this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2024
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Of course you don't support meaningful consumer protection laws. You don't support fire codes. Stop typing another denial: you know goddamn well the point of them is that they must be followed, otherwise they're just fire suggestions. Fire... best practices. You can figure out which meaning of should I am using, as I tell you, there should be no fire-prone homes allowed!
People shouldn't have to choose between something tolerable and something that will fuck them over. Sorry, I'll retype that to appease your latest hair-splitting: people must not be forced to choose between acceptable options - and becoming a victim.
Anyone buying an unsafe house is a victim, no matter how ardently they insist it's fine. It's not. These laws are written in blood. Innocent strangers die when we let that shit happen. In large part because, hey guess what, markets only care about money. Optimize for money alone and you get places where no home is safe, but people still have to live, because it's where they are. Scolding those people for wanting a home that won't burn down, but buying one that might, is blaming those victims.
You know this. These are the laws we require, in large societies. You chafe at the comparison of your arguments to anarchist arguments, albeit possibly because you're unfamiliar with actual anarchist arguments.
And you'll glibly suggest "purchase limits."
Why?
What principled reason is there, if the right to manipulate people toward whatever you're selling is absolute? You insist this business model of selling soccer goals is in no way a scam, so who cares if someone blows every paycheck on it? If you want to say it's addiction, do we stop people from being alcoholics? Are you against substances that are almost unavoidably addictive, on a physiological level?
If this continues to spread, and becomes an effective monopoly - why do you suddenly care? Why is the point where it becomes a problem for you the point where it's too late?
I never said that. I think fire codes are a fantastic idea, I just don't think a house not meeting code should make it unsellable.
And that's essentially what the current law is, at least in my area. New construction is required to meet code, older houses are not required to in order to sell. If you want to turn a house into a business, it needs to pass code (e.g. I had to buy and install a couple fire extinguishers when I registered my home business).
If I made a legal change here, it would be requiring an up-front disclosure of any building codes the seller is aware of violating so the buyer doesn't need to waste time and money with an inspection. I'm also a fan of requiring any legal contract to be understandable with an 8th grade education (i.e. no legalese) and reasonable in length and scope (i.e. a page of 12pt font should be fine for most cases). I want contracts to be something people are expected to read and understand, not where you hide all the gotchas on page 22 of small print.
No, but I'm okay with requiring them to be used under supervision, especially since a "bad trip" often presents a hazard to the public.
I see two options here:
The first just pushes it to the streets, and you'll end up having to police that, which means a ton of innocent people get screwed over. Look at how successful our "war in drugs" has been, it's an absolute clown show, and things are way better in places with looser restrictions (i.e. Portugal, The Netherlands, etc).
Controlling it means allowing pretty much all drugs, but with increasing requirements on supervision for use. Maybe some drugs just aren't allowed because there's no safe way to use it (e.g. fentanyl), but there should be an avenue the public can use to get legal access to most drugs. I think we should tax it as well to fund rehabilitation, but almost never outright ban it. Safer drugs (alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, etc) should be allowed over the counter, while others may require a supervised appointment (heroin, cocaine, psilocybin, etc).
That depends on the type of monopoly, I suppose, but suppressing alternatives is a big no for me. If the public decides MTX are the way to go and there's no force from game studios to make that dominant, that's a very different thing.
I really don't see that being the case. In almost every case, a "natural monopoly" is anything but, usually it's due to some entrenched business being able to craft laws such that competition is impractical. Look at places where cable is the only available from of Internet access, this isn't because competitors don't bother servicing an area, but because the local cable company has put so many legal barriers in place that competition isn't practical.
So if everything turns into MTX, there's probably illegal coercion going on behind the scenes because I know there's a market for non-MTX games. The more market share it gets, the more seriously we should look at regulation (e.g. How does this look for children? Is there a way to place caps? Is there a form of gambling here? Etc).
Just because something is "bad" doesn't mean it should be illegal, it may just need to more transparent about the bad bits. But if people want to smoke and drink, I'm fine as long as they understand the health risks of doing so and they don't bother others while doing it.
I am just so tired of dealing with your entire worldview.
We can't ban unethical business practices because that's dictating customers' morality, somehow.
Oh but it's not unethical because manipulating people is good actually.
Oh but it's not manipulation if it works.
Don't I know that consumer protection laws are like banning drugs? Which you're okay with if they're the wrong drugs?
I just do not give a shit what you want, anymore. Your principles are slippery and their justifications are ahistorical and it all leads to conclusions that should make you reconsider. I'm not convinced you know what cognitive dissonance feels like.
This entire business model is horrible in a way you ardently defend, whilst insisting you're not defending it. You have grand-sounding reasons for encouraging everything short of already-criminal fraud. You keep saying you're not encouraging it, but quite frankly, come the fuck on. All you've had to say against it is the wishy-washiest nitpicking at the boundaries of this metastasizing industry-wide problem that didn't exist a decade ago. And you seem serenely unbothered by how often your unprompted legislative suggestions do not square with the alleged rationale for otherwise naysaying the only solution that would actually work.
I do not intended to give you further attention on this subject. Quite frankly 'absolute freedom to manufacture consent' is where I should've pulled the chute, and it'll be my point of reference next time someone asks why I don't give a shit about libertarian arguments for this blatant exploitation.
