So what you're also saying is that it isn't essential for people to have gaming hobbies outside their homes in the context of a global pandemic?
What I'm saying is that any business or service that features in-person activities is a potential vector for transmission of a highly contagious virus and needs to be assessed as such. A business or service that has been deemed essential has been so because officials have calculated as an acceptable risk. Acceptable risks for things that provide the basics for life (groceries, pharmacies, etc) make sense to me because we need to be able to provide the basics for life to people.
So what I'm saying is that I understand how hobbies can positively influence one's mental health (one of the programs my staff run is based on it, in fact) and I understand why small businesses are important for many people's livelihoods, and I do not believe either truth qualifies gaming stores as essential services the way I understand the term in the context we're in. For a business to be essential, it should be providing the basic needs for survival and/or provide harm reduction.
This kinda reminds me of the argument about why people shouldn't treat YouTube as their primary source of income when they should've gotten a real job elsewhere. People are always going to try to pursue something they enjoy that allows them to escape from real world problems however we're in a situation right now where they can't hide from the drama any longer.
I appreciate that, we all need that break from a very grim reality, I just don't see how that desire for escape is essential. At least insofar as the businesses that enable that escape would be considered essential. People can find the escape they seek without putting the population at increased risk, bottom line.
This kinda reminds me of the argument about why people shouldn't treat YouTube as their primary source of income when they should've gotten a real job elsewhere. People are always going to try to pursue something they enjoy that allows them to escape from real world problems however we're in a situation right now where they can't hide from the drama any longer.
I appreciate that, we all need that break from a very grim reality, I just don't see how that desire for escape is essential. At least insofar as the businesses that enable that escape would be considered essential. People can find the escape they seek without putting the population at increased risk, bottom line.
Absolutely. I mean, people can just find other means of escape or whatever it is they get out of card games from other places where you don't incur the same risk. But the whole population can't rely on, say, delivery services for food. You need in-person shops to support that need without running into huge logistical problems.
So he admits that the game is still largely played offline, often at an LGS, but how are players going to do that in the next many months (potentially year or more)? In person play is not happening at LGSes, if they're even open, and I highly doubt the average playgroup is getting together for game night. Is MaRo expecting a dramatic spike of people playing paper Magic via Zoom?
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the company is at least signalling a continued commitment to paper Magic, I just don't see it as anything other than a platitude given that in person play is largely impossible right now and LGSes are going to start dying soon, if they haven't already.
That's because LGSs are treated as non-essential businesses by the government and health officials when they don't understand that EVERY business is essential. They're the ones who are deciding on which businesses survive and which ones go out of business without the consent of the customer who should have the final say on the matter. The customer is the one who is keeping certain businesses alive so why should the government and health officials be the ones to decide for them? That's basically someone telling you how to spend your own money when customers should have a choice of who they want to support.
HAHAHA WHAT
You can't support a business when YOU'RE ******* DEAD YOU PLEB
If that business doesn't have much of an online presence then it's already dead to begin with even If you're still alive to support that business. Look I'm not a millionaire like MtgLion on YouTube where he can easily drop $25,000 on Local Game Stores to ensure that these small businesses survive the pandemic. MTG Players' disposable income tends to vary based on what jobs they have though for people like me who work paycheck to paycheck with $200+ additional Hazard Pay every two weeks I'm only able to do what I can right now.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
How utterly baffling. Card games are not essential. End of discussion. Entertainment stores in general aren't essential. While entertainment broadly I would argue is, there are other avenues.
As for the interview, honestly not like more can be expected. Just is what it is.
By whose definition? Don't fall for what is being sold to the public right now. Who gets to make these decisions and WHY?
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
By whose definition? Don't fall for what is being sold to the public right now. Who gets to make these decisions and WHY?
1) By what reasonable definition do gaming stores qualify as essential during a global pandemic?
2) Who? Governments under the guidance of medical experts.
