Fallout | Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be

This article is not for the faint of heart. This is not for the people who think that life is all sunny and joy. So if you are any of these people, then read not on and return when my next story comes online.

You see, in my mental world I am about to pick up an axe, I sneak upon the man who has no idea what is about to happen. I sneak, slowly into the den, the door was open this warm September and he likely hoped for the breeze to cool him down. Suddenly he feel one hot gush of water over his chest, he looks down, it is not water. It is the hot blood gushing from his skull, the blood that rains is his, he cannot shout out, blood is everywhere, he falls on the rug with a ‘thump’, he is no more! I hear the voice from the kitchen ‘what was that dear! Are you alright?‘ I hear the footsteps, she is not walking fast. I move to the left into the shadows, I see her silhouette, she seems to see the blood and that what was left of her husband. I had already placed the hunting knife in my left hand; it slices through her throat in less than a second. She goes down on her knees, looking at me, not having any idea why she is getting hurt. She had died before her head hit the ground.

I get the knife and the axe and roll them in linen. I grab the bottle from the bag and place the knife and the axe within the canvas bag with linen coating. I add ammonia to mask the scent of the blood, in case a police dog gets near. I look at my feet; they are covered in lamb coated overshoes. My overall is thin but sturdy. I take out the billy club. I slowly walk to the staircase; I hear the sounds of gunfire from a video game. I sneak up slowly and see that the door of the room is ajar. A boy sites with his back to me, it is time to put on my ski mask. I slowly sneak in and observe the equipment and I hit him hard to the side of the head and quickly turn the sound up by a lot. Not hard enough to kill him, that is not my goal. He is reeling at the edge of losing consciousness; I slap his face hard with an open hand. The leather glove makes the sound more intense. I pull him up and hit him in the gut with enough strength; he buckles over gasping for air. He looks up in sheer terror. I gag him with duct tape and cuff his wrists at the back, I drag him downstairs.

I place the cable ties on his thumbs and index fingers as close to the Opponens Pollicis as possible. He looks at the bodies of his parents, he is now truly afraid. I look at him and say “Zoe Quinn and Phil Fish did not care for your harassment!” I put the mask on his face; the nails will slowly but not fatally bite into his face. Last I tighten cable ties as much as possible. Within the hour, amputation will be the only option left to him. His life will never ever be about gaming of harassing again! I walk away with the bag in my hand, not giving the little troll a second look. Within the hour all evidence that I ever existed will be gone, so will I and he will only know fear until his dying day!

This is just a story! This is nothing more than a rant of frustration, dressed in the cloth of a short story, dealing with my frustration like Percy Bysshe Shelley, Stephen King or Virginia Woolf. Although I tend to take the high road, this time it is Slate who has the high moral ground (at http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/08/zoe_quinn_harassment_a_letter_to_a_young_male_gamer.html), it is an excellent article by David Auerbach about more than just a gaming scandal. I am all about gaming; I have always been all about gaming. The fact that more and more women are entering this field is filling me with joy. Yes, for now this market is all about the man, but consider that over time, we have seen women leading in artistic fields. We have given our souls to Diablo, Minecraft, Oblivion, Fallout and a league of other games. Would it not be great if we get another wave of amazing games? For now Tombraider has sold itself short. The game is nowhere near the first two which broke the mould of good gaming. We saw the rise and fall of Origin, Rare and several others, all bringing us great games. Now women come and I hope we see a host of amazing games to follow. So when I see such hate and harassment from men (99.4233% sure that the harassers are not women) it just pisses me off. The fact that these people are not hunted into extinction gets to me to some degree. I did not get the hate people showed because Caroline Criado-Perez successfully championed for Jane Austen to be the new figure on the ten pound note. For the same reason I do not get the fact that Zoe Quinn is persecuted either. The idea to bring the awareness of depression is a great idea; I wish I had thought of it. It had several review, our own Tim Biggs of the Sydney Morning Herald wrote “Tim Biggs, writing for the Sydney Morning Herald, also stressed the lack of fun in the game, and went on to say that the game was ‘a testing and, at times, a boring experience to go through.’ However, he praised the game’s execution, and acknowledged its importance as a tool for raising awareness of depression and for helping its sufferers“.

OK, not the greatest review for a game, but who remembers Superman for the Nintendo 64? I still consider it the very worst game I ever beheld for reviewing!

So, why is there such an overwhelming hate for these women. This all was brought to light because someone speaking out for them (Phil Fish). I did not play his game either, but the movies and the views give an interesting and original game play. So, it does not look like anything Ubi-Soft releases, but consider that ‘their’ Prince of Persia released in the 80’s (Broderbund released it) had no great graphics either, now it is a billion dollar company, we all have to start small.

So what about Zoe Quinn?

Well, the accusation is that she slept with a reporter to get a better review, but that is not entirely correct either. She got harassed shortly after the release and before her ‘ex-boyfriend’ made his claims. So what is it about this particular group of losers who feel so threatened about women in the gaming industry? They must be losers, because if they were not, then they would have their own brands of success, but that seems not to be the case. I think that if anonymous is the idealist it claims to be, then they would stand up for these women and publish the names and addresses of all of these bullies, you see, trolling is all fine, as long as we all know who you are, they become liable. It should stop two issues with one group all at once. But are the allegations true? Actually, does that matter? Perhaps a journalist got ‘lucky’, perhaps not. The real question is, is it a good game?