You really like twisting my words...
I said manipulating people (as in, advertising a product using research about efficacy) is covered under free speech. That doesn't make it good, it just makes it protected. That right ends when you defraud someone though, because that's a contractual violation.
No, the only drugs that should be banned are those that present a significant risk to others. Something like Fentanyl has an incredibly high risk to the public because even a small amount can cause serious side effects, whereas something like marijuana has pretty much no risk.
There's a spectrum here, and the standard should be risk to the public, not whatever nonsense the DEA has come up with.
That also goes for business practices. If it's consensual, it should probably be allowed, even if it's predatory in nature (e.g. gambling). If it's coercive (e.g. ransomware attacks), it should be banned and prosecuted. There's a pretty clear distinction there.
I absolutely agree. I just disagree about it needing to be banned. I'm also disgusted with the tobacco industry (and they've done some truly predatory advertising in the past before the crackdowns), but I'll defend everyone's right to buy cigarettes.
This type of business practice is very old. Yeah, video game MTX are new, but selling FOMO isn't. In the past it was subscriptions to all kinds of things, collectibles, "as seen on TV" nonsense, etc.
The main shift is moving that to digital products and reducing the barrier to payment, but the business model itself is quite old. Basically the pattern is:
That's basically a MTX, just with a physical product instead of digital.
Then thanks for the discussion, and I hope you have a fantastic day. But if you want to continue, I'll probably respond.
Your words keep being 'well no, but actually yes.' Almost verbatim re: drugs. "No, the only--" if there's an "only" then that's "the wrong drugs," ya doof.
This bullshit isn't "mediocre." It's a scam. I do not respect the framework you push to deny that it's a scam. What you consider above-board is fucking horrifying.
The shittiest possible physical product is infinitely more real than charging actual money to increment a variable inside a video game on your computer. Even if people don't think they've been tricked into that - they have. It's nonsense. It is neither a good nor a service. It needs to be stopped, and no half measures will suffice.
The alternatives are still super duper capitalist, so you can relax.
No, you're being overly reductive. For example:
That strongly implies that argumentation here is subjective. It's not, it's based on objective measures, such as harm to non-users. The current law is objective, but stupid (based on usefulness in medicine).
Your arguments are overly reductive.
You do precisely that's with your argument re: MTX (MTX is bad so it should be banned). Your strongest argument is, "it's addictive." Should we ban everything that's addictive? (e.g. food, sex, work) Or only things with a financial consequence? (e.g. stock trading, extreme sports) Or only things without a physical good attached? (e.g. digital books, digital video games) Or things with a manipulative aspect? (any form of advertising, time-based exclusivity, etc)
What exactly is the objective measure you're basing the ban on? Why doesn't that apply to other, similar things? It sounds like your argument is, "I don't like it and I (or a friend) have made poor choices, so it shouldn't be allowed." Yeah, banning it will probably help some people, but that's very much "the ends justify the means" logic, and therefore invalid.
I don't care if it's capitalist, socialist, etc, I care about use of force. You need a very good reason to prevent me from doing something, as in, it would violate someone else's rights or would likely cause someone else to violate another's rights.
The economic system isn't important to me, individual rights are. I actually don't like capitalism much, but it has so far done a decent job of preserving self-determination. I also believe a lot of people will make stupid choices, so I also believe in a social safety net (something like UBI, addiction recovery programs, etc) so people who have screwed up have a way out. But I'm opposed to the government making choices for me.
'My normative opinion is objective' really underlines the problem.
As does calling an argument reductive before reducing it to 'it is bad.'
And then focusing on the word "addictive" when the actual argument is, this entire business model is fucking nonsense that sells literally worthless things for real money, in a way that is fundamentally unethical specifically because tricking people into valuing arbitrary garbage is what games are for. That's what makes them games! I've only mentioned addiction as an example of the manipulation used to gouge people as hard as possible in spite of their better judgement. It is a how. The problem is why.
If that sounds like 'well I just don't like it,' fuck off.
I did that intentionally to show how ridiculous reductive logic is.
It's obviously not worthless to the people who buy it, otherwise they wouldn't buy it. Value is almost entirely subjective, and frequently based on what others think.
That's the same for MTX. People often buy MTX to show off, and that has value to them. It's the digital equivalent of wearing designer jeans or carrying a designer wallet.
You've just described the entire field of advertising.
And there are good parts to MTX as well, it's the free market solution to "take from the rich and give to the poor" since it makes games available for free and largely funded by wealthier people. A handful of people feeling superior to others funds development of a game available for free to everyone else.
I still don't like it because I think the end product is worse than charging everyone for admission, but there's an solid argument there that the net effect for the majority is more games available for free (most people don't buy MTX).
'My hypocrisy was a clever ruse except when I meant it, and this mostly-subjective thing is objectively--' yeah okay I think we're done. Even circling right back to where you came in: advertising, that totally ethical field with nothing to condemn or curtail. What you want is awful and why you want it is awful and dealing with how you choose to write it is draining.
... I am dumber for having suffered this conversation. This is a wallet siphon you think is targeted at children, and-- no.
I'm out.