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Post by Friendly Person :) on Apr 25, 2019 19:29:24 GMT -5
It's part twitter, part the Fantastic Beasts movies. However it brings up something that's been on my mind lately, and that's fantasy authors who can't just let their stories end. Be it movies, video games or books, almost the first thing anyone asks for is, 'will there be more?'. The thing I find so bizarre is how often the answer is 'yes'. I'd attribute it once again to the difference in approach for most genre fiction -- that is, desiring to tell a story over exploring a theme. If J.K. Rowling had a point to make with Harry Potter, surely the point has been made? The story she wanted to tell is ended, so what purpose is there to revisiting this world? Even if I give Fantastic Beasts the benefit of having been made with some purpose in mind, the impression from the fan base seems to be that Harry Potter was not the best avenue for conveying that story.
Of course, it's not just Rowling. Even before Game of Thrones ends, prequel series are in pre-production. Why? If A Song of Ice and Fire ever had a strong thematic point, the general consensus is that it was lost around A Feast for Crows. Once the story ends this season (and the books go unfinished because the Fat Man doesn't write anymore), then the point is made. Unless you have some point that just so happens to match perfectly with this world, wouldn't it be better to craft an entirely new world to better fit whatever your new point is?
It's funny, because five years ago I was totally on-board with this new-age style of speculative fiction. Let an author create one huge world, then tell a bunch of stories in that world! Think of how complex that world would be! However, if Derman is getting images of Forgotten Realms, then congrats, you've hit the nail on the head for why this is actually f*cking stupid. It places the emphasis on building the world first, and telling the story second. Thing is, when I read a story, it's because I want to read a narrative, not your lore. Modern fantasy authors seem to be little more than Dungeon Masters who don't want players mucking up the super-awesome story they have in their head.
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Post by Lee Traxin on Apr 26, 2019 12:26:09 GMT -5
KH3 had a update with Crit mode added. The game actually feels kind of fun now.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Apr 26, 2019 21:51:50 GMT -5
I couldn't care less about the Avengers or Marvel or whatever, but I did read a review of it today:
"But here’s the thing about using time travel to solve their problems: As soon as screenwriters open the door to that device, then any sequel can undo whatever came before. Here, War Machine (Don Cheadle) makes the suggestion that they go back and strangle Thanos in the crib, which the film treats as a joke, and yet, it sounds like a better idea than the “time heist” they have in store. Alternately, they could wait for Thanos to hijack all six Infinity Stones and then jump in and prevent him from using them."
Now, with the last superhero movie I've seen the original Iron Man--I still agree with the above premise, very strongly. You cannot introduce time travel into an ongoing series, especially as a solution to an unwinnable problem. It cheapens everything, because now you've always got that perfect backpocket fix.
Plus, I just don't think time travel is a very interesting mechanic. It's kind of its own deus ex machina. Shit's unfixable? Just go back in time. It's like bringing someone back from the dead. The only instances in which either plot device are acceptable in my opinion is if those events are early drivers to a larger problem, rather than a solution in and of itself.
Also, on a side note, there were twenty-one of these movies before this 3-hour-long one? That sounds horrendous. I mean, I'm not a fan of superhero movies anyway, so I kinda don't want to watch one, but I really can't think of anything I want to watch 21 of, assuming they're not episodic in nature. Don't think these movies were... ugh. It sounds painful to even think about sitting through.
Also, I picture Ant-Man as Ant-Man from Tales of the Abyss. (Damn missable side quest.) I'm sure he doesn't actually look like that, but I can't picture him otherwise.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Apr 27, 2019 14:56:20 GMT -5
Lee comes back after months, posts two sentences. Nice. I have heard though that Critical Mode is the primary way for Kingdom Hearts purists to get their fix.
There: I raised your two sentences to three. Now it's your turn: give me four!
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Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
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Post by Derman on Apr 28, 2019 15:45:37 GMT -5
My brother started at a new place recently, and all of the female workers in his team are currently on a maternity(?) leave (which is basically half of the team). It's a bit of a problem since that means that all the managers in that team are gone for a while, and most the remaining people are relatively new. It could be just that women are generally positioned as the ones looking after the children, or could have something to do with them having to carry another person inside them for months. Either way, based on this single instance at least, it seems that women just generally have more obstacles in their career paths. It's not all just blatant sexism, where people decide to pay women less just because. If you are essentially doing less work, you will have less chances for promotion, and will be paid less.
