1. Yes, tens of millions of people play games including some people who are older than Generation X (Let's just say that this is the firs true video game generation). However, this means that tens of million of people do not play video games.
2. How many of these non-players only have very hazy notions of advancement of videogames? How many just remember their children or grandchildren playing 8-bit Mario Brothers and nothing beyond. This is probably the general demographic of cable news.
3. One thing that I have discovered but it is probably hard to quantify is the extent that Christian Fundamentalists seem to have developed their own shadow culture. It roughly mimics pop culture in terms of genre and feel but the stories are all Christian. This is a culture that can produce hits and best-sellers that we have never heard about. There are a few crossovers every now and then like the Narnia books or something that is so big that it cannot be ignored like the Left Behind series. However, most of it is not known to us. I wonder how many people grow up in this shadow culture and are generally aware of the wider world but very hazy on the specifics. After all, there are people who still take Chic tracks on face value.
In short, I can think of a group who is attack is aimed at. Perhaps these people would not have voted Democratic anyway but maybe they are more likely to come out and vote for Tom Martin. This is just my hunch.
4. That being said, I think concern about violent video games is goes across both parties. The violent video game law that the Supreme Court struck down last term was written by a state Senator from San Francisco. His training is in child psychology. Now this was not a law that attempted to mock people for playing video games but did seek to give extra-aid to parents in making sure that their kids did not get their hands on violent video games.
I do love the smell of false equivilances in the morning.
Obama's statement was a just a flub of speech. A very silly one but everyperson alive has made a similar mistake or will make one in their lives over a very simple fact.
Romney's 47 percent was not a simple mistake of fact. It reflected the sincere belief of the Randians and easily butt hurt multi-millionaire sect.
I think the post-Modernists have been proven correct by the past few years. There is no truth. Only truth(s) based on cognitive dissonance and subjective experience.
I don't think this is a good thing but it seems to be the new path of American politics.
What is it about the Republican Party that keeps on trying to defund PBS? They have been trying this since at least 1994 and everytime it has blow up in their faces. Why does PBS drive the 31 percent so insane that they can't just acknowledge being the minority position? Or are these the hard-core ideologues who think that their views on government are the only correct ones; everyone else be damned with full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes?
Romney won the debate. According to the instapoll, he won by 42 percent.
Want an interesting fact from 2004? Gallup's poll also showed that people thought that Kerry won the first debate by 41-42 percent. Only 19 percent of Gallup respondents thought that Bush II won the first debate. IIRC Kerry won all three Presidential debates.
Morons might be too strong but the simple truth is that the League is filled with political junkies and we just don't understand the "low-information voter" on a deep level.
People have been noting this for the past few days.
I'm a guy but and as Democratic as they come. Why do white guys seem to fully buy the whole stuff about rugged individualism in starbursting droves over anyone else? One of my friend's talked about the gender gap in worldview among Colorado voters based on the little tracking things.
Thoughts and questions based on the blogosphere (especially Andrew Sullivan's meltdown) and my facebook feed.
1. A lot of my Democratic friends (which is most of my friends) say the feel confident about the election tonight and say this non-sarcastically.
2. Some people went into full hyperbolic meltdown just like Andrew Sullivan. How much of this psychological projecting? Why do people get paid big bucks for writing off the cuff sentences about how Obama lost tonight? Maybe he did not perform super-strongly, maybe Romney "won" the debate* but Sullivan's full meltdown is something of a site to be seen.
3. One day someone will need to explain the cult of Saint Ronnie to me. As someone born in 1980, I really do not understand why he is so enthralling still. He hasn't been President for over 20 years and people still talk about him in Messianic tones including conservatives who were born after 1988. Sullivan had a whole bit about how Romney even sounded like Saint Ronnie.
To broaden the debate. Let's use insider trading as an example.
I have a friend who argues that society only thinks insider trading is wrong because our government says it is wrong. If there were no laws against it, we would have no moral problems with insider trading.
I am not sure that this is the case. The same goes for a myriad of practices and is true in vice-versa. There are many people who see nothing immoral or wrong about narcotic use despite the illegality of narcotics.
There are probably plenty of everyday Wall Street practices that are not illegal but plenty of people would describe as being close to or actually fraudulent, immoral, deceitful, and wrong based on near-universal notions of decency and dignity and fair-dealing.
