Writes Simon Parkin in "How Monopoly Became America’s Cruellest Board Game/In 'Ruthless: The Secret History of Monopoly,' we learn how a game meant to critique capitalism came to embody it" (The New Yorker).
Even as the "shrewd designer can steer players toward a particular viewpoint," the shrewd documentarian will steer viewers toward a particular viewpoint.
I can think of admirable documentarians who don't steer you — at least not as precisely as PBS sounds like it's doing — but they don't deserve to be called "shrewd." That doesn't mean just clever. It means evil or at least malignant or mischievous.
"Shrewd" is based on "shrew," a little animal who gave its name to "A person, esp. (now only) a woman given to railing or scolding or other perverse or malignant behaviour; frequently a scolding or turbulent wife."
Why is it we easily feel the misogyny in "shrew" but not in "shrewd"?
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96 comments:
ha ha ha
I think Clue is pretty mean.
Whenever I play Clue I always think...
"Poison is way better than Candlestick. Damn if I would ever murder anybody with a Candlestick. It better not be a Candlestick, that's all I'm saying, because that's fucked up."
Do not pass GO.
Do not collect $200.
Bobby Fischer said of chess, "I like the moment I crush a man's ego," and chess long predates capitalism.
This is how you have fun, and crush other people.
How is that different from any card game?
All things should be a nice soft floaty bouncy chair. Otherwise - NO FAIR!
Under Biden, our country is so shrewd.
"the shrewd documentarian will steer viewers toward a particular viewpoint"
What if we already hold the viewpoint we are being steered toward, unshrewdly, namely that progs are a*&--well, you know?
Why is it we easily feel the misogyny in "shrew" but not in "shrewd"?
Because it shrewdly changed: "The word developed the sense ‘cunning’, and gradually gained a favorable connotation during the 17th century."
"having or showing sharp powers of judgment; astute."
Clever, sly, crafty, ingenious -- that's shrewd!
Monopoly always felt benign to me. It's just a game with rules. No betrayals.
Shrewd is what you become after exposure to a shrew.
Sometimes a game is just a game.
MarcusB. THEOLDMAN
A shrew is a little puffball of an animal, the least annoying of all the rodents. How did it become negatively associated with woman?
As kids we played Monopoly all the time. What it taught me is that systems are boring. Buy Park Place and Broadway, put hotels on them, win the game. Monopoly has no strategy and it has no team play. You can wheel and deal, trading properties, but that's boring to me, too. Gaming today is so much more interesting.
My grandma was the kindest person on earth and her grandchildren were the center of her world and love of her life…..until she brought out a deck of cards…..
When crushing someone at cribbage, it's always fun to point out that they hold a really good poker hand. #whythefightstarted
The game disguises luck as skill, misrepresents the American Dream, and promises wealth and power at the expense of others. Only in its final moments do we see the victor’s most enduring reward: isolation
You have to be a special kind of sad to write tripe like this, but it's hard to feel pity for someone who actually makes money off writing tripe like this.
The MAIN reason, people HATE Monopoly.. Is that it Goes on FOREVER
The Main reason, the game goes on FOREVER; is because people put money on 'Free Parking'
People put money (sometimes LOTS of money) on Free Parking.. To Be Nice! So people don't go broke.
This means: That people don't go broke..
This means: That the game goes on FOREVER!
Quit putting money on Free Parking.. LET people go broke.. LET THE GAME END!
Then, it's kinda fun. And teaches the advantage of Cash on Hand, and NOT overextending yourself
Related to shrew and shrewd:
This week I learned the word "fice" for a small (and essentially useless for hunting or pest control or herding or tracking, but still loud and energetic) dog.
Which original word has been nearly lost but spawned the useful word "Fiesty"
Nothing predates capitalism, because it is the natural order of a sane society: a meeting of minds for a fair exchange of goods or services.
Or as Thomas Sowell asks of those critical of the free market: "Compared to what?"
Chess figures are, metaphorically, KILLED.
Plus, they CHEATED.
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/monopolys-hidden-maps-wwii-pows-escape/story?id=8605905
The real problem with Monopoly is the lack of lamentation of the women.