It's always weird to me to see those articles or books about how you don't have to choose between your career and family. In a way it's true, you can be successful without abandoning everything. But I've always believed that if you really wanted to go further and really be good at something, you have to be prepared to sacrifice something else. It just makes sense that a person who has more time to spend on learning something will end up being better at it than someone who has to split their attention between multiple things. You can still be better while doing multiple things of course, but the chances are you are going to fail on one of the things, if not all of them. Of course I've never actually read those articles/books, so maybe that's what they talk about.
I watched Avengers: Endgame on day 1. I've watched maybe 1/3 of the marvel movies with my cousin, and he convinced me to buy tickets for Endgame. I enjoyed it, as long as I accepted the fact that the plot is dumb and all I'll be getting is technically impressive movie with some funny and cool moments. And even then, the time-travel gimmick was bothering me. I wish they just went with the idea of Ant-man crawling up Thanos' butt and expanding, would've probably made more sense.
Also, Grain is cheating. "Nice." isn't a proper sentence. That's two sentences only.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Apr 28, 2019 23:25:00 GMT -5
I think there are two camps of thought... one being that you "can have it all," and another being that you can't have it all, and the burden is being unfairly put onto women/there needs to be more equality of the sexes.
But yes, I'd tend to agree. It doesn't really matter why you weren't there; the fact of the matter is that other people gained experience during that time, and you didn't. That's what people notice at the end of the day--are you more experienced/skilled? They've done quite a lot of studies showing that the wage gap isn't really about women vs. men, per se, as it is women with children. (Also, oftentimes studies won't parse out what the jobs even were; women overall tend to go into fields that are lower paying, and titles can vary pretty widely even within a particular field. In order to get a really good comparison, you need to evaluate what people's tasks are. Which some studies have done, and the discrepancy isn't nearly as pronounced.)
In other news of things that don't make sense, Game of Throne's episode 3 was terrible. There was fanservice and bad writing in the first episode, but then the third episode, they basically took a giant sh*t over the entire series. Honestly really a shame. I joke that Ned is the worst character, but--you know what--at least Ned's well-written, if stupid. Arya is basically the beloved Mary-Sue of the show writers. She delivered the final blow to the show, literally and figuratively. I used to like her, too.
It is really, really, really a shame. They didn't even kill anyone! Okay, fine, Jorah and Theon, but that's two somewhat major characters. The remaining episodes are going to be pretty canned. Cersei will die. It's a given. I mean, it was always a given, but now there is absolutely nothing at stake. Nothing. If I watch the two remaining episodes, it'll probably just be some technically impressive fighting, and that's about it.
If I were an executive at HBO, I'd be pissed. My parents started watching recently, actually; I'm going to tell them to stop after season 4. Say what you will about the fat man, but at least he didn't write this.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Apr 29, 2019 0:27:01 GMT -5
Say what you will about the fat man, but at least he didn't write this. If only because he doesn't write anything.
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Post by Lee Traxin on Apr 29, 2019 9:40:43 GMT -5
Fine, I can give you four sentences. Crit mode tends to be the only non artificial difficulty setting in KH, at least when it's done well. Most titles make the enemy stronger and smarter, and halve your health cap. The better entries compensate for this by giving you more abilities to start the game with or increasing your damage to even the playing field. Sometimes it works, with KH2FM and KH3 making you play smarter and be more defensive. Others like BBS kinda suck as they just reduce you to doing chip damage while bosses break out of any combo at will and one shot you.
And on GoT, how long has it been since the writer last published anything? I keep seeing the jokes about his work ethic but I'm too lazy to find out myself.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Apr 29, 2019 14:27:12 GMT -5
A Dance with Dragons came out in 2011. As for anything he's published outside of ASoIaF, I know there was a lore book, but aside from that I haven't followed the fat man in years so I can't say.
