Why did game devs choose Arabic names for Eastern factions?

[athanaric]

Your one liner responses are not as impressive as you seem to think. I am discussing this, you want to argue I guess because you are not furthering the discussion, simply making it harder to discuss by adding in more factors instead of narrowing them down to gain a better understanding. You have no scientific method here so this is a waste of time as far as that goes. There is no "official" anything, or truth, or fact in science (ignore the rest of this post and just re-read that a bunch if you must, that is the most important thing you will read here).

There is an official definition of "racism" and you can look it up here or on wikipedia or wherever you please.
You are the one using made up terms, you are the one who replied to my general statement (which wasn't even really directed at you) in a condescending fashion, you are the one who, it turns out, doesn't even know some of the most basic facts of ancient history - like Greek, Latin, and Punic being distinct languages. You're in no position to lecture anybody about history OR science, let alone people who've studied it.

These demographics you speak of are BS in terms of science, all statistics are. Plus they don't take race into account as its own factor (just like you are doing), it is lumped with all these other factors we don't even know of nor can we define, nor can we know how much they correlate making it impossible to study.

That's what I'm saying, most official statistics from Europe are largely bogus. However when you have experience living there, meeting people, reading everyday news etc., it's a different thing.

Simply for discussions sake though;

The difference between what happened in the US and what happened in Africa with the Arabs is that the Arabs (who were not all Arab and had different skin colors themselves even if they were, and included a decent amount of white and black people) exploited pre-existing prejudices and did not focus on various degrees of skin darkness but on visual appearances of many kinds, any kind they could think of that might work as you said yourself, even made up stuff to split them.

And they also did invent some racist theories of their own, as the Greeks did before them, etc.

I never read of that being effective either,

Keeping Africa down for a thousand years wasn't effective?

it was a factor as it is in all visual prejudices, I never said it wasn't (somehow you missed that in my post along with a bunch of other stuff and said that I said that). The concept of dividing and conquering is the same and I am not saying skin color has never been a factor in that or prejudice, it has been, but not the sole factor. Just being foreign was a larger factor and many other things, different skin color just made that more obvious, and the reason for that is the last part of my post you sort of agree with. The Arabs didn't care about skin color (and had various degrees and various peoples themselves) anymore than the Romans did,

The evidence I've read about suggests otherwise. Romans are a different thing altogether.

When I said Racism was invented by the US, I meant that Racism Proper, prejudice due to just skin color and literally nothing else, not ethnicity/cultural/beliefs and everything along with it or even just one of those things along with it you are so determined to add back in.

What's your source for racism being about skin colour and nothing else? Any scientific or scholarly definition? I've given you one above.

Do you think the Arabs in north Africa used the term racism or any term like it?

They didn't use the word evolution either, and yet it still existed.

The US gave a proper example of pure racial prejudice and institutionalized it for all the world to see and learn from in a time when slavery had already been outlawed pretty much everywhere else.

"Everywhere else" except Africa, the Americas, and parts of Asia.

The US was the first to enslave people based solely on skin color too,

That doesn't mean they invented racism, or that "real" racism only has to do with skin colour. You're employing logical fallacies.

You are using the word diversity FAR too liberally.

Am I? I'm using words as they are defined by linguists. You know, the scholars whose expertise is language - people like Tolkien. I suggest you do likewise. Stop brutalizing the English language, please.

I will pass on your "international news" (seriously? recommending watching the news?) you should too and go pick up a science book and learn to narrow things down (remove factors and better define certain aspects) to study them. Humans cannot understand prejudice in the vague way you are using it is all I am saying, I am not even disagreeing with you, I never said skin color was never a factor before. It is a made up term, no one is right. Your made up term is far more complex and harder to study than mine is all and you claim to understand it though no human can. Humans can't comprehend complex systems, you have to simplify it.

If you want to study a racism solely based on skin colour - and not genes or facial features - then use an epithet that says so. Like "colour-based racism". You know, being precise and all that.
Don't just use the general umbrella term and then chew out others for not following your misleading example.

This thread is taking a tangent that it doesn't need to take.

Tolkien lived in a time when most people, including westerners, had a different view of the world around them and things were viewed through different lens. Ethnocentric on his part? Certainly. Racist on his part? By the norms and standards of his time, he certainly wouldn't have been considered a racist. But by today's standards, maybe, but then again everyone and their mother who lived in those times would probably be considered a racist by today's standards...FDR would have been considered a racist....it was a different time back then. Lincoln would likely be considered a racist by today's standards...though that's a nuanced discussion beyond the comprehension of most people nowadays.

If by "today's standards" you mean total and utter hypocrisy, then yes. Although even by those standards, Tolkien would be even less "prejudiced" (what a condescending word, especially in this context) than the other two gentlemen you've mentioned.