Whatever the subtext, I think kids play Monopoly because it's fun.
It's instructive to note that the Soviets never developed a board game called Gulag. Capitalism is fun, but more so for the winners than the losers. Communism was never fun, and there were no winners.
Obviously, we need more games where everyone can be a winner and no one can be a loser.
The damage done by Monoply is nothing compared to the damage done by Pirate Rummy and Mumbley Peg.
The horrors!!
I still remember the evening my mom taught my sobblings and I to play monopoly. And the day my dad taught me to play chess. Played lots if board games but those two days stand out.
I was not athletic, and did not stand out in sporting competition, so it meant a lot to me growing up that I stood out in board games. Was never a capitalist, or had a desire to build hotels. Went to law school, but missed the class on get out of jail fee cards. Or bank errors in my favor.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
>Why is it we easily feel the misogyny in "shrew" but not in "shrewd"?<
"We" don't. People who perpetually search for misogyny in things do.
There are certain women who behave in a particular way. Having a word for them does not represent misogyny any more than having a word for certain men who behave in a particular way (eg., prick, soy boy) represents misandry.
Monopoly is excruciating. The only it doesn't last for 3 days is to deal out the property and trade before the first roll.
I caught a few minutes of some journalist on NPR who wrote a history book attacking capitalism. He said he was a Marxist and that it was absurd for him to defend Marxism that failed elsewhere. He thought it was a weak attack against his argument in his book. I am a historian—when your whole premise is flawed you have a problem. Journalists are typically horrible historians.
He never understood the irony that capitalism enabled him to write his book in the first place.
Not everyone who speculates on land and hotels wins—many go bust. But lots of people are employed at the hotel at St Charles Avenue or Marvin Gardens and lots of people got to enjoy their stay. That doesn’t happen in Marxopoly.
Perhaps I'm wrong but I have yet to know of a game where there are no losers, only winners. In every society no matter where and when there have always been winners and losers.
For good or I'll sometimes a game is just a game.
For good or ill sometimes a game is just that, a game.
Buy Park Place and Broadway, put hotels on them, win the game. Monopoly has no strategy and it has no team play.
Because your not playing Monopoly correctly. There is an amazing amount of strategy and there is no winning without team play (or bad negotiations).
I'll gladly give you Boardwalk and Park Place at the beginning of the game for the Orange properties.*
Also, a correct strategy is not to buy hotels. Ever. Read the rules. There is a limited number of houses available to be built from the bank, and nowhere near enough to put houses on all the properties at one time. All houses have to be "bought" from the bank. Once the houses are "used up" they can only be made available when a player buys a hotel (turning the houses back into the bank), or when sold by a player to raise capital.
By buying houses early and often you provide a protection against other players buying houses or hotels on their properties. You have to have 4 houses first BEFORE you buy a hotel. Because Park Place and Boardwalk have the highest building cost it is harder to build houses on those properties than on the cheaper ones.
People mistake the "value" of a house because they only look at the rent statement on the title cards and not the total availability of houses in the bank.
Because of randomness to get a 3 property monopoly on either the orange or red properties you must end up trading with other players. Also note that under proper monopoly rules if the person that lands on a property doesn't buy it, the property is immediately put under auction to the highest bidder among all players. Hence the need for teamwork, collusion or negotiating against stronger players.
*Orange properties are the best because of Jail. Without jail, every property becomes randomized. But you can be put into jail through any number of methods (rolling doubles, chance card, go to jail space), but when leaving jail you are more likely to land on the orange properties (because of the statistics of 2 dice).
There’s a certain breed that should stick with CandyassLand when gaming.
“I still remember the evening my mom taught my sobblings and I to play monopoly. And the day my dad taught me to play chess.”
We’re there many tears cried that fateful evening?
I learned about world harmony while playing Risk.
Video game people have a name for this ludonarrative. It is where the game play mechanics and behavior of the players impacts the story or messaging. Decisions have to be made on how you want players to interact with the story. Can a hero perform evil deeds? If so, does the game reward or punish these actions?
Sometimes it is interesting to see how much freedom is programmed into a game versus having restrictions to enforce a certain behavior to ensure a storyline continues as expected.
