's perfectly harmless and innocent for the director and audience of this game to take the stance that transhumanism is bad, and anything that isn't "pure human" by some unknown definition is unclean, I'm here to tell you that is still incredibly worrisome, and I'd advise you to rethink your position.

I'm not even addressing your next post; there are others better suited to do that (and hey, Ix is one of them, and they have). I'll just say it was unwise, and advise you to choose your battles or at least your words with more care and consideration for the people you're talking to.

~Neshomeh
May I also note... by Crazy Minh on 2019-06-30 00:48:00 UTC Reply

...that the original Tabletop RPG, Cyberpunk, is rife with the concept of human cybernetic rnhancement. The idea of engancing your body with technology is the whole goddam point of the cyberpunk genre, dating back to William Gibson’s excellent novel ‘The Neuromancer’. You can’t seriously think that a cyberpunk game set in a sci-fi future would use a staple concept of the genre as a ‘thinly-veiled’ attack against trans people? I mean, it’s like saying you can have a space-opera game without aliens, spacecraft or science-fiction; a Sword-And-Sorcery tale withput swords, or other medieval set-dressing; a shooter game without any guns...it takes the life out of the genre. You might as well accuse the last two Deus Ex games as being attacks against victims of thr Aparthid in South Africa!

Everyone is well aware of the genre trappings of cyberpunk by Larfen J. Stocke, esq. on 2019-06-30 03:08:00 UTC Reply

It's why in my opinion the genre is utter rubbish unless it somehow finds a way to update itself for modern times. Cyberpunk had its basis in the political landscape of the 80s and 90s, hence the constant obsession with Japan--because people at the time were terrified of Japanese corporations taking them over.
This isn't an issue anymore, and yet, every modern cyberpunk setting seems obligated to feature it. Cyberpunk as a genre is stuck in the 90s, and that includes its politics in regards to human bodies and identities. Which is a damn big problem, because where Japanese corporations haven't been an issue in years, body policing is relevant as hell!

Nobody is calling the existence of cyborgs in cyperpunk an inherent attack on trans people. Chill out. Actually read what Delta said. What's transphobic and ableist is the suggestion that there is a normal human body and that diverging from it is somehow 'dangerous and unclean'.

This is an absolutely dangerous idea. Consider that the 'normal' body will invariably be able, presumably white, generally cis. This is a plain fact in our current political landscape--these people are the ones mostly in power. The idea of a normal human body came around during about the same time as Darwinism, determined statistically, observing traits across a population, so on. These ideas formed the basis of Eugenics, famous for all that Nazi business, but don't get confused--pretty much everyone believed this crap in those days. A fun fact is that criminals and the mentally ill were actually classified pretty much as the same thing, at this point. It's an idea that is basically poison.

And yet it lasts to this day, forms the backbone of practically all systems of oppression nowadays--racism, transphobia, ableism, good grief I don't doubt I'm forgetting plenty more.
People like to forget the eugenics stuff.

Obviously cybernetics is a staple inherent in cyberpunk--I certainly hope transphobia, racism and ableism aren't. It's a broken genre nowadays but I do hope it can be salvaged--it's just that Cyberpunk 2077 clearly won't be the one that does it. You're making a really false comparison.

Cyberpunk could very easily be an incredibly progressive and emancipatory genre, especially considering how deeply political it likes to pretend it is. It could make a point about the inherent humanity everyone has, no matter how 'abnormal' their body might be. It could make a critique on media and corporations and how they are constantly policing people's bodies and disregarding their inherent humanity for their own benefit. It could make a point about the power of technology, both as a form of oppression, but also as a form of freedom. You know, cyberpunky stuff.

But it never does!

Not to mention, you act like something being a genre staple makes it somehow inherently immune to criticism. If transphobia, ableism, and racism were inherent to cyberpunk (and to be clear, I think, they aren't, and don't need to be), burn the genre. If the life of a genre is dependent on oppression and bullying and other garbage, screw the genre.
You know, there are ways to debate with people. by Iximaz on 2019-06-30 01:59:00 UTC Reply

Dismissing their concerns and deriding their comprehension of what they've seen of the game ("you can't seriously think") is not the way to go about it.

A lot of transhumanism stuff has echoes in the real world, a lot of it to do with body modification that us trans folk get to deal with.

If you're looking forward to the game, that's fine, but you're being incredibly rude about Delta's very real and valid complaints with the game.

