Right, this is a good point. What it is, is that as soon as any group of people or institution have power and influence in society, their incentives change from working hard and cooperating with other people to using that power and influence to make things easier and simpler for them. And it’s not just corporations that fall prey to this but political factions, social movements, quasi-government organizations and the government itself. The reason we don’t like this is because a lot of the decisions made around doing this are inefficient and oppressive to the rights of those other people and factions.
Notice that people aren’t stupid; they recognize this implicitly and it starts to destabilize society towards class and group conflict instead of voluntary cooperation. Frequently the elites within a society will use this to cause system or regime changes, so they accelerate these conflicts intentionally. It is usually cloaked in compassion for a particular class so that it is difficult to restore harmony once both that class and the others around them realize they’re being favored and the others disfavored. It takes civic education, a culture of principles and an extreme lack of pettiness to avoid this that is hard to sustain across time, which is a flaw of human character more than any system of social cooperation.
The traditional term for this is “corruption.” It’s better thought of as shorthand for “corrupt incentives.” Any time someone’s agenda becomes to hoard power rather than produce value for other people, this is a general sign that things have gone awry.
It’s maybe a little easier to pick on corporations these days because they have high visibility to the public and it’s really obvious when they start making bad decisions. They don’t have the benefit of mostly doing what they do behind closed doors or in the middle of the night like some of the other corruption that goes on.
Incidentally, a lot of the Greek mythology we love in TQ is talking about this very thing. It’s a metaphor for when the state becomes corrupt. Almost all great stories are, in some way. That’s why you have folk heroes like Odysseus who put their families back together and restore things to the way they are supposed to be.
What’s the saying? Ultimate power corrupts, ultimately? I’m fairly confident it has been this way since the beginning of time (people, not dinosaurs and amoebae). One thing you can count on, is people always want more. Look at athletes, already making 15 million a year, willing to hold out for 20 million a year. Look at the billionaires list… they keep getting richer, instead of saying “oh look, I already have enough money that my kid’s kid’s kid’s kid’s kid’s kid’s kid’s kid’s never have to think about working”, and spread the wealth around. And let’s not even get started on politicians, who are elected to serve their constituencies, but spend their political careers (maybe therein lay the problem) trying to get re-elected, or furthering their own agendas.
I’ve never been in agreement with people who say that human nature is good and kind-hearted. I think people are greedy and self-serving, unless taught otherwise. Unfortunately, I think there’s a shortage of role-models in that arena these days.
I try to hold the view that human nature is neutral. Carl Jung pointed out that people’s minds develop and work a particular way for good reasons that have to do with cooperating and surviving in nature. It’s when someone is ill, not properly socialized or some catastrophe happens that disrupts their development psychologically that those same faculties of reasoning become antisocial and counterproductive. In other words, humans are not violent and petty in nature because they’re inherently evil, but because that’s the way we’ve had to be in order to survive in nature. The fact that we’ve developed cultures (which is really just ways of doing things) such that the vast majority of us now get along or at least stay out of each other’s way most of the time is evidence enough that if we know better ways to survive by cooperating and we develop properly to act them out, we can be a neighborly herd, a community, rather than always being enemies. It’s again when the incentives invert back towards the original condition that we start to have a problem.
And people have always kind of known this. If you think about Greek mythology in terms of each kind of monster representing a type of human character flaw, it starts to become evident. The Cyclops is the most obvious one: An unhealthy or immature obsession with one thing or idea, or otherwise an inability to think about complexity. The Greeks knew, they just had to communicate about these things with stories and archetypes rather than explicit language.
Well, I wasn’t implying that greedy and self-serving was necessarily evil (in the biblical sense, perhaps in the AD&D sense). It’s more of what I would consider basic, animal survival instinct. Things all started with ‘might makes right’. Society, religion and laws were developed to counter that.
Right, I just meant evil in terms of, willing to survive at any cost to the people around them or people in other tribes specifically. In as much as we’ve always been able to cooperate, that’s never been an absolute human trait. You can even see it in chimps; the tyrants and the bullies don’t live long. When things are going well, reciprocation is a big part of life for large apes. That’s not to say they genuinely sympathize with each other across troops and territories. That’s a uniquely human thing.
