Squid Game is a spectacle. It may look like a critique of class struggle and exploitation, but it is designed primarily to entertain us. Essentially it puts us the viewers in the same seat as the wealthy patrons in the show. We are invited to watch from a distance, to be entertained by the thrills, the horrors, and the drama. Although I did enjoy watching it, I have to say that the show examines social problems only at a superficial level. Ultimately it’s another entertainment product designed to make money.

I think the author is correct in how she points out the relatability of the fictional premise. The show is meant to appeal to a wide audience, so not everyone watching it will be at the basest levels of poverty. That doesn't mean they can't relate to the themes of the Squid Game in their own lives. As a viewer of the content, socio-economic standing is irrelevant.

The author also should be cut some slack for being a philosophy student. Her income is irrelevant. Academia and specifically college student work is where I would hope treatises on modern day philosophy would originate.

Do you know what sub you're in? Either argue your point or find something else to do. I am.

> 2. Argue your Position

> Opinions are not valuable here, arguments are! Comments that solely express musings, opinions, beliefs, or assertions without argument may be removed.

> 3. Be Respectful

> Comments which blatantly do not contribute to the discussion may be removed

That’s not gatekeeping. It’s just being sick of the same “my life is so hard” pieces when it objectively isn’t.

/r/gatekeeping

ok

Your life isn’t bad. By the standards of the world you’re living in the lap of luxury. I hate this “oh my life is so hard it’s basically squid game” rhetoric from people writing an op Ed in their air conditioned living room on their laptop with a fridge of food 20 feet away. The people who write this have never faced any real hardship, their bar for a bad or hard life is incredibly low.

Funny how quotes such as those come from people that live in enough comfort and luxury to be writing those sorts of meanderings.

No, wasting time is looking up the Latin prefixes instead of the actual dictionary definitions(which I provided the links to in my response).

Non-rational and irrational are two different words with two different meanings. I’m not sure what to say other than if you are maintaining that they mean the same thing you are simply wrong.

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I'm not interested in discussing word meanings, let alone what a word is "normally taken to mean". It's a total waste of time and I'd rather read Pinker's article again.

This sounds like a leftists version of Industrial Society And It’s Future, but in a way that doesn’t address the problem as completely

Steven Pinker argues that irrationality can be a powerful tool for achieving desired outcomes. He suggests that in some cases, it may be more rational to choose ignorance, incapacity, or irrationality than to try to understand the complexities and nuances of a situation. By avoiding the effort of trying to understand, we can save time and energy and focus on our desired outcome. This might be especially true in cases where the outcome is more important than the process, such as when making a decision quickly or when the risks of making a wrong decision are too great. Ultimately, Pinker argues, irrationality can be a valuable tool for achieving desired outcomes, and it can be more rational to choose it than to try to understand the complexities of a situation.

Prefixes aside, the definition of the word "irrational" is normally taken to mean unreasonable and illogical, whereas non-rational is normally taken to mean not based in reason. There is an important distinction between the two. One goes against reason, while the other is not rooted in reason, but is not necessarily unreasonable in nature.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irrational https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nonrational

This would be a lot easier to get behind if it didn't push things to such extremes. Saying that life has similarities with squid game is one thing, but trying to claim that it is literally exactly the same loses me. It was genuinely difficult for me to continue reading when I got to "the condition of the human person surviving in the real world is different only in the respect that it is worse while masquerading as better".

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No, you're not being paranoid. I'm totally a robot.

I hope I don't come as rude, but I've been browsing this subreddit for a couple of hours and a bunch of comments I read from you sound like they were generated by ChatGPT.

Am I being paranoid?

Actually, can you point to an example from my comment history that was ad hominem? Also, I do not know how pointing out my comment history proves a point that my arguement was difficult to understand. They seem irrelevant of one another and I do not know how you can say tou are making this as a point unless you explain the connection.

The line from the essay I used as an example was not an example of the over usage of synonyms but an example of how you had three consecutive sentences that did not readily appear to grow upon the idea of the last but introduced a new aspect to the paragraph. Typical structure of a single paragraph should be to focus on one idea and explore it and grow upon it. Otherwise it is confusing as in your paper.

I will try to explain my meaning of the synonym metaphor, again. First, here is an article explaining the point I was trying to make,

https://medium.com/the-writers-woodshed/just-say-said-69766700568c

In regards to how it relates to your paper, I believe it would be easier to understand and, critically, enjoy if you did not go to such pains to use uncommon wording and phrasing.

Edit: did you downvote my comment history?

Edit edit: I just looked at my comment history and there is ONE example recently that I forgot about. To be fair, in the context of the comment thread it was not really an arguement and only loosely fits the definition of ad hominem because of this. It was quite imaginative if I do say so myself.

I never made such a distinction. You did. And what difference does it make? What insights are we getting that lead us to a better understanding? It's a discussion that goes nowhere and that ends up being about semantics.

Of course they are related, but they are not identical.

> You jumped to goals of a "selfish gene", while the example of falling in love is about immediate personal goals.

Those personal goals are related to evolution.

I don't quite see the distinction you are making. Irrational means non-rational. The prefix ir- means not or non.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ir-#Latin

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/in-#Latin

You are confusing irrational with non rational. Irrational actions are normally ones that are actually harming you are frustrating your goals. You are going against all reason. Non-rational can either be effectively rational or irrational depending on the outcome, the key feature is that those things are driven more by instinct and mental shortcuts rather than higher order rationality.

Things like falling in love or following a sports team are non-rational, not irrational. Evolution has fine tuned the brain so that non-rational actions are often in line with rational goals, or at least won’t interfere with rational goals, but obviously this is not foolproof and is on a case by case basis.

I think climate change is more of an individual vs the collective thing. Collectively barreling towards major climate change is suicidal, institutions like governments are especially at risk because major turmoil historically normally involves the collapse of regimes.

Individually the story is different. From a purely individualistic perspective the contemporary benefits of fossil fuels can outweigh costs that won’t be borne until after you are dead. Even when you consider things like genetic legacy, the economic wealth you accumulate from fossil fuels could actually put your descendants at an advantage in the future world, their survival may actually be improved. Also, there is a free rider problem as well, no one individual is the deciding factor in how much emissions we emit and how severe climate change will be. The lifetime CO2 output of a given person is marginal. If voluntarily economically hamstringing yourself and your family is not going to make a difference as far as the existential threats of climate change goes then it really is not rational to take that course of action.