
Joe Biden calls game developers “little creeps” who “teach you how to kill” - CharlesW
https://www.techspot.com/news/83623-joe-biden-calls-game-developers-little-creeps-who.html
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boublepop
Games that “teach you how to kill”: bad. Institutions that literally teach you
how to kill and then send you off to actually kill people: great!

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quaquaqua1
Thanks Joe, very cool!

I'm sure video games are much worse than the actual wars you voted for.

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hactually
Ooft, wait until he finds out about the US army. He's in for a surprise.

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rhizome
"Mr. Biden, I have some bad news about the Middle East."

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HenryKissinger
The jokes practically write themselves, so I'll leave that to others.

> When asked about Silicon Valley’s expansion of power during his time in the
> Obama administration, Biden said: “And you may recall, the criticism I got
> for meeting with the leaders in Silicon Valley, when I was trying to work
> out an agreement dealing with them protecting intellectual property for
> artists in the United States of America. And at one point, one of the little
> creeps sitting around that table, who was a multi- — close to a billionaire
> — who told me he was an artist because he was able to come up with games to
> teach you how to kill people.”

> "And then one of these righteous people said to me that, you know, 'We are
> the economic engine of America. We are the ones.' And fortunately I had done
> a little homework before I went and I said, you know, I find it
> fascinating,” Biden continued. “As I added up the seven outfits, everyone’s
> there but Microsoft. I said, you have fewer people on your payroll than all
> the losses that General Motors just faced in the last quarter, of employees.
> So don’t lecture me about how you’ve created all this employment.. The point
> is, there’s an arrogance about it, an overwhelming arrogance that we are, we
> are the ones. We can do what we want to do. I disagree.”

Given Joe Biden's fuzzy memory, I would take his recollection with a grain of
salt. Even if this anecdote is true, I'm puzzled about what segment of the
electorate Biden is trying to appeal to. If anything, he would gain sympathy
by livestreaming himself playing some popular AAA title.

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arcticfox
As much as I disagree with it, I doubt this is particularly calculated, this
is probably just how he feels.

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jakeogh
Authortarians have a real problem with anything that introduces children to
the idea that they can defend themselves.

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DiabloD3
I don't really care for politics on the front page HN; but yeah, the willful
(and hostile) ignorance of our leadership in this nation shouldn't be
tolerated.

We should be voting for the dude that doesn't have strange angry nonsensical
outbursts. You know, the dude that's not Trump, Biden, Warren, or Bloomberg.

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foxyv
I kinda like Andrew Yang. He seems to be proposing actual solutions to our
economy rather than just papering over everything. Then again I haven't heard
much from his detractors yet.

[https://www.yang2020.com/](https://www.yang2020.com/)

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desireco42
IMHO (after all this HN), Yang is great but not president material, he would
be great if future president would include him as VP or some other leading
role.

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imesh
Who is prepared to be a great president and have we ever had a great
president? I honestly don't know. I'm only 30, and I haven't seen one in my
lifetime.

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existencebox
You have no idea how much you nerd-sniped me with that question. (I spend far
too much of my free time playing at historian, and am far too fond of Ken
Burns to not give my thoughts, but take this as a caveat that I am no true
expert.)

Unfortunately, I think, no one who would be able to be elected president
nowadays. Consider some of the "Greatest" presidents of our history,
Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, all were very human/flawed individuals with powerful
detractors, (Lincoln less in his personal life and more in the role he had to
play, and I omit Washington because he's effectively immortalized beyond
personhood as our 'Cincinnatus') and I have my doubts as to whether any could
receive sufficient support in an era where any possible slight or
discontinuity (or attachment to principle over pragmatism) is a critical
weakness.

I realize I may have slightly dodged your real question, I'll admit I don't
have a great answer to that even in the absence of the pathology I describe
above. There's been no one in politics (perhaps due to the above) who even
seems to have the cult-of-personality of e.g. Obama, let alone with the
principles and power to carry out something positive with it. Not too many
years ago I would have said McCain, but we all know how that went. (That said
I've been _rather impressed_ with how Pelosi has wrangled the herd of cats
that is the democratic party , but that's only one small piece of the picture
and may show how far my bar has dropped.)

To be precise since I answered the second half of your question implicitly, I
certainly think we've had great presidents, see my list above for an
incomplete summary. There have certainly been individuals who managed immense
feats of good in the presidency despite such adversity that we have not seen
in our lifetimes. However, as I was lamenting to my wife the other day, I've
seen far less of this as time has gone on, (in local government _as much as_
in federal govt.) and as I suggest above, I'm not sure how we come back from
that without systemic change.

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hadtodoit
Do people consider FDR to be a great president? He ranks pretty high on my
list of the worst given the internment of Japanese-Americans among other
things.

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existencebox
It's a fascinating question.

Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. Teddy Roosevelt's use of the monument act
expanded executive power in ways that would be used as precedent for future
abuses. As you say FDR did Japanese internment, but in that same vein you'd be
remiss to not point out Jefferson's forced native american relocation program.

This is kinda my point of "these were unquestionably flawed individuals"
above. At the risk of justifying evils, (I don't intend to but one could
interpret it this way) if your standard for great is "did no wrong" then no
president (individual?) will ever be great. At the same time I don't think
greatness should shield someone from criticism for the evils that came
alongside. This may be an artifact of my personal philosophies regarding
innate and unavoidable fallability of human incentives, but I still find
enough merit in the positive outcomes and challenges overcome to call them
"Great" (Thus the quotes in my initial post). If you really want to lose faith
in the consistency of my mental models, ask me the list of most damaging
presidents, and note that the lists are not mutually exclusive.

In conclusion, I find the manner in which FDR handled international relations,
helped ready the country and mobilize against the European war even with
interventionism publicly abhorred, balanced the interests of the various VERY
TENUOUSLY allied parties (Stalin, primarily), while simultaneously making good
on public works and improvements post-depression (although efficacy can be
debated) coupled with his civil rights works (e.g. FEPC) gives enough
justification to call him "Great," although I'll echo, this in no way detracts
from the observation you made, and I see the two as parts of the same picture.

Post-factum edit for color: I've actually contemplated similar questions as
yours but along a different vein for some time now, since FDR was rather
sneaky in how he readied the US for war, and pushed out the various cash/carry
lend/lease plans, as well as effectively participating in war without
congressional approval (another storied tradition of "great" presidents with
very questionable implications) but in the long run _it worked_ so to some
extent, I don't have a good answer for when the ends justify the means, as it
were; Lincoln is even in a similar boat.

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cestith
Perhaps this is just Joe Biden trying to refocus the term "creep" this
election cycle, since he has trouble keeping his hands and nose to himself.

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rasz
This is precisely the same trick Boris Johnson used to seed google with fake
results for "boris johnson bus"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21122806](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21122806)
"Boris Johnson uses search terms in interviews to hide negative articles"

Google: "creepy joe biden" and look at the pictures :o :/

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davidmott
So predictable...

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JadaPaller
With each of these out of touch comments creepy uncle Joe Biden's hands grow.

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bdcravens
The stereotype is that developers lean liberal, and tend to be in favor of gun
control and opposed to glorifying war. As such, is there a conflict between
those positions and working on games like CoD?

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fastball
I've never come across that stereotype.

