/jp/ - Otaku Culture

[Anonymous No.]

Why is ruling from the shadows a bad thing? Objectively speaking, Humanity cannot rule themselves and need guidance from another superior species.

[Anonymous No.]

Deja vu.

>>>/tg/60724815

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392092
Because 1: Humanity can rule themselves. And have done so for most of our history. 2: There's no reason to actually view Youkai as superior. There's a reason why they've been reduced to hiding in Gensokyo from the rest of the world. And 3: Youkai are also systematically murdering innocent people.

[Anonymous No.]

The average human villager has more say in how Gensokyo is run than the average human alive has in how the world is run. You can get an audience with the powers that run Gensokyo if you want. You're not getting the same with [insert world leader here] unless you have a cool hundred thousand dollars to throw away.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392165
>The average human villager has more say in how Gensokyo is run than the average human alive has in how the world is run.
You aren't fooling anybody, Yukari. Even people living in dictatorships have more to say than your average human villager. And that's not even getting into representative democracies.

[Anonymous No.]

Another Grimsokyo autism thread? Fuck off. Sage.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392197
Not really. I think somebody just wants to continue a conversation that started on /tg/.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392206
A thinly veiled political thread for a retarded crossboarder scumbag has no place here.

[Anonymous No.]

The secret to winning is to be the cutest youkai.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392213
>REEEEEEE STOP HAVING FUN
t. (You)

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392218
*Most evil Youkai.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392213
I agree. It might actually be a good thread. And that has no place on /jp/.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392219
Who are you quoting?
>>19392228
Reposting the same thread on other boards is prohibited.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392218
So Satorin is the one secretly controlling Gensokyo?

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392233
I'm quoting you, dumbass

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392182
The people of Gensokyo don't need a representative democracy. All they need is Yukari to watch over them.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392219
get out

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392233
>Reposting the same thread on other boards is prohibited.
Citation needed

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392792
No. All the youkai need is to have Yukari to watch over them. Humans actually need a democratically elected leader. Preferably one that just got done killing Yukari.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392937
Yukari is here to stay. Fuck off.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392092
>Humanity cannot rule themselves
THat's some major defeatist bullshit.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392970
Don't think this is the first time this thread has been posted in /tg/, either. Shitty copypasta (you) farm.
Sage to oblivion!

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392970
Also literally untrue. I mean, even if you want to claim "BUT DIVINE LAWS!". I would like to point out that even if god is real. Those texts have been rewritten so many times that little of the original "laws" remains.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392966
Evil won't win forever, anon. Everything has to end eventually. That includes Yukari. And considering how much pain and suffering she caused. It won't be a pleasant end either.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392995
Gods and Demons exist to exploit humans. That's why they always try to undermine humanity.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393000
>Evil won't win forever, anon. Everything has to end eventually. That includes Yukari. And considering how much pain and suffering she caused. It won't be a pleasant end either.
Yukari is a savior to her people. Any other person in her position would have done the same.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393002
Some gods are technically benevolent. But the nature of the Touhou universe means that every supernatural creature is a parasitic sentient meme. And therefore have to die eventually if humanity is to prosper.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393010
She's the Youkai version of Hitler. And like Hitler, she'll ultimately lead her people to destruction if she continues her current course.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392995
>literally
Literally and unironically ironically figuratively saged. Yukari is here to stay.
Go back.
>>>/v/

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393051
I normally try to avoid using literally. But we have actually been ruling ourselves just fine for the last five thousand years. That's a literal fact.

>Yukari is here to stay.
Somebody is going to kill her eventually. Buddhism is right in the Touhou universe. Karma is going to catch up to her. And it will be painful.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393034
She's more like a split Namekian if you ask MY opinion baby dick!

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393051
shut the fuck up yuckarifag

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393084
She is like a split Namekian. The evil half that is. Can't wait for girl Sun Wukong to kill her.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393067
No one is going to kill Yukari. She did nothing wrong. If all (you) want is (you)s, places like
>>>/b/
>>>/v/
>>>/vg/
are much better. With a little modification, you could probably stick this thread in
>>>/pol/
Those are all (you) mines. /b/ is pretty much an all-year round california gold rush as far as (you)s go. Here's your (you), now go back. Saged.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393118
>She did nothing wrong.
(You)

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393123
No thanks, (you) can keep it
(you)

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393141
>Yukari is so poor she needs to steal traffic signs

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393144
It's a reference to her game, (you) silly nit. Keep the sage train going.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393118
>I don't care about (you)s. I just think Yukari is a irredeemably evil monster of a woman that deserves to die. Is it really so strange for somebody to hate the villain of a story?

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393192
I don't care about (you)s. I just think Yukari is a irredeemably evil monster of a woman that deserves to die. Is it really so strange for somebody to hate the villain of a story?

[Anonymous No.]

Fuck off back to /tg/. We've had this shit multiple times in the past few weeks and that autist from /vg/ hasn't fucked off despite saying he would multiple times

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393220
I have actually fucked off for a while. I'm temporarily back now because i saw some interesting looking threads. But any other posts over the past few weeks are not my doing.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393192
Who are (you) quoting? Reposting the same topic is (you) farming. Yukari doesnt deserve to die, and the villian of the story is whoever you fight in the games. (you)r grimdark headcanon is giving this 40kid a headache, that's saying something.
>>19393192
>>19393192
>>19393192
(you) have several threads worth of (you)s, so can (you) go farm somewhere else?

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393246
I'm not farming, you imbecile. Now stop acting like a child just because you can't handle my opinion.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393270
Well, seeings how your opinion is that someone needs to die, damn right I'm going to act like a child, if it's childish to be upset by that especially when it's a character i like.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393324
It is very childish to be upset, actually. She's a fictional character. That I think she deserves to die, and that I think it's going to happen, should not upset you. I think she's an irredeemably evil bitch. But it does not "upset" me when people think otherwise. Even if I do think those are people are wrong.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393341
>should not upset you
Well, that's part of the territory that comes with empathy. I care about the character, and the idea of harm or death coming to her is upsetting. You not getting upset when other's hear that you want someone they like to die isn't comparable to someone getting upset when someone says that a character they like deserves to death. If you can't understand why that upsets others, then that's pretty fucked up.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392147
>3: Youkai are also systematically murdering innocent people.
you haven't actually proved at any point that youkai are eating innocent people who wanted to live

[Anonymous No.]

She tried to save Humanity from the Oppressive Youkai rule, /jp/. She was so close.

[Anonymous No.]

This thread is for the gays

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393733
It's good that she failed. Her revolution would have done more harm than good

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392239
That's not Rumia

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393604
1: It's never been said that Yukari ONLY spirits away suicidal people. PMISS seems to imply that she abducts suicidal AND easily missed people. And the way your average outsider is portrayed in that book doesn't really strike me as the actions of somebody that just tried to kill themselves. 2: Mental illnesses are one of the biggest causes of suicides. So, paradoxically enough, a lot of people that try to kill themselves don't actually want to die. 3: Yukari also seems to abduct and murder people for her own amusement, going by her dialogue in PCB.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393520
I can understand it, I just think it's incredibly silly. It would have been one thing if I was ZUN. But I'm just some guy with an opinion about Touhou. If you can't handle the idea of people not liking a fictional character in the same way you like them. Then maybe you shouldn't go to an infamously volatile website like this.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393733
She wasn't exactly close. I mean, step one for a successful anti youkai rebellion is killing both Reimu and Yukari. And she didn't even manage that. Still, it was a pretty noble effort.

>>19395487
Nah. She could have done a lot of good. If she had made the human villagers realize the true nature of their situation. Gensokyo as is would be finished pretty quickly.

[Anonymous No.]

This is some high-tier shitposting you've got going here anon. Bravo.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19395856
>Shitposting.
Stop thinking every opinion you dislike is shitposting.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19395893
But it is. You can't talk about Gensokyo politics around here without you bringing this up, and you're so persistent that it always ends up dominating the thread. The conversation never changes either. This is exactly what shitposting is, anon.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19395899
>You can't talk about Gensokyo politics around here without you bringing this up, and you're so persistent that it always ends up dominating the thread
You can, actually. But when you make a thread called "Why is ruling from the shadows a bad thing?". Then, no shit, I'm going to mention I disagree with that opinion. If you don't want to deal with people having opinions about Gensokyo, then why are you even here? There are like ten different Yukari threads you could visit instead. None of which I visit with any kind of regularity.

>The conversation never changes either.
Believe me. I would like the conversation to evolve as well. If you want to do that, or talk about a different aspect of Gensokyo politics. Then please, go ahead.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19395938
Four. I counted. That's three too many, though.

It's good to dream, but why would you even expect the discussion to evolve? You're arguing essentially for the destruction of Touhou as we know it, of course the only response Touhoufags are going to give you is "no, fuck off," especially if it's an argument they've heard time and again. You seem smart enough to realize that too, so I can only assume you're going in knowing it's just going too stir up the same old shit. Thus, shitposting.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19395938
Going on several boards and shitposting for hours about how you hate Touhou isn't an opinion but full fledged hate boner.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19395938
You know what, after looking into your posts a bit, nevermind, I don't think you're shitposting on purpose. You're just very opinionated, persistent, and frustrated that /jp/ doesn't want to have a civilized debate about this. The result is the same either way, though.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19395979
>It's good to dream, but why would you even expect the discussion to evolve?
Because I've made an argument that would require the conversation to evolve if it is to be argued against. That's usually how those things work. Unless you go completely off topic.

>You're arguing essentially for the destruction of Touhou as we know it, of course the only response Touhoufags are going to give you is "no, fuck off," especially if it's an argument they've heard time and again.
Honestly, while I think it would technically be a good thing if Gensokyo just exploded. That's not the ending I actually want, something I have also pointed out multiple times. I would rather have Gensokyo change for the better. That doesn't mean I hate the setting, just that I sympathize with certain people and want their situation to improve. There is nothing wrong with that.

>You seem smart enough to realize that too, so I can only assume you're going in knowing it's just going too stir up the same old shit.
I know it's going to stir up shit. But that's only because every interpretation of Gensokyo that isn't a shallow wish fulfillment fantasy is going to stir up shit. No matter who says it. Regardless, it's not my end goal. I just come here because I want to discuss Touhou. If that means having to deal with idiots talking about "Grimderp headcanons". Then fine, I'm willing to live with that.

>>19395985
Oh, stop exaggerating you man child.. There was a discussion on /tg/ somewhat about Touhou. Then it moved over here, so I followed it. That's literally all I did.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19396040
>You're just very opinionated, persistent, and frustrated that /jp/ doesn't want to have a civilized debate about this.
You're mostly correct about that. I am very opinionated when it comes to Touhou. And I can be pretty persistent with my arguments. But I'm more annoyed that people keep accusing me of shitposting/hating Touhou/farming than frustrated that /jp/ won't have a normal debate about anything.

>The result is the same either way, though.
Yeah. That's why I don't visit this place that often anymore. Unless I think I something might actually go down a interesting direction.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19396071
>That doesn't mean I hate the setting, just that I sympathize with certain people and want their situation to improve. There is nothing wrong with that.
I think the problem we run into here is that those certain people are background filler at best, and non-characters occasionally mentioned in the background fluff at worst. It's hard to empathize with with such folks over the pretty girls the story is actually about, especially when doing so would mean undermining aforementioned ladies.

>I would rather have Gensokyo change for the better.
How?

>>19396076
Fair enough.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19395775
What exactly are you basing this off? Can you point out the text passages?

[Anonymous No.]

government-provided paizuri

[Anonymous No.]

>>19396076
>Yeah. That's why I don't visit this place that often anymore. Unless I think I something might actually go down a interesting direction.
Nobody is going to miss you and your endless domination of every thread arguing that ZUN created a 1984 dystopia and literally everyone besides you is just too dumb to see he's been ironically shitposting at us the whole time.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393103
Wrong mythological parallel there kiddo.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19396194
Which government my friendly spooky?

[Anonymous No.]

Gensokyo a horrible deal for the humans living in it and everyone complicit should be harshly judged if you were to see it from the perspective of a human(which you might want to, because odds are you're human if you're reading this)

All you have to do is think of what living standards in an isolated community 200 years ago might be like to come to this conclusion. They're forced to have awful lives stuck an age in the past, denied of freedom, amenities, and interaction with a wider human society by the deliberate will of a group holding power. It's easy to see it as unjust.

But that's part of the reason it's an interesting setting. Why is this an opinion people get upset about? Seems reasonable to me.


>>19396133
>How?
Given how fluid and free magic is in Touhou, you could basically do whatever you want to the fabric of Gensokyo, plot-wise. Obviously these aren't something ZUN would do, but there are any number of ways you could take it.

There are hints here and there that Youkai are able to go outside the barrier, so maybe they put together a task force to try and start bringing occultism back to the outside and expanding. We know of a few outsiders who fuck around with Gensokyo, so it shouldn't be impossible.

Another one: Gensokyo already has a whole lot of 'parallel' supernatural spaces, right? Like senkai and makai and so on. Maybe they find another one with a similar group of humans living in a new space like that, or a few humans manage somehow to spread and colonize one of them. Or something.


If you mean in-universe, how would one change Gensokyo for the better?
That I have no idea. It looks like a total deadlock.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19396458
Fascism

[Anonymous No.]

>>19397420
Nazi uniforms look really fucking edgy on 2D characters rather than real life. Odd

[Anonymous No.]

>>19396133
>I think the problem we run into here is that those certain people are background filler at best, and non-characters occasionally mentioned in the background fluff at worst. It's hard to empathize with with such folks over the pretty girls the story is actually about, especially when doing so would mean undermining aforementioned ladies.
I know people are shallow, and have an easier time sympathizing with the pretty girls rather than their victims. But regardless, not every Touhou character has to necessarily be undermined by Human villagers/outsider's situation improving. Hell, some of them would benefit. So, while I can understand the problem, I think it's an overblown.

>>19396160
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Perfect_Memento_in_Strict_Sense/Vampire
>It is said these are humans from the outside world or those whose deaths are of no consequence (suicidal, etc.).

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Perfect_Memento_in_Strict_Sense/Outsider
>Most of these humans are in a state of panic, but it should be natural.
>They immediately put a tool called a "mobile phone" to their ears, and after that are at a loss as of what to do next.

>https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Perfect_Cherry_Blossom/Story/Sakuya%27s_Extra
>https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Perfect_Cherry_Blossom/Story/Marisa%27s_Extra
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Perfect_Memento_in_Strict_Sense/Yukari_Yakumo
>As she can freely visit the outside world, it's speculated that she attacks humans in the outside world

>>19396354
I wouldn't exactly call it a 1984 esque dystopia. It's more of a perversion of romanticist ideals. Like the kind of world Hitler would create if he had unlimited powers and a massive hate boner for technology.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19396485
>If you mean in-universe, how would one change Gensokyo for the better? That I have no idea. It looks like a total deadlock.
I would say there are a few ways. 1: Somebody with sufficient power, influence, and allies could challenge the Youkai sages and win. It would leave some bodies on the floor. But it could be done without turning all of Gensokyo into a crater. Unfortunately, the only person that has a semi realistic chance of possessing enough of the above qualities to succeed would be the Hakurei Shrine Maiden. And, well, considering what kind of a person Reimu is. That isn't happening any time soon.

2: You could try and reveal the existence of Gensokyo to the outside world. And once they figure out how to break the barrier, they would be able to liberate the human villagers pretty easily. However, this would also probably result in the complete genocide of most Youkai. Which isn't exactly an ending most people would want.

3: Youkai redemption/rehabilitation is canonically possible. If Youkai collectively reach a point where they no longer need human fear to survive. They might just kick the entire human village out of Gensokyo, or at least stop oppressing them.

4: The Youkai need Humans a LOT more than Humans need Youkai. If they realized the true nature of their existence, the Villagers could actually bargain from a position of surprising strength. I imagine they could get a lot of reforms done just by threatening to rebel. Or, and I know this might sound somewhat insane, threatening to collectively commit mass suicide.

And yes, out of universe there are pretty much limitless way the situation in Gensokyo could be improved. The universe is big enough and the rules loose enough that ZUN could easily come up with something without it feeling like a asspull.

[Anonymous No.]

It's like /tg/'s most obnoxious HFY faggots merged with Carnac and came to /jp/.

>>19396485
>All you have to do is think of what living standards in an isolated community 200 years ago might be like to come to this conclusion.
What are you fucking comparing it to? Feudalism? Living standards in Japan at the dawn of the Meiji era were decent. The scourges of premodern life were disease, famine, and war. The modern world has largely solved these problems (for about 75% of people, anyway), but so has Gensokyo. The Amish do not live out their days in a neverending despair-filled shithole because they are detached from the grid.

The "trade" in Gensokyo takes away a good chunk of freedom (less than that of China's and certainly less than that of the 20th century police states), and attempts to provide a solution to the spiritual crisis of modernity, the same "value" as is provided by actual religion.

>Why is this an opinion people get upset about?
Because you've repeatedly declared that Yukari is basically Hitler, which makes Reimu Eichmann in Jerusalem, all the other Touhous kapos, and everyone else in /jp/ good Germans placidly complicit in the banality of Yukari's great evil, primarily based on speculation and forced readings of evilness and irony into ZUN's positive descriptions of just about everything.

>>19398422
There's nothing there more materially awful than someone wandering into a national park and getting eaten by a bear.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19396076
>I am very opinionated when it comes to Touhou
Like when you said that you want to turn Gensokyo into a completely generic setting and Reimu into Mary Sue ass western heroine. Gee man what a hot opinions.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19398555
Not the guy, but:

>What are you fucking comparing it to?
To the living standards of the modern world. Like, sure, Gensokyo is alright by the standards of 1868 Japan. But 1: Those standards, even for the time, were only decent. And 2: It's not 1868 anymore. The only countries to which Gensokyo compares favorably nowadays are places like Syria, Somalia, and North Korea.

>The "trade" in Gensokyo takes away a good chunk of freedom (less than that of China's and certainly less than that of the 20th century police states), and attempts to provide a solution to the spiritual crisis of modernity, the same "value" as is provided by actual religion.
There is no "trade" to speak off. Not only is the situation forced upon the human villagers without anything even resembling consent. They don't get anything back from it, nor was it ever the intention that they got anything back from it. Gensokyo exists only to preserve Youkai, it isn't supposed to provide a solution to the spiritual crisis of modernity. A crisis that, by the way, doesn't exist. It was somewhat of a thing in western intellectual circles during the modern period, and it was responsible for some pretty influential philosophical movements. But it ended pretty quickly, without really affecting the general population.

Also, while it obviously varies somewhat depending on the actual nation. You do actually have more freedom in a 20th century police state or modern China than you do in Gensokyo. Assuming you aren't an oppressed minority, obviously.

>Because you've repeatedly declared that Yukari is basically Hitler, which makes Reimu Eichmann in Jerusalem, all the other Touhous kapos, and everyone else in /jp/ good Germans placidly complicit in the banality of Yukari's great evil, primarily based on speculation and forced readings of evilness and irony into ZUN's positive descriptions of just about everything.
I think you might be exaggerating a bit. Yes, I think Yukari is basically Youkai Hitler. And I can draw some parallels between Gensokyo and the "Romanticism gone wrong" ideals of Nazism. But that's about it.

>There's nothing there more materially awful than someone wandering into a national park and getting eaten by a bear.

Expect, you know. That going to a national park is a choice. Youkai are a lot more dangerous than bears. You aren't expected to die in a National park. The people that run the national park don't want you to die. Bears aren't sapient creatures. National parks don't target easily missed and suicidal people to abduct and feed to bears. And you're actually pretty safe in most national parks as long as you don't act completely retarted.

Congratulations! I think that might have been the worst metaphor I ever heard.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19398620
>Like when you said that you want to turn Gensokyo into a completely generic setting.
No, I want the setting to be a less shit place. And even then, only as the ending of the story.

>And Reimu into Mary Sue ass western heroine.
Again, no. I just want her to actually give a fuck about any of the countless injustices going on in Gensokyo. She doesn't need to be a Mary Sue, nor does she need to be more "western". Just not making her seemingly complicit in mass murder would be enough.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19398817
>And 2: It's not 1868 anymore. The only countries to which Gensokyo compares favorably nowadays are places like Syria, Somalia, and North Korea.
You forgot countries like Brazil, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, which collectively constitute over half of all non-Chinese humans. The GDP per capita of 1885 Japan (the date the Hakurei Barrier was established) was 860 in 1990 international dollars (Morrison, World Economy, p206), which surpassed all of the above countries except Brazil in the actual year 1990. A copy of 1868 Japan dropped out of the sky into the year 1990 would have been a better place to live in terms of living standards than well over half of all humans alive. Add in 100 years of capital accumulation at pre-medieval rates and throw in the other factors of HDI, which Gensokyo seems to have easily achieved - life expectancy, education, and GDP per capita - Gensokyo is doing quite passably on the world stage.

>A crisis that, by the way, doesn't exist.
ZUN writes about it himself both in character and out of character. The fact that YOU don't believe it exists means jack shit to anyone else.

>Yes, I think Yukari is basically Youkai Hitler.
All the others immediately follow with regime complicity. If Yukari is Hitler, then everyone who thinks she's fine is a Nazi.

>You do actually have more freedom in a 20th century police state or modern China than you do in Gensokyo.
The Soviet Union regularly conducted political purges and forced wives to denounce husbands in mock trials before having them executed and subjecting their wives to a lifetime of oppression. The Stasi engineered a society where children informed on parents, neighbors informed on neighbors, and literally nobody including family could be trusted. These were societies you could be publicly executed, to the compelled applause of everyone in society including your own family. The basic unit of society had been subjected to a totalitarian society. If you can read something like Under a Cruel Star and say with a straight face, "well, at least they didn't have to live in Gensokyo" I would be fucking appalled.

The level of control in Gensokyo might be comparable to that of China in the sense of omnipresent surveillance, and I had a whole section about it was hell on earth if you happened to be a member of a certain ethnic class before reading your disclaimer.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19398817
>Expect, you know. That going to a national park is a choice. Youkai are a lot more dangerous than bears
Replace "national park" with "wilderness", then.

>I think that might have been the worst metaphor I ever heard.
How much Holocaust literature have you read?

[Anonymous No.]

>>19398834
>No, I want the setting to be a less shit place. And even then, only as the ending of the story.
You want to destroy the setting so that it is less personally offensive to you.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19398817
>And 2: It's not 1868 anymore. The only countries to which Gensokyo compares favorably nowadays are places like Syria, Somalia, and North Korea.
You forgot countries like Brazil, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, which collectively constitute over half of all non-Chinese humans. The GDP per capita of 1885 Japan (the date the Hakurei Barrier was established) was 860 in 1990 international dollars (Morrison, World Economy, p206), which surpassed all of the above countries except Brazil in the actual year 1990. A copy of 1868 Japan dropped out of the sky into the year 1990 would have been a better place to live in terms of living standards than well over half of all humans alive. Add in 100 years of capital accumulation at pre-medieval rates and throw in the other factors of HDI, which Gensokyo seems to have easily achieved - life expectancy, education, and GDP per capita - Gensokyo is doing quite passably on the world stage.

>A crisis that, by the way, doesn't exist.
ZUN writes about it himself both in character and out of character. The fact that YOU don't believe it exists means jack shit to anyone else.

>Yes, I think Yukari is basically Youkai Hitler.
All the others immediately follow with regime complicity. If Yukari is Hitler, then everyone who thinks she's fine is a Nazi.

>You do actually have more freedom in a 20th century police state or modern China than you do in Gensokyo.
The Soviet Union regularly conducted political purges and forced wives to denounce husbands in mock trials before having them executed and subjecting their wives to a lifetime of oppression. The Stasi engineered a society where children informed on parents, neighbors informed on neighbors, and literally nobody including family could be trusted. These were societies you could be publicly executed, to the compelled applause of everyone in society including your own family. The basic unit of society had been subjected to a totalitarian society. If you can read something like Under a Cruel Star and say with a straight face, "well, at least they didn't have to live in Gensokyo" I would be fucking appalled.

The level of control in Gensokyo might be comparable to that of China in the sense of omnipresent surveillance, and I had a whole section about it was hell on earth if you happened to be a member of a certain ethnic class before reading your disclaimer.

>Expect, you know. That going to a national park is a choice. Youkai are a lot more dangerous than bears
Replace "national park" with "wilderness", then.

>I think that might have been the worst metaphor I ever heard.
How much Holocaust literature have you read?

[Anonymous No.]

Oh boy it's another thread where our resident moralfag keeps crying to everyone over how much they hate the setting of 2hu, as if writing walls of text on /jp/ would somehow make ZUN re-write his entire universe from scratch. I honestly think you need literal autism to keep this up month after month.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19399069
>The Soviet Union regularly conducted political purges and forced wives to denounce husbands in mock trials before having them executed and subjecting their wives to a lifetime of oppression.
After Stalin, mock trials and widespread purges were extremely rare and targeted toward political dissidents and elites within the party/red army. The average millwright or butcher was left alone and provided with a stable life as long as he didn't cause a fuss.
>The Stasi engineered a society where children informed on parents, neighbors informed on neighbors, and literally nobody including family could be trusted.
Gensokyo has an entire type of youkai that function as spies.
>These were societies you could be publicly executed, to the compelled applause of everyone in society including your own family.
See my above comment about Stalin.
>The basic unit of society had been subjected to a totalitarian society.
Most families also had a basic standard of living, guaranteed medical care and long-term job & housing stability.
>If you can read something like Under a Cruel Star and say with a straight face, "well, at least they didn't have to live in Gensokyo" I would be fucking appalled.
See >>19344006. Gensokyoans are probably dying of appendicitis or tooth infections that were easily curable problems in the USSR. The vast majority of people aren't political and are content to live under whatever regime gives them stability, sustenance and security.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19399278
>After Stalin, mock trials and widespread purges were extremely rare and targeted toward political dissidents and elites within the party/red army.
I was unaware that Stalin's Russia was excluded from the definition of the "20th century police state." Maybe he lived in the 19th century and I simply forgot?

>Gensokyo has an entire type of youkai that function as spies.
And that's still superior to recruiting your child or your wife as a spy. You don't have to take zashiki-warashi anyway. By the time they had the state set up the Stasi were up to one in every six citizens reporting to the state.

Finally, the thread of a spy is linked to what the consequences of what that spy can do to you, such as having you subject to arrest, torture, or later in the kinder gentler GDR, merely being blacklisted from work and having the machinery of the state (all of society in the socialist Republics) work tireless to drive you insane.

>Most families also had a basic standard of living, guaranteed medical care and long-term job & housing stability.
That's not a trade they "chose to make" either.

>Gensokyoans are probably dying of appendicitis or tooth infections
Literally zero evidence for this whatsoever.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19399278
Also I'm sure you learned about the Holocaust in school with everyone else and then more on your own, but if you're going to keep comparing Yukari to Hitler, I'd really suggest you read some memoirs or oral histories which attempt to viscerally convey some small fraction of the true misery that Hitler inflicted on people during the period. For a full reckoning of the misery involved there are the countless survivor memoirs, but also to see the kind of corruption that was inflicted on ordinary society there are also the oral histories of perpetrators: I consider "The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders" one of the better accounts but can't find it online; I did find a copy of "Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101" which has a wider perspective and which I like less for that reason.

Maybe you have read a bunch of these and think it's reasonable to conduct a historiographical comparison of Gensokyo and the Reich anyway, but I really, really find it hard to believe that anyone can mention these in the same breath and find it normal. And not just because Gensokyo is a fictional setting; even if Gensokyo were real and every evil think you think Yukari did was done, maliciously, ten times over to thousands of people, maybe you could make the comparison but it still wouldn't be remotely fucking close.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19399063
>You want to destroy the setting so that it is less personally offensive to you.
The setting is not "personally offensive" to me. I think it's a shitty place, and i wouldn't want to live there. But I can say the same thing about Star Wars. Yet I don't think anybody would accuse me of being personally offended by the Star Wars universe.

>>19399069
>Gensokyo is doing quite passably on the world stage.
Those are some very nice statistics, however: 1: It's not 1990 anymore either. Most of the countries you mentioned have actually improved considerably since then. 2: 1886 Japan and 1863 Japan were two extremely different places. In a measly 23 years, Japan went from a backwards poorly developed country to one of the fastest growing industrial nations on the planet. Which brings me to my third point. 3: The main reason why Japan was doing so well back then was because of the rapid industrialization and international trade. Both things the Human Villagers would be unable to profit from once they became stuck in Gensokyo. So, even if their GDP per capita was pretty high. It would have quickly plummeted once the barrier came down, and never recovered. 4: While the life expectancy in Gensokyo is probably pretty high (Thanks, Eirin). Educational facilities are rare, and seemingly pretty unpopular.

So, no, Gensokyo would not be doing well on the world stage.

>ZUN writes about it himself both in character and out of character. The fact that YOU don't believe it exists means jack shit to anyone else
While I do actually respect ZUN (believe it or not). On this topic, he's completely wrong. And he can write about it as much as he wants, it's still not actually a problem for most of the world population. Now, it could be more of a thing in Japan. I wouldn't know, don't live there. But even then, compared to every other problem that country faces, calling it a crisis is ridiculously overblown.

