Prora's Construction Quote Biased?

Nikae said:

I meant "neutral" not like equally praising towards an idea/building/discovery, I meant it as not being offensive or judgmental towards an idea/belief/philosophy/etc.

Galilei's quote doesn't represent a neutral view, so does Oppenheimer's and Prora's.

I'd say it does not break a pattern of the dev's neutrality (because it does not really exist) but it breaks a pattern of promoting or praising quotes. We can however argue if that exists .

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Ah, I see. I don't think the OP was saying that the game is neutral; I think he was saying that it is equally praising of everything, except for Prora. Not sure where "neutrality" even entered the discussion -- the game is absolutely the opposite of "neutral" in this regard. It is extremely judging at all possible turns, giving a positive judgment to everything, as per the pattern I mentioned before. Except for those little places here and there where it deviates, like with Prora. That's the inappropriate deviation described by the OP, I believe: not a deviation from neutrality, but a deviation from equal complimentariness.

Lochlann said:

Ah, I see. I don't think the OP was saying that the game is neutral; I think he was saying that it is equally praising of everything, except for Prora. Not sure where "neutrality" even entered the discussion -- the game is absolutely the opposite of "neutral" in this regard. It is extremely judging at all possible turns, giving a positive judgment to everything, as per the pattern I mentioned before. Except for those little places here and there where it deviates, like with Prora. That's the inappropriate deviation described by the OP, I believe: not a deviation from neutrality, but a deviation from equal complimentariness.

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Except as discussed there are plenty of those deviations - a lot of tech quotes can be seen as, at the very least, a bit tongue-in-cheek about the concept being introduced

Personally, after the Hitler and Al Capone quotes in 4, I was half-expecting them to replace Oppenheimer's famous speech with Bainbridge's equally famous, and slightly more concise evaluation of nuclear testing (although it contains profanity)

Also, another quote that was missed: "We have guided missiles and misguided men..." attached to, sure enough, the tech that gets you guided missiles. That's a quote that goes beyond tongue-in-cheek and is in fact rather damning of the subject.

Lochlann said:

Cakes, you are really really missing the point here.

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no i'm not. you're missing the main point of my argument. so, for the fourth time, why assume that the devs have made a mistake with the prora quote when other quotes have been consistent? don't bother replying if you're not going to answer this question.

and AGAIN you mention game mechanics.

I think the IG Farben building would have made a much better wonder for Autocracy than the Prora. The effect of the wonder should probably be different.

The quote on the memorial plaque could also be used for the in game quote:

"Nobody can withdraw from the history of one's people.
One should know that the past must not be based on forgetting
Else it returns and becomes the present."
—Jean Améry

cakes said:

no i'm not. you're missing the main point of my argument. so, for the fourth time, why assume that the devs have made a mistake with the prora quote when other quotes have been consistent? don't bother replying if you're not going to answer this question.

and AGAIN you mention game mechanics.

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Cakes, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to paraphrase the entire rest of this thread for you if you haven't bothered to read it yourself. Go read the replies; the answer to your question is there. As a preview, the OP and those who agree with him are not making an "assumption" about the Prora quote; we are analyzing the differences between it and the other quotes, and noting that there is a discrepancy. That is the entire point of the thread. Go read it yourself, and stop asking me to reply to something I'm not even talking to you about.

And that's the source of your confusion: I'm not talking to you about this particular issue. Okay? I never have been. As I have explained very carefully, far more carefully than anyone should need to, what I have been talking about (with you) is your idea that there is something wrong with correcting the devs. Earlier, you ridiculed the idea that anyone can claim to correct the devs on their own game, and I have been saying that that is a hypocritical and absurd idea. That's all I've been replying to you about. Simple. Finito. Khallas. But you have repeatedly failed to even acknowledge that that's what I'm talking about.

Do you understand now? I can't make it any clearer than this. It's fine if you don't have anything else to say about it--there's not much that can be argued, frankly; what I'm saying is so obvious that every other person here understands it implicitly, and I'm more than a little embarrassed that I am STILL explaining this to you--but regardless, stop demanding that I reply to something that I'm not even talking to you about. Go read the thread.

Thuellai said:

Except as discussed there are plenty of those deviations - a lot of tech quotes can be seen as, at the very least, a bit tongue-in-cheek about the concept being introduced
...
Also, another quote that was missed: "We have guided missiles and misguided men..." attached to, sure enough, the tech that gets you guided missiles. That's a quote that goes beyond tongue-in-cheek and is in fact rather damning of the subject.

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Yup, I agree. I provided a list of them somewhere on the previous page of comments. However, I personally feel that there aren't as many such deviations as it first appears, if you take the narrow point of view of the technology/thing/whatever. I wouldn't say that there are "plenty" of deviations, for instance. Like, I would say that that the guided missiles quote is kind of in between: from the point of view of the technology of guided missiles, it says nothing more than "I exist". The commentary on the misguided nature of the people controlling the missiles is irrelevant to the technology itself. Rather like a technology bemoaning the limited capacity of those who devised it.

(Admittedly, this is a very narrow point of view to take, heh.)

Lochlann said:

Cakes, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to paraphrase the entire rest of this thread for you if you haven't bothered to read it yourself.