I have no problem with a post-scarcity, high-leisure time society.
The 35-hour work week in France is highly attractive to me. I don't think working 80-100 hours a week is healthy or productive.
My problem is that technological advancement/displacement is occurring faster than change in how we view work ethically and morally. Large segments of the U.S. including tech innovators and labor displacers still have a very Calvinist view of work. They see the jobless as being jobless through their own failings and not any random occurrence or technological change. This allows them to moralize against a welfare state because welfare just makes people lazy and disinclined to find work.
Ultimately two-party systems are going to produce a lot of strange bedfellows. We might be at odds but Matt Y and I are both going to remain Democratic Party supporters probably.
I generally agree that the solution is not going to be easy and we need to adapt.
I am not sure that Ygelias is on the right-track for his adaptations and ideas. So far, the service economy has generally meant a lot of low wage jobs that allow someone to look like they are treading water but not really.
There was another article on Slate last week about whether the sort of small-batch manufacturing that you see in Brooklyn and San Francisco among hipsters can revitalize old Industrial cities. My general thought is not. Hipster-DIY manufacturing is built on the romance of quality over quantity and low quantity is part of the selling point. Plus as tasty as they are, not everyone can afford to buy 8 dollar chocolate bars and an artisan economy might work well in small and select neighborhoods but not in a country of over 300 million people
I also think that Yglesias is too enamoured with the idea of a service-sector economy and does not spend enough time thinking about whether a service sector economy is a viable way of providing for everyone.
During his ThinkProgress days, one got the impression that Matt Y thinks that the ideal America would be filled with walkable urban neighborhoods. Everyone would either be some kind of upper-middle class office worker or have a job in the service economy as a Yoga Instructor, cool Barrista, etc.
Not everyone is cut out to be a Yoga Instructor and Matt Y ignores the fact that Yoga Instructors do not make that much money and often need to have contracts with three or four studios.Yesterday on slate, he published a piece on how we are approaching peak leisure hours while ignoring that part of the cause might be that there are just a lot of people who are un or underemployed thanks to the Great Recession and technology rendering positions useless and redundant. Matt Y like many tech-utopians does not realize that the right-wing Captains of Industry still prefer to moralize against the welfare state with Calvinist pomposity even as jobs are rendered unnecessary because of technological advance. He would rather just starburst on "gee gosh, isn't technology great and efficient. Look at all the stupid things we use to need to pay people real wages for!"
He is just as bad as Richard Florida with his stupid creative class meme. There are not enough creative class types to pull all these industrial cities out of their funk and why would a young college grad choose to go to Elmira or Buffalo instead of New York, Chicago, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, etc?
The reason I have become more stubborn and hard-line on regulation and welfare issues is that I don't think the American right-wing is willing to compromise in anyway. They are hard-line and to a certain extent the left needs to be hardline in return.
Sweden does is much less regulated than the United States, this is true. However, I don't see the American right-wing as willing to make a Sweden style compromise of a very strong Welfare State combined with fewer regulations.
Rather, the American right-wing is not going to be happy unless they have it both ways, zero to little regulation combined with no welfare state. Too often, neoliebrals have been wet and willing to vote for deregulation and not standing firm on social justice and welfare issues. This is often because they come from the upper-middle classes or above and never really relied on unions or welfare benefits.
So I think now is the time to be a bit hard and fight back.
On “Is Jack Chick doing oppo research on Colleen Lachowicz?”
Some thoughts and theories:
1. Yes, tens of millions of people play games including some people who are older than Generation X (Let's just say that this is the firs true video game generation). However, this means that tens of million of people do not play video games.
2. How many of these non-players only have very hazy notions of advancement of videogames? How many just remember their children or grandchildren playing 8-bit Mario Brothers and nothing beyond. This is probably the general demographic of cable news.
3. One thing that I have discovered but it is probably hard to quantify is the extent that Christian Fundamentalists seem to have developed their own shadow culture. It roughly mimics pop culture in terms of genre and feel but the stories are all Christian. This is a culture that can produce hits and best-sellers that we have never heard about. There are a few crossovers every now and then like the Narnia books or something that is so big that it cannot be ignored like the Left Behind series. However, most of it is not known to us. I wonder how many people grow up in this shadow culture and are generally aware of the wider world but very hazy on the specifics. After all, there are people who still take Chic tracks on face value.
