4 ms·

As I recall, the same thing happened with a lawyer named Jack Thompson. I think it's just something about Law as a discipline that it attracts people who can be

by drostie 14y ago

As I recall, the same thing happened with a lawyer named Jack Thompson. I think it's just something about Law as a discipline that it attracts people who can be very literal-minded and who at least in their own mind are moral crusaders. (Disclaimer: I don't know whether Carreon's wife actually does anything legal herself or whether she just married a lawyer.) I think when you mix that sort of mentality with modern entertainment, you get quotes like these. Sure, we say, "any normal person" understands the difference between cartoons and real life. Perhaps Mrs. Carreon would even agree that she understands the difference. But she is somehow not convinced that we understand the difference. Jack Thomson was the same way; he referred to games as "murder simulators" and assumed that anyone attracted to them was merely 'in the closet' about actions that they secretly intensely wanted to do. Since indulging a normal addiction usually makes it worse and not better, it's easy from this screwed-up perspective to imagine that The Youth will fail to be satisfied one day with the latest violent media -- and will turn to violence itself in their craving. There is another aspect here which is: the things that disturb us about others are usually things which disturb us about ourselves. It's about resonance. Normally if someone is being stupid people say "to hell with him, he's stupid." But let us all endeavor, when we find ourselves outraged, to ask not only "what is wrong with THEM?!" but also "why does this bug me so much? What resonates here?" If we apply that to Mrs. Carreon, I think we'll all see that we've all been on the wrong side of a dispute, that we've all been wronged before and wanted to "get back," etc.

