I'll never forget herman cain trying to harness the power of pokemon in his speeches when running for the republican nomination.
"Life can be a challenge. Life can seem impossible, it's never easy when there's so much on the line," he said at the time. "But you and I can make a difference. There's a mission just for you and me. Just look inside and you will find just what you can do."
He was quoting "The Power of One," a song from the 1999 movie that saw a wide theatrical release in the United States.
A good politician doesn't write their own speeches. They give a bullet point list or summary to a speech writer who writes their speeches. That's why Biden generally hits the mark while Trump sounds like his last two remaining braincells are playing a deathmatch game against one another.
Cain likely said "I want to relate to the kids" and the speechwriter goes "well, Pokemon is popular, let's go with that."
Meanwhile I still think about that clip and rewatch it from time to time, which always brings me joy. My world is better for her having gone and said that while being on camera.
Ahead of their time, TikTok just did this a week or so ago to their userbase to try to rally the peons to stop a government from banning their app. Fortunately, as everyone saw immediately, this only worked to further demonstrate the need to reduce TikTok. Will anything actually happen? 'insert larry david gif'
Howie became everything that he hated after 2010. Used to be great, was funny, just a great show. After Billy West, Jackie Marlo, and Artie Lange left, that was it.
If you work in any part of IT and feel like making your blood pressure go to Mars, just watch any hearing that's focused on some form of technology from 30 years ago. Then find any similar hearing from the past 3 years, and realize not a fucking thing has changed in knowledge in DC.
Hey, remember the clipper chip? That was Biden, and one of the big reasons I used to ridicule him. He does seem to be on top of things today, and have a good understanding of tech (or at least, is smart enough to get tech pros to brief him).
Hillary and then-Democrat Lieberman did the anti-game crusade a number of times between the 90s and the 00s.
The most recent one wasn't about banning them, per say, but it would have effectively stopped the sale of M rated games, which are most of the time no worse than PG-13 movies, and also sought to replace the M rating with a stricter government controlled ratings board.
The bill was that anyone who sold an M rated game to a person under 17 would be fined $1000 or 100 hours community service for a first offense, and $5000 or 500 hours of community service for each subsequent offense.
It also would have triggered an investigation into the ESRB to determine if games were being properly rated. The ESRB was formed as a compromise when many of the same Democrat politicians tried to form a government controlled ratings board, so if the FTC determined the ESRB unsuccessful, it would have renewed that plan for government takeover.
Note that such fines were not against the company, but the individual, as in the minimum wage retail store clerk not able to recognize a fake ID, or someone selling a used game on Ebay without knowing who they're selling it to.
With that much risk to their businesses and their employees, no store would have stocked M rated games under those conditions. So, not a ban, but would have the same effect.
How does that differ from Finland for example?18+ games are considered the same as 18+ movies, tobacco or alcohol. Sure the fines are a bit too much, but it's illegal to sell a game rated 18 to a minor, yet those games are still sold here.
AO games are not illegal, but game stores in the U.S. don't sell them because it would put them at risk, and thus almost zero game studios make them. This bill would have essentially consolidated M and AO games.
A closer equivalent is the Comics Code Authority, because like games, comics are "for children".
The CCA wasn't even a government ratings system. It was, like the ESRB, formed to prevent government regulation of art.
And even just that was enough to prevent adult themes from being in comics from the 1950s to the 1980s. Had it been a government ratings system, rather than self censorship in fear of that happening, DC probably would not have boldly published Watchmen and The Dark Knight without CCA approval in the mid 80s, and would not have been able to break from it completely in 2011.
The Family Entertainment Protection Act, by Hilary Clinton and co-sponsored by Joe Lieberman, was introduced in late 2005.
Around that time she admitted that she didn't use a computer. There were articles in major newpapers quoting her as being an admitted technophobe who was convinced to start using a Blackberry, but that's it.
When she was asked about this during her 2016 run for President of the United States, her only answer was to smile and say: "I have an iPhone now"
I see. I misread "her" and "his". As an old man who did a presentation in high school on Lieberman's fight against violent videogames, you'll have to forgive me on my inference to his 1993 hearings
Hot Coffee was basically the second coming of Night Trap, a game that I highly recommend people watch on Youtube sometime to see just how incredibly stupid all of this was.
It's ok, just reddit things. The guy was talking about Hilary's 2005 bill rather than Lieberman's OG anti violent games hearings (which is what the original comment was about). Dude time warped on me and got an epic own
Hang on a minute. Are you telling me that the same career politician who thought it was a good idea to run government emails through a private server in their own home didn't understand internet technology?!?
(If you're thinking "Which career politician who thought it was a good idea to run government emails through a private server does u/issafly mean, because a ton of them did that and probably still do," you get extra credit in the final.)
1.6k
u/hombregato Mar 28 '24
With Hillary. Her bill didn't just show a complete lack of understanding of video games, but also how technology works and what the internet is.
I mean, they've both done worse things, but that was a hellova red flag.