I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about the morality of piracy. With the closure of the Nintendo 3DS eshop and the upcoming Hogwarts Legacy game, there seem to be no shortage of arguments in favor of it.
Neither of these are clear cut, of course; I understand why people like picthy little phrases making it seem like they are, but with all choices of this kind, morality is complicated. And that's okay! It's a good thing to examine what we do, why, and whether that aligns with our morals. Boiling everything down to a one sentence catchphrase robs us of the chance to do that.
Like, if your one sentence little phrase is "separate the art from the artist," even if you support trans rights, you might be able to easily justify playing Hogwarts Legacy when it comes out. You are, after all, not associating the game with JK Rowling's hateful and harmful views.
But it's obviously more complicated than that. Buying the game directly incentivizes other companies to work with her by inflating the profits of the game, giving her more money and a bigger platform. If you choose to stream that game - even if you give all your stream donations to a pro-trans charity - you're giving the game a bigger audience, giving it free advertising.
Looking at the eshop closure, I think it's easy to look at that situation and flatten it, too. After all, "piracy in service of archival is ethical." I don't even disagree with this statement on a fundamental level; I am pro-archival, pro-jailbreaking, anti-digital rights management that destroys pieces of culture simply it's not profitable to keep it around anymore.
But do YOU need to pirate something in order to keep it archived? Probably not. The entire 3DS eshop has already been dumped and stored in multiple places, including Archive.org. You could probably grab them and keep them backed up on a personal server just in case, but you would never need to play or even look at them.
I'm not saying you should do that. I think a vital part of archival is keeping the archived thing alive, and part of that is going to mean playing, sharing, and talkig about these games. We can't just let them rot in some dusty old server, content that they're "safe." Safe means nothing if we're not getting anything out of them.
But I'm gonna going to admit to a bit of a bias here; as true as I think all of that is, a lot of that also comes down to the idea that I like these games. A lot. And I want to be able to play them as long as I want. And it feels nice to have my desired confirmed by my morality.
This selfishness is important to acknowledge in ourselves. The person who wants to continue to engage in the wizard books that meant a lot to them is behaving according to their own wants, just like I am if I download a pack of 3DS cias to play. In this case, my true belief in the ethics of piracy of soon to be abandoned media aligns with my desire to have all the 3DS Style Savvy games backed up, just in case. It's nice when that happens.
It's important to check, because sometimes they won't. And I'm not interested in making excuses for myself simply because I've convinced of my own absolute morality, that my choices are always alturistic and ethical, that I would never let my own desires cloud my motivations.
Thanks for letting me moralize for a bit. Hope the recent time change hasn't fucked you up too much. Stay safe.
Kat
I've been struggling with focus and motivation lately. I have a bunch of ideas for projects bouncing around in my head, but I think I'm in the valley of a depression right now, and so even when I find something I want to do, it becomes a struggle.
I didn't want to make this too much of a vent space, so hopefully this won't come off as complaining - it's more of an observation? I have depression. What makes it hard for me sometimes is that I tend to forget; I have a few days where things are just, like, really bad, and I berate myself and feel guilty about it for a while before I realize what's even happening. I'm working on noticing it and being kinder to myself when it happens, but I guess I still have a lot to learn, because this one totally blindsided me.
All of this means that I work a little on the site and then I feel bad because I can't focus or because the end result is wonky or because it doesn't look as good as other people's really cool sites or because I feel like I should keep to a cohesive theme, which I don't actually want to do, but feel beholden to anyway. Same with all my other projects; I do about 30 minutes of real work or research, and then I lose all steam.
I made myself work on the site today because it doubles as work on an upcoming video. I was able to capture B-roll I can use in the background, and I want my site to feature in the new video, so I want to get it to a state where I don't feel too bad about it if a bunch of people see it. This means I was able to at least start the credits page I've been thinking about for ages. But a bunch of sources are spread out across all my devices, so it's gonna take some time to get them all together.
I want to start using this space to write down dream stuff too, maybe; or maybe make a separate dream journal? I'm not sure. The idea of having a space just for dreams is such a cool idea, but it's also way down the list of things I want to get done. Maybe I'll post any interesting dreams I have here in the meantime.
I guess that's all! I've been super soft and sad lately. Hopefully my next post is a little brighter!
until next time,
Kat
actually depressed ::: vibes: there's an owl hooting outside ::: dinner: ordering a depression pizza!
Finally put together this blog space. I'm not sure how I'm going to use it exactly? I used to write a lot of vague shit on Livejournal and the like to process stuff that was going on in my life, but I've been using a private journal for years now, and honestly that seems like the best way?
But at the same time, I remember how much I enjoyed reading about people's lives back when I first discovered blogging, back in my Diaryland days. I remember how it was the first time I ever really encountered queer people in a space where we could be equal, how it was the first way I ever encountered a trans person, the way it broaddened by horizons by helping me hear voices of other people.
Nowadays, I think we hear from people all the time. Social media has made it kind of hard to escape people, actually. They're so loud, and they're everywhere, and we're encouraged, not to hear, but to talk back. Our opinions are always in opposition to someone else's. Our thoughts are always created for engagement. Maybe that ubiquity is one of the attractions of the old web: it's smaller. More intimate.
Maybe by putting my own voice out there, I'm just adding to the noise. But my hope is that giving myself a space where I can talk to people who really want to hear me - who choose to hear me, rather than get served up my opinions on a plate by an algorithm - I'm actually creating a more quiet space. A thoughtful space.
My thought is that I'm going to add stuff I think is fun. Links and graphics and gifs that I find that don't fit anywhere else. This will be a collection of random original thoughts and writings, but maybe also a place to put stuff. A scrapbook.
Like all things on this site, if you see something you like, I encourage you to take it and replicate it if you wish! I link back to my sources when I can - when I have them - so I'd appreciate it if you did so too. And of course, if you are inspired to make your own quiet blog space, I'd love to hear from you and read it.
for now,
Kat
dead tired ::: current music: lofi hip hop radio ::: thinking about: having cereal for dinner? maybe?
This is the first post! If you're here, it means you have reached the end of the blog!
Sorry about that, but I promise to post more soon.
later!
Kat