Satan's Game

Thought I'd not rant about how the health care saga continue to turn into bizarro world, but rather on something that comes from a place rather closer to my heart.

I'm an avid fan of Jerry "Tycho" Holkins and Mike "Gabe" Krahulik and their long-running comic strip Penny Arcade. Today they linked to a story about a man who attempted to kill two friends of his with a hammer. The story describes how the man apparently got into some form of violent rage, and in the article motive was assigned to two things: 1) a Dungeons and Dragons game gone wrong; and 2) a girl. Horrific to be sure, but mundane in a sense -- people kill each other for much, much less. The story is a month old, the original article reporting financial issues as part of the motive. The guy it seems, has a pretty rough life, is a missionary of some sort, which can be hard on people, and it was claimed completely uncharacteristic of him. Pretty standard really.

What seems to have Holkins incredulous is the apparent blaming of the attack on Dungeons and Dragons. The comments section seems to be following (or preceding, I haven't checked the time stamps rigourously) Holkins' lead. Now, the moral panic over Dungeons and Dragons seems to be a particular piece of American history, and something I'm not personally familiar with (apart from this hilarious depiction). But I can't see the implication. The piece explains that motive was established as involving D&D. That's a correlation, certainly, and there are causal elements to it, but it certainly doesn't follow that the implication is that D&D causes people to bash each other in the head with hammers. What does follow is that this particular individual, by a particular game, was lead to do this. He's still culpable, and it doesn't line D&D up for the burning. If you replaced every instance of D&D with "card," we'd have a poker player gone mad. That's not something we'd blame poker on.

What D&D does cop is its status as an involved game. D&D is an involved pursuit. No more than philosophy (recall Popper and Wittgenstein), football, or finance. I can understand the concern at the future construal of D&D as "Satan's game" considering the events of the past, but I don't believe that this article presented that facet. In fact, the comments seem to indicate that the people most concerned about this are D&D players. The rest of the comments were along the lines of "this guy is a crazy person, chill out!" As to the status quo comment response that follows the line: "I play D&D, I haven't brutalised anyone, therefore D&D doesn't make you brutalise people," -- that doesn't follow either. D&D can lead to you brutalising people. It can be a direct causal factor in leading to someone snapping. How do we know? Because this is the motive established. But it is just that - a motive. It doesn't follow that arguments like the one Langton has used on pornography (more specifically, sexualised violence in pornography).

Why is this of so much interest to me? Because in liberal society we seem to suffer this problem. Hell, forget liberal, as people we suffer from this distinction's nuances tripping us up. As it is, most of my thesis revolves around a non-D&D (unfortuantely, it'd be so much fun to write a thesis on the ethics of gaming) version of this. Scientists claim that they haven't exploited or subjugated a population with science, therefore science doesn't cause this. It may not cause in the sense that it alone creates the disposition to subjugate, but it certainly fulffils a causal process. Its parsing this that interests me, because humans are notoriously bad at cause/correlation and necessary/sufficient distinctions, and we get wrapped in them very easy.

Maybe the article is stating that D&D is once again Satan's game. I don't believe so, I believe it is stating that this person had it as a causal contributor to some pretty horrific stuff. I approach it with the same level of interest that I do science, football and philosophy being causal factors in terrible things. But that's the mens rea. That's what it is all about.

Discuss.

EDIT: My apologies, that's a Legal Fail. Motive and Intent are distinct in modern law, with mens rea covering the latter. Carry on.

Oh, PPS, I'm thinking I'll change the drapes on this site soon. The brown is getting to me.

Economic Rationalism And Smoking

In what is perhaps the greatest news story/public policy on the face of the planet, read the following excerpt from an article in today's Age titled Chinese Ordered To Smoke Until They Drop:

LOCAL government officials in China have been ordered to smoke nearly a quarter of a million packets of cigarettes to boost the local economy during the global financial crisis.

The edict, issued by officials in Hubei Province, in central China, threatens to fine officials who "fail to meet their targets" or are caught smoking rival brands manufactured in neighbouring provinces.

