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Jack Thompson's Letter To Take-Two Exec's Mother
debatem1 writes "Apparently, anti-violent-video-games crusader Jack Thompson is at it again, this time writing a letter to the mother of Strauss Zelnick, Chairman of Take-Two, the company that produces the GTA series of video games. In it he compares Zelnick to a member of the Hitler Youth, advocates beating the young Zelnick, and contemplates the existence of a Ted Bundy merit badge for boy scouts."
and see how they feel about their dads conduct
fairs fair right ?
The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that Jack Thompson is on Take 2's payroll. He's the best advertising they could possibly ask for.
Hey, Jack. I'm fairly certain the Hitler Youth would not approve of violence against the authorities. In fact, they would more likely be on the side of authority, decrying any subversive activities that advocate violence against a police state.
This is so absolutely utterly ridiculous that there are only 2 possibilities: 1) Jack Thompson is dangerously insane, like he needs to be put in a room with padded walls and a straight jacket YESTERDAY, or 2) He's on Take Two's payroll, and this is just another method of advertising for them. I'm really leaning toward #2, more and more as time goes on. It's the only thing that really makes sense...he's the best advertising they could ever ask for.
Please stop submitting Jack Thompson stories. He's got nothing if you ignore him. Leave it to Shacknews, keep it off Slashdot.
No one really cares abount Jack Thompson anymore. No one that counts. The only reason Jack Thompson does what he does is because he likes to watch the stink that get's made at sites like Slashdot. The lesson here is to not allow Jack Thompson to get his glory here. This is done by IGNORING Jack Thompson.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I have to seriously wonder, is this man mentally ill? The only reason he receives any attention now was due to his previous work, but as the things he says and does keep getting stranger and stranger I have to wonder.
In the US, people are only forcibly evaluated for mental illness under the most obvious conditions. If you have a person who is slowly slipping off the edge no one will do anything until he becomes an obvious problem. Even then it is usually be ignored unless he harms someone.
It is quite possible that Jack Thompson is out of his mind. But no one will step in until after he has practically killed someone.
John the Baptist wasn't a crank who got disbarred for filing frivolous lawsuits. Thompson is delusional. He seems to think that video games, and nothing else, is responsible for all of the world's evils. And when scripture starts getting quoted, you know you're in for some nutjobbery. The Bible verses were just over the top. And going to the mom? What the hell, is he trying to say "Hey Zelnick, I know where your mom lives. Muhahhaa"
I'm sure there's going to be fallout from this. I eagerly await Zelnick's reply.
-R
He is seen as the de-facto "spokesperson" of the anti-videogame agenda. And he's dangerously insane, to the point that noone takes him seriously at all. The plus of having such a buffoon "in charge" of the anti-videogame agenda is that no sane person would dare speak up on his side, for fear of being associated with him.
All I can say to that is...lol. You need to turn the TV and computer off and go outside.
As long as Jack Thompson exists, violent video games will have nothing to fear. We should only worry when he's gone.
More Insightful than Funny if you ask me.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I'm not sure if it's funny or just sad to see this post modded informative and insightful.
[sarcasm] Yup. I couldn't possibly figure out how to rob, murder or carjack someone if I hadn't played GTA1 back in the day -- and the knowledge that driving a car [any car, even a stolen one] through a spraypainting facility will magically get the cops off my trail for anything I've ever done sure is handy. [/sarcasm]
GTA isn't for kids, and I certainly think that cases where children are playing it are troubling (particularly for hours and hours on end, but that's true of any video game regardless of content), but the whole violent-videogames-cause-RL-violence meme is silly. It's much more defensible that individuals who are violent in nature are attracted to violent video games -- but I don't see how that's an argument for any kind of a ban, certainly not a strong enough argument to overcome the first-amendment counterpoint. Any rational individual knows that actions taken in real life have real consequences attached to them, and so evaluates such actions using a completely different metric than one might use in playing a game.
So -- I won't complain about the consequences of violent video games being available for sale to adults, because I honestly believe that there are no substantial negative consequences on the scale described. If my family is (against all probability to the contrary) murdered in a random act of violence, I'll do the rational thing and blame the person who pulled the trigger, rather than searching for scapegoats. That said, violent videogames have permeated our society to the point that any real effects on the level of random violence should already be highly visible -- and while there's a highly publicized shooting spree here or there, (1) there's no clear causal correlation, and (2) the death rate from those isn't even close to background noise in the grand scheme of things; it's far, far more likely that my family will die in a random traffic accident, and that's a risk we willingly accept every time we get in the car to watch a movie or go to the store.
Keep your fearmongering. If you want to live in a world where you're afraid of every kid who owns an Xbox, you're welcome to -- but me and mine prefer to go about living our lives (and facing much more real and present challenges), unworried by your imaginary and unrealized fears. I imagine those who were afraid of D&D or rock-and-roll felt similarly to you earlier in this century -- every generation finds some reason to worry needlessly about their youth -- but history proved those fears out as unfounded, and will do so again.
Bluntly, that was the first thing that came to my mind. The question that McCarty was asked by Joseph Welch when he drove his communist witch hunt too far. Have you no shame?
There are certain limits you don't cross. There are certain things you don't do, no matter what your agenda may be. Writing the mother of one of the people you 'fight' against and likening her son to Baldur von Schirach is one of them.
If this proves anything, it's not that computer games, no matte what content, are bad, but that Jack Thompson is on a witch hunt. It has become obvious that his agenda isn't anymore to protect anyone. This isn't an attempt to end the sale of violent games. It is a direct attack on a person which isn't even in any way connected to the problem he allegedly has with those games. He claims he tries to protect people from psychologic damage these games allegedly do, but he himself caused psychologic damage to a person who doesn't even partake in the whole process of creating those games.
So far, I didn't care too much about Jack Thompson. So far, he was a nut that tried to stop games from being sold. So be it. Whether those games exist, I don't really care. Now he is causing emotional harm to people who don't even have a connection with the game industry, except through some relative. Should we start harrassing his kids about their father's witchhunt?
I wouldn't go down to that level. Punishment for the sins of your kin have been abolished in Germany since... well, given his choice of comparisons, Jack Thompson seems to know since when.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Does anyone find it odd that someone who against violence uses it by way of a letter? It has always been a conundrum to me that people protesting war, violence, nuclear weapons, etc... seem to resort to violence themselves. Maybe I think too much, but wouldn't they be more effective if they lived what they preached? Just a thought.............
If the letter is at all threatening (I'm not going to read it), he should certainly be able to get an order of protection preventing Thompson from contacting his family again.
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
I don't, that would make him a martyr, and basically prove his (invalid) point...
I don't fault Jack Thompson for having an opinion, even though I disagree with it and I believe it is utter horseshit.
What I have a big problem with is the mentality shared by him and anyone else who thinks they know what's good for us: the unstated assumption that I am unable to decide for myself whether playing a video game is in my interests, and the unstated assumption that parents are incapable of deciding on their own whether their children are mature enough to handle the content of a video game. Basically, he's assuming that we are all mindless zombies with no choice but to imitate anything we see on a screen, and he's also trying to tell parents how they should raise their children, implying that they are unable to handle the job without his input. I assure you, no one who wants to do these things has a pure motive.
The whole thing is an insult. It illustrates yet again the attitude that "it's not good enough that I choose to abstain from something; everybody else must do the same as me." It also assumes that no one is capable of distinguishing a fictional video game from reality, which is ironically more likely if we stop expecting people to know the difference.
I am very thankful that my parents (within reason, of course) did not try to shelter me from every little objectionable thing in the world. Instead, they explained to me why something was right or wrong and equipped me to deal with an imperfect world that contains many things I might not like. If the Jack Thompsons of the world had their way, no one would be able to actually grow up into an adult human being who can deal with the world the way it is and perhaps try to make it a better place because every potential source of controversy would be censored. What he is advocating is really a form of cowardice, which is generally the motive behind those who would tell you how to live your life.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
I bilieve from only filing his own lawsuits. It doesn't mean he can get another lawyer to file a lawsuit for him. Though don't know if any other laywer would want to touch him. Anyways this was my understanding, could be wrong.
He is actually featured in GTA IV. And yes, you do get to kill him.
Anonymous Coward
Dead wrong, going to prison is the true training course in how to break the law. I got sent there and learned more about breaking and entering and bumpkeys and the manufacturing methods of methamphetamines and even more stuff than I'd have ever cared to know.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Who says that, exactly? In the UK all the GTA games have been rated 18. I gather that in the US, they've normally been rated 17 - which was why the Hot Coffee thing was so controversial over there, since a sex scene would have upgraded the game to an 18. Either way, it's not as if very many children are being sold these games. No sensible parent would buy little Timmy such a game, any more than they would sit them down in front of a DVD of 'Scarface'. Right?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Earth was designed to let you kill, steal, ect. That doesn't mean you go around doing it though, does it? GTA4 has plenty of non-illegal methods to enjoy yourself. You can drive a taxi, bust criminals, date women (and men), shoot pool, throw darts, go bowling, race your car in tournaments, and plenty of other things. My wife dislikes the violence of the series, but she enjoys driving around the city taking in the sights. GTA4, more than its predecessors, allows you to do just that.
There does seem to be a certain irony in writing to Mr Zelnick's mother to complain about his upbringing when Jack Thompson's main argument, as far as I can gather, is that violent media, including video games, are primarily responsible for violence in young people and society.
If that's the case, why does he expect that she had anything to do with it? Surely she's as much a victim of a free state as all the other parents whose children are running wild and uncontrolled.
No. Thompson is a rare resource. Despite his borderline insanity, he still ends up on the news - people know his name. That fame, coupled with the hate he spews every now and again, should not be wasted. It should be harnessed.
Zelnick should take the letter and auction it off. He should then give the proceeds to Child's Play (or some equally ironic charity), in Thompson's name, of course. Because much as I'd like yet another quiet suit against Thompson, watching him fume helplessly as his attacks are turned against him - again - would be pure poetic justice, and that's just pure win.
IF we accepted that violent games push insane people over the edge more often than they give them a harmless outlet to funnel tendencies which might otherwise have turned to outright violence -- IF we accept that -- then I nonetheless maintain that it's better that three hundred million people have this aspect of their freedom of speech preserved and twenty of them get killed by a nutjob with a gun than if the three hundred million are told that they can't enjoy their choice of entertainment or can't create artistic works (and some video games do indeed make serious artistic or political statements -- BioShock in particular comes to mind among recent releases) and perhaps the nutjob happens not to be quite pushed over the edge; and yes, I'll voluntarily take my chances of being one of the twenty from that three hundred million. Given that the elements of society which would ban video games haven't been successful in convincing the rest of us to do so, I'm inclined to argue that popular belief is consistent with either (1) the risk being nonexistent, or (2) the risk being acceptable.
There certainly is such a thing as acceptable risk in return for entertainment -- remember that people are killed in car accidents going to the movies or out to buy toys or games or such, and nonetheless rational individuals choose to take such actions. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if more people are killed driving to and from movies in a year than by game-inspired gun violence. Would you ban movies or require that toys and games be purchased mail-order to reduce the instances of car accidents?
Also, the whole bloody-mayhem thing isn't exactly new. The most notorious example in the city I currently live in is that of Charles Whitman, dating back to the late 60s. I'd argue that mass media loudly publicizing such events has more to do with any recent surge (the existence of which I'm not presently ceding) than any other factor -- who doesn't want to be a household name?
Since Zelnick and his mom are both Jewish, comparing him to the Hitler Youth is pretty offensive. I hope they can bring him up on hate crimes charges.