Your controversial opinions

[Circus]

b2w2 showed us that the grunts in team plasma weren't all bad people. Some of them genuinely cared about the cause and bought into Ghetsis's lies and manipulation.

So did N? That was his whole character arc? I can appreciate the fact they extending on that but a couple of scenes with minor characters don't really have the same impact as the arc of the main antagonist.

An in Hugh's case, the lesson was about not discriminating against a group of people for the actions of a few radicals which is an important lesson now more than ever.

If that was a lesson, it was terribly communicated and nonsensical in the way they framed it.

It's not very well communicated because Hugh starts the game by walking up to every Plasma Grunt he sees and asking about Purrloin, and he ends the Plasma arc in the game doing the same thing - while being rewarded for it. I can't remember of a single time his discrimination caused a negative effect on him, and if it did, it was so minor that it barely counts.

It's nonsensical because "Team Plasma" isn't something intrinsic that you can't change like age, gender, race, etc. or something that has a huge impact in who you are as a person that it might as well be like religion. It's not even a loose movement like feminism or BLM. It's a well defined organization with a hierarchy and everything.

Judging someone by the acts of an organization they participated in is 100% justified. If PETA started stealing pets, I would judge people who continue to support PETA because at the very least they can start or support other organizations that aren't doing things as bad.

The fact the old Plasma grunts are completely decked in Plasma regalia doesn't really help either. It's tone deaf of them at best.

The whole "is catching pokemon ethical?" message went absolutely nowhere and its hard to try and even pretend like it isn't when the games have been acting like bonding with pokemon through the power of friendship is the most important thing ever for the past 10 years.

Being told something is fine for 10 years isn't a good argument for that thing being good. People were told slavery was the natural order of things for hundred of years and now we recognize that that's obviously false. I agree with you that that was a waste of potential and Game Freak could have done so much more to support their thesis, but like I said, even questioning the status quo is a step in the right direction.

We should be encouraging people - especially children - to not be complacent with the ways things are, and question why things are done the way they're done.

Pet theft is a horrific thing to have to experience, and the series - especially Black & White - goes out of its way to emphasize the bonds between people and Pokémon, and how they are our friends and partners. That’s literally the thesis statement of BW and the ethical position on which it hinges Team Plasma’s defeat. So Hugh absolutely should be very mad about Purrloin being stolen.

It is horrific but mentioning your stolen Purrloin after Team Plasma has destroyed a city is being ridiculously self-centered. Like, Hugh, honey, they could have killed people, your Purrloin is not the most important thing here. Even when you're storming the base for the final time, he keeps bringing up the Purrloin.

I can somewhat understand it in the beginning since sure, it's plausible the attempted coup isn't common knowledge (and is quite frankly the reason Team Plasma is a scary team. Idealism and authoritarianism can get very bad for people very quickly), but after the attack it's simply not a relevant thing to keep bringing up.

There are bigger crimes at hand, and focusing on your stolen pet when the livelihood of a whole region, if not the world, is at stake is not a good look.

Also, I checked. Hugh mentions the Purrloin more than 11 times before the arc conclusion, a number of those in casual conversation with the player character. That's just bad writing, you don't need to keep broadcasting your character motivations so much.

Plus, that whole storyline is there to take a microscope the fallout of Team Plasma’s actions - other than the brief stint where Bianca’s Munna is stolen and then returned, the original games never put all that much focus on the people who have already had their Pokémon stolen. But that’s the fundamental social fabric of this world, which N and Team Plasma are trying to dissolve. Exploring the negative consequences of such an extreme proposal should be a no-brainer, and the overall ideology of Gen 5 is much richer for having Hugh and the ex-Plasma elements depicted.

Ok, but here's the thing. The way the story's presented it really looks like the only reason people are mad is the Pokémon theft, and not the staged coup to instill an authoritarian regime or the declaration of war by ice bombing a city.

As I mentioned before the Purrloin is overly represented and I can't for the life of me remember any other person coming forward and airing their grievances about the Pokémon theft. This make it seems like Hugh was very much an outlier instead of a normal occurrence, which would be needed for your microscope theory to work in my opinion.

Clay - who knows old Plasma is associated with insurrectionists, because he was there to help stop the insurrection plot - is like "oh, there's room for change". When you know, attempted dictatorship isn't a "live and let live" kind of thing. They might not have been supporting that but even being an accessory to that crime is a very heavy thing. But sure, let's give him the benefit of the doubt, he worked out proper punishment with them before and he just didn't mention it because that's a private thing.

Marlon goes "When the ocean's your home, you don't worry about things like that. 'Cause the ocean accepts all rivers!" and "Searchin' for stolen Pokémon is fine! Keepin' Unova from bein' iced over's fine too! It's all good. But think 'bout why you're doin' that." when he's asked for help when dealing with Team Plasma. That's an acceptable if somewhat dickish response for "I think these people are the same who stole my Pokémon years ago", that's not an acceptable response for children asking for help because terrorrists are threatening to destroy the continent.

Team Plasma has done a lot worse things that just stealing a Purrloin and focusing on just that and glossing over the rest like the game does isn't enriching in my opinion, it's saying "The murder is bad because he's also an arsonist." Yes, arson is bad but it's nowhere near as bad as murder.

 

[FinnishPokéFan92]

Hugh is definitely in my Top 5 rivals. I also kinda like how he gets a sort of wake-up call when he sees the Purrloin having evolved and not trusting him anymore. (As opposed to Pokémon Adventures, where he eventually gets Purrloin back without it having evolved or become disobedient, which I find very disappointing, BTW.) Fortunately, he manages to restore its kindness and bring it back to his sister, so there's still a happy ending.

