this post was submitted on 27 May 2024
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Why People Don’t Catch The Politics In Their Favorite Games (aftermath.site)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 37 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

It's actually very possible to miss the message of Bioshock. Andrew Ryan built the perfect city and Atlas ruined it. Andrew Ryan cast him out, but Atlas brought the player character as his final ultimate weapon. You eventually rebel, saving the capitalist Utopia.

I have seen people who abided by this interpretation. Any art with any level of subtlety can be misinterpreted. It's inherently subjective and depends on the viewer's personal biases.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Capitalist utopia? Isn't the whole point that it's a Libertarian utopia?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Are you unfamiliar with capitalism as a theory? Or Ayn Rand? Yes, capitalist utopia. That's the entire libertarian ethos. Libertarianism is a political framework for governance, pure capitalism is its economic policy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Don't get me wrong, the only Libertarianism I've ever known is intertwined with Capitalism. But they aren't the same thing, and I always read BioShock as being a take on Libertarianism specifically.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Bioshock is most specifically about Randian objectivism, which promotes a version of extreme laissez-faire capitalism, not libertarianism in general.

And I think that’s the most economic philosophy buzzwords I’ve put in a sentence before.