• chobeat@lemmy.mlOP
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    6 months ago

    depicted as non-sentient animals

    Have you ever read accounts of debates on the topic of native americans actually having a soul or not? Because on that ground a lot of brutalities were committed, until the church actually decided that they actually had a soul. The criticism of intellectual faculties of the colonized and their reduction to animals is an integral part of several colonial processes.

    • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
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      6 months ago

      Have you ever read accounts of debates on the topic of native americans actually having a soul or not?

      I did read those. However I honestly do not think that Factorio associates biters (and spitters) with Amerindians, or any other group of people. Biters are clearly represented as insects, at most crustaceans; including colourful haemolymph, nests, and physical castes.

      So for me the association sounds extremely assumptive; sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. At least for Factorio; I do not know how much this applies to the genre as a whole.

      Instead, if there is any sort of discourse being conveyed by the player fighting biters there (be it glorifying it or criticising it), it’s ecological in nature, not social. Ockham’s Razor hints however that it’s simply “players need some challenge, people are disgusted by insects, let’s put big arse insects there, done”.