Overall, I think why many people like Hugh is because he's sort of a combination between a douchy rival and a friendly rivals.

 

[BackSet]

Bede is one of my favorite rivals because he's a dick but he's a hilarious dick and the fact that he's utterly humiliated by you at every turn is actually addressed and is part of his character arc.

 

[TechSkylander1518]

Being told something is fine for 10 years isn't a good argument for that thing being good. People were told slavery was the natural order of things for hundred of years and now we recognize that that's obviously false. I agree with you that that was a waste of potential and Game Freak could have done so much more to support their thesis, but like I said, even questioning the status quo is a step in the right direction.

We should be encouraging people - especially children - to not be complacent with the ways things are, and question why things are done the way they're done.

The games never just told you bonding with Pokemon was good, though, they actively showed the effects. (Friendship checkers telling you how close you and your Pokemon are, and that kind of affectionate dialogue being expanded on in following Pokemon in the previous game, NPCs shown being around their Pokemon in settings where they were just pets, etc.) And that's not even getting into the anime, which gets to show a lot more of human/Pokemon relationships by being a TV show.

I get your point about questioning what's said to be natural, but comparing what's essentially just "What if your pet dog who loves on you a lot secretly hates you" to objecting to slavery feels almost like it's making light of the horrors that came from slavery. Slaveowners weren't naively raping people or selling infants because they had no idea how much it hurt them, they just did it anyways because it was beneficial to them, and used "it's the natural order" as an excuse.

I also doubt that questioning the status quo was even really the intended message from BW. The question comes from the villainous team, and is later shown to be asked in bad faith, seems obvious on its face- of course the Pokemon games aren't going to end with nobody owning Pokemon anymore- and things just go back to normal, without any kind of major change or restructuring in society as a result of people questioning it. If anything, this just reinforces the status quo.

 

[Circus]

The games never just told you bonding with Pokemon was good, though, they actively showed the effects. (Friendship checkers telling you how close you and your Pokemon are, and that kind of affectionate dialogue being expanded on in following Pokemon in the previous game, NPCs shown being around their Pokemon in settings where they were just pets, etc.) And that's not even getting into the anime, which gets to show a lot more of human/Pokemon relationships by being a TV show.

Funny you mention the friendship checkers, since they make a very strong case for battling being immoral.

From them, we know Pokémon don't like fainting (they get a friendship deduction), in a battle at least one of the Pokémon will faint. By battling you're forcing at least one Pokémon to faint, for your own entertainment / financial gain.

And that's without exploring the even more dubious setups like Explosion / Selfdestruct / Misty Explosion / Healing Wish / Memento sets, or 0 Friendship Frustration sets.

I get your point about questioning what's said to be natural, but comparing what's essentially just "What if your pet dog who loves on you a lot secretly hates you" to objecting to slavery feels almost like it's making light of the horrors that came from slavery. Slaveowners weren't naively raping people or selling infants because they had no idea how much it hurt them, they just did it anyways because it was beneficial to them, and used "it's the natural order" as an excuse.

But that's not my argument. My argument is "What if the Pokémon I kidnapped from their home / separated from their parents and then forced into hard, physical labor for my own amusement / material gain, only likes me out of Stockholm syndrome / not knowing they could have a better situation / resignation?" The situation is remarkably close to how cults operate and I'm sure if you picked a random person out of a cult, more often than not they'd tell you they love their situation.

Although I do agree with you that if the canon argument Team Plasma used was "What if your pet dog who loves on you a lot secretly hates you?", then yes, it was dumb and the storyline was dropped even harder than I remembered.

I also doubt that questioning the status quo was even really the intended message from BW. The question comes from the villainous team, and is later shown to be asked in bad faith, seems obvious on its face- of course the Pokemon games aren't going to end with nobody owning Pokemon anymore- and things just go back to normal, without any kind of major change or restructuring in society as a result of people questioning it. If anything, this just reinforces the status quo.

In that case BW, and by consequence, BW2 (since the whole point of those games was apparently exploring the consequences of Team Plasma) are even worse story-wise, in my opinion. At least it serves as a cautionary tale of how GF shouldn't pick up story threads they don't plan on following through / have dark implications they don't want to face, I guess.

Edit: Some folks are getting uncomfortable with the discussion, so I'll drop it at least here. If anybody reading this wants to continue this, please do so via DM.

 

[TechSkylander1518]

Funny you mention the friendship checkers, since they make a very strong case for battling being immoral.

From them, we know Pokémon don't like fainting (they get a friendship deduction), in a battle at least one of the Pokémon will faint. By battling you're forcing at least one Pokémon to faint, for your own entertainment / financial gain.

And that's without exploring the even more dubious setups like Explosion / Selfdestruct / Misty Explosion / Healing Wish / Memento sets, or 0 Friendship Frustration sets.

Yeah, because fainting means losing a battle. Nobody likes losing, but bringing someone to a fun, competitive activity where they lose doesn't mean you're abusing them. And 0 friendship frustration sets aren't really a thing in-universe, so debating the impact of that in the story is like debating the impact of naming the rival Butthole- it crosses the line between gameplay and story.

But that's not my argument. My argument is "What if the Pokémon I kidnapped from their home / separated from their parents and then forced into hard, physical labor for my own amusement / material gain, only likes me out of Stockholm syndrome / not knowing they could have a better situation / resignation?" The situation is remarkably close to how cults operate and I'm sure if you picked a random person out of a cult, more often than not they'd tell you they love their situation.

