"Stormkeep;c-18044665" wrote:
"BlueR0se;c-18044661" wrote:
It's a slow pace kind of progress. There will always be people who will be bigoted/hateful but a lot of people just don't understand it cause they don't see it. But once it becomes more prominent and more mainstream people will adjust.
During time periods where there is a lot of change in a relatively short amount of time there is a lot of knee-jerk reactions and those negative sentiments will in particular fester/spread because of societal anxiety about change but in the long run things will improve. Not to mention there are other aspects at play and not just social changes.
You are making the, mistaken, assumption that progress is always forward.
Gay relationships were perfectly acceptable and normalized in Western Civilization 2,000 years ago (i.e. the Roman Empire). Changes to the power and political structure in Europe completely reversed that normalization.
While the gains over the last 100 years have been slow, the left is pushing a lot harder for the change to be more rapid now and it is entirely possible that this could lead to a political/power shift that ends up backfiring on them. Only time will tell, but your expectation that "in the long run things will improve" is ignoring history. It's something to hope for, but a mistake to count on it.
While you are correct that it's not always linear/forward (I think of it as a more push-pull kind of thing personally that evolves as the culture itself is always evolving/changing), I think there are some things that, have progressed/changed so majorily that it would take some kind of calamity to the society to destabilize it to revert back to those beliefs/ideals/systems.
I think comparing gay relationships now to 2,000 years ago is also rather unfair. I'm not well versed in socio-political dynamics of that time period, but I'm pretty confident to say that the values/ideals of that society are too different to really compare directly. The typical marriage/'relationships' of any culture/time period is going to be different and it's not fair to compare 100%. Our modern idea of 'same sex relationships' (and relationships as a whole, marriages) now is vastly different; not including the differences between classes back then and their different expectations (for things like marriage, carrying on lineage, etc.). Our concept of a 'citizen' is much different from Roman Empire's standards, let alone of what they think about same-sex relationships.
I do get what you meant, however. Yes, certain events in history did cause a major regress for that area and would later affect many other countries later on, but between that 2,000 years period from then and now there were other societies who also were more accepting of same-sex relationships (of course, with their own understanding of what that is, how it looks, and how it fits/functions in that society). It waxes and wanes depending on when + where you are in history.
I also think it's unfair to say that the rise in hate/bigot beliefs is because of the rapid/aggressive push for change (or it felt like you were implying/saying it was the only reason). It is certainly a prominent contending factor (and a big one), but it's not the only reason. Look at the time period of when these two things arrived; late 90s to 2000s. That's right when the internet kicked off + rapid change in technology (+ economic change/struggles at least for the US, can't say for Europe personally but I imagine its similar). Anytime you have major change in a society these kind of things are going to come up. Not to mention a lot of the nature of the internet (certain spaces) is what allowed the spread of the hateful sentiments in the first place.
I'm not saying you're wrong that the push for social change has caused a lot of anxiety/pullback/rise in hateful beliefs, but I feel like it's unfair to say that is the only reason it has gotten so big. And while is a significant risk of it failing and causing a reverse of progress for social issues; I feel like ultimately it will still work out in the end because these groups tend to be so destructive in nature that while they can cause a lot of immediate major damage they will ultimately burn out or self-destruct on their own (or evolve into something else and target another group--cause at the end of the day they're just looking for a scapegoat to blame their problems on). I could be wrong, but for the sake of my sanity I want to think more positively (albeit cautious).
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Nobody has to like the inclusion of pronouns. While I personally think the idea of adding multiple pronouns per sim is unnecessary (the coding already is going to be a lot of work); I can understand why other people may want it. IRL some folks may use both and want others to know that so asking that question about multiple ones makes sense. As someone who is on the nonbinary spectrum, I understand. However, the pronoun system is already a lot of work as it is so I think it is asking too much and ultimately unnecessary due to the nature of CAS and that you can change stuff on a dime with no problems; we can just flipflop it anytime. If this was a multiplayer game, I could see use of having multiple ones at least as an indicator/tag for bios, but for solo play nah.
But what I don't understand is why people are so against the pronoun system itself (ignoring the "it's a waste of time" belief/argument). Even after we were told that it is optional and it's not "just have everyone use they; no more she/her or he/him" like a lot of people were worried about initially. I can 100% understand the concern about not wanting to see the pronouns right below a sim's name cause I would find that distracting myself (and I want the pronoun system). Having it tucked away in the profile or something would be ideal.
Even if you play with strictly cisgender sims and what not; this doesn't take anything away. If premades are given customized pronouns, you can change the few who MIGHT get flagged for it. Just like you can break up gay premades or just delete them entirely; if it's not for you, just omit it. You have that control.
For most players, all this will be is an extra step (and seemingly an optional one). Those who were complaining about being addressed as 'they' in the recent game text can use the pronouns as to (hopefully) ensure that you are addressed properly. Just like a lot of nonbinary players have been wanting to be properly addressed as for a while. Not all of them, of course. Some are fine using she/her or he/him, but many do prefer they.
Everybody uses pronouns irl. Most people never had to really think about it before, and I feel like many don't like having to think about it for whatever reason. But regardless its inclusion doesn't change anything, not really. The only change is recognizing which one you want to use + having some customization ~options~. Even if you don't agree with things like nonbinary identity, gender being more than man and woman, etc.; you can still just keep doing what you've been doing and just ignore other stuff.
EDIT: Changed a word choice.