It occurs to me that both Game of Thrones and the Marvel Cinematic Universe are "ending" at the same time. Sure both will go on, but the continued mega-pop culture success is questionable (though methinks MCU has a MUCH greater chance than any GoT prequels). With any luck it's the end of an age... though it makes me wonder what gobshite will rise up to take its place...
This latest game of Civ 6 has been a letdown in-so-far as it's just been boring. I think it might be the most boring game I've played yet. Generally there's at least one AI who is making things interesting (Spain/Greece in 5, Montezuma in 6), but the last game (and to a lesser degree the one before that) have been really dull.
Gathering Storm has made gaming relationships stupidly easy. I like the idea of being able to trade *some* of a resource, but the problem is that right now is that I can gift away X amount of resource per turn, then regain it next turn. Do this enough times early on and you can declare a friendship, at which point you won't need to gift them crap: just keep renewing the friendship pact the moment it expires. Shazam: you are now allied with literally everybody in the world, free to do whatever you wish so-long as that doesn't involve declaring war (at which point, why not just beef up your science/economy to get as much of a tech/money lead anyway?).
The World Congress sucks. Randomly chosen propositions with a voting system that's bonkers (I love having my vote suddenly count against me), and none of it feels impactful because in 30 turns it reverts anyway. I feel like Diplomatic Favour is the only positive change from 5 on this front. Otherwise it was more engaging to make your own proposals, with consequences lasted the entire game (unless you wanted to spend your shot at a proposal to attempt to overturn it). With 6 I spend 75% of the time just throwing one vote in because I could care less about the things we're voting on, which makes the entire thing feel like a waste of time.
City states are dull. If there's one thing I would love to see in a future expansion or sequel, it's the expansion of city states. I like the idea, but I really want them to feel more like independent entities I'm not going to pretend that trading money for loyalty in 5 was a great system, but at least each one had a separate screen that you could visit to negotiate with them. In 6 they all have unique abilities, but everything is just done from one menu: your entire non-violent interaction boils down to a left and right arrow. I couldn't even visit one to request peace (we were still at war despite me destroying their allied Civ ages ago)!
Gathering Storm really should've pushed its climate ideas further. I know we've all agreed on this already, but I'm coming to appreciate how much these half-steps are serving to just annoy rather than change the way I play. Natural disasters would be interesting if they actually altered terrain: if rivers swelled and contracted, if droughts could turn plains into deserts – things other than just making me waste a few turns to repair something. The same is true of flooding: let me flood the entire freaking map! There’s supposed to be this trade-off between powering buildings and generating pollution, but when I can just flood-wall the few tiles that will be impacted, who the f*ck cares? Everything related to climate ideas boils down to ‘wasting a few turns’.
Okay, I think that’s enough for now. It’s not my intention to sound really down on Civ 6. I’m just not sure if it’s time to turn the difficulty up, try a different play-style, or what. I definitely don’t feel like an expert on the game– not even close – yet the thought of another round like this one doesn’t fill me with much enthusiasm. It's funny, because in a way I feel like I'm falling back into my original opinion: despite having more systems than 5, the systems themselves aren't as well thought-out or don't quite go far enough. For every great idea like loyalty or districts, there's natural disasters or dark/normal/golden ages. In broad terms you could call it 'quantity over quality', but that's oversimplifying it I think. The ideas aren't bad, they just don't fit together as well as they could/should.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Apr 29, 2019 19:51:16 GMT -5
I don't bother with city-states. In theory, partnering with them can give you nice boosts, but in practice, invariably some civ or two takes them all out in short order. So a lot of energy invested in making them like you, and... for what? Unless I'm doing a domination victory, I have absolutely no interest in saving their hides; my goal is not to piss anyone off if I'm doing science and especially cultural. And, well, if I'm doing a domination victory, taking out city-states doesn't get me any closer to victory. My time and units are better spent taking out actual civilizations. If on the off-chance another civ sacks them, I might take the city-state back, but they become mine. I don't release them back into the empire as a free state. Screw that noise.