An argument that assumes the Pokemon is unwillingly captured, despite the fact that the Pokemon could flee battle or just choose not to engage the player in the first place, and that Pokemon are forced into battles, despite the fact that Pokemon are capable of disobeying trainers.

And, again, this is just obviously not the route Game Freak is going to take. They're not going to make a series where the only gameplay is to catch and battle with Pokemon, and then find out that you're a serial kidnapper who's been emotionally manipulating Pokemon and putting them through horrible situations all the time.

Although I do agree with you that if the canon argument Team Plasma used was "What if your pet dog who loves on you a lot secretly hates you?", then yes, it was dumb and the storyline was dropped even harder than I remembered.

"I'm sure most of you believe that we humans and Pokémon are partners that have come to live together because we want and need each other. However... Is that really the truth? Have you ever considered that perhaps we humans... only assume that this is the truth?
"Pokémon are subject to the selfish commands of Trainers... They get pushed around when they are our "partners" at work... Can anyone say with confidence that there is no truth in what I'm saying?

N's dialogue has more specific concerns, at least, but Team Plasma isn't introduced with specific points about the way Pokemon are captured and battled, but just "Yeah, but are you sure?"

Babes I'm sorry but why are you two discussing slavery here???

I mean, the start of this conversation is only a couple posts up? It's not hard to backtrack.

 

[Minya_Nouvelle]

Judging someone by the acts of an organization they participated in is 100% justified. If PETA started stealing pets, I would judge people who continue to support PETA because at the very least they can start or support other organizations that aren't doing things as bad.

The fact the old Plasma grunts are completely decked in Plasma regalia doesn't really help either. It's tone deaf of them at best.

I feel like I have an obligation to let you know that this comes across as sounding kind of ignorant. What you are implying is that it is okay to discriminate. It is never okay to discriminate. It is never 100% justified to judge someone based on the acts of other people in the same organization or the clothes they wear, or anything. All groups, especially Social Justice groups, have members that do things that do not reflect the views of the entire group. (and members of PETA do steal pets btw). That doesn't mean that anyone that's a part of an organization should disband and stop using any symbolism associated with it the minute a piece of that organization co-opts and goes radical. And it doesn't give anyone the right to make assumptions of an individual's character or treat them harshly.

Sure in the instance of PETA; it probably doesn't really matter, but there are lots of groups out there; political, social, religious; and every single one of them have crazy people. That doesn't mean that every single member of those groups is crazy and I really hope that you don't think that.

 

[TechSkylander1518]

I feel like I have an obligation to let you know that this comes across as sounding kind of ignorant. What you are implying is that it is okay to discriminate. It is never okay to discriminate. It is never 100% justified to judge someone based on the acts of other people in the same organization or the clothes they wear, or anything. All groups, especially Social Justice groups, have members that do things that do not reflect the views of the entire group. (and members of PETA do steal pets btw). That doesn't mean that anyone that's a part of an organization should disband and stop using any symbolism associated with it the minute a piece of that organization co-opts and goes radical. And it doesn't give anyone the right to make assumptions of an individual's character or treat them harshly.

Sure in the instance of PETA; it probably doesn't really matter, but there are lots of groups out there; political, social, religious; and every single one of them have crazy people. That doesn't mean that every single member of those groups is crazy and I really hope that you don't think that.

The purpose of joining a group is often because you agree with their ideals and goals, though. People aren't necessarily supporting every element of a movement, but it's fair to have an impression of them at least on what's considered the core ideals of the group. And like Circus said, Plasma really wasn't a movement centered around an ideology, it was people carrying out a pretty specific plan under someone's orders. It's like the difference between someone saying "I think Gretchen Whitmer shouldn't be governor" and saying "I was part of the group planning to kidnap her".

And judging someone based on their choice to join/support a particular group isn't discrimination- discrimination involves actively changing their behavior around the trait, not just having a negative opinion of it.

 

[Circus]

I feel like I have an obligation to let you know that this comes across as sounding kind of ignorant. What you are implying is that it is okay to discriminate. It is never okay to discriminate. It is never 100% justified to judge someone based on the acts of other people in the same organization or the clothes they wear, or anything. All groups, especially Social Justice groups, have members that do things that do not reflect the views of the entire group. (and members of PETA do steal pets btw). That doesn't mean that anyone that's a part of an organization should disband and stop using any symbolism associated with it the minute a piece of that organization co-opts and goes radical. And it doesn't give anyone the right to make assumptions of an individual's character or treat them harshly.

Sure in the instance of PETA; it probably doesn't really matter, but there are lots of groups out there; political, social, religious; and every single one of them have crazy people. That doesn't mean that every single member of those groups is crazy and I really hope that you don't think that.

First things first, I didn't mean to imply that the error of one is the error of all. For that I'm sorry.

The thing though is that there is no such thing as complete neutrality. By continuing to support a certain organization you are implicitly pushing a message forward.

Take PETA for example: if you, knowing that PETA steals pets, continue to support them you are effectively saying "I am OK with the occasional pet being stolen if it furthers the cause of animal rights".

Maybe you believe that's the ethical thing to do because there can be no such thing as ethical pet owning, maybe you believe it was an honest mistake and that it won't happen again, maybe you believe it was an unfortunate bump in the road for the revolution, maybe you honestly think that despite this they're still the best alternative out there to further that goal.

Those reasons are all valid in their own way - even if I don't agree with many of them - and believing in any one of those certainly doesn't make you a pet stealer yourself. But it does mean that you are willing to support pet stealers, and by that metric you can be criticized.