>All the others immediately follow with regime complicity. If Yukari is Hitler, then everyone who thinks she's fine is a Nazi.
That doesn't necessarily have to be true. Most people that think Yukari is fine aren't fascist or malicious, just ignorant and misguided. Both in Gensokyo, and on this board.

>The Soviet Union regularly conducted political purges and forced wives to denounce husbands in mock trials before having them executed and subjecting their wives to a lifetime of oppression. The Stasi engineered a society where children informed on parents, neighbors informed on neighbors, and literally nobody including family could be trusted. These were societies you could be publicly executed, to the compelled applause of everyone in society including your own family.
Yes, yes, yes. Living in Gensokyo is better than living in the Soviet Union during the Stalin years. Sorry, not a particularly big accomplishment. I can say the same thing about most countries in the world, past and present.

>If you can read something like Under a Cruel Star and say with a straight face, "well, at least they didn't have to live in Gensokyo" I would be fucking appalled.
I don't actually think about Gensokyo when reading books about real historical tragedies, but whatever. Regardless, if the only point you can make is "Living in Gensokyo is less worse than being an oppressed minority in a murderous authoritarian dictatorship". Then I would also like to point out living in Gensokyo is worse than 1: Living as a privileged majority in a nation with a benevolent, competent, and pragmatic ruler. 2: Living as a minority in a nation with a benevolent, competent, and pragmatic ruler. 3: Living as an oppressed minority a country with benevolent, competent, and pragmatic ruler (which is pretty rare situation, I admit). 4: Living as a privileged majority in a competently run country. 5: Living as a minority in a competently run country. And 6: Living as a privileged majority in a murderous authoritarian dictatorship.

>Replace "national park" with "wilderness", then.
Still doesn't work. Unless the wilderness regularly abducts people to die violent horrible deaths.

>How much Holocaust literature have you read?
A decent amount.

Also, I came THIS close to making a Jojo reference.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19399144
Have you ever considered that maybe i just like discussing Touhou a lot?

>>19399344
>Finally, the thread of a spy is linked to what the consequences of what that spy can do to you, such as having you subject to arrest, torture, or later in the kinder gentler GDR, merely being blacklisted from work and having the machinery of the state (all of society in the socialist Republics) work tireless to drive you insane.
And I'm sure that if Yukari's spies find somebody planning to do something she doesn't want. She'll politely ask them to stop.

>That's not a trade they "chose to make" either.
That's fair. But, eh, it's still a fuck ton better than solving a problem that doesn't exist for 99% of people.

>Literally zero evidence for this whatsoever.
This I do actually agree with. But that's only because Eirin sells medicine nowadays. Before IN, most human villagers did probably die pretty young from diseases.. And poor people might still have a problem.

>>19399504
I view Yukari as Hitleresque because she has the same mentality, goals, ideals, and desires as you know who. And while their exact methods are different, the end result is much the same for the victim. Either a cruel painful death, or horrible psychological scars. The one thing I will give Yukari is that at least she's doing it on a much, MUCH smaller scale. And the psychological scars are usually less damaging.

Also, I don't think Nazi Germany and Gensokyo can be compared in a historiographical sense. But I do think there are some parallels to the way Gensokyo and Nazi Germany both pervert the core beliefs of romanticism into something truly twisted and cruel.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19399543
>2: 1886 Japan and 1863 Japan were two extremely different places.
Gensokyo was sealed was dropped in Meiji 18, hence Shanghai Alice of Meiji 17.

>rapid industrialization and international trade.
Gensokyo presumably has some amount of light industry. It's clear that it's not electrified and doesn't have scientific environment but this doesn't stop it from having engineering; there's no reason they shouldn't have nineteenth century innovations like power looms as long as they don't worry too much about what an atom is. There are also goods that enter Gensokyo from outside as well as the lightly industrialized neighboring nation of Youkai Mountain. There is no reason to believe that in the modern day their life is materially worse than that of the Amish in modern day America.

>Educational facilities are rare, and seemingly pretty unpopular.
Source?

>On this topic, he's completely wrong. And he can write about it as much as he wants, it's still not actually a problem for most of the world population.
Touhou Project isn't for most of the world population. It's for people who recognize various social and psychological malaises of modernity (social alienation and existential dread and the like), which are strong at work in Japan. If you don't recognize it, you're rejecting the underpinning about 99% of Gensokyo, and your criticisms of it weigh about as much as an atheist arguing that a Christian allegory would be improved if only they removed those annoying Christian parts. The fact that the atheist may be right doesn't really matter; there's no way to do it without gutting the whole work.

>That doesn't necessarily have to be true.
If you support Hitler, then it is accurate to call you a Nazi, even if you are ignorant and misguided.

>Living in Gensokyo is better than living in the Soviet Union during the Stalin years.
Then don't argue that it's not.

>Still doesn't work. Unless the wilderness regularly abducts people to die violent horrible deaths.
There are two kinds of people who enter Gensokyo, those who are explicitly kidnapped and those who wander in. People in Gensokyo who are eaten by youkai are no more "murdered" than people in the wild who are eaten by lions. It is at most a safari park containing lions not labeled "Beware of Lion," which could constitute negligence but hardly a systematic murder machine. The kidnapped people are mentioned in PCB to be those such as suicides (and the translation is actually "suicides", not just everyone suicidal which could be a whole lot of people).

[Anonymous No.]

Stupid people pretending to be smart: the thread

[Anonymous No.]

>>19399661
>And I'm sure that if Yukari's spies find somebody planning to do something she doesn't want. She'll politely ask them to stop.
The most authoritarian states stamp out all dissent at a point of a gun because of how fragile they are. States where dissenters don't post a reasonable threat don't need to come down like a ton of bricks on everyone. When you are as powerful as Yukari you can almost certainly affect a kinder, gentler version of social control than the Stasi.

>But, eh, it's still a fuck ton better than solving a problem that doesn't exist for 99% of people.
The vast majority of Touhou fans are attracted to Touhou Project precisely because it offers a "solution" to the problem, even in a fictional sense. The ideal itself is the primary source of its attraction. You, who have no use for the ideal whatsoever, are an outlier among outliers when it comes to being a "fan" of Touhou Project.

>I view Yukari as Hitleresque because she has the same mentality, goals, ideals, and desires as you know who.
Literally only thing their ideologies have in common is that their ideals lie somewhere in the sphere of romantic discontent with modernity, a sphere that ZUN lies too given that he calls himself the Hakurei Priest. But if you want to compare them, some of Hitler's main goals included the racial cleansing of Germany, the conquering of Europe and Asia to exterminate the lesser races and provide living space, and the unquestioning subservience of individuals to the state as one sort of big organic volk thing.

Yukari's goal in comparison basically constitutes keeping an unlabeled safari park full of tigers because she enjoys having tigers around.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19399738
>Gensokyo presumably has some amount of light industry.
Emphasis on "light". They might have a printing press or a power loom. But they almost certainly lack any of the heavier industry that allowed Japan, and the rest of the world, to prosper as much as it did. Especially if the old backstory of the Human Village starting out as a town of monster hunters is still canon.

>There are also goods that enter Gensokyo from outside as well as the lightly industrialized neighboring nation of Youkai Mountain.
The goods that enter Gensokyo from the outside world aren't particularly useful to the locals. Nor would they make up for the massive gaping hole left in their economy by the lack of trade. Meanwhile, the industrialization of the Youkai mountain civilizations is both a pretty recent development. And something the Human Villagers might not necessarily profit from all that much. If anything, it might make it easier for them to be economically exploited.

>There is no reason to believe that in the modern day their life is materially worse than that of the Amish in modern day America.
That's a terrible comparison. Regardless, considering that the Amish relationship with technology is a bit more complicated than it's usually portrayed in fiction. They might actually be worse off than certain Amish communities.

>Source?
https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Bohemian_Archive_in_Japanese_Red/Keine
>Yes, I did. But it hasn't managed to attract many people. Everyone dislikes schools, it seems.

>It's for people who recognize various social and psychological malaises of modernity (social alienation and existential dread and the like), which are strong at work in Japan. If you don't recognize it, you're rejecting the underpinning about 99% of Gensokyo
Touhou does argue that modernity is flawed, certainly. But if you honestly think Gensokyo is presented as a viable, let alone superior, alternative lifestyle for humans. Then you might be missing the forest for the trees.

>If you support Hitler, then it is accurate to call you a Nazi, even if you are ignorant and misguided.
I disagree. But whatever, if you want to act like I'm calling you a nazi because you don't think Yukari is evil. Go right ahead.

>Then don't argue that it's not.
I never did. Or do you think the USSR is the only Police State that existed in the 20th century?

>There are two kinds of people who enter Gensokyo, those who are explicitly kidnapped and those who wander in.
Actually, according to Yukari's profile in PCB, nobody "wanders in". Yukari is always responsible for people ending up in Gensokyo. That's why she's, you know, the one behind the spiriting away. Because she spirits people away to die.

>The kidnapped people are mentioned in PCB to be those such as suicides (and the translation is actually "suicides", not just everyone suicidal which could be a whole lot of people).
>https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Perfect_Cherry_Blossom/Story/Prologue
>Of course, the youkai couldn't let the humans know about their presence. Under the guise of various accidents and incidents of people running away from home, the youkai hunted humans.

Also, like I said earlier, according to PMISS. Yukari steals people that are easily missed as well. Not just people that are about to, or have, commited suicide.

>>19399856
>When you are as powerful as Yukari you can almost certainly affect a kinder, gentler version of social control than the Stasi.
Yes. She gently makes sure humans that break the unspoken rules of Gensokyo are killed. And she's kind enough to send the grieving families a gift basket afterwards.

Seriously, what the fuck do you think she does when somebody breaks the rules? Arrest them?

>The vast majority of Touhou fans are attracted to Touhou Project precisely because it offers a "solution" to the problem, even in a fictional sense.
Anon, I've been in the Touhou fandom for more than ten years. I can say, without any doubt in my mind, that most Touhou fans don't care about the ideal. They are attracted to Touhou because of the cute girls, the memes, the fan content, and the music. People like you are just as much of an outliner as me.

>Yukari's goal in comparison basically constitutes keeping an unlabeled safari park full of tigers because she enjoys having tigers around.
Yukari's goal is to create a place for her people to prosper. She does this by systematically murdering and oppressing innocent people. Perpetuating meaningless and harmful conflicts. Crushing anything even resembling dissent. And strengthening the position of her own race at the expense of everybody else.

The only reason why she isn't trying to take over and cleanse Europe and Asia is because she knows she wouldn't be able to win that fight.

[Anonymous No.]

>when the very same mouthbreather posts the very same shit with absolutely no knowledge of the more whatsoever
I hate reruns
You're worse than the fucking flat earthers

[Anonymous No.]

Oh boy, grimfag is back and he “found” the perfect thread to spill his shitposts into.

Remember to type sage in options to deny a bump to the thread.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19400238
>But they almost certainly lack any of the heavier industry that allowed Japan, and the rest of the world, to prosper as much as it did.
The Japanese economy circa 1885 was not based on heavy industry or anything close to it. It is this Japan without heavy industry matching up with the modern states even in 1990. The establishment of fusion power and the like is new, but Kappa have been craftsmen for generations.

>That's a terrible comparison. Regardless, considering that the Amish relationship with technology is a bit more complicated than it's usually portrayed in fiction.
Elaborate.

>But if you honestly think Gensokyo is presented as a viable, let alone superior, alternative lifestyle for humans. Then you might be missing the forest for the trees.
I won't argue that it's superior, but it's easily viable. If it were an inviable way of living humans wouldn't have lived that way for hundreds of years.

>But whatever, if you want to act like I'm calling you a nazi because you don't think Yukari is evil.
I act like it because it's what you're doing, which is coincidentally why nobody you've ever argued with likes you.

>I never did.
"You do actually have more freedom in a 20th century police state than you do in Gensokyo." You did not add a qualifier saying that you were explicitly excluding the most famous police state in history.

>Actually, according to Yukari's profile in PCB, nobody "wanders in". Yukari is always responsible for people ending up in Gensokyo.
There is a contradiction here between the profile, where Yukari waves the barrier causing people to fall inside, and the prologue, which features parties leaving the barrier (although ZUN has hinted that the the inscription may be an older state of affairs). But where is your citation for "easily missed"?

[Anonymous No.]

>>19400238
>Seriously, what the fuck do you think she does when somebody breaks the rules?
You can call for the overthrow of the United States and nobody will come to arrest you (although the cops might have a look) because your chance of succeeding is nil. Yukari will presumably only act when the existence of Gensokyo is under threat, something most people are unable to achieve.

>Anon, I've been in the Touhou fandom for more than ten years. I can say, without any doubt in my mind, that most Touhou fans don't care about the ideal.
I have followed Touhou Project for eight years. I don't associate with 99% of Touhou Project fans but I can say that it's a theme that runs solidly through the main work, half the side works, and a good chunk of doujinshi and would hate to meet any fan who was capable of ignoring it. Excluding the shipping, gag comedy, and H-doujinshi (which of course there is quite a lot of), the vast majority of Touhou secondary works with a plot of any form to sound or at least pretend to sound "philosophical" about some aspect of Gensokyo.

>Yukari's goal is to create a place for her people to prosper.
A goal shared by every politician alive.
>She does this by systematically murdering and oppressing innocent people.
Her people (presumably) have to eat people to survive, in which case you have a trolley problem.
>Perpetuating meaningless and harmful conflicts.
How are they "meaningless"?
>Crushing anything even resembling dissent.
She hasn't crushed the speech of those like Byakuren who want to end the people-eating model. What she crushes is threats to the existence of the nation, which all states do.
>The only reason why she isn't trying to take over and cleanse Europe and Asia is because she knows she wouldn't be able to win that fight.
There is zero textual basis for this assertion.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19400432
Not an argument

[Anonymous No.]

>>19400432
>when the very same mouthbreather posts the very same shit with absolutely no knowledge of the more whatsoever
I actually have quite a bit of knowledge about the More. Mostly Thomas More.

Yes, I am taking the piss.

>>19400678
>The Japanese economy circa 1885 was not based on heavy industry or anything close to it.
It was based on industry far heavier than what would have in a small village. And Japan's prosperity was heavily dependent on international trade. So, the Human Village would still suffer immensely economically from becoming isolated.

>Elaborate.
Certain Amish communities are actually willing to use some modern technology. With some of them probally having more advanced stuff than the human villagers.

>If it were an inviable way of living humans wouldn't have lived that way for hundreds of years.
The people of the past actually had, like, rulers. And trading. And, assuming that they weren't slaves or serfs, the ability to leave and go live elsewhere. Even actual isolated mountain communities usually had more freedom and opportunities than the Human Villagers do.

>You did not add a qualifier saying that you were explicitly excluding the most famous police state in history.
No. But I did say "Also, while it obviously varies somewhat depending on the actual nation.".

>There is a contradiction here between the profile, where Yukari waves the barrier causing people to fall inside, and the prologue, which features parties leaving the barrier
One comes from an out of universe character profile. And the other one is a in universe text subject to unreliable narrator. It's not that hard to figure out which one Is wrong.

>But where is your citation for "easily missed"?
>https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Perfect_Memento_in_Strict_Sense/Vampire
>It is said these are humans from the outside world or those whose deaths are of no consequence (suicidal, etc.).

>>19400761
>You can call for the overthrow of the United States and nobody will come to arrest you (although the cops might have a look) because your chance of succeeding is nil.
I wasn't talking about "calling to overthrow the Government". I was talking about actually breaking the rules of Gensokyo. The one guy that did that in canon ended up very dead. There is no reason to assume Yukari is more lenient to other humans that break the rules.

>I have followed Touhou Project for eight years. I don't associate with 99% of Touhou Project fans but I can say that it's a theme that runs solidly through the main work, half the side works, and a good chunk of doujinshi and would hate to meet any fan who was capable of ignoring it.
Then I would advise you to stay away from other fans. Because most of them don't play the games. Only read certain parts of the side works. And don't care too much about doujinshi with a serious plot. And even if they do read such works. Usually only for the characters, not the "ideals".

>A goal shared by every politician alive.
Yes. But it's generally seen as bad if you try and accomplish that goal by mass murdering and oppressing innocent people.

>Her people (presumably) have to eat people to survive,
They don't have to eat Humans, it's just something they like to do. And even if they did, there is no reason to assume that they can't just eat corpses.

>How are they "meaningless"?
The whole Youkai Vs Human conflict was pretty much over around 1870. Yukari has been prolonging it in Gensokyo. Which, at least before the Spellcard system was implemented, resulted in a lot of deaths. And even nowadays, still frequently claims the lives of outsiders.

>She hasn't crushed the speech of those like Byakuren who want to end the people-eating model.
While she, presumably, views Byakuren as misguided. The woman is still acting perfectly in line with Yukari's system, and favors Youkai over humans. Meanwhile, she flat out refuses to allow the Human Villagers to have a leader. Makes sure people that break the rules are murdered. And relies on mass espionage to find dissenters. She's just as ruthless as any totalitarian dictator, only slightly more pragmatic.

>There is zero textual basis for this assertion.
Yukari doesn't give a single fuck about Human lives, that's quite evident from almost everything she does. If she had a magic button that would wipe out 99% of humanity, she would press it in a heartbeat.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19400761
You know, while we can keep discussing individual points forever. I think that's kind of getting away from the actual central point. Even if I accepted most of your arguments. That would still leave us with a situation where a large group of people are being forced against their will to give up their freedom in return for something 99% of them don't need. Forcing them into a life that, whatever its values might be, is far unhappier than what they would have had without Gensokyo. All for the sake of a bunch of monstrous sociopaths that regularly murder innocent people and the people that support them. If you can honestly defend that. Then, while you aren't a Nazi, there is something VERY wrong with you. And you should maybe consider that you only defend Gensokyo because the Youkai all look like cute girls. Not because of some "ideal".

[Anonymous No.]

>waaaah they kill people
So do we. Every day, all over the world, in much greater numbers than youkai ever have. All for shitty reasons too; at least those few that get spirited away die to prevent a race from going extinct.
Worry about our own world first.

[Anonymous No.]

People already told you several times. Learn what socipath actually means.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19400761
>8 fucking years
What a fucking hypocrite.
>99% of other
What a piece of shit. Why's that? Are you some supreme being who can't be bothered to mingle with people you see as below you, "lol muh maturity" "lol they're so pathetic because they spend all day obsessing about fiction while I have a life, I am successful, I can't stand being around these untermensch, because I am a dignified man of culture, and no, I am not meaning the silly meme, I am too cultured to reference such a thing, because of I am beautiful, excuse ME while I go apply my make-up and stare at my reflection in the mirror", that's exactly what you sound like you are in real life, an elitist piece of fucking shit. Reading all your shit makes pretty apparent that you're are the fucking sociopath, better yet, a fucking psychopath, because at least sociopaths can empathize with other's feelings.
>people eating
Shut the hell up with this fucking meme. Gensokyo is a happy, good place, and like some anon in a different thread said, it's youkai-hater propaganda to screw with relations between humans and youkai. Fuck off with your grimderp headcanon and your "but muh shadow government poweh fantasy", because that's probably what it is. People like you are exactly like politicians, politicians are fucking monsters who don't care about human beings (granted, there are and have been politicians who view people as people and not pawns, but sadly they're the minority), and i fucking hate politician types. You piece of fucking shit are exactly what's fucking wrong with our society, judgemental shiteaters who couldn't care less about the "degenerates who are plebs and immature like lmao they like fiction and they enjoy more than just vanilla sex like wtf", and this thread and the threads you types make are fucking bullshit, and you need to fuck off and take this shit to either a different website or a containment board. Fucking saged.

[Anonymous No.]

Why don't Youkia and Humans breed with one another? It would solve everything.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19403857
why don't human races breed with one another? It would solve racism.
Same reason, there will still be those that argue "muh pure race" because they see it as a threat due to old prejudices.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19403871
Youkai are a master race though

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392197

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393010
The lure of not being "forgotten" and surviving amidst the changing "new world"... who wouldn't have taken that offer?
But.. by the time we realized what "Gensokyo"... no... what this "FANTASY CAGE" truly was... that the "deal" we had taken was nothing but "bait"... it was too late.
We're just toys! Toys for her other toys to play with! Yukari gave us permission to exist, and all in exchange for our "freedom"...! "Youkai" once ruled the night... now we are a pathetic existence.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19403901
There is no such thing as a master race anon.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19403857
>>19403871
>>19403901
>>19403917
>>19404149
Why do you keep bumping this thread, you jackasses? The asshole is just whoring replies with a stale copypasta template that serves no purpose but to stroke his digital ego. Sage.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19404514
Maybe not for the Human Race.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19402391
>"But Humans are the real monster."
Not even surprised this conversation would go down that direction. But whatever, I don't even get what point you're trying to make. Me wanting Gensokyo to get better doesn't mean i don't care about the real world.

Also, the idea that Youkai NEED to kill/eat humans is a headcanon at best.

>>19402421
I'm pretty sure I have a better grasp of that word than some of the people here.

>>19403692
I'm both impressed and somewhat disturbed that I managed to cause a meltdown like this by talking about Touhou. Get help, seriously.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19403857
Because Youkai don't want to breed, obviously.

>>19403901
A master race wouldn't be reduced to hiding in a pocket dimension from the rest of the world. Relying on a teenage human girl to stop their society from self-destructing.

>>19404550
Lunarians are even more pathetic though.

>>19404149
>Youkai whining about not having any freedom.
Even in Gensokyo, the privileged upper class never realizes how good they have it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19405047
>Me wanting to gut the foundation of Gensokyo.
fixed

[Anonymous No.]

>>19405047
>impressed and disturbed
Well, what were you expecting? You're talking about killing Youkai, and you even admit that it's not a need, which is better than "muh grimderp edge", but for whatever reason you still want the 2hus and youkai to die for contrived and narrow-minded reasons. You don't seem to understand that this is a concept that will upset others, and implies that you either see the death of others as excusable, or you don't understand why others would be upset by people/characters they like and love dying. You try and argue that "it's just fiction, why are you emotionally involved in a fiction enough to be upset by these things", but turn around and obsessively push your agenda, what you want to happen. I'm sure you do understand that word better than other people here do.
The fact that you, a human, want to genocide the Youkai, really speaks volumes. As it's been said, humans are violent, they kill, they steal, they wage wars, they hurt each other, they discriminate and persecute based on silly, nonsensical things, at the big-picture level, we're blood-thirsty, selfish monsters. Youkai don't do any of that, they stay in Gensokyo, and live peacefully. It's youkai-hater propaganda that they even want to eathumans, or if they did, they no longer want to do so anymore. That's just made-up shit. Looking at this thread, it's pretty fucking obvious that you're incapable of empathy, or you just don't care to even attempt to understand others, so fuck off somewhere else.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19405313
Jin Mishima wouldn't be in agreement with you on that one Magikarp Fisherman -Blackbelt.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19405348
The fuck does that even mean?

[Anonymous No.]

Reminder that there is no truly bad person in Touhou. Just people doing the wrong thing.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19402309
>The people of the past actually had, like, rulers. And trading.
For most of the last millenium, most communities were self-sufficient, trade only being vital for completely unavailable goods such as salt. As for rulers, not having to turn over a third of the rice crop to the local daimyo looks to be an improvement in viability, not a regression. Having other places to go is certainly something Gensokyo doesn't have but hardly makes for an "unviable" society considering the rarity of travel in premodern society.

>Certain Amish communities are actually willing to use some modern technology.
Such as? Why does this make the comparison "terrible"? The human village has access to some anachronistic technology as well.

>The one guy that did that in canon ended up very dead.
He was 1. not human, 2. already dead, and 3. had committed "the greatest sin of all"; the equivalent "greatest sin" in the outside world this is treason, a capital crime in every nation up until recently. Your assumption that Yukari regularly administers the death penalty to everyone who breaks the rules is only an assumption.

>They don't have to eat Humans, it's just something they like to do.
If a youkai existed whose "foundation for existence" was based on eating people, could it exist without eating people?
>Yukari doesn't give a single fuck about Human lives, that's quite evident from almost everything she does.
There is no textual basis for this assertion.
>If she had a magic button that would wipe out 99% of humanity, she would press it in a heartbeat.
There is no textual basis for this assertion.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19402365
>Forcing them into a life that, whatever its values might be, is far unhappier than what they would have had without Gensokyo.
There is no textual basis for this assertion. Your belief that the human villagers should be living unhappy and miserable existences does not change the fact that there is no indication of such in the actual work.

>All for the sake of a bunch of monstrous sociopaths that regularly murder innocent people and the people that support them. If you can honestly defend that.
It's for the preservation of an ecosystem where rare species can continue to exist. If every now and then Yukari modifies the barrier so that suicides and people who "would have died anyway" enter Gensokyo and then two thirds proceed to be eaten, I really don't actually care that much. As for murdering villagers, there is no textual basis for your assertion.

>Then, while you aren't a Nazi, there is something VERY wrong with you.
There's something wrong with you. I suspect it's autism. Consider not being a fan of a series written by the VERY wrong self-styled Hakurei Priest.

> And you should maybe consider that you only defend Gensokyo because the Youkai all look like cute girls. Not because of some "ideal".
You should consider you only make the arguments that you do because you're a contrarian shit-eater who feels special and important for having a different take on things than everyone else.

[Anonymous No.]

Ah yes, the good old "everybody in the fandom are idiots except me" Keep up the good work Seymour.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19405313
>I want to watch the foundation of Gensokyo get fixed.
Fixed again.

>>19405328
>Well, what were you expecting? You're talking about killing Youkai, and you even admit that it's not a need, which is better than "muh grimderp edge", but for whatever reason you still want the 2hus and youkai to die for contrived and narrow-minded reasons.
I don't want ALL of them to die. My preferred ending, as I've explained before, is Youkai finding redemption. Some, most prominently Yukari, I think are well and truly beyond that. But nonetheless, I think most Youkai are not inherently irredeemable.

However, if they can't or won't find redemption. Then sorry, I don't feel much sympathy for murderers and assholes. Nor will I shed any tears when they are inevitably wiped out.

>You try and argue that "it's just fiction, why are you emotionally involved in a fiction enough to be upset by these things", but turn around and obsessively push your agenda, what you want to happen. I'm sure you do understand that word better than other people here do.
I "push my agenda" because I am emotionally invested enough to care about what happens to the humans of Gensokyo, the people I actually sympathize with. But I don't care enough to be genuinely upset if my wishes don't come true. Or people disagree with me.

>As it's been said, humans are violent, they kill, they steal, they wage wars, they hurt each other, they discriminate and persecute based on silly, nonsensical things, at the big-picture level, we're blood-thirsty, selfish monsters.
Humans are fine. Even in comparison to most fictional races. Stop being a childish misanthrope.

>Youkai don't do any of that, they stay in Gensokyo, and live peacefully. It's youkai-hater propaganda that they even want to eathumans, or if they did, they no longer want to do so anymore. That's just made-up shit.
Have you even read any of the print works? Or did you just ignore the parts you found inconvenient?

[Anonymous No.]

>>19409027
>I want to watch the foundation of Gensokyo get fixed.
"We had to destroy the village in order to save it."

[Anonymous No.]

>>19405444
>Reminder that there is no truly bad person in Touhou. Just people doing the wrong thing.
I mean, that is probably true for most minor youkai. That's why I don't think they're beyond redemption. But someare just pure evil.

>>19405555
>For most of the last millenium, most communities were self-sufficient, trade only being vital for completely unavailable goods such as salt.
Small villages, yes. But a larger town, bordering on a small city, like the Human Village often profited greatly from trade.

>As for rulers, not having to turn over a third of the rice crop to the local daimyo looks to be an improvement in viability, not a regression.
That's a, incredibly childish and reductive viewpoint of leadership. While it obviously depended somewhat on the time and place. A good, or even decent, king/president/emperor is a massive boon to a society. One that can leave the land and the people behind with far more prosperity than they had before his reign.Meanwhile, a good system of leadership would also allow for incredible social mobility. Something the human village almost completely lacks. There are people who went from "poor peasant" to "Emperor of the most powerful Empire on the planet".

>Such as?
Motorized washing machines. Mechanical Milkers. Mechanical refrigerators. Tractors. Pickup ballers.

>Why does this make the comparison "terrible"?
Because you're comparing a group of people that chose to live without (most) modern technology to a group of people forced into a life without modern technology.

>Your assumption that Yukari regularly administers the death penalty to everyone who breaks the rules is only an assumption.
Again, what else do you think they do? The Youkai have no police. No Jail. No court. No actual authority in the human village. And probably no actual lawbook. The only option that leaves them with besides "kill them" and "ask them politely to stop" is "beat them half to death".

>If a youkai existed whose "foundation for existence" was based on eating people, could it exist without eating people?
Going by the rules established in the print works. Probably yes, as long as the human villagers still think they eat people. And again, they could just eat corpses.

>There is no textual basis for this assertion.
I would say abducting countless people to die. And possibly abducting people for fun, only to kill and eat them later. Would indicate a viewpoint that doesn't equate much value to human lives.

>>19405593
>There is no textual basis for this assertion. Your belief that the human villagers should be living unhappy and miserable existences does not change the fact that there is no indication of such in the actual work.
There is a textual basis for my assertion. Which is that, regardless of its flaws, modernity has actually made a large part of the world population happier. And that even if you are one of those types that needs "spiritual fulfilment, which are usually either privileged yet dissatisfied middle classers or out of touch intellectuals, you can still get that in the outside world pretty easily. If life in Gensokyo is actually miserable or not is ultimately irrelevant. The Human Villagers would be happier in the outside world, and they are being kept against their will by malicious entities.

