Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

I agree 100% that we should boycott and sanction, however doubt there will be enough people who will, and enough people who care. And I don't blame most for not caring, there are more things to worry about than we have time available. Maybe 1% of hearthstone players will see your comment. Similarly, there are other entities which need to be sanctioned, which you and me won't find out about as it's outside of our areas of interest.

Which makes me believe we need some kind of trusted "morality authority", which would process information similar to this and make informed decisions who to boycott, how and when. Less informed would be able to make an impact without having to do research (which not everyone would do equally well)

Obviously this authority must operate with complete transparency, so that we could verify its decision process when required.

Any hostile actions against it must be treated as a crime against humanity?

Somehow it must be immune from corruption. Perhaps some mechanism to revoke user trust in case of wrongdoings.

I'm concerned as to how you would justify such an institution

How were Labor Unions justified? I'm not saying they don't have issues, but the idea is similar.

We could call it a Supreme Court

This sounds way too close to the Ministry of Love from 1984.

> Which makes me believe we need some kind of trusted "morality authority", which would process information similar to this and make informed decisions who to boycott

Just sounds like cancel culture to me. And it has horrible results.

This doesn't sound anything like a labor union

How about Consumer Union?

"I agree 100% that we should boycott and sanction, however doubt there will be enough people who will, and enough people who care. And I don't blame most for not caring, there are more things to worry about than we have time available."

Wait, what? A boycott is not doing something. It takes no time, you just choose to do something different, and let people know why you made the choice. I stopped playing Hearthstone, and let people know why. Cake, no time. Same for NBA, which I love, so I hope they'll pull their head out, but again, no time involved here.

Boycotting is the easiest form of protest. Don't be...lazy?

I never said I'm not boycotting. All I'm saying is not enough people will even know to boycott

No, boycotting something entails changing your lifestyle to avoid something. For hearthstone players, that means stop partaking in one of their hobbies.

You aren't boycotting something because you are quitting it, anyways.

Also, you're kinda doing the thing where you go "Ugh, it's so easy, c'mon people! I never even played Heartstone in my life. See? It's not that hard to quit over moral principals!"

>Which makes me believe we need some kind of trusted "morality authority", which would process information similar to this and make informed decisions who to boycott, how and when. Less informed would be able to make an impact without having to do research (which not everyone would do equally well)

Isn't that effectively the government's job in a democracy? They're elected (directly or indirectly) to enact the will of the people. Unless you have a different scheme in mind for constituting this "moral authority".

We need an equivalent to Godwin's law for making parallels to Orwell's 1984. It's thrown around so much in internet debates these days that it loses all meaning IMO.

Besides it doesn't even really work here, the Ministry of Love is about torture and spreading fear throughout the population. If anything what the parent proposes would be closer to the Ministry of Truth but even that is a stretch. I think the soviet Goskomizdat might be a better comparison.

Cancel culture is about _using_ censorship to limit free speech, which blizzard purposefully participated in on behalf of China, so we want to stop that limiting and encourage free speech, or at least not immediately ban someone for a year and 0 their prize money.

One fights for censorship, the other fights for freedom. I uninstalled hearthstone, which is the last activision blizzard product I used.

>Which makes me believe we need some kind of trusted "morality authority", which would process information similar to this and make informed decisions who to boycott, how and when. Less informed would be able to make an impact without having to do research (which not everyone would do equally well)

You do realize how hilarious that is juxtaposed to the Chinese government, which is literally a 'morality authority,' right?

I have over 500 hours in Hearthstone. I played it on Saturday. It was my main online game. I haven't played it since.

And yes, it's still an easy call. I was in Hong Kong for quite a bit when I was younger. It's a glorious place. Or was, I haven't been back. I don't approve of the Chinese government, nor the United States relationship with China. We've compromised our principals for economic gain (I'm American). Hong Kong should get to stay democratic if that's their choice.

Note I was specific about disapproval of the Chinese government. The Chinese people are an amazing group with a wonderful culture and I appreciate them immensely. But they are governed by communist goons.

And you're right, I'm not quitting Hearthstone. If they say something akin to what the NBA is saying now, I might consider playing again. For now, no.

edit: "say" for "stay" typo.

I'm glad to hear that. Speak up about your boycott. I have a cadre of friends who play Hearthstone, and they know why I stopped. Maybe I've now had .001% influence on them, and that'd be great.

meh, just play something else. Dota Underlords is better

I don't think it needs to be a moral authority, it can just be an index of well defined problems to lists of the top couple actors responsible for those problems.

Such an organization need not say that you should boycott anything (i.e. be a moral authority) but instead can say that IF you think that American companies participating in the Chinese censorship machine regarding Hong Kong is bad THEN boycotting companies X Y and Z would be effective. The morality comes from the users. In order to organize against a common nebulous baddie we need a mapping from nebulous baddies to actionable targets.

As much as I hate that everything needs to be a social network these days, this probably needs a social aspect--a place where you can post evidence that you cut the power to Company X's headquarters, or whatever, so you can check back occasionally and feel relevant when people attach metadata to your crime.

