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Jack Thompson Rescinds Offer
Goalmaster3000 writes to tell us Joystiq.com is reporting that Jack Thompson has rescinded his offer of a $10,000 donation to charity if a video game were made to fit his model. Recently a group of GTA modders cooked up a scenario to fit the bill but apparently Thompson is claiming that his piece 'A Modest Video Game Proposal' was intended as satire that the video game community was not bright enough to grasp. Perhaps Thompson was just afraid he was going to have to sue himself? Update: 10/17 20:02 GMT by SM: It appears that the Penny Arcade crew has taken the next step by donating the promised $10,000... in Jack Thompson's name.
With a name akin to Swift's famous "A Modest Proposal", I can believe that Thompson thought it to be satire all along. However, the bit about promising to donate to charity was uncalled for.
Well, I can see his point. Political statements are more important than people.
He is nothing but a common troll. He lives on attention. YOUR attention. Stop giving him page hits; stop giving him political capital; stop giving him the time of day.
Really, why is it necessary to point this out?
It wasn't satire. If you read half the things he writes (by the way, his site www.stopkill.com looks severely cripple lately. Any explanation?), you'd understand that this man could actually be quite violent given the way he reacts to intelligent defense of game(r)s.
I honestly thought the guys who made Postal2 would make his game and put on the box 'Jack Thompson's (insert title)' just to call him out. It wasn't a joke to him, he wanted to know if the game industry would make itself the target instead of cops, hookers and other gangs/inmates to see if gamers would start killing eachother instead of a second grader bringing a gun to kill a fellow student. The man is honestly sick and twisted in a very bad way.
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
People don't say, "I will donate $10,000 to charity," as satire.
/syle
In all fairness to your valid point, the difference here is that the grandparent substantiates the fact that the guy is a "fucking moron," whereas Thompson's name-calling was apparently unsubstantiated and resulted solely from being unable to rebut the arguments of a 14-year-old kid.
It's the difference between saying "I can't stand up to you in an argument, so therefore you are an idiot." and saying "You can't stand up to a 14-year-old kid in an argument without resorting to ad hominem attacks, so therefore you are a moron."
It seems he probably originally did mean it to be satire... He was thinking "Do this outrageous thing that you won't do, and I'll donate $10,000". It turns out it's not that outrageous, and it was easily done. He thinks it's outrageous, because the theme is killing people that are supposed to be "on our side", but he doesn't realize that it's just a game, and games can go beyond the realm of what is acceptable in "real life" and still they themselves be acceptable.
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
I think this deserves a name -- let's call it the Slashdot Fallacy: The erroneous equation of one group of people with another group of people merely because the two groups happen to cohabitate on a certain website.
So it's the same people who are taking one position and then another? Do you have links to comments to back that up?
Slashdotters seem to think video games have no effect on people. Thompson sees them as horrible killer-trainers. Personally, I fall somewhere in between.
I love playing Halo. It's exciting and fun, and the "violence" is pretty mild. I have played Unreal Tournament and GTA (older versions), but gave them up because to me, they were too sadistic. They didn't make me want to kill people, but they made me a little more inclined to be a jerk.
It's the same with TV. If I watch a show like "The Shield" or some pissy reality show where everybody hates each other, I get a little bit into that angry, "screw you" mentality.
Think about your personality and attitude. Me, I'm very laid back, because my dad is laid back. I like goofy jokes because my dad does, and my friends growing up did too. (I also watched Monty Python.) I can see how these influences shaped the way I am.
Most of us spend several hours a day using some kind of media - music, TV, internet, video games, etc. Just like the people we're around, these virtual friends DO shape our mentality, somewhat.
I will never be a homocidal maniac, regardless of what I watch or play. But I do know that seeing examples of people who laugh, who love and forgive each other - whether those are real people or on TV - makes it easier for me to do the same. Exposing myself to hours of anger and selfishness makes me likely to replay those thoughts and words. Just because I'm an adult doesn't mean that everything is equally good for me.
Does anybody else see that?
I hardly see why. The poster was not using his obscenity as evidence in a debate against Jack Thompson, rather instead he was stating it as a conclusion concerning Jack Thomson. The first is an ad hominem fallacy, the second a valid opinion, given the evidence. To reiterate, the poster was not using "Thompson is a fucking moron" in an argument against something Thompson was doing/saying, but rather was concluding "given these behaviors, I feel it it safe to conclude that thompson is, indeed, a fucking moron"
It doesn't matter if it was satire or not anyway. This game doesn't count - his original "challenge" requires a nationwide boxed retail distribution by summer of next year. The game was going to be created - of that no one should doubt. It is unlikely that a publisher would publish it, and more unlikely that any retailers would carry it.
But even if all that took place, it doesn't matter - this entire debate is being orchestrated by him. When he stops talking, there's nothing to fill the void - there aren't any pro-game people working the press. When he is talking, the debate is always about how bad these games are - not about how good they are.
The upshot:
If the gaming industry wants to gather public (not just gamer) support, they need to stop reacting and start acting.
This particular challenge is one he can't lose no matter how the industry reacts. "Are you still beating your wife?"
-Adam
So telling people to harass someone is "informative" and a good way of proving our point(s)?
Given what we know about his replies already, lets not drag ourselves to his level. The egomaniac craves attention, and guess what examples of the things those "evil gamers who oppose me do" he is going to bring up next? And we already know that he doesn't want to have a civil debate or discussion, so why even bother talking to a brick wall?
He also has been on a losing streak lately, and now you have to add more fuel and "creditability" to his fire. He may be nuts, but encouraging people to harass him just makes us look bad. Even more so when we are reduced to his level of "acting civil."
Seriously slashdot, enough with the spamming/calling/Ddosing of people we don't like; please grow up and be more mature about dealing with things like this. I don't have a problem with informative emails(i.e. non-emotional and informative complaining about company X's defective product or really restrictive DRM), but this one is really asking people not to be civil with the intent to hammer him. Stuff like this and intentionally Ddosing sites(i.e. needing to check the RIAA's site several times, "just to make sure it is still up")make no real progress with the issue at hand.