If you genuinely think that's worth defending because "muh ideals". Then not only do I think that's somewhat disgusting. It also shows that, even if you aren't a Nazi, you are engaging in exactly the kind of thinking that allowed Nazism to flourish. And perhaps consider that Touhou's story, intentionally or not, serves as a perfect warning against the kind of romanticist mentality you have.

>It's for the preservation of an ecosystem where rare species can continue to exist. If every now and then Yukari modifies the barrier so that suicides and people who "would have died anyway" enter Gensokyo and then two thirds proceed to be eaten, I really don't actually care that much.
I'm all for preservation of rare species, but not when it comes at the expense of human lives. Like most normal sensible people.

Also stop saying Yukari only abducts suicidal people. Depending on how reliable you think the print works are. It's at best a theory, at worst blatantly contradicting canon.

>Consider not being a fan of a series written by the VERY wrong self-styled Hakurei Priest.
No. You should consider instead that ZUN is a massive troll. And you shouldn't take his public persona too seriously.

>You should consider you only make the arguments that you do because you're a contrarian shit-eater who feels special and important for having a different take on things than everyone else.
And maybe you should consider that I have no reason to post the opinions I do expect that I believe in them.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19405897
It's more that most people in the fandom just don't care about canon. Which, is actually a pretty good idea.

>>19409038
I want no such thing. I argue that the Human Villagers SHOULD know of the true nature of their existence. And that MIGHT end up destroying them. But that's not the same thing as wanting them to destroy themselves.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19409240
>But a larger town, bordering on a small city, like the Human Village often profited greatly from trade.
Even if Gensokyo was a large village, it was also in the mountains in the middle of nowhere.

>A good, or even decent, king/president/emperor is a massive boon to a society. One that can leave the land and the people behind with far more prosperity than they had before his reign.
The contribution of a leader to the common welfare comes mostly in the form of laws and the common defense. Gensokyo's human village has ordinary laws and is under no threat of external invasion. Other than that the aristocracy as a class throughout history consists of tax thieves who occasionally get a third of all peasants killed fighting over something stupid; the existence of the government as source of common welfare is a modern invention. They DID contribute to the advancement of society because they were the only ones rich enough to fund science and culture, but that was more of an accidental aristocratic conceit than a dedication to the common welfare; in exchange, peasants died in famines who wouldn't have otherwise.

>There are people who went from "poor peasant" to "Emperor of the most powerful Empire on the planet".
The only people who ever did this were people who led peasant revolts in bloody wars that killed significant fractions of the population. The ability to behead the leader and become the new leader was certainly an aspect of premodern society, but pointing it to say that it's proof of social mobility and therefore good is a suspect analysis.

>Motorized washing machines. Mechanical Milkers. Mechanical refrigerators. Tractors. Pickup ballers.
The vast majority of Amish do not use tractors. As for the rest, some variant of labor-saving devices probably exist in Gensokyo.

>Because you're comparing a group of people that chose to live without (most) modern technology to a group of people forced into a life without modern technology.
Part of this analysis has been a material quality-of-life analysis. Freedom is another axis of measurement.

>The only option that leaves them with besides "kill them" and "ask them politely to stop" is "beat them half to death".
States execute a continuum of force from asking politely, warnings, fines, threats, beating, confinement, exile, and execution. There's no reason to believe that the village doesn't have a localized justice system ("simple regulations" are referenced within the text) for dealing with internal affairs such as theft and the like. The state achieves most of its justice not by physically locking people up or executing them (and being badly is arguably preferable, say, five years in prison), but by THREATENING to lock people up or execute them. Why the "warning" and the "threat" haven't made it anywhere onto your list of enforcement policies is a wonder.

There is no textual basis for your assertion that Yukari regularly administers the death penalty to people who break the rules.

>Going by the rules established in the print works. Probably yes, as long as the human villagers still think they eat people. And again, they could just eat corpses.
A corpse is not a human. Found corpses may not satisfy the basis for existence of youkai who attack and eat live humans for the same reason that Orin is unlikely to be able to fulfill her duty as a kasha by carting around live humans.

> Would indicate a viewpoint that doesn't equate much value to human lives.
This is significantly different from what you said before. Someone eats meat, therefore participating in the killing of animals, cannot be concluded to therefore place ZERO value ("a single fuck") on animal life and therefore automatically be okay with setting cats on fire or pushing a button that magically kills 99% of animals even if it wouldn't crash ecology and economy.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19409240
>But a larger town, bordering on a small city, like the Human Village often profited greatly from trade.
Even if Gensokyo was a large village, it was also in the mountains in the middle of nowhere.

>A good, or even decent, king/president/emperor is a massive boon to a society. One that can leave the land and the people behind with far more prosperity than they had before his reign.
The contribution of a leader to the common welfare comes mostly in the form of laws and the common defense. Gensokyo's human village has ordinary laws and is under no threat of external invasion. Other than that the aristocracy as a class throughout history consists of tax thieves who occasionally get a third of all peasants killed fighting over something stupid; the existence of the government as source of common welfare is a modern invention. They DID contribute to the advancement of society because they were the only ones rich enough to fund science and culture, but that was more of an accidental aristocratic conceit than a dedication to the common welfare; in exchange, peasants died in famines who wouldn't have otherwise.

>There are people who went from "poor peasant" to "Emperor of the most powerful Empire on the planet".
The only people who ever did this were people who led peasant revolts in bloody wars that killed significant fractions of the population. The ability to behead the leader and become the new leader was certainly an aspect of premodern society, but pointing it to say that it's proof of social mobility and therefore good is a suspect analysis.

>Motorized washing machines. Mechanical Milkers. Mechanical refrigerators. Tractors. Pickup ballers.
The vast majority of Amish do not use tractors. As for the rest, some variant of labor-saving devices probably exist in Gensokyo.

>Because you're comparing a group of people that chose to live without (most) modern technology to a group of people forced into a life without modern technology.
Part of this analysis has been a material quality-of-life analysis. Freedom is another axis of measurement.

>The only option that leaves them with besides "kill them" and "ask them politely to stop" is "beat them half to death".
States execute a continuum of force from asking politely, warnings, fines, threats, beating, confinement, exile, and execution. There's no reason to believe that the village doesn't have a localized justice system ("simple regulations" are referenced within the text) for dealing with internal affairs such as theft and the like. The state achieves most of its justice not by physically locking people up or executing them (and being beaten badly is arguably preferable, say, five years in prison), but by THREATENING to lock people up or execute them. Why the "warning" and the "threat" haven't made it anywhere onto your list of enforcement policies is a wonder.

There is no textual basis for your assertion that Yukari regularly administers the death penalty to people who break the rules.

>Going by the rules established in the print works. Probably yes, as long as the human villagers still think they eat people. And again, they could just eat corpses.
A corpse is not a human. Found corpses may not satisfy the basis for existence of youkai who attack and eat live humans for the same reason that Orin is unlikely to be able to fulfill her duty as a kasha by carting around live humans.

> Would indicate a viewpoint that doesn't equate much value to human lives.
This is significantly different from what you said before. Someone eats meat, therefore participating in the killing of animals, cannot be concluded to therefore place ZERO value ("a single fuck") on animal life and therefore automatically be okay with setting cats on fire or pushing a button that magically kills 99% of animals even if it wouldn't crash ecology and economy.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19409240
>There is a textual basis for my assertion. Which is that, regardless of its flaws, modernity has
This is not a _textual basis_ for your assertion. To have a textual basis, it must be based on text of the series. It is, so to speak, original research.

>The Human Villagers would be happier in the outside world
There is no textual basis for this assertion.

>It also shows that, even if you aren't a Nazi, you are engaging in exactly the kind of thinking that allowed Nazism to flourish.
Here, you'll like this quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/613948

>I'm all for preservation of rare species, but not when it comes at the expense of human lives. Like most normal sensible people.
In life, we make trade-offs that result in people dying all the time. Lack of universal health insurance costs life. Lack of mandatory organ donation costs life. The right to bear arms costs life. Criminal justice reform costs life. A government that dedicates money towards preservation of archaeological treasures is explicitly not spending that money - and it's never chump change - enacting life-saving measures.

>Also stop saying Yukari only abducts suicidal people. Depending on how reliable you think the print works are. It's at best a theory, at worst blatantly contradicting canon.
There is SOME textual basis for the assertion. It may not true. It may be true. For you to make sweeping declarations on the evilness of Gensokyo based on a theory you have not proved is reasoning from headcanon.

>No. You should consider instead that ZUN is a massive troll. And you shouldn't take his public persona too seriously.
When all the text, speeches, and casual conversations a person has ever had do not indicate that he believes X, insisting that he believes X is a conspiracy theory.

>And maybe you should consider that I have no reason to post the opinions I do expect that I believe in them.
The irony is so thick that you could cut it with a knife.

[Anonymous No.]

Chiming on some other posts -

>>19409027
>Humans are fine. Even in comparison to most fictional races.
Most fictional races have never engaged in horrors on the level that man has inflicted on man. Outside of explicitly dystopian settings it is rare to find examples of fictional races that have engaged in a single instance of the worst humanity has had to offer, because that's the kind of miserable shit that people don't want in their fiction.

I'm pretty sure >>19409038 is using the village as an analogy for the setting rather than actually indicating the human village itself.

[Anonymous No.]

How in the good goddamn are you still going you ugly cunt
This thread needs to be deleted

[Anonymous No.]

to think you can declare Miss Yakumo as evil is foolish
you dont know what she does or why she does it and you never will
she is beyond your definitions
by all means continue to generate such fervent thought-forms in her name though

[Anonymous No.]

Her time will come.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19409027
>humans are fine
Holy fucking shit. As that other Anon said, fictional races and factions have nothing on us. Are you ignoring how absolutely horrifying the shit we pull on each other is, or are you one of those "if the human race is evil, why not embrace that?" types?
>ignore the inconvient
Yes, very much. Bronw Tewi, the Gensokyo in this head isn't grimderp, it's the kind of place you'd want to go when you die. Keep the grimderp out of muh 2hu.
>actually sypathize with
This is about as contrarian as it gets. Rooting for Zeon or the galactic Empire is one thing, but wanting the focus and reason 2hu is 2hu to be displaced, genocided, or cast out in favor of people who are fine the way they are is just too fucking far down the rabbit hole.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19409483
>Even if Gensokyo was a large village, it was also in the mountains in the middle of nowhere.
It's was a bit of a backwater, sure. Not helped by the massive population of Youkai that infested the surrounding. But it wasn't ridiculously isolated, like certain communities in Switzerland for instance. It would have profited from trade. Especially if Gensokyo had never existed.

>The contribution of a leader to the common welfare comes mostly in the form of laws and the common defense.
No. The contributions of a leader were not simply laws and defense. Leadership was, and still is, necessary for any large-scale improvements to a society that make prosperity possible. That was not simply accidental. Without capable leaders, we would still be living in caves.

Also, not every premodern society was run by the aristocracy. People have been ruled by the clergy, intellectuals, merchants, and even democratically elected politicians. There is no reason to assume that if the human villagers had a leader, he would have to be a member of the aristocracy.

>The only people who ever did this were people who led peasant revolts in bloody wars that killed significant fractions of the population. The ability to behead the leader and become the new leader was certainly an aspect of premodern society, but pointing it to say that it's proof of social mobility and therefore good is a suspect analysis.
There have been people who have accomplished similar feats without bloody peasant revolts. And there have also been countless other examples of people in pre-modern societies who made it incredibly far in life despite having a very poor background. Something that is completely impossible in Gensokyo. Simply because of the countless Glass Ceilings Human Villagers have to deal with.

>Part of this analysis has been a material quality-of-life analysis. Freedom is another axis of measurement.
Comparing the material quality of life of the Human villagers to the Amish is completely pointless. That's why it's a shitty comparison. Compare them instead to the rest of humanity. That might actually give you a real indication of how the people in Gensokyo are doing matterially.

>There's no reason to believe that the village doesn't have a localized justice system
Yes. The Human Village probably have a localized justice system. But I was talking about the Youkai, not the Human Villagers. It's the Youkai, and Reimu, who enforce the actual rules that govern Gensokyo. And it's them who do not have any kind of justice system.

>A corpse is not a human. Found corpses may not satisfy the basis for existence of youkai who attack and eat live humans for the same reason that Orin is unlikely to be able to fulfill her duty as a kasha by carting around live humans.
Right, anon. And I can't believe I have to explain this. But the term "eaten alive" is somewhat of a misnomer. You actually die long before you've been completely eaten, usually pretty quickly even. So most of the meat Youkai eat is from a corpse. So, if they HAVE to eat Human meat to survive. They can just eat a corpse.

And again, it doesn't actually work in the way you described. This isn't Monogatari, Youkai don't get eaten by a giant blob of darkness if they don't act Youkai-ish enough. In fact, a lot of Youkai not acting all that Youkai-ish anymore has been a pretty consistent thing across all Touhou media.

>This is significantly different from what you said before. Someone eats meat, therefore participating in the killing of animals, cannot be concluded to therefore place ZERO value ("a single fuck") on animal life and therefore automatically be okay with setting cats on fire or pushing a button that magically kills 99% of animals even if it wouldn't crash ecology and economy.
1: No, it's not different from what I said before. 2: There's a difference between eating an animal and eating a Human. 3: Eating meat when you don't have to does actually indicate that you place zero value on the life of that creature. 4: Putting zero value on the life of a creature also means that, if you can benefit from it, you would press the 99% button. And Yukari could absolutely benefit from most of human civilization going away.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19414013
Stop giving it (You)s
Report it instead

[Anonymous No.]

>>19409533

>This is not a _textual basis_ for your assertion. To have a textual basis, it must be based on text of the series. It is, so to speak, original research.
It is actually based on a textual basis. Because the outside world in Touhou is supposed to be a reflection of our world. This is shown in the way real life events also occur in the Touhou universe. So, while it obviously has some differences. It is still largely the same world as the modern world we live in. And since in our world, therefore also the outside world in Touhou, modernity does actually make people happier. The Human Villagers, who are forced to live without modernity, would be happier living in the outside world.

>In life, we make trade-offs that result in people dying all the time.
Yes. And I'm usually against those trade-offs. Especially since they are rarely, if ever, actually necessary. Also, the idea that money spend on anything other than life-saving measures is indirectly killing people is a massive fallacy.

>There is SOME textual basis for the assertion.
There is ONE piece of text that indicates SOME of the outsiders that are abducted are suicidal. So even if that ONE piece of text, from an unreliable source I should add, is right. It still means they aren't the only types of people that are spirited away. Meanwhile, every other piece of information. Some from more reliable sources. Seems to indicate that people are either taken randomly, or because they're easy targets. Since i find the latter far more likely, I'm somewhat willing to entertain the notion that a decent amount of the people that end up in Gensokyo are suicidal. But there is ZERO textual basis that indicates ONLY suicidal people are abducted. It's not simply a headcanon, it's actually contradicting canon.

>When all the text, speeches, and casual conversations a person has ever had do not indicate that he believes X, insisting that he believes X is a conspiracy theory.
In most cases, I would agree with you. But when X dresses his wife up as a fictional character, pretends that the setting he created is real, and openly lies about his work during Q&A sessions. Then I don't think it's a conspiracy theory to assume you shouldn't take the public persona of X too seriously.

>The irony is so thick that you could cut it with a knife.
Why, I don't exactly remember accusing you of only posting certain opinions because you're shitposting/farming/wanting to feel special.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19409544
People have done some horrible shit, I won't deny that. But most people are more just flawed and easily manipulated than genuinely to the core evil. And even by comparison, none of our behavior is actually that much worse than anything that can be found in the world of nature. Some animals, for instance, actually engage in warfare and genocide against different tribes and animals. The only real difference is that humans do it on a far bigger scale.

Meanwhile, I don't know what fiction you've been reading. But compared to your typical "always chaotically evil" fantasy race/aliens, we actually come off pretty favorably. Hell, even in comparison to a lot of mythological gods and monsters we're a decent enough bunch.

>I'm pretty sure >>19409038 is using the village as an analogy for the setting rather than actually indicating the human village itself.
If that is the case, and I somewhat doubt it. Then he's still wrong.

>>19409913
To think any creature can be above good or evil is the height of foolishness. Especially in a universe where Buddhism is actually real. And thinking that Yukari is "beyond definitions" does not mean that we can't destroy her or that she does not deserve to be destroyed.

>>19414013
>Yes, very much. Bronw Tewi, the Gensokyo in this head isn't grimderp, it's the kind of place you'd want to go when you die. Keep the grimderp out of muh 2hu.
No. Nor will ZUN, for that matter. Although I am actually somewhat impressed that you're willing to admit that you don't care about the print works if it gets in the way of your wish fulfillment fantasy. Most people aren't that honest.

>This is about as contrarian as it gets. Rooting for Zeon or the galactic Empire is one thing, but wanting the focus and reason 2hu is 2hu to be displaced, genocided, or cast out in favor of people who are fine the way they are is just too fucking far down the rabbit hole.

>Rooting for an actual genocidal racist empire is better than rooting for innocent people to free themselves from malicious entities keeping them trapped in a shitty lifestyle most of them don't really want.

...Which is why it's somewhat disappointing that you've also shown me a new low the Touhou fandom will sink to. Especially since, I don't actually WANT Youkai to be displaced, genocided, or cast out. I wouldn't care much if it happened. But I would rather have a happy ending for everybody.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19414258
Wouldn't be suprised "I" is one of the most common letters you use. You seem really self-absorbed, starting every statement with "I think" and that sort of shit. Not sure if you can really read into how a person is by how they type, but you really seem like you're a massive dick in the real world.
Not arguing that every individual human being is evil, but at the big picture level, we very much are. Have you read Ishmael? Very much reccommend it. Humans are the only species that breaks the laws of nature. Sure, there are species that do that kind of shit, but it's not really an argument to say it's excusable because of it's scale or some shit. Red ants don't commit holocausts, they don't murder civilians en-masse, they don't kill their neighbors for shits and giggles, they don't decide "hey, that guy is slightly brighter than us other red ants, let's kill him", they don't render entire regions uninhabitable, they don't die by the millions in stupid wars fought for stupid reasons. Their leaders aren't so detached from their humanity that they don't feel a tinge of regret or remorse for sending young people to their graves for stupid, unnecessary shit, they don't do shit like Stalin's great terror, throw bodies at enemy lines until they drown in the blood of conscripts (looking at you, Stalingrad), on and fucking on. The problem isn't the average person, but the people at the top, but sense we tend to be nothing but pawns for the top, we effectively are one and the same, because we just sit back and let it all happen. Aside from mindless or non-sentient groups like 'Nids, fictional factions and "always chaotic evil" types will never truly compare. Not a happy ending, either. Happy ending is how it is. Fuck, this is tiring.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19414428
NOt an argument

[Anonymous No.]

>>19414469
"No!" it is. Remember to add "sage" to the options field before you post.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19414428
>Wouldn't be suprised "I" is one of the most common letters you use. You seem really self-absorbed, starting every statement with "I think" and that sort of shit.
Not EVERY statement. Only the one's that I'm willing to admit are up to debate canonically, and the once that are pure opinion.

>Have you read Ishmael?
No. But I have read books nonfiction books covering the same subject.

>Humans are the only species that breaks the laws of nature.
It's impossible for humans to break the laws of nature because we are part of nature. The idea that there is a distinction between us and the rest of this planet, let alone the rest of the universe, is a foolish one. Especially if you don't have any religious believes.

>Red ants don't commit holocausts, they don't murder civilians en-masse, they don't kill their neighbors for shits and giggles
Actually, certain types of ants do commit genocide on other ant colonies. Sometimes for pretty arbitrary reasons as well.

>they don't render entire regions uninhabitable,
No. But animals can still cause quite a bit of damage to a regions habituality. As do natural disasters.

>Their leaders aren't so detached from their humanity that they don't feel a tinge of regret or remorse for sending young people to their graves for stupid, unnecessary shit
Because they aren't human and have no humanity to be detached from. In the case of red ants, no empathy as well.

>they don't do shit like Stalin's great terror
Killing political enemies is pretty common behavior among pack animals.

>throw bodies at enemy lines until they drown in the blood of conscripts (looking at you, Stalingrad),
You know, not to defend the Soviet Union or Stalin. But they can't exactly be blamed for Germany attacking them.

>The problem isn't the average person, but the people at the top, but sense we tend to be nothing but pawns for the top, we effectively are one and the same, because we just sit back and let it all happen.
Right, well, listen my dear. People have never "sit back and let it all happen". Populations have revolted against unjust and incompetent leadership for as long as human civilization has existed. If people in the west seem apathetic nowadays, that's mostly just because of how good the middle class has it.

>Aside from mindless or non-sentient groups like 'Nids, fictional factions and "always chaotic evil" types will never truly compare.
I would say most of the universe or world conquering/omnicidal-maniac types would compare pretty poorly.

>Not a happy ending, either. Happy ending is how it is.
A happy ending would be Yukari dead. Outsiders no longer being spirited away to Gensokyo. The Human Villagers being given enough freedom to pick their own leader. An end to the conflict between Youkai and Humans. And Gensokyo ultimately rejoining the outside world rather than being inevitably destroyed by it. If you think the current situation is a happy ending, then you are a twisted person.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19414754
*No. But I have read nonfiction books covering the same subjects.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19414096
>It is actually based on a textual basis. Because the outside world in Touhou is supposed to be
This is not textual. It's based on conclusions of the outside world that ZUN doesn't necessarily share. As ZUN wrote the setting, he decides whether people in ZUN's fictional Gensokyo are happier than people in ZUN's fictional outside world. Your conclusions - based on assumptions that there is no indication that ZUN shares - are not based in any text. They are your headcanon.

The fact that you have a much brighter view of modernity than ZUN means that there is no reason to believe that your assessments of the tradeoffs between modernity and non-modernity are the same as ZUN's assessment of said tradeoffs, and _even if you are correct about the real world_, does not change the fact that the correct assessment of how happy outsiders in ZUN's universe are is based off ZUN's assessment of how happy he imagines people should be with modernity, rather than how you happy you think they are, or how happy they are IRL.

If I am under the delusion that children really like to eat liver because I really liked eating liver as a child, and I write a fictional setting in which there is a house in which children gleefully eat liver three meals a day, the correct analysis of that setting is one where the children are happy because I created a setting in which they are happy. The fact that such a house, if it existed in real life, would probably suck (and the children would all be suffering from minor vitamin A poisoning) does not change the fact that the fictional setting features happy children. Any argument that the fictional children are actually miserable because eating liver for every meal sucks IRL has zero textual basis.

>Yes. And I'm usually against those trade-offs
Just about everyone in society believes at least one of the things on those lists, so enjoy being the only non VERY wrong people in the world.

>It's not simply a headcanon, it's actually contradicting canon.
It's not my headcanon. I'm simply arguing that there is nothing in the text to explicitly indicate that is NOT the case. Various text also suggests that criminals are another target of youkai. It could be true. I happen to think that people it's quite plausible that non-suicidal people who get lost in the wilderness, lost at sea, etc are also sometimes spirited away and then some large percentage of them are eaten.

>But when X dresses his wife up as a fictional character
Cosplay is a common hobby undertaken by thousands of people and is not a reason to ascribe beliefs to ZUN that he has never indicated.
>pretends that the setting he created is real
Pretending that fictional is real is part of the fun of Touhou Project and is not a reason to ascribe beliefs to ZUN that he has never indicated.
>and openly lies about his work during Q&A sessions.
And it is confirmed that these were neither jokes, misrecollections, or retcons? Please provide a source.

>Why
Are you seriously too dense to realize that the exact same reply that you made replies to the accusation you made?

[Anonymous No.]

I accidentally responded to the second post first.

>>19414065
>Leadership was, and still is, necessary for any large-scale improvements to a society that make prosperity possible. That was not simply accidental. Without capable leaders, we would still be living in caves.
Most of the modern productive economic advances have been driven by the decentralized hands of a thousand capitalists large and small. The cotton gin doubled the output of cotton production without any ruler declaring that it should be so. Yes, great works like China's Grand Canal and the aqueducts of Rome were directed from the center, but when your society does not number in the millions is stands to reason that the community could organize community-wide projects without it being imposed so from on high. And more often often everyone got conscripted into building things completely pointless like palaces and pyramids.

>Also, not every premodern society was run by the aristocracy.
I am not arguing that a society not centralized under a single leader is ideal, or the only model we should consider. This discussion started based on "viability." The rule of intellectuals, merchants, and politicians did not begin until modernity.

>There have been people who have accomplished similar feats without bloody peasant revolts.
Please name me a peasant who became an emperor without killing a whole lot of people on the way. I know of countless people who rose to become emperors by hacking apart armies, it happened regularly when dynasties changed. I really don't recall any who didn't. As for alternative routes to prosperity, in the human village it is possible to rise to the level of a local successful businessman, and it's not out of the question that a human could become a magician or a taoist.

>Compare them instead to the rest of humanity.
As I said above (in the reversed-order post), it really doesn't matter how happy you think they should be, but how happy ZUN thinks they should be. But ignoring that, the Amish are relevant because by your analysis in terms of material wealth the Amish should be significantly more miserable than the average American, which studies do not seem to bear out.

>It's the Youkai, and Reimu, who enforce the actual rules that govern Gensokyo.
The Youkai, and Reimu, only enforce a few "true" rules that most people don't violate. The only crimes that they seem to adjudicate are what amounts to "national security", a case that exceedingly few people fall into.

>So, if they HAVE to eat Human meat to survive.
It's not biological sustenance I'm talking about here.
>And again, it doesn't actually work in the way you described.
What youkai actually have to do to maintain their existence is vague.
>In fact, a lot of Youkai not acting all that Youkai-ish anymore has been a pretty consistent thing across all Touhou media.
A modern innovation possibly engineered by Yukari.

>Putting zero value on the life of a creature also means that, if you can benefit from it, you would press the 99% button.
This is empirically false as demonstrated by the revealed preference of people who eat meat on one hand and donate to the WWF on the other. The fact that you think you've demonstrated an ironclad rule of logical reasoning by which Yukari MUST therefore be willing to genocide 99% with the push of a button fails for the simple reason that real people (and presumably Yukari also, theoretically) have value systems that your theory fails to describe.

>>19414258
>But most people are more just flawed and easily manipulated than genuinely to the core evil.
One does not have to be a cackling villain to do evil; bureaucratic, banal evil is still evil. There is no sense in applying ethical judgments to the decision of non-sentient animals. And the original comparison was not between humans and omnicidal maniacs; the comparison was between humans and "most fictional races."

[Anonymous No.]

This is a very informative thread

[Anonymous No.]

I'm sorry wonderful FS Aya had to be the OP pic for this.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19414825
>As ZUN wrote the setting, he decides whether people in ZUN's fictional Gensokyo are happier than people in ZUN's fictional outside world.
Sure. But ZUN never passes judgement one way or another. Characters in universe have opinions about the subject. But none of them are supposed to be any kind of voice of reason. Even ZUN calling Gensokyo a paradise isn't proof that the Human Villagers are or are not unhappy. It's obvious he wants you to draw your own conclusions about how happy they are. Which is what I did.

And again, while I won't deny that ZUN views modernity as flawed. I find the idea that he presents Gensokyo as "better" to be incredibly unlikely. Especially when he spent the last twelve years gradually deconstructing his setting and making it a worse and worse place.

>Just about everyone in society believes at least one of the things on those lists, so enjoy being the only non VERY wrong people in the world.
Not really. I know plenty of people who don't believe in any of those things. And even the people that do are more misguided than uncaring. Usually believing that NOT doing those things would get more people killed.

> I'm simply arguing that there is nothing in the text to explicitly indicate that is NOT the case.
I mean, fair enough. But then don't go around saying it's okay for Yukari to mass murder innocent people because "they were suicidal anyway".

>and is not a reason to ascribe beliefs to ZUN that he has never indicated.
I do not claim that his public persona is proof that he believes things he's never indicated. His work is proof that he believes things he never indicated out of universe. What I am saying is that you shouldn't take the things he says and does too seriously.

>And it is confirmed that these were neither jokes, misrecollections, or retcons?
He was usually just joking. Because again, his public persona isn't indicative of what he actually thinks.

>Are you seriously too dense to realize that the exact same reply that you made replies to the accusation you made?
I wouldn't say it's denseness as much as I just don't agree with you.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19414984
>but when your society does not number in the millions is stands to reason that the community could organize community-wide projects without it being imposed so from on high.
For some smaller projects? Sure. But for anything major that might actually improve the quality of life in a major way? No, they are going to need somebody up on high that can get everybody to pool their resources and work together long enough to finish such a project.

>The rule of intellectuals, merchants, and politicians did not begin until modernity.
It wasn't the norm, but it did happen. Meritocracies were often governed by intellectuals. While the Republic of Venice did have an aristocracy, it was mostly governed by merchants. And the same was true for other Merchant Republics. Finally, while most ancient democracies were a lot more oligarchic in nature. Politicians were not always nobles.