Some games are built purely on exploring ludonarrative dissonance, where gameplay contradicts the story. The Stanely Parable does this by allowing the player to follow the instructions of a narrator or not.
like ariel dorfman wrote a long screed denouncing disney and specially scrooge mcduck in the allende years,
I'm an Uncle Wiggily man myself.
Why settle for Park Place when you can have Cluck Cluck Chicken House?
Nothing predates capitalism
It's the ubiquitous underlay of any economic system. You can find ways to differ the spread of the wealth/progress it creates, but it's there in every human economic iteraction.
All life forms plant or animal compete in some manner or another. Economic systems, all underpinned by capitalism in some form, allow humans to compete better. It's not going away unless you want us to live as mindless animals.
I always thought Risk was crueler. Life was pretty cruel, too. But nothing was crueler than Candyland.
I ain't monopolizing this thread, that's for damn sure.
“Perhaps I'm wrong but I have yet to know of a game where there are no losers, only winners. In every society no matter where and when there have always been winners and losers.“
Have you not heard of Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders?
How so fucking stupid. It has been said here many times by many different people but it is worth repeating: NOTHING has done more to improve humanity's fate and lift more people out of abject poverty than capitalism...and I include the wheel and FIRE in that assessment...
...and what's with this: You’re saying, "This is how society works. This is how you have fun, and crush other people." It's a fucking game, asshats. You never say this shit about poker or bridge where there's deception and bluffing- never cries of You lied!!! The object of the game is to win by bankrupting the other players. It. Is. A. Game.
...and hooray for the Althousians! Yes, if your Monopoly game is dragging out forever is because you aren't following the rules, which are designed to bankrupt other players. No money on free parking or making special deals to pass rent free. It does take some knowledge of statistics to have an edge so the game does discrimiate against the innumerate and the Russian Lit majors at PBS- did you know PBS that the best properties to own are closest to Free Parking? I know you didn't...
Buy Park Place and Broadway, put hotels on them, win the game.
Not if someone gets the light purple or orange properties first. It's a high traffic side. If you have to pick one or the other, pick the orange.
“He never understood the irony that capitalism enabled him to write his book in the first place.”
My thoughts exactly!!! An anti-capitalism game that makes you rich.
Best. Scam. Ever.
Why is it so easy to see the misogyny in a word like shrew, usually applied to women, but so hard to see the misandry in a word like asshole, almost exclusively applied to men.
Shrews are adorable. Assholes are...anuses.
It's always called misogyny to avoid observing that women are upset by name-calling and men aren't.
You get paid $200 just for passing Go.
Sounds like the Welfare State to me.
...my rant over, I will say if a game that rewards cooperation between players has more appeal, or if you 'Get wood for sheep!' go learn how to play Catan...
A very unrealistic game. In life, buying a fifth house doesn't get you a hotel.
How to turn America into communist Russia: the board game
[https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/toward-soviet-america-board-game/]
“The game was called Toward Soviet America. As you may have guessed by its absence from your family room, it never caught on. When we take a closer look at the board, the book that inspired it, and the author of that book, we get a glimpse of a now obscure chapter in America’s sociopolitical history — one in which the Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA for short) saw the proletarian revolution in America as imminent and itself as the inevitable vanguard of the toiling masses.”
Cubanbob, there's a whole genre ofnxooperative games like Forbidden Island where player win together or lose together. Really fun, much more than Monopoly.
Sometimes a game is just a game.
@Marcus Bressler, + 1
I really liked “Clue,” but always was nonplussed that the “revolver” playing piece was a semiautomatic.
"In life, buying a fifth house doesn't get you a hotel."
Sure it does, they just call them short term rentals now.
Of steering engines and handmade tales.
“ A very unrealistic game. In life, buying a fifth house doesn't get you a hotel.”
It gets you four units to rent out as an AirBnB.
Althouse, I don't understand where you get the idea that "shrewd" conveys evil, malignity, or even mere mischief. I have never seen the word used in any other sense than "canny" or "astute" or "penetrating" or, yes, "clever." How often have you heard (or read) someone described as "a shrewd judge of character"?