For what it's worth, in the specific case of Plasma Classic, I double-checked and apparently they have disbanded and wear the uniforms ... just because, I guess? Can't think of a good Wattsonian reason (although the Doylist one is obvious - the player needed to be able to recognize them as old Plasma members).

So ... my bad, and knowing this, I fully agree with you that Hugh criticizing them would be inappropriate - they have distanced themselves from the team and all that implies and are actively trying to do good. They even show up in the final battle, which is more than I can say of certain people (Looking at you Marlon).

 

[Minya_Nouvelle]

And judging someone based on their choice to join/support a particular group isn't discrimination- discrimination involves actively changing their behavior around the trait, not just having a negative opinion of it.

Maybe I meant stereotyping. Maybe discrimination isn't the right word, but it feels like it sometimes. People discriminate against the people who support LGBTQ and BLM all the time because of logic like this and I'm a first hand witness to it. It is not okay. It is still discrimination. It is still hurtful. It's still racist if you think people shouldn't support BLM. It's still homophobic if you think people shouldn't support the LGBTQ. If someone wants to use the BLM flag or wear a T-shirt with the symbol, no one has the right to assume that they support violence just because someone somewhere broke a window while wearing the symbol and shouting the name. People attack these groups as a means of belittling the argument and problems at hand. It is a form of suppression to take away people's ability to unite and organize. I know I was jumping the gun a bit, but honestly, I don't want to stand by and say nothing either. I know this isn't really appropriate for a Pokemon thread, but I just don't know what to do or say anymore. All I know is we're not suppose to throw stones.

And the real world isn't black and white. Judging someone based on their organization first requires making a judgement of the organization; which in turn is open to bias and what have you. And in the real world; knowing the truth is really really hard and there's so many things where 'right' and 'wrong' just don't apply.

First things first, I didn't mean to imply that the error of one is the error of all. For that I'm sorry.

The thing though is that there is no such thing as complete neutrality. By continuing to support a certain organization you are implicitly pushing a message forward.

Take PETA for example: if you, knowing that PETA steals pets, continue to support them you are effectively saying "I am OK with the occasional pet being stolen if it furthers the cause of animal rights".

Maybe you believe that's the ethical thing to do because there can be no such thing as ethical pet owning, maybe you believe it was an honest mistake and that it won't happen again, maybe you believe it was an unfortunate bump in the road for the revolution, maybe you honestly think that despite this they're still the best alternative out there to further that goal.

Those reasons are all valid in their own way - even if I don't agree with many of them - and believing in any one of those certainly doesn't make you a pet stealer yourself. But it does mean that you are willing to support pet stealers, and by that metric you can be criticized.

For what it's worth, in the specific case of Plasma Classic, I double-checked and apparently they have disbanded and wear the uniforms ... just because, I guess? Can't think of a good Wattsonian reason (although the Doylist one is obvious - the player needed to be able to recognize them as old Plasma members).

So ... my bad, and knowing this, I fully agree with you that Hugh criticizing them would be inappropriate - they have distanced themselves from the team and all that implies and are actively trying to do good. They even show up in the final battle, which is more than I can say of certain people (Looking at you Marlon).

Thank you for responding. I think I understand what you mean, my brain just linked it to the logic behind a lot of awful stuff I've seen in my life, so I'm sorry for assuming the worst. I mean, there are definitely some groups that will go unmentioned that people probably should be judged for being a part of, but for the most part, I don't believe in making assumptions about people, because those assumptions often come from lies and half truths anyways. I understand that implicit compliance is wrong, but I've seen people also use that to justify hate towards anyone who supports anything they don't like because you're almost always going to be able to cherry pick bad publicity and information about any group.

I personally think that PETA as a whole is an awful organization, but I'm sure that most of the volunteers who work at the local level aren't aware of a lot of the nonsense that goes on so if I ever meet anyone who works for them, I'm probably not going to automatically assume that they support all of it. I may try to bring awareness about it to them, but that's about it. Thing is; it's hard to know if the people who do bad things are actually being ordered by higher ups or what not. The whole thing is a mess and I'm not going to judge whether someone is guilty or not unless I see their bad deeds with my own eyes.

I thought it was sort of implied that the ex-plasma grunts weren't totally aware of most of the bad stuff going on either, but who knows. They were mainly followers of N who was a decent person and most likely wasn't ordering people to do bad things. And I thought it was implied that the grunts stealing pokemon were doing so under their own volition and using the organizations ideals as an excuse to do so. Isn't there a scene in the original games where someone makes the grunts return a stolen pokemon? Ghetsis was originally trying to convince people with speeches and stuff and he didn't really get forceful until you interfered with his plans. But yeah, once Ghetsis is in full force terror mode in b2w2, all the grunts on that pirate ship probably should be judged because at that point, there isn't much room left for plausible deniability.

I figured that the ex-grunts still wore the outfits because Plasma was originally kind of set up under the pretense of a quasi-religious thing with N as a sort of Messiah. The clothing still represents their beliefs. Even if Ghetsis turned out to be a wacko, it is still important to them in some way and has been a part of their life for quite sometime. I'm mostly just making assumptions, though and the games could have explained it better.