I think climate change is dumb. It is literally just an irritant as I play. To be frank, if Gathering Storm was uninstalled from my computer right now, I wouldn't miss it. I don't hate it, but it adds very little to the game I care about. Mainly, it's good for the leaders, but you can get leaders as DLC, so I'm not sure that's a particularly compelling argument in its favor.
The World Congress is meh. I've used it to my advantage a few times, but sometimes I just don't care on whatever's being voted about. For instance, it'll ask me about doubling luxury resources or whatever, and I think that sounds quite nice, but I never actually know what luxury resources I have a lot of at that very moment. So I'm never able to make a particularly strategic play in this regard.
I am not going to be watching any Game of Thrones prequels. The show writers have clearly shown that they're quite good at bringing George R.R. Martin's work faithfully to life as long as they've got a tight script they can go by, but left to their own devices, they shouldn't be writing television. It's like offering to let the kid who's drawn by connect-the-dots draw his own thing freestyle, and the thing comes out ugly and misshapen. Any prequel they make is literally just going to be generic high fantasy, because that's what GoT is now.
Among the people I know who watch Game of Thrones, the universal opinion is that the episode was really disappointing. But then I was reading reactions online, and you have all of these people who are praising the episode and talking about how tense it was and blah dee blah de blah. Come on, guys. Have you no taste? The accomplishments and skill of the earlier seasons must have been totally lost on them. It's as if you brought someone to a really fancy restaurant, and they raved about how skilled the chef was, and then they went to McDonalds and said the same thing.
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Post by Youngster Joey on Apr 29, 2019 22:43:27 GMT -5
I really hate statistics like this. I really do. 80%? That's a staggeringly high number. How exactly did they quantify "high levels of stress"? Firstly, things like stress are pretty relative. Having a busy week or stressful month over bills might be pretty mild for someone else. If your life is relatively stress free, "high stress" might not be all that bad? Might be pretty manageable?
Secondly, what does help mean? This is a very nebulous term, "help," and I'm pretty doubtful that the survey actually explicitly asked people "do you need help?" or something similar. Probably they collapsed a bunch of very specific response into a generic term "help," e.g., talking to a friend vs. going to a therapist, which are wildly different things.
I worked on a published report for a charity once. It was analyzing trended sentiments towards a marginalized group. I liked the charity, I support their mission, but boy, did that experience make me jaded. I get from their perspective, the charity needs to prove there's still discrimination and they're still relevant. But, from my perspective, the trended results had actually gotten better. It's amazing how much words can change your perspective, though. "72% of Americans support X" vs. "Almost a third of Americans still don't support X". Same stat, differently worded, one sounds like progress and one doesn't. Or "Only 10% of people strongly support X," when in fact 40% of people support X (so 50% of people support it overall). You can slice and dice numbers a lot.
I didn't like that. Again, I get why they did the numbers that way, but it made me uncomfortable to think I could twist statistics like that. Luckily, it was for a good cause, but there are plenty of other less innocuous facts that can be written that exact same way. doubleplusungood.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on Apr 30, 2019 2:13:00 GMT -5
I'm just gonna post this super quickly because I'm already past time for bed (damn you Civ). Playing an MP game of 5 with a friend, and it just proved such a perfect example of why 5's World Congress is so much more fun than 6's. Basically Germany has somehow become the final boss this time around (it's 4 teams of 2), and so after a successful fluke embargoing his teammate, the goal is now to embargo Bismark himself. Thing is, Bismark has a ton of delegates.
Nearly the entire 2-3 hours of playtime was me slowly discovering and befriending city states. My proposal failed once, but it's already back in the cards... only I'm now to the point where I can *almost* outvote the entire world. Come the next era-shift, I *will* elect myself as host and *will* outvote the entire world b/c City States count as two delegates instead of one, at which point I will embargo every single enemy civ. If there's time, I'll then start embargoing luxury items, just to watch them fall into themselves. I seriously cannot wait. But for now, it's diplomatic war with Germany.
This is just the kind of interesting little war that 5's system of city states and world congress can create. I'm not saying it's amazing, but rather than improve on it, 6's system basically removes any kind of diplomatic warfare.
