#and would even unconsciously validate it because of assumptions of incompetence or assumptions of good faith

[cdroloisms]

I personally believe that cWilbur was extremely jealous of what cDream had in the beginning. He was a well respected leader, a strategist and peacekeeper and despite the fact that the SMP had no government or ruler he was looked to as the defacto leader.

And c!Wilbur wanted that.

I mean, when he does L'manburg, he's literally not had a single conversation with c!Dream. He doesn't really know him at all. His original target was Sapnap, and he pivots to c!Dream both because c!Dream seems to be the guy on top and because after a single conversation with c!Dream I mean, it becomes pretty glaringly obvious that c!Dream is the one that's uh, easiest to work with (one minute in and he's already speaking on Wilbur's terms.) The revolution kind of solidifies c!Dream both as the one that should be his target from a leadership level + from a "will play along the easiest" level, which is kind of where we start seeing a specific focus on c!Dream from c!Wilbur (lizard snake thing, suck it green boy, calling Dream lord instead of Eret, etc.)

But I mean. Like, he doesn't really know c!Dream well enough to be jealous at first. And Dream isn't really his first target, either. c!Wilbur's whole deal with Being The Guy On Top isn't really about any specific person or jealousy, either, as exhibited by his towering to stand over literally anyone and everyone. Like look c!Wilbur literally just has control issues😭and the repetition of stuff like iconoclast and sticking it to the man and how he makes a point of wrangling control for himself or taking it more obviously like. This is not a man that likes to feel like he's under anyone or being controlled by anyone or being told what to do by anyone

[unproduciblesmackdown]

You're so right about the Will Roland fanart problems. It seems like back when Will Roland was only known for Jared people were way more proWill because he could be their funny meme boi who ate bathbombs but now that he's a lead with all these emotional songs it's like God forbid he's not their "twink bby". Idk it annoys me so much especially when people draw the rest of the Broadway cast and still use WillC or do an animatic with WillRs voice and WillCs character ugh like. Accept the Roland pls

lmao we are all just out here grabbing the mic like “attention all bastards: Look, just because will roland isn’t your ideal fancast for most adorable twink of the year - “

really like, i have never come across any signs of there having been any pattern in the deh fandom of ~taking issue~ with will’s Abilities to sing or play the part of a struggling teen or whatever like what crops up re: him being the lead in bmc.....it also is unsurprising yet disappointing that like, jared and alana are so easily completely ignored, but when they Are acknowledged it’s super flattened interpretations like, either they’re both hypocritical jerks (just based on evan’s gfy accusations basically lol) or if they’re actually viewed in a positive way it’s just like, alana is your friendly local Model Student and jared is memes and neither of them are in the way! :3

you litrally cannot ignore jeremy the Whole Entire Main Character tho and also like. can’t ignore the fact that caring about jeremy as a Romantique Lead is ahhh important to many ppl in the fanbase? so him being regarded as ~less cute~ is more of an Issue b/c the character must be taken seriously and is the sympathetic hero and has a lot more solo material / more of Any material / more focus than jared does in deh.........you Have To Look At Him and care about his actual feelings and not just misinterpret the character as “has no serious emotions b/c he doesn’t say serious things in a serious tone” the way ppl misinterpret jared. there’s the assumption that someone who is good / sympathetic should also be attractive / cute / Personally Appealing To Look At and that wasn’t as much a conflict when ppl didn’t think it was important to sympathize / care about / pay attention to jared too much, and the “conflict” of caring abt jeremy’s capacity for a romantic relationship but that’s less important if he’s not as Cute also not being as much an issue when most people don’t care about jared’s romantic feelings or think that they exist despite jared being in love with evan But Anyways

like it is wild the things people will just make up to “justify” their Dislike for will, which has only manifested as apparent Issues thanks to him playing jeremy rather than jared........there’s the classic “mm idk i don’t think he can sing that well” approach which like. some people are just trying to say they do not like the inherent descriptive qualities of his voice, which is more nasal obviously and don’t anyone come in here with the “Actually the Technical definition of Nasal re Vocals is” b/c we know what i mean, alright? nasal voices are not considered ~serious~ and there’s the kneejerk dumb-annoying-loser-nerd association. god knows that jeremy heere canNot have characteristics that could be automatically judged as irritating and unappealing. then there’s the notion that He doesn’t have the (vocal) range!! which like. do you honestly think they would cast someone who doesn’t have the correct range. you’re aware that will roland was being considered for the part of jeremy in the two river run up to the last round of callbacks. you know that the song that was literally written expressly to suit will roland’s individual voice and singing abilities makes use of his falsetto which people go “omg he can’t hit those high notes” except sometimes when they misattribute his falsetto to other singers they suddenly find it worth complimenting. and then you get people who like, want to subscribe to this softened version of it and get all backhanded like “oh i think will’s vocals are improving whew that’s good” in any random video and always Only single him out apparently like. did you think he gets worse with experience? you don’t wanna talk about any of these other professional singers improving or worsening or anything? only wanna give ur assessment of william’s huh

