Just to make a note, I don't generally look at this forum, so writing publicly here wasn't exactly the best way to reach out to me. I'm surprised I even found it.
Does "Difficulty level: Insane" really mean it would be difficult to deal with psychical ill people? I think it rather means that one must be insane to do that level?
Just like how "hard" difficulty means that you must be hard to do that level?
Even if that interpretation is correct, it's rooted in sanist ideas of what mentally ill people are like. I know someone who's mentally ill and absolutely hates playing difficult games because they also happen to have some kind of physical motor control issues; the new "Super Easy" difficulty in Project: Starfighter was perfect for them as a result.
Is calling villains "insane" really bad?
Yes, because the implication that mentally ill people are evil is violently sanist.
I mean people trying to rule the world are indeed insane, aren't they?
No, neurotypical people who have power (i.e. wealth) rule the world. Mentally ill people are crushed by the very institutions that run society, up to and including taking away their basic human rights.
Isn't the equation Insane = psychical ill wrong?
No, because "mentally ill" is the original and still most prominent definition of "insane". Even if a different definition is used, what the use says about mentally ill people (again, the original demographic the term describes) is important.
Rather like how the T-slur used against transgender people... refers to transgender people. Just because some transgender people self-identify with it, or just because cis people
think they're not being offensive by using it, doesn't mean it's okay, and you can't divorce it from its target.
Can I suggest games to be added to the list?
diligentcircle@riseup.net is my email address.
I'm mentally ill myself, have spent many months in psychiatric hospital, I don't think this is socially harmful. Please stop this insanity!
Right, and there are transgender people who refer to themselves with the T-slur and use themselves as a token to say that transmisia is ok. You being mentally ill doesn't give you the right to rule that putting down all mentally ill people (not just yourself) with sanist language is okay.
I'm now finding it interesting to compare this strong emphasis on the usage of correct speech with another @Onpon4's articles: Actions Speak Louder than Words. I'm not saying the articles are directly contradicting themselves, just pointing out a potential bias, in a friendly way, of course.
It's not contradictory at all, because I believe it is important for media to be especially careful with the language it uses. I apply the same standard to games that I develop now.
If you look at the Rejected Games List, you'll note that I decided that referencing the card game "Crazy Eights" was ok
despite the fact that the name of said card game (which replaced its original name, "Eights") is violently sanist in origin (referring to veterans who experienced mental illnesses like PTSD), and the reason I gave is because very very few people know that etymology and without knowing that etymology, it's impossible to derive that meaning on one's own as it's specific to a former culture.
But how would you classify a dictator who starts war and wants to rule the world?
I would call them imperialist, because that's what they are. I would also call them a militaristic dictator. Neither of these things have anything to do with their personality.
I imagine the term "insane" but what would be a better term? "Evil"? But that ignores the fact that world domination is impossible. Perhaps "Illusionary"?
The term you're looking for is "delusional", but I don't believe that empires or militaristic dictatorships are driven by delusion. They're driven by ambition.
As to the second one about evil villains trying to rule the world, I guess yeah, they are insane, especially when they think they have actually succeeded.
List of villains who succeeded in taking over the world or galaxy or whatever is relevant:
* WEAPCO (Project: Starfighter)
* The Ur-Quan (Star Control I/II)
* The Empire (Naev)
* The Empire (Star Wars)
* Freeza (Dragon Ball)
* Bowser (Mario)
* Mongolia (real life)
* Britain (real life)
* United States (real life)
You may scoff at the last few, but what entails "taking over the world" is very situational. When the Mongol Empire rose up, it essentially controlled the entire known world at the time. When the British Empire rose up, it essentially controlled the whole world. Now, the United States essentially controls the whole world. So imperialist ambitions are not delusional; they have succeeded in real life multiple times. And even if you take it to its most absurd literalist version, even that has happened in various fictional works.
So no, you can't class any villain who wants to take over the world as delusional or "insane", as you call it. But in cases where the person with such ambitions is portrayed as mentally ill (as in the case of Dr. Ironstein in Flight of the Amazon Queen), that's indicative of violent sanism in the work.
Since this is referring to the fact that I explained that Freedroid RPG is violently sanist, let's take a look at that work.
What happens is that a bug causes robots around the world to go
haywire. They stop functioning as they are supposed to and as a result, they start attacking people. They never had any ambitions, but they never were "insane" either, because they're machines, not people. So when the game refers to them as "insane", it implies that a robot going haywire and killing people out of nowhere is similar to mental illness, which feeds into the sanist stereotype of an "insane person" going out and killing people for no reason.
Mentally ill people are not haywire robots. They are people whose thought processes cause them some level of harm. They include people with depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, BPD, bipolar disorder, and many many other variations. No described mental illness causes people to go out and just randomly kill people. But many people genuinely believe that they do. How many times have you heard of the idea that there are people who go out and kill people because they're mentally ill "psychopaths", primarily an attack on people with antisocial personality disorder? What about the portrayal of a "crazy" person who thinks everyone is an alien or something and kills them, primarily an attack on people with paranoid schizophrenia? These sanist portrayals have no basis in reality, yet they are rampant. Describing haywire robots that attack people as having "gone insane" is an example of this.