3) Why? Because that's what they're there for. Unless your WHY was meant as "Why are some things deemed essential and other things not?", in which case, because every business/service carries a risk of transmission of a deadly pathogen and businesses/services that offer the basics for survival and/or harm reduction can be considered essential. It's about acceptable risk and balancing those risks with the basic survival needs of a populace.
By whose definition? Don't fall for what is being sold to the public right now. Who gets to make these decisions and WHY?
There's nothing objective about a game store being essential. There's no goods/ services there that your or anyone's lives depend on it being opened. If someone's life does unfortunately end because the store is closed, then that person had many underlying issues that weren't being addressed and the game store was just a band aid.
It does impact the owner but we should be bailing out stores like this instead of wall street.
By whose definition? Don't fall for what is being sold to the public right now. Who gets to make these decisions and WHY?
es·sen·tial
See definitions in:
adjective
1.
absolutely necessary; extremely important.
By the dictionary definition, it is not essential. Anything else is irrelevant. You're simply being emotional over a logical decision.
That is your interpretation of the definition. Warfarin may be "essential" to a cardiac patient but it is not for heart healthy people. What is essential for one is not for others. There are degrees, it isn't black and white. All of this is relevant as well, how "emotional" to dispel my questions as if they have no validity. If a person and their families welfare relies on a job it is ESSENTIAL that they perform that job so that they may provide (income) what is truly needed for themselves and their family. Who are we to decide their job as non "essential"? Decisions have been and continue to be made on people's lives wholly without their consent. Selling Magic cards may very well be essential to a lot of people out there, just like selling liquor or pot or dog grooming services. Don't marginalize or ignore their plight in this. They are also victims, albeit to an arguable lesser degree.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
By whose definition? Don't fall for what is being sold to the public right now. Who gets to make these decisions and WHY?
es·sen·tial
See definitions in:
adjective
1.
absolutely necessary; extremely important.
By the dictionary definition, it is not essential. Anything else is irrelevant. You're simply being emotional over a logical decision.
That is your interpretation of the definition. Warfarin may be "essential" to a cardiac patient but it is not for heart healthy people. What is essential for one is not for others. There are degrees, it isn't black and white. All of this is relevant as well, how "emotional" to dispel my questions as if they have no validity. If a person and their families welfare relies on a job it is ESSENTIAL that they perform that job so that they may provide (income) what is truly needed for themselves and their family. Who are we to decide their job as non "essential"? Decisions have been and continue to be made on people's lives wholly without their consent. Selling Magic cards may very well be essential to a lot of people out there, just like selling liquor or pot or dog grooming services. Don't marginalize or ignore their plight in this. They are also victims, albeit to an arguable lesser degree.
There is no definition by which MtG is "essential". If it has reached that point for an individual that is indicative of a mental illness and they need to seek treatment. Further it's a minority of a minority where someone being unable to purchase Magic cards from a dedicated card shop or play it in person will result in them dying, if that even is realistically plausible.
Someone losing their job because of COVID is unfortunate, but that doesn't make it essential any more than any other jobs. The issue is that the government should be stepping in to take care of people and provide them with income to help cover that, along with waiving certain costs for things like utilities. That it isn't does not, again, mean that those jobs are essential. That one may think thousands of people dying is an acceptable loss so long as they can continue to play card games is indicative of needing to, at least, ponder the situation better. Again, no definition of MtG, specifically in the context of dedicated card shops, is essential. No one should live or die based on being able to play in shops, and again, if that is remotely possible then they need psychiatric help. Given that hospitals and such are still active they should seek that out instead of trying to push for situations that will simply result in needless, pointless death on a ridiculously excessive scale.
That is your interpretation of the definition. Warfarin may be "essential" to a cardiac patient but it is not for heart healthy people. What is essential for one is not for others. There are degrees, it isn't black and white.
I'll grant you that there are shades of grey in which socio-political levers are pulled to navigate this, but there is an aspect of the current crisis that is black and white and that is the contagiousness of the virus. When I said earlier that there is a risk to be assessed when determining which businesses are worth keeping open at this time, the risk is whether or not the products and services offered are worth the number of potential infections that could come from activity at that site. And that risk isn't just personal, it's communal. We're all links in a chain of potential transmissions and considerations of acceptable risk must be evaluated on those grounds. It's the heavy wind under which the trees must bend or be broken.
