.cross.wired.mind.

… wait, that would be insulting the Neanderthals.

So I was cruising the tubes of the Interweb when I stumbled into a blog called GamePolitics that deals with the intersection of … well … games and politics. There is a gem of an post dealing with the darling of right wing jibber jabber, Bill O’Rilley, and his views on why PS3s and iPods are killing our culture.

Now I try very hard to remain non-partisan. In fact it is an article of faith to remain independent of the machinations of partisan politics. Fortunately this is not a partisan issue. Bill O’Reilly is a dumbass.

Why?

Just take a look at what he had to say about electronic gaming …

American society is changing for the worse because of the machines… In the past to flee the real world people usually chose drugs or alcohol… now you don’t have to do that, Now all you have to do is have enough money to buy a machine…

So you would prefer us to increase our drug use? He continues …

Basically what you have is a large portion of the population, mostly younger people under the age of 45, who don’t deal with reality - ever. So they don’t know what day it is; they don’t know temperature it is; they don’t know what their neighbor looks like. They don’t know anything… because they are constantly diverted by a machine. Now what this does is it takes a person away from reality because they’ve created their own reality…

Or maybe you and your ilk have done such a good job of scaring the shit out of us. According to you our neighbors are sex offending sodomites that have gone off their meds and are planning a home invasion in cooperation the “the jihadists” who seek to terrorize us into changing our way of life. Dude, you are doing their job for them. Here is an idea - knock it off, shut up, go buy a compound in the mountains and leave us all alone. BTW - it is through online gaming that I now have friends in Scotland, New Zealand, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Germany, and all over the US. Yeah, I avoid reality. Sheesh … He goes on from there …

The newest thing is the PlayStation 3. Now this is a machine that allows you to play games in hi-def and all this other stuff… It’s the newest state of the art system from Sony…. It has a video game console, plays DVDs, connects you to the Internet, tells you how handsome you are. It’s six-hundred bucks. Now people lined up for hours to get this thing. Hours!

Welcome to the world of free market capitalism. Or, would you prefer a central planning committee to engineer our lives so we don’t have to be exposed to the evils of Mario Carts, Final Fantasy, and Halo …

The problem with this stuff is that some people can deal with it constructively… but other people get addicted to it, just like opium, just like drugs and alcohol… So this is a big, big problem. It’s going to change every single thing in this country.

WTF? Dude, ever heard the word hyperbole because you seem to love it …

The have-nots are growing. Why are they growing? Because the skill set that is necessary to earn a decent living is being deemphasized in a fantasy world of football games and shooting zombies and all that…. Now you have the “knows” and the “know-nots”, because if you spend all your youth being prisoners of machines….. you’re not going to know anything…. You’re gonna fail.

So its not the failed education system, endemic systemic racism, a complete lack of low skilled employment that actually provides a family with enough to live on, or the lack of social services provided by the government to help those in need. No. Apparently the problem is Madden 07.

Now if that were not enough O’Reilly turns on the stupid …

I don’t own an iPod. I would never wear an iPod… If this is your primary focus in life - the machines… it’s going to have a staggeringly negative effect, all of this, for America… did you ever talk to these computer geeks? I mean, can you carry on a conversation with them? …

Yeah! The geeks I know tend to be smart, witty, politically conscious, humble, and quite good at intelligent conversation. But Billy boy thinks iPods are sucking our brains out through their ear buds. Oh, and ironically - he has a podcast.

But here is the icing on the bullshit cake …

I really fear for the United States because, believe me, the jihadists? They’re not playing the video games. They’re killing real people over there.

Yes folks, buy your kid a Glock or an Uzi and set him loose because we won’t be a great nation until we raise a generation of killers. How did we ever let “the jihadists” get ahead of us in the senseless violence department. Damn those kids with their 360s and iPods, damn those parents buying kids Nintendos and Nintendogs. Get those kids organized into little Christian Crusader Squads and show them “jihadists” how real Americans roll … on full auto.

Why do people like Bill O’Reilly have a platform from which they can spread ignorance to the masses? Why does civilized society allow extremists to have a nationally televised soapbox?

I love free speech, but does not mean that we should give the biggest microphones to idiots like this.

One of the greatest things about the Internet (other than it being tubes rather than a dump truck) is that you can be your true self.  You do not have to worry about feeling out of place or rejected because you can remain anonymous and find your niche.

The trouble is that some people use that anonymity as an excuse to cause problems for the rest of us.  This goes beyond trolling, though that is a major problem.  Anonymity combined with powerful social software tools allow individuals to slander, libel, harass, and bring harm to others without repercussion or accountability.

Now, I know what your thinking – INVASION OF PRIVACY!  No.  There is a difference between privacy and anonymity. I am all for privacy, but if an individual causes serious disruption and damage to a forum, blog, wiki, or online game there needs to be some form of accountability.

The reason we have a police force is to ensure that 95% of us can live our lives while the 5% that would seek illicit gain or do harm to us are held accountable when they do.  Police in the real world have the ability to pierce the veil of privacy to discover the identities of perpetrators of crime.  Legal accountability is only possible because we have no real world anonymity.

Let’s look at gaming.  When Halo 2 came out I was ready with my new xbox live subscription.  I was looking forward to playing multi-player online games any time of day with people from all over the world.  Within a few short months it became clear that Halo 2 on xbox live was being ruined by cheaters, modders, hackers, and abusers.  There is nothing more frustrating than playing a serious, ranked match only to have one of your team mates turn on you or start to commit suicide to lower their rank because they are tired of playing challenging games and would prefer lower their rank so they can paWn n00bz.   To their credit xbox live has the ability to track down offenders and get them kicked off the system but nothing prevents these no-goodniks from jumping right back on with a new account.

I understand that the actions of cheaters in an online game does not rise to the level of a risk to life and limb but Net anonymity facilitates real crime too.  People are using Craig’s List to find victims to rob.  Email fraud, phishing, identity theft, sexual harassment, stalking, and worse are now on the rise because anyone can go online with complete anonymity commit crimes with little hope of actual accountability.

If there was a mechanism to map an individual’s online identity to an individual’s real world identity then he or she could be held accountable for his or her actions.  Then the 95% would be able to live, work, and play online safe from the crap thrown at us by the 5%.

Let’s keep identity privacy.  But anonymity should be a privilege that can be lost when laws, or the rules of conduct, are broken.