 

[TechSkylander1518]

Maybe I meant stereotyping. Maybe discrimination isn't the right word, but it feels like it sometimes. People discriminate against the people who support LGBTQ and BLM all the time because of logic like this and I'm a first hand witness to it. It is not okay. It is still discrimination. It is still hurtful. It's still racist if you think people shouldn't support BLM. It's still homophobic if you think people shouldn't support the LGBTQ. If someone wants to use the BLM flag or wear a T-shirt with the symbol, no one has the right to assume that they support violence just because someone somewhere broke a window while wearing the symbol and shouting the name. People attack these groups as a means of belittling the argument and problems at hand. It is a form of suppression to take away people's ability to unite and organize. I know I was jumping the gun a bit, but honestly, I don't want to stand by and say nothing either. I know this isn't really appropriate for a Pokemon thread, but I just don't know what to do or say anymore. All I know is we're not suppose to throw stones.

And the real world isn't black and white. Judging someone based on their organization first requires making a judgement of the organization; which in turn is open to bias and what have you. And in the real world; knowing the truth is really really hard and there's so many things where 'right' and 'wrong' just don't apply.

I do get where you're coming from on that, but I'm approaching this from the other end of the spectrum- there's also groups like the Boogaloo Boys or the Proud Boys, who are outright violent and attack people for bad causes, and make it clear that this is their intended goal. There's definitely a lot of bad-faith attacks on legitimate movements, but there's also groups that actually form with the intent to cause harm to others, and I don't think it's wrong to say that joining such a group is a reflection of someone's moral character.

Some judgements are subjective, but a world with shades of grey still has black and white, and there's some times when you can easily point out an organization that intends to cause harm. It's one thing to look at charities with harmful actions, but another to look at a group that actively works to hurt people in the name of their own profits. You're saying yourself that it's wrong to attack BLM and LGBT rights movements, which I fully agree with you on- so doesn't it follow that a group that lobbies against those rights is doing the wrong thing? And that's not to say that the people in the group can't do good elsewhere, or that they're doomed to be harmful like that forever, but I think we can make a judgement of those actions.

I know this isn't really appropriate for a Pokemon thread

Honestly I'm so here for it though, I love that analyzing Plasma is leading to these debates

 

[BackSet]

apparently they have disbanded and wear the uniforms ... just because, I guess? Can't think of a good Wattsonian reason

Maybe they were LARPers before they were a criminal organization.

 

[Circus]

Maybe I meant stereotyping. Maybe discrimination isn't the right word, but it feels like it sometimes. People discriminate against the people who support LGBTQ and BLM all the time because of logic like this and I'm a first hand witness to it. It is not okay. It is still discrimination. It is still hurtful. It's still racist if you think people shouldn't support BLM. It's still homophobic if you think people shouldn't support the LGBTQ. If someone wants to use the BLM flag or wear a T-shirt with the symbol, no one has the right to assume that they support violence just because someone somewhere broke a window while wearing the symbol and shouting the name. People attack these groups as a means of belittling the argument and problems at hand. It is a form of suppression to take away people's ability to unite and organize. I know I was jumping the gun a bit, but honestly, I don't want to stand by and say nothing either. I know this isn't really appropriate for a Pokemon thread, but I just don't know what to do or say anymore. All I know is we're not suppose to throw stones.

Like I said, there's a difference between a protected class, a movement and an organization.

A protected class is something you are and can't change (race, gender, age, sexual orientation, nationality, etc.) or something whose protection has been deemed important by the government and society (religion). Those are huge groups that for the most part don't really have a coherent set of ideals and values (excepting religion, but even then you have so many of them, and even within a certain religion there's so many offshoots and interpretation that it's hard to say there's one definitive set of beliefs), so criticizing a black person for what another black person did is akin to saying Austrians are bad because Hitler was bad - completely nonsensical.

A movement (like feminism, LGBT rights or BLM) has a set of abstract ideals and goals but different people in them can have different interpretations of how to achieve these goals. Some people believe in working the system, others believe in violent revolution, a third party will believe in personal activism. And sometimes the movement will be coopted by others as a way to spread some hate. As an example, see Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists, who take and use feminist ideals and symbolism but exclude transwomen and reject the transition of transmen. So criticizing a feminist for what a TERF did is akin to saying vegetarians are bad because Hitler was a vegetarian - again, nonsensical.

But organizations have very specific goals, hierarchy and a support structure. They have a mission statement and a way of acting that doesn't really allow for different interpretations - if you believe X and your boss believes Y, unless you can convince them otherwise, they can and will force you to do Y. And it's because of that that criticizing organizations and their supporters make sense, they work in a very concrete level that has effects in the real world and by supporting them you are only supporting their way of working. To continue with our examples, criticizing a supporter because of an organization's shortcomings (after they've doubled down and continued supporting them) is akin to criticizing a Nazi because Hitler was bad - justified because they were propping Hitler up to power and enabling him to do his horrors.

And the real world isn't black and white. Judging someone based on their organization first requires making a judgement of the organization; which in turn is open to bias and what have you. And in the real world; knowing the truth is really really hard and there's so many things where 'right' and 'wrong' just don't apply.

True, but pretending there is no judgement is a bit of a naïve analysis in my opinion. People will always judge, it's how our brains works, the real problem here is not understanding your biases and relying entirely on emotional arguments instead of rational arguments.

And even if the organizations (and the supporters) thinks they're justified and you don't think, you are allowed to criticize someone and have a healthy discussion about it, and you're both allowed to agree to disagree. The issue is when disagreement takes over other parts of life - like professional life or even escalating to the point of harassment - and that's indeed a bad thing that we should try to prevent.

