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nick_kapur's profile
Nick Kapur
Nick Kapur
Nick Kapur
@nick_kapur

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Nick Kapur

@nick_kapur

Historian of Japan and East Asia. I only tweet extremely interesting things. Author of "Japan at the Crossroads," out now from Harvard University Press.

hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?is…
Joined February 2010

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    Nick Kapur‏ @nick_kapur 23h23 hours ago
    • Report Tweet

    I bought a copy of Hasbro's mean-spirited and woefully ill-informed "MONOPOLY: SOCIALISM" board game so you don't have to - a thread 1/pic.twitter.com/YhZWDjkAnj

    10:51 AM - 21 Aug 2019
    • 8,239 Retweets
    • 20,816 Likes
    • Aiezel Isaiah Pichardo dm me 5* nobu thighs VRUoT Duck Dan Brittani 👑 Fat Thor is Best Thor UMPAH UMPAH Daniel TheOneInYellow
    1,974 replies 8,239 retweets 20,816 likes
      1. New conversation
      2. Nick Kapur‏ @nick_kapur 23h23 hours ago
        • Report Tweet

        From the tagline "Winning is for capitalists" we can see right away that this game is not going to be friendly to whatever it deems "socialism" to be. Because as we all know "socialists" never play sports or participate in any sort of competitive activity, like board games. 2/

        84 replies 179 retweets 4,994 likes
        Show this thread
      3. Nick Kapur‏ @nick_kapur 23h23 hours ago
        • Report Tweet

        Interestingly, the design of the game features the red socialist rose... do ordinary people who presumably hate "socialism" really know what this symbol even is? 3/pic.twitter.com/pWU3Ho83JO

        40 replies 85 retweets 2,757 likes
        Show this thread
      4. Nick Kapur‏ @nick_kapur 23h23 hours ago
        • Report Tweet

        The player tokens include a typewriter, an old-timey phone, a pocket watch, a phonograph, and a CRT television set, presumably because "socialism" is so incredibly outdated? 4/pic.twitter.com/8R9HoiGO5H

        117 replies 139 retweets 3,571 likes
        Show this thread
      5. Nick Kapur‏ @nick_kapur 22h22 hours ago
        • Report Tweet

        Spaces on the board include a snarkily named hospital and school, because apparently schools are supposed to produce losers and hospitals are only supposed to help some of the people. 5/pic.twitter.com/gcg3bUKrU1

        56 replies 274 retweets 4,901 likes
        Show this thread
      6. Nick Kapur‏ @nick_kapur 22h22 hours ago
        • Report Tweet

        There are also tons of references to health food and veganism, despite the lack of any clear connection to socialism, apparently because what they share in common is that they are odious things that are fun to mock. 6/pic.twitter.com/tKzkpQWZ36

        78 replies 229 retweets 4,622 likes
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      7. Nick Kapur‏ @nick_kapur 22h22 hours ago
        • Report Tweet

        It's also crucial to mock environmentalism because, haha, as we all know environmentalism is stupid and hilarious. 7/pic.twitter.com/dhXb29ANQR

        53 replies 336 retweets 5,190 likes
        Show this thread
      8. Nick Kapur‏ @nick_kapur 22h22 hours ago
        • Report Tweet

        It goes without saying that this game is entirely uninterested in trying to understand what socialism actually is and how it might function. 8/

        119 replies 149 retweets 4,735 likes
        Show this thread
      9. Nick Kapur‏ @nick_kapur 22h22 hours ago
        • Report Tweet

        For example, there is a community fund, and if a player doesn't have enough money to pay for something, the community fund automatically pays the difference. Which seems kinda socialist at first glance. 9/pic.twitter.com/R7uTUFcfeC

        7 replies 85 retweets 2,820 likes
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      10. Nick Kapur‏ @nick_kapur 22h22 hours ago
        • Report Tweet

        But the community fund is gleefully and deliberately designed to be constantly running out of money. At this point, the only way to fill it back up and keep the game going is for players to donate money to it voluntarily. 10/

        77 replies 115 retweets 3,285 likes
        Show this thread
      11. Nick Kapur‏ @nick_kapur 22h22 hours ago
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        So this is not really a socialist model. It's more of a billionaire philanthropy model. It's akin to conservatives constantly saying, "If Warren Buffett likes taxes so much, why doesn't he just donate to the IRS?" 11/