My dad played chess with us starting when we were very young. He showed no mercy to us even though we were learning the rules of the game. I soured more than a bit on chess but found that I could play dad to a stalemate with checkers. Then mom bought us the game Risk. Revelatory! Not thinking of old dad, my siblings and I played together with the intent of conquering the world. That required some strategy, a little luck and the willingness to be merciless. Of course, dad had taught us all about the merciless part. I didn't know it at the time but we'd learned from dad the fundamentals of capitalism. "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women." Mom was different. She gave me a copy of Ferdinand the Bull to read. I loved that book! But I loved Risk too! It was a complicated household.
I understand the confusion but Monopoly is not unbridled capitalism. It is more like late feudalism where property was in more than just the King's hands but every effort was to gain control of it over others without cooperation
There was apparently a set of rules by the British designer that pitted the players against the bank. Lizzie Magie called it 'The Landlord's Game'
https://youtu.be/3SSh6lek0N0
I grew frustrated a few years ago about how even econ professors didn't have a stable definition for capitalism using it to describe corporatism, or whatever they were unhappy with. So I looked into it deeply and came up with the following spectrum of liberty to keep and use what you earn, on which capitalism is the side where there is the most freedom for the most people. I suspect one reason this liberty is not openly named is because taxation is the first infringement on this liberty
There is no separate capitalism, socialism, or communism. It is all on the spectrum of the liberty to keep and use your earnings to participate in markets and enterprises to generate wealth for yourself.
Laissez Fair capitalism - the most people have the liberty to work, save and use their earning to generate wealth for themselves.
Intervention/government regulation/licensing - government officials set rules as to who can do certain work or make it expensive to get started, so fewer people can exercise their liberty to generate wealth for themselves.
socialism - even more limitations by officeholders on who can exercise the liberty
crony socialism - when the "friends" of the office holders are permitted more liberty than others
communism - socialism of the form, total bureaucratic control and limitation of who can exercise the liberty to generate wealth for themselves to distinguished holders of important offices and their cronies.
feudalism - crony socialism on a familial basis
BTW, soviet communism and now the CCP after a couple generations started/is starting to look a lot like familial-based crony soclalism
"Precisely what makes a slave is that he is allowed no use of productive capital to make wealth on his own account."
How many people have been shot over Monopoly vs. how many shot over Poker in history would be an interesting data dive.
JAORE said... "The real problem with Monopoly is the lack of lamentation of the women."
True, perhaps if Monopoly was played as couple so the woman could berate the man for not being a lord of the manor or duke.
====
Now we can try to understand why people loathe capitalism.
In a society based on caste and status, the individual can ascribe adverse fate to conditions beyond his own control. He is a slave because the superhuman powers that determine all becoming had assigned him this rank. It is not his doing, and there is no reason for him to be ashamed of his humbleness. His wife cannot find fault with his station. If she were to tell him: “Why are you not a duke? If you were a duke, I would be a duchess,” he would reply: “If I had been born the son of a duke, I would not have married you, a slave girl, but the daughter of another duke; that you are not a duchess is exclusively your own fault; why were you not more clever in the choice of your parents?”
It is quite another thing under capitalism. Here everybody’s station in life depends on his own doing. Everybody whose ambitions have not been fully gratified knows very well that he has missed chances, that he has been tried and found wanting by his fellow man. If his wife upbraids him: “Why do you make only eighty dollars a week? If you were as smart as your former pal, Paul, you would be a foreman and I would enjoy a better life,” he becomes conscious of his own inferiority and feels humiliated.
The much talked about sternness of capitalism consists in the fact that it handles everybody according to his contribution to the well-being of his fellow men.
Mises, Ludwig von (1956). The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality
Perhaps I'm wrong but I have yet to know of a game where there are no losers, only winners. In every society no matter where and when there have always been winners and losers.
I suspect there are liberals who believe that "every child should have a medal!" And everybody gets a medal. And the liberals are so happy because everybody wins. And then years later they discover that in fact everybody lost.
Paddy O: Noted.
.
