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Gamers Gain Political Voice
GameDailyBiz has a rundown on the just-announced Videogame Voters Network. The network has been established by the ESA with the intent of organizing gamers into a political force. Will Wright: "Computer and video games represent one of the most important new media developments of this generation. Unlike many other forms of entertainment they offer players the opportunity to explore, be creative, learn through interaction and express themselves to others. It is vitally important that we protect and nurture this new art form so that it can reach its full potential. Like most new forms of artistic expression that have come before (music, novels, movies), the primary critics of video games are the people that do not play them."
Is giving gamers such a voice really a wise idea? They'll only use it to say "lol" and "i pwned you bitch haha".
EpiAdv - if you like Pokey the Penguin, try this comic!
Not quite. More like an industry that wants to avoid being crippled by government regulation. Don't think that this group will be anything other than a mouthpiece for a few large game companies. Sometimes that will mesh with what gamers want, sometimes it wont.
The problem is that no one gains anything when it comes to Congress, except for the preferred few.
Uhhhh... voting rights act of 64'? Americans with disabilities act? Freedom of information act?
Or, like, ALL of the amendments to the Constitution that guarantee personal liberty? I cite numbers 13, 14, 15 and 19 as personal favorites, but it applies to all of them. They ALL start in Congress, dude.
The one thing that I do agree with is that you should not vote. It's nothing personal, I'd rather everyone was a part of the process, but if you don't see the capacity of Congress to do good (despite its obvious and frequent shortcomings) it's probably best that you sit this out and leave it to those of us who want to keep expanding the sphere of personal liberty, through, well, proven methods.
(shrug)
This sentence's period was stolen This sentence knows who took it:
"So now sitting down on your ass all day and watching a screen is art?" - television
"So now slapping on a bunch of colours onto something is art?" - painting
"So now saying a buncha words is art?" - poetry
"So now being able to form sentences for a few hundred pages is art?" - books
"Education has nothing to do with income -- I barely graduated high school and I do fairly well considering most people in my fields have MBAs or Master's Degrees and I never attended college."
Congratulations on having a personal experience outside the norm, but not everyone is so fortunate...in fact, most are not. Claiming that education has nothing to do with income is like claiming that starvation has nothing to do with poverty...it sounds and feels good, but has nothing to do with actual data examining life earnings correlated with educational attainment.
"Employment "rights" have been slowly destroyed by the law, not made better. Minimum wage laws have made it very hard for the young, the uneducated and the minorities to find entry level work that teaches them responsible work ethics as well as a trade. "
Are you honestly trying to say that workers had more access to a safe work environment and non-discriminatory hiring practices in the era before the government enacted regulation enforcing such things? Where exactly was this happening?
"The Americans with Disability Act has made it much harder for the disabled to get jobs, and it has made it much harder on employers to even interview someone with a disability."
Ah yes, I recall that prior to its passage, employers were falling over themselves to hire former mental health patients, the wheelchair-bound, and deaf folks until the nasty government made them stop. Oh wait; actually, the complete opposite happened.
"Business licensing and regulations have made it difficult for the common man to start a business -- just trying opening a restaurant or a small retail store today. In the past you could open either with very little income compared to what you need to pay today just to get an occupancy permit."
I'm sure that the prevailing economic conditions in the modern market, which require massive amounts of initial capital investment to set up a business that can keep costs low enough to price out smaller competitors, has nothing to do with this.
"Housing prices have been put out of reach of millions by government currency inflation (which is the sole cause of housing and consumer price increases in the past 20-30 years). "
This is either a hilarious interpretation of the data, or an unfounded assumption, seeing as homeownership has continued to rise steadily through the latter half of the 20th century. Perhaps the rise in housing costs is the result of a middle class demanding larger and better-equipped homes, thus insuring that there is less profit incentive to create low-income housing. In fact, this would jibe with the fact that the rising cost of new homes is largely a factor of building styles and rising material costs.
"On top of this, the housing and rental market is made more expensive by ridiculous property tax increases which make it near impossible for the poor, elderly and uneducated to live near opportunities to make good money."
Because if there's one thing keeping the poor, uneducated, and elderly from making money it's property taxes. Lack of access to education has nothing to do with it, so we should slash property taxes in order to defund education, because that'll really help all those poor and uneducated. Oh, and BTW, since when are the elderly supposed to be "making money?" I always thought that went against the concept of "retirement."
"Medicine was available to almost every poor person until the HMO Act of 1974, which created a trap for those without insurance. "
OK, now you're just talking out of your ass.
"Up until the early 70s doctors made housecalls and charged very little"
And provided nowhere near the level of healing ability as a modern doctor, and certainly did not provide this service to everyone.
"once insurance was nearly mandated by government (either as a required benefit or used to circumvent tax laws for employers), the price of medicine skyrocketed.
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)