>Please name me a peasant who became an emperor without killing a whole lot of people on the way.
None. There have been examples of people who became the emperor/king/president's second in command without having to kill a fuck ton of people. Simply by being a skilled administrator or great advisor. But the absolute top does usually require some bloodshed. That is not the same thing however as "The only people who ever did this were people who led peasant revolts in bloody wars that killed significant fractions of the population." In fact, some of the people who went from peasant to emperor did so by dethroning a corrupt monarch or by bringing peace to the land. Saving, rather than ending, lives.

>As for alternative routes to prosperity, in the human village it is possible to rise to the level of a local successful businessman, and it's not out of the question that a human could become a magician or a taoist.
If becoming a successful businessman in a poor isolated town is the best you can hope for. Then I'm not impressed, sorry. And yes, if you have no problem completely abandoning your humanity and the people you love, then you can become a magician or a taoist. Again, not very impressed with the options presented.

>should be significantly more miserable than the average American, which studies do not seem to bear out.
Studies seem to bear out that they are only somewhat more miserable than the average American. Who aren't exactly the happiest people in the world anyway. For reasons that have nothing to do with modernity. Also, the fact that any Amish that is significantly unhappier can just leave kind of makes it a moot point.

>The only crimes that they seem to adjudicate are what amounts to "national security", a case that exceedingly few people fall into.
No. They seem to fall into "shit the Youkai don't want people to do". Somebody turning into a Youkai, either by accident or intentionally, or the Human village getting a leader would not actually be an issue of national security by itself. And you're dodging the question. If somebody breaks one of those "true" rules, What do you think the Youkai do?

>What youkai actually have to do to maintain their existence is vague.
It Is pretty vague. Inconsistent, even. But no text seems to support the idea that they NEED to KILL to survive. In fact, Remilia and Flandre, two Youkai that do seem to need flesh/blood to survive. Explicitly do not kill the people who they drink. And again, using "Well, it MIGHT work like that" to defend actual mass murder is not something you should do.

>A modern innovation possibly engineered by Yukari.
It seems more like an accidental side effect of the Youkai sages creating Gensokyo. But whatever, i'm willing to admit that we don't know one way or another. It wouldn't make up for her countless crimes anyway.

>This is empirically false as demonstrated by the revealed preference of people who eat meat on one hand and donate to the WWF on the other.
If you eat the meat of a cow then that does mean you don't really put any value on the life of a cow. That does not however mean you put no value on the life of EVERY animal. That's the same reason why some people cry when their dog dies, yet have no problem shooting deer's for fun.

>with the push of a button fails for the simple reason that real people (and presumably Yukari also, theoretically) have value systems that your theory fails to describe.

Then what do you think is Yukari's value system? And try to keep in mind that the idea that Youkai need to kill to survive has a better than average chance of not being true, yet she still spirits people away.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19414984
>One does not have to be a cackling villain to do evil; bureaucratic, banal evil is still evil.
Yes. And most people don't engage in bureaucratic banal evil as well.

>There is no sense in applying ethical judgments to the decision of non-sentient animals

I mean, that's fair. But then you can't say humanity is bad when we have no real point of comparision. Or are you going to claim humanity is bad in comparison to other humans?

>And the original comparison was not between humans and omnicidal maniacs; the comparison was between humans and "most fictional races."
I would say that a pretty big percentage of fictional races are either omnicidal maniacs or always chaotic evil. Simply because that makes them convenient fodder for the heroes to fight. But outside of that, most races are similar to humanity in that they're capable of doing both good and evil. A few are Always Lawful good, although those can usually be corrupted (Angels are the classical example). Some can be more inclined towards doing good. Like Gods and Elves, at least in certain settings. And some are more inclined to do evil but aren't completely irredeemable or unreasonable. This is where a lot of Youkai and similar creatures would probably fall.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19416677
Aya would love to witness a discussion like this though. Just imagine how much hits it would get for her newspaper.

[Anonymous No.]

oh boy another thread where some retard who thinks he can change this dense, stupid fucks mind decides to constantly bump a shitshow of a thread and argue with him, giving the admitted crossboarding /vg/ shitposter who gleefully derails threads the attention he so richly craves

stop fucking responding to it

[Anonymous No.]

>>19417352
>It's obvious he wants you to draw your own conclusions about how happy they are. Which is what I did.
So, there's no textual basis for your assertions. And if it's truly the fact that ZUN wants people to "draw their own conclusions" then it indicates that there are conclusions that are not yours (perhaps drawn by someone who agrees more with ZUN than you do) that are at least as valid as yours.

>I find the idea that he presents Gensokyo as "better" to be incredibly unlikely.
He doesn't. Gensokyo is presented as "different." ZUN does not specify a value judgement between the two, and, more importantly for this discussion, he is not stealthily pushing one.

>Especially when he spent the last twelve years gradually deconstructing his setting and making it a worse and worse place.
References to the eating of people have been around since near the beginning. He's introduced many details since then, but the place hasn't gotten astoundingly shittier since then.

>And even the people that do are more misguided than uncaring.
It must be nice to live in a world where everyone who thinks differently from you is "misguided."

>His work is proof
Then how come you can't find a textual basis for the majority of your assertions anywhere in the work?
>What I am saying is that you shouldn't take the things he says and does too seriously.
I strongly doubt that if ZUN went out and explained that Gensokyo actually sucks ass the way you believe it does, that you'd still be saying we shouldn't take him seriously. The primary reason you tell us to disregard ZUN's words is because they do not support the analysis of Gensokyo you believe to be correct.
>Because again, his public persona isn't indicative of what he actually thinks.
There is no evidence for this position whatsoever. "ZUN jokes about his work" is an utterly abysmal standard by which to disregard everything ZUN says.

>I wouldn't say it's denseness as much as I just don't agree with you.
You made a bad-faith assumption about why people believe the things they believe. The fact that you genuinely can't seem to see that this indicates denseness.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19417380
Obviously some level of direction is required. Some decision-making process and resource collection is required. But that does not require there to be a strong political leader.

>In fact, some of the people who went from peasant to emperor did so by dethroning a corrupt monarch or by bringing peace to the land. Saving, rather than ending, lives.
The way corrupt monarchs are dethroned and peace is brought to the land is by raising armies and killing a whole lot of people, even if it's the right thing to do in the long term.

>And yes, if you have no problem completely abandoning your humanity and the people you love, then you can become a magician or a taoist.
In Buddhist and Taoist philosophy these are ideals.

>Studies seem to bear out that they are only somewhat more miserable than the average American.
Link?
>Who aren't exactly the happiest people in the world anyway.
The Japanese are even unhappier.
>Also, the fact that any Amish that is significantly unhappier can just leave kind of makes it a moot point.
If they're willing to abandon their families and communities, sure. I'm not even sure there's textual proof that humans cannot leave Gensokyo.

>Somebody turning into a Youkai, either by accident or intentionally, or the Human village getting a leader would not actually be an issue of national security by itself.
It is the belief of Yukari and Reimu that these fundamentally undermine the balance of Gensokyo, and it is the belief of Reimu that this balance is required for Gensokyo to exist.

>What do you think the Youkai do?
Most decisions can be walked back. If a leader seems like he might emerge from the human village, he can be undermined through propaganda and influence peddling by the pro-youkai village leaders. If somebody attempts to start the Human Village Academy of Science and Engineering, it can be sabotaged. Your assertion that the death penalty is favored and commonly applied is based on theorycrafting, not text.

>That's the same reason why some people cry when their dog dies, yet have no problem shooting deer's for fun.
There are people who eat chicken and against battery farming, but chickens are chickens. Throughout history, many people have killed people who there wasn't necessarily a moral imperative to kill; of those many people, most of them still wouldn't be okay with killing "99% of people" for an extra ration of beer. Whatever Yukari thinks, the fact that your analysis of real people's values is empirically contradicted by people's revealed preferences indicates that your analysis of what Yukari is necessarily thinking is unlikely to be any better.

>the idea that Youkai need to kill to survive has a better than average chance of not being true
Let's say that at some point in time in the future, I shoot someone in a dark alley. The cops arrive and I claim that he was threatening my life and it was self-defense. The cops conclude that there's a "better than average chance" that I'm lying and that I blew him away just because I could. That's still not a basis for declaring that I am evil. The best you can argue is that there's a good chance that I'm evil. Ethics does not really admit statistical analysis.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19418421
But would Yukari allow it uncensored?

[Anonymous No.]

>>19403871
>why don't human races breed with one another?
Because the result is a mutt.
> t would solve racism.
It wouldn't. Serbia and Lanka confirmed.
>Same reason, there will still be those that argue "muh pure race" because they see it as a threat due to old prejudices.
It's a natural human behavior through.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19420321
>So, there's no textual basis for your assertions.
Fortune Teller was obviously dissatisfied with his lot. And I doubt he's the only human in Gensokyo who would have such a viewpoint. Meanwhile, whoever wrote the PCB prologue mentions that the only reason why Gensokyo isn't a terrible place to live for humans is because everybody can fight Youkai. Which obviously isn't true anymore.

Also, in the absence of evidence that goes either way. I don't think it's illogical that, like in real life, modernity would make them happier. "Like Reality Unless Noted" is a thing after all. It's not a perfect argument, but it's way better than anything I've ever seen from the other side. Whose main argument usually consists of "They like it more in Gensokyo because shut up they just like it more".

>then it indicates that there are conclusions that are not yours (perhaps drawn by someone who agrees more with ZUN than you do) that are at least as valid as yours.
Sure. But like I said above, I have yet to see anything resembling a good argument from people that the Human Villagers wouldn't be less happy in the outside world. And a lot of conclusions i see blatantly ignore large chunks of canon they find inconvenient. And before you say "But you do that as well!" Please, feel free to point out any time I contradict canon.

>References to the eating of people have been around since near the beginning. He's introduced many details since then, but the place hasn't gotten astoundingly shittier since then.
It's true that outsiders have always gotten the short end of the stick. But the Human Villagers went from a reasonably powerful and seemingly not leaderless society of Youkai exterminators that nonetheless still got along with most Youkai swimmingly. To being an oppressed minority at best, glorified cattle at worst. Meanwhile, the idea that Gensokyo is basically stuck in a massive cold war between various major players has been played up more and more. Reimu's job has become increasingly more sinister. Plots with actual serious stakes are becoming a thing. Even the new lorebook reveals that children are often spirited away to Gensokyo. Which means child murder is a common pastime in Gensokyo. And that Hecatia is probably the only reason why the universe hasn't been blown up by evil demons.

>Then how come you can't find a textual basis for the majority of your assertions anywhere in the work?
Let's take a look at my assertions to see if that's true: 1: People would be happier in the outside world. I already explained my textual basis above. It's not the strongest in the world, but it is there. 2: Yukari is a very bad person. This one does have a textual basis, a lot of them in fact. Most of which I already mentioned. 3: Youkai don't need to eat humans. My textual basis for this is that it's never been portrayed as anything other than a need. Which is mentioned in both the PCB prologue and PMISS. 4: Youkai don't just abduct suicidal people. Both the PCB prologue, PMISS, and the new Lorebook seem to indicate that they take other types of people as well. 5: Touhou being "like reality until noted otherwise. My main evidence for this is the fact that real life events also happened in the Touhou universe.

>I strongly doubt that if ZUN went out and explained that Gensokyo actually sucks ass the way you believe it does, that you'd still be saying we shouldn't take him seriously. The primary reason you tell us to disregard ZUN's words is because they do not support the analysis of Gensokyo you believe to be correct.gard ZUN's words is because they do not support the analysis of Gensokyo you believe to be correct.

1: I would actually say we shouldn't take him seriously depending on how he says Gensokyo sucks ass. 2: I'm not saying you should disregard everything ZUN says. His after and forewords are, for instance, is in most cases pretty reliable and truthful. 3: What I am saying however is that you shouldn't take his public persona too seriously. That he calls himself "The Hakurei priest" does not indicate any kind of belief.

>You made a bad-faith assumption about why people believe the things they believe.
The only assumptions I made is that you aren't a Nazi, and that you might just be defending Youkai just because they look like cute little girls. I'm doing you a favor with the former. And while I could be incorrect with the latter. You haven't exactly made any kind of case for yourself.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19420541
>Obviously some level of direction is required. Some decision-making process and resource collection is required. But that does not require there to be a strong political leader.
It does. Or rather, it requires SOME kind of political leader/leaders. Which the humans of Gensokyo explicitly do not have.

>The way corrupt monarchs are dethroned and peace is brought to the land is by raising armies and killing a whole lot of people, even if it's the right thing to do in the long term.
Coups are occassionaly mostly bloodless, even in Pre Modern times. And like you said, sometimes raising a army and fighting the loyalists is the right thing to do because it would save a lot of lives in the long run.

>In Buddhist and Taoist philosophy these are ideals.
Not in Buddhism, there the ideal is to die for good. Which, also not particularly impressive. Regardless, if you actually want to accomplish something as a HUMAN. You basically don't have any options in Gensokyo. So, yeah, in that regard it's even WORSE than many pre modern societies. Which is a pretty impressive feat.

>Link?
These two articles seemed pretty reliable.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/04/02/are-the-amish-unhappy-super-happy-just-meh/
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/03/are-the-amish-unhappy.html

I have found other articles that contradict this idea however. Although one common trend that all of them seemed to share was that the problem with the rest of America's happiness was more consumerism than modernism. Which are not the same thing, at all. So, make of that what you will.

>The Japanese are even unhappier.
Modern Japan is a bit of a mess. But that will blow over eventually.

>I'm not even sure there's textual proof that humans cannot leave Gensokyo.
I would say the massive barrier around Gensokyo would be a pretty strong indication that they can't leave. Sure, Reimu can kick outsiders out of Gensokyo. But that such a privilege is extended to Villagers has no textual proof whatsoever. And, in fact, would seem rather unlikely considering how important a decently sized human population is to the wellbeing of youkai.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19420541
>It is the belief of Yukari and Reimu that these fundamentally undermine the balance of Gensokyo, and it is the belief of Reimu that this balance is required for Gensokyo to exist.
Yes, it's THEIR beliefs. And yet they still enforce it by killing anybody that does transform, even by accident, without a trial. That's called being a murderous tyrant. Not to defend the guy, but even Stalin put on show trials.

>Most decisions can be walked back. If a leader seems like he might emerge from the human village, he can be undermined through propaganda and influence peddling by the pro-youkai village leaders.
1: Which pro-youkai village leaders? The Village HAS no leaders. The best they might do is threaten a few decently important people into showing their disapproval. And even then, anybody that actually has a chance of becoming a leader would probably have the support of such people already. 2: What propaganda? Posters? Newspapers run by Youkai? I don't think most villagers would care about those. 3: There is no reason why Yukari couldn't walk back anybody that turns into a Youkai. Considering that she can, you know, manipulate the boundary between Youkai and Human. Yet people that do that are still killed.

>If somebody attempts to start the Human Village Academy of Science and Engineering, it can be sabotaged.
I mean, sure. Any scientific organization could be sabotaged before they actually become threat. But anybody that invents something on their own that the Youkai sages would rather not have them invent? Well, such a person would probably disappear. Never to be seen or heard from again.

>Your assertion that the death penalty is favored and commonly applied is based on theorycrafting, not text.
It's based on the fact that the one guy that did break the rules ended up very dead. And that Yukari is ruthless as fuck and would have no problem murdering anybody that she views as a potential problem. Something even Kasen and Reimu seem to understand.

>There are people who eat chicken and against battery farming, but chickens are chickens.
I'm also against battery farming, but mostly for ecological reasons. If you claim to genuinely care about the life of a chicken, yet still eat chicken meat. Then I think you're just being disingenuous. Or trying to assuage any feelings of guilt you might have.

>Throughout history, many people have killed people who there wasn't necessarily a moral imperative to kill; of those many people, most of them still wouldn't be okay with killing "99% of people" for an extra ration of beer.
If killing 99% of other people would allow their tiny and weak country to take over the world. Then I think some people would actually press such a button.

> Whatever Yukari thinks, the fact that your analysis of real people's values is empirically contradicted by people's revealed preferences indicates that your analysis of what Yukari is necessarily thinking is unlikely to be any better.
People reveal their true nature through actions. Not thoughts and words. Even if Yukari claimed that her true feelings were a love and understanding for humanity. The fact that she still regularly abducts innocent humans, including children, to Gensokyo, a place where most of them are going to die. Would indicate that she's either lying, or lying to herself.

>Let's say that at some point in time in the future, I shoot someone in a dark alley. The cops arrive and I claim that he was threatening my life and it was self-defense. The cops conclude that there's a "better than average chance" that I'm lying and that I blew him away just because I could. That's still not a basis for declaring that I am evil. The best you can argue is that there's a good chance that I'm evil
That's a cute metaphor, but not really applicable. Let's say instead that they found you in a dark alley, killing somebody. And you defend yourself by saying that you have a rare medical condition where if you don't occasionally kill somebody you die, which you have no way to proof. And that the person you killed was in the process of killing himself, which you also have no way to proof. Do you think anybody would believe you? Even for a second?

So, please. Stop dodging the question. Assuming that Youkai don't need to kill people, and that the people that end up in Gensokyo are not all suicidal. What do you think is Yukari's system of value?

[Anonymous No.]

>>19424426
Not completely, probably. She would want to make sure the Humans of Gensokyo don't realize the true nature of their existence. But otherwise she would be fine with it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19425251
*2: Yukari is a very bad person. This one has a lot of textual basis. Most of which i already mentioned. 3: Youkai don't need to eat humans. My textual basis for that is that it's never been portrayed as anything other than a need. And going by both the PCB prologue and PMISS, seems to be a want.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19426239
(Can't believe i have to correct what was supposed to be a correction. But here we are.)
*My textual basis for that is that it's never been portrayed as a need. And going by both the PCB prologue and PMISS, seems to be a want.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19426239
Yukari is nice

[Anonymous No.]

fucking Reimu-hater extravaganza once again

Don't even bother.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19425251
>Fortune Teller was obviously dissatisfied with his lot.
Fortune Teller was depicted in-universe as a major outlier.
>I don't think it's illogical that, like in real life, modernity would make them happier.
You've moved your argument from "humans in the village ARE far unhappier than outside worlders" to "it's not illogical that they're less happy" which is a softening of the argument by about 99%.
>Whose main argument usually consists of "They like it more in Gensokyo because shut up they just like it more".
Fortunately those people aren't part of this conversation and so there's no need to talk about them here.
>I have yet to see anything resembling a good argument from people that the Human Villagers wouldn't be less happy in the outside world.
In ZUN's viewpoint modernity carries with it drawbacks as well as benefits. We've been over this a dozen times now. The fact that you think that the malaises of modernity apply only to 1% of privileged middle-class intellectuals is irrelevant because the ZUNverse operates off ZUN's value system. If ZUN thinks 50% of ordinary people IRL suffer from "spiritual dissatisfaction", then in the ZUNverse 50% of people in the outside world suffer from "spiritual dissatisfaction.

>Meanwhile, the idea that Gensokyo is basically stuck in a massive cold war
Gensokyo's "Cold War" is more civilized and produces less casualties than ordinary politics in most countries.
>Even the new lorebook reveals that children are often spirited away to Gensokyo.
Source?

1. This is not "textual basis." It's an inference based on your understanding of the real world. Even if the setting featuring the House of Liver appears to be otherwise 100% identical to the real world, there is still no textual basis that the House of Liver is anything other than a happy place unless you find evidence that that the descriptions of the House of Liver consist of some sort of dark satire IN THE TEXT.
2. This is an ethical conclusion informed by facts for which there is a textual basis. The conclusion itself is not supported by the text until you find it spelled out.
3. It's not confirmed nor strongly suggested that youkai MUST eat humans, but it is not disproved.
4. Suicides are but one group of humans who get eaten; however, the theory that youkai only eat suicides, criminals, and people who "would have died anyway" (which I neither believe nor disbelieve) is not disproven.
5. Touhou's outside world is not "like reality until noted otherwise." Touhou's outside world is like ZUN's conception of reality until noted otherwise.

>That he calls himself "The Hakurei priest" does not indicate any kind of belief.
It indicates that he does not find Yukari and the system she has set up involving the Hakurei priest to be a grave, unconscionable evil. Otherwise he would not refer himself as the supporter of said system without a trace of satire. There is no reason to take something ZUN takes unseriously unless there is observable evidence that what he said was a jest or a satire.

>You haven't exactly made any kind of case for yourself.
You haven't made a case that you're anything other than a contrarian shithead, but here we are.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19425288
>It does. Or rather, it requires SOME kind of political leader/leaders. Which the humans of Gensokyo explicitly do not have.
It only requires the ability to form and enforce contracts. Large projects can be financed, for example, by joint-stock companies without any involvement of politics. While the government assisted with land grants and such, the American rail system was primarily spearheaded by private companies.

>Coups are occassionaly mostly bloodless
Bloodless coups don't put peasants onto the throne, they put in whoever had the second most power at the time.

>Not in Buddhism, there the ideal is to die for good.
The Buddhist ideal is to remove yourself of all worldly attachments and leave the cycle of rebirth when you finally succeed 7123847348 cycles later.

>You basically don't have any options in Gensokyo.
As a human, you could make yourself into the Reimu & Marisa social club and exercise your influence from there. A "skilled administrator" or a "great advisor" of Gensokyo.
>Modern Japan is a bit of a mess. But that will blow over eventually.
Gensokyo was thought up in the context of modern Japan. If Gensokyo collapsed overnight, its residents would not become New Zealanders (a country I picked because it was voted the happiest nation on earth in some dumb poll). They would become modern Japanese. Your prediction of Japan's bright future is neither necessarily correct nor should it inform an analysis of Touhou Project, which features in-universe a future outside world in which children do not smile.

>But that such a privilege is extended to Villagers has no textual proof whatsoever. And, in fact, would seem rather unlikely considering how important a decently sized human population is to the wellbeing of youkai.
Reimu would be unlikely to do anything with a chance of systematically undermining Gensokyo. I agree with you that there is no evidence that Reimu has ever escorted anyone out. Whether it's on Reimu's list of capital crimes is another story; and if it's not on the list of capital crimes (which is arguable) then it's not completely out of the question. The removal of an agitator from the human village is probably a net benefit to "youkai security" in the long run so long as he doesn't start a trend.

>And yet they still enforce it by killing anybody that does transform, even by accident, without a trial. That's called being a murderous tyrant.

>1: Which pro-youkai village leaders? The Village HAS no leaders. The best they might do is threaten a few decently important people into showing their disapproval.
The community has no political leaders, but it has people who have more influence than others, like say, Agatha Chris Q.
>2: What propaganda?
Youkai spend a lot of time attempting to manipulate the attitudes of people in the village. If this system works (and there's no reason to believe that it doesn't) then that's by definition what it's going to do.
>Considering that she can, you know, manipulate the boundary between Youkai and Human.
Is there any evidence that she can actually do this other than by inference from the power that she can manipulate generic boundaries controlling anything?

>But anybody that invents something on their own that the Youkai sages would rather not have them invent? Well, such a person would probably disappear. Never to be seen or heard from again.
Let's say that someone invents an internal combustion engine, a powerful precursor of modernity likely to science up Gensokyo and end the long night. Well, since there is no gasoline in Gensokyo, and may not even be coal deposits in Gensokyo, this is unlikely to start an industrial revolution, so the era of modernity it threatened to usher in was stillborn. But let's say for some reason the land of Gensokyo does contain a coal vein and somebody does build a steam engine. There's still practical issues with causing it to supercede all other forms of motive power: for example, you might have to risk youkai attack to get that coal. Or, steam engines could be unreliable in Gensokyo because of gremlins, the industrial sabotage youkai.

tl;dr there are a lot of ways to prevent the industrial revolution without killing anyone.

>It's based on the fact that the one guy that did break the rules ended up very dead.
Not a human, already dead. Killing youkai is in the job description of the Hakurei shrine maiden. Killing humans isn't. It's certainly possible that when a problem arises based on a human that Reimu won't kill, that Yukari will simply off them neat as you please. But there's no textual support for the notion that this actually occurs.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19425319
>And yet they still enforce it by killing anybody that does transform, even by accident, without a trial. That's called being a murderous tyrant.
Missed this earlier. But it's easy not to fall into this trap. Don't become a youkai.

>Then I think some people would actually press such a button.
Some people, yes; your claim earlier was universal.

>People reveal their true nature through actions. Not thoughts and words.
So, people who take the ACTION of buying free-range eggs at a high price have indicated by ACTION that they do care, in some way, about chicken welfare. You've got this truly weird notion that someone who is okay with killing, say, one person to achieve something therefore must also be okay with killing just about everyone to achieve something. It's just empirically not true.

>Do you think anybody would believe you? Even for a second?
No, because IRL behaves according to IRL rules and admits empirical statistical analysis. Let's say this: I write a STORY about someone who kills someone in a dark alley, and when the cops find him, he says that he has to kill people or he dies, and that guy was a murderer anyway. He then turns into a gigantic bat and flies away.

You, the READER, are now in charge of deciding whether to believe whether he was telling the truth. Your IRL statistical analysis is not useful here.

>So, please. Stop dodging the question. Assuming that Youkai don't need to kill people, and that the people that end up in Gensokyo are not all suicidal. What do you think is Yukari's system of value?
I don't know what Yukari is thinking. I also don't have to. You are analyzing what Yukari must be thinking based on what is frankly utterly fucking poor analysis of how real humans work. If ZUN writes about a breadbox and you conclude there's an elephant in the breadbox I don't need to come up with my own theory of what's in the breadbox to point out that your theory sucks.

Yukari's observed system of value is that some things are more important than human life, but not all things. It's not hard to believe. Most people share it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19426910
She's also cute

[Anonymous No.]

>>19430462
>Fortune Teller was depicted in-universe as a major outlier.
The biggest difference between FT and the rest of the Human Villagers is mostly just that he knows a lot more about Gensokyo and the true nature of the Human Village. Outside of that, there is nothing to indicate his opinion is all that out of the norm.

>You've moved your argument from "humans in the village ARE far unhappier than outside worlders" to "it's not illogical that they're less happy" which is a softening of the argument by about 99%.
No, it's not. There is nothing to indicate that people are happier in Gensokyo than in the outside world. But it is both logical and implied (Like the fact that Youkai are so afraid of them rebelling.) that the Human Villagers would be happier in the outside world. In such a situation the only conclusion you can have is that the Human Villagers ARE unhappier than outside world people.

>he fact that you think that the malaises of modernity apply only to 1% of privileged middle-class intellectuals is irrelevant because the ZUNverse operates off ZUN's value system. If ZUN thinks 50% of ordinary people IRL suffer from "spiritual dissatisfaction", then in the ZUNverse 50% of people in the outside world suffer from "spiritual dissatisfaction.
If that is the case, and I don't think it is. Then he gives zero indication for that. There have only been four outsiders featured in the story so far, and all of them are massive outliners. Sanae is a demigod, who even in the outside world seemed to mostly hang out with other gods. Sumireko is a twat, doesn't give a fuck about spirituality, and isn't exactly portrayed positively. And Maribel and Renko are both dissatisfied middle class intellectuals. None of those people are an example of "50%" of the population. I would say they aren't even an example of 1% of the population. So, the idea that ZUN thinks 50% of the people are spiritual dissatisfied, or that this is true in the Touhou universe, is based on nothing.

Like most of your arguments, frankly.

>This is not "textual basis." It's an inference based on your understanding of the real world. Even if the setting featuring the House of Liver appears to be otherwise 100% identical to the real world, there is still no textual basis that the House of Liver is anything other than a happy place unless you find evidence that that the descriptions of the House of Liver consist of some sort of dark satire IN THE TEXT.
You don't automatically assume every place is a happy one. ZUN having a dim view of modernity does not automatically mean Gensokyo is a happy place for humans.

>This is an ethical conclusion informed by facts for which there is a textual basis. The conclusion itself is not supported by the text until you find it spelled out.
You don't need a story to tell you "This character is evil!" before you can reach some kind of conclusion, even a ethical one. And if the conclusion you draw is supported by text, then it's a valid conclusion.

> It's not confirmed nor strongly suggested that youkai MUST eat humans, but it is not disproved.
It is, actually, disproved by several pieces of text. Unless you can argue that those pieces of text aren't true, it's a dead theory.

>Suicides are but one group of humans who get eaten; however, the theory that youkai only eat suicides, criminals, and people who "would have died anyway" (which I neither believe nor disbelieve) is not disproven.
Same as the above. Unless you can argue that any text indicating otherwise are an in-universe lie. It's a dead theory.

>Touhou's outside world is not "like reality until noted otherwise." Touhou's outside world is like ZUN's conception of reality until noted otherwise.
Unless indicated otherwise, in the Touhou universe, the bombing of London happened. Unless indicated otherwise, in the Touhou universe, the Syrian civil war is currently ongoing. Unless indicated otherwise, in the Touhou universe, Alexander the Great existed. We can assume all of those things happened because the outside world in Touhou is like reality until noted otherwise. If ZUN does not believe Alexander the Great existed, then he still has to point that out in his story before it actually becomes a part of the lore.

