No Fear

I'd like to spend all day engaging people about this, but the fact is I have a shit-ton of deadline-driven work to do that's only going to get done if I got media-dark for a few hours. So this will have to be all from me about the big Obama gun laws speech today.

I imagine the number-one thing anyone wants to hear from me is how I feel about the President calling for "more research into violent video-games" as part of his big set of plans/proposals. Honestly? I hated hearing it. It cuts me to the bone when otherwise intelligent, reasonable people I happen to support have to jump and join that particular political dance; especially when I strongly suspect that they're better than that. I would prefer that the President had said "some have called for more attention paid to a link between violent games or movies and gun deaths, but the fact is that research has already been done a hundred times over and the link quite simply does not exist and continuing to call for it distracts from the real issue; which is guns and the obscene power of the Gun Lobby."

I'd have liked to see that, and maybe someday I will, but it wasn't going to be today.



The fact is, enough of my fellow Americans are paranoid enough (either through their own deficiencies or because they lack the necessary clarity and intellectual confidence to not be swayed by the propaganda of the NRA and their ilk) to give real traction to the meme of Obama/democrats "coming to take all the guns!!!;" one that only gets stronger if said propagandists can claim that they and their issue is being "singled out." That they and their issue should be singled out is beside the point - "singling out" sounds bad.

Thus was Joe Biden obliged to invite representatives of the movie and game industry (Why not books? Oh, right - older/out-of-touch people aren't scared/confused by books) to his various summitts - even though he's smart enough to know that the "link" doesn't exist - in order to affect the image that guns and gun-rights weren't "alone" in being called to the principal's office. And thus is Obama obliged to namecheck some illusory need for violent games "research" even though he's also smart enough to know better and saavy enough to know that even if he did buy into (for example) the "desensitization" fallacy, actually making any moves that even smelled of censorship would lose he and his party their crucial support among GenX/Y voters.

But here's the rub: "Calling for more research," in Washington-speak, translates to "we pretty-much garauntee nothing will come of this." It is, quite simply, a smoke-screen - a way for the President and his allies to appear to take the "broader solution" nonsense seriously while they get about the real business of breaking the back of the Gun Lobby in order to make U.S. gun laws slightly more sane.

Would I prefer that this hadn't been part of the speech, even as I recognize it as little more than rhetorical sleight of hand? Of course I would. I also wish he didn't have slip into maudlin reassurances about "Our Creator" at the end, or that he didn't need to feign four years worth of "evolution" on his support for gay marriage. I welcome the day, soon to come, when we look back on today's notions of "violent" movies and games causing real violence with the same "this was actually a THING??" horror and sadness with which we react to Calvin Candie's phrenology speech in "Django Unchained."

But that's not realistically going to happen today, and progressives, young people and especially gamers among them need to recognize that before they think about dismissing and turning their backs on an administration that - where and when it actually counts - has been (and is likely to continue to be) largely on their side. The perfect mustn't be the enemy of the good.

Brownshirts in my backyard

The town of Melrose, Massachusetts has become the latest gang of idiots to start-up a "violent games buy-back" program... though, at least they aren't also burning them, so there's that.


Funny thing about these "buybacks..." they were both sponsored by local-business people, and instead of CASH (like the police give for guns in the actual gun-buyback programs these ones are partially intended to belittle) for turning in your property you already bought you get... gift-certificates for local business, which in turn funnel any extra money/time you spend while going to redeem said certificates BACK to the very people propping up the bans. Huh. Funny how that works out, eh?

Meanwhile, the State overall has decided to pull arcade games that use toy guns from state-operated rest stops, replacing them with more "passive" titles (because what public arcade areas need right now is to suck MORE, right?) after some suburban asshole saw one and decided a Sandy Hook relative (which he is not nor does he have any discernable connection to) could concievably walk by it and be disturbed. I especially like that they're making their kid appear in the accompanying photo with them, an action I'm sure will have absolutely no negative effect on his social life whatsoever...

"It Even Has A Watermark..."

Good lord, how did it take this long for someone to do this!?

Brownshirts Back Down

Polygon reports that the small town of Southington, CT has abandoned it's internationally-reported - and widely-derrided - plans for a mass-burning of "violent" video-games.