In short, I can think of a group who is attack is aimed at. Perhaps these people would not have voted Democratic anyway but maybe they are more likely to come out and vote for Tom Martin. This is just my hunch.
4. That being said, I think concern about violent video games is goes across both parties. The violent video game law that the Supreme Court struck down last term was written by a state Senator from San Francisco. His training is in child psychology. Now this was not a law that attempted to mock people for playing video games but did seek to give extra-aid to parents in making sure that their kids did not get their hands on violent video games.
On “Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it.”
Except his clothes.
Mike, you can change your clothes.
On “Mitt Walks Back “47 Percent” and the Debate Mystery Solved, Mebbe”
We have always been at war with Eastasia
"
I do love the smell of false equivilances in the morning.
Obama's statement was a just a flub of speech. A very silly one but everyperson alive has made a similar mistake or will make one in their lives over a very simple fact.
Romney's 47 percent was not a simple mistake of fact. It reflected the sincere belief of the Randians and easily butt hurt multi-millionaire sect.
On “What Happened to Barack Obama?”
I think the post-Modernists have been proven correct by the past few years. There is no truth. Only truth(s) based on cognitive dissonance and subjective experience.
I don't think this is a good thing but it seems to be the new path of American politics.
On “Presidential Debate LeagueCast”
Isn't it?
On “What Happened to Barack Obama?”
My point was more along with Zic's. That 444 million is a rain drop of the Federal Budget and a highly popular one.
"
I know you meant this as a joke but it raises a serious question for me:
PBS is possibly one of the most popular government programs out there. About 69 percent of the American public believes in funding for PBS:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2012/10/04/romney-promises-to-cut-taxpayer-funding-for-pbs-but-says-he-still-loves-big-bird/
What is it about the Republican Party that keeps on trying to defund PBS? They have been trying this since at least 1994 and everytime it has blow up in their faces. Why does PBS drive the 31 percent so insane that they can't just acknowledge being the minority position? Or are these the hard-core ideologues who think that their views on government are the only correct ones; everyone else be damned with full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes?
On “Presidential Debate LeagueCast”
Fair enough. One can become a political junkie.
So what was your pre-political junkie but post adult thought process like? Why didn't you follow news/politics back then?
On “The Romney Rebound”
Romney won the debate. According to the instapoll, he won by 42 percent.
Want an interesting fact from 2004? Gallup's poll also showed that people thought that Kerry won the first debate by 41-42 percent. Only 19 percent of Gallup respondents thought that Bush II won the first debate. IIRC Kerry won all three Presidential debates.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/13237/kerry-wins-debate.aspx
On “Presidential Debate LeagueCast”
Does the FCC allow people to talk about their SCOTUSes' on TV before 10 PM?
"
Morons might be too strong but the simple truth is that the League is filled with political junkies and we just don't understand the "low-information voter" on a deep level.
"
Good question.
People have been noting this for the past few days.
I'm a guy but and as Democratic as they come. Why do white guys seem to fully buy the whole stuff about rugged individualism in starbursting droves over anyone else? One of my friend's talked about the gender gap in worldview among Colorado voters based on the little tracking things.
"
Thoughts and questions based on the blogosphere (especially Andrew Sullivan's meltdown) and my facebook feed.
1. A lot of my Democratic friends (which is most of my friends) say the feel confident about the election tonight and say this non-sarcastically.
2. Some people went into full hyperbolic meltdown just like Andrew Sullivan. How much of this psychological projecting? Why do people get paid big bucks for writing off the cuff sentences about how Obama lost tonight? Maybe he did not perform super-strongly, maybe Romney "won" the debate* but Sullivan's full meltdown is something of a site to be seen.
3. One day someone will need to explain the cult of Saint Ronnie to me. As someone born in 1980, I really do not understand why he is so enthralling still. He hasn't been President for over 20 years and people still talk about him in Messianic tones including conservatives who were born after 1988. Sullivan had a whole bit about how Romney even sounded like Saint Ronnie.
On “Comment Rescue: KenB on Regulations”
To broaden the debate. Let's use insider trading as an example.
I have a friend who argues that society only thinks insider trading is wrong because our government says it is wrong. If there were no laws against it, we would have no moral problems with insider trading.