        34 replies 346 retweets 6,650 likes
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      12. Nick Kapur‏ @nick_kapur 22h22 hours ago
        • Report Tweet

        And then confusedly, when it's time to pay taxes, the taxes do not go into the community fund, but rather are paid *from* the community fund to a private bank! 12/pic.twitter.com/3TcDI0t882

        53 replies 212 retweets 4,562 likes
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      13. Nick Kapur‏ @nick_kapur 22h22 hours ago
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        Similarly, when you pass go, you get a $50 "living wage," which was presumably reduced from the usual $200 to emphasize that "socialism makes everyone poorer" or somesuch. 13/pic.twitter.com/tvEqdf2z5F

        49 replies 141 retweets 3,705 likes
        Show this thread
      14. Nick Kapur‏ @nick_kapur 22h22 hours ago
        • Report Tweet

        But then when the minimum wage is increased, this wage doesn't actually increase, but instead, once again for no reason the community fund pays money to a private bank. 14/pic.twitter.com/8LBOk00laB

        39 replies 145 retweets 3,514 likes
        Show this thread
      15. Nick Kapur‏ @nick_kapur 22h22 hours ago
        • Report Tweet

        Likewise, because "socialism" allegedly hates people doing well, a card lets you confiscate wealth from someone with some sort of vote. But then, rather than actually redistributing that wealth to those less well off, the wealth is simply destroyed and removed from the game. 15/pic.twitter.com/6WwHZLKppG

        56 replies 168 retweets 3,359 likes
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      16. Nick Kapur‏ @nick_kapur 21h21 hours ago
        • Report Tweet

        Voting is also mocked. Maybe because voting creates market uncertainty for big banks and monopoly capitalists from whose perspective this game was apparently designed? Voting is portrayed as serving mainly to "shake things up" and something socialists are "constantly" doing. 16/pic.twitter.com/TYlqGtCJ6p

        40 replies 204 retweets 3,361 likes
        Show this thread
      17. Nick Kapur‏ @nick_kapur 21h21 hours ago
        • Report Tweet

        Of course the great irony here is that that the game we now know as "Monopoly" originally started out as "The Landlord's Game," invented by Georgist feminist comedian Lizzie Magie to satirize capitalist rent-seeking... 17/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Landlord%27s_Game …pic.twitter.com/JRJv41sZNQ

        46 replies 2,161 retweets 10,555 likes
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      18. Nick Kapur‏ @nick_kapur 21h21 hours ago
        • Report Tweet

        But then the game was stolen by a male capitalist, made even more brutally and unironically captitalist, and sold to Parker Brothers, who later abused the legal system to get around copyright laws in a classic case of...capitalist rent-seeking. 18/http://mentalfloss.com/article/61817/board-game-trial-century …

        30 replies 911 retweets 7,114 likes
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      19. Nick Kapur‏ @nick_kapur 21h21 hours ago
        • Report Tweet

        In sum, I can't quite figure out who the target audience of this game is. It would be as if other themed "Monopoly" games attempted to viciously mock the theme, like if Dog Monopoly mocked dogs and dog owners, or Star Wars monopoly mocked Star Wars fans for being nerds. 19/

        125 replies 170 retweets 4,352 likes
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      20. Nick Kapur‏ @nick_kapur 21h21 hours ago
        • Report Tweet

        I guess maybe in this golden age of "Euro-style" board games like Catan, nobody under 60 plays "Monopoly" anymore? Maybe Hasbro actually knows its audience, and that audience is just hate-filled Boomers raised during the Cold War and triggered by whatever people under 40 do? 20/pic.twitter.com/DLZtZEaJOY

        116 replies 400 retweets 6,442 likes
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      21. Nick Kapur‏ @nick_kapur 21h21 hours ago
        • Report Tweet

        Judging by this other Hasbro Monopoly game called "Monopoly for Millennials," the answers to these questions are yes and yes. 21/https://nypost.com/2018/11/14/hasbros-new-monopoly-for-millennials-game-is-an-insulting-experience/ …

        272 replies 361 retweets 5,485 likes
        Show this thread
      22. End of conversation

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