LogFAQs > #923629065

Judgmenl posted...

This whole concept of privilege makes zero sense to me.

The way I usually explain it is that if life was a video game, privilege is the difficulty setting and "straight white male" is the lowest setting.

In this particular game, you get a single character file that is auto-generated for you that you don't get to reroll. All of your base stats - strength, charisma, intelligence, fortitude, and a hundred others - all get randomly determined. But not only that, the number of points that go into your stat pool is ALSO random. So you might be lucky and get 10,000 points with a great distribution, or you might have shit luck and get 2000 points with int and cha being your dump stats.

You'll also be assigned 1-2 "parent" NPCs who are responsible for guiding you through the tutorial levels until you're ~Level 18. Unfortunately, their stats - including "wealth", which has disproportionate importance in this game - are also random, so you'd best hope they're good at their job.

So what does the difficulty setting do? Simple - it makes certain quests easier or tweaks their rewards, and improves the default disposition of certain NPCs towards you. On the higher difficulty settings, some NPCs become straight-up hostiles that will attack on sight.

That's it. Some people think the difficulty setting will automatically grant them great stats or complete certain missions for them, but that's not the case. It's also why people get confused when they play on the lower difficulty settings and their life is shit, while they see some other people on the higher difficulty settings doing well. Maybe you just got a bad stat layout or your starting wealth roll was poor. Maybe those other people got a better stat distribution or more stat points to invest or spawned in a better starting area. Maybe those people are just better at playing the game than you are.

You can play a game on the lowest difficulty setting and still lose. You can play a game on the highest difficulty setting and still win. That doesn't mean difficulty doesn't exist, it just shows that it's not the sole determinant of your success or failure in the great game of life.
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!