honestly i for real haven’t seen the 1.0 version b/c i’m here via will roland in the first place & i’ve never gotten the impression that there’s some Essential Content i’m missing out on by having only seen 2.0........but between a) people complaining that will r’s jeremy is Too Frustrated He Shouldn’t Be That Angry It Makes Him Less Sympathetic and b) saying just as a point of comparison betwixt the depictions that will r’s jeremy is more frustrated and c) i haven’t read That much bmc fic but people sure talk about jeremy being like five seconds away from bursting into tears at any given moment which like, okay yeah aren’t we all, but also i presume this stems from will c’s apparently Sadder portrayal of jeremy. i almost forgot where i was going with this one but i think it’s just that yeah people truly take issue with will r’s jeremy being more frustrated and it’s like you realize there’s no Right or Wrong portrayal / interpretation even if you prefer one for whatever reasons......theatre just is Like that.......you have a slightly different portrayal during ever performance even from the same actors, and you’ll often have different actors playing the role........yeah people usually are attached to the first performance they see / have that as their Standard and that’s fine, it’s just like, you don’t have to decide that’s an Objective view and that you have Objective issues with everyone else’s take. 1.0 is still there for you

uhhhh oh yeah and the whole Clout idea lmao......people really putting themselves out there shaking their heads at the supposed fact that will was cast for the off bway run to Boost Popularity b/c he was part of the deh obc......besides the whole thing that it’s hardly likely that would’ve been considered necessary anyhow, there’s the little thing that a) again, will roland had already been very seriously considered for the part even before will connolly was decided on for the original run and b) like.....these people had been collaborating for eons and you really think will roland only popped into their minds thanks to being in deh....and c) joe iconis has repeatedly said they specifically did Not want to cast people based on who was Known enough and whose names would be good for marketing and d) maybe anyone has noticed that the marketing never involved any mention of anyone in the cast? no? cool. and yet people like so truly think they’re Wise to ~real reason~ that they’d go and cast will roland as the lead. like people are making shit up and really just thinking it’s true b/c they Want it to be true b/c they Want to be validated in having actual contempt for will’s casting despite the “issue” being that he doesn’t seem as Likeable (worthy of sympathy...cough...) thanks to his deemed-unattractive looks and sweetly-adenoidal voice and more-frustrated portrayal all seeming less cute or whatever

and i mean i haven’t seen it crop up of late but the one particular Grasping At Straws ~justification~ for will being unworthy of the part thanks to perceived acting/singing incompetence which is soooo wild is when people are like “ough i Hate when he just holds his arms out when he sings” like fmslkdj if anything that’s just an individual quirk and the fact that it was something you noticed means you just latched on to it as potential fodder for “the fact i registered this information abt someone whose existence i Resent means it distracted me which means i hate it and it’s bad”...like another thing he does with his hands while singing is when he makes the loose claws and kind of half crosses his arms in front of his chest! where are the complaints about that?? nowhere, b/c people have not really processed it as a particular thing, so they can’t deem it a Particular Thing To Criticize. people sometimes Notice that his jared talks with his hands a lot, which will says is an acting choice that came from an unconscious tendency, but people really only bring it up to juxtapose will’s jared’s dramatic tendencies and nervous habits with sky’s jared’s more outwardly still and smoothed-over behavior. aka they don’t Complain about it or deem it a weakness / bad thing. and yet people caring about bmc are really jumping on that chance to be like oh ugh there he goes again, having a characteristic i associate with him as an individual, disgusting, can’t believe will connolly was murdered for this..

