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Is Buying Call of Duty a Moral Choice? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios - YouTube
Channel: PBS Idea Channel
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here's an idea when you buy call of duty
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you are buying a gun from 1961's space
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war - BioShock Infinite and beyond the
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gun in a million different forms and
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makeups has played a huge if not central
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role in the history of video games and
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unsurprisingly as video games have grown
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up so have the Ghats depicted and that
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video game guns have progressed from
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cartoonish make-believe pea shooters
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blasters and lasers to become starting
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at around Goldeneye 64 and culminating
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in games like Call of Duty crazy
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realistic lifelike recreations of actual
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firearms I mean it makes sense right
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because realism is desirable it's
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exciting strong verisimilitude or
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semblance to reality makes games and
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immersive and believable a complete
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realistic world makes a good game but is
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it possible that we crossed a line at
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some point from a semblance of reality
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to real reality like what if I told you
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that the Barrett 50 Cal you fire ncod is
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an actual bear at 50 Cal like it's real
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I mean real is a that's a complicated
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thing too but many guns in many games
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are faithful reproductions of actual
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firearms makes and model numbers match
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they look the same operate the same they
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sound the same
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and in a growing number of situations
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are representations licensed to game
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developers by a real arms developer now
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I'm not talking about the needler or the
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Barnstormer or the graviton of the
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portal gun as much as we all wish that I
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were but about the Barrett and the Colt
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m16a4 and the FN p90 Remington 870 and
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Desert Eagle real weapons made by real
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companies so when devs want to include
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ultra realistic depictions of guns
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including their names in games they are
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expected to pay a licensing fee to the
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manufacturer who then oversees and
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sometimes approves the design operation
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and use of the gun in the game ralph
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vaughan head of licensing at barrett
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firearms says that their model guns must
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quote perform to the standards that
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their rifles do in the real world so
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when you purchase Call of Duty or
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battlefield or whatever you're not
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really buying the gun now but in some
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sense you are buying a
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recognized in licensed digital facsimile
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of one and filling the coffers of the
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arms industry to boot which isn't
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necessarily a bad thing I'm not trying
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to start some kind of second amendment
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argument here especially if guns are
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your jam or blam as the case may be but
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there are some people myself included
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who just don't like guns I don't mind if
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other people have them I just don't like
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them some people don't like shellfish
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roller coasters or John Cusack movies I
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don't like guns it's nothing personal
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but I will sit down in front of my xbox
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and shoot bad guys in the face for hours
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if not days without so much as
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confronting the moral problem staring me
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right in the game face maybe it's
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because I've been playing games my whole
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life and guns as a game mechanic just
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feels familiar and comfortable there is
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a level of practical fantasy which
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isolates wielding a pixel firearm from
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my ideas about wielding a not pixel
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firearm but that isolation gets a little
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less isolating when I consider the fact
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that buying a game with realistic
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depictions of guns could be supporting
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the arms industry so should someone who
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doesn't like guns not by video games
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which license them well if you really
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don't like them and you don't want them
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bought or solder in people's hands and
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you are dead set on that then no you
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probably shouldn't you would be
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transgressing your personal moral
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imperatives which is a fancy way of
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saying you might be a hypocrite I might
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be a hypocrite but wait now what about
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like books and movies and everything
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else this slope can get really slippery
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well aside from the fact that most
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movies don't license depictions of
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firearms and a huge number are generic
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prop replicas movies don't productize
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firearms in the way that games do they
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might fetishize or glorify them but they
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don't list specs prices or qualities in
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the same ways or with the same frequency
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that games - like think about how much
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the matrix taught you about guns
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compared to say battlefield 3
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now am i saying that video games are
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going to teach you to do something
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stupid and dangerous with firearms no I
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am NOT and furthermore that line of
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reasoning is infuriating however what I
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am saying is that the critical and
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economic distance between guns and games
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and guns and other media feels different
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for people who are all about guns
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this isn't even a thing they get to
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learn and play and support an industry a
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print but for folks who are not all
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about guns it could be that the critical
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distance they do get saying stuff like
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oh man nah it's cool it's just a game
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where I shoot pixels and other pixels no
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video is traversed by the fact that they
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are putting they're not pixel dollars in
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need not pixel pockets of some people
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they might not totally not pixel agree
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with in real life this is the essence of
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moral choice you can do whatever you
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want but if you feel as though we like
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people and gamers have a responsibility
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to stop the manufacturing of weapons or
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at the very least not support it then
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your thoughts on arms might not be
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compatible with your love of shooting
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things which I think in moral philosophy
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at least is known as being stuck between
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a Glock and a hard place what do you
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guys think can purchasing a videogame
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with realistic weapons present a moral
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conundrum let us know in the comments
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and we got you this so you can practice
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your long-range subscribing Brooks the
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Dean with post-modernism let's see what
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you guys had to say about community as a
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postmodern masterpiece to us-ward oh and
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everyone else I want to formally
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apologize for calling the Dreamatorium
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The Imaginarium in my defense if you
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Google Image Search Imaginarium
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community you get images of the
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Dreamatorium but that's no excuse I
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apologize
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dizzy Sadako there's actually a really
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great post on tumblr that does like a
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critical comparison between Big Bang
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Theory and community um it's on but my
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opinion is right we'll put a link in
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description it's really really good
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drew Manning offers a hypothesis of why
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season 4 of community is so different
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from the other seasons which I totally
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agree with and would also add that it
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seems like the showrunners have
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abandoned the trope of contradiction
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which i think was one of the things that
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made community what it is two wheel
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quois I would say that subscription is
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only a meta-narrative insofar as success
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is a meta-narrative that it relates to
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the meta-narrative of success so maybe
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to Gemma Hall I have a bachelor's degree
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I actually had a triple major it was
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computer science music composition and
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talking really fast
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and glorious and still Nina write
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comments which seem to suggest it's hard
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or maybe impossible
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for community to be postmodern in be
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very strict structure of a sitcom which
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actually I think that that is what gives
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it its critical power that it can do
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these really weird things within that
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common form but maybe agree to disagree
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Mel Poe sixteen points out that there is
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a difference between sort of
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philosophical post-modernism and
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architectural post-modernism and yeah I
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don't know much about architecture but I
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do know that Derrida worked with an
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architect right and there was a schism
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so yeah it's interesting that there is a
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difference between sort of the
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theoretical and the architectural side
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of things Michael may o-72 says that
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community is not postmodern but just
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strongly modern and that there actually
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is a lot of structure I would respond to
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the individual structure points as such
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I think everybody who has family all the
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family does is provide strife and
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everybody who is involved in a romance
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the romance is totally invalidated in
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some way except for in the fourth season
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you did however get me on the friendship
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thing Troy and Abed have a great
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on-screen friendship so yeah it's a it's
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a thorny patch isn't ah but what you
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call overthinking I call enjoyment so I
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think we might be at an impasse ride an
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hour to respond to Calder Ed's comment I
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think that Dan Harmon might say we're
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going traveling so all of these awesome
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people are gonna get next week off so
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you won't see us this week's tweet of
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the week comes from Cristina who points
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us towards we funder the Kickstarter for
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investing and we got nominated for two
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webbie's how awesome is that we put some
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links in the description so you can vote
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for us because hopefully you want to
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vote for us because you want to win and
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like us
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