Facts are Cool

[jimhines]

After reading John Scalzi’s post on SWM being the lowest difficulty setting in the game of life, and then reading the 800+ comments, I figured I’d join the crowd who decided to write a response. So I’ve dug up some information for those commenters who seemed to completely lose their minds…

I’ve done my best to find reliable, objective sources for

Comments

[sylvanstargazer]

My one issue with his analogy is that he attributes all this to Some Computer, whereas I believe it is the result of social dynamics and we can do something about it each and every day

[serialbabbler]

It still bothers me that he left off disability in his difficulty settings. (I know he mentions constitution as a character trait, but, eh- it just doesn't work for me.)

My life as an Asexual White Female is not at a harder setting than the life of a Straight White Male with Down Syndrome.* And a lot of that has to do with institutional problems rather than with any difficulties inherent to Down Syndrome.

But anyway...

*Not that I mean that to be limited to Down Syndrome. Any disability you're born with or that develops in early childhood is going to effect identity formation, educational opportunities, and every other aspect of your life.

[misslynx]

I think you could use the same basic model that he used and switch the specific forms of privilege around, and it would still work. He's got it framed as gender, sexuality and race being part of the difficulty setting, with things like wealth and ability being variable stats in addition to that, but if you changed it to wealth, ability and geographical location being part of the difficulty setting and the other traits being variable stats, it would still essentially work, in that affluent, able-bodied Westerners in any given category would tend to have an easier time of it than others in that category who were poor, disabled, or living in a Third World country.

Being straight, white, male, affluent, able-bodied and living in a comfortable Western democracy are all forms of privilege. They all make people's lives easier than those of others without those traits, all other things being equal. And that last is an important qualifier - I don't think the idea is that race, gender and sexuality automatically trump all other forms of

[serialbabbler]

Then he should have chosen a different title for the post because the way he framed it doesn't work for a lot of people other than me. :)

[beccastareyes]

I agree: there probably are some 'difficulty settings' I'd include that Scalzi didn't, such as Gender Identity and Disability Status. OTOH, I don't see this as a flaw in the analogy, merely something he could add

#winning

[pkstephens]

One thing I liked about Scalzi's piece was his emphasis that the point of the game is to win; that there are no rewards for playing on a harder difficulty setting. I think that's an instructive part of the analogy; the goal is to lower the difficulty setting for everyone.

I would only modify the metaphor slightly:

If you live in the a modern, westernized democracy, you play Real Life v5 on a bleeding edge gaming rig.

If you live in Mexico or Russia, you're running without the security patches.

If you live in Greece, you've got a virus and you've got serious lag on the network.

If you live in the Caribbean, you've got a sluggish processor but a 55 inch monitor.

If you live in China, your playing an unpatched, buggy, bootleg copy.

If you live in North Korea you have no controller.

If you live in Bangladesh, then there's probably not much meaning in a metaphor about life being a game.

[ext_474232]

I love to refer to the "Derailing For Dummies" site in discussions of privilege, because it sums everything up so neatly and snarkily.

One of the derails is "I won't believe you unless you show me empirical evidence". As wonderful as it is that Jim's put it right in their face here, these stats could be found with just the teensiest application of Google-Fu. In other words, the privileged are expecting the marginalized and their allies to do all the thinking and work for them, AND they don't believe in lived experience (beyond their own).

[ext_474232]

It would be better if you qualified "privileged" in your post. As one of the white guys in question, I appreciate it a lot when treated as an individual - something I think that should resonate with folks calling us out on denial of privilege stuff. I realize it may seem like "privileged white guy" equates to "determinedly ignorant", but it isn't. :)

[starcat_jewel]

Here's another terrific takedown on the same topic, with a delightfully snarky Twitter link.

[rimrunner]

Hahaha that tweet is awesome.