Apologies to all offended parties by Crazy Minh on 2019-06-30 04:00:00 UTC Reply

I'm sorry guys. Look, I wasn't trying to trigger or offend anyone, or even be insensitive. I do get the perspective from which you are coming from: the cyberpunk genre is kinda outdated in terms of the political scale from which it comes from. I do get that Delta was making some valid points, and I do get that it wasn't so much the subject of the words 'unclean' or 'impure' that was the issue, but the fact they were being used.

Here's the thing though: I really don't give a crap about this stuff, at least when I'm playing a game. Sure, I'm politically progressive. I'm not progressive to the level of the crazies on Tumblr (and before anyone interjects, let me remind you these are the people who tried to attack 4chan- the metaphorical cesspit of the entire internet- and failed miserably), and I've been accused before of being slightly authoritarian in my views. I've also been told that's because of my Aspergers, and the tendency of people with the condition to obsessively categorise and control things, including the views of other people. I digress.

Getting back on track, I am a supporter of gender equality, and of pretty much every other leftist agenda, with the exception of militarised feminism. Without getting into specific examples (because I have been told to stop by members of this board), I find the constant intrusion of identity politics into popular entertainment to be disgusting and abhorrent. Again, I digress.

My ultimate point is that I may have gotten a little too heated over the criticism of the game. When it is finally released, and when I get my hands on a copy (depending on the amount of launch bugs or glitches, and depending on the initial reaction, I may take some time to buy the game following release); I'm not going to be playing it to propagate transphobia or whatever. I'll be playing because I genuinely love science-fiction as a whole (to the point of obsession: remind me to post some photos of my model starship collection at some point, if I ever drag them out of storage), and I love cyberpunk as a niche subgenre even more. There are too few games, movies, TV shows and books of decent quality within the genre, and Cyberpunk is looking to be a genuinely awesome addition to the franchise.

Again, I digress. My point is, I'm sorry for any offence I may have caused, and any triggers I might have pulled. I apologise.

One last thing before I post this. I would like to remind (or inform) anyone who has unwarranted suspicions that I'm transphobic- whatever the reasoning for that suspicion- that I regularly post on the Whateley Academy forums; and while I'm not exactly the most well-received community member (the forum has karma ratings, and last I checked, I had the lowest rating of the ~2000 registered members), I do get along- or so I hope- with the people on that forum; despite there being a large number of trans individuals posting there. Despite the situation here being somewhat different, I would hope I can get along with everyone here as well.

Regards

Crazy Minh.

So... by Delta Juliette on 2019-06-30 04:49:00 UTC Reply

To echo Larf, I'm not calling transhumanism inherently transphobic. It is a theme, nothing more, and only one of several themes that are central to cyberpunk. However, themes don't exist in vacuums - they have similarities to things in the real world, which is what gives them their emotional impact. Even when they aren't deliberately, explicitly used as metaphors, you can't play with concepts like "people using technology to change their bodies" without touching on the people in the real world, right now, who are doing the same.

And in those spaces, creators need to be a little bit careful, because the un-nuanced message of "(fictional) people who use (fictional) technology to change their bodies are unclean" sounds an awful lot like "(real) people who use (real) technology to change their bodies are unclean," especially when there are already real groups of people, who use real technology to change their bodies, who are already seen as unclean. Sure, it's maybe not intentional, but they're amplifying a message that gets people killed.

Thank you for bringing up Deus Ex! It's a great example, because it uses augmentation as a theme to talk about discrimination. We see systematic, structural discrimination against augs in Mankind Divided, from the very first trailer, as well as violent responses to it. In contrast, in the heavily-analyzed scene in 2077, the creator invites us to sit in judgement on an augmented body. Here is a defenseless person, the game says, all their secrets exposed to the universe. Are they clean or unclean? Does this person's existence have value, or have they modified their body too much? Are they too far from normal human?

To make it as clear as I can: "is this person human enough?" is a terrifying question to ask.

Because. Hi. Only twenty-one states of the United States agree that I'm human enough that an assault on my person motivated by the changes I've made to my body is a hate crime. Only twenty-two agree that I'm human enough that I can't be fired for no other reason than the changes I've made to my body.

This isn't about "an intrusion of identity politics into popular entertainment." This is about people like me saying "the creators of this game are using a massive platform to blast messages that reinforce biases that kill us." And if you find my speaking up about it "disgusting and abhorrent", well - I'm sorry if you're offended or triggered by it.

