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Vice: 'Dark Souls' Is A Game About Living Under Capitalism In 2020

Evangelion Unit-01

Master Chief
It feels like a crushing satire of our reality, with working people struggling through countless boom-and-bust cycles, each time expected to bear the brunt of the latest crisis so that a wealthy owner class can sustain its own power. COVID-19 has put this arbitrary cruelty in plain view for all to see, but it's hardly the first time. Workers in the US were asked to endure economic hardship as banks were bailed out during the 2008 financial crisis, which was caused by Wall Street speculators crashing the housing market with junk bonds. Before that, the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 90s had already set the working class back decades while the rich and powerful further expanded their wealth. In the ensuing decades, productivity soared while wages remained stagnant.

Until recently, the Souls games’ themes of sacrifice would have been more metaphorical than literal, but reality has overtaken allegory. Millions of low-paid service workers were forced to return to work during the peak of a pandemic with little protection or reassurance, once again sacrificing their well-being to the altar of capital so that the Dow can go up a few points. In the midst of a public health crisis, our government tells us that universal healthcare is impossible while creating trillions of dollars out of thin air to bail out Wall Street. Millions of workers—disproportionately people of color—continue to lose their jobs and face mass-evictions as the world richest billionaires exploit the pandemic to grow even more astronomically wealthy. And yet, the working class is expected to labor on all the same, creating wealth and shareholder value for a system that ultimately doesn’t serve them.

Even with this grim reality laid bare, we are constantly told there is no other way, that better things aren’t possible. Presidential candidate Joe Biden promises salvation from the nightmare of Trump, but nevertheless reassures the rich and powerful that “nothing would fundamentally change.” Abolitionist demands to defund the police and redirect resources to healthcare, education, and social programs have been widely dismissed by pundits and politicians, despite generations of Black scholarship on the subject.

Suffer more at the link: https://archive.is/1BYRg

Truly the work of a genius. I’m incredibly fortunate to be able to read such eloquent and insightful writing.
 

Kuranghi

Member
tenor.gif


In fairness society IS making me feel hollow.
 
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M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Alright, I laughed

Wonder what these idiots would think about, that under Bolshevik, if you didn't have job, you were "horseleech" and you were jailed. Truth to be told, that faith was only met with those who poosed the system, but those things overprivileged fucks lived through nothing.
 
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GrayChild

Member
I thought 'Dark Souls' was a metaphor about getting laid. You try to score, and every time you fail, you return home (to the last bonfire) where you jack off... being sad and miserable and all, and then go out and try again.

Every defeated boss is basically a chick you managed to sleep with. However, there's always thirst for more. This goes on and on until the final boss who symbolizes the need to finally settle down and create a proper family.
 
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BabyYoda

Banned
More like Dark Souls is a game about living under capitalism, whilst it's under constant barrage and being undermined at every turn by far left socialist nutters, or perhaps it's set in a time after the latter won, yeah that sounds about right!
 
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The Alien

Banned
Vice? The same Vice that lied to get funding from investors and the once the curtain opened was hollow.

Can't believe that shit-wipe company is actually still around. Seriously thought they got woke...then went broke like months ago.
 

Soodanim

Member
I usually at least read the article, but I’m not going to waste my time.

If you try hard enough you can pretend anything is a metaphor for something else or find meaning or connections. That’s why you have conspiracy theories and English teachers that tell you there’s meaning in yellow curtains in a book even though it doesn’t mean shit.

A thread doing this shit for fun would be good, but as a serious article it’seither stupidity for clicks or the author is a mess.
 
You have to love her call to bring in the collective utopia at the end:
In 2020, that's exactly the message we need: a call to recognize the truth of our collective power, and work together to bring about the world we deserve.

To be clear, sure let's work together to make the world a better place, but as I understand it it means that if I want to I can trade freely with others and live off of the fruits of my labor.

Capitalism with a grain of social net is the least selfish system, but even pure capitalism is not the hell hole she represents it as... Socialism is like that on its best day.
 
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I forgot, socialism has made all progress for technology since life began!

Or, every country under socialism has either been killing its own people or slowly progressing into capitalism because it's an inherently flawed ideology.
 
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