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[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

What is NPC?

Non Player Character. Originally from Dungeons and Dragons, and commonly used in video games.

As in they're not a real person, ya know. And it's easy to fall into that kind of thinking. To just assume Bob the gas station attendant just exists to sell you gas and doesn't have a meaningful existence outside that role.

It's a mentally unbalanced worldview and although I struggle with it myself, at least I know it's nuts.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Thanks. One would think that one of the Redditors' problems that Saiditors would like to escape is the incessant comparison over there with games and cartoons. After the Digg invasion years ago (2010?), the majority of engagement on Reddit seemed to be at the age of 13. Everything was - and often still is - filtered through cultural infantilism. Shortly after 2010, /r/Politics was removed from /r/all, and one could see that as a sign of things to come - that the news aggregation site where one could discuss politics and world news would become a LULZ site (eg. what's now on /r/all). As for NPC, it makes no sense in a debate. Perhaps it's only meant to be an insult, an ad hominem, albeit unfounded for real-world discussions.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's far more serious than appearances. That's the kind of thinking of people like Stephen Craig Paddock have. I mean, the question is, how can you end so many people's lives casually, and the answer is he considered them NPCs.

It dehumanizes people.