It would have to be careful to avoid being too specific to be liable for the actions of its users, while not being so vague that users can't use it to channel their frustration towards actions that actually do harm the entities identified. Alternatively, it could be specific as hell but hard to take down.

I guess what I'm proposing is something like Kickstarter, but for civil unrest.

Traditionally it was the established/predominant religion's job, not the government. It was hoped by many that religious institutions could act as a counterweight to the nobles, kings and politicians. Which is why the civil power structure tried (often successfully) to co-opt religion as well. Of course, religious institutions have their own issues in that it often becomes a parallel power structure on its own. Or go from reflecting cultural norms to shaping them.

The enlightenment and rise of humanism in the latter 1600's and 1700's attempted to shift this moral authority to "the people". And today, post-modernism attempts to put forth the notion that all morality is simply cultural context and relative. Which, while perhaps strictly true, is, IMO, pointless. Sort of like positing that we live in a simulation. Might be true, but so what? How does it matter?

Anyway, in today's world I don't think it's possible to have a widespread "trusted moral authority". Too many people seem to not realize the contradiction of saying on one hand that other cultures (and sub-cultures) should be respected while on the other hand decrying the utter horror of differing morals and ethics. Cultural differences are more than variations in language, cuisine, dress and music. Cultural differences are, at their roots, differing beliefs about what is right and wrong.

>Which makes me believe we need some kind of trusted "morality authority"

This seems to always be an invitation to corruption though. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and all that. So getting to "trusted" may be hard. In the US we have Brent Kavanaugh, and in China they have the CCP, and in some countries they have religious clerics... I can't think of an example where there is such a body that I would trust.

At least the whole Hearthstone subreddit is ablaze about it, that's more than 1%

Wait, did I miss something? Isn't the NBA doing the same thing as Blizzard?

Well, kinda, they're being all wishy-washy about it:

https://www.nba.com/article/2019/10/08/nba-china-relationshi...

Not enough in my opinion.

Not even close. The NBA did not ban a player in response to a comment, “Commissioner says league will continue to back Morey’s right to freedom of expression”. Activision / Blizzard on the other hand is actively suppressing speech.

Right, you cancelled Hearthstone from your life because you don't care for the actions of its creators. Not unlike, say, ceasing to watch a comedian because you don't like how they punch down, or ceasing to book rms for speaking engagements because he's too stressful to deal with.

Don't shy away from it; that's "cancel culture."

(Or, more accurately, "cancel culture" doesn't exist; it's just freedom of association in action ;) ).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szybEhqUmVI

"trusted" is a key word. Parent poster's main flaw was in oursourcing critical thinking and the principal-agent problem.

It was a really good move for the NBA, they handled it extremely well, did not spur a controversy, just let the situation be and let fans decide themselves how they want to react to it, while also upholding American values in the process, a very classy move.

> And today, post-modernism attempts to put forth the notion that all morality is simply cultural context and relative. Which, while perhaps strictly true, is, IMO, pointless.

Kind of self-contradictory: the statement "it's all relative" is itself an absolute statement.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativism#Criticisms

It should be the job of the government to follow and not lead here both from theie source of legitimacy and how abusable said position would be. Even if they follow there should fundamentally be constraints to protect the rights of the minority for otherwise it follows the "populist" demagog to mob rule to dictatorship progression.

A moral authority implies leadership - that others would trust and defer to for moral judgment.

> We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottles, we don't need any Molotov cocktails, we just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, God sent us by here, to say to you that you're not treating his children right. And we've come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda – fair treatment, where God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Brett I meant. Too late for edit.

Everyone loves a "moral authority" so long as it represents their morals.

What you describe is something that holds itself out as a moral authority.

I feel that American values would not be falling all over themselves to claim the NBA is an apolitical organization. Or at least the American values I was raised with.

To which authority must I justify this and why are the reasons discussed here not sufficient?

I chose an analogy that I felt would be reasonably familiar to most people and convey the reaction I wanted.

Is it the most appropriate of all possible analogies? No.

Is it contextually close enough? I thought so. A few people seem to agree.

If your contribution to the discussion is to critique the efficacy of my analogy, then I feel like you've missed the point a bit.

Generally agreed upon definitions with respect to political systems/philosophies are a challenge, but I would respectfully disagree with the idea that the government is intended to be a trusted moral authority in a democracy (or a republic).

At least with respect to the US notion of limited governmental powers I think the goal was to keep the government from acquiring to much authority never mind something as all encompassing as "moral authority".

HK protesters are doing exactly that. A list of yellow/blue (pro-democracy/pro-government) merchants and their locations on Google Maps: https://www.restart-hk.com/ShopList.html

If you click on a merchant on the Google Maps, it also shows you why that merchant is marked as such, with links to forum discussions/news about comments made by its owner. This map has 3.5mil views in less than 2 months of existence, in a city with 7.5mil population.

HK protesters are actively boycotting many pro-government merchants because such information is easy to find.