I do have a couple questions and concerns on earlier posts:

I really don't see how you're reading "in the eyes of people opposed to the singularity" into that quote. Before explaining the scene (the paragraphs before the quote in question), the article introduces the team's perspective with "Badowski said that in the final game, his team intends to have full nudity [...] because it supports one of the most important themes in the cyberpunk genre: transhumanism". That's called back to after the scene is introduced, with a direct quote, "“Nudity is important for us because of one reason,” Badowski said. “This is cyberpunk, so people augment their body. So the body is no longer sacrum [sacred]; it’s profanum [profane].”" And after another few sentences, quoted directly from Badowski, we get to the line I spent time on previously: "She is not clean." The entire section of the article is written discussing the team's, and Badowski's, perspectives on transhumanism, there's no introduction of any other perspective. (Also, there's no discussion of the Singularity in the articles I linked - I'm assuming I can just substitute "people opposed to transhumans" in to your reading?) Can you clarify how you're getting to "in the eyes of people opposed to the singularity," please?

In your self-reply, the only explanation I can see for your entire fourth sentence is that you're reading a couple big logical leaps into my position: First, going from "Cyberpunk 2077 is using transhuman themes in ways that hurt trans people" to "transhuman themes in cyberpunk as a genre hurt trans people," and secondly, that my call to arms from that is "clearly, we can and should have cyberpunk without transhuman themes," to which the obvious response is, as you said, "it really wouldn't be recognizably cyberpunk if you start ripping out core themes." Is that a reasonable summary of how you got from "staple concept of the genre as attack" to "it's like saying you can have [genre] without [theme]?"

And third: The title of the book has always been Neuromancer, no definite article. If you're going to name-drop one of the foundational works of a genre with a lead in like "dating back to [author's] excellent novel [title]", please do try to get the title correct? It kinda makes it look like you don't really know what you're talking about otherwise.

Fourth and finally: "I can't be transphobic, I have trans friends!" is just about the least persuasive argument ever.

I do hope you enjoy your game. I'm not asking you to not play it, or even to not spend money on it. What I do ask of you is this:

As you're playing, ask yourself: What are the messages this game is sending about people who aren't like you?

As you're playing, ask yourself: What are the messages this game is sending about humanity?

As you're playing, ask yourself: What are the messages this game is sending about people who have redefined their humanity?

As you're playing, ask yourself: What are the messages this game is sending about corporations, and how they interact with people who aren't like you?

In less words: Please consume it, and please consume all media, critically. Think about the messages that are there. Think about how they sound in the real world. And especially think about what they imply about people who are already viewed as "abnormal", on any spectrum - be it neurodivergence, race, ability, gender, and so on.
Nobody's calling you transphobic by Larfen J. Stocke, esq. on 2019-06-30 04:39:00 UTC Reply

I'm sure you aren't. You aren't transphobic for playing Cyberpunk 2077, either. You don't need to demonstrate how progressive you personally are--it's fine. We aren't really gonna judge you on that, either way. That simply isn't relevant.

I'll just say this:

Popular entertainment has always had identity politics. Everything is inherently political because everything inherently deals with what is good versus what is bad, what is normal versus what is abnormal.

The only thing that's changing is people are getting sick of being erased in media, and corporations are realising they can make money off this.
I know a whole lot more mixed race people in real life than I've ever seen in media, and we're a pretty damn privileged bunch compared to most, at least where I am.

I consider it pretty disgusting and abhorrent, myself, that there's a whole lot of people whose mere existence is considered a bold, revolutionary political act. Rather than, you know, just people existing, and their existence being acknowledged in media. Because these people exist, you know.

The fact of the matter is that anything that you think isn't political, or doesn't have 'intrusive identity politics', is just political stuff that doesn't challenge your worldview.
The claim that something 'isn't political' isn't anything more than propaganda.

I dunno man. I'm sorry if this seems harsh. You're not a bad person or anything, and I don't want you to think I'm calling you a bad person. But, uh, there you go.

*shudders* Yuck. by SunAndMoon on 2019-06-29 21:13:00 UTC Reply

Queer person with an anxiety disorder here. Will avoid.

I saw the trailer. by SunAndMoon on 2019-06-29 12:34:00 UTC Reply

It looks pretty neat, even though cyberpunk isn't really my style.