So let's not muddy the waters of how we're framing the conversation of LGSes being essential or not. Issues of revenue, income, comfort, mental health, etc all matter, but they are the secondary concern here from a social perspective of navigating this crisis with the least number infected or dead. Which obviously isn't the priority for some, and is a big red flag about their access to power, if you ask me.
All of this is relevant as well, how "emotional" to dispel my questions as if they have no validity. If a person and their families welfare relies on a job it is ESSENTIAL that they perform that job so that they may provide (income) what is truly needed for themselves and their family.
No, the job is not essential, the income is.
Who are we to decide their job as non "essential"? Decisions have been and continue to be made on people's lives wholly without their consent.
And? Doctors restrain patients all the time when they're in crisis and a danger to themselves and others.
Again, we're all links in a chain of potential transmissions of a deadly virus. We are dangers to ourselves and others if we aren't behaving in ways that reduces the spread of the virus. Luckily, most people evidently (given polling around fears of ending lockdowns too soon) support lockdown measures which has saved countless lives.
Selling Magic cards may very well be essential to a lot of people out there, just like selling liquor or pot or dog grooming services. Don't marginalize or ignore their plight in this. They are also victims, albeit to an arguable lesser degree.
No one has been marginalizing or ignoring the financial concerns of many, on the contrary. Those financial concerns just shouldn't be dictating public health directives. An LGS owner needing income is no reason to put that person, every in-person customer, and all the consequential links in the chain at risk. That doesn't mean that business owner shouldn't have income or that small businesses shouldn't be supported to ensure they survive this, but it's just by no reasonable definition worth the risk to life to open that business. Simply saying "but these people need their jobs and that makes them essential" is unconvincing, and dilutes the importance of staying clear-headed about what essential means in the context of a deadly pandemic.
Maro talks a lot, but he really didnt say anything worthwhile.
They still make sets like they used to and work from home ... yea wonderful.
And they want you to play digital for now, till they get paper magic back, then you can play however you want again (but actually play both digital and paper, to spend double the money).
Nothing else of worth was said.
imagine having 5000 posts on m t g salvation dot com and being such a bitter loser about the game
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What I'm saying is that any business or service that features in-person activities is a potential vector for transmission of a highly contagious virus and needs to be assessed as such. A business or service that has been deemed essential has been so because officials have calculated as an acceptable risk. Acceptable risks for things that provide the basics for life (groceries, pharmacies, etc) make sense to me because we need to be able to provide the basics for life to people.
So what I'm saying is that I understand how hobbies can positively influence one's mental health (one of the programs my staff run is based on it, in fact) and I understand why small businesses are important for many people's livelihoods, and I do not believe either truth qualifies gaming stores as essential services the way I understand the term in the context we're in. For a business to be essential, it should be providing the basic needs for survival and/or provide harm reduction.
I appreciate that, we all need that break from a very grim reality, I just don't see how that desire for escape is essential. At least insofar as the businesses that enable that escape would be considered essential. People can find the escape they seek without putting the population at increased risk, bottom line.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
Absolutely. I mean, people can just find other means of escape or whatever it is they get out of card games from other places where you don't incur the same risk. But the whole population can't rely on, say, delivery services for food. You need in-person shops to support that need without running into huge logistical problems.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
As for the interview, honestly not like more can be expected. Just is what it is.
By whose definition? Don't fall for what is being sold to the public right now. Who gets to make these decisions and WHY?
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
1) By what reasonable definition do gaming stores qualify as essential during a global pandemic?
2) Who? Governments under the guidance of medical experts.
3) Why? Because that's what they're there for. Unless your WHY was meant as "Why are some things deemed essential and other things not?", in which case, because every business/service carries a risk of transmission of a deadly pathogen and businesses/services that offer the basics for survival and/or harm reduction can be considered essential. It's about acceptable risk and balancing those risks with the basic survival needs of a populace.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
es·sen·tial
See definitions in:
adjective
1.
absolutely necessary; extremely important.
