I think it helps to have a nuanced opinion and make sure we don't spiral into an echo chamber. For my example, I've found that lefties are able to identify a lot of the right problems, it's just that they think gay space communism is the solution to it.
For instance, I completely agree that North American cities are really stupidly designed. The car-centric nature of them means you're stranded if your vehicle breaks down. The fact that you have to go into debt to buy this big stupid box to navigate your own city is ridiculous in the first place.
But when it comes to their solutions for this they can't separate their stupid idpol nonsense from it. My local city government keeps talking about "equitable solutions" to traffic and pedestrian fatalities. Typical "world ending, women most affected" type stuff.
Plus they keep droning on about high density housing which absolutely no one wants to live in. in their utopia we'd all live in depressing Soviet-style block apartments.
I honestly think they're right when they say that the right lost the culture war once people like Jack Thompson and 2000s era Fox News pundits went after video games and intense music.
There were far more people who just thought of these things as interesting new takes on fun past time. Most people were perfectly capable of realizing that the things in these works shouldn't be repeated in real life, and they vastly outnumbered anyone who saw them as instruction manuals. Even then, people in the latter category who committed crimes and were allegedly inspired by GTA or NWA already had other issues in life.
I think the PR nightmare that was these moral panics against violent entertainment left us with far more of an uphill battle when it came to fighting wokeness in our culture and institutions.
Now, when we talk about how divisive and destructive themes and policies are aggressively shoved down our throats, people equate that to things like the 1980s Satanic panic against D&D or the crusade against rap music or Mortal Kombat from the '90s.
We're not trying to keep people from accessing fun, but we do want to stop people from feeling like they have to submit to the message that they're bad just because of their heritage or skin color.
I hope we can move past the stupid shit from those previous years and do a better job at distancing our pro empowerment and prosperity message from the bureaucrats of years past while just promoting good, inspiring entertainment.
I wish I saved the video but just a few months ago I read something about how even that narrative of the right being super pro censorship of video games andusic in the 90s and 00s was largely over hyped and often completely misunderstood.
The TLDR is that they weren't pushing for outright bans. Just the gaming labels like M, E, Etc and that it largely was beneficial for the gaming companies because it made it easier for them to let the gift buyers know what games to get their kids and grand kids come Christmas and birthdays. And that the censorship for radio and TV was just to either move it to cable or to put it after hours when kids would presumably be in bed. Most of the flag bearers of the movement simply wanted it kept away from kids, not banned outright.
So really, it was real fear mongering over fabricated fear mongering.
What's your view of similar phenomenons like the Satanic Panics over D&D or Pokémon?
Or perhaps Killary and Jack Thompson claiming games like GTA needed to be banned because they were turning kids into criminals?
I honestly don't remember any of that.
I do have an opinion on GTA and violent games though. They are harmless if a boy has an actual positive make influence in his life. But without one, a kid will look for a role model, and that will be a gang banger, online or TV characters, etc.
That's why black kids listen to rap and shoot up a 7/11, and white kids listen to rap and then live normal lives.
I guess that's why I grew up with a relative who LOVED rap and R&B (especially gangster and glam rap) but never felt like becoming a gangbanger or criminal.
She exposed me to people like Snoop Dogg, Cam'ron, Biggie, Nate Dogg, etc. I learned about more rappers through video game soundtracks, and I now live a life where I own a business and still don't feel like killing or robbing anyone.
How do you think parents could do a better job of stating that while explicit music and violent video games can just be entertainment, they're still just fiction and shouldn't be replicated in real life?
It makes me sad to know people in your first demographic don't have that kind of moral compass or filter.