Thank you for responding. I think I understand what you mean, my brain just linked it to the logic behind a lot of awful stuff I've seen in my life, so I'm sorry for assuming the worst. I mean, there are definitely some groups that will go unmentioned that people probably should be judged for being a part of, but for the most part, I don't believe in making assumptions about people, because those assumptions often come from lies and half truths anyways.

True enough, but at the same time you can't really get anywhere in a conversation without understanding a certain baseline in which you can assume things for expedience. And for better or for worse, appearance is more or less one of the easiest and fastest ways to assess that.

Not only that but we all make assumptions implicitly during our daily lives - some of them due to upbringing and some of them due to experience (traumatic or not). For example, as a black man in a third world country, I don't really like when people look at me and cross the street or are afraid of me but I understand it because in the three times I've been mugged, it was by black teenagers / college-age people.

I understand the systemic issues behind it, and I understand that not all black people are thieves or violent. And I'm sure a lot of the people that cross the street when they see me understand that too - a number of those are even black themselves - but it doesn't change that they don't feel safe, and I don't begrudge them for trying to avoid trauma.

I will readily admit that assuming things isn't a foolproof method and that for heavier assumptions we should just check whenever possible to avoid a lot of pain, but getting rid of assumptions as a whole is a bit of a daunting task.

I understand that implicit compliance is wrong, but I've seen people also use that to justify hate towards anyone who supports anything they don't like because you're almost always going to be able to cherry pick bad publicity and information about any group.

It's okay to criticize an organization or a movement - it's good even! That way we can enforce accountability - the problem is that it should never escalate to hatred and harassment.

So to me, it seems you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater, if you get what I'm saying?

I personally think that PETA as a whole is an awful organization, but I'm sure that most of the volunteers who work at the local level aren't aware of a lot of the nonsense that goes on so if I ever meet anyone who works for them, I'm probably not going to automatically assume that they support all of it. I may try to bring awareness about it to them, but that's about it. Thing is; it's hard to know if the people who do bad things are actually being ordered by higher ups or what not. The whole thing is a mess and I'm not going to judge whether someone is guilty or not unless I see their bad deeds with my own eyes.

And here's where a lot of people diverge in opinion. Some will say that it's your responsibility as a supporter to do your Due Diligence and check what the company you're supporting is doing, others will take your point of view, and that's fine.

But if you bring awareness to someone and they continue supporting the company, or play it off they are implicitly complying with the thing. I'm sure they have their reasons, but that can be criticized and their response can lead to an interesting discussion.

For example, your PETA supporter might continue supporting because the dog pounds in your city are critically understaffed and overfull, so they believe that by supporting PETA they're helping to save more animals than are harmed. That's a valid reason and noble in its own way, but it can still be criticized and you can have a healthy discussion about it.

Or they might do it because they were ordered to do so and they have to provide for a whole family. Was the thing they did crappy? Yes. Is it justifiable? It's hard to say, but it's something you can talk to them and understand the reasons.

I think the whole crux of the issue is the word "judging". I used it earlier when the proper word to use was "criticizing".

I thought it was sort of implied that the ex-plasma grunts weren't totally aware of most of the bad stuff going on either, but who knows. They were mainly followers of N who was a decent person and most likely wasn't ordering people to do bad things. And I thought it was implied that the grunts stealing pokemon were doing so under their own volition and using the organizations ideals as an excuse to do so. Isn't there a scene in the original games where someone makes the grunts return a stolen pokemon? Ghetsis was originally trying to convince people with speeches and stuff and he didn't really get forceful until you interfered with his plans. But yeah, once Ghetsis is in full force terror mode in b2w2, all the grunts on that pirate ship probably should be judged because at that point, there isn't much room left for plausible deniability.

I figured that the ex-grunts still wore the outfits because Plasma was originally kind of set up under the pretense of a quasi-religious thing with N as a sort of Messiah. The clothing still represents their beliefs. Even if Ghetsis turned out to be a wacko, it is still important to them in some way and has been a part of their life for quite sometime. I'm mostly just making assumptions, though and the games could have explained it better.

Now away from the philosophy and back into the world of Pokémon, lol.

The main issue I had was the misunderstanding I had with "Plasma Classic". I though they were still a team instead of having disbanded, in that case they were continuing to use the Plasma name after being made aware of the unpleasantness that happened and that makes all the difference to me.

I'm not sure I completely buy the concept of Plasma religion, but weirder things have happened. Actually now that I think about, they're all gingers so for all I know, Ghetsis had a commune somewhere in the middle of nowhere for the cult of N where he was grooming them to be his obedient little soldiers.

 

[Minya_Nouvelle]

I do get where you're coming from on that, but I'm approaching this from the other end of the spectrum- there's also groups like the Boogaloo Boys or the Proud Boys, who are outright violent and attack people for bad causes, and make it clear that this is their intended goal. There's definitely a lot of bad-faith attacks on legitimate movements, but there's also groups that actually form with the intent to cause harm to others, and I don't think it's wrong to say that joining such a group is a reflection of someone's moral character.

Some judgements are subjective, but a world with shades of grey still has black and white, and there's some times when you can easily point out an organization that intends to cause harm. It's one thing to look at charities with harmful actions, but another to look at a group that actively works to hurt people in the name of their own profits. You're saying yourself that it's wrong to attack BLM and LGBT rights movements, which I fully agree with you on- so doesn't it follow that a group that lobbies against those rights is doing the wrong thing? And that's not to say that the people in the group can't do good elsewhere, or that they're doomed to be harmful like that forever, but I think we can make a judgement of those actions.