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Derman
Oracle Knight
I still don't have a knife tag on my golden birth knife
Posts: 194
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Post by Derman on Apr 30, 2019 10:08:37 GMT -5
I read Joey's post before watching the latest GoT episode, so I was mentally prepared for it, but it wasn't enough. It highlights all the ways the show has gone south since season 4. From the stupid decisions, like hiding people inside a crypt (even though they know the lich king can rise dead people whenever he wants) and landing the dragon in the middle of a zombie horde, to the unrealistic amounts of plot armor the characters have. Sure they killed a few characters, but every single death was just meaningless and you saw them coming from miles away (except the little girl, but that scene was really dumb regardless. The writers thought it was cool to have a little girl kill a zombie-giant. To me it was just pointless). You have Brienne and Sam drowning in zombies, but they are completely fine. Jon gets thrown off a dragon but still manages to run through an army of zombies alone. Arya sneaks past all the wights and even the generals to stab the lich king like an anime character.
In first season we had a king die because a boar went ham on him. Now we have characters doing crazycrapthat would barely pass even in MCU. And like one comment said, the characters themselves feel like parodies of themselves. It's like they took a massive dump on all the things they've been building for multiple seasons just so they can have their fairytale ending. If this is the quality we'll get for the prequels, I'll stay away from them. You can blame Martin for not writing anything, but that's infinitely better than the s**t the show's writers have been putting out.
I don't really care that much about the show, but it was nice to write a good rant for a change. I've given up on the show a long time ago. But it still baffles me that anyone was willing to spend so much money on an episode that was so bad, and I want my 1h 17 minutes back. And contrary to what Joey has seen, I've noticed the general reception to the episode is fairly negative. The only people who are defending the show are those who are blinded by the hype or admitting it has a lot of problems, but saying that people should just accept it and move on.
After watching the episode I thought it was the worst thing I've seen the whole year.. until I saw Sonic the Hedgehog movie trailer...
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Post by Youngster Joey on Apr 30, 2019 21:58:29 GMT -5
Oh, god. The Sonic the Hedgehog trailer looks terrible? I don't know why they thought that would be a good idea to make. It just looks like it would kill brain cells watching. Also, wtf happened with Dr. Robotnik?? I always thought his rotund shape was part of his evil charm. He's so trim that it took me a while to recognize that was even him.
I was reading someone complaining about how GRRM hasn't finished the books on another website:
I really disagree with this. I don't think writers have any "contract" with their readers. It's nice if writers finish out their work, but they're not obligated to do so. Someone else raised the point of--well, if a normal person gets burnt out doing their job, they can quit--how is that different for a writer? GRRM is burnt out, and he switched jobs, if you will, to writing other things. Why should GRRM be held to a different standard than everyone else? As it were, I prefer no content to bad content, so if I actually cared about his books, I'd much rather he write nothing than junk just because he had to.
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Post by Friendly Person :) on May 1, 2019 0:21:34 GMT -5
I was reading someone complaining about how GRRM hasn't finished the books on another website: I really disagree with this. I don't think writers have any "contract" with their readers. It's nice if writers finish out their work, but they're not obligated to do so. Someone else raised the point of--well, if a normal person gets burnt out doing their job, they can quit--how is that different for a writer? GRRM is burnt out, and he switched jobs, if you will, to writing other things. Why should GRRM be held to a different standard than everyone else? As it were, I prefer no content to bad content, so if I actually cared about his books, I'd much rather he write nothing than junk just because he had to.
I actually disagree with your disagreement! Though the original poster sounds like a whiny fanboy, so it irks me to do so...
Firstly there's a matter of professionalism. If you hire someone to do something, you expect them to finish it. If you hire someone to fix your roof, you expect them to fix your roof, not drop it half-way through because they got burned out on it. It doesn't even matter if no money has exchanged hands: by putting themselves out there, they suggested that they are capable of doing the job. If they are not capable, then I have every right to be upset. A writer is selling you a product, and as with anyone making a living by selling their craft, it's fair to expect some degree of professionalism on their part.