it’s a bit clearer too with bmc moreso than deh that people aren’t super willing to accept how will roland Looks b/c like, thanks to will connolly’s jeremy having the long hair thing you can Tell The Difference In Which Actor Is Represented when ppl draw the character even if the rest of the features are kind of “generic” (and how even the costuming isn’t a dead giveaway since ppl will draw connolly jeremy in 2.0/3.0′s outfits) and it even serves to specify the actor in writing format too if they mention the hair lol........and honestly?? this fact is one of the most damning things lol in that people the reason so many ppl continue to produce connolly-based jeremys is Not because for whatever reason they can’t / it’s too difficult to draw a will roland lookin jeremy......like a lot of the time The trait which serves to distinguish between the two is the hair thing. people are adopting jeremy’s new costuming and stuff but choosing to make sure we know that jeremy does not Look like will roland and the clearest indicator of this is the longer hair thing......which also means that for many people the main effort they’d need to exert to make it clear they’re drawing wrol jeremy would just be to....shorten the hair. And Yet!!!! it is apparently beyond people to do this

like uh nice on making a lgw animatic but really.........really we’re gonna take the song that is specifically from the 2.0 / 3.0 runs, so it’s obvious we’re Accepting that non-1.0 content, okay......and we’re Accepting will roland’s vocals, which, a person’s voice is a physical trait of theirs too, same as The Existence Of Their Body........and yet jeremy Cannot Look Like How Will Roland Looks, that’s too far, can’t do that. we can take material from the specific versions the actor was cast in, that material being a song written specifically for this individual actor’s voice, in the form of this actor’s actual vocals......but can’t have the depicted image of jeremy be based on this actor’s appearance..............of all the......

really all that it is is that more people find will connolly more attractive than will roland and this makes them feel like will roland Is Worse and then the people who just run with that either just embrace that and are crashing around on public forums saying Lol i hate him cuz he’s ugly lmao....and then you have people who don’t wanna do that but don’t wanna actually examine why they ~take issue~ with will being cast and so they’ve gotta leap on any Other things about him that feel more acceptable / Objective like oh the portrayal is “Wrong” (that’s not how this works) or he can’t sing well enough (yeah he can) or high enough (yeah he can) or he was stunt cast (no he wasn’t) or they wanna label every characteristic / trait they can think up that Isn’t his physical appearance as Annoying And Bad like. maybe stop and ask why you find it SO pressing that this other actor has the part and it Must be objectively inferior if not ruinous for reasons you gotta invent about him being incompetent cuz it’s better to make stuff up about how a professional actor isn’t good enough for a part than to say you don’t think he’s cute enough and are bothered by that

it didn’t matter as much to people when they viewed his character as either Just A Joke or Just A Jerk or flat-out disposable material. being attractive is for serious sympathetic beloved characters, natch

unfortunately jeremy can’t be written off as The Unimportant Meme Friend With No Real Feelings so now there’s a whole problem if an actor is not as cute

like b/c of the way he looks ppl can accept that a character played by will roland can be funny or can be rude or can really not be too important to take seriously / consider complex or sympathetic or likeable beyond being a walking Running Joke, but when it comes to a sympathetic main character whose emotional state is so important it’s practically assigned a character and who’s a romantic lead? now people have a problem with him looking the way will roland does

[thinkgloriathink]

Should we blame people for their shortcomings, moral slips, and misjudgments, or should we attribute them to bad design?

(note from the future 3/1/17: My goodness-- I just found out today that this very topic I tried to explore in this post has been discussed and debated amongst intellectuals for like... ages. Lots of economists/sociologists/etc. seem to really like exploring this dichotomy between a more “constrained” vs. a more “unconstrained” vision of society. Wanna read more about all of this stuff? Read “A Conflict of Visions” by Thomas Sowell. On my reading list. Yes. Awwwww yea...)

So I've been reading a lot over winter break, and I was half way through the book "The Design of Everyday Things" by Don Norman, when I sort of started thinking about a big central question:

Should we blame people for their shortcomings, moral slips, and misjudgment, or should we attribute it to bad design?

We can't practically change human nature on the large scale— we can’t force or expect people to be highly competent, even-tempered, and morally infallible. Don Norman argues that we could adapt the policies and systems we build to be designed for fault-prone humans. When things go wrong, we should try to get ourselves used to saying that it’s not bad people, but bad design.