Honestly I'm so here for it though, I love that analyzing Plasma is leading to these debates

You are right. I would say for groups like that, the people in them are probably guilty of explicit compliance and not implicit compliance, though. You can judge them on their individual actions. It's not necessary to judge them on the actions of the organization.

True, but pretending there is no judgement is a bit of a naïve analysis in my opinion. People will always judge, it's how our brains works, the real problem here is not understanding your biases and relying entirely on emotional arguments instead of rational arguments.

I understand.The problem is, it's really easy to believe you are making a rational decision when you're not. How do you know when your decision is rational? If you've researched something, how do you know when you have an accurate depiction of the situation? It doesn't seem rational to go from big picture (organization) to small picture (individual). Like, just because its cloudy every time it rains; doesn't mean it rains every time it is cloudy.

It's okay to criticize an organization or a movement - it's good even! That way we can enforce accountability - the problem is that it should never escalate to hatred and harassment.

So to me, it seems you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater, if you get what I'm saying?

I think I do get what you're saying. I just think its possible to criticize people for who they are without shortcuts. It's not like people who don't support radical groups aren't capable of being radical. So it should be possible to judge whether someone is radical without considering the groups they support. The government protects religion, so I can't criticize someone for attending Church, but I can still critize someone for their individual actions and behaviour. Even though, other groups aren't protected, I feel like the same logic can apply. For example, criticizing someone for being a member of team plasma is a bit meaningless if you're true intention is to critize them for supporting pokemon theft and whatever else crimes team plasma committed. I'm pretty sure everyone who supports an organization did so for a reason that they thought was rational. It's probably more important to find out and understand that reason. Once you've done that, you might be able to convince them that the organization is actually in conflict with their decision if you think the organization needs to be held accountable for something.

And here's where a lot of people diverge in opinion. Some will say that it's your responsibility as a supporter to do your Due Diligence and check what the company you're supporting is doing, others will take your point of view, and that's fine.

But if you bring awareness to someone and they continue supporting the company, or play it off they are implicitly complying with the thing. I'm sure they have their reasons, but that can be criticized and their response can lead to an interesting discussion.

For example, your PETA supporter might continue supporting because the dog pounds in your city are critically understaffed and overfull, so they believe that by supporting PETA they're helping to save more animals than are harmed. That's a valid reason and noble in its own way, but it can still be criticized and you can have a healthy discussion about it.

Or they might do it because they were ordered to do so and they have to provide for a whole family. Was the thing they did crappy? Yes. Is it justifiable? It's hard to say, but it's something you can talk to them and understand the reasons.

I think the whole crux of the issue is the word "judging". I used it earlier when the proper word to use was "criticizing".

Yeah, I did take the word "judging" the wrong way. I'm sorry for that. I agree that it is important to critize and analyze ourselves and the people around us. I know I'm being idealistic and that I make assumptions I'm not aware of all the time. (and I make assumptions consciously too). But in the case like PETA, I honestly don't know if it would be worth it to have a discussion with someone. The articles I read were written with bias; maybe they left out important details; like the fact that the dog that was stolen was actually being abused in some way. And I don't know how systemic the dog theft problem is based on a few accounts. I wouldn't know how to approach a conversation with someone who works for PETA and I don't know if convincing them to work for someone else is better. There are extreme examples where right and wrong are more obvious, but OG team Plasma would fall under the same situation as PETA for me. The point is, they most likely joined PETA because they care about animal rights and its more important to have a discussion about animal rights than to debate whether or not they should work for PETA. Because the problem is that there are a lot of people out there who don't like PETA NOT because they steal dogs; they don't like PETA because they think it's crazy to say that animals should have some degree of rights. So they associate people who work for PETA as being "crazy" because they think the goal is crazy to begin with. And when talking about PETA, the debate doesn't seem important, but just replace "animal rights" with any controversial topic.

Obviously, this isn't what you're advocating; it's just something I've slowly begun to realize over the years. There's all these arguments out there where both sides think they are in the right and the other side is in the wrong. And people start groups to support these more specific goals and anyone associated with them gets branded and very few people end up being willing to listen to their arguments. I see that reflected in these games. I feel like Black and White was suppose to be about understanding other people even if you believe that what they are doing is wrong. But even then, some people are just violent criminals who want to freeze a city with a giant flying pirate ship, so be careful.

 

[Circus]

I understand.The problem is, it's really easy to believe you are making a rational decision when you're not. How do you know when your decision is rational? If you've researched something, how do you know when you have an accurate depiction of the situation? It doesn't seem rational to go from big picture (organization) to small picture (individual). Like, just because its cloudy every time it rains; doesn't mean it rains every time it is cloudy.

Well, at that point you enter in a philosophical bog that has no solution as far as I'm aware. There is no such thing as a completely rational decision, and people are indeed capable of incredible degrees of rationalizing.

And it's also important to keep people accountable for what they support. Our decisions and actions don't exist in a vacuum and they do affect other people. It's easy to use "I'm just a supporter and I'm not directly causing harm" as an excuse when you're actually indirectly causing harm to others.

I know I've used it in the past, and looking back I see I was wrong.

I think I do get what you're saying. I just think its possible to criticize people for who they are without shortcuts. It's not like people who don't support radical groups aren't capable of being radical.

Sure, but those guys aren't the real dangerous people. They're loud and reveal themselves rather quickly. The real dangerous people are the ones that are quiet, will be nice to your face and adamantly vote against your rights or belittle you for your race / religion / sexual orientation / being trans behind your back.

They're also the kind of people that will handily use the excuse I mentioned to try and downplay the harm they're doing. At the end of the day, your associations do tell something about you and it's something you just have to own up.