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no, that's a cop-out. no one has answered my question in the entire thread. the reason i say knowing better than the devs can only be interpreted correctly in tandem with the question i asked. you misinterpreted what i said and you've invested yourself in a discussion no one was having.

if the quotes are consistent, then there's no use in thinking first of all that the devs have messed something up. it's nothing to do with "knowing better than the devs" being right or wrong; it's asking why he assumed there was something wrong with it in the first place.

i'll ask again for the fifth time: why assume that the devs have made a mistake with the prora quote when other quotes have been consistent?

So what you are criticizing is people saying they know better than the devs about the devs Intentions.

The fact is the devs intentions are irrelevant.
The OP says something feels out of place, that says nothing about whether the devs intended it to be out of place, just that the op doesn't like it

cakes said:

i'll ask again for the fifth time: why assume that the devs have made a mistake with the prora quote when other quotes have been consistent?

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1. The quote doesn't feel right because, uniquely among wonders, it is condemning what you just built.
2. There's plenty of evidence in other elements of the game that the devs aren't perfect, so thinking that they made a mistake isn't absurd.

Happy?

cakes said:

no, that's a cop-out. no one has answered my question in the entire thread. the reason i say knowing better than the devs can only be interpreted correctly in tandem with the question i asked. you misinterpreted what i said and you've invested yourself in a discussion no one was having.

if the quotes are consistent, then there's no use in thinking first of all that the devs have messed something up. it's nothing to do with "knowing better than the devs" being right or wrong; it's asking why he assumed there was something wrong with it in the first place.

i'll ask again for the fifth time: why assume that the devs have made a mistake with the prora quote when other quotes have been consistent?

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I'm not assuming that I know better than the devs, and I'm not directly calling Prora's quote a 'mistake'. I've just criticized it for being inappropriate for where it was included.

Of course the Prora was built with sinister intentions. "Give the common man this resort, even if he can't go it will be an ideal to strive for. That way he won't wake up and smell the coffee On how bad it is.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

cakes said:

no, that's a cop-out. no one has answered my question in the entire thread. the reason i say knowing better than the devs can only be interpreted correctly in tandem with the question i asked. you misinterpreted what i said and you've invested yourself in a discussion no one was having.

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Sigh. Cakes, your first two replies in the thread are: "i have no idea why you think they have to maintain objectivity" and "ok so this thread is about knowing better than the devs. got it". Ignoring your snarkiness for the moment, the second comment is very clearly a criticism of the concept of "knowing better than the devs". That's what I was responding to. I said that very clearly in my first reply to you. You've been ignoring that -- either willfully or accidentally, I still can't figure out. That's your cop-out, not mine. It's very simple.

I tire of this. Let's move on. Brick walls are boring.

if the quotes are consistent, then there's no use in thinking first of all that the devs have messed something up. it's nothing to do with "knowing better than the devs" being right or wrong; it's asking why he assumed there was something wrong with it in the first place.

i'll ask again for the fifth time: why assume that the devs have made a mistake with the prora quote when other quotes have been consistent?

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I'm going to do you a favor and overlook your blatant contradiction of your own posts, and I'm going to jump right to your two mistakes.

The first one Manta has already addressed: no one is saying that the devs have made a mistake. A deviation from a pattern is exactly that: a deviation, a difference. There isn't necessarily any "mistake" about it at all. There's no right or wrong here; there is merely consistent or inconsistent, appropriate or inappropriate. I'm not sure if this is important in your eyes or not; maybe you take issue with the fact that we're accusing the devs of making a deviation, I dunno. But ample evidence, investigation, analysis, and discussion has occurred in this thread--none of which is mere "assumption", as you wrongly describe it--to result in the conclusion that the Prora quote is a deviation. (It's not the ONLY possible conclusion, certainly, but...well, read on.)

The second mistake is also pretty simple: basically, your logic is flawed. You're saying that if the quotes are consistent then there's no reason to think that the Prora quote is a "mistake" (which, again, should just be "deviation"), but that logic is 180 degrees backward. If the other quotes have been consistent, and the Prora one is not, that is the perfect reason to suspect that there IS something different. If the quotes did not form a consistent pattern, THEN someone would be justified in saying "hey, there's no reason to think there's a mistake here. Tons and tons of quotes are negative about their sources; Prora's is no different." That is why the discussion has centered on how consistent the quotes are in this respect: if they are consistent, and Prora's is not, then we have a deviation. You seem to think the opposite is true, but this is backward. ...or at least the wording of your posts suggests that you think this. Feel free to clarify your view.

Again, I'm not going to summarize the thread for you, but the vast bulk of all the quotes in the game are highly praising of the thing they are describing. Not ALL of the quotes; some of them are questionable or on the edge, while a select few (Prora, some of the ones I and others have listed earlier, etc.) can be seen as negative. My personal conclusion from this is that the devs have aimed for equality for each technology/ideology/etc., adopting an equally complimentary and praising tone for them (which makes perfect sense and is in line with the game's concept of the player as the protagonist, no matter what path the player follows)...but that they haven't been 100% consistent with this pattern. Manta has--rightly, in my view--focused on Prora as the most egregious such inconsistency. In my opinion, such small inconsistencies are totally excusable and understandable, because it's hard to be even-handed when describing things like autocracy.

Don't agree? Fine, but engage with the loads of stuff already talked about here, instead of repeating your question for a sixth time. It has already been answered.

People here care waaaay too much. Relax.