Officially, the business/community-leader group that had backed the plan is saying that since the announcement itself succeeded in "promoting discussion" and "creating strong awareness," there was no longer any reason to actually go through with the event.

Unofficially? Call this another win for New Media, is my feeling. Public-shaming has always been one of the ultimate curatives for bullies and petty-fascists, and The Internet is the most powerful tool to inflict such ever devised.

The fight now moves to politics, with gaming and Hollywood "leaders" scheduled to be part of the "comprehensive talks" with the Obama Administration this week and next. The fact that they're there doesn't particularly worry me - this administration is smart enough to know that the idea of a direct causal-relationship between "violent" media and real gun violence is soundly-discredited, unscientific horseshit - the "comprehensive talks" are a smokescreen, "cover" for the administration so that they can avoid looking like they're focused on "going after" the gun lobby when that's in fact what they ARE and should be focused on.

My only "worry" is with just how committed they are to said smokescreen. Obama etc aren't "anti-gaming," but they have shown a political willingness to throw this or that "under the bus" in order to affect the image of bipartisanship - I can easily imagine them "bending" on censorship in order to be able to say "See? We aren't just after your guns. Your turn to give something, NRA."

To my mind, that would be both disasterous in general and an utterly useless gesture on the administration's part; and not just because it would damage the invaluable clout Obama and Democrats in general currently have with the youth vote. Mr. President... in case you haven't noticed, these people already attacked you as an "anti-gun" zealot during the four years when Washington did/said jack shit about the issue. You will never win these people over - to them, you're just a guy with the wrong politics, the wrong name and the wrong skin - forget winning The NRA and it's ilk over, focus on winning over them.

MAGFest Panels

Had a great time at our innaugural MAGFest, the Game OverThinker/MovieBob Q&A Panel of which is now available on Blip in four easily-digestable parts: PART I, PART II, PART III and PART IV.

Everybody Watch Jimquisition Now

Today, my friend and colleague Jim Sterling is a hero:

NOTE: Graphic imagery from 1:20 - 1:49

The Escapist : Jimquisition : Desensitized to Violence

I Don't Want To Game On This Planet Anymore

Y'know, it's funny. When I created The AntiThinker, he was supposed to embody an exaggeration of the absolute worst in gamer culture. Turns out, I didn't exaggerate enough...

Patricia Hernandez over at Kotaku points the way to a new candidate for gaming's worst human: A (popular, of course) YouTuber who puts up "how-to" videos instructing his followers on how to harrass female gamers for the crime of playing video games while female - "justified," of course, by the idea that these women are only gaming as a way to "con" poor, helpless men out of their money with sex appeal.

I'm not going to link directly to his stuff, but you can get the gist of it and watch (if you want to) from Hernandez piece HERE.

The whole thing is nothing short of revolting, top to bottom, particularly the sociopathic glee that the guy takes is carrying out and encouraging what's basically a keyboard and a mouse away from what'd be (verbal) sexual assault in the real world. But I'm particularly fascinated/repelled by the argument of him, his fans and too many of the Kotaku commenterati that somehow this is tit-for-tat "payback" because some of the women MAY be using their sex-appeal for attention or even monetary gain - essentially "they're WHORES, so they had it coming."

First off, the thing is... I don't give a shit. Setting aside that I have no real moral objection to (ethical) sex workers in the real world, I see absolutely NOTHING wrong the flirting-for-attention/cash "camgirl" phenomenon in gamer culture or otherwise on the net. People pay ME because they think I'm funny/insightful/whatever, I don't see how paying someone for being pretty/flirty is any different or deserving of "punishment." If you get "conned" out of kicking some paypal credits to this or that person online because she batted her eyes or flashed some cleavage and you felt like a schmuck later... that's on YOU, pal.

Secondly, what experience in real life tells you that this would be "okay" even in a virtual space. Do you imagine that punishing women for being sexy for attention or some other gain is a thing that happens? Do you know what would happen to anyone who walked into, say, most non-shithole strip clubs and spoke/acted towards the dancers the way this kid does to "virtual" women? A trip to the parking lot and a new set of finger-splints.