Yet, the issue does matter, you see, her ex, who is ‘hiding’ on his blog and accuses her of acts. Hiding the fact that the relationship was a bust and she did not stand still, she created something! Motherboard quotes “he accuses Quinn of sleeping with various prominent figures in the video game industry, including a writer at Kotaku“, so basically she knew a few guys, is that criminal? the information motherboard gave (at http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/zoe-quinn-slut-shaming-the-feminist-conspiracy-and-depression-quest) “Gamers have been complaining about corruption in video game journalism for years now” is not new, look at Gamespot and the massive amount of additional visibility that Ubi-Soft enjoys as a sponsor should raise more than just a few flags. But how far does this corruption go? And it is alleged corruption, the question remains, is it really corruption? I started reviewing games in 1988. I got the games, I wrote the articles and I got paid for the published articles. In addition I got to keep the games. I had to pay for the consoles myself (except for 2) and the chief editor kept the Atari Lynx for himself, an act which was slightly irritating, but not the greatest of issues. I went to the ECTS (the UK edition of the E3) a few times, which I paid for myself and deducted it from my taxes. So where is the corruption? I gave an honest review of the game and sometimes if the game was bad I did not bother writing a review for the simple reason that I only got up to 5 pages per issue, why spend it on a bad game, whilst a good game is so much more fun to review. I also tried to steer away from the ‘big titles’ at times; I did not jump onto Command & Conquer in 1995, like everyone else but choose Wing Commander 4, Tekken 2 and Rayman instead. My ex hated Rayman (the end of level laughter), I never regretted my decision. Everyone wrote about Command & Conquer, I showed them different games. The question still remains, why hate Quinn?

Is it because her ex-boyfriend turned out to be a loser? let’s be clear about this, if he was in a relationship and she did cheat on him, he should be angry and walk away, I do not care, it is her life and her choice and if so he is free to walk away and perhaps be angry for a little while, yet he is the only one with the smallest degree to be angry, the other hundreds have absolutely no valid cause for such trolling and harassing behaviour. Consider that we start trolling all the cheaters, the man too! Spam mail would drop to 0%, there would be no bandwidth left for spam mails, which might be a new novel idea to get rid of spam messages.

This is all so stupid, because in the end, the real gamers want to know if the game is any good. In her case, does it matter? Her game was to bring forward awareness of depression, if that works, what could be better? Even if the game is not the greatest one, it is likely to be a whole lot better than Superman on the Nintendo 64. In the end, I hope groups like Anonymous actually do something to help these victims instead of some political agenda, I wonder how ‘loud’ the troll feels when everyone in the street knows their name and where they live, more even if their mommies and daddies realise what losers they are. It is an interesting form of justice!

To some degree I miss reviewing games, I have seen so many classics be born and evolve. I saw underdogs like Broderbund rise and fall, I’ve seen how new generations love the originality of Loderunner, as much as I did when it got released on the CBM-64 and I saw the giant Elite, move from system to system, only to see the concept evolve into Privateer. Later we see part of the original game on tables and PDA’s, now Elite is back in a state of the art version that is to be released this year, still showing the original logo that was on the box of the CBM-64. Yet, the sandbox part, the travels and another side of the foundations of Elite will be seen in 2015, as we explore the galaxy in ‘No Man’s Sky’, in ways the original designer could never imagine (he only had 48Kb to write the program). As my life is drawing closer to an end, I see that timeless games will continue, bringing joy to a new generation and to generations after that, after I am gone. If the world for us as gamers is to move forward then this cannot be only about the man, women should pick up this torch and bring new options and new levels of gaming. In the end it will be a win-win for all gamers.

When we look at long term playing we have seen the big titles, and we all have other thoughts on what makes the great game, but there is also unison, it seems that the bulk all loves Diablo, even since the original release in 1996, it still keeps us busy. Would it not be great if we see new and more surprising games from female developers? Let’s not forget that one of the most famous developers in the early years for gamers was Roberta Williams, co-founder of Sierra-on-line. The bringer of King’s Quest, as early as 1984, a woman was in our gaming midst and she was as good as any of the male developers, letting these trolls win means that we gamers of all genders are missing out, do not let it come to that!

An interesting thought isn’t it? It was CNN that gave me the idea in the first place. It all started with the article on the upcoming Argentinian default (at http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/25/investing/argentina-default/index.html). I have skin in the game here. Part of my family comes from there, which is why it caught my eyes in the first place. This is not the first time that Argentina has been in such a problematic state. The last time was in the late 90’s when it faced the great depression.

So, why is this event such a big deal?

