Penny Arcade's social responsibility

[krazyIvan]

Most gamers have heard of the webcomic-turned-franchise Penny Arcade. Published by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, the duo have generated a substantial audience with their work. With this influence, Mike and Jerry have the potential to change the world.

But they don't do it.

Not say say that they've done nothing. Child's Play is a charity they have founded, but with a mission goal of buying patients video games they support a more sinister purpose-namely, the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Conflict minerals-gold, cobalt, tin and wolfram mined by groups whose labor is forced by militant groups-are found in all our devices. The computer Jerry types on, the tablet Mike draws on, and the countless products the gaming community buy are all the result of this exploitive practice.

As celebrities in the gaming community, Jerry and Mike have a responsibility to respect human rights in their actions. This means addressing the very real scourge of conflict minerals and pressuring companies such as Nintendo to adopt due diligence guidelines. I could find no mention of these in Penny Arcade's archives.

Do you think Jerry and Mike have a duty to support ethical consumer practices? Leave your thoughts below.

Nope. Not at all.

I believe that for a couple reasons. Putting aside the aforementioned "um - they are the functional equivalent of 'b-list' actors as far as the game industry is concerned" that other people have mentioned...

One - You are using a false equivalency - "As celebrities in the gaming community, Jerry and Mike have a responsibility to respect human rights in their actions" and "Conflict minerals-gold, cobalt, tin and wolfram mined by groups whose labor is forced by militant groups-are found in all our devices" therefore "they support a more sinister purpose-namely, the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo."

EXCEPT you are missing an obvious problem - not ALL consoles, PCs, and tablet manufacturers get rare earths from conflict zones. Notably - ASUS (who happen to have built my laptop, my tablet, and all the major components of my desktop PC save the processor) has a very specific "Social Responsibility" screening element towards choosing suppliers. Other notable manufacturers such as Dell, Intel & Sony all do as well.

Therefore - your basic premise is somewhat flawed.

Two - No single person (or even group of people) should EVER be allowed to decide what *any other person* should or should not champion as a social cause. It's that simple. I firmly believe in free thought and free speech. In fact - my opinion on that can be summed up in the bumper sticker on my wife's car. "If you believe you can tell me what to think, I believe I can tell you where to go."

What positions they choose to support with their time and effort are theirs. They have no more DUTY to support any position than I do. If they WANT to support a position, its fine. But choosing to support a specific position should never be a DUTY.

Going back to your original statement - "As celebrities in the gaming community, Jerry and Mike have a responsibility to respect human rights in their actions." Actually they *don't* have that responsibility. No where does it state that ANY "celebrity" comes with the "responsibility" to "respect human rights". If it did, there would be a lot fewer A**holes who happen to be celebrities.

We'd like to THINK celebrities should be better people - but there is nothing implicit about celebrity that says they are.

So - um - No. In fact, I wholeheartedly REJECT your premise. If they WANT to do say something about ethical sourcing? Fine. But nothing requires them to...

 

[visiblenoise]

I'm not saying nobody should change the world for good, but...why should anybody have a responsibility to change the world for good?

 

[senordesol]

@secretkeeper12 You know you are championing 'Superman's Dilemma', right? (i.e.: If Superman doesn't need to eat or sleep; doesn't he have a moral obligation to save people all over the world 24/7?)

The fact is: the world is busted on so many levels that it is nearly impossible to consume any product that hasn't harmed someone on some level. The best the folks at PennyArcade can be expected to do is try to make existence for a few people a little less shitty (Which they *do*). Now, if you want to champion conflict-free raw materials for computing: feel free. Nothing's stopping you.

Just don't try to make it someone else's responsibility when it isn't.

 

[halisme]

You're right! NO BLOOD FOR METALS! NO BLOOD FOR RARE EARTHS!

Only for the Blood God! Muhahaha!

 

[Abomination]

Penny Arcade isn't some militant mine foreman in the Congo.

They're a game journalist site.

How you think those two activities are linked is indicative of a sorry state in personal rationality.

 

[Catrixa]

Why specifically Penny Arcade? Wouldn't it be better to have a more wide-spread news source bring awareness to this issue? Penny Arcade is first and foremost a site for gamers. Not everyone who uses a cell phone/tablet/laptop/desktop/anything with a circuit board is a gamer. Wouldn't it be more effective to run an ad on major channels during prime time? How about local and major news doing a story on it? Hell, if you drum up enough excitement (ala Kony 2012 or any other popular viral campaign ever), the news will probably say something just to seem hip and "in." Why call out just Penny Arcade? They're not really popular enough to touch the lives of everyone with an iPhone... Call out Facebook. They'll get up in arms over anything if they don't have to go anywhere to do it.

 

[GrumbleGrump]

Only for the Blood God! Muhahaha!

SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE


SANITY IS FOR THE WEAK

 

[Armadox]

As an individual with no clout towards this topic at all, I fail to see how someone like Penny Arcade would have any more clout in such a situation. We can't go over there and slap their hands ourselves. Your best bet would be to start a call-a-thon to the US government to stop the import of "blood" materials, run a petition, etc. Physically do something that would raise enough like minded people behind your voice. I wish you luck..

As for myself it was very difficult to have said the first paragraph first because all I wanted to do was answer this thread as like a Captain Planet villain...

 

[RealRT]

Either this guy is a good troll or a nutjob. Either way, Penny Arcade guys are not morally obligated to do anything.