Even local schools have been given a smoking quota for teachers, while one village was ordered to buy 400 cartons of cigarettes a year for its officials.

This is part genius and part rational. While the absurd(ist) moron in me is giggling with excitement about this, I find it hard to see how this is very much different from Rudd's cash-splash. Spend, dammit, spend. Don't save, don't invest in the future, spend now. Even if it means putting a shotgun to a child's head and screaming at them to start smoking, (slight exaggeration here), we must support the economy at all costs.

In fact, if you expand this out a little, this is the very argument put forward by the Australian coal lobby et al. that we can't afford to impose hefty carbon debts on high polluting industries. Jobs (as an abstract economic quantifier) are for more important than the health or well being of the people inhabiting those jobs, their families or those in their community. So smoke up, kiddoes, because Jobs are jesus, and the Economy is god.

Rome is burning

For those of you who like to watch the decline of civilizations, I think that we have front row seats to a slightly less sexy Berlin Wall de(con)struction (though with far less immediacy, imagery or baaaadddddd music).

What caffeine fuelled apophenia am I babbling about this fair morn? Well, the call to re-consider the almighty U.S. dollar as the world's key reserve currency.

To paraphrase an advertorial 'its not happening overnight. But it is happening.'

Happy New Year

Well, we're back. I got a bit slack come year's end about blogging, so I'll kick it off with a welcome, and then a shout out to the Obamarama. I found this on Uncertain Principles today: A picture tells 1,000 words.

As the US economy shits itself, we look on in confusion...

I am not an economist. I know nothing of economic theory, and have a five year-old's grasp of economic practice. Yet even a five year-old can see that there is something hideously wrong with the US/World economic system. Some of the big thingies* in the US have encountered troubles - Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac, Fannie May. Now the US federal reserve has bailed out the insurance company American Insurance Group with a loan of US $86 Billion.

It seems that the so called 'sub-prime' crisis is tearing apart the fabric that holds together modern economic theory. Fascinating to watch, unless of course, your house is being repossessed, your job cancelled, or your food is too expensive to buy for eating. No-one, it seems, knows how long this recession will last, what the long term effects may be, or if there even is a recession at all. (In The Doubter's Companion John Raulston Saul argues that the world economies have been in a depression since 1973 (pp 95-99). Coincidentally, the same year that Black Sabbath released Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. But I don't think you can blame them entirely). I am sure that there are a stack of tricksy economic sleight of hand tricks to pull, and like rabbits out of a hat, we will all emerge unscathed and better for the experience.
One idea, that is so simple that it must surely be wrong is put by former US senator in a NY Times article today: “We’ve been consuming more than we’ve been producing. We’ve been spending more than we’ve been earning...It’s been a big holiday.”

Governments in the developed world have followed the mantra of privatisation to the letter, and privatised debt, shifting debt from a public responsibility onto the backs of 'working families'. Now, the US government is throwing money hand over fist to prevent full scale collapse of the US and world economy. For years, free market advocates have been voiciferously opposed to the state interfering in economic matters. Should we now demand that the state remove its hand and let the world economy collapse, or will the invisible hand come to the aid of struggling economists to explain why the system is not working?

As should now be entirely clear, I don't really know what I am talking about, and have no idea of what I want to say. But when US $86 Billion is thrown at something, I wonder what in hell is going on, and could that money be spent elsewhere?


* Again as the use of the technical term 'thingies' shows, I am not an economist. I don't know who these Freddie Mac or Fannie May people are, why they had a fight and are now not talking. And I don't know who let the Stearn Bear into the US stock exchange, causing a Bear-ish market. I think there is some gun related freedoms going on here: as some of you know I fully believe the Second Amendment and the right to arm bears, but maybe not in a crowded stock exchange. But more on that some other time.

Go Blog About It!