I’m sure you’ve noticed that it’s not hip right now to give humans credit for anything; but for as awful as we can be, we’ve also done a pretty awesome job in the last 50 years or so of learning to get along. It looks like we’re about to try to ruin that again. But for what it’s worth, I don’t think the vast majority of us want it to be that way. We’d do better if we knew how.
Yeah, when we do work together, we’re capable of wonderous things. But, we’ve (stupidly) decided to entrench ourselves in identity politics, and push our own agendas. We know how to do differently, but I think the last 20 years of the education system has done a marvelous job of numbing the critical thinking process. So now we’re stuck with polarized groups of society, who blindly follow whatever leaders say the things that make them feel the most shiny about themselves.
Kinda funny you mention that because that brings us full circle; that is my primary concern with TQ2. I really hope they’re just trying to make a good game and not further divide people and our culture.
Using Greek Mythology to bring people together at a time when a bunch of various interests are trying to tear apart the inheritors of Greek and Western culture would be pretty fitting. I think a lot of great minds from human history would have appreciated the elegant appropriateness of that, haha.
Eh, I don’t think there’s much to worry there. The audience for TQ2 is far too small to make any real impact. I think this kind of nefarious purpose would be better served in a more mass-market arena… say… an innocent-enough looking movie about a toy doll coming to life, and trying to find its way in society? Throw in a few “woke” narratives, and you have yourself a culture war in the making!
Here’s hoping. I am a massive fan of TQ and I really admire THQ Nordic. I also have a lot of confidence in them. Who I don’t have confidence in are the platforms and venues they publish to. If they can stay independent in this environment it will be something to behold. We’ll have to pen some Greek myths about them by the end of it, haha.
Where something originates is not necessarily it’s final form. We borrowed / changed a lot of things like that to be a part of our culture. There’s actually a joke in Asia that America is the “hamburger country.” You’d be surprised how many things you’d think of being a part of your own culture originated somewhere else. That just happens to be the case for a lot more of our stuff because we showed up a lot more recently.
I agree, it’s not originally or exclusively our thing, but when you see a hamburger these days (at least outside of Germany,) it’s probably the Americanized version with the toppings or sides that make you think of McDonald’s.
Interestingly enough, I have an Italian roomie and we’ve had similar discussions about pizza, haha.
I think it’s pretty amazing that THQ Nordic has been able to profitably sell several TQ expansions.
They are apparently using UE 5 to make this games engine, which puts them well ahead of what Crate did with Grim Dawn. All that remains to be seen is how well they design the game.
And, if history is any indication, brings us closer and closer to GD2 because the Crate crew have always said, if it happens, it’ll be a new engine so they can do MOAR!!!
You don’t have to tell me . I’m a fan of culturel appreciation. On top of it every now and then the US of A took something from somewhere else and made something better out of it… just don’t ask me what because i can’t come up with something right now .
Mc D or BK or wendys aren’t the first companies i think about when I think of hamburgers . Wasn’t Pizza sizilian first? Tbh I don’t care at all as long as it’s tastefull and the least ammount of food I eat is traditional german stuff and I’m happy about all the food from other countries that is tastier and healthier then german food.
LE was announced for this year so it’ll proably hit next year and TQ was announced for next year so it might take 1-2 years untill it publishes .
Yeah but britain is a third world country when it comes to tea . At least it isn’t as bad as in germany… I need to import all the teas I like -.- .
I’m a big fan of Twinings Earl Grey. In fact, I’m not sure there’s anything better. I must have a posh snobby British ancestor somewhere back there, haha.
Earl grey is something everyone should’ve at home. Then again I love the tea testings that are arround here from time to time but sadly i got teadrunk very easiely.
. I’m a fan of culturel appreciation. On top of it every now and then the US of A took something from somewhere else and made something better out of it… just don’t ask me what because i can’t come up with something right now 
.