WoW players unfit to take a role in office

momgamer wrote:

And I'm sure if you recorded her opponent's conversations with his buddies on the golf course or on a hunting trip with the guys you would find nothing but the most uplifting of commentary. She was on a message board, discussing her favorite game with other players.

For that matter, how much of the finger->butt commentary around here looks good, taken out of context? It wasn't meant to be part of her professional life, any more than our comments here are meant to be part of ours. Though, for the record, my immediate boss and all my children lurk here at least occasionally, I know several long-time posters in both a professional and church capacity, and our company president is a fan and sometimes give me input on my articles. I have to be good. (I'm not all that interested in not being anyways)

And dinging her for being on game websites during working hours with a post on this website is a delicious irony to me.

I do have some concerns. Not about her, per se. She and I aren't on the same political wavelength anyways. But in the bigger picture this whole thing stinks.

Yes, this whole thing is a horrible indictment of social media culture - people had better start taking a long, hard look at the legacy they've left themselves online. Especially in the next 10 years when the MySpace and Youtube-happy millennials start getting old enough to run for office. You only have to be 35 to run for Congress, and I'd actually like to see more of the younger generation up on the Hill. And I don't care if they play Farmville.

I hope it's a strong wakeup call for anyone who thinks real name authentication would actually solve any problems in our online world. What little gains it would give are vastly outweighed by the damage that interested parties can cause others, and as of right now there is no way to effectively rebut or fight back.

Well, first off I dont post to forums at work. I'm not saying that I'm perfect but one of the first things I learned in the military is that as a public servant you can never let anyone think you're slacking on the taxpayer dime. If a business owner decides to take a FarmVille break that's his/her prerogative, but a public employee is held to a different standard because their job is funded by the public. I know it's a double standard but it's one that any serious political candidate should be aware of. Which of course also speaks to her naïveté about posting things that she thought wouldn't get traced back to her. I'm sure there are some nasty conversations on the golf course, but it's almost impossible to nail politicians for what they say behind closed doors unless you're illegally taping them. It's much easier to nail someone for what they say on a public website.

So my concerns if I were in her district wouldn't be that she's a gamer, but rather that she's making some major rookie mistakes and doesn't seem to have a knack for diplomacy or self-censoring. Btw it's these same kind of mistakes that are absolutely sinking Romney at the national level.

I do agree with you about the problems with real ID. If you want to be really paranoid, Dan Carlin pointed out that our digital records make it extremely easy for the government to discredit any future populist who threatens the status quo. All they need to do is dig up your records and release whatever extremely embarrassing tidbit they can find - what adult purchases you've made, whatever drugs you've talked about using in the past, etc.

momgamer wrote:

For that matter, how much of the finger->butt commentary around here looks good, taken out of context?

Maine voters deserve a candidate who does not fantasize about anally violating people with their fingers.

Yonder wrote:
momgamer wrote:

For that matter, how much of the finger->butt commentary around here looks good, taken out of context?

Maine voters deserve a candidate who does not fantasize about anally violating people with their fingers.

Maine voters deserve a candidate who won't make weapons of mass destruction out of hot dogs. IMAGE(http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/sites/all/themes/gwj/images/ranks/goldweinerbomb.gif)

When I see this story, I can't help but think that gamers want to get worked up about this, but just can't. Life's too short.

Yonder wrote:
momgamer wrote:

For that matter, how much of the finger->butt commentary around here looks good, taken out of context?

Maine voters deserve a candidate who does not fantasize about anally violating people with their fingers.

Vote for me anyway, Maine!

Grubber788 wrote:

When I see this story, I can't help but think that gamers want to get worked up about this, but just can't. Life's too short.

Honestly, we'd have to know more about the race before this would become a major issue. For example, is Colleen's opponent a tax cheat, adulterer, crazy gun nut, suspected in some major scandal, etc? If so, it's the height of hypocricy to call her out for being an avid gamer when her opponent is much, much worse. However, I went to her wiki page and clicked on the profile of her challenger. Seems like the incumbent is the run-of-the-mill former construction business owner turned politician with no history of scandals (if there were, I'm guessing they'd be on his wiki page). So unfortunately, this is probably a case of the Republicans trying to portray their guy as the normal all American and Colleen as the alternative lifestyle weirdo. I do hope it backfires because in 2012 I was hoping we were past the whole "gamers live in the subculture basement" stuff. But it may play very well in a rural or upper middle class suburban district.

Rural, yes. Upper middle class people unfamiliar with gaming? Riiiight...

Robear wrote:

Rural, yes. Upper middle class people unfamiliar with gaming? Riiiight... :-)

Let me clarify. Rural folks (especially the older generation) may very well fall for the "acting out her true violent nature in a digital world" BS. While the upper middle class suburbanites will likely know what WOW is, they may very well see it as a total waste of time that you should grow out of by the time you're 12. Most of my in-laws are upper middle class and I live in a pretty nice suburban neighborhood. From my observations, the upper middle class are OBSESSED with productivity and appearing to always be busy. Everyone brags about how they put in 12-hour days but still find time to drag Susie to Chinese ballet and Johnny to kinderkwando. If you have time for hobbies at all, you're supposed to be involved in "productive" hobbies like gardening or golf. Somebody who puts in 20 hours a week in WOW is going to look like an immature slacker to them.

...But I'd bet by now most of them are well familiar with Farmville, WoW and the like, and I have seen that (at least in tech savvy areas) gaming has become an acceptable recreation in the middle class. It's regarded here as about the same as going to the movies, or playing a team sport with friends (Frisbee, pickup basketball, etc). So I'd argue that a change is occurring, putting gaming into the category of "hobby" versus "waste of time". Tellingly, it's been acceptable for the last few years to discuss gaming at work (large international software/hardware firm); most people aren't surprised to hear the occasional discussion around the office, and I've had customers raise it as a topic to kill time in meetings.

Not that that will occur everywhere all at once, but *someone* out there is buying a hell of a lot of games, and it's not all spoiled kids and immature adults.

I'd say we're about halfway to being mainstream. It's less nerdy than it was 15-20 years ago, but I would still get funny looks from a lot of men and women if I started talking about WoW in the stands at my son's football games. I'm one of the rare parents in my suburb that plays a lot of games.

There are more of us out there than they used to be, and it's no longer quite so weird as it was. But it's not something I bring up outside of a circle of people I know to be interested in the same thing.

momgamer wrote:

For that matter, how much of the finger->butt commentary around here looks good, taken out of context?

Shalalm. Baskur.

My view is probably skewed by being in the tech industry. It's well-advanced there. But with the generation of kids hitting college now? Gaming is a HUGE social activity. Won't be long till they are re-shaping perceptions.

Well it looks like she won which honestly surprised me:
http://www.onlinesentinel.com/news/L...

I may not agree with many of her policies, but it's nice to see gaming being not a big deal socially anymore.

NERF DEMOCRATS

Malor wrote:

NERF DEMOCRATS

Hard to do when the mods are democrats. its like if all of the developers of wow played alliance and the general player base wanted to nerf Alterec Valley. (exaggerating of course.)

side note, its been years since I've played wow. does alliance still dominate AV?

Jared Polis, the League of Legends playing congressman from CO was also re-elected