As I sit down to a healthy helping of yet another book on the questionable activities of highly funded US Government Agencies, I pause to reflect upon my weekend, and a particular incident comes to mind which I feel could serve as an interesting blog post. Now, I don't like blogging about personal experiences: the whole process seems somewhat self indulgent. So hopefully I'll be able to get past that quickly and on to a broader issue that made me consider this particular scenario.

The self indulgent setup:

So on Saturday, post training, I sauntered over to Commonwealth Park on the shores of lake Burley-Griffin, to partake in the inaugural Canberra Ride of Silence. The Ride of Silence, originally started some years ago in the USA, is to remember the cyclists injured or killed on the roads of this world, and raise awareness about cyclists and our status as road users.

The ride itself was good, but it's not really the foundation of the story. What happened to me after is: I was cycling (funnily enough) home, when I stopped at some traffic lights, because I'm one of those nice, law abiding cyclists. I was in the right lane, as is my right, to turn right, because this particular road had no cycle lanes or shared path. I'm waiting, minding my own business, when a cement mixer (known to others as a Concrete Transport Truck) comes up behind me, and attempts to run me over.

Now, I'm aware that such vehicles are not only on a limited schedule due to the possibility that their load will dry. However, I saw this guy leaving a construction site, so I'm going to say that this wasn't a priority. Next, I'm also aware that these things weigh many, many tons, so their braking is not exactly the same as, let's say, a bicycle. However, I was stopped. At a red light. With traffic flowing quite steadily in the perpendicular street. So this guy is beeping his horn, and I'm forced to hop a median strip into the opposite flow of traffic and get to the sidewalk. The guy flips me the bird (for those who are not familiar with this colloquialism, it is the sign one makes with one's middle finger that indicates your patent disregard for another), then waits at the red light another 15 seconds until he turns right onto London Circuit and moseys off.

Well, I, somewhat irate, head to the local police station, more in the spirit of inquiring whether there is any chance I can get this grade-A [insert favourite profanity here] put into a spaceship and fired into the sun, or at the very least slapped over the wrist. And I'm informed that there is nothing they can do. it'd be my word against his, no witnesses I could rack up, and no property damages. That, and there is no real classification that fits into the "the bastard tried to kill me!" category that he'd fit into. Reckless driving, maybe. And, when all things are considered, the only crime admittedly committed is that I hopped a median strip into the opposite flow of traffic to make my escape. So, that was that. I'm going to ring the company he belonged to (the joys of advertising on the sides of one's trucks), quote his vehicle rego and the time, and demand that they utilise one of their own spacecraft to launch him into the sun, or at least the unemployment line.

The somewhat less self indulgent point:
It would appear to me that an immoral act was committed. This particular verminous piece of automobile driver put not only mine, but potentially others lives in danger. ¹ If I had been a car driver, I would have been a) crushed, or b) forced into the perpendicular stream of traffic which, contrary to normal Canberra traffic, was actually rather busy. However, because I had the good sense to save myself, there is no legal recourse for the sheer venom with which this human approached me. Now, I'm not particularly worried about such things for my own person (shot-into-the-sun aside), but it intrigues me that this man had no way of knowing the quality of my bicycle riding skills. So his malice was directed at me either with no concern as to my status as any type of human being, or directly as my status as a person on a bicycle. Both unsettle me.

So pose this question, because I have no ideas of my own: what type of justice is there for those with no legal recourse for an evidently immoral act committed against them? Is it enough that they know? What in the case of someone who obviously takes a disinterest in your continued living? How does one explain this apparent discrepancy between someone in my society trying to off me and my societies inability to a) protect me or b) prevent this from happening again/to someone else?



1 - On reflection, the ultimate tactical decision on my part would have been to hop the median strip myself, and leave my bike to be run over, demand compensation and get that fixie I've been wanting. But I am somewhat attached to my current bike, both in the quasi-romantic sense and in the quite literal sense, in that I use high-tension clipless pedals. Regardless, I'm not willing to get myself killed just on principle, either to score a new bike or to demonstrate this man's error.