>Otherwise he would not refer himself as the supporter of said system without a trace of satire. There is no reason to take something ZUN takes unseriously unless there is observable evidence that what he said was a jest or a satire.
It is literally a jest. The position of Hakurei Priest doesn't actually exist. And is therefore not indicative of any believes or opinions. He also claims that he knows and talks with Yukari. Does that mean he supports Yukari's actions? No, because Yukari isn't real and he's joking.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19430852
>>19430852
>Source?
>https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Alternative_Facts_in_Eastern_Utopia/Article_and_Interview/Sumireko_Usami#Interview
>When someone young is alone in a sacred site or other such location, sometimes they end up wandering into Gensokyo. The outside world calls it "being spirited away".

Remember, btw. That despite what Reimu thinks. As revealed in her character profile, Yukari is actually responsible for people being spirited away. Meaning she deliberately targets lost children for abduction and takes them to a place where most of them will die horribly.

>Large projects can be financed, for example, by joint-stock companies without any involvement of politics. While the government assisted with land grants and such, the American rail system was primarily spearheaded by private companies.
Massive private companies located in a country a million times bigger and richer than Gensokyo. Even the richest of Village businessmen would not have even 1% of the funds available that such a company did.

>Bloodless coups don't put peasants onto the throne, they put in whoever had the second most power at the time.
Which sometimes is somebody that started out as a peasant.

>As a human, you could make yourself into the Reimu & Marisa social club and exercise your influence from there. A "skilled administrator" or a "great advisor" of Gensokyo.
That still require abandoning humanity. As it means supporting two people actively interested in keeping you and everybody you love trapped in Gensokyo. It's not that different from just working for a Youkai or God, like Sanae and Sakuya, and abandoning humanity that way.

You also won't actually be working as an administrator or an advisor, or even more famous and important. You'll just be slightly more knowledgeable and privileged.

>Your prediction of Japan's bright future is neither necessarily correct nor should it inform an analysis of Touhou Project, which features in-universe a future outside world in which children do not smile.
The future of the outside world is fine. Pretty good, even. It's not a very fun place for children to live, although I'm going to assume that "a place where children do not smile" isn't supposed to be taken literally. And it doesn't appeal to dissatisfied middle class intellectuals. But outside of that, it actually seems somewhat nicer than modern Japan. And the future is looking pretty bright, considering humanity is only a few steps removed from actually exploring space. So, i don't see any reason to think most Human Villagers would be unhappy there.

>Whether it's on Reimu's list of capital crimes is another story; and if it's not on the list of capital crimes (which is arguable) then it's not completely out of the question. The removal of an agitator from the human village is probably a net benefit to "youkai security" in the long run so long as he doesn't start a trend.
It's not a matter of it being illegal to leave. It's a case of they CAN'T leave. While the barrier isn't perfect, an ordinary human would have no way of going through it without the help of Yukari. Who would be more liable to simply kill somebody instead of actually sending them back to the outside world.

>The community has no political leaders, but it has people who have more influence than others, like say, Agatha Chris Q.
And like I said, anybody that might actually have a chance of becoming a leader would already have the support of most of those influential people. And why do you think those influential people would be willing to support the Youkai anyway? At least, without the threat of death or torture?

>Youkai spend a lot of time attempting to manipulate the attitudes of people in the village.
Again, how? Newspapers? Brainwashing? Putting stuff in the water supply? You can't use "They just do it" as an argument.

>Is there any evidence that she can actually do this other than by inference from the power that she can manipulate generic boundaries controlling anything?
...The fact that she has been shown to manipulate generic boundaries controlling everything? Like, this isn't something that's only been implied. We know she has that power.

>there are a lot of ways to prevent the industrial revolution without killing anyone.
Sure. But considering how certain types of knowledge, and maybe even technology, can actually be harmful to youkai by themselves. Without needing an industrial revolution to support them. Some people trying to spread certain types of knowledge of information would probably be killed.

>It's certainly possible that when a problem arises based on a human that Reimu won't kill, that Yukari will simply off them neat as you please. But there's no textual support for the notion that this actually occurs.
I would say the way FS was treated is enough textual support that Yukari and Reimu are pretty liberal in their use of the death penalty (Or exorcism penalty, in his case).

[Anonymous No.]

>>19430963
>Missed this earlier. But it's easy not to fall into this trap. Don't become a youkai.
It's pretty easy for that to happen by accident.

>Some people, yes; your claim earlier was universal.
The only thing I changed was that I clarified that "if you can benefit from it" doesn't mean "if you can get a free beer out of the deal". Because you apparently needed to have that explained.

>You are analyzing what Yukari must be thinking based on what is frankly utterly fucking poor analysis of how real humans work.
I'm basing it on what people that put no value on the lives of others would do.

>No, because IRL behaves according to IRL rules and admits empirical statistical analysis. Let's say this: I write a STORY about someone who kills someone in a dark alley, and when the cops find him, he says that he has to kill people or he dies, and that guy was a murderer anyway. He then turns into a gigantic bat and flies away.
That metaphor STILL isn't applicable. But this one is: Let's say somebody writes a story where at one point somebody kills someone else in a dark alley, and when the cops find him, he turns into a gigantic bat and flies away. And people out of universe defend his actions by claiming vampires need to kill to survive. Which is not only not supported anywhere. It's also downright contradicted by a in-universe story where a different vampire just buys blood from a blood bank.

>If ZUN writes about a breadbox and you conclude there's an elephant in the breadbox I don't need to come up with my own theory of what's in the breadbox to point out that your theory sucks.
That would be true, if that was actually what I did. But if ZUN writes about a breadbox. Mentions that it's bigger on the inside. Mentions that somebody keeps throwing food inside of it. Mentions that there's something inside of the breadbox that has a trunk. And mentions that the thing inside is sometimes called a Loxodonta. Then you better have a damn good argument ready to explain why the thing inside of it isn't an elephant.

>Yukari's observed system of value is that some things are more important than human life, but not all things.
Yukari's OBSERVED system of value is that the life of a human is worth so little to her. That she's willing to spirit away thousands of innocent people to their deaths. Not because it's necessary for Gensokyo's survival. Not because those people would have died anyway. But because she can, it's fun, and it might make a Youkai happy. If you want to claim otherwise, then you're going to need clear indisputable proof that she's doing it for a different reason.

>It's not hard to believe. Most people share it.
No, anon. Most people do not. At worst, some people value the lives of their own race/family/clan more than that of other humans. But that's about it.

>>19426910
She would kill you and everybody you love if she thought it would amusing.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19433087
>I would say the way FS was treated is enough textual support that Yukari and Reimu are pretty liberal in their use of the death penalty (Or exorcism penalty, in his case).
I should be more clear. And explain that the way FS was treated is SOME textual support. Not much, even I'm willing to admit that. But enough to take it from a "no" to a "little bit". Which, is still better than your arguments. Which have no textual support expect for that it MIGHT be possible.

Also, because I missed it:

>So, people who take the ACTION of buying free-range eggs at a high price have indicated by ACTION that they do care, in some way, about chicken welfare. You've got this truly weird notion that someone who is okay with killing, say, one person to achieve something therefore must also be okay with killing just about everyone to achieve something. It's just empirically not true.

1: Buying chicken eggs is not the same thing as eating chicken. If all Youkai did to people they caught was just force them to work. I would be singing a somewhat different tune. Somewhat 2: There are reasons to buy free range chicken eggs/meat besides chicken welfare. Quality being the biggest one. 3: I'm sorry, but I still really buy it. Yes, you can CLAIM you care about the wellbeing of a chicken by buying free range chicken meat. But then you're either being disingenuous, or you're just kind of ignoring the bigger picture. If you only ate chickens that die from natural causes/accidents. Only then MIGHT I believe you. And likewise, even if it was revealed Yukari regularly donates to orphanages for children whose parents have mysteriously vanished without a trace. I wouldn't say that means she cares about human lives.

[Anonymous No.]

shut the fuck up bitch

[Anonymous No.]

>>19426910
adorable

[Anonymous No.]

>>19432827
>The biggest difference between FT and the rest of the Human Villagers is mostly just that he knows a lot more about Gensokyo and the true nature of the Human Village.
Well, now that SoPM has been published, villagers now know that outsiders "can create almost anything they desire, the death rates among humans have dropped drastically, information is impartially shared with anyone and everyone, and they are always able to satisfy any desire for knowledge. You could say it's a paradise" and that the villagers of Gensokyo are "animals in a zoo." So if we see a few dozen more Fortune Tellers pop out of the woodwork you'll be correct. But the fact of the matter is that Fortune Teller represents, numerically, a small proportion of observed villagers, and therefore is factually an outlier. That he may have good reasons for being an outlier does not change the fact that he is an empirical outlier among the human villagers we have been given the opportunity to observe.

>There is nothing to indicate that people are happier in Gensokyo than in the outside world.
The fact that children smile in Gensokyo but not the Outside World is one such strong indication.

>There have only been four outsiders featured in the story so far, and all of them are massive outliers.
They consist of 100% of the observed population. Your conclusion that they constitute outliers in the real world is based on your "meta-knowledge" of the "true sample space" of outside worlders, a supposed true sample space that is deeply suspect. It is not based on the text.
>Sumireko is a twat, doesn't give a fuck about spirituality
Interest in the occult is one manifestation of dissatisfaction of godless modernity, per SoPM.
>And Maribel and Renko are both dissatisfied middle class intellectuals.
Maribel and Renko are college students. That's 50% of Japan; among ZUN's social circle, the proportion is likely to be higher.
>I would say they aren't even an example of 1% of the population
What you say is irrelevant. It's headcanon. The fact that ZUN dedicates a substantial fraction of his text to the analysis of this exact problem makes it very unlikely that he thinks it's a problem afflicting <1% of the population.

>You don't automatically assume every place is a happy one.
Many in-text observations are made that Gensokyo is a happy place, or at least a place with good points to offset its bad ones. It's a place where children smile. Absent reasons to believe that it is miserable one can conclude that it falls in line with the observation linked above in the marginalrevolution link, that "most people are mildly happy" (Diener & Diener, 1996).

>And if the conclusion you draw is supported by text, then it's a valid conclusion.
Your conclusion is based on a fusion of your own ethical analysis and observations from the text. As your ethical analysis is some sort of absurd variant of utilitarianism but dumber, the final conclusion cannot be said to be firmly grounded in the text except by people who not only share your ethical analysis, but believe that ZUN does so as well.

>It is, actually, disproved by several pieces of text.
Cite one.
>Same as the above.
It is not confirmed that any children have ever been eaten. 100% of children who were observed to be spirited away were also observed to be returned unharmed. There are zero observed cases of children having been eaten.

>If ZUN does not believe Alexander the Great existed, then he still has to point that out in his story before it actually becomes a part of the lore.
If ZUN makes public the fact that he does not believe that Alexander the Great existed, then it would be safe to assume that in the outside world of Gensokyo that Alexander the Great did not exist. The outside world of Gensokyo is based off ZUN's best knowledge of the world. If ZUN declared that Alexander the Great actually didn't exist, and at the same time that the next installation of Curiosities of Lotus Asia would feature an analysis of ancient leaders, it would be a poor better who believed that the existence of Alexander of the Great would be confirmed in the ZUNverse.

>It is literally a jest. The position of Hakurei Priest doesn't actually exist. And is therefore not indicative of any believes or opinions. He also claims that he knows and talks with Yukari. Does that mean he supports Yukari's actions? No, because Yukari isn't real and he's joking.
If somebody referred to themselves as Viertesreichsführer-SS and talked about how he got along fabulously with Fourth Reich Hitler, and didn't make it clear that he was performing some sort of dark satire, you could safely conclude that you're talking to someone who is at least sympathetic to the fictional Fourth Reich.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19433087
>Meaning she deliberately targets lost children for abduction and takes them to a place where most of them will die horribly.
There is no evidence that any outside world children have ever been eaten. After all, Sumireko, a small retarded child, was spirited away and returned safely.

>Even the richest of Village businessmen would not have even 1% of the funds available that such a company did.
It takes less capital to undertake a capital project that improves the quality of life of a small society than a large one.
>Which sometimes is somebody that started out as a peasant.
Find me a single historical case in which a former peasant ascended to the throne in a bloodless coup.
>That still require abandoning humanity.
Ascending to the emperorship requires abandoning the peasantry and accepting the perpetuation of the imperial system. There will always be things you can't change. You may not be an explicit administrator or advisor, but if you could presumably create marginal improvements in quality of life for humans so long as your plans don't fundamentally cheese anyone off.

>And it doesn't appeal to dissatisfied middle class intellectuals.
It doesn't appeal to 100% of observed outside worlders.
>So, i don't see any reason to think most Human Villagers would be unhappy there.
You are projecting your own personal value system onto characters invented by ZUN, whose value system differs from yours.

>While the barrier isn't perfect, an ordinary human would have no way of going through it without the help of Yukari.
Whether Reimu would open the door is one story, but Reimu CAN open the door.

>And like I said, anybody that might actually have a chance of becoming a leader would already have the support of most of those influential people.
Then it's the job of the youkai to make sure that the influential people don't all decide to elect the same leader. Or, if they do, that it ends up being Reimu, who will in practice do nothing other than what she was already doing.

>And why do you think those influential people would be willing to support the Youkai anyway?
Superstitution? Bribes? Fortune Teller was kicked out of his own house of divination. We don't have to know why it occurred to know that it did occur.

>Again, how? Newspapers? Brainwashing? Putting stuff in the water supply? You can't use "They just do it" as an argument.
It is believed simultaneously by Akyuu, Mamizou, and Reimu that stories and folktales have the ability to influence village opinion per FS. They could all be wrong, but in order to make that argument you should provide textual evidence that they are in fact wrong.

>...The fact that she has been shown to manipulate generic boundaries controlling everything? Like, this isn't something that's only been implied. We know she has that power.
The fact that her power has been observed to manipulate some generic boundaries does not mean it can manipulate all boundaries. Otherwise she could just manipulate the boundary between radio waves and gamma rays, or the boundary between influenza and ebola, and the whole outside world would be dead.

>Some people trying to spread certain types of knowledge of information would probably be killed.
Somebody trying to spread a certain kind of knowledge who could not be stopped in any way short of being killed would probably be killed, but there are a lot of ways to stop people from doing things short of killing them.

>Yukari and Reimu are pretty liberal in their use of the death penalty
Zero humans were administered the death penalty in FS.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19433170
>It's pretty easy for that to happen by accident.
It has only ever been observed to occur in cases of possession and manipulation, and in these observed cases the human was spared and the mastermind was pursued.
>Because you apparently needed to have that explained.
If human life is worth zero, and a free beer is worth something, then there's no reason the analysis shouldn't hold.
>I'm basing it on what people that put no value on the lives of others would do.
Your analysis of people who eat chicken meat indicates that they would not buy cage free eggs (other than for ecological reasons), but your observation is incorrect. It doesn't matter that you think these people are "guilty" or "misguided" or "confused." Your prediction of what people "would do" is inconsistent with reality.

>That would be true, if that was actually what I did.
Yes, but if you looked at all those facts, and concluded that there was a brass band inside, I wouldn't have to say that there was an elephant inside to pick apart your analysis. I could, but I wouldn't have to. The correctness of your assertion turns on whether YOUR analysis is correct regardless of what I happen to believe is inside the box.

>Yukari's OBSERVED system of value is that the life of a human is worth so little to her. That she's willing to spirit away thousands of innocent people to their deaths.
If one places the value on a human life "that would have died anyway" as very little, we need only perform the ethical accounting of innocent people who wanted to live. How many of these people does Gensokyo consume every year? Do you have a source that it's "thousands"? Can you prove that it is not zero?
>If you want to claim otherwise, then you're going to need clear indisputable proof that she's doing it for a different reason.
Bullshit. If you create an affirmative claim, the burden is on you to prove it, not on other people to bring clear indisputable proof that the claim is not true. We need only present plausible alternative theories. For example, perhaps hunting and eating people creates the fear that reinforces the existence of youkai; therefore, it empowers youkai. Is that a great reason? Maybe not, but it's still not the "because it's fun" reason.

>No, anon. Most people do not.
Mandatory organ donation would save lives. Many people are against it. Universal surveillance would save lives. Many people are against it. You seem to find it incomprehensible that somebody would place a value on a human (or a chicken) life that falls somewhere inbetween "nothing" and "everything."

>She would kill you and everybody you love if she thought it would amusing.
There is no textual basis for this assertion that doesn't first requiring first running it through a fringe ethical analysis.

>>19434169
>1: Buying chicken eggs is not the same thing as eating chicken. If all Youkai did to people they caught was just force them to work. I would be singing a somewhat different tune.
We force them to work until they can no longer work, and then grind them into dog food.
>3: I'm sorry, but I still really buy it. Yes, you can CLAIM you care about the wellbeing of a chicken by buying free range chicken meat.
I need make no claim at all. Suppose you observe someone 1. eats chicken, 2. occasionally buys cage-free eggs, and 3. is not aware of any ecological difference, and 4. doesn't taste the difference. At no point in time did this person claim anything. Well, maybe this person is "disingenuous", or "ignoring the bigger picture," but he doesn't have to justify his purchasing decisions to you. He is, in fact, a pretty typical who cares a very little bit about chickens but not enough to stop eating them.

[Anonymous No.]

Yukari Did Nothing Wrong.

For a world that literally has invaders every few years it must survive, Gensokyo is extremely liberal and open-minded. They let rabbit refugees in even though the Lunarians just waged a genocidal interplanetary invasion.

Also, to those thinking Yukari will ever get rekt, HAHAHA. If the knowledge god of the Amatsukami (Eirin) had all her actions planned and accounted for by Yukari way in advance, she probably knows exactly what everyone who isn't a superintelligence will be doing for the next 100 years at least since they would be much more predictable.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19437191
Gensokyo is a closed Market, son. That is by default a failed state and needs liberation Russian style.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19438251
A closed Market is better than a open market

[Anonymous No.]

>>19436527
For the sake of keeping up the pretense of brevity. And to stop this from spiraling out of control even more. I'm going to stop responding to a few of your individual points in favor of tackling some general arguments you seem to use.

>"But ZUN thinks/says X!"
First up, and I should have asked this a long time ago, but do you actually have a source for those claims? Like, actual proof that ZUN believes "50% of people are spiritually dissatisfied.

More importantly however, what the Author believes doesn't actually matter until it's been clearly established in the story. After all, just because the author believes something does not mean it's automatically true in his universe. I'm willing to bet that ZUN doesn't think magic is, or ever was real. And accordingly, that anybody claiming to be a real magician is a fraud. And yet, it's pretty obvious that magicians in the Touhou universe are not frauds. Let's also not forget that, agree or disagree with it, Death of the Author is a thing. And that some authors have adopted that mentality.

>"But X is often talked about in universe!"
Stop and think a moment about the people who usually talk about that subject. None of them are actually human outsiders. And while Kanako and Mamizou used to live there and Yukari goes to the outside world pretty often. All of them are biased, and have their own self-interested reasons to make others believe that the Outside world is spiritually deprived.

Now, it's true that writing doesn't happen by accident. However, it's also true that NOT writing about something also doesn't happen by accident. Which is why I find it rather noticeable that we're never shown an example of an outsider being spiritually dissatisfied in: 1: Sanae's backstory. (She doesn't really have much of one) 2: Sumireko's entire character. (Yes, she's interested in the occult. But that's obviously not the main reason why she cares about Gensokyo) 3: When talking about outsiders that decide to stay in Gensokyo in the PCB prologue, PMISS, and SOPM (It's only explained that they do, never why). 4: Any of the spin off manga (Two of which could have very easily featured a story about an Outsider that decides to live in Gensokyo). 5: The sealing club stories (Like Sumireko, both of the characters are interested in the occult. But it's not really the main reason why they're so fixated on Gensokyo).

Yes, the issue gets brought up. But that's because he wants you to think about it, and draw your own conclusions based on the life you have in the real world. If he just wanted you to think "People are spiritually dissatisfied". Then he would have just shown that being a thing about a decade ago.

>"But Children do not smile in the future!"
You can literally make children smile by dangling shiny keys in front of their faces. Unless, in the future, children grow up in pods, which I strongly doubt. That line is not supposed to be taken literally. It's a poetic way of saying that the magic of childhood is gone. That it's not a time of mystery and wonder anymore, just a preparation for adult life. And that's... kind of unfortunate. I mean, it's pretty much a return to how childhood used to be for most of human history. And it's not that different from how it still is in a large part of the world. But It is a shame.

What it's not, however, is proof that the future is some kind of 1984 dystopia. Some things were obviously lost, and there is some cautionary element to Touhou's portrayal of Japan. But for the most part, the future is a great place to live. They even still have an active doujin scene. Look, if the future was described as a place where "Adults do not smile" then you might have a point. But as is, I can say without any doubt that most people would be far happier in future Japan than in Gensokyo. At least once childhood is over and done with.

>"But Outsiders characters are proof that X!"
Again, all of the outsiders that we've seen so far are massive outliners. Sanae is a demigod, most people are not demigods. Sumireko is explicitly described as disliking mainstream (aka, popular and well liked) trends and acts like a stereotypical hipster. Maribel is slowly becoming a Youkai, most people are not in the process of slowly becoming Youkai. While Renko is some kind of teen/young adult prodigy, most people are not prodigies. And the fact that they are the only outsiders we've observed does not matter if they're all explicitly described as outliners. It's established that other outsiders exist, and it's established that they act differently to the ones we do see. That is not meta knowledge, it's in the text.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19436527
>"But Yukari isn't a bad person because she has a reason to do X"
The only arguments you've used to defend Yukari's many deplorable actions so far have been things like " Youkai MAYBE need to kill" or "They COULD BE suicidal people" and "It's POSSIBLE that it might endanger Gensokyo's security". Now, such arguments certainly have their place. But they should NEVER be used to defend mass murder. Or locking up a large group of people. Or killing people without a trial.

You know what kind of countries defended mass murder, systematic oppression, and killing people without trial with "Maybe" "Could be" and "possible"? Murderous totalitarian regimes. Even though you love talking about how terrible Stalin and Hitler are. There is no difference between claiming "It's okay because they MIGHT be suicidal/criminals/necessary sacrifices" and saying "It's okay because they MIGHT be enemies of the people/a inferior race/conspiring against the government/reactionaries".

>Well, now that SoPM has been published, villagers now know that outsiders "can create almost anything they desire, the death rates among humans have dropped drastically, information is impartially shared with anyone and everyone, and they are always able to satisfy any desire for knowledge.
1: SoPM came out before the Fortune Teller incident. 2: We don't know how many people actually read Akyuu's work in universe. Or even how available those books are.

>That he may have good reasons for being an outlier does not change the fact that he is an empirical outlier among the human villagers we have been given the opportunity to observe.
He's one of the few human villagers that we actually learn anything about. He's not an outliner when the main point of comparison is "Faceless girl in the background".

>Many in-text observations are made that Gensokyo is a happy place
Source?

>Cite one.
According to the PMISS entry on Youkai. They just really like eating Human eat. And if you give them something else to eat other than you, they'll spare your life. Which isn't something they would do if they HAD to eat/kill humans.

>It is not confirmed that any children have ever been eaten. 100% of children who were observed to be spirited away were also observed to be returned unharmed. There are zero observed cases of children having been eaten.
Right, anon. What do you think would have happened if, instead of finding her way to safety, little Sumireko had stumbled across Rumia or Mystia? Do you think they would have politely escorted her to the Human Village?

Also, PMISS entry on vampires and the PCB prologue both talk about easily missed people being abducted.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19436658
>It takes less capital to undertake a capital project that improves the quality of life of a small society than a large one.
It still takes a decent amount of money, even in a smaller society like the Human Village (Which is still about as big as a pre modern small city). There is no reason to assume that any private enterprise in Gensokyo could accomplish what a leader can do. Especially considering they have almost nobody to trade.

>Find me a single historical case in which a former peasant ascended to the throne in a bloodless coup.
I've got one better. Justin I actually managed to actually get himself elected Emperor despite starting out a peasant.

>Ascending to the emperorship requires abandoning the peasantry and accepting the perpetuation of the imperial system.
It does not, however require actively conspiring with people interested in keeping everybody you know and love trapped and powerless for the sake of malicious entities that regularly murder innocent people. You can't fix everything, but you can usually do more as Emperor than you can as collaborator. Unless you're Pu Yi.

>You may not be an explicit administrator or advisor, but if you could presumably create marginal improvements in quality of life for humans so long as your plans don't fundamentally cheese anyone off.
...How? By complaining about it to Reimu long enough that she beats up anybody that gets in your way?

>Whether Reimu would open the door is one story, but Reimu CAN open the door.
We don't actually know if she can open the door. We only know she can send people back to the outside world. The how and why is completely unexplained. She might just get Yukari to do it, for all we know.

>Superstition?
Like, what? They're afraid that electing somebody as mayor is going to cause it to rain more often?

>Bribes?
Again, how? Does Yukari just appear in their home and promises them a sack of money if they don't support the guy? Why would they ever trust that woman?

>We don't have to know why it occurred to know that it did occur.
FS was kicked out because he used magic in his divination. Again, you can't use "They just did it" as a valid argument. Especially when we've never actually seen them do it.

>It is believed simultaneously by Akyuu, Mamizou, and Reimu that stories and folktales have the ability to influence village opinion per FS.
I'm sure they could. But that method isn't exactly very useful when you need to respond to a problem with anything resembling speed.

>The fact that her power has been observed to manipulate some generic boundaries does not mean it can manipulate all boundaries. Otherwise she could just manipulate the boundary between radio waves and gamma rays, or the boundary between influenza and ebola, and the whole outside world would be dead.
She has limits to her power. And it's been established that she isn't the most powerful person in the world. But if you can mess with the boundary between life and death. Then you can turn a Youkai into a human, or vice versa.

>Somebody trying to spread a certain kind of knowledge who could not be stopped in any way short of being killed would probably be killed, but there are a lot of ways to stop people from doing things short of killing them.
Sure. Brainwashing, promising to kill loved ones, maybe even a bit of good old fashioned torture. All very ethical and benevolent solutions that result out of any set of rules enforced without a actual justice system backing it up.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19436866
>It has only ever been observed to occur in cases of possession and manipulation, and in these observed cases the human was spared and the mastermind was pursued.
It was also made pretty clear that Kosuzu was going to be killed if she turned into a Youkai, even if it was a accident.

>If human life is worth zero, and a free beer is worth something, then there's no reason the analysis shouldn't hold.
Depends on if you get something more out of not killing 99% of something. Even if you genuinely, completely, and openly don't care about the lives of chickens. You still probably wouldn't press the 99% beer button. Simply because of other reasons unrelated to chicken welfare. Like the price of meat, or the economy.

>If one places the value on a human life "that would have died anyway" as very little, we need only perform the ethical accounting of innocent people who wanted to live. How many of these people does Gensokyo consume every year? Do you have a source that it's "thousands"? Can you prove that it is not zero?
1: I never said it was thousands every year. But considering how Yukari is abducting people, immortal, and seemingly not interested in stopping any time soon. She's going to hit thousand eventually. If she hasn't already. 2: I don't actually have to proof that it's zero. Although I totally already did. YOU are the one that needs to support your claim that some of the people brought to Gensokyo are suicidal with more than "MABYE".

>Bullshit. If you create an affirmative claim, the burden is on you to prove it, not on other people to bring clear indisputable proof that the claim is not true.
My affirmative claim is that Yukari abducts people. That there is no indication that these people are guilty of any crimes (And therefore innocent). That she does this to feed Youkai (Which she openly admits in WaHH). For fun (Which she openly admits in PCB). And because she can (Which is based upon the notion that she can and has spirited people away). All claims based upon OBSERVED actions and dialogue.

If you want to claim that I'm wrong and misunderstand the nature and reason of Yukari's actions. Then the burden of proof is on you. And it's going to take more than another "maybe" theory to actually prove anything.

>Mandatory organ donation would save lives. Many people are against it. Universal surveillance would save lives. Many people are against it.
People are against such things because they believe that it would cost more lives in the long run. If you aren't a insane misanthrope. The choices you make, no matter how misguided, are always done for the sake of preserving and enriching human lives. At least in the long run.

>We force them to work until they can no longer work, and then grind them into dog food.
Like I said, somewhat.

>You seem to find it incomprehensible that somebody would place a value on a human (or a chicken) life that falls somewhere inbetween "nothing" and "everything."
I don't find it incomprehensible. I simply don't see any reason to assume that Yukari cares even one bit about human lives. Nor do I think anybody willing to eat chickens meat without it being a necessity, but simply because they like the way it tastes, cares about the life of a chicken. Like, if you're a farmer and you have to sell chickens to survive. Then you might be able to convince me that you care a little bit.

Well... So much for brevity.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19434299
No.

>>19434814
That's just to make herself seem more sympathetic.

>For a world that literally has invaders every few years it must survive, Gensokyo is extremely liberal and open-minded.
When it comes to immigration, Youkai are extremely tolerant. But that's mostly because of their revolutionary "Eat the immigrants" policy. I hear the UK is also going to implement it in a few years.

>Also, to those thinking Yukari will ever get rekt, HAHAHA.
It doesn't matter how smart she is, or how much planning she does. A silver bullet, doused in holy water, fired with the support of a benevolent all knowing god right into her twisted brain will kill her just easily as any Youkai. As would Jesus.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19437191
>For a world that literally has invaders every few years it must survive, Gensokyo is extremely liberal and open-minded.
When it comes to immigration, Youkai are extremely tolerant. But that's mostly because of their revolutionary "Eat the immigrants" policy. I hear the UK is also going to implement it in a few years.