By the dictionary definition, it is not essential. Anything else is irrelevant. You're simply being emotional over a logical decision.
There's nothing objective about a game store being essential. There's no goods/ services there that your or anyone's lives depend on it being opened. If someone's life does unfortunately end because the store is closed, then that person had many underlying issues that weren't being addressed and the game store was just a band aid.
It does impact the owner but we should be bailing out stores like this instead of wall street.
That is your interpretation of the definition. Warfarin may be "essential" to a cardiac patient but it is not for heart healthy people. What is essential for one is not for others. There are degrees, it isn't black and white. All of this is relevant as well, how "emotional" to dispel my questions as if they have no validity. If a person and their families welfare relies on a job it is ESSENTIAL that they perform that job so that they may provide (income) what is truly needed for themselves and their family. Who are we to decide their job as non "essential"? Decisions have been and continue to be made on people's lives wholly without their consent. Selling Magic cards may very well be essential to a lot of people out there, just like selling liquor or pot or dog grooming services. Don't marginalize or ignore their plight in this. They are also victims, albeit to an arguable lesser degree.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
There is no definition by which MtG is "essential". If it has reached that point for an individual that is indicative of a mental illness and they need to seek treatment. Further it's a minority of a minority where someone being unable to purchase Magic cards from a dedicated card shop or play it in person will result in them dying, if that even is realistically plausible.
Someone losing their job because of COVID is unfortunate, but that doesn't make it essential any more than any other jobs. The issue is that the government should be stepping in to take care of people and provide them with income to help cover that, along with waiving certain costs for things like utilities. That it isn't does not, again, mean that those jobs are essential. That one may think thousands of people dying is an acceptable loss so long as they can continue to play card games is indicative of needing to, at least, ponder the situation better. Again, no definition of MtG, specifically in the context of dedicated card shops, is essential. No one should live or die based on being able to play in shops, and again, if that is remotely possible then they need psychiatric help. Given that hospitals and such are still active they should seek that out instead of trying to push for situations that will simply result in needless, pointless death on a ridiculously excessive scale.
I'll grant you that there are shades of grey in which socio-political levers are pulled to navigate this, but there is an aspect of the current crisis that is black and white and that is the contagiousness of the virus. When I said earlier that there is a risk to be assessed when determining which businesses are worth keeping open at this time, the risk is whether or not the products and services offered are worth the number of potential infections that could come from activity at that site. And that risk isn't just personal, it's communal. We're all links in a chain of potential transmissions and considerations of acceptable risk must be evaluated on those grounds. It's the heavy wind under which the trees must bend or be broken.
So let's not muddy the waters of how we're framing the conversation of LGSes being essential or not. Issues of revenue, income, comfort, mental health, etc all matter, but they are the secondary concern here from a social perspective of navigating this crisis with the least number infected or dead. Which obviously isn't the priority for some, and is a big red flag about their access to power, if you ask me.
No, the job is not essential, the income is.
And? Doctors restrain patients all the time when they're in crisis and a danger to themselves and others.
Again, we're all links in a chain of potential transmissions of a deadly virus. We are dangers to ourselves and others if we aren't behaving in ways that reduces the spread of the virus. Luckily, most people evidently (given polling around fears of ending lockdowns too soon) support lockdown measures which has saved countless lives.
No one has been marginalizing or ignoring the financial concerns of many, on the contrary. Those financial concerns just shouldn't be dictating public health directives. An LGS owner needing income is no reason to put that person, every in-person customer, and all the consequential links in the chain at risk. That doesn't mean that business owner shouldn't have income or that small businesses shouldn't be supported to ensure they survive this, but it's just by no reasonable definition worth the risk to life to open that business. Simply saying "but these people need their jobs and that makes them essential" is unconvincing, and dilutes the importance of staying clear-headed about what essential means in the context of a deadly pandemic.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
imagine having 5000 posts on m t g salvation dot com and being such a bitter loser about the game