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As I'm sure some of you have already seen this, lets repeat for good measure.

 

Stand Together: The Gaming Community vs. SOPA and PIPA

 

Basically, for those without the time to watch a short video clip, the best offense to ESA's support of SOPA is to completely ignore E3 this year. Anyone who had planned on providing coverage or attending is being strongly urged to refrain as a counter measure to ESA. For once, I firmly believe this will work. E3 is hands down the largest gaming event of the year, but if we turn a blind eye to it, it will make an impact.

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I've seen the suggestion of not supporting E3 thrown about before but it's kinda like asking all the sites to just not fund themselves for this year. E3 is a massive event, lots of money, lots of traffic, etc etc. It's a bit like the Xmas bonus at work, or asking retailers to not do Black Friday. Yes it gives a big F-U to ESA, but 1. IGN n co are still going to cover it (and take your traffic with it), 2. It's a bigger F-U to the sites income than ESAs.

 

Also it's a bit dodgy that it's Extra Credits, running on Penny Arcade site, that run the bi-annual Penny Arcade Expo that are suggesting to not attend and/or cover the Electronic Entrainment Expo. I see no conflict of interest at all. No siree.

 

edit: Also IGN is fucking owned by News Corp. Course they're not going to protest SOPA.

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http://www.mpaa.org/resources/c4c3712a-7b9f-4be8-bd70-25527d5dfad8.pdf

 

“Only days after the White House and chief sponsors of the legislation responded to the major

concern expressed by opponents and then called for all parties to work cooperatively together, some

technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their

corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem that all now seem to

agree is very real and damaging.

It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and use

their services. It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the

marketplace today. It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as

gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their

corporate interests.

A so-called “blackout” is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected

and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign

criminals. It is our hope that the White House and the Congress will call on those who intend to

stage this “blackout” to stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to

combat piracy

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In case anyone thought the blackouts were pointless...

 

394784_316866508358583_127295683982334_984264_823572433_n.jpg

 

EDIT: And Dean, I can respect your opinion, but to suggest Extra Credits is pushing some kind of Penny Arcade agena is a bit too cynical. Take in note that "Stand Together" was more so spearheaded by ScrewAttack, I don't see this being a "make PAX bigger" scheme. Hell, the only reason why Extra Credits is on PATV is because of the fiasco with The Escapist, but even now Extra Credits has its own site, but are obligated to run episodes until an alotted time through Penny Arcade.

 

Besides, I think James has more important prospects to attend to then please Penny Arcade. Just yesterday it was announced James would be heading to Washington to help with ECA in fighting SOPA.

Edited by Atomsk88
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  • 2 weeks later...

http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/gingrichs-space-colony-may-run-afoul-of-internati

Gingrich's batshit plan to colonize the moon for America is also illegal. Just goes to show that spouting nonsense off before research is a bad, bad idea. If he were president, who knows what he may try to pass without taking into account the laws we have in place?

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http://www.buzzfeed....ul-of-internati

Gingrich's batshit plan to colonize the moon for America is also illegal. Just goes to show that spouting nonsense off before research is a bad, bad idea. If he were president, who knows what he may try to pass without taking into account the laws we have in place?

 

It's against treaties, but if we're being serious here, if we ever REALLY get into space colonization those treaties are going to change. It's going to be a massive land grab, because that's the whole POINT of going other places- because we're running out of space here. I am not by ANY stretch of the imagination a Gingrich fan, but I'm sure he realizes it's against current treaties, and probably considers changing that part of the plan.

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Passing a new law that goes against old law changes the old law.

 

Treaties =/= laws

 

In the US it does. Treaties here have the same legal force as statutory law, which means if Congress passes a new statute counter to an old treaty the new statute wins. Also most of the time treaties aren't considered self-executing in US law, which means that us signing a treaty has no effect unless Congress then passes a law giving effect to it. There are some exceptions, like a treaty saying we'll withdraw troops from such-and-such a place, because the president can do that unilaterally without needing Congress to pass a law.

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we're supposed to cater to the grand majority not the minimum.

 

From the Mass Effect thread. Not to pick on WaS, cause I know I'm taking this comment completely out of context, but it just made me think of the attitude that I think is a huge problem in American politics; people act like the majority should be catered to at the expense of all others. Tyranny by majority is still tyranny, and the whole reason we have things like the first amendment is to protect the minority from the majority. Just because most people like one thing doesn't mean we should force it down the throats of everyone else.

 

Again, specific comment taken entirely out of context, so don't take this as me attacking you WaS.

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we're supposed to cater to the grand majority not the minimum.

 

From the Mass Effect thread. Not to pick on WaS, cause I know I'm taking this comment completely out of context, but it just made me think of the attitude that I think is a huge problem in American politics; people act like the majority should be catered to at the expense of all others. Tyranny by majority is still tyranny, and the whole reason we have things like the first amendment is to protect the minority from the majority. Just because most people like one thing doesn't mean we should force it down the throats of everyone else.

 

Again, specific comment taken entirely out of context, so don't take this as me attacking you WaS.

 

Yeah, the fact that the founding fathers wanted to protect people from an "excess of democracy" was one of the more brilliant parts of the constitution. Now what was it about the rich paying "their fair share"?

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That depends on how you define fair share. I would assume that at least everyone can agree that the rich should not pay less than everyone else, but Mitt Romney makes $20M per year and has an effective tax rate of 14%, which is less than what I pay and I only make $40k.

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Yeah, the fact that the founding fathers wanted to protect people from an "excess of democracy" was one of the more brilliant parts of the constitution. Now what was it about the rich paying "their fair share"?

 

The thing about paying "their fair share" is such an idiotic approach in politics. Class Warfare is really the lowest common denominator and does nothing but feed the sin of Envy. It does absolutely NOTHING to solve the problem except make people equally miserable. It's much better to foster an environment where jobs are numerous and the economy is booming. Instead of having that so-called laser-like focus on jobs, we've just heard that it's "the rich people's fault." Seriously, the State of the Union was more like something from Huey Long than Washington, Jefferson or Lincoln.

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That depends on how you define fair share. I would assume that at least everyone can agree that the rich should not pay less than everyone else, but Mitt Romney makes $20M per year and has an effective tax rate of 14%, which is less than what I pay and I only make $40k.

 

I think capital gains and the highest income rate should be capped at 15%. Problem solved! :)

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Problem not solved, I pay 20%. He'd still be paying less than me. :P

 

Unless you mean that you cap the highest rate at 15% and have the lower income rates even lower than that.

 

*Edit* - though that 20% is including state income tax, which obviously is going to vary from state to state. Not sure what my federal rate is.

Edited by TheMightyEthan
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I'm a big proponent of the flat tax. I say tax everyone (whether capital gains, income or what have you) at a certain rate and exclude say those making 20K or less. H&R Block might not like the idea but it'd be nice to not spend hours and hours doing my taxes (seriously, getting married and living in one state and working in another leads to piles and piles of paperwork)

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