Pokemon Go and the oppressive outside world

[wysinwyg]

@enso

Uhm…November 15, 2012 was new? I’ve had an iPhone for at least five years before that… Hell, I’ve seen sub-$100 “ok-ish” smartphones at least as far back as 2012.

Sounds like an early adopter’s perspective, but it doesn’t really matter whether we describe it as “new” or not – the reality underlying the description is the same regardless of the word you use to describe it.

@enso

I’m waiting for someone to explain to me how this is a problem of minorities being excluded instead of handwaving around it.

I just spent three paragraphs explaining it, which rather reinforces what I said about you going out of your way not to get it.

@enso

I’ve stated that perhaps smartphone adoption was part of the issue but then I have people here telling me that minority ownership of said technology is not slight. So…

Yes, I agree and said that it is part of the issue. My point is that it is not the whole issue.

@enso

Also, Ingress is a worldwide game, not a “white folks only” European and North American game. I’ve played it in Thailand and Indonesia. There were portals in the major cities there and at various other places. How? Users submitted them (local users).

Sure, but we’re talking about how the mechanics of Pokemon Go interact with race in the context of the USA, so none of that is really relevant to the discussion. This is kind of a diversion.

But just so you don’t think I’m engaging in special pleading, we can consider a hypothetical situation in India. Castes have officially been abolished, but let’s suppose for the sake of this hypothetical example that the caste system still has a huge affect on the social graph – people are more likely to be the equivalent of Facebook friends with people in the same caste. Then I would expect the wealthier castes to be better-represented in AR games like Pokemon Go. Early adopters from the wealthier castes would seed the game world with resources that are more likely to be used by their own castes, and they would be more likely to recommend the game to people within their castes, so those castes would come to dominate the game world much as they dominate the economic world.

And it doesn’t require any supposition of ill intent! I’m not arguing that anyone is intentionally going out of their way to exclude anyone!

@enso

Now tell me why mostly white people are playing, how that is a specific problem, and what you expect someone to do about it to fix it.

I’m tempted to just say “why should I?” I’m not sure why you think you get to make demands at this point in the discussion. Nevertheless…

1. I already explained why mostly white people played Ingress. There are probably a few other reasons, such as its cyberpunk aesthetic appealing to particular demographics, but the upshot is that white people are early adopters, so they make most of the recommendations, and they shape the game world so that it ends up being a more rewarding experience to play as a white person.
2. It is only a specific problem if you think systemic racism and unintended segregation are bad things. I think they are bad things for a lot of different reasons. Would you like to discuss those?
3. Whenever someone demands that I shut up about discussing a particular issue unless I can propose something to “fix” it, I must admit I am quick to assume that I am in a bad faith discussion. I use the word “issue” instead of “problem” intentionally. The concept of a “problem” somewhat implies the existence of a solution, but in the real world there are many issues that can’t simply be “solved” or “fixed” without having other possibly negative effects. At that point, you have to determine what the likely effects are and then determine a course of action based on your particular values – the weighting of how much to consider various costs and benefits will depend on both facts and values. However, different people have different values, and so if the issue is going to be addressed by many people or not at all, there needs to be discussion before a resolution can be achieved because people will have to arrive at a compromise about how to weigh the costs and benefits of various possible resolution. In other words, we not only can but must discuss social issues before we decide on a solution for them. But even if we didn’t have to it would still be a good idea, because we can come up with better ideas by discussing the issues than by introspecting really hard. So I really just don’t understand why you feel that I must have a solution now to even discuss the issue.

Sorry to quote myself, but it really seems like you missed this part:

Uh…that’s why it’s an example of systemic racism. White people aren’t going out of their way to exclude black folks, but segregation and systems of exclusion tend to perpetuate themselves unless people go out of their way to increase diversity. That’s like the whole reason we’re talking about it.

I think everyone’s already pretty clear on the idea that intentionally excluding black people is immoral. We’re trying to talk about how inaction can cause similarly bad results.