Why do we besmirch the memories of the successful? The Landlord's Game had only the vaguest resemblance to what later became Monopoly Thirty years ago sat in on a lecture at the Museum of Board Games where the speaker (who I can't remember) talked about how any new product from a game company back would immediately generate lawsuits from those such as Ethel in Arkansas who would cliam Granddaddy invented that game back in Ought-Nine so Milton Bradley owes us $50,000
.
“Perhaps I'm wrong but I have yet to know of a game where there are no losers, only winners. In every society no matter where and when there have always been winners and losers.“
There's this game called Socialism where we all share and everybody is a winner. It's kind of hard to find for some reason, though.
EDIT: People are saying that they have come across ratty, beat up copies of the game stuck away in a moldy basement somewhere. But they're incorrect. Those are inferior copies that trade on the name, but don't actually have the correct rules. Because true Socialism has never been played.
Also note that under proper monopoly rules if the person that lands on a property doesn't buy it, the property is immediately put under auction to the highest bidder among all players
Yep! even if you want it, if you don't have enough, it goes to auction.
If people overextend themselves (buying property, buying houses.. GOD forbid! buying hotels),
then you can get great deals.
Plus, if they overextend, they (can) end up having to sell those houses, and/or mortgage those properties
Again, the key is: None of that "fines and fees go on Free Parking crap"
And, Absolutely NONE of that $500 on Free Parking. THAT is what makes the game go on forever
Big Mike said...
I really liked “Clue,” but always was nonplussed that the “revolver” playing piece was a semiautomatic.
As the youngest in the family, many of our board games had lost some of the original pieces by the time I started playing them.
In the case of Clue, the miniature revolver had been replaced by a miniature gatling gun.
Meade said...
“Perhaps I'm wrong but I have yet to know of a game where there are no losers, only winners. In every society no matter where and when there have always been winners and losers.“
Have you not heard of Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders?"
If they were a country band they would also be singing about cheating and divorce. Like real life.
As Titus Andromedon aptly asked, "why would I want to play a game where the point is to pay rent?"
“ Althouse, I don't understand where you get the idea that "shrewd" conveys evil, malignity, or even mere mischief.”
OED
J. Melcher (9:28am):
Two notes on 'fice' and 'feisty':
1. A fice is not entirely "useless for hunting". It's been 50+ years, but I still recall a bit of Faulkner's "The Bear" read in high school - still the only Faulkner I've ever read. As I recall the story, bears are pretty fast on four legs, so bear-hunters need a way to slow them down to get close enough for a kill shot. They would bring a bunch of fices along, tiny dogs bred to be fierce, utterly fearless, and kind of stupid. (Or maybe just fearless to the point of being indistinguishable from stupidity.) The fices would run after the bear and clamp onto a hind leg, forcing the bear to stop, stand up on his hind legs, and smash the little dog's brains out with a front paw, then get down on all fours again to run. This took long enough to allow the human hunters to gain on him. I think they must have kept the dogs on a leash and released them one at a time. Anyway, as I recall, it might take three or four dead fices to slow the bear down enough to catch up and kill it, but apparently one dead bear was worth more than a bunch of dead fices. Whether that was just in prestige or in actual money (selling the bear's skin and other parts) I don't recall. 1/2
If he thinks Monopoly is the cruelest board game, he has never played Diplomacy, where the motto is “Lie, cheat, steal, whatever you have to do to win.” You might not lose by being honest (draws are possible), but you won’t win without backstabbing at least one of your friends.
It’s glorious. But it takes 7 people with a day to spare and a willingness to forgive when the game is over. Those are rare.
@Wince -- I haven't thought of Uncle Wiggly in years! Loved that game.
Within the last few years, Hasbro published Monopoly Socialism. I’ve never played it, but it’s a satirical game where everyone pretends to be working for the good of the collective while trying to get rich on the side.
So much for 'fice'.
