I pretty much agree that it sounds like a censor-happy goverment doesn't like the results and is fishing for the answer it wants so it can run with that.
Of course the big problem here of course is that we don't see a lot of pressure being put on the goverment to keep with the results either.
The whole problem with gamers is that we do nothing but talk. When it comes to the US censorship issue that's about to see it's hearing, there is nothing but dialogue. Nobody is concerned about action whatsoever. When it comes to Australia where it's also a bit of a free speech issue, the goverment ignores the results it called for, and the people that stand to benefit from those results are going to sit around twiddling their thumbs between whines while the goverment just goes ahead and does whatever the heck it wants on the issue anyway. In this case the "silent majority" comment (which has some truth in certain matters, like when confronting political correctness) is pretty much them saying "we're going to ignore you because we know most people disagree with you, so we'll wait for the responses we want".
It's sort of like what would have happened if all the blacks and liberals stayed home during Martin Luthor King's Civil Liberties crusades in the US. If they hadn't gathered those massive non-violent crowds, along with the basic message "we're peaceful, but if you don't do what we want we have enough of a potential force yield to do some really massive damage" the whole thing would have failed.
I don't think the politicians are the problem, I think the sedimentary gamer is the problem. I also think the big guns who just play politics are the problem as well nowadays.
While it gets somewhat off topic some people might remember the whole "Japanacorp Invasion" scare of the 1980s, along with concerns that our ethics in the US made our businesses incapable of competing on the national level. You'll also notice that things changed for a good long while and the threats as they existed disappeared.
The reason being that while not totally callous a lot of cloak and dagger stuff broke out and you wound up seeing a lot of politicians forced to change their positions and take a more anti-Japan position despite the personal gains for them. Combined with some disappearances and a lot of accidents. It's hard to point a finger at, but it was an interesting time and people noticed it.
This was incidently the direct inspiration for a lot of the "corperate warfare" fiction that became popularized in Cyberpunk and the like. Things where two corperations go at it with mercenaries and private armies as much as with finances, and bureaucracy.
I think one of the problems with American business is that in the last 25 years or so people again forgot the earlier lessons and both the goverment and the businessmen are simply lining their pockets with money from our current economic rivals like China, who represent a very similar kind of threat to what Japan once did, albiet with it eerily not being addressed or even acknowleged all that much.
I suppose it blows chips when someone is strong arming an issue through that you don't agree with, but along with a lack of action on the part of gamers, I don't think the gaming industry as a whole is playing dirty/rough enough. It hasn't even gotten as bad as Hollywood or The Music Industry in it's own defense, never mind the kind of stuff from the 80s that inspired Cyberpunk authors for generations when people were reading between the lines.
I would think with issues like this at stake, you'd have a number of politicians retiring or having accidents, along with members of various private organizatios working in opposition simply due to the issues and the money involved. I very much get the impression that what your seeing here is all that is going on, and oddly that sort of bothers me on a lot of levels since it almost feels like nobody really cares that much about the issue.
Of course the big problem here of course is that we don't see a lot of pressure being put on the goverment to keep with the results either.
The whole problem with gamers is that we do nothing but talk. When it comes to the US censorship issue that's about to see it's hearing, there is nothing but dialogue. Nobody is concerned about action whatsoever. When it comes to Australia where it's also a bit of a free speech issue, the goverment ignores the results it called for, and the people that stand to benefit from those results are going to sit around twiddling their thumbs between whines while the goverment just goes ahead and does whatever the heck it wants on the issue anyway. In this case the "silent majority" comment (which has some truth in certain matters, like when confronting political correctness) is pretty much them saying "we're going to ignore you because we know most people disagree with you, so we'll wait for the responses we want".
It's sort of like what would have happened if all the blacks and liberals stayed home during Martin Luthor King's Civil Liberties crusades in the US. If they hadn't gathered those massive non-violent crowds, along with the basic message "we're peaceful, but if you don't do what we want we have enough of a potential force yield to do some really massive damage" the whole thing would have failed.
I don't think the politicians are the problem, I think the sedimentary gamer is the problem. I also think the big guns who just play politics are the problem as well nowadays.
While it gets somewhat off topic some people might remember the whole "Japanacorp Invasion" scare of the 1980s, along with concerns that our ethics in the US made our businesses incapable of competing on the national level. You'll also notice that things changed for a good long while and the threats as they existed disappeared.
The reason being that while not totally callous a lot of cloak and dagger stuff broke out and you wound up seeing a lot of politicians forced to change their positions and take a more anti-Japan position despite the personal gains for them. Combined with some disappearances and a lot of accidents. It's hard to point a finger at, but it was an interesting time and people noticed it.
This was incidently the direct inspiration for a lot of the "corperate warfare" fiction that became popularized in Cyberpunk and the like. Things where two corperations go at it with mercenaries and private armies as much as with finances, and bureaucracy.
I think one of the problems with American business is that in the last 25 years or so people again forgot the earlier lessons and both the goverment and the businessmen are simply lining their pockets with money from our current economic rivals like China, who represent a very similar kind of threat to what Japan once did, albiet with it eerily not being addressed or even acknowleged all that much.
I suppose it blows chips when someone is strong arming an issue through that you don't agree with, but along with a lack of action on the part of gamers, I don't think the gaming industry as a whole is playing dirty/rough enough. It hasn't even gotten as bad as Hollywood or The Music Industry in it's own defense, never mind the kind of stuff from the 80s that inspired Cyberpunk authors for generations when people were reading between the lines.
I would think with issues like this at stake, you'd have a number of politicians retiring or having accidents, along with members of various private organizatios working in opposition simply due to the issues and the money involved. I very much get the impression that what your seeing here is all that is going on, and oddly that sort of bothers me on a lot of levels since it almost feels like nobody really cares that much about the issue.