 

[DocMcCray]

/snip

Aaaaand this is why SJWs are scum.

Create a charity designed to help , push all proceeds towards sed charity without taking any for yourself, and eventually some SJW who wants to feel superior will somehow find something to try and say you are terrible because of

If you put even 1/10th the brain power into figuring out how to actually solve the problem in the Congo that you did in trying to elevate yourself by knocking someone else down, you might come up with something plausible.

-Doc (as written on a Toshiba laptop, after playing my Xbox 360 on my 48" Samsung tv. Am I socially irresponsible too?)

 

[Syzygy23]

Over, what, 50-70 years of constant humanitarian aid to africa hasn't fixed a damn thing that's wrong with it. Blood diamonds, villages selling eachother out for slave labor on coco plantations, and raping preadolescent girls because some guy said it will cure your AIDS... that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The sad thing here is it doesn't matter if the PA guys supported or did not support the Congo mineral groups. It wouldn't change a damn thing because there are other groups that already do, and will continue to do so. Africans themselves perpetuate this shit since nobody ever seems to get their act together long enough to maintain a stable civilization.

Africa, the Congo, and everything sandwiched in it's borders have so many problems that it is ridiculous to single out PA, which is already ridiculous because they probably aren't even aware of where their electronic's base components come from, much like most people in the first world.

 

[halisme]

Only for the Blood God! Muhahaha!

SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE


SANITY IS FOR THE WEAK

Have more quotes.

Let the red river flow.

 

[Leoofmoon]

I'm sorry but them problem with Nintendo and there reediness guidelines on youtube is not Penny arcades responsibility. Hell this can't even be tied with gamergate or Anti side. This has been a issue for 2 years now and they have finally kill themselves on the youtube space with this shared channel program.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Question. How do a pair of guys who started a charity that buys games for kids in the hospital have anything to do with Conflict Minerals?

They're not MAKING games and using conflict minerals to do it. They have no tenable link to conflict minerals at all. The only "link" is that they're famous, and help manage a charity that buys games for kids (and it's the consoles that might maybe have conflict minerals, not likely the games, most of which are CDs and DVDs).

If you were calling out Nintendo or Sony or Microsoft, maybe this would have a point. Except that I'm pretty sure that Microsoft and Nintendo both addressed this a few years ago with "We make sure our stuff isn't from the Congo" and "We get our console parts from outside suppliers and we tell them not to use conflict minerals in our stuff" respectively.

So again, my question is why Penny Arcade, who doesn't actually really have a link to Conflict Minerals, have a social obligation for this? Yes, they could speak out about it, sure. But honestly, I doubt anyone who COULD do anything about the problem will take their condemnation that seriously. The best they could hope to do is make people more aware of the problem.

You wanna solve the problem? You pressure the guys doing the bad thing.

You don't tell Justin Bieber he has a social responsibility to condemn companies that dump toxic waste into rivers. Instead, you boycott the companies that do that shady stuff until they either go under or change.

That's my 2 cents Canadian (sorry about how low it is, can't be helped).

 

[Saltyk]

Haven't they stood up for people who were abused by a companies representative in the past? Pretty sure that's above and beyond any moral obligation they have.

If you think there is a problem with where we get some things to make our electronics, write Congress. They have 100 times more power to do anything about it than some chump on the internet.

 

[FalloutJack]

Oh. My. God.

You know, this is why the Escapist reeeaaally needs a 'Like' button for posts.

 

[BeerTent]

Oh. My. God.

You know, this is why the Escapist reeeaaally needs a 'Like' button for posts.

We should petition for one. Because there's quite a few posts around here where I'm like, "THIS IS AMAZING! I want to give this man internet points... But I cannot give a little love here. :< SadTent"

Sadly, OP's post would not have gotten a +1. But, hey... I was nice to him, right? Even if he probably TL;DR'd me. Which is a shame, because I poured out my lovely reddish-beer heart for him.

 

[Andysweden]

As celebrities in the gaming community, Jerry and Mike have a responsibility to respect human rights in their actions. This means addressing the very real scourge of conflict minerals and pressuring companies such as Nintendo to adopt due diligence guidelines. I could find no mention of these in Penny Arcade's archives.

Do you think Jerry and Mike have a duty to support ethical consumer practices? Leave your thoughts below.

If you watched the documentary Apple's Broken Promises, you'd know it was far from a simple thing to stick to these guidelines. Even the global leader Apple cannot control where it's minerals come from because the problem is a wide sweeping grass roots one.

This is not a black and white issue, with no solution that doesn't require a massive change in the mindset of entire governments.

It's easy to sit on your arse and adopt a SJW stance using your mighty keyboard, but please at least educate yourself to the problem before condemning people like the PA guys for not doing something, when quite frankly there is very little they can do.

Maybe you could start by getting rid of all your electronic devices, that'll teach em!

 

[Vampyre]

Um, no. They don't have to do anything. If it matters to you, step up and do something about it. Stop waiting for someone else to do the work while demeaning them for not doing it for you.

 

[DEAD34345]

In a philosophical sense, maybe they are responsible. Really, I suppose everyone is responsible for all the crimes they didn't prevent, all the good they didn't do.

In practical terms though, no, that's dumb. Also I really don't understand why the specific combination you're bothered about is Penny Arcade and conflict minerals. Why not, say, Intel and conflict minerals? Big Oil and global warming? Lunncal and cancer? (I was just too busy playing videogames to find the cure. Sorry about that.)