Socially and politically speaking, I'm mostly on board with what ResetEra generally stands for, but two things stand out:
- They have to take it to such extremes that so much as discussing its mere existence is a no-no. I understand not wanting to signal boost certain actors, themes and arguments, but there's unpleasant things in the world that exist. Closing our eyes and pretending they don't isn't gonna help - in fact, I say that banning any discourse about them makes it more likely for someone to seek out more info on them elsewhere. Yeah, this game's creator or this artist turned out to be a pretty dumb person, but banning users for talking about their existence? Really?
- They look at problems from a very USA-centric (or at the very least West European) POV. The challenges minorities face, the political spectrum, the matter of genders, drugs/alcohol/smoke - you can't pretend all of these things are literally the same in the USA, the UK, Hungary, Russia, Argentina, South Africa, Israel, Brazil, Iran, Japan, Morocco and so on. Other than a generic "respect everyone", you simply can not put the same guidelines and discussion goalposts as if everyone faced the exact same circumstances as those you find in the USA.
This means that nuance is not an option. When you talk about a serial killer or a government taking basic human rights away, you don't really need much nuance to call out a wrongdoing. But when you start discussing social discrimination, sexual encounters, genders, economy and whatnot, you can no longer just decide which side is right and no deviation from it is allowed. You need to allow nuance, you need to allow people to express perplexities over things even if, at the very core, we all agree about the same basic principles. That's what a discussion is. 100 people shouting the same thing at each other and applauding each other for saying it is not a discussion, it's just seeking validation for one's own views.
There's so many arguments where there's reasonable doubt over events, where things aren't simply black or white, where you need to take a bit of info and arguments from both sides to reach a satisfying conclusion. The fact most of these threads end with a graveyard of bans because moderation decided that only one extreme of a very specific opinion is allowed is what kills these discussions. You either repeat what's been said 200 times, you risk a ban and getting piled on for saying something different (even if it's completely respectful), or you stay out of the thread altogether.
www.resetera.com