theorique 14y ago
Disclaimer: I don't know whether Carreon's wife actually does anything legal herself or whether she just married a lawyer. In one of her article or message board comments (assuming it was actually her), she claims to have worked as a legal secretary for 20 years.
- danielweber 14y ago
  Yes, for her husband when he opened his solo practice. (There's nothing bad or incompetent about this.)
JackC 14y ago
I think it's just something about Law as a discipline that it attracts people who can be very literal-minded and who at least in their own mind are moral crusaders. Since this whole case is, um, horribly embarrassing to my profession, I'll just respond here and move on. The huge majority of lawyers I know are much more like the EFF lawyers here than like Carreon. They're smart, creative, resilient, flexible, and more often than not they're honest and respectful. Some of them do it for moral reasons and some are just doing a job; some of them make the world a lot better in my opinion and some of them end up screwing it up. But there's not one lawyer I know who I can imagine acting anything like Carreon, let alone his wife. I mean, even the few jerks would at least make more effective choices. In short: don't think of this guy as a typical lawyer. He's not. Think of him as a typical guy-screwing-up-his-career-with-a-weird,-paranoid-flameout,-in-an-unusually-public-way-thanks-to-the-internet. It's just too bad he happens to have a career that will let him waste a lot of other people's time in the process ...
- drostie 14y ago
  Oh! I'm sorry, it occurs to me that my comment can indeed be read that way, and that's not what I intended. I mean it as "they attract these people", not "they are mostly these people:" the tiny percentage of society which is A is much more likely to be L, but that does not mean that most L's are A. So for example I would guess that most programmers are pretty sociable people, but we have a nasty reputation as highly antisocial because we attract people who prefer programming to partying. The Catholic church can tell you all about their difficulties with this type of thing.
  - JackC 14y ago
    Hey, thanks for the clarification. That's a totally fair point. I was probably a little over-eager to reply here since this story so much invites the lawyers-are-evil thing and I've been looking for a chance to put it in context. Like, "yes OK lawyers are evil sometimes but this isn't that." :) After thinking more about it, the literal-minded moral crusade is something I've definitely seen in the legal system, not from lawyers but from pro se parties -- non-lawyers who are representing themselves. There's a group of people who are absolutely sure that the world has wronged them and that they'll eventually be able to make everyone understand, but are unable to parse or accept the reality checks they're getting back from the system, so they go through a series of lawyers before striking out on their own. I bet any clerk's office you walked into, they could name a handful of people like that who they recognize by sight when they come in to file their next complaint (and then a complaint against the judge who handled the last complaint, and so on). They're sad situations. I don't really know anything about Carreon or the rest of this mess, but assuming that's what's happening, maybe there's some observer bias here -- the reason we're hearing about this at all is that he is a lawyer, so he's able to navigate the system well enough to cause real trouble, at least for a while.
datalus 14y ago
Interesting little tidbit, Jack Thompson was disbarred permanently by the Florida Supreme Court for making up BS about ebil vidya games and how ebil the people who play/make them are.
- pyre 14y ago
  Personally, I would be interested to know if the whole Jack Thompson thjng made legal headlines outside of the tech/videogame world, and what the reactions were.
stcredzero 14y ago
> I think when you mix that sort of mentality with modern entertainment, you get quotes like these. Sure, we say, "any normal person" understands the difference between cartoons and real life. Perhaps Mrs. Carreon would even agree that she understands the difference. But she is somehow not convinced that we understand the difference. Time to burn some Karma. Well, here's the disturbing truth of the matter: There is a small minority of gamers that don't understand the difference. Just like there's a small minority of moviegoers who "don't understand the difference" and novel readers and consumers and even producers of media of all sorts. Sturm und Drang novels precipitated suicides of young people across Europe. People who talk to the public at the Vatican had to deal with people who thought The DaVinci Code was real. (And I suspect they still do!) Also, as in other media, some celebrities act in anti-social ways and are actually somehow excused or admired for it. Again, this is nothing new. There also comes a time when the majority of sane people need to come out and say -- "Okay, that's entertaining, but here's how real people act." There are people out there who believe that all of society's rules are just hackable machines to and are out there to be exploited, and it's their right to get away with as much as they can, even to the point of throwing out basic human decency. (And if you're not aware of this, then just start some in-depth conversations at a con some time.) What disturbs me is that there seems to be considerable lionization of antisocial behavior on the Internet and in gaming culture -- to the point of there being entire ideologies to justify it. I am not siding with the Carreons or Jack Thompson. Nor am I against the Oatmeal. It's just that they're not 2D villains in some black and white narrative contrivance. They're human beings, not NPCs. Subtract the stupidity and shortsightedness from their position and see what's left. If you're honest with yourself, you may not like what you see.
- icebraining 14y ago
  Time to burn some Karma. Please don't do this. It serves no purpose other than hostilizing your readers. Well, here's the disturbing truth of the matter: There is a small minority of gamers that don't understand the difference. Just like there's a small minority of moviegoers who "don't understand the difference" and novel readers and consumers and even producers of media of all sorts. Sturm und Drang novels precipitated suicides of young people across Europe. People who talk to the public at the Vatican had to deal with people who thought The DaVinci Code was real. (And I suspect they still do!) Sure, but that's not what she's saying; she's claiming that about everyone who likes The Oatmeal ("...just look at their cartoons. They like to kill"). Which would be absurd when said about someone who likes war movies, but is downright insane when applied to fans of the Oatmeal, which are comics mostly about cats, iPhone apps and annoying people. It's more or less like treating kids playing Cowboys and Indians as dangerous schizophrenics. There are people out there who believe that all of society's rules are just hackable machines to and are out there to be exploited, and it's their right to get away with as much as they can, even to the point of throwing out basic human decency. (And if you're not aware of this, then just start some in-depth conversations at a con some time.) I don't get how is this related to the issue. Who is exploiting people here, exactly? Except maybe for FunnyJunk? What disturbs me is that there seems to be considerable lionization of antisocial behavior on the Internet and in gaming culture -- to the point of there being entire ideologies to justify it. There were entire ideologies to justify killing and raping. If the new are just to justify being a dick, it's a positive step! ;) Besides, in my experience, if you find behaviors on the Internet anti-social, you don't know many schools. The Internet is just the perfect medium of communication for misfits, from the people with weird passions, to the non-socials (like me), to the anti-socials. And the gaