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Aussie Attorney General Says Gamers Are Scarier Than Biker Gangs
Sasayaki writes "South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson claims, in an interview with Good Game, that gamers were more of a threat to his family than biker gangs. This is the man who has been the biggest opponent to Australia receiving an R18+ rating for video games and who has the power to veto any such law introducing it."
if you are a bag of Doritos.
THL phish sticks
I hear a challenge Hells Angels/Mongols/Pagans/Insert your club here. This guy just called you all a bunch of pussies!
Where does Australia find these whack jobs? I mean, either the guy is a paranoid schizophrenic or a mental retard.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
...it would be opposite if he was proposing a ban on motorcycles.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Biker gangs playing video games while driving - that's double scary.
But what about Biker gangs playing video games about biker games playing video games while driving, while driving???
Or what about ERR_STACK_OVERFLOW
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Gamers sometimes learn bad fictional behavior. (Consider the evil character paths in various D&D games.) Gamers frequently learn good fictional behavior. (Consider the hero character paths in many D&D games.)
In contrast, a chapter of Hell's Angels in Hamburg ran multiple houses for the rape of teenage girls and women held as slaves. (Sources: Victor Malarek's The Natashas, Terry Lee Wright's River of Innocents.) They were responsible for enabling thousands of rapes in the real world.
Yes, it's atypical for a biker gang. But all things considered, it's more rare for the gamer.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
I can't count the amount of times I've felt threatened on the highways here as a beat up, patchy painted Honda Civic pulls up with a triforce or horde sticker in one of the windows. If it's one car, you can usually outrun it as they're not really going to be paying attention, usually debating the merits of pixel shading with others in the car at this point. However, if it's more than one car, you can bet they have you in their sights. Especially after playing that brutal and vicious car game I saw in the arcades once.. Spy Hunter I think it was?
Or if I actually make it to a gas station and am fueling up, one of em might come over, push his glasses up or adjust the tape holding them together, asking what if I'm gonna reserve the new StarCraft! The horror!
I always feel much safer knowing that the guy next to me on that bike on the highway has a full body tattoo and a mustache, and so does his girlfriend on the bitch seat! I mean, at least they're not gamers, right?
* PS - This is intended as a lame attempt at humor, don't hurt me, I play games too! >.>
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
What he's saying is, every person under 30 who lives in Australia is scarier than Biker Gangs?
Does he ever leave the house?
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Wow, the AG has the power of the veto in .AU? That's a pretty strange arrangement where the guy charged with enforcing the law gets to decide if something should be a law.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Of course they are scarier - they get multiple lives!
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a reference to Godwin's Law approaches 1
Jesus, who are you, his wife? Hur dur, a random crazy threatened him, but no bikers have... why might that be? Let's see him support legislation outlawing biker gangs, see how many threats he gets.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
"He was later forced to apologise. The animal was not a cat, the incident happened at another location and bikies weren't involved."
This bloke is a dill mates.
I'm not sure whether my biker self or my gamer self is more offended by this arsehat. I've met and hung out with dozens of "biker gangs" at various rallies - yes including the patch clubs that people refer to here like they're comprised of mindless hooligans - and felt safer in their company than when taking a trip through a town centre on a Friday or Saturday night.
In short, "biker gang" is not shorthand for dangerous thug. Nor is "gamer" shorthand for brainwashed serial killer. And while we're at it I'm pretty sure that "Australian politician" doesn't mean paranoid, misinformed and dangerously ignorant jerk"... but I could be wrong.
Just a thought Mr Atkinson but perhaps your ill-considered bigotry is what causes people to take such a dim view of you. A single gamer harrassing you is more likely indicative that you've pissed someone off personally than that all gamers are out to get you and your family. Gah.
This guy is going to piss himself if he meets a gamer that's in a biker gang.
this guy thinks that gamers are generally more dangerous than bikers in order to discredit him.
Quote:
He didn't say "from a gamer" he said "from gamers", as in the whole group. As opposed to the outlaw motorcycle gangs, as in their whole group. He feels that gamers are more dangerous than bikers. If he's never received a death threat from anyone but a gamer, then perhaps he's justified in feeling that way, but I'm seriously surprised that this is the first death threat an AG would get.
I do have to say that the motorcycle gangs have a better long term plan than the gamers do at this point. Someone should start a gamer party and run for election on the grounds that you actually know something about what you're trying to regulate.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
That a bunch of gamers got together and raised 1.7M dollars for charity last year to give to sick kids in the hospital, including two hospitals in Australia on the east coast...
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
No. That generalization of his quote is incorrect. You are correct in gernealizing from "a gamer" to "gamers" -- but you are incorrect in generalizing from his family being at risk to other families, or individuals, or all of society being at risk.
Considering that he claims a credible threat was made against him by gamers, and none by bikers, you can see his rationale for believe that *his specific family* is more threatened by gamers.
That does not mean that you can generalize his beliefs to include *gamers in general* are more dangerous than *bikers in general* regardless of the subject of the risk assessment.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Interesting to note, that he basses his views of the groups as a whole on the behavior of individuals.
Were he to say, "I am more worried about black people* than Mexicans because a black person slipped a note under my door." he would get eaten alive by the public outcry. Apparently, it's ok to generalize based on traits that are chosen rather than inherited...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
If you ever wiped a raid in World of Warcraft, you'll believe this guy, those guys can get really scary, specially when they found out you did it on purpose just to see what the "fear button" did :P
Believe me there is nothing more scary than 24 angry players with huge repair bills, and no epic loot.....
I remember when me and my clan defeated the Hells Angels. They didnt even know how to plant the bomb properly. LOL NOOBS. One of them was using an aimbot and still lost! After going 30-4 (they got lucky a couple of times) we kicked them out. They packed up their alienware laptops and rode into the sunset broken and defeated.
Most 1% er's people see are actually posers. I've been an official photographer for most of the BIG motorcycle events in the eastern half of the USA and real bikers that are real 1%er's are far and few between.. Most of the time you have a 1%er poser. someone that wants to look like a badass but in reality is a big pussy that wants attention. Problem is at Sturgis these posers get their asses kicked by the real 1%ers because they try and pull their bullshit in front of them.
a Real 1%er when you find one will let you know. I've met a few of them, and I steer clear after I buy them a drink and they let me know of who to steer clear of.
So that loser riding his shiny new 2010 harley all leathered up with harley jeans, harley shirt and skull print face mask... He is, in fact, a poser. 1%er's don't have new bikes and dress in all that branded crap at the hardly store.
A real 1%er has a jacket that has road rash on it and looks like he at one time was ran over by a truck, because they typically lead incredibly hard lives. I have almost lost a camera to a 1%er. I gladly handed it over, saying "I'm sorry, here you go".. surprisingly he stopped, asked how to remove the card and threw me the camera back grunting, "NO PICTURES".
You don't screw with a 1%er. In fact I don't even raise my camera in their general direction. After the 6 years of shooting at Sturgis and other big events I can spot them easily.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You don't wanna mess with the Yu-Gi-Oh! Card-Gaming Gang.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
This begs the question, and I'm sincerely curious about the answer. In practical terms and under Australian law, what is the difference between a group of friends riding motorcycles together and a biker gang? He couldn't seriously have outlawed group rides, could he? Or is it only a gang if everyone (majority, perhaps?) are wearing black leather and riding Harleys?
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
It's not a generalization. He said "I feel that my family and I are more at risk from gamers than we are from the outlaw motorcycle gangs who also hate me and are running a candidate against me".
Of course, this "note" could easily be bogus, like the cat incident. Perhaps it will turn out that the note wasn't slipped under his door, it was placed on his refrigerator. It wasn't written by a gamer, it was by his daughter. And it wasn't a death threat, but a grocery list.
Me and some gamer mates are going to beat up the Amsterdam chapter of the Hell's Angels. I mean, we are thougher then them right? What could possibly go wrong? They are wusses and I will make sure to tell them loudly and clearly, what are they going to do? None of them has scored as many kills in Counterstrike as I have.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Yeah, it's always good to have a few fat slobs to cover your escape while you run out the back door.
So basically, this guy is to Australia what Jack Thompson would be to the US if he ever got into a position of power. Guys like him would probably faint at the words I typically use to talk and think about them, not because of any actual obscenities, but because phrases like "enemies of freedom" would remind him too much of the way them thar turrists talk about the West.
That said, I can't help but wonder if maybe JonKatz was onto something. Not even 15 years ago, gamers and geeks of all kinds tended to be seen as mostly harmless: bumbling and socially-inept, but generally well-meaning (albeit odd). We were condescended to, and even bullied from time to time, but we were more or less given the benefit of the doubt.
That's changed, and it hasn't been for the better. The condescension and bullying haven't really gone anywhere, but now there's a palpable sense of fear mixed into it. We're seen as ticking time bombs, holding on by a thread that a pin drop in the wrong direction could snap. Some see us as pre-murderers, others as pre-rapists, yet others as pre-saboteurs, but the common thread is clear: we are sleeping monsters to be tiptoed around.
The stereotype is of course false, or at least it's no more true than it's ever been for any group of people. But like the old stereotype, the new one wasn't born in a vacuum. Gaming and geekdom have always had a few Creepy People doing Creepy Things, but it's only recently that they've risen to the forefront. That's our image problem, and it would do us as a group a lot of good to think about why it happened and how to reverse it, before people like Thompson and Atkinson manage to do it for us.
When one guy can hold an entire country of gamers to ransom, it's not hard to understand the frustrated reactions of those who are effectively politically disenfranchised. Australians have very low levels of political consciousnesses compared to the rest of the world's population and part of this is reflected by the way the system was setup over here. It's not as if the convicts ever had much say in what went on and this top-down and top-heavy system of governance has developed as such, such that we have a nanny-state style of organising society. The wowsers are in control and don't you forget it! Sit down, shut up, or you won't EVER get your R18+ gaming classifications. I think it's fair to say it's never gonna come without a little pressure, but immature notes under the door probably isn't the sort of pressure that will work. Having said that, the dickhead deserves nasty things said to him. Very nasty things. I would say R rated things, but he's probably never heard any :(
I think it's all a load of bullshit.
1. The contents of the note haven't been made public, so we don't know how threatening it really was. My guess on the contents: "I want my left 4 dead 2 you fucking fucker"
2. There is no indication that the police have been involved. If Atkinson was actually scared of the supposed death threats you'd think he would have called the cops.
3. It is currently legal to leave a note under someone's door, even at 2am.
4. He is more at risk from bikie gangs than gamers. SA has some nasty anti-bikie laws that he introduced recently. These laws are a horrible attack on freedom of association, and in theory could be used to rule other groups illegal in the future.
Michael Atkinson is a Labor Attorney-General.
The incumbent South Australian Government is Labor.
Vote for the opposition (Liberal, Independant, etc.) in the impending South Australian State Election on the 20th of March 2010 and the new government will invariably give us a new AG.
If you are in the Croydon electorate - which is where Michael Atkinson's seat it - then you should rally all your friends and vote for the opposition - then he won't even have a seat, let alone be AG.
Democracy at work people.
Here is a copy of the note itself
http://imgur.com/CeACw.png
How does this constitute a threatening letter?
"Dear Mick, I Can Has R18 Rating Pls? kthxbai"
Screen shot Taken from http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/02/16/2820930.htm (not by me)
Talk about the media taking it and running with it and blowing out of proportion
"Throw a shrimp on the barbie" was a joke, it's saying "everything is NOT bigger in Texas", eg: Anna Creek cattle station is more than 10X the size of the largest US ranch. Americans failed to get the joke and thought the phrase was part of our lingo.
BTW, Most Aussies including me enjoyed the first Crocodile Dundee but Hoag's lost his popularity with Aussies when he dumped his wife of 20yrs and ran off with the woman from the movie.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.