2. As for 'feisty': some years after reading "The Bear" I was working at the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago, filing foreign newspapers, sharing a room with a Chinese wife-of-a-grad-student filing domestic foreign-language newspapers. She was quite willing to stand up for herself in arguments, and our (Anglo) boss, intending a compliment, told her she was 'feisty', which is of course complimentary. She got out the little English-Chinese dictionary she used several times a day to extend her vocabulary, looked it up, and found it meant "like a feist" (the older spelling of 'fice'), and just above it was "feist: a little dog". She spent the rest of the day saying "George called me a little dog. Why did George call me a little dog?" I tried to explain it to her, even recapitulated Faulkner's story, but she was not assuaged. She just could not understand how 'feisty' could possibly be complimentary. Of course, 90% of Americans know the word, and only 2% know 'feist' or 'fice', so poor George had no idea he was insulting her. (NB: George is not his real name. For all I know he's an Althouse reader, though he'd be 80ish today. If so and you recognize the story, say hello, 'George'! You too, 'Daisy', not your real name, either!) 2/2
Now that you mention it, I see that Hugh Hefner missed a chance to create a board game, Misogyny. Accumulate enough Bunnies and Love Shacks and you can trade up for a Playboy Mansion. Freed from Atlantic City, the world is your oyster: no plebeian railroads--airlines of the Jet Set. Game pieces based on the Rat Pack and Hollywood. And definitely, no Free Parking.
Althouse,
OED.
I assumed as much, though generally you say so. So I hauled out my Compact OED (the one that comes with a magnifier so that you can actually read the print) and looked.
The OED, as you doubtless know, lists meanings in order of first appearance; your "evil/malign/mischievous" sense is therefore listed first. Keep reading, though, and you pass through a large number of senses (nearly all labeled "Obs.") until you get to 13 (a). Which reads:
In early use: Cunning, artful (obs.) Now only in favourable sense: Clever or keen-witted in practical affairs; astute or sagacious in action or speech. (The chief current sense.)
The boldface is mine. I think I may rest my case.
Prefer Catan over Monopoly. In Catan the board layout changes each game. The dice values for resources changes each game. Still element of chance but strategy changes based layout and flow of the game.
Colonel Mustard in the library with the tank.
"my rant over, I will say if a game that rewards cooperation between players has more appeal, or if you 'Get wood for sheep!' go learn how to play Catan..."
Link
Thanks for the tips on how to win at Monopoly. My brothers used to steal the little kids' money when they weren't looking so that's another way. The best way to get a good game of Socialism that people will play is to play Monopoly but gradually rename what's going on. Park Place could be Nomenklatura Rest House, Rent could be Salary of Manager of Collective
OK, I hauled out my Compact OED once for this post, which vanished without trace (not even a "Whoops!") once I posted it, and I'm damned if I'm going to haul that ginormous book and its magnifier out again. So, from memory:
Althouse, you know that the OED goes in order of oldest citation, yes? So you're right, in that the oldest meaning for "shrewd" is "evil/malignant/mischievous." But do keep reading. That one is not marked "Obs.," but the next ten or so are, and then we get to 13(a), which goes something like this: "Cunning, artful" (Obs.); "later usages entirely favourable: astute or keen-eyed in practical matters; sagacious in action or word." (There's another adjective in there; I forget.) And then: "Much the most common sense in current usage."
That is, much commoner than yours, and way commoner than the dozen or so usages labeled "Obs." in their entirety. A lot of those are also pejorative, but not for the last four hundred years or so.
A "shrewd judge of character" isn't a malign one; a "shrewd glance" doesn't intend evil; and a "shrewd evaluation of the probabilities" doesn't mean the one that creates the most capacity for mischief. I rest my case.
“Clue” reminds me of a game I recall playing at my aunt and uncle’s house growing up. It was called “Mr. Ree, the Detective.” My childhood being almost 70 years in the rearview mirror, about all I recall is that it was a board game, we had to solve a crime (or did we?), in addition to going room to room we could go outside, and we didn’t use dice. Did anyone else recall playing the game?
Secret Hitler is a fun game.
From what I understand, Monopoly is not considered a good board game by serious board game fans. It became popular due to pop culture, not because it was a very well balanced game. That said, it does teach some life lessons, like gaining wealth produces more wealth, some things are more valuable than other things, life is not fair, and sometimes winning is not really worth it.
However, if you want true rage, Sorry is an excellent choice.
Uncle Wiggly is a real game?
