Three Pillars

So ... I was thinking. As per usual. Not me sitting there in a Philosophers pose, trying to formulate deep thoughts on any particular subject - but just ... playing Armored Core 6 and having a bit of a good time.

I actually bought the game some time ago. It was a bit of a filler. I had an urge to play something, was waiting for some other thing to come out. Might have been Akuma or Shadow of the Erdtree - and so I wasn't really intending to put any length of time into it. And from feeling like I'm doing something wrong, taking too much time with certain encounters, I've now come to pretty much first trying some of the bosses. Like that CEL thing.
And ... I don't actually mind playing through the thing again. It's ... super fun. But yea.

From Soft has been living somewhat rent-free in my mind lately. There are a few things that bother me - and ... from my like ... "actual" profession I know that a well adjusted machine is key to smooth sailing - and ... having the one or the other thing wrapped up in other thoughts ... that's like a recipe for things getting stuck somehow.


But ... often things are difficult to distinguish. I mean, something might seem just like another thing - but for some detail that we're either too slow or maladjusted to recognize at the time. And sometimes it might not be the thing itself that is the problem.
So, my issues kind of started after I was maybe simping a little too hard for "Mike Zaki" - which is ... a fun thing I've seen happening. I mean, people giving individuals of renown nicknames - either derogatory or not. It's like ... we eventually get sick of saying the same names over and over again - for the one or the other reason. And ... yea, people have been Memeing on "Saviour Miyazaki" for way too long now it seems - so, yea.
And I had to wonder how this affects the atmosphere at From Soft. Because ... he's like the dude in the Spotlight but ... there's more to it.

Like so, I've some time ago developped a curiosity for experiencing King's Field. And at some point I learned that there was a free version, a demo at least, out there - so I played it - and ... yea. Weird. But ... somewhat captivating.

And it's funny. Not the game, but the whole story.
I mean ... I was watching some videos on the matter - and there's a kind of stubbornness at play that I find admirable because I have that same stubbornness. Except ... for different things.
I mean ... while developing King's Field they ran into performance issues. One of the devs however had a vision; And rather than reducing the poly count on the enemies, they just went on to remove decoration and went for a really slow-paced game.
And ... yea. That would be the opposite to how I'm going. I want the gameplay to be what the gameplay has to be - and if Polys are in the way, they have to go. Basically. I guess.

Fun Fact: My pretend Logo back when I was coding Text-Adventures in QBasic was the inverse of the old From Soft Logo. I had space first and then a sun manifesting - and theirs was a sun manifesting and then some floaty space.

Anyway. There isn't really anywhere I'm going with this. But ... I guess I'm fascinated by From Soft's history.


Anyhow. There is a little bit of a point to this. During one of those videos I watched, I learned that one of the Mecha enemies was originally titled "Communist Mech" or something like that. And that got me wondering.

Like ... technically there's some kind of scale - we might say - to abstractly estimate how 'far' a nation or culture is when it comes to socialist thinking. And, I'm not sure how Japan measures up to 'our' socialist ideals. I mean, it's probably easy to take certain things for granted - without recognizing that most of the things we know have some ties into the thing we call culture. Even if we take Manga or Anime as cultural imports, they have a different cultural standing here compared to there.
Like so I know that their artists aren't uncommon to have a very strong anti-war attitude or message. Something that we over here might identify as socialist. Or progressive. Liberal. But ... on the other hand ... the end of World War 2 played out differently over then than it did here. I mean, while Germany was occupied by like 4 nations - those nations weren't occupied at all - and ... I'm not even sure what happened in Japan after they surrendered. But I'm sure it was different to what happened here. Also, what happened here is somehow connected to the presence of socialist thought. I mean, the NSDAP had to deal with a strong socialist/communist opposition before attaining power; And at least some of the resistance to Nazi germany in other countries had socialist roots or at least influences. But yea. Socialism - in that sense - also kind of started here. And before we get to Japan, there's like Russia (geologically) - and, I wouldn't know how that affected the spread of the idea. But, chances are that they have a totally different idea of what socialism is - or just different words for what "we call" socialism.
Like ... which version of it?


And yea, words do inevitably affect how we think of certain things.


And so I realized that it's not as simple as thinking of a "socialism progress bar". Maybe there's more to it - or I'm sure - but, or ... well. The avenue I stumbled down first took me to think about China. Like, they're ... "allegedly" as far down the socialism progress bar as possible - give or take - but it's not really the 'socialism' I'm thinking of. So, there would need be another progress bar - and ... that's the topic of today.


Like, I'd say that there are three pillars. We might all have different words for them - but to name them real quick my way: "Socialism", Democracy and ... well. To put it into a single word ... I suppose the closest term (that comes to my mind right now anyway) would be Patriotism. But I'm thinking more like ... "trust the system". Where, yea, System can mean a lot of things. Like ... the dark side of all this is Fascism.

Anyway. The three things have to be in balance. By socialism I mean that we have some system or general attitude of solidarity. Important word. And in as far as it's somewhat abstract, we can also think of it as common wealth to improve our living conditions, generally. Broadly.
To be ... social. Some might call it brotherhood ... where nationalism is like a hard bend towards excluding "others". And is one road to fascism.
Then there's democracy. That is, a general attitude of cooperation - and aspirations to decide what's best 'together'. Here the road to fascism is ... well ... totalitarianism. So or so. Because, in and of itself democracy is meant - or supposed to be liberal. Like, we learn from each other and grow together - into a future, the good stuff. But the majority could also just decide to be assholes, like to some out-group.
And finally there's Patriotism. And that's like where Fascism seems to concentrate its efforts. To hijack the idea of what "the nation" - or more so: "THE cultural togetherness" - is about, as to make it about being hateful and bigoted. But overall it's more like: We got what we got, we work on it, we improve upon it - because we want to be proud of it - and while we're not actively doing that - we yet sort-of have to trust it. Trust the past. Trust that we've done enough, all we can or whatever, in the past so that right now is in about as good as it gets. At least - that'd be like ... an ideal. It also involves all the other people; Some of which are more involved - some even chosen (elected) to make it their thing to be involved; And all this also extends into things like the sciences.

And yea, balance is important. And part of it is the right configuration of these pillars so that they can work together, harmoniously, to make the best possible of it.