Does Romney Own Your Vote?

[peristaltor]

I don't ask this as a hypothetical. You see, a company owned by the Romney family may own the machine on which you cast your ballot:

Through a closely held equity fund called Solamere, Mitt Romney and his wife, son and brother are major investors in an investment firm called H.I.G. Capital. H.I.G. in turn holds a majority share and three out of

Comments

[fizzyland]

And if you are a shitty person you may not care, keep smiling and hope things go your way. Lately I've been reading about player behavior in MMO's like WoW and it's amazing not only the crappy things people pull but the way online posters will jump in to defend appalling behavior.

[a_new_machine]

It's a game, dude. And if you want REALLY shitty behavior, you've gotta go for EVE Online (made by, as I'm sure some here will point out, Icelandic vikings),

[the_rukh]

Seriously, you read some of the things people applaud. Years of work destroyed because someone slipped up and somebody thought it would be funny. Apparently that is virtuous.

[fizzyland]

I get that games are environments where anonymity makes for easy dissociation but like the story about that violentacrez guy on reddit being outed in rl, how we behave when we feel complete safety and anonymity is telling about character.

[ddstory]

Some people get so immersed into fictional reality that they extrapolate their relationships IRL, and start persecuting people for real - like stalking them, even threatening them and their families. I've seen this, and it ain't pretty. It reveals some psychotic shortcomings on part of the perpetrator, and the sad thing is, often people condone it and say "But that guy deserved it, because he was a total asshole on the Internet".

[a_new_machine]

VA was a dick to actual people, with their actual lives. WoW/EVE players are dicks to some pixels in ways that are allowed by the game you've chosen to play. Not at all comparable.

[telemann]

Yep.

Character is who you are when you think no one is looking.

[ddstory]

You guys will realize one day that we Icelanders are to blame for all the illnesses of this world! But it shall be too late!

[yes_justice]

https://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/commentisfree/2012/sep/26/day-confronted-troll

[yes_justice]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/26/day-confronted-troll

[kylinrouge]

The corruption of the playful word troll to mean 'asshole' is one of the greatest tragedies of the internet.

[htpcl]

^ DQ!

[thedinglestarry]

Yeah, I used to apply to myself, because I like mischief, of the playful, silly, non-being-a-bigot-or-hurting-people kind. It has much darker, grosser, more disturbing implications now.

[rimpala]

Kind of why I stuck to Team Fortress 2 for a while.

Or is running around like an idiot, beating people to death with a fish appalling?

[fizzyland]

I find it acceptable.

[peristaltor]

Depends upon the fish.