His idea is reassuring to us because he reminds us that the blunders and struggles we have with some everyday machines are more likely a result of poor design, rather than a reflection of our incompetence. Take this all too common situation: you’re in a hotel room, go to the shower, and you realize that you have no idea how to operate it. It’s got four knobs, no instructions, and you’re basically left to guess which one controls the heat and which one controls the water flow. You stand there, scratching your head for five minutes or scalding yourself by accident, feeling embarrassed because your half-million dollar investment in an elite education did nothing at all to help you figure out something as “simple” as a shower. Nah man, it’s the shower’s fault. Bad design.

Norman claims that the best sort of design is something that has the right restrictions, guard-rails, and simplifications— basically, HUMAN centered design. As you could probably tell by now, he takes a very practical approach to his design philosophy, and doesn’t really buy into the whole “they should know better” kind of bullshit.

A washing machine with fifty different switches and controls might be able to give you wickedly clean delicates at customizable temperatures and spinning speeds, but it’s not doing its job right if all this makes people skip straight to the default settings every time. He’s making the argument that, more often than not, it’s not always the sole quality of the result that measures a machine’s greatness, but a balance between the overall user experience it provides and that result.

It wasn’t hard for me to absorb and agree with a lot of what he was saying in his book. If you were to boil down his arguments and first principle assumptions about people, you’ll get that he lays down his groundwork by saying that humans are fundamentally prone to making errors, and therefore the oversights and mistakes they make sometimes while using technologies should be blamed more on bad design than bad people.

Why did the plane crash? Because the wing didn’t rotate like it should. Why? Because the pilot lost control of the wing. Why? Because the pilot was unconscious. Why? Because there was a gas tank leak in the back of the plane. Why? Because there was a faulty knob made of cheap metal that split open and broke. THAT is something that can be fixed and can save lives in the future.

SO Don Norman argues that people are meant to mess up, and we need proper design to accommodate for that.

This subtle shifting of blame from individuals to overall system design got me thinking about things like morality and policy. Does this viewpoint also apply to moral infractions?

Have you heard of the quote: “Don’t hate the player, hate the game”? It’s sort of like that.

Why is this important or relevant? Because I think the way people answer this question might be telling of the kinds of policies they might support or even perhaps shine light upon political views.

In The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt, Haidt constructs two hypothetical “ideal societies” based upon the contrasting ideas of John Stuart Mill and Emile Durkheim. They both have two very different starting assumptions about people. Millian assumes people are generally good and should be allowed to maximize their free will. Durkheimian assumes people will tend to misbehave if they aren’t bound by social mores and duty. A Durkheimian world is one that values duty and social contracts, self-control over self-expression, and duty over rights.

You could interpret that like this: A Millian society puts more emphasis on the individual and less on the “design”, while a Durkheimian (and Norman-like) society is all about less individual and more focus on “design.”

In many ways, assuming that people are inherently good, and acting upon that assumption produces a lot of promising perks. Assuming the best about people is what grants us a lot of our luxuries, freedoms, and niceties. This gives you a lot of win-win situations.

We’ll be able to step away from our desk at the library for two minutes to get a coffee without having to chain all of our stuff down with lock and key

If we assume that people are good, and won’t all steal from each other at any open opportunity, and we’re able to enjoy having free toilet paper and soap in our public restrooms (for example). This kind of system benefits everybody, as long as people agree to practice moderation and look down upon those who overuse/abuse the free luxury.

Here is where assuming the best about people goes bad, and where disagreements might occur:

The school system in Rhode Island is sort of messed up: School districts fire teachers in June and rehire them in September so that they can collect unemployment benefits. Unfair, isn’t it? You’re talking entire districts and thousands of people that are entangled in this whole mess of nastiness. Does this mean all the teachers and the people in the board of education are depraved people for benefiting from this loophole? That’s a stretch. It’s a difficult process to stop, as doing “the right thing” means taking away a significant source of income these people may have been depending on.

Take a good look at the folks who frequent all-you-can-eat buffets, and you’ll notice that some people do some really morally questionable things: they starve themselves for two days in preparation before going in, load up their plates with the priciest food items in the buffet line, and gorge themselves so they could get the most bang out of their buck. What they are doing is technically legal, and the “design” of all-you-can-eat buffets permits this behavior. So if this behavior is done so rampantly that these restaurants eventually go bankrupt, what would you say is the problem? Bad people, or bad design?

So I want to tie this back to Don Norman and design. Do you agree with him about assuming the worst about people? And do you think his argument about people’s unavoidable tendencies to mess up have external validity in other things beyond design too?