Secondly, there is a precedent that you are buying a part of a product which will be completed. I think it's worth pointing out that the original purpose of serialisation was entirely based around making novels *affordable*. Books were premium items, but by dividing them into parts, people could purchase them in easily-affordable installments (we can thank Charles thingyens for popularising this). Obviously that's not the reason for it today, but yet the precedent persists. After all, the market only works if it operates under the assumption that you are buying into a story that will, barring medical emergency or death, be finished. Who in their right mind would start any series if the author could drop it willy nilly?
Lastly, I'd argue that there is a contract, but strictly a 'social contract'. Clearly writers don't sign literal contracts with their readers (they do with publishers, so that's another reason to finish your sh*t, but not related to the reader/writer relationship so I'll let it drop), but they are still entering into an unspoken agreement that they will eventually deliver a completed project. It's similar to the idea that a relationship holds meaning even if you aren't married. We may not have signed the contract, but if I find out my girlfriend was sleeping with another guy I'm going to break off that relationship. A chef isn't contractually obligated TO ME when I order food at a restaurant, but I still expect him to finish the job all the same.
Ultimately what it comes down to is that Martin is not failing his 'job' in the sense that he is 'failing in his career' -- something which you can definitely quit or change-course on -- it's that he's failing in his 'job' in the sense of his 'present project' -- something you absolutely are held accountable for and expected to complete even if you intend to quit your career. In this sense Martin is not being treated differently from anyone else. If someone starts a project (and especially charges money for it), then anyone is entitled to expect them to finish that project, whether that's fixing a roof, dining at a restaurant, or writing a book.
*I realised last night in bed that I needed to clarify something, but wasn't about to get out of bed, wait for the computer to start up, then type it out. Martin's 'failing' (note I do use the word 'failing', not 'failure'), at least in my eyes, is not that he has failed to deliver a product. Good work takes time, and when it comes to creativity you can't just magic up good writing. Even if you are the type of writer who can pump out work at a consistent rate, you're basically a Brandon Sanderson: basically no cross-genre appeal because your work has no value other than entertainment. No, Martin (and Patrick Rothfuss) both 'fail' in my eyes because they are unable to convince me that they are spending an adequate amount of time working on their projects.
Now, I'm not suggesting that they should be spending every second working on their project. Nor am I suggesting that they owe us constant status updates. However, the way both Martin and Rothfuss conduct themselves (long blog posts about politics, sports, and other unrelated things; showing up to a ton of cons and interviews; multiple lore books and novellas etc.), all while taking the attitude (and this is a quote): "Long books take time. Good books take time. Good, long books take a lot of time". Okay, so explain to me how the fug your best book took less than two years to write? In the end not only are they presenting themselves as not particularly interested in finishing the projects they started, their justifications feel pretentious and hollow.
Generally speaking, people are willing to give a lot of leeway to someone who is at least making an effort. If students are talking in class, I'm likely to allow it if they are also productive. In terms of pure perception, I think Martin is failing to convey the sense that he is serious about finishing the series. Had he managed to convey better the struggles he's facing, or had he not spent the first 4 years of the show basically acting like a super-star, I genuinely think people would be less hard on him. When the show started, he mocked people who were concerned that he would not live to see the series completed. Now he's 70, will be at least 71 by the time Winds of Winter releases, and if Dream of Spring takes as long, will be approaching 80. Guess what Fat Man? All those people you mocked have damn good reasons to be concerned!
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In response to your earlier comment on not trusting stats, it reminds me a lot of why I don't trust documentaries anymore. I get that books can twist the truth just as much, but the problem with documentaries is that it's so easy to make people feel a certain way just by the audio/visuals alone. Much like the difference between "72% of Americans support X" vs. "Almost a third of Americans still don't support X", imagine two different takes on something like a Donald Trump rally. In one, the colour is saturated, the music is triumphant, and the camera pulls back to show the crowd. In the other the screen gets darker, the music gets more ominous, and the camera-work gets more claustrophobic. The 'content' (i.e. the speech) is technically the same, but the presentation is so different that the narrative becomes something new entirely. Further consider that most documentaries are trying to condense extremely complex situations into a span of <90 minutes (or at most, <120), and you've got an easy way to spin a narrative without ever altering the actual content.
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