>Also, to those thinking Yukari will ever get rekt, HAHAHA.
It doesn't matter how smart she is, or how much planning she does. A silver bullet, doused in holy water, fired with the support of a benevolent all knowing god right into her twisted brain will kill her just easily as any Youkai. As would Jesus.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19436866
>I need make no claim at all. Suppose you observe someone 1. eats chicken, 2. occasionally buys cage-free eggs, and 3. is not aware of any ecological difference, and 4. doesn't taste the difference. At no point in time did this person claim anything. Well, maybe this person is "disingenuous", or "ignoring the bigger picture," but he doesn't have to justify his purchasing decisions to you. He is, in fact, a pretty typical who cares a very little bit about chickens but not enough to stop eating them.
If he doesn't claim anything. Then you also have no reason to assume he cares about chickens. He could buy it because he feels like it, for all you know.

[Anonymous No.]

Jesus would get his shit pushed in by Yukari 1on1, would need god and holy spirit to stand a (pitiful) chansu

[Anonymous No.]

>>19442879
Youkai are weak against faith. Yukari fighting against the face of the largest religion in the world would be like Superman fighting a guy made out of Kryptonite.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19442991
She sees the truth about Jesus Christ

[Anonymous No.]

>>19442693
>Like, actual proof that ZUN believes 50% of people are spiritually dissatisfied.
The amount of text he dedicates to the issue indicates that he thinks it is not a fringe issue. I don't know the actual percentage, and I don't need know so to challenge your assertion that it's <1% and an irrelevant problem. If you accept that the "quest for romance" is linked to "spiritual dissatisfaction" as explicited stated in-universe and contradicted by nothing in or out of universe, then the entire series and half of his afterwords are about it.
>Death of the Author is a thing.
Death of the Author is garbage, used by critics to appropriate the work of people who would have never agreed with them. Re: magic, you mentioned before that ZUN's outside world can be assumed to be modern Japan until noted otherwise. The existence of magic is an "otherwise."

>Stop and think a moment about the people who usually talk about that subject. None of them are actually human outsiders.
It turns out that most people who talk in Touhou Project works are not human outsiders, seeing as how they compose less than 1% of the named population. You always have a convenient excuse to ignore 100% of the text: Gensokyo resident = doesn't count. Outsider = outlier doesn't count. ZUN = he was just kidding doesn't count. Literally the only person whose words we don't have to ignore belong to Fortune Teller. If you want to claim that these characters are in-universe incorrect, show us an indication that ZUN actually believes that what they say is in-universe incorrect.

>Which is why I find it rather noticeable that we're never shown an example of an outsider being spiritually dissatisfied in
"Wishing that youkai existed" is a symptom of "spiritual dissatisfaction" as explicitly indicated by SoPM. There's no need to and no demand for a story featuring some outside world jackoff with an existential crisis being spirited away because that's depressing, excessively heavy, fodder for self-insert garbage and nobody wants to read it. And even if it DID exist you'd just call him an "outlier", therefore ignorable, and we'd be right back where we started.

>If he just wanted you to think "People are spiritually dissatisfied". Then he would have just shown that being a thing about a decade ago.
ZUN didn't show much of the outside world a decade ago because 99% of Touhou Project is not set in the outside world. The one place he HAD shown the outside world until very recently was in Sealing Club stories, which imply it (but oh wait we get to ignore that because Merry and Renko don't count).

>What it's not, however, is proof that the future is some kind of 1984 dystopia.
I did not claim that it was a dystopia, nor that Gensokyo is a utopia. I said that it has strong points and weak points. If ZUN wants you to "draw your own conclusions", then you're free to think that Gensokyo is a dystopia; you don't get to impose that conclusion on everyone else. A creator who creates a setting that leaves something ambiguous is explicitly permitting multiple readings of the scenario.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19442693
>Look, if the future was described as a place where "Adults do not smile" then you might have a point. But as is, I can say without any doubt that most people would be far happier in future Japan than in Gensokyo. At least once childhood is over and done with.
If your argument rests on the basis that "children don't smile but adults do" you're implicitly relying on the fact that Japanese adults are happier than Japanese children and that's an argument that would get you laughed out of every bar in Japan. The quest for romance in the world doesn't end with childhood; ZUN writes about it with reference to his own self and he's long since ceased to be a child.

>I can say without any doubt that most people would be far happier in future Japan than in Gensokyo.
There is no textual basis for this assertion. One of the studies you linked above indicated that while the Amish score lower on happiness than most modern societies (something I was surprised to find), the Masai score higher on happiness than most modern societies. In the end modernity = "far happier" assumption is something that you argue based on things having nothing to do with Touhou Project and has no textual basis.

>Again, all of the outsiders that we've seen so far are massive outliers.
The fact that some of the characters we see are massively smarter than the ones we don't see is not a good argument that they are wrong or that their viewpoints shouldn't be taken seriously.

>There is no difference between claiming "It's okay because they MIGHT be suicidal/criminals/necessary sacrifices" and saying "It's okay because they MIGHT be enemies of the people/a inferior race/conspiring against the government/reactionaries".
They're nothing alike. Suppose I write a very short Wild West story about a sheriff who shoots a man in a saloon, no other context given. Well, he MIGHT have shot a heinous criminal, or he MIGHT have shot a person minding his own business. Is the sheriff a good person? Well, he MIGHT be. You don't know.

This story does not resemble in the slightest a sheriff who shoots a man simply because he MIGHT be a heinous criminal, in which case it is 100% clear that the sheriff is a bad dude. Ethical analysis admits measurement uncertainty; it admits in no way "setting uncertainty." Defending the sheriff on the grounds that we don't know who he shot is nothing like defending a sheriff who just goes around shooting everyone who might be a criminal.

>We don't know how many people actually read Akyuu's work in universe.
Per FS we know that people don't read that much of Akyuu's work because it's boring. Much of Akyuu's work is widely disseminated; nothing indicates that any particular work is be unvavailable.

>Source?
CoSD. Gensokyo is a place where "children smile." You're free to argue that that in the Gensokyo that children smile and that adults don't, and that in the Outside World World that children don't smile and adults do, but you're going to need some kind of source to undergird that claim.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19442716
>He's one of the few human villagers that we actually learn anything about.
We know he's an outlier even among fortune tellers. Akyuu, Kosuzu, and Unshou are villagers, for the nonce; even beyond that, the named characters are known to frequently interact with villagers, none of whom have been indicated to be fortune teller types (which would be something that Reimu would presumably take notice of, given that it's her job).

>Right, anon. What do you think would have happened if, instead of finding her way to safety, little Sumireko had stumbled across Rumia or Mystia? Do you think they would have politely escorted her to the Human Village?
There's a good argument that Mystia only pretends to eat people. As for Rumia, it's the job of Reimu to make sure that outsiders make it out safely per the AFIEU Sumireko article. Finally, I reread the article, and it's possible that Sumireko's physical body stayed asleep under the shrine for all three dyas.

>PMISS entry on vampires
It's not "easily missed." The PMISS Vampire article says 死ぬ価値のない人間 which means people whose deaths are worth nothing. That could easily constitute the "suicides, criminals, and people who would have died anyway" theory.
>PCB prologue
is, as you've said, outdated.

>>19442765
>...How? By complaining about it to Reimu long enough that she beats up anybody that gets in your way?
Achieve Marisa-tier power. Become Reimu's friend so Yukari can't off you without consequences. Add safeguards that prevent innocent people from wandering in and being eaten. Engineer a system such that people who want to leave can leave in such a way that doesn't threaten the balance of Gensokyo. Threaten to inconvenience Yukari by banging pots and pans all winter long if you don't get your way. As long as you are able to satisfy to the youkai sages that your actions don't threaten the balance of Gensokyo it's not out of the question that you can engineer some quality-of-life improvements for some people.

>They're afraid that electing somebody as mayor is going to cause it to rain more often
"Every time there's been a mayor, he's mysteriously disappeared" is one possible superstition.
>Again, how?
Intermediaries?
>FS was kicked out because he used magic in his divination.
Wow, it's almost like there are conventions in the human village which get people ostracized if they don't follow them.
>But that method isn't exactly very useful when you need to respond to a problem with anything resembling speed.
Given that youkai have achieved a fairly thorough infiltration of human society, a true social problem is unlikely to spring up on them unawares.

>But if you can mess with the boundary between life and death.
While I'm sure Yukari can kill the living, Yukari has never been observed to resurrect the dead. When the boundary between life and death is as simple as blurring the physical boundary to Higan or the Netherworld it may be nothing more than a boast. You ascribe to Yukari metaphysical powers that have never been observed.

>Sure. Brainwashing, promising to kill loved ones, maybe even a bit of good old fashioned torture.
Does the dial in your brain not have a setting between 1 and 10? There are lots of ways for people to influence people without threatening to kill their families.

>>19442819
>It was also made pretty clear that Kosuzu was going to be killed if she turned into a Youkai, even if it was a accident.
It's Reimu's job to prevent these accidents from occurring. The observed accident prevention rate in the human village is 100%. Actually, it's 0/0 undefined, since really the whole thing was no accident.

>For fun (Which she openly admits in PCB).
I don't see the quote, but it is in the interest of youkai for humans to believe that youkai eat people for fun whether or not it's true.

>YOU are the one that needs to support your claim that some of the people brought to Gensokyo are suicidal with more than "MAYBe".
No, I don't. I can simply declare that ZUN left it ambiguous for a reason. That said, with your new lower standard, "some", I can very easily meet that criteria: SOME suicidal people end up in the Road of Reconsideration and are eaten.

>People are against such things because they believe that it would cost more lives in the long run.
This is rarely the justification. You can ask them.
>If you aren't a insane misanthrope.
It may disappoint you to learn that the vast majority of people who aren't you will qualify by your own definition as "insane misanthropes."

[Anonymous No.]

>>19443434
>>19443434
>The amount of text he dedicates to the issue indicates that he thinks it is not a fringe issue.
I asked for a source. If you claim that he's written SO MUCH text about the issue. Then, why you don't send me at least three examples of that? Should be easy.

>If you accept that the "quest for romance" is linked to "spiritual dissatisfaction" as explicited stated in-universe and contradicted by nothing in or out of universe.
Again, source?

>Re: magic, you mentioned before that ZUN's outside world can be assumed to be modern Japan until noted otherwise. The existence of magic is an "otherwise."
Yes. Magic being real is an otherwise. It's a NOTED difference to the world we have.

>You always have a convenient excuse to ignore 100% of the text: Gensokyo resident = doesn't count.
I don't think a resident of Gensokyo can accurately judge the outside world. Most of them know less about the outside world than we do about Gensokyo. This is clearly established by the text.

>Outsider = outlier doesn't count.
Yes. If an outsider is portrayed in universe as being an outlier. Then, that means they don't represent the majority. That doesn't mean you have to ignore their opinions. Just that you shouldn't assume that they speak for everybody, or even a large group of people.

>ZUN = he was just kidding doesn't count.
His public persona is a joke. But I've already said that not everything the man says/writes is a lie.

>"Wishing that youkai existed" is a symptom of "spiritual dissatisfaction" as explicitly indicated by SoPM.
1: This was said by Kanako. Who is just another character with a heavily biased viewpoint, not even the voice of reason or an author avatar. 2: The way it's described is that "People think it would be kind of neat if Youkai existed." Which... yeah, sure? I mean, I'm not somebody that anybody would call spiritually dissatisfied. And even I think it would be, like, neat if supernatural creatures existed. That's not a symptom of anything expect proof that I watched Lord of the Rings as a child.

And before you go "BUT ZUN SAID THAT THIS IS PROOF OF X!". Source?

>There's no need to and no demand for a story featuring some outside world jackoff with an existential crisis being spirited away because that's depressing, excessively heavy, fodder for self-insert garbage and nobody wants to read it.
That's your opinion. It's also not necessary to go that far, you don't need anything more than a brief blurb of dialogue saying "This guy is an outsider that came to live here because he found it more spiritually fulfilling".

>And even if it DID exist you'd just call him an "outlier", therefore ignorable, and we'd be right back where we started.
If Sanae was a normal teenage girl, not a demigod, a hipster, a soon to be Youkai, or a prodigy. Ended up in Gensokyo. And decided to live and work there as a shrine maiden for a recently arrived wind god. I would not be here.

Btw, according to Sanae's article in SoPM. Most outsiders do pretty terribly in Gensokyo. So, make of that what you will.

>The one place he HAD shown the outside world until very recently was in Sealing Club stories, which imply it
You're going to have to be a bit more specific. They imply it where and how?

>A creator who creates a setting that leaves something ambiguous is explicitly permitting multiple readings of the scenario.
Believe it or not. But I don't actually have that much of a problem with people having a different read of Gensokyo. I often think they are wrong. And, if you haven't noticed, I like talking about why I think they're wrong. But there is enough ambiguity in the setting that I actually like "non-grimdark" theories if they're well-constructed. Which, your theories are not.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19443441
>If your argument rests on the basis that "children don't smile but adults do" you're implicitly relying on the fact that Japanese adults are happier than Japanese children and that's an argument that would get you laughed out of every bar in Japan.
My argument relies on the fact that it's a poetic line that should obviously not be taken literally. And that the way the future is described makes it sound like a perfectly fine place to live for adults. Probably better than the weird mess that is present day urban Japan.

>There is no textual basis for this assertion.
My textual basis is the fact that the future is presented as a flawed, but still perfectly decent place to live. While Gensokyo is, at best, the same but with less freedom. And, at worst, a murderous dictatorship run by an evil tyrant that threats the human population like cattle.

>The fact that some of the characters we see are massively smarter than the ones we don't see is not a good argument that they are wrong or that their viewpoints shouldn't be taken seriously.
The fact that Renko and Maribel are smarter than most other outsiders does not change the fact that they are both outliers. That they are not not indicative of the general population, most intellectuals, or even other college students. It should be taken seriously, it just doesn't mean they speak for everybody.

>This story does not resemble in the slightest a sheriff who shoots a man simply because he MIGHT be a heinous criminal, in which case it is 100% clear that the sheriff is a bad dude. Ethical analysis admits measurement uncertainty; it admits in no way "setting uncertainty." Defending the sheriff on the grounds that we don't know who he shot is nothing like defending a sheriff who just goes around shooting everyone who might be a criminal.
1: Yukari is not a sheriff. I'm going to try and ignore your frankly horrible metaphor. But this is one point that does need to be addressed. If a sheriff shoots somebody, then there is at least the context that the person doing the shooting is, at least in theory, a figure of law and justice. Yukari is a Youkai. Who are, generally, not viewed as figures of law and justice. 2: Ever heard of the idea "Innocent until proven guilty?" Defending one murder, let alone mass murder, because 'they MIGHT be terrible people" is awful. And again, exactly the same thing totalitarian dictatorships use to defend their own murders and purges. 3: You act like we have no context. But we do, quite a bit in fact. We know that Youkai really like eating humans. We know that Yukari spirits people way. We know most outsiders that end up in Gensokyo are eaten. We know Yukari tells Kasen that she uses the outside world as a food supply. We know that the people that end up in Gensokyo mostly act like normal people. We know that Yukari brags about keeping people and human flesh in her home. We know that children sometimes end up in Gensokyo. None of those things fall under "maybe' or "might" arguments, like your theories do. So, if you want to disprove the idea that Yukari is not a mass murdering monster, then you're going to need a theory with some actual canon evidence behind it. Not just "But they MIGHT need to kill people to survive".

>CoSD. Gensokyo is a place where "children smile."
I looked it up. And what Maribel says is "When was the last time I've seen children smiling so?". The surrounding context and ZUN's afterword do clarify a bit more what it means. But, it's still not the same thing as "A place where children do not smile". It doesn't even really say that the children of the future are unhappy. Just not happy in the same way that children are in Gensokyo. And that this is a bad thing. So, no, thank you. I'll pick freedom, technology, and a world of unlimited potential and chances over a more exciting childhood. Which, isn't something I would get to enjoy in Gensokyo anyway. Considering I would be dead before I hit the age of ten.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19443449
>We know he's an outlier even among fortune tellers. Akyuu, Kosuzu, and Unshou are villagers
Akyuu is an even bigger outliner than the fortune teller. Kosuzu basically knew nothing about Gensokyo at the start of the manga, and she ultimately ended up joining Reimu's little traitor squad. And Unshou... seemed to be doing pretty alright for himself. If he has any opinions about living in Gensokyo, he doesn't seem interested in sharing them.

>For the nonce; even beyond that, the named characters are known to frequently interact with villagers, none of whom have been indicated to be fortune teller types (which would be something that Reimu would presumably take notice of, given that it's her job).
Do you think every villager that Reimu interacts with eagerly tells her their opinions about Gensokyo? And what would Reimu do, expect keep a closer eye on them, if they did tell her that i hate living in Gensokyo? Tell them that they are wrong?

>There's a good argument that Mystia only pretends to eat people.
Such a good argument, apparently. That you don't even bother explaining it.

>As for Rumia, it's the job of Reimu to make sure that outsiders make it out safely per the AFIEU Sumireko article.
Then she isn't doing a very good job considering how outsiders usually die in Gensokyo. There's also a WAY more cynical way of looking at it. That Reimu only helps people that ACCIDENTALLY wanders in. While having no problem letting theHumans designated as Youkai food die horrible. But that seems a bit unlikely considering that Yukari's character profile makes it clear that there is no such thing as accidental wandering in. So, eh, she's probably just incompetent.

>Finally, I reread the article, and it's possible that Sumireko's physical body stayed asleep under the shrine for all three days.
That is possible, but pretty unlikely considering the dream thing is a new phenomena for her. And it's somewhat implied that if she dies in her dream, her real body would die as well. More importantly however, she's also apparently not the only child to have been spirited away in such a manner. So, it is still a thing that does happen even if you are right about Sumireko's having left her physical body when she first traveled to Gensokyo.

>It's not "easily missed." The PMISS Vampire article says 死ぬ価値のない人間 which means people whose deaths are worth nothing. That could easily constitute the "suicides, criminals, and people who would have died anyway" theory.
It could also easily constitute orphans. Regardless, it is still proof that not JUST suicidal people are abducted. Which is what matters.
>Achieve Marisa-tier power.
That's kind of a big first step. It would also mean becoming a magician. Which, even if you don't actually become a Youkai, does still require you to largely abandon humanity.

>Become Reimu's friend so Yukari can't off you without consequences.
1: Again, pretty big step. Reimu is a pretty unpleasant and cold person. 2: That doesn't mean she still can't off you if she actually wanted you dead.

>Add safeguards that prevent innocent people from wandering in and being eaten. Engineer a system such that people who want to leave can leave in such a way that doesn't threaten the balance of Gensokyo.
How? I mean, I could think of a few ways. But most of those would require having the support of Youkai that have no real reason to support you in such a endeavor.

>As long as you are able to satisfy to the youkai sages that your actions don't threaten the balance of Gensokyo it's not out of the question that you can engineer some quality-of-life improvements for some people.
If the sages were actually okay with you making such quality of life improvements. Then don't you think they would have included them in the system in the first place? They might seemingly be evil as fuck, but they are somewhat pragmatic.

>"Every time there's been a mayor, he's mysteriously disappeared" is one possible superstition.
I think that would be more liable to affect the guy trying to run for mayor.

>Intermediaries?
Like who? Other Youkai that the villagers equally distrust?

>Wow, it's almost like there are conventions in the human village which get people ostracized if they don't follow them.
Yeah. Wonderful, isn't it? Just another reason why it's such an amazing place to live. Imagine being gay in the human village. Everybody would ostracize the shit out of you until you decide to kill yourself!

All joking aside, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. That the Youkai have deliberately set up a system were people that do shit they don't like are ostracized?

[Anonymous No.]

>>19424556
just because its natural doesn't make it okay

[Anonymous No.]

>>19443449
>Given that youkai have achieved a fairly thorough infiltration of human society, a true social problem is unlikely to spring up on them unawares.
Even if we assume that Yukari, or whoever is taking care of that, is an AMAZING writer/storyteller. It would still take them a year or two before the story they want to spread would actually start to affect people's way of thinking.

>While I'm sure Yukari can kill the living, Yukari has never been observed to resurrect the dead. When the boundary between life and death is as simple as blurring the physical boundary to Higan or the Netherworld it may be nothing more than a boast. You ascribe to Yukari metaphysical powers that have never been observed.
It could just be a boast. I'm willing to admit that it's vague and unclear enough that both possibilities are equally valid. And that it MIGHT have therefore been impossible for her to Un-Youkai somebody.

>Does the dial in your brain not have a setting between 1 and 10? There are lots of ways for people to influence people without threatening to kill their families.
Then actually explain what those ways are. Because the only two solutions i can think of outside of the ones i've mentioned are bribing the guy, or kicking him out of Gensokyo.

>It's Reimu's job to prevent these accidents from occurring.
She didn't do a very good of preventing it. If Yukari hadn't interfered, she would have almost certainly been forced to kill Kosuzu.

>I don't see the quote,
She says it after you beat her playing as Sakuya. Or at least something along the lines of "I like to keep interesting things around my home. Like adults, and children." Which, i'm sure those children are totally smiling.

>I can simply declare that ZUN left it ambiguous for a reason.
Then actually do that. I don't think he actually left it ambiguous. But if you want to make a case that he did, please do so.

>That said, with your new lower standard, "some", I can very easily meet that criteria: SOME suicidal people end up in the Road of Reconsideration and are eaten.
Good. That's actual straight up evidence that some of the people that end up in Gensokyo are suicidal. Even if, going by the PMISS article, the people that end up in the Road of Reconsideration actually killed themselves. And are only eaten after they manage to pull themselves back from the abyss and actually regain the will to live.

>This is rarely the justification. You can ask them.
When you ask somebody that's pro guns why they believe what they believe. They'll say it's because they think having guns around will prevent, rather than cause, deaths. If you ask somebody that's against mandatory organ donation and universal surveillance why they believe what they believe. They'll say it's because they're worried about the government misusing their power and causing misery and death. Just because they are wrong, does not mean that they do not have good intentions.

>It may disappoint you to learn that the vast majority of people who aren't you will qualify by your own definition as "insane misanthropes."
I think the vast majority of people are not misanthropic or insane, simply misguided. That's what i've believed in so far. It's something that i've seen reflected in reality. And it's something i'm going to keep believing in.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19444604
*And what would Reimu do, expect keep a closer eye on them, if they did tell her that they hate living in Gensokyo? Tell them that they are wrong?

[Anonymous No.]

>>19400238
>https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Bohemian_Archive_in_Japanese_Red/Keine
On FS her school was full of kids, there were many changes for the better around that era and schooling seems to be one of them.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19427000
>>19434299
Checked
impolite sage

[Anonymous No.]

>>19445839
That could be the case. Maybe influences from the outside world are starting to affect Gensokyo. Although, the Villagers have always been portrayed as being very interested, if not downright obsessed, with the outside world.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19447032
Is Gensokyo a metaphor for overseas countries?

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392147
>Humanity can rule themselves. And have done so for most of our history

Well to be fair, humans have only rules other humans and obeyed other humans. Just about every stratum of society is connected by a hierarchical chain where society's most privileged members get to influence culture and society while the weak just do what's expected of them.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19450382
What are you a human supremacist?

[Anonymous No.]

Stupid thread that doesn’t go anywhere

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392970
But its the most logical solution

[Anonymous No.]

>>19393002
Humans do a fine job at that by themselves.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19450321
I don't think Gensokyo is a metaphor for anything. It's just a setting with some parallels to the real world. And while I do think it's possible that the Human Villagers obsession with the outside world is a parallel to poor countries like Indonesia having somewhat of an infatuation with American culture/products. I think it's more liable to a reference to Japan's own weird relation with everything foreign.

>>19450382
>Well to be fair, humans have only rules other humans and obeyed other humans.

Well, also a few animals. But yes, Humans have only been ruled by, and obeyed, other humans. I mean, even if you think God is real. We're kind of just shooting in the dark, trying to interpret his divine law.

>Just about every stratum of society is connected by a hierarchical chain where society's most privileged members get to influence culture and society while the weak just do what's expected of them.
The weak do just fine in most societies. It's people from poor/low birth that have a problem. And even then, it's often not impossible to rise above that.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19453507
It's not a solution though. It's the equivalent of giving up by selling yourself into slavery.

>>19456759
We did such a good job of undermining ourselves. That we've taken over the world. Reached space. Invented technology that lets us to do things people only dreamed about doing for most of history. And, at least in a lot of western countries, have living standards that would rival the gods.

[Anonymous No.]

Girmfag blowing deluded waifufags the fuck out.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19444432
>Again, source?
Kanako, SoPM; more about Kanako's reliability / unreliability below.

>If you claim that he's written SO MUCH text about the issue. Then, why you don't send me at least three examples of that? Should be easy.
There is a lot of text of the issue, but more fundamentally, the basis of Touhou Project as a concept is looking at the conflict between illusion, fantasy and romance on one hand and reality, science and modernity on the other.

PCB Prologue: "The youkai of Gensokyo have built up their own culture; one that is all that like the culture of the world when Gensokyo was sealed. However, it was not a materialistic culture - it was a culture centered upon spiritual awareness far exceeding that of the human world. The wise youkai sought not the bounty of objects, but the bounty of the heart."
PMiSS Monologue: The line translated "fantastic world" is in the original 精神的に優れた世界, which should be "spiritually superior world."
CoSD: "Still, even in this country whose children's hearts become smaller and smaller, perhaps the day will come when the streets will be filled with the smiles of children. Synthetically, that is."
CiLR Ch3: "The lunar capital was a perfect advanced metropolis. Its physical and technological wealth had been established far into the past, which made enhancing its spiritual wealth all the more important."
CiLR Afterword: This entire section is about the beauty of romance which doesn't exist in the real world except via fantasy novels.
SoPM: The whole thing.
SCoOW Basic Knowledge: "It seems to have maintained late Edo period living standards, but its spiritual culture is said to be far more mature by comparison."

It's scattered here and there but the continual, recurring and constant references to the spiritual immaturity of the outside world has shown up again and again in Touhou Project. Even if it's in the mouths of characters (which it often is not), he's still dedicating text to it.

>But I've already said that not everything the man says/writes is a lie.
Like with most people, he should be taken seriously unless you have specific evidence that any given statement he made was a joke.

>1: This was said by Kanako. Who is just another character with a heavily biased viewpoint, not even the voice of reason or an author avatar.
She more or less wins the argument, against one sympathizer (Miko) and two people who don't really buy it but go along with it anyway (Byakuren, Marisa). Usually when someone sets up a character who makes bad dumb wrong arguments, either another character blows that bad dumb wrong argument out of the water or the author indicates elsewhere that the argument was in fact bad dumb and wrong.

>Btw, according to Sanae's article in SoPM. Most outsiders do pretty terribly in Gensokyo. So, make of that what you will.
The article also suggests that people who come to Gensokyo of their own will are "rare," which implies that they exist. (Well, it's possible by this she means the population consisting entirely of girls named Sakuya, but then it would be an odd way to phrase it.)

[Anonymous No.]

>>19444532
>My argument relies on the fact that it's a poetic line that should obviously not be taken literally.
A poetic description of a society as one where "children do not smile" isn't an accolade for that society either.

>While Gensokyo is, at best, the same but with less freedom.
There is zero textual evidence that Gensokyo is worse in every aspect than the modern world. You can say we have great REASONS to ignore all the text saying that it's a paradise, wonderful, children smiling, spiritual superior, etc, but you have to do a great deal of explaining away to claim that everything good said about Gensokyo is a big lie.

ZUN is, at best, equivocal: "But on the other hand, Gensokyo sees the outside world in a romantic light. Working or studying day after day while sharing information or shopping without leaving the house in between... That kind of lifestyle might be overflowing with romanticism to the inhabitants of Gensokyo." It takes an extremely biased reading to conclude that he is describing a society that is equal or worse in every way to the outside world.

>1: Yukari is not a sheriff. I'm going to try and ignore your frankly horrible metaphor.
You did, in fact, ignore the metaphor. The point is that uncertainty about what the basis of the setting is is not something you should take into consideration when determining the morality of the characters in that setting.

>Ever heard of the idea "Innocent until proven guilty?"
Well, there you go. Yukari is innocent until proven guilty.

>We know that the people that end up in Gensokyo mostly act like normal people. We know that Yukari brags about keeping people and human flesh in her home.
There is no evidence she keeps "flesh" in her home. She said to Sakuya that she sometimes takes humans and children and then Sakuya tells them to put them back (and we have proof that she does sometimes put them back). And when your evidence is spell card banter, like Sakuya threatening to cook up Mystia or Remilia being out to kill Reimu dead, it gets that much weaker.

>I'll pick freedom, technology, and a world of unlimited potential and chances over a more exciting childhood.
This world doesn't have unlimited potential and chances.

>Considering I would be dead before I hit the age of ten.
How?

>>19444604
>Kosuzu basically knew nothing about Gensokyo at the start of the manga, and she ultimately ended up joining Reimu's little traitor squad.
So she's a blank slate.

>Such a good argument, apparently. That you don't even bother explaining it.
Mystia is "descended" from a line of mythological youkai that has no mythological basis of eating people. When she defeats humans in PoFV, she does not show any sign of actually wanting to eat them. She does sing about eating humans, but she also sings about eating birds (PoFV Sakuya). When she "captures" humans she seems to only abuse the opportunity to extort them with lamprey. In general I don't see why we would expect her to do any more eating of people than other youkai-with-no-mythological-basis-in-eating-live-humans such as tanuki or kasha.

