Richard

I want to preface that the contents of this post is for informational purposes. I do not condone or approve of any harassments or witch-hunting or the attacking of anybody.

 

Richard Lewis recently did a stream talking about the terrible state of CS esports and I thought it was an important stream anyone who cares about the CS community should listen to.

Vod Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/830415547

I realize it is 3 hours long so I took it upon myself to create a list of interesting points from the stream so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, although I still encourage you to do so if you can.

I know this post is still long but probably easier to digest, especially in parts.

Here is a link to my raw notes if you for some reason want to read through this which includes some omitted stuff. It's in chronological order of things said in the stream and has some time stamps. https://pastebin.com/6QWTLr8T

#Intro

• "The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for Counter-Strike esports in 2021."
  • "I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
• "For the past 5 to 6 years, we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
  • "We're spread way too thin."
• "If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
• RL thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out, like:
  • Recent CSPPA strike against BLAST
  • ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
  • Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
  • Widespread match fixing
  • The Pandemic
    • "People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault."
    • "People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie."
      • "To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week."
      • "Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production." (hinting FACEIT)
      • "People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up."
• "It's all

Source [email protected]:45 >“They are a ‘wait-and-see’ team. Wait and see if it pans out. Everyone is optimistic the first 10 games when you get off to a hot start.

>Everyone is optimistic on the honeymoon, but 50% of marriages end in divorce.

>For once, I just want to see the 76ers overachieve”

RI: The Gravel Institute and Richard Wolff argue that Capitalism hasn't reduced global poverty, but instead has exacerbated it or at most not helped mitigate poverty. Where poverty has reduced, like China, this is a result of socialist policies, not capitalism. Countries that have adopted "American style Capitalism" have been unable to reduce poverty. Many of the Gravel Institutes claims derive from ignoring the policies of countries like China that reduced their poverty rate and real reasons why absolute poverty has risen and why proportional poverty is difficult to measure and reduce.

I also personally felt that u/Parasat16 response was lacking in areas

I want to make a video in response, but considering the amount of sources and subjects, it'd be valuable to get some feedback and corrections from people more astute on the subjects than my layman's understanding.

the Gravel Institute's video and the channel more broadly, is meant to be a response to the arguments provided by PragerU, Libertarians and free market fundamentalists. By claiming that Capitalism and reducing poverty are diametrically opposed is both highly reductive and misunderstands economic development and the role of markets.

*Markets, will always exist. From merchant traders in ancient Phonecia to financial traders in the London stock exchange, each accrued and reinvested the wealth generated from their activities, whether speculating on commodities or shipping luxury goods through the Mediterranean. Rather capitalism should be better seen as a net of various functions and policies that can support markets and the degree to which they operate. There is no purely free market society as there is no society truly devoid of free markets as people seek to trade and accumulate wealth.

What’s so greatly misunderstood by the Gravel institute and other free market fundamentalists is that capitalism isn’t an ends onto itself but a tool wielded by policy makers and governments in how they use the wealth acquired from commercial activity. Markets can be relegated or deregulated through an almost endless series of choices in order, in theory at least, to create a prosperous society or in the case of dictatorships and monarchies, at least support them and their cronies.

I want to look at Wolff's objections to the global poverty rate and what he believes reduced it, something that even with all the goal pos