• 5Jul 11

  The WikiLeaks Issue

  I don't know what to think of it.

  On one hand, I'm happy it's influencing us to push for greater government accountability and freedom of information. I'm happy that at last, the US is getting some payback for its strong-arm bullying tactics against the rest of the world. I'm happy that the largest nuclear power in the world is finally being made accountable for its actions.

  That can only be good... right?

  Actually, I don't know.

  To be honest, I am completely terrified of the possible implications of what WikiLeaks is doing. To me, it seems like another wave of anarchy rising like a tsunami ready to strike the developed world and bring it to its knees. To me, WikiLeaks seems like an organisation hell-bent on breaking down the institutions that have been keeping our world organised and intact, then laugh as they watch the world descend into chaos and burn around them.

  The mere fact that the ordinary internet-accessing individual has the guts to publicly spread sensitive and supposedly top-secret information is the central core of my fears. If that one person is able to get more than 700 secret US Government documents on Guantanamo Bay and publish them online, what's to say others won't do so for other types of information? Moles in organisations everywhere are giving up sensitive, private information to WikiLeaks, andthe implications are purely terrifying. I no longer feel safe, knowing that my personal informationcan be so easily given up by those I entrust it to, all in the name of 'free information'.

  What if terrorist organisations and state enemies were to get hold of military doctrines, strategies and organisation charts? Weapons caches, civilian bomb shelters, even the locations and details of major infrastructure such as hospitals? What about addresses and profiles of key links in leadership and society? It wouldn't take more than a few hours to grab all that information off WikiLeaks servers and turn it against us, with bomb threats, blackmail, suicide squads, assassinations, and possibly even full-scale invasions exploiting weaknesses discovered from the information gathered. Nations and societies held at gun-point, all at the click of a mouse.

  I don't know who or what to trust anymore.

  • Posted Jul 5, 2011 3:35 am GMT
  • Category: News
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• 7Jun 11

  What's the role of fans?

  Is it to encourage change and innovation within his or her chosen fandom, for better or for worse? Or is it to insiston the same designs and formulas being done time and again regardless of what others outside the fandom want?

  It it to take a step forward and aggressively oppose what we don't want to be done to our favourite genres? Or is it to simply sit back, relax and enjoy what's been done for us?

  Is it to complain endlessly about what the developers haven't given us? Or to appreciate with a cultured eye what has been offered?

  Is it to offer constructive criticism to highlight failings and give praise where it is due? Or is it to curl up into a ball and complain behind the developers' backs?

  Needless to say, fans play a vital role in shaping the decisions of game developers all over, but how should we go about doing it?

  • Posted Jun 7, 2011 7:59 pm GMT
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