So it should be possible to judge whether someone is radical without considering the groups they support. The government protects religion, so I can't criticize someone for attending Church, but I can still critize someone for their individual actions and behaviour. Even though, other groups aren't protected, I feel like the same logic can apply. For example, criticizing someone for being a member of team plasma is a bit meaningless if you're true intention is to critize them for supporting pokemon theft and whatever else crimes team plasma committed. I'm pretty sure everyone who supports an organization did so for a reason that they thought was rational. It's probably more important to find out and understand that reason. Once you've done that, you might be able to convince them that the organization is actually in conflict with their decision if you think the organization needs to be held accountable for something.

If you have evidence of the person participating in theft and other crimes, it's indeed a bigger point of criticism. But if you don't have said evidence, knowingly associating with people that regularly do crime is in itself an implicit agreement with the doing of said crimes, which is damning in its own way.

If those crimes are unethical crimes (as opposed to crimes like jaywalking or puritanic crimes that aren't or at least shouldn't be relevant today), the implicit agreement is an important factor.

And I do agree that understanding the why is important, but the why won't necessarily make the end less worse though. Especially when the end is the why.

There are a number of people that support anti-LGBT laws because they are anti-LGBT or think it's wrong due to whatever reasons. Same thing with health care, affirmative actions or whatever. There are also people that simply do not care about the effects as long as a certain thing happens ("I don't care if candidate X will cut welfare for thousands of families if it means I get a tax cut")

Whenever possible a more detailed understanding of why a person acted the way they did should be obtained, yes, but for a number of situations the end goals themselves are disastrous enough for some people that the implicit compliance is in itself more than enough reason to criticize someone. It might not be the case for PETA, but it might be the case for the candidate that wants to marginalize LGBT people, or prevent trans people to undergo HRT, or to recriminalize gay marriage.

Yeah, I did take the word "judging" the wrong way. I'm sorry for that. I agree that it is important to critize and analyze ourselves and the people around us. I know I'm being idealistic and that I make assumptions I'm not aware of all the time. (and I make assumptions consciously too). But in the case like PETA, I honestly don't know if it would be worth it to have a discussion with someone. The articles I read were written with bias; maybe they left out important details; like the fact that the dog that was stolen was actually being abused in some way. And I don't know how systemic the dog theft problem is based on a few accounts. I wouldn't know how to approach a conversation with someone who works for PETA and I don't know if convincing them to work for someone else is better.

Indeed, there is no unbiased journalism and PETA in particular is annoying to discuss because they subscribe to the school of "no such thing as bad publicity". It's perfectly plausible they staged the whole thing to get media attention.

And while it's important to be skeptical of your sources and maintain your mental health by avoiding unnecessary discussions (we all have that one relative that's just a time sink when discussing politics for no gain whatsoever), it's also important to not be completely complacent and fall into a solipsism which leads to inaction.

It's okay to not want to criticize someone or to discuss something with someone. It's also okay to discuss with someone and then change your mind. I think this is a problem in part of human nature and in part of human society, we really should try to normalize changing your mind.

There are extreme examples where right and wrong are more obvious, but OG team Plasma would fall under the same situation as PETA for me. The point is, they most likely joined PETA because they care about animal rights and its more important to have a discussion about animal rights than to debate whether or not they should work for PETA.

Sure, but the issue wasn't the question about animal rights, which is indeed a question I wholeheartedly support. The question is whether continuing to associate with a company that has - in what appears to be the case for Team Plasma - a systemic problem with stealing pets is ethical or not.

This will depend on what you consider ethical, but based on the speeches it appears that the Plasma line would be along the lines of "Yes, because there can be no ethical pet owning." or "Yes, it's a bump in the road for the necessary revolution that will cause the liberation of Pokémon."

Because the problem is that there are a lot of people out there who don't like PETA NOT because they steal dogs; they don't like PETA because they think it's crazy to say that animals should have some degree of rights. So they associate people who work for PETA as being "crazy" because they think the goal is crazy to begin with. And when talking about PETA, the debate doesn't seem important, but just replace "animal rights" with any controversial topic.

Obviously, this isn't what you're advocating; it's just something I've slowly begun to realize over the years. There's all these arguments out there where both sides think they are in the right and the other side is in the wrong. And people start groups to support these more specific goals and anyone associated with them gets branded and very few people end up being willing to listen to their arguments. I see that reflected in these games. I feel like Black and White was suppose to be about understanding other people even if you believe that what they are doing is wrong. But even then, some people are just violent criminals who want to freeze a city with a giant flying pirate ship, so be careful.

Sure, but that's bad faith arguing. It'll happen no matter what you're discussing. It is also an important thing to teach and recognize: the creation of strawmen, the use of ad hominem.

I suppose that is the message of the game - even if I don't particularly think that aspect was well presented - but that's unfortunately a thing that's more or less baked into the human mind. Tribalism is a very strong problem.

All we can do is try our best to be logical and not let our biases take control of our discussions.

 

[EmpoleonProd]

Uh... guys, this is a Pokemon forum right? I’m just making sure I didn’t end up on the wrong site.

 

[KabutopsStudys]

Uh... guys, this is a Pokemon forum right? I’m just making sure I didn’t end up on the wrong site.

yes,this is a forum.

 

[BackSet]

yes,this is a forum.

But is it a Pokemon forum?

 

[Circus]

It is, that's why the discussion on ethics was motivated by the plot of two core series games.

 

[GrookeyFan77]

But is it a Pokemon forum?

It is. It also has other stuff.