>It could also easily constitute orphans. Regardless, it is still proof that not JUST suicidal people are abducted. Which is what matters.
But it's not proof that the full set of people abducted are "suicides, criminals, and people who would have died anyway." One can make arguments that (certain) criminals deserve to die and that suicides / people who fell off cliffs are deaths which are "worthless." One has a considerably harder time arguing that the deaths of orphans are worthless.

>Then don't you think they would have included them in the system in the first place? They might seemingly be evil as fuck, but they are somewhat pragmatic.
Because it's work and Yukari's lazy? If somebody is a threat to Gensokyo, the threat goes away if the person is removed, and (assuming various theories of yours are correct) offing them is clearly the easiest way to do that. Make execution more annoying and deportation easier and the calculus changes.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19444604
>Yeah. Wonderful, isn't it?
These conventions exist in every society that have ever existed and barring some sort of big revolution they always will. Even modern society ostracizes a great variety of behavior. The reaction to these conventions, by most people, is to hide the behavior that the community they live in rejects. Ideal? Maybe not. Still a far cry from being bullied unto death.

>All joking aside, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. That the Youkai have deliberately set up a system were people that do shit they don't like are ostracized?
I've been slowly chipping away against your sweeping pronouncements about the way things that have no basis whatsoever. "Yukari executes everybody who does things she doesn't like" became "Yukari (or Reimu) beats half to death everyone who does things she doesn't like" became "Yukari (or Reimu) threatens to murder your whole family if you do things she doesn't like" became "Yukari manipulates villagers into ostracizing people they don't like." Ideal? Maybe not. Still a far cry from being summarily executed.

>>19444684
>Even if we assume that Yukari, or whoever is taking care of that, is an AMAZING writer/storyteller. It would still take them a year or two before the story they want to spread would actually start to affect people's way of thinking.
Rumors and fake news fly at the speed of sound even in the real world and there's no reason that Gensokyo is full of people who are any less susceptible to influence.

>Because the only two solutions i can think of outside of the ones i've mentioned are bribing the guy, or kicking him out of Gensokyo.
1. Kidnap him. 2. Beat him. 3. Threaten to beat him. 4. Threaten to destroy his property. 5. Threaten to destroy his livelihood. 6. Buy him off. 7. Convince him. 8. Make a deal with him. 9. Mislead him. 10. Ostracize him. 11. Threaten to have him ostracized. 12. Warn him in a sinister fashion. 13. Make it clear to him that he's not going to win so he might as well not try. Again, are all of these ideal? No, but they're not all "torture him" and "threaten to kill his family."

>If Yukari hadn't interfered, she would have almost certainly been forced to kill Kosuzu.
It sure is great that Yukari is looking out for the welfare of the citizenry.

>Which, i'm sure those children are totally smiling.
Sumireko was. She probably thought it was a riot.

>When you ask somebody that's pro guns why they believe what they believe. They'll say it's because they think having guns around will prevent, rather than cause, deaths. If you ask somebody that's against mandatory organ donation and universal surveillance why they believe what they believe. They'll say it's because they're worried about the government misusing their power and causing misery and death.
No, this is, in fact, usually not the case. You seem to believe that EVERYBODY makes decisions based off utilitarian welfare maximization. This is, in fact, not true. Some people value principles that don't eventually lead back to the long tail of the greatest happiness for the greatest number. You can go to /k/ right now and ask them they believe people should be allowed to own automatic rifles. Some people might say "because it's best in the long run." Most of them won't. Most of them will say it's because they have the right to do so, full step, end of story.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19463916
>It's scattered here and there but the continual, recurring and constant references to the spiritual immaturity of the outside world has shown up again and again in Touhou Project. Even if it's in the mouths of characters (which it often is not), he's still dedicating text to it.
It is a common theme, I agree with you on that. At least now that you've shown me some sources. However, I do think the fatal mistake you are making in your assessment of Gensokyo is the assumption that the situation there is spiritually beneficial to the Human. Because it's really kind of not. Youkai are the ones that have a more spiritually advanced society. That was mentioned in PCB, SoPM, and SCoOW. The Human Villagers do not get to benefit from that. Because the romanticist ideals Genokyo are built upon do not benefit average people. That is what I think is the point of the whole setting. Gensokyo doesn't provide spiritual maturity, it just takes everything else away. It's a bastardization of romanticist ideals, in the same way real groups of people bastardized those ideals.

Also, the idea that the outside world is spiritually immature is not the same thing as saying the people are spiritually dissatisfied. A need for growth does not necessarily mean a lack of something.

>She more or less wins the argument, against one sympathizer (Miko) and two people who don't really buy it but go along with it anyway (Byakuren, Marisa).
She doesn't really win the argument. The only thing she managed to proof is that Marisa is kind of an idiot. Or at least, doesn't really care much about Human pride.

>Usually when someone sets up a character who makes bad dumb wrong arguments, either another character blows that bad dumb wrong argument out of the water or the author indicates elsewhere that the argument was in fact bad dumb and wrong.
The indication that it's bad and dumb is the fact that's she blatantly lying. The Human Villagers are not like animals in a Zoo. When somebody threats a human being like a Zoo animal, that generally means they are wrong. Unless the writer is very racist.

>The article also suggests that people who come to Gensokyo of their own will are "rare," which implies that they exist.
They exist. But why is never revealed. They might just be criminals fleeing the law, for all we know.

>There is zero textual evidence that Gensokyo is worse in every aspect than the modern world.
I never said that it's worse in every aspect. Just that it's worse in a lot of aspects.

>You can say we have great REASONS to ignore all the text saying that it's a paradise, wonderful, children smiling, spiritual superior, etc,
What I'm saying is that it's advantages don't matter. It's a paradise and spiritually superior for Youkai, not humans. And children being happy is not the be all end all for a society.

>It takes an extremely biased reading to conclude that he is describing a society that is equal or worse in every way to the outside world.
No. It really doesn't. Humans are canonically described as living in fear of youkai. Every time Gensokyo spiritual advancement is talked about its done in the context of Youkai societies, not the human village. The Human Villages are canonically prevented many freedoms that countless people in the outside world take for granted. Their infrastructure and living standards are poor in comparison to the rest of the world. And there is no escape from any of this.

Like, even if you think spiritual maturity is the most important thing you can possibly have as a society. Which even ZUN seems to acknowledge is not actually true. Then I would call it equal at BEST. And that's only because a large part of the world is still poorly developed. Compared to a rich European country, it's a fucking shithole.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19464088
>A poetic description of a society as one where "children do not smile" isn't an accolade for that society either.
1: They never actually say that. 2: That applies to most human societies until about fifty years ago. Some of which are quite deserving of accolades.

>The point is that uncertainty about what the basis of the setting is is not something you should take into consideration when determining the morality of the characters in that setting.
Well, then it's a pretty awful metaphor. Either way, it's not what I'm doing.

>Yukari is innocent until proven guilty.
She has been proven guilty of the crime of mass murder.

>here is no evidence she keeps "flesh" in her home.
She strongly implies it if you beat the phantasm stage with Marisa.

>And when your evidence is spell card banter, like Sakuya threatening to cook up Mystia or Remilia being out to kill Reimu dead, it gets that much weaker.
Spell card banter isn't the strongest evidence in the world, but it is still evidence. Not EVERYTHING characters say during the game is a joke/not to be taken seriously

>(and we have proof that she does sometimes put them back)
Sumireko wasn't actually taken to Yukari's home. She was taken to Gensokyo proper.

>This world doesn't have unlimited potential and chances.
It does for humanity as a whole. While the best the Human Villagers can hope for is being less oppressed by their cruel Youkai overlords.

>How?
I had the self-preservation instinct of a drunk lemming. And I had zero desire to listen to any authority I didn't respect, which was most of them. I would have either wandered out of the village and been killed at the hands of a Youkai. Or I would have pissed of a nine-thousand-year-old Youkai and died that way.

Even if that somehow doesn't kill me. I would have fallen into a massive depression when I'm around twelve, just like I did in real life. Expect in Gensokyo, there would be no hope or chance of improvement. No way to convince myself that I might one day escape from my situation, and actually make something of myself. Instead, there would be the slow crushing realization that I am utterly stuck. That I'm doomed to spend the rest of my life in this shitty village, surrounded by people that I hate. Then I would have killed myself.

If I somehow, incredibly, managed to prevent that from happening. I would ultimately still be utterly miserable because of the societal expectations placed on somebody in a small pre-modern society. Assuming I don't just starve to death because I'm too physically weak to do any work. Nobody can understand why. There is no social care. And my parents would have too problems of their own to deal with to support me.

Now, I'm not trying to present myself as sympathetic. A lot of the problems I had to deal with were easily resolved. But, they were easily resolved because I live in the modern world. And a particularly privileged part of the modern world at that. Realizing that puts a lot of things in perspective. While also making It a lot easier to realize why Gensokyo isn't a good place. Yes, children are very happy in Gensokyo. But that's because the children that are not happy aren't miserable, it's because their dead.

Now, you might argue that I'm simply biased because of my viewpoint. But I don't actually think that's the case. My view point does not mean I'm automatically inclined against pre-modern societies. I, like a lot of people, have somewhat of a strange admiration for a lot of premodern societies. What it does however allows me to do is realize that for all of its flaws, the real world is honestly not that bad of a place. And that for all of its flaws, Humanity is a pretty decent bunch compared to how we used to be. That isn't biased anymore that it's biased to look at World War 2 from the perspective of Switzerland.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19464088
>In general I don't see why we would expect her to do any more eating of people than other youkai-with-no-mythological-basis-in-eating-live-humans such as tanuki or kasha.
Because she likes talking about it a lot, and because it's mentioned in PMISS and both of her character profiles. It could just be empty bluster, would be pretty in character. But I think it's more likely to be something she seriously does. Especially considering her powers are perfect for catching humans. She's more a Siren than a traditional night sparrow Youkai.

>But it's not proof that the full set of people abducted are "suicides, criminals, and people who would have died anyway."
What point are you trying to make here? That Yukari also abducts people at random? How is that better?

>If somebody is a threat to Gensokyo, the threat goes away if the person is removed, and (assuming various theories of yours are correct) offing them is clearly the easiest way to do that. Make execution more annoying and deportation easier and the calculus changes.
You know, if Yukari really is as ruthless as I think she is. Then she would just off you once you start causing any kind of trouble. Or she might just use Reimu to tell you to shove it. Or somehow manipulate events to put you back in your place. Even if you don't think she's THAT ruthless. I still don't think she would be liable to do what you want just because you're Reimu's friend and kind of a nuisance. She's lazy, but not THAT lazy.

>Still a far cry from being bullied unto death.
That still happens in pre-modern societies if you fail to hide your behavior. Like, once it become knowledge that you are different in a way the community doesn't like. You'll be lucky if you aren't kicked out of the village altogether. And unlike the outside world, becoming a outcast is basically a death sentence if you can't use magic.

>I've been slowly chipping away against your sweeping pronouncements about the way things that have no basis whatsoever.
Eh, somewhat. Your biggest accomplishment is mostly just arguing that a whole lot of the terrible shit Yukari does falls in the MABYE category. Which, like I said, I don't think is that much of a argument considered the crimes we DO know she did. Still, it is something.

>Ideal? Maybe not. Still a far cry from being summarily executed.
I would call it fucking evil and tyrannical. But whatever. It is better than being summarily executed i suppose.

>Rumors and fake news fly at the speed of sound even in the real world and there's no reason that Gensokyo is full of people who are any less susceptible to influence.
We were talking about stories and folklore, not fake news and rumors. Evidently, there is a very good reason to assume people in Gensokyo are less susceptible. It's called "not having Internet".

>Again, are all of these ideal? No, but they're not all "torture him" and "threaten to kill his family."
I would say some of them are about on the same level. Others are not, but those are also a lot less liable to actually work.

>It sure is great that Yukari is looking out for the welfare of the citizenry.
She only did it to make sure Reimu wasn't mentally damaged by having to kill a dear friend. It's more like a farmer protecting his favorite golden goose than a benevolent dictator taking care of his people.

>She probably thought it was a riot.
1: We don't actually know one way or another. The article doesn't say if she enjoyed the experience. 2: I doubt she would have been smiling if Yukari had taken her to her home for fun. 3: I REALLY doubt she would have been smiling if a hungry Youkai had managed to find her.

>No, this is, in fact, usually not the case. You seem to believe that EVERYBODY makes decisions based off utilitarian welfare maximization.
I believe that everybody makes decisions based on what they think is doing the right thing. Nobody actively tries to make the world a worse place. At worst, they might value their own welfare and health more than the lives of other people. And even then they usually still try to justify their actions with some kind of twisted ideology.

>Most of them will say it's because they have the right to do so, full step, end of story.
They say that because they believe that right is doing more good than harm.

[Anonymous No.]

Yukari
Did
Nothing
Wrong

[Anonymous No.]

>>19465260
Literally Youkai hitler. Deserves a slow painful death followed by a ten thousand year long stay in hell.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19465312

Saved us all from being mud village peasants getting ravaged by oni with her fantasy reality barrier pulling the Earth's youkai to Gensokyo 500 years ago, which in turn allowed humanity to advance as we were no longer having to rebuild and deal with youkai killing us.

Literally Youkai Savior.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19466007
The barrier wasn’t made five hundred years ago. And even if it was, it would have no bearing on European developments that allowed humanity to advance. Europe has no Youkai.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19467027
so where did all those goblins come from

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392092
Gotta control the foo

[Anonymous No.]

>>19473919
Honestly, this.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19465260
I agree

[Anonymous No.]

Step 1. Become a Necromancer
Step 2. Hide somewhere
Step 3. Revive all the dead in Gensokoyo
Step 3. Have the undead attack the Human Village under the guise of being a Youkai and claim all Youkai agree with you to trim Human numbers and keep fear going so that they may exist.
Step 4. There is no way for the Youkai to fix this situation even if they capture and kill you.

There. You just fixed all of Gensokoyo problems.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19471541
Those are Fae, not Youkai.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19473919
Indeed. Their music would devastate the world if left uncontrolled.

[Anonymous No.]

Why the fuck should I care if they're killing people?

[Anonymous No.]

>>19482039
Because murder is bad? Like, if you don't have enough empathy to understand that. Then, at least ask yourself if YOU would like being brutally murdered and eaten.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19482217
The strong survive while the weak perish, anon.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19483194
That's now how the world works, silly. The people that believed such nonsense have always been inevitably destroyed by those who did not. I would say the same is true of you, but i doubt you would be counted among the strong anyway.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19486183
its a universal law

[Anonymous No.]

>>19489820
No, it's not even completely true in nature. As certain animals are very protective of weaker members of their group.

[Anonymous No.]

Why don't the Youkai just grow their own tumors/cancer from a Human organ and just eat that? Wouldn't that solve 90% of the problems in Gensokoyo.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19483194
>>19489820
Except that isn't how it works. The one to survive is not the strongest or smartest, but the one who co-operates with others to overcome a common threat and passes on their genes.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19495234
Because, at least some of them, enjoy the sound of dying humans. For them, the thrill of the hunt and the pleasure of the kill is as enjoyable as actually getting to eat well afterwards.

[Anonymous No.]

the strong must kiss the wak!

[Anonymous No.]

>>19496559
Well it is simple then. All Youkai who refuse to eat cancer grown Human food and wish to murder Humans will be exterminated without trial.

For the good of Gensokoyo.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19497912
Not sure if you could convince the Youkai to agree to such a proposal.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19496588
Kissing ice has never been a good idea.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19495258
Not an argument

[Anonymous No.]

>>19503460
Yes. It's not a argument, it's a fact.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19465011
>That was mentioned in PCB, SoPM, and SCoOW. The Human Villagers do not get to benefit from that.
PCB Prologue: "Gensokyo is a paradise for many youkai and a few humans."
SoPM explicitly claims (whether you want to believe these character's claims or not) that humans spiritually benefit from the presence of gods and youkai.
SCoOW does not claim that humans reap no spiritual benefit from living in Gensokyo. It seems to validate Kanako's claims in SoPM.

>That is what I think is the point of the whole setting.
There is no textual basis for your claim and no evidence whatsoever that ZUN subscribes to this position.

>The indication that it's bad and dumb is the fact that's she blatantly lying.
Characterizing an analogy as a blatant lie is a blatant mischaracterization.

>Their infrastructure and living standards are poor in comparison to the rest of the world.
Japan, yes, the rest of the world, no. The average human lives in a third-world country.

>Then I would call it equal at BEST.
I can live with that.

>>19465036
>She has been proven guilty of the crime of mass murder.
Sure, but she has not been proven guilty of any number of other crimes you've ascribed to her.

>She strongly implies it if you beat the phantasm stage with Marisa.
That's about as far of a "strong" implication as you can get. Hibernating means you're not even eating.

>It does for humanity as a whole.
What, to conquer the stars? In the long run humans are all dead anyway no matter how far we go.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19465036
>I had the self-preservation instinct of a drunk lemming.
You still managed to not get eaten by a mountain lion or wander into traffic or licked an electrical socket or drowned in a pool, so unless you were kept confined twenty-four hours a day you must have had a non-zero preservation instinct.

>Expect in Gensokyo, there would be no hope or chance of improvement. No way to convince myself that I might one day escape from my situation, and actually make something of myself. Instead, there would be the slow crushing realization that I am utterly stuck. That I'm doomed to spend the rest of my life in this shitty village, surrounded by people that I hate. Then I would have killed myself.
You were sure one edgy 12-year-old. I got depressed when I was 12, too. I stayed up all night thinking about the idea that there was no afterlife and one day I and eventually all humans would all be dead having lived out pointless lives and died pointless deaths in the massive and pointless physics experiment that is our universe. Then I got over it. Mostly.

>Assuming I don't just starve to death because I'm too physically weak to do any work. Nobody can understand why. There is no social care. And my parents would have too problems of their own to deal with to support me.
It's not an enviable position, but premodern societies would take care of the village idiot and others incapable of working (if food allowed, which was not all the time). Gensokyo has both intellectual and non-intellectual physical pursuits as well. And if you suffer from a physical condition that modern medicine can't fix it's far from clear that magical medicine couldn't fix it either.

>But that's because the children that are not happy aren't miserable, it's because their dead.
There is no textual basis for the idea that's that how it works. It's headcanon.

>>19465157
>She's more a Siren than a traditional night sparrow Youkai.
Siren songs are bewitching and alluring. Mystia is not. Also, her official description is "Night Sparrow Youkai", not Siren or any variant thereof.

>What point are you trying to make here? That Yukari also abducts people at random? How is that better?
To borrow a leaf from recent news events, that "are" should have been an "aren't."

>Then she would just off you once you start causing any kind of trouble.
If it's not going to upend the balance of Gensokyo it's not really trouble. If "annoying" was enough to bring on the executioner half of these incidents would have never started, Yukari would have just blown them up all by herself.

>You'll be lucky if you aren't kicked out of the village altogether. And unlike the outside world, becoming a outcast is basically a death sentence if you can't use magic.
Fortune Teller was an outcast of sorts, but of the type that presumably could have been overlooked upon (even an obviously faked) repentance, and even then he wasn't expelled from the village. He continued to live in the village until his untimely suicide.

>Your biggest accomplishment is mostly just arguing that a whole lot of the terrible shit Yukari does falls in the MAYBE category.
I'm perfectly happy to leave it in the MAYBE category because I'm fine with - and believe that - ZUN wrote the setting in a deliberately ambiguous way, so as to accommodate many interpretations (including yours.) The reason I've been arguing with you this whole time is that you've consistently been depicting your interpretation as the ONLY reasonable interpretation and that everyone else is just dumb, ignorant, misguided or otherwise wrong.

>Evidently, there is a very good reason to assume people in Gensokyo are less susceptible. It's called "not having Internet".
Witch hunts predated the internet.

>At worst, they might value their own welfare and health more than the lives of other people.
Some people value principles and ideology more than the lives of other people without consciously believing that it's best for everyone in the long run. There are people who would say that people should run into the Louvre if it were to burn down, trading human life for historical treasures. Some people would even do it themselves. But just because they might count it a net win if every artifact in the Louvre were saved at the cost of one human life would not does not mean that they would also conclude it would be worth it to save a single exhibit at the cost of the lives of every person in France. The value people place on human life has never been all-or-nothing.

[Anonymous No.]

What will the Human Village do if an Outsider gained powers and then went on to become a serial killer and just randomly killed Humans at night?

[Anonymous No.]

>>19509167
Yukari will deal with it.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19507081
>PCB Prologue: "Gensokyo is a paradise for many youkai and a few humans."
You’re conveniently ignoring this part:
>So, why is Gensokyo a paradise for humans if they have to live with youkai? Well, that's because when everyone has enough power to defeat youkai in combat, and that's anything but boring

The only reason why Gensokyo was viewed as a paradise back then was because EVERY native human had enough power to defeat Youkai. Something that obviously isn't true anymore in more recent lore.

>SoPM explicitly claims (whether you want to believe these character's claims or not) that humans spiritually benefit from the presence of gods and youkai.
I had to look this, and it seems to come down to this quote:

>But given this country's current state and its spiritual immaturity, it hasn't been able to make the transition very well. The essential requirement to achieving fulfillment is to raise one's level of spirituality, but of course that's no easy task. It's difficult for anyone who either wasn't either born a saint or hasn't achieved enlightenment. That's where gods come in. Humans revere gods and gods forgive humans, or so the line of thought goes. With this, even ordinary people can hold a shared sense of morality and dedicate themselves to others.

Now, there’s a lot to unpack here. So, let me begin: 1: Kanako is absolutely just trying to sell herself. Even Marisa realizes that, pointing out her argument is self-justification. 2: It’s also literally not true for the simple reason that, weirdly enough, all religions in Touhou are false. The gods in the Touhou universe are not actually real gods. Like Youkai, they are sapient memes, given form by human thought and faith. The shared sense of morality they supposedly create is one invented by humans, with the gods basically acting as a middle man. They are not necessary, in the same way a publisher is not necessary to make video games. 3: None of this, or the rest of the debate, indicates that the Human Villagers are more spiritually advanced. Which, they are not. Like, being spiritually advanced in the Touhou universe doesn’t just mean a shared sense of morality or being more religiously active (Although it's not like the Human Villagers have a shared sense of morality OR are really that much more religiously active). It also means literally having magical superpowers. If the Human Villagers were actually more spiritually advanced, they would be an entire town of mages. Or, at the very least, everybody would be strong enough to fight Youkai. Which, like I said, isn’t true anymore.

>There is no textual basis for your claim and no evidence whatsoever that ZUN subscribes to this position.
There is no explicit textual basis, but I do think there’s plenty of evidence. Like that ZUN has been making Gensokyo a worse and worse place with every new game and lorebook. The fact that innocent people are systematically murdered. That the human villagers are oppressed, powerless, and stuck. That Gensokyo is governed by a might makes right mentality, and that most of its inhabitants need to exist in a state of constant conflict. And the fact that every religious figure is a massive hypocrite that doesn't follow her own religious tenets. All of those are perversions of ideas romanticists commonly ascribe to.

>Characterizing an analogy as a blatant lie is a blatant mischaracterization.
It’s not mischaracterization when she’s actually blatantly lying. Which, she does totally does, repeatedly.

>The average human lives in a third-world country.
No, actually. Most of the world population lives in second world country. Most of which are FAR more developed than Gensokyo.

>Sure, but she has not been proven guilty of any number of other crimes you've ascribed to her.
1: Mass murder is already enough to view her as irredeemably evil and deserving of death. 2: The only other crime I've ascribed to her is being tyrannical. Which she is, even if the degrees can be debated.

>What, to conquer the stars?
Among other things, yes.

>In the long run humans are all dead anyway no matter how far we go.
Yeah, and? Everything is going to die eventually. Doesn't mean that we still don’t have a far more promising few million years ahead of than the poor saps locked up in Gensokyo.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19507254
>You still managed to not get eaten by a mountain lion or wander into traffic
Where I grew up, I didn't have to worry about dangerous traffic or animals. And yet, i was still attacked by a dog multiple times and hit by a car twice.

>or licked an electrical socket
I did actually fuck around with electrical sockets pretty often.

>Or drowned in a pool.
Almost happened about four different times.

>so unless you were kept confined twenty-four hours a day you must have had a non-zero preservation instinct.
Not zero. But not enough to survive in a place like Gensokyo.

>I stayed up all night thinking about the idea that there was no afterlife and one day I and eventually all humans would all be dead having lived out pointless lives and died pointless deaths in the massive and pointless physics experiment that is our universe. Then I got over it. Mostly.

I would say that’s the real edgy teenager mindset, but whatever. I know that I myself would have never gotten over my problems without the promise of a brighter future and good mental help, both things that don’t exist in Gensokyo. And the same is true for countless other people, both that i know and that i've heard off.

>It's not an enviable position, but premodern societies would take care of the village idiot and others incapable of working (if food allowed, which was not all the time).
It depended on the society and the time. And even then, such initiatives usually came from one's extended family. Who, like I said, would have their own problems to deal with. Nobody in my family would do well in Gensokyo, all for completely different reasons.

>And if you suffer from a physical condition that modern medicine can't fix it's far from clear that magical medicine couldn't fix it either.
The only one who seems to make actually working medicine is Eirin, who seems to use ridiculously advanced science. And even then, I don’t actually think it's a physical condition that can be cured.

>There is no textual basis for the idea that's that how it works. It's headcanon.

It's not a matter of “That’s how it works in Gensokyo”, it's simply how life works. Children that are depressed in a society that can’t help them are probably going to die. Children living in dangerous places that aren’t smart enough to deal with it are probably going to die. Children that are different in a way society deems unacceptable are probably going to die. And children that are too physically and/or mentally weak are probably going to die. That’s just how the world works. Expect, of course, a lot of outside world societies that are both enlightened and advanced enough to provide the care such children need. Enlightenment and advancement that the Human Villagers will never have.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19507254
>Siren songs are bewitching and alluring. Mystia is not. Also, her official description is "Night Sparrow Youkai", not Siren or any variant thereof.
From PMISS:

>A singing voice from nowhere in particular without a source in sight can be heard, and while one is taken by that voice they lose their way and are attacked by youkai.
>If one continues to follow the faint light and song on a night road, they will most likely be attacked by this youkai.
That sound pretty fucking bewitching to me. Hell, her music is even considered alluring by Village youth.

>If "annoying" was enough to bring on the executioner half of these incidents would have never started, Yukari would have just blown them up all by herself.
1: Reimu is Yukari’s executioner, and the one that deals with incidents. 2: It’s a bit different If you go out of the way to piss off Yukari so that you can arrogantly demand something from her. 3: I mentioned several other things she could do.

>Fortune Teller was an outcast of sorts, but of the type that presumably could have been overlooked upon (even an obviously faked) repentance, and even then he wasn't expelled from the village. He continued to live in the village until his untimely suicide.
Fair enough. But even you have to admit, if you are expelled from the village, then you are basically completely screwed.

>I'm perfectly happy to leave it in the MAYBE category because I'm fine with - and believe that - ZUN wrote the setting in a deliberately ambiguous way, so as to accommodate many interpretations (including yours.) The reason I've been arguing with you this whole time is that you've consistently been depicting your interpretation as the ONLY reasonable interpretation and that everyone else is just dumb, ignorant, misguided or otherwise wrong.

No, anon. My interpretation is not the ONLY reasonable one. What I am saying is that YOUR interpretation is bad. That your arguments for why the Human Villagers would not be happier in the Outside world are based on nothing. And that defending Yukari by saying “Well, she MIGHT have a good reason” is disgusting.

Like, I've seen different interpretation of Gensokyo that I like. A lot of them, in fact.

>Witch hunts predated the internet.
Yes. But the internet does make it a million times easier to organize one. As well as a lot easier to disseminate fake news/information.

>Some people value principles and ideology more than the lives of other people without consciously believing that it's best for everyone in the long run. There are people who would say that people should run into the Louvre if it were to burn down, trading human life for historical treasures.
Nobody claims that you should trade human lives for historical treasures. There are people who claim you should TRY and risk your life to save historical treasures. But that’s not because they think historical treasures are worth more, it’s because they think the people that try to save them have a chance to make it out alive.

Also, the reason why people care so much about historical treasures is because they feel that preserving them would be better for everybody in the long run. That, if it means future generations can enjoy the same beauty they do, it's worth risking your life.


>The value people place on human life has never been all-or-nothing.
Again, unless you are a insane misanthrope. It's ALWAYS all. As a Human, the thing you value most are human lives. The only question is how many human lives you care about. Everybody? Only yourself? Or, like most people, something in between?

[Anonymous No.]

>>19510909
*I had to look this up
*Most of the world population lives in second world countries.

>>19510938
1: Reimu is Yukari’s executioner when it comes to incidents.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19510909
*Doesn't mean that we still don’t have a far more promising few million years ahead of us than the poor saps locked up in Gensokyo.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19509167
I imagine Reimu or Yukari would find and kill that person.

[Anonymous No.]

tl;dr

[Anonymous No.]

>>19515888

[Anonymous No.]

