Politicaleye

I wanted to leave you with some type of substantial post before I ran off to record The Six Day Exile. This post boils down to “I will not be voting for Hillary Clinton in the presidential election should she win the Democratic nomination.” Now, part of this is my political upbringing, which in summary is “Born and raised Republican; registered Independent after realizing that Republicans and Democrats, as a whole, are merely two separate branches on the same Tree of Evil.” Part of it is her stance on violent anything, best summarized in this speech. And the rest is really what this speech represents, which is four more years of the same fearmongering and doublespeak we got under the current administration.

Now, if you’ve been following my music, you’ll recognize parts of this speech were used in “7-11“. My issue specifically with this is the statement that “violent video games increase aggressive behavior as much as lead exposure decreases children’s IQ scores. And I want you to think about that.” Well, Senator, I have thought about it, and my conclusion is…you are full of sound and fury that means nothing.

Let’s examine the various problems with this statement:
1. How does one measure “aggressive behavior”? Is there some type of Aggression Quotient or something? Can you even compare “Aggressive Behavior” and “IQ Scores” in any meaningful fashion?

2. Even giving Senator Clinton the benefit of the doubt and presuming you can reasonably compare aggressive behavior and IQ scores, the statement as given is essentially meaningless. First of all, how much exposure (To either video games or lead) is necessary, for how long a time, to achieve the stated effect? And what does “Statement 1 does as much as statement 2” actually mean here? Are we comparing the two in terms of absolute numbers? Percentage-wise? Who knows? Apparently not Senator Clinton, because she sure doesn’t tell us here. In other words, without both absolutes and percentages, I don’t particularly care that “violent video games increase aggressive behavior as much as lead exposure decreases children’s IQ scores.”, because for all I know, lead exposure may decrease IQ by a tiny to nonexistent amount.

3. Is IQ even a reliable indicator of future success? Check out this link at How Stuff Works and judge for yourself. There does seem to be a positive correlation, but it’s hardly the be-all, end-all of adulthood prosperity–plus, of course, correlation is not causation.

So in short, this statement in particular is designed to instill some type of fear into you before you really stop and consider what’s being said, and what it means. Haven’t we gone through seven-plus years of this sort of thing already? Isn’t this the sort of thing we as a country should be trying to move away from? If she’ll make this type of appeal to emotion concerning video games, who’s to say that she won’t do it for other things, like, say, the economy, or preemptively invading foreign countries?

…and with that, I’m off to record an album. See you all in a week.

-EE