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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   28724 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023

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I am assuming you are not asking what I think others mean when they use the term NPC but rather what kind of person I think would be somewhat fairly described by it. You asked for an off-the-cuff definition rather than an exercise in conceptual analysis, so here goes:

Being an NPC describes a particular mode of relating to hot-button cultural or political issues. An NPC is someone that does not only go with the flow of popular opinion but feels the need to uncritically regurgitate it, almost as a social reflex. NPCs do not think about the principles behind their opinions, they simply download the newest set of socially approved talking points from twitter or acquire them through social osmosis. Notably, this leads to a lot of internal contradictions in their thinking that they do not seem to care about at all. NPCs hold their opinions to gain social approval or to signal their membership in the tribe of good people, not because they arrived at them via critical examination.

This makes it extremely frustrating to talk to them because they will not respond to reasoning. And if they temporarily do, they will have reverted to their original position the next time you talk to them. This is because you, the autistic rationalist, and him, the NPC, speak two different languages. It is a bit like someone saying "What a beautiful day today" to cheer people up and signal their good spirits and you start with "ackshually, we are below the historical mean for sun hours this season". He will get mad because you entirely missed his point. It's not about the weather, it's about making nice and being a good person (TM). The tragedy is that he has to pretend (and sometimes believe) that he's really making a point about the weather.

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