Jean Kerr wrote an essay about playing Uncle Wiggily with a child. It was, like so much of her writing, hilarious. I will try to reassure a tiny bit here, not in quotes because I won't get close enough:
Any adult worth his salt can play checkers with a child and lose after a reasonable time, say ten minutes. The problem with Uncle Wiggily is that you can play it with a five-year-old for an hour, and then, sweet heaven, you can win.
Recreate, not reassure! (In my Uncle Wiggily comment)
He doesn't know that his parents played Monopoly until he was born later that day. All he knows is that his parents told him that's what they did become the moment arrived.
I am so sick of this "deconstruction" of the US using the critical theory framework (which is not a scientific theory but a methodology to explore subjective lived experiences) to destroy every bit of past joy possible. Dr. Suess books racist, censoring Ronald Dahl's books, and now they come after monopoly. I studied this framework during my doctorate and creating scholarly rigor is difficult even for good scholars. The biggest challenge in employing critical theory is reliability and validity. thus like this article, it is psuedoscience. I can't believe monopoly is even under discussion. what a clown world.
As if the guests at Marvin Gardens received no benefit from their visit.
Rocco at 1:49!
Monopoly Socialism
You know why Universities hate to hire a Republican?
It messes up our game of Monopoly Socialism!
You know why the media hates that Elon Musk bought Twitter?
It messes up our game of Monopoly Socialism!
You one-party state Millennial fuckers ought to leave the Democrat party, which is a party that believes in democracy and voting, which means the people ought to have options and free speech. And you control-freak motherfuckers don't want people to have any options. You don't want them hearing any opposing ideas. You are not Democrats if you think that way, you One Party State Motherfuckers.
(Maybe the Democrat party has no interest in saving its good name, but I wish some of those fuckers would notice that the Commies are back)
Oh Mr. Listo, Bravo!
"As if the guests at Marvin Gardens received no benefit from their visit."
Lol! You are a postmodern poet! Oh the irony!
Thank you so much for that good belly laugh. A good ending to a good day in Marvins Gardens and the Hotel California
Well hang me on the cross of strict monopoly rules. Pile all that money in the middle of the board. Person made that game musta been unaware of the joys of monetary theory. Done right the game never ends. Throw in some modern theory and get 2 grand passing go. You can stay at all the best hotels, like forever. No problem.
Catan is a mean game. I'm still annoyed with cousins from playing the game a few years ago. Read then the Packers were playing the game in the locker room. I figured by the end of the year brawls would break out whenever they huddled.
People should play better games. Playing Monopoly now is like getting your water in buckets from a creek instead of using indoor plumbing.
Yep! even if you want it, if you don't have enough, it goes to auction.
Not only that, a strategy you can employ is to not buy the property, allow it to go to auction, and then buy it at that auction for less than face value.
Monopoly never goes on "forever" if people use the auction rule. Properties get gobbled up pretty quickly.
It's only a "long game" if you don't play by the rules.
What game does not have a winner and losers? What players are so infantile or fragile that they agree to play a game and then are crushed when they lose? What capitalists are so ignorant that they think that buying landed property and renting it out is the way to create wealth in the post-industrial revolution world?
Fortunately, it is possible to make Scrabble not entirely poisonous: After adding up individual scores and determining the winner, add all the players' scores together to see the game total. Bigger number is better for all.
Laughing Fox,
What game does not have a winner and losers? What players are so infantile or fragile that they agree to play a game and then are crushed when they lose?
Oh, there are a few. I'm not sure it's possible to lose in "Depression Quest," for example. Dungeons & Dragons has too many possible plot lines to be sure whether there are "winners," though obviously there can be, and are, losers. A better one is Nomic, which is basically about lawmaking; you start with a sort of prefab Constitution, and then go round the table and propose amendments to it. One of the initial rules was against retroactive laws; I remember a game where one person repealed this, and the next "retroactively" proclaimed the game over and himself the winner.
And Scrabble is adaptable. Not for regulation play, of course, but for family games. In my household growing up, we had a few extra rules. Words could be spelled backwards as well as forwards, up as well as down. (This was to prevent games where everything crowded into one corner.) "Iraq" and "Qatar" got honorary not-a-proper-noun status, to help the unlucky person what had a Q and no U. And my younger sister got spotted 50 points at the start of every game.
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