Let us not forget that apart from soccer, many regard Argentina, no matter how beautiful it is, as a third world nation. So why is it allowed on the International Capital markets in the first place?
That was not an offensive question, but I need to ask it so that I can answer the questions many of us have in the first place. Argentina is in second place when it comes down to South American GDP, after Brazil (who is in first place by a massive margin), it is followed by Colombia and Argentina has a GDP that is 50% better than the nation holding position three, Colombia. So, within the ‘third world’ Argentina is pretty high up there. The second fact is that Argentina has the 21st position in regards to GDP, so this gives a massive view to how big its economy is. So why is it about to default on a 1.5 billion bond?

Well, Argentina is playing hard ball, a statement that seemed weird, because in the light of Argentina it seemed like worrying about a shave on route to the guillotine (a fake fear many former French Aristocats had, pun intended).

My first thought was the ‘worry’ why the IMF was not speaking out on all this. It seems so outspoken on a little place like Cyprus (no insult intended), yet is remains silent on an economy a hundred times larger?
What gives?

Well, my faithful old Yahoo had a nice part on this (at https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/impact-argentine-default-100849473.html).
I particularly liked the following quotes: “The IMF proposed an international debt restructuring mechanism in 2003 but the plan was abandoned under pressure from the United States, the institution’s largest stakeholder, and the major emerging-market economies“, so the USA needed to keep Argentina as a cash cow or what?

The second one was “Under a US court order, Argentina has until Wednesday to either pay hedge funds demanding full payment on of its bad debts — or face a default that could have serious economic consequences“. So is this another USA hedge fund game?

If we consider the generic statement “Hedge funds are made available only to certain sophisticated or accredited investors and cannot be offered or sold to the general public. As such, they generally avoid direct regulatory oversight, bypass licensing requirements applicable to investment companies, and operate with greater flexibility than mutual funds and other investment funds“, we see the fear that governments are financially no longer run by governments but by those holding the credit bill behind the scenes.

This gives us a lot more fear then we should have to deal with and as such, it seems that democracy is no longer in the hands of the people, but in the hands of those managing the hedge funds. As such, did US District Judge Thomas Griesa buckle under internal pressures or is there something else in play? We should ask this question as we see that the response we see (at http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/us-judge-orders-argentina-and-bondholders-to-agree-deal-1.1875547), which is quotes as “Jonathan Blackman, a lawyer for Argentina said even with around-the-clock talks ‘it would be unlikely, if not impossible, to result in settlement. It simply can’t be done by the end of the month’ he said“

This feels like a game played with millions of households on the butcher’s counter, with the meat cleaver already raised up high. There is not enough information in these sources to clearly state how the game was played up to now, or the involved players behaved and how the international justice courts (not just the US) as such have been behaving on the given facts. The fact that the IMF has warned that an Argentine economic default could not only hurt the country’s economy, but also the global financial system is another fact in the entire game as this is currently playing out. What is FACT, is that we have seen hedge funds cash in at the expense of close to a billion people, they played a game that made them wealthy and left the rest in destitution, yet now we see more and more that these players are implied not to be held to rules of oversight and it can bypass licensing in apparently too many flexible ways. Yet, it must also be clear that Argentina is not blameless in this game either.

Not unlike the USA, when we compare debt to GDP (governments seem to love that comparison) USA is currently set to 101.45%, whilst Argentina is only at 45.6%, which implies that Argentina has an economy twice as solid as the US has (a false statistic, I know!). So when we play the numbers game, this default, or even to allow for this event to occur seems massively stupid in my books. The question becomes why Argentina is continuing to play such a level of hardball, the debts will not go away, Argentina would lose its place as a G20 member and beyond that the foundations of the Argentinian economy will be shaking for a long time to come, opening additional doors for investors to bail out of Argentina, take the first row boat across the Rio de La Plata and set up shop there. This in the end will be a massively good thing to Uruguay and the economy of Montevideo for the next 10 years.

So, how is this all affecting democracy?

In my view if we want to remain true democracies, then it is time to regulate Hedge Funds and their managers. It will require a level of oversight that is beyond reasonable, as the economic fall of the USA in 2008 has proven to require. In that regards the term ‘Vulture funds‘ seem very appropriate. The US and in particular its FBI are all about hunting down Loan Sharks, whilst at the same time they ignore a 2.4 trillion dollar market right under their noses.

Yet, in all this Argentina is not without blame either. Someone approved these debts. If we accept, no matter how repulsive that these funds, referred to the behaviour of vulture birds “preying” on debtors in financial distress by purchasing the now-cheap credit on a secondary market to make a large monetary gain, is as such opening a market, which is high risk and also at time high yielding, then we must accept that Argentina stepped, willingly or not, into a field with their eyes wide open, as such they largely have themselves to blame.

If these are matters of fact then we see the acts on both sides of the isle to allow and even mandatory pursue the need for a change to the democratic standards we see in monarchies and republics. If you wonder why I made the reference to the Guillotine, than consider the History of France, its bankers and the change as it brought order through Napoleon Bonaparte. The statement ‘War never changes‘ seems highly appropriate here, it is a quote from a Videogame, yet the truth behind it is as solid as the writings of ‘von Clausewitz’ and ‘Sun Tzu’. The question remains in these economic wars, who are the warring parties and who are the people behind the screens. You can be certain that those names are not the names of any elected official. Does that not change the premise of both economic war and democracy?

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