I am not sure that this is the case. The same goes for a myriad of practices and is true in vice-versa. There are many people who see nothing immoral or wrong about narcotic use despite the illegality of narcotics.
There are probably plenty of everyday Wall Street practices that are not illegal but plenty of people would describe as being close to or actually fraudulent, immoral, deceitful, and wrong based on near-universal notions of decency and dignity and fair-dealing.
"
That depends on what you think makes something wrong or not.
Is something wrong merely because a legislature passed a law and said "Practice X is wrong and illegal" or are some practices just wrong by nature?
On “The Failures of Neoliberalism”
I have no problem with a post-scarcity, high-leisure time society.
The 35-hour work week in France is highly attractive to me. I don't think working 80-100 hours a week is healthy or productive.
My problem is that technological advancement/displacement is occurring faster than change in how we view work ethically and morally. Large segments of the U.S. including tech innovators and labor displacers still have a very Calvinist view of work. They see the jobless as being jobless through their own failings and not any random occurrence or technological change. This allows them to moralize against a welfare state because welfare just makes people lazy and disinclined to find work.
"
So what am I missing?
"
Dukakis was probably less of an old-line New Dealer than Mondale but he was certainly not a full DNC centrist either.
That being said, IIRC the 1998 election was mainly about foreign policy/cold war stuff and culture war issues and not so much about economics.
"
Ultimately two-party systems are going to produce a lot of strange bedfellows. We might be at odds but Matt Y and I are both going to remain Democratic Party supporters probably.
"
I generally agree that the solution is not going to be easy and we need to adapt.
I am not sure that Ygelias is on the right-track for his adaptations and ideas. So far, the service economy has generally meant a lot of low wage jobs that allow someone to look like they are treading water but not really.
There was another article on Slate last week about whether the sort of small-batch manufacturing that you see in Brooklyn and San Francisco among hipsters can revitalize old Industrial cities. My general thought is not. Hipster-DIY manufacturing is built on the romance of quality over quantity and low quantity is part of the selling point. Plus as tasty as they are, not everyone can afford to buy 8 dollar chocolate bars and an artisan economy might work well in small and select neighborhoods but not in a country of over 300 million people
"
I also think that Yglesias is too enamoured with the idea of a service-sector economy and does not spend enough time thinking about whether a service sector economy is a viable way of providing for everyone.
During his ThinkProgress days, one got the impression that Matt Y thinks that the ideal America would be filled with walkable urban neighborhoods. Everyone would either be some kind of upper-middle class office worker or have a job in the service economy as a Yoga Instructor, cool Barrista, etc.
Not everyone is cut out to be a Yoga Instructor and Matt Y ignores the fact that Yoga Instructors do not make that much money and often need to have contracts with three or four studios.Yesterday on slate, he published a piece on how we are approaching peak leisure hours while ignoring that part of the cause might be that there are just a lot of people who are un or underemployed thanks to the Great Recession and technology rendering positions useless and redundant. Matt Y like many tech-utopians does not realize that the right-wing Captains of Industry still prefer to moralize against the welfare state with Calvinist pomposity even as jobs are rendered unnecessary because of technological advance. He would rather just starburst on "gee gosh, isn't technology great and efficient. Look at all the stupid things we use to need to pay people real wages for!"
He is just as bad as Richard Florida with his stupid creative class meme. There are not enough creative class types to pull all these industrial cities out of their funk and why would a young college grad choose to go to Elmira or Buffalo instead of New York, Chicago, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, etc?
"
"Figaro, Figaro, Figaro" comes from Rossini's The Barber of Seville, not Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro.
"
The reason I have become more stubborn and hard-line on regulation and welfare issues is that I don't think the American right-wing is willing to compromise in anyway. They are hard-line and to a certain extent the left needs to be hardline in return.
Sweden does is much less regulated than the United States, this is true. However, I don't see the American right-wing as willing to make a Sweden style compromise of a very strong Welfare State combined with fewer regulations.
Rather, the American right-wing is not going to be happy unless they have it both ways, zero to little regulation combined with no welfare state. Too often, neoliebrals have been wet and willing to vote for deregulation and not standing firm on social justice and welfare issues. This is often because they come from the upper-middle classes or above and never really relied on unions or welfare benefits.
So I think now is the time to be a bit hard and fight back.
"
He is the Mozart to my Saleri
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.