>>19512484
Imagine if they themselves were overpowered

[Anonymous No.]

>>19516630
>Censors information.
Yukari really is just every other Totalitarian dictator.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19518652
Yukari has a good reason for it. A little bit of knowledge is dangerous. It needs to be censored for the greater good.

[Anonymous No.]

Because Jews monopolized the shadow fuckery and they are evil stains on the earth.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19519303
That's the same excuse every Totalitarian dictatorship uses to defend their censorship. If you're government is so fragile that it can be undone by information. Then you probably aren't doing a very good job.

[Anonymous No.]

Yukari is our god is our ruler is our master we must obey OBEY we must believe BELIEVE we must fear FEAR we must pray PRAY
ALL HAIL MASTER YUKARI

[Anonymous No.]

>>19520601
t. Ran.

Go back to cleaning Yukari's toilets. You stupid computer.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19520653
obey yukari
fear youkai
obey fear
obey youkai

[Anonymous No.]

>>19520700
Now you just sound like Wario in that one commercial.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19510909
>1: Kanako is absolutely just trying to sell herself. Even Marisa realizes that, pointing out her argument is self-justification.
Marisa could call it self-justification whether it was true or not. She doesn't actually make a counterargument.

>2: It’s also literally not true for the simple reason that, weirdly enough, all religions in Touhou are false.
Some aspects of Buddhist religion are literally true in Gensokyo: when you die, you become a spirit, cross the Sanzu, are judged and enter the cycle of reincarnation. Gods and divine power differs in some way from common youkaihood.

>3: None of this, or the rest of the debate, indicates that the Human Villagers are more spiritually advanced.
Kanako: "the existence of gods and youkai are necessary for spiritual growth."
SCoOW: "its spiritual culture is said to be far more mature by comparison."

There is nothing in the text so far to indicate that Kanako is incorrect in-universe on this point. Also, spiritual growth is not one-to-one with magic power.

>Like that ZUN has been making Gensokyo a worse and worse place with every new game and lorebook.
The core of your argument rests on PCB and PMiSS, both of which were over a decade ago.

>most of its inhabitants need to exist in a state of constant conflict
This has been known since the Spell Card Rules were published in PMiSS, which was in 2006.

>And the fact that every religious figure is a massive hypocrite that doesn't follow her own religious tenets.
Like most religious leaders, they follow some approximation of the ideal. The fact that reality doesn't match up exactly with the ideal has been known since PMiSS as well.

>It’s not mischaracterization when she’s actually blatantly lying. Which, she does totally does, repeatedly.
So cite these "blatant lies" rather than an analogy you don't like.

>No, actually. Most of the world population lives in second world country. Most of which are FAR more developed than Gensokyo.
2.3 billion people do not even have access to latrines. Granted, that's only a third of people rather than a half. The world still kind of sucks.

>2: The only other crime I've ascribed to her is being tyrannical.
You have charged her with the murder of children, the execution of villagers, and the "spiriting away / killing of people not suicides, criminals, and people who would have died anyway."

>Doesn't mean that we still don’t have a far more promising few million years ahead of than the poor saps locked up in Gensokyo.
They, like you, will be dead long before any of this occurs. And after those few million years, none of it will have mattered.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19510921
>Not zero. But not enough to survive in a place like Gensokyo.
If you don't leave the village, you should survive. If you DO leave the village, human villagers are not for eating. If you have a sufficiently powerful death wish no doubt I'm sure you could successfully kill yourself as a villager but that's a matter of degree both here and there.

>I would say that’s the real edgy teenager mindset, but whatever.
Well, you see, I was twelve.

Incidentally also people who never get over this edgy teenager mindset or have it come back in adulthood sometimes also kill themselves.

>a brighter future
Was it really improved material circumstances that brought you out of depression?
>good mental help, both things that don’t exist in Gensokyo.
Eirin's hospital has unusual psychiatric medications. Whether it's science or not, she managed to create the Hourai Elixir (not that it's for sale) so that most conditions are probably at least within her grasp. As for counseling, I wouldn't know.

>It's not a matter of “That’s how it works in Gensokyo”, it's simply how life works.
It doesn't matter how actual premodern societies work. How it works in Gensokyo is how ZUN envisioned Gensokyo. If ZUN doesn't think it has various disappointing social features of most premodern societies then it doesn't have them.

>>19510938
>That sound pretty fucking bewitching to me.
I feel like most descriptions of her song were more of the "inducing insanity" type rather than the "bewitchingly beautiful" type. But even if she were a siren, sirens don't eat people anyway. I suppose you might fall off a cliff.

>2: It’s a bit different If you go out of the way to piss off Yukari so that you can arrogantly demand something from her.
Well, you could pursue your aims a little more diplomatically than I suggested.

>But even you have to admit, if you are expelled from the village, then you are basically completely screwed.
It depends, I think, on whether you lose "villager protection" if you were expelled from the village. But we've never seen this happen to anyone.

>That your arguments for why the Human Villagers would not be happier in the Outside world are based on nothing.
They're based on the text, which have depicted children as happy. Your reinterpretation of "children are happy in Gensoyko" = "that's because all the unhappy children died" has no textual basis in actual work nor in anything ZUN has ever suggested. It's true that there would likely to be a material quality-of-life increase for any villager who left the outside world. Your claim that this would therefore clearly make them happier is based on nothing in Touhou and revisiting the slatestar link you provided earlier it looks like Japanese people are far, far more miserable than their standard of living should dictate, out-miserating actual third-world countries.

>And that defending Yukari by saying “Well, she MIGHT have a good reason” is disgusting.
Well, she might. Whether or not the argument is disgusting has no bearing on whether or not it is true.

>it’s because they think the people that try to save them have a chance to make it out alive.
High chances of death can be reasonably ethically dealt with in the same manner as death.

>Also, the reason why people care so much about historical treasures is because they feel that preserving them would be better for everybody in the long run.
Well, maybe Yukari thinks that preserving Gensokyo is better for "everybody in the long run", for certain values of everybody.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19518442
Just like one of my hentai

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392092
>>19392092
“Lead me not unto salvation (not temptation); we (humans) can find the way ourselves.”

[Anonymous No.]

>>19521712
>Marisa could call it self-justification whether it was true or not. She doesn't actually make a counterargument.
Her counterargument is that it's just nonsense Kanako made up to make people worship her, which it is.

>Some aspects of Buddhist religion are literally true in Gensokyo: when you die, you become a spirit, cross the Sanzu, are judged and enter the cycle of reincarnation.
Some aspects of Buddhism are true because people believe in the deities that make the cosmology of Buddhism true. Just like how Christians in the Touhou universe go to Heaven because their believe in the Judeo Christian god allowed him to exist and create Heaven. While Gods work somewhat differently than Youkai, they still only exist because people believe they exist. Meaning that divine law is not actually a real thing, which therefore renders Kanako's entire argument that Gods are necessary invalid. Because they are literally not necessary.

>There is nothing in the text so far to indicate that Kanako is incorrect in-universe on this point.
For somebody that loves talking about "Textual evidence" you really don't seem to understand how that actually works. One small line talking about Gensokyo as a whole, and one character making a claim that is acknowledged in universe as being biased is not "Evidence" that the Human Villagers are more spiritually advanced. What Is however evidence is this: If we define "spiritual advancement" as 1: Shared sense of morality. 2: A certain level of common piety. And 3: Magical powers. Then what matters is that the Human villagers do not have a shared sense of morality (They are in fact, a rather divided society. Which is exactly what the Youkai want), not particularly pious (While most religious institutions in Gensokyo do have followers. the majority of villagers are portrayed as not being particularly interested in religion, and the religious institutions themselves are not very pious either) and do not have much, if any, magical powers.

>The core of your argument rests on PCB and PMiSS, both of which were over a decade ago.
...Yeah? That's kind of my point. Over the last decade or so, Gensokyo has become an increasingly grimmer and more unpleasant place. Almost like ZUN is trying to make a point.

Also, Changeability of Strange Dream, the work you use to defend your own views of Gensokyo, was released in 2004.

>Like most religious leaders, they follow some approximation of the ideal.
They are literally going against the ideals they are supposed to follow. Byakuren and Miko would be kicked out of any actual Taoist or Buddhist temple. And that's not even getting into both characters backstory, which shows both of them to be massive hypocrites.

>So cite these "blatant lies" rather than an analogy you don't like.
It's not a "analogy I don't like". Kanako claiming that the Human Villagers are "like Animals in a zoo" when that is blatantly not the case is a lie. Same for her claiming that gods are necessary to create a sense of shared morality, when that's not actually true because of the nature of the universe. Unless she doesn't know that Gods in the Touhou universe are sapient memes,then she's simply misguided.

>The world still kind of sucks.
The world is doing just fine. Yes there are problems, and a large number of people live in poverty. But most of the world population is still doing better than a isolated premodern Japanese village surrounded by monsters would.

>You have charged her with the murder of children, the execution of villagers, and the "spiriting away / killing of people not suicides, criminals, and people who would have died anyway."
Uh, no, YOU made the claim that she only sprites away suicidal people, criminals, and people that would have died anyway. Without any real evidence, i should add. I don't need to disprove that, nor is my disapproval a charge. Meanwhile, like I said, if she's tyrannical enough to execute villagers is up to debate. And if you want to argue that EVERY child she brings to Gensokyo makes it back alive, then you need more evidence than just "this one child did".

[Anonymous No.]

>>19522131

>If you don't leave the village, you should survive. If you DO leave the village, human villagers are not for eating.
1: I WOULD have probably left the village as a child. 2: It's true that Human Villagers are not for eating. But several youkai are either basically feral or too stupid to follow that rule.

>Incidentally also people who never get over this edgy teenager mindset or have it come back in adulthood sometimes also kill themselves.
I'm sure that happens in Gensokyo as well.

>Was it really improved material circumstances that brought you out of depression?
In combination with some self improvement, yes. At the very least, spirituality had nothing to do with it.

>It doesn't matter how actual premodern societies work. How it works in Gensokyo is how ZUN envisioned Gensokyo. If ZUN doesn't think it has various disappointing social features of most premodern societies then it doesn't have them.
Then please, point out to me when ZUN said that Gensokyo doesn't have any of the downsides of pre modern societies. Like, I just reread Changeability of Strange Dream, and I don't remember Maribel saying "When was the last time I've seen children smiling so? And also, this place doesn't have any of the downsides premodern society has and all children reach adulthood without any problem."

>But even if she were a siren, sirens don't eat people anyway. I suppose you might fall off a cliff.
Depends a bit on the exact myth, there are multiple types of Sirens. Even if most of them do prefer drowning their victims rather than eating them.

>Well, you could pursue your aims a little more diplomatically than I suggested.
Again, I don't think that would work unless you can actually make a case to Yukari that your method is better. And good luck convincing a smug super genius of anything.

>It depends, I think, on whether you lose "villager protection" if you were expelled from the village.
I mean, if you don't live in the Human Village. Then you don't have the same privileges of people that live in the village do. I would say that's pretty logical.

>They're based on the text, which have depicted children as happy. Your reinterpretation of "children are happy in Gensoyko" = "that's because all the unhappy children died" has no textual basis in actual work nor in anything ZUN has ever suggested.
My argument is based upon the fact that Gensokyo and The Human Village is repeatedly described as having premodern living standards. And that certain negative things, like unhappy/weak Children dying, are a part of those living standards. Meanwhile, your entire argument rests on one small badly interpreted line talking about a small section of the Village population written about 14 years ago.

>Your claim that this would therefore clearly make them happier is based on nothing in Touhou and revisiting the slatestar link you provided earlier it looks like Japanese people are far, far more miserable than their standard of living should dictate, out-miserating actual third-world countries.
My claim that they would be happier is based upon the fact that, on average, higher standards of living do make people happier. Now, I'll admit that nationality can also have a big effect on happiness unrelated to material wealth. Otherwise, there really isn't any way to explain a country like Costa Rica being in the top twenty and Japan being so low. But that by itself is not proof, textual or otherwise, that the Human Villagers would not be happier living in the Outside world. And that's even before you get into the fact that there is technically nothing stopping them from all moving to Denmark if the Barrier breaks.

>Well, she might. Whether or not the argument is disgusting has no bearing on whether or not it is true
The only thing that matters is that she's a mass murder. Any potential justifications are meaningless until clearly proven. To think otherwise is abhorrent, both logically and philosophically.

>High chances of death can be reasonably ethically dealt with in the same manner as death.
There is still a big different between 99% of death and 100% of dead. Just ask any soldier.

>Well, maybe Yukari thinks that preserving Gensokyo is better for "everybody in the long run", for certain values of everybody.
That only becomes relevant if you can proof that: 1: That's actually what she thinks. And 2: She's right, or at least not wrong.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19526442
>Her counterargument is that it's just nonsense Kanako made up to make people worship her, which it is.
Marisa never said this.

>people believe in the deities that make the cosmology of Buddhism true.
Deities do not "make the cosmology of Buddhism true." The cosmology exists even in the absence of any gods.
>While Gods work somewhat differently than Youkai, they still only exist because people believe they exist.
How does the Lunar Capital exist? Because Gensokyo does?
>Meaning that divine law is not actually a real thing,
Cycles of reincarnation and other features of religion are real even if they are derived from memetic whatevers, just as the hunger that hungry hungry man felt was real hunger even if it was sourced from a subjective existence.

>For somebody that loves talking about "Textual evidence" you really don't seem to understand how that actually works.
Bold words for someone who reads things into the text that simply don't exist. Given that there are multiple sources saying that the spiritual of Gensokyo is higher, the onus is on you to show that villagers are excluded with textual evidence. You provide none. Instead, you use personal reasoning and headcanon based on what you think "spirituality" is (and a grossly biased one, given that you seem think that spirituality is subjective waffle.) There's nothing indicating that spirituality can't be simply defined as belief in or awe of the supernatural. Is it THE definition? Maybe not, but there's no reason it has to be the ones that you gave.

>Over the last decade or so, Gensokyo has become an increasingly grimmer and more unpleasant place. Almost like ZUN is trying to make a point.
Gensokyo has gotten no grimmer since PCB and PMiSS were published.

>Byakuren and Miko would be kicked out of any actual Taoist or Buddhist temple.
Actual Taoist and Buddhist temples were also often hypocritical, as they were run by people rather than saints. A far cry from any dystopia.

>Kanako claiming that the Human Villagers are "like Animals in a zoo" when that is blatantly not the case is a lie.
Claiming that an analogy is a lie is profoundly idiotic. That's like saying anyone who uses the term the rat race, or describes humans as bipedal apes is a liar because humans aren't rats or apes.

>Meanwhile, like I said, if she's tyrannical enough to execute villagers is up to debate
Innocent until proven guilty.
>And if you want to argue that EVERY child she brings to Gensokyo makes it back alive, then you need more evidence than just "this one child did".
Innocent until proven guilty.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19526453
>But several youkai are either basically feral or too stupid to follow that rule.
We have mountain lions and subway tracks. The fact that it might be marginally easier for undetectable levels of self-preservation to be killed in Gensokyo is not applicable to 99.99% of people.

>I'm sure that happens in Gensokyo as well.
Existential depression is more difficult when the existence of an actual afterlife has been confirmed.

>ZUN said that Gensokyo doesn't have any of the downsides of pre modern societies
He hasn't said it doesn't have any downsides, but he has highlighted positive aspects of Gensokyo that could be associated with its state of pre-modernity while not acknowledging any social, non-material unpleasant features of premodern societies you've been talking about.

>Depends a bit on the exact myth, there are multiple types of Sirens.
There might be some basis for that somewhere, but the fact that certain non-mainstream subspecies of siren may have eaten people (which I haven't found) does not indicate that a youkai primarily based off night sparrow youkai with some siren elements is therefore a man-eating youkai. Whatever type of youkai Mystia is, there's no more basis for it eating people than for it hanging around bodies of water and drowning people, which she presumably doesn't do.

>Again, I don't think that would work unless you can actually make a case to Yukari that your method is better.
It doesn't have to be "better" in some grand sense. It merely needs to not threaten Gensokyo and not cause her personal inconvenience.

>And that certain negative things, like unhappy/weak Children dying, are a part of those living standards.
"Unhappy children all kill themselves" has never been a feature of premodern society in any literature I've read. I hazard this is something you're claiming based off your own experience. Sickly children die in the absence of modern medicine, which Gensokyo has.

>Meanwhile, your entire argument rests on one small badly interpreted line talking about a small section of the Village population written about 14 years ago.
My argument rests on countless positive descriptions of Gensokyo which you've all explained away as being "ironic." These descriptions have existed consistently throughout the years. CoSD serves as a guideline as how to interpret these statements: no, they are not all ironic. Were it not for the inescapable double bind of both in-universe and out-of-universe text making your position untenable you would likely be arguing right now that no, children in Gensokyo don't actually smile.

>But that by itself is not proof, textual or otherwise, that the Human Villagers would not be happier living in the Outside world.
I am not going to prove that the human villagers would be less happy in the outside world. I have simply claimed that it's not obviously true that they would be. While they could all move to Denmark, statistically the vast majority of them would not.

>There is still a big different between 99% of death and 100% of dead. Just ask any soldier.
So, is it better to give 100 people a 99% chance of dying than one person a 100% chance of dead? Incidentally, people spirited away to Gensokyo only have a percentage chance of being deaded.

>That only becomes relevant if you can proof that: 1: That's actually what she thinks.
I don't need to prove it to note it as an ambiguity.
>And 2: She's right, or at least not wrong.
Even if she is wrong (misguided), it casts doubt on your conclusion that her value of human life is literally zero.

[Anonymous No.]

Missed this one:

>>19526453
>To think otherwise is abhorrent, both logically and philosophically.
Whether an argument is abhorrent is also irrelevant to whether or not it is true. Your decision to value potential justifications as "meaningless" until proven is arbitrary given that you think that other unproved activites "have meaning."

[Anonymous No.]

>>19526604
>Marisa never said this.
>"So what, you're just sayin', 'Worship me'? That's all just self-justification."

>Deities do not "make the cosmology of Buddhism true." The cosmology exists even in the absence of any gods.
The cosmology only exists because people believe the Yama/The Ten Judges of hell exist. If everybody on earth stopped believing in Buddhism. Then the Yama/Ten Judges would disappear and the cycle of reincarnation would end as well. Like, the fact that Gods need faith to survive has been established a while ago.

>How does the Lunar Capital exist?
I'm pretty sure most Lunarians are not gods. And therefore, do not need faith to survive.

>Cycles of reincarnation and other features of religion are real even if they are derived from memetic whatevers
They are real. But divine law is one feature that CAN'T be real in such a universe. Simply because the idea of Divine Law is that they are laws created by a higher power, not Humans.

>You provide none. Instead, you use personal reasoning and headcanon based on what you think "spirituality" is (and a grossly biased one, given that you seem think that spirituality is subjective waffle.) There's nothing indicating that spirituality can't be simply defined as belief in or awe of the supernatural. Is it THE definition? Maybe not, but there's no reason it has to be the ones that you gave.
If we accept the definition of spiritual maturity given by Kanako. Then the Human Villagers are, like I already explained, not spiritually mature. If you do not accept that definition, which I could understand, then we either need to use a real-world definition. Or one of us will have to come up with our own definition using the text of Touhou, and then use that to measure how spiritually mature the Human Villagers are.

>Gensokyo has gotten no grimmer since PCB and PMiSS were published
The Gensokyo described in the PMISS or the PCB prologue is incompatible with the one portrayed in SoPM, WaHH, and FS. And the chances have mostly been negative, at least for the Human Villagers.

>Actual Taoist and Buddhist temples were also often hypocritical, as they were run by people rather than saints. A far cry from any dystopia.
It's still pretty significant when a story portrays every religious institution as not simply heavily flawed, but downright breaking key religious tenets they are supposed to embody.

>Claiming that an analogy is a lie is profoundly idiotic. That's like saying anyone who uses the term the rat race, or describes humans as bipedal apes is a liar because humans aren't rats or apes.
If an American politician describes Paris as "Being in worse conditions than Germany after World War 2" for politically motivated reasons. Then he is lying, even though he is using a analogy.

>Innocent until proven guilty.
She's been proven guilty of being tyrannical, because she has people executed without trial. And guilty of abducting children to Gensokyo, were they might be eaten by a Youkai if caught.

>We have mountain lions and subway tracks.
Not every country has mountain lions. And a lot of neighborhoods or towns don't have subway tracks.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19526652
>We have mountain lions and subway tracks.
Not every country has mountain lions. And a lot of neighborhoods or towns don't have subway tracks.

>The fact that it might be marginally easier for undetectable levels of self-preservation to be killed in Gensokyo is not applicable to 99.99% of people.
Fair enough. But I would have still probably died, as would other people I know and heard about. While not massively significant, it does still help put things in perspective as to what would be the better place to raise a child.

>Existential depression is more difficult when the existence of an actual afterlife has been confirmed.
Existential depression is also not the only type of depression, or even the most common one.

>but he has highlighted positive aspects of Gensokyo that could be associated with its state of pre-modernity
Source? And don't just post that one bit of Maribel's first story again.

>while not acknowledging any social, non-material unpleasant features of premodern societies you've been talking about
That doesn't mean they don't exist. He's repeatedly drawn attention to the fact that Gensokyo's living standards are premodern, with everything would logically entail. He could just expect the audince to not be stupid and understand that.

>Whatever type of youkai Mystia is, there's no more basis for it eating people than for it hanging around bodies of water and drowning people, which she presumably doesn't do.
The basis of the idea that Mystia eats people is the fact that she talks about it quite often. Sure, she never actually goes through with it in any of the games. But then, the spellcard rules are still a thing.

>"Unhappy children all kill themselves" has never been a feature of premodern society in any literature I've read.
Child suicides are a thing, always have been. And even if they don't off themselves, a lot of the circumstances that would cause a child to be unhappy in a pre-modern society would greatly increase the chance of death.

>My argument rests on countless positive descriptions of Gensokyo which you've all explained away as being "ironic." These descriptions have existed consistently throughout the years.
When those descriptions were used in the context of Humans, not youkai for whom Gensokyo is absolutely a paradise, it was in ways that have long ago been retconned. Like how the PCB prologue describes Gensokyo as a paradise for Humans because everybody can fight youkai. If you want to claim otherwise, then please give me a source.

> CoSD serves as a guideline as how to interpret these statements
I read it. And no, it does not indicate any of the reasons why Gensokyo is nice are applicable to Human Villagers. Only Youkai and the people that betray humanity to serve them.

>Were it not for the inescapable double bind of both in-universe and out-of-universe text making your position untenable you would likely be arguing right now that no, children in Gensokyo don't actually smile.
No, actually, I would not. Simply because it's ridiculously easy to make a child smile. I'm also not claiming that everybody in Gensokyo has ridiculously bad sex, simply because that seems unlikely.

>I am not going to prove that the human villagers would be less happy in the outside world. I have simply claimed that it's not obviously true that they would be.
It's not obviously true, but I do still think that even a decent understanding of both Gensokyo and the real world would make it pretty clear. At the very least, there is nothing in Gensokyo that they could not have in the outside world. And a lot they can't have in Gensokyo that they could have in the outside world. That's enough for me to say they would be better off outside Gensokyo. Even if you can't definitively say that they would be happier there.

>So, is it better to give 100 people a 99% chance of dying than one person a 100% chance of dead?
Interesting question, would depend on the context I suppose.

>Incidentally, people spirited away to Gensokyo only have a percentage chance of being deaded.
Sure. And you know, if Yukari only took willing people to Gensokyo. I would have been somewhat easier on her. Unfortunately, all evidence points to the contrary.

>I don't need to prove it to note it as an ambiguity.
Sure. But she's still a mass murderer, which is the only thing that matters when compared to ambiguity unsupported by anything even resembling evidence.

>Even if she is wrong (misguided), it casts doubt on your conclusion that her value of human life is literally zero.
Again, sure. But only if you can proof Yukari thinks preserving Gensokyo would save more human lives in the long run. Which, you won't do.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19526669

>Your decision to value potential justifications as "meaningless" until proven is arbitrary given that you think that other unproved activites "have meaning.
It's meaningless when compared to the crime of mass murder, being tyrannical, and child abduction. Especially when unsupported by any strong evidence.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19520554
Yukari is not a dictator, she's the leader of the Democratic people republic of Gensokyo. People vote for her.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19526453

Without Gensokyo existing Lunarians would have killed everyone on Earth in LoLK, ZUN said in the interview it would have led to purification of the planet.

https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Strange_Creators_of_Outer_World/Legacy_of_Lunatic_Kingdom_interview_with_ZUN

"Hmm, would the Lunarians continue to sleep, or would they do a full-blown relocation of the capital to Gensokyo...? Would they completely overtake Gensokyo? In that case, there wouldn't be any living things in Gensokyo, and that would affect the outside world, too. That would end up causing the purification of the planet..." - ZUN

You owe the lives of yourself and your family to Yukari for her Gensokyo idea.

[Anonymous No.]

I want to fuck Yakumo Yukari.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19532895
If you wanna fuck my master, you're gonna have to fuck me first, bitch.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19532904
Fuck off, Ran. I've put my furfag days behind me long ago.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19532919
I'm not Ran, and "furfag days"? You're obviously not even fit to lick dirt Yukari has tread upon, vermin.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19530748
If Gensokyo never existed. Then the events of Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom would have probably never happened in the first place. And even if they did, somebody or something from the outside world would have been able to solve it. Considering how Hecatia, who is a reasonably obscure Greek god, is the most powerful Touhou character. A deity like Yhvh, Allah, or one of Vishu/Shiva's avatars would be able to quickly put a stop to the Lunarian's plan.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19533582
*Vishnu/Shiva's

[Anonymous No.]

>>19533582
no

[Anonymous No.]

>>19532895
And she would love eating you. I don't think those two desires are going to mix very well.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19533593
Yes. Other gods existing and being more powerful than anybody in Gensokyo is a established canon fact. Yhvh alone could have bitch slapped the Lunarians so hard they would get nostalgic for the good old days of Neil Armstrong's rampages.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19535063
Yorihime > your shitty god

[Anonymous No.]

>>19535099
I'm not even a christian. Non Japanese gods being ridiculously OP is canon. Thor or Zeus could also easily wreck the Lunarians.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19535143
Yorihime wins

[Anonymous No.]

>>19535159
No. She can't even beat Hecatia. This is a established canon fact.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19535165
Yorihime winsx2

[Anonymous No.]

>>19535204
Just keep deluding yourself.

In either case, i'm not going to thank Yukari for anything. She's a evil monster that deserves to die, nothing more.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19535208
yukari wins
yorihime wins also
I win also also
but you lose
and suck
lol

[Anonymous No.]

>>19532895
Who doesn't.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19535204

But Yorihime, defender of the moon from any and all invaders, was forced to surrender and run away with the rest of her people

because of fairies

[Anonymous No.]

>>19535208
>She's a evil monster that deserves to die, nothing more.
She's morally ambiguous. She's saved thousands of youka (people)i from extinction, many of which are not evil in the slightest. In exchange she's killed some low-value humans (people) such as criminals and those who were going to commit suicide. She also has kept a small feudal human village separate from the outside world, although to what extent this was without the original inhabitants consent is questionable. Altogether she's someone that has done some bad in service of a greater good, at least in her mind.

Also in terms of the actual stories she clearly plays the role of an anti-hero.

[Anonymous No.]

Yukari saved Kosuzu from Reimu's wrath by taking the blame for Kosuzu's inevitable fall herself.

She's thus an absolute good no matter what she does. Kosuzu is precious.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19540146
>She's saved thousands of youkai (people)i from extinction, many of which are not evil in the slightest.
SOME of which are not evil. The vast majority of them are parasitic sociopathic murders.

>In exchange she's killed some low-value humans (people) such as criminals and those who were going to commit suicide.
1: We don't know if she actually only abducted "low-value" humans like criminals. Going by the lore, it doesn't seem to be the case. 2: Thinking it's okay to kill people just because they are "low value" is not that different from thinking it's okay to kill people because they are undesirable. 3: Youkai also don't NEED to eat people. It's a want.

>She also has kept a small feudal human village separate from the outside world, although to what extent this was without the original inhabitants' consent is questionable
It's not that small, going by the manga. And no, she did not have the original inhabitants' consent. That's pretty obvious if you read the print works.

>Altogether she's someone that has done some bad in service of a greater good, at least in her mind.
Most murderous sociopath dictators think they are doing things "for the greater good".

>Also in terms of the actual stories she clearly plays the role of an anti-hero.
Depending on the story, she's either a nominal hero that just happens to work together with Reimu because their goals align. Or a well-Intentioned extremist that is more extremist than well intentioned.

>>19540200
She saved Kosuzu from the rules she herself created because she didn't want her favorite golden goose, Reimu, to get hurt having to kill her own friend.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19540200
Kosuzu is life

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392092
Humanity can rule themselves, there's a whole game about this

[Anonymous No.]

>>19546157

As society grows larger the human intellect becomes unable to efficiently comprehend all the details.

Even today, we have lawmakers voting on bills they haven't even read.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19546323
And yet, human society is still doing fine. It's almost like we have found methods to manage the complexity of ruling.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392092
The rulers are less accountable for their actions and sometimes they would probably not be accountable at all. It is too dishonest for a healthy society.

[Anonymous No.]

>>19392092
Its not.