Ryan Carlson
Ryan is a passionate gamer who is conflicted about whether he should become the Ubermensch or a Ghost In the Machine. Maybe his answer will be found in the Golden Mean.
The life of a social justice warrior (aka armchair activist) in the United States is very easy. After posting on Tumblr and Reddit, they can sit back in their armchair with their head held high, knowing that they did good in the world for social justice by garnering “likes.” They can write nonstop posts promoting social justice around the world without leaving their air-conditioned home or apartment.
One social justice issue that is not talked about is nuclear weapons. It would be a challenge for anyone to survive in a nuclear wasteland, but social justice warriors would have no chance at all because it would require a high level of toughness which they do not currently possess.
Nuclear Wasteland
Moscow, Russia in Metro 2033, after being ravaged by Nuclear War.
Metro 2033 is a first-person survival horror video game that came out on the Xbox 360 and on PC in 2010. It is based off the novel Metro 2033 by the author Dmitry Glukhovsky. For some reason, which you find out later in the game, nuclear war has destroyed the world and the main character that you play has to live underground in the Russian Metro. As if living underground in a dark metro was hard enough, things get even more complicated.
As you play through the game you will discover that you cannot breathe in the outside world without a ventilation mask. The mask only works with rare filters that only give you around four minutes of air. This means that it is always a risk to adventure to the world above to explore. You are likely stuck to living in the Metro for the rest of your life.
In a society with no internet or electricity, a social justice warrior would actually have to leave their home to do good in the world, but the good that they would do involves saving the remaining human population in the Metro from attacks by mutated animals instead of writing a blog post on the internet. Is a social justice warrior capable of fighting off vicious animals?
Survival
This is your in game journal that has your quest icons. This is also the kind of low lighting that you will get used to throughout the game.
In this game you will have to keep track of all your supplies like ammo, money, and mask ventilation filters. In Metro 2033, the in-game currency is military grade bullets (low grade bullets cannot be used as currency). You would find military grade bullets throughout the game and use that like you would use gold to trade with vendors.
The military grade bullets provide extra damage to enemies compared to the low-grade bullets that you can use. This means that the player needs to make calculations throughout the game. For instance, the player needs to decide if it is worth it to use military grade bullets to deal extra damage to the boss while sacrificing your money supply in the process.
This would be a situation that a social justice warrior could not solve in real life because they are anti-gun. That means a social justice warrior doesn’t own a gun and probably never shot one before in their life. In a society ravaged by nuclear war, they would have no experience operating a gun at all and would be at the mercy of their oppressors.
Politics
Fourth Reich Information Meeting. Pamphlets on your left.
The politics in Metro 2033 are complicated to say the least. Your main character, Artyom, is part of the Rangers. They are a group of individual survivors who have gathered together to keep peace within the metro system. As a ranger you also have the luxury of dealing with Russian Soviets and Russian Nazis.
The Soviets hate both the Nazis and the Rangers. The Nazis also hate the Soviets and the Rangers. Everyone hates each other. Your job is to try to come to a peaceful resolution with Russian Communists and Russian Nazis. It is difficult to reach this political peace because both the Communists and the Nazis want to brutally kill you.
In dealing with this situation, a social justice warrior would enter an existentialist crisis because he would find out that Communists and Nazis don’t care about his social justice ideology. They don’t care that a social justice warrior would be anti-gun or would be an expert at stopping oppression through online internet posts. All Communists and Nazis would care about is trying to increase their own power at all costs, killing many innocent people in the process.
Are you tough enough to deal with the nuclear wasteland, harsh survival, and insane politics in the Metro 2033? I know I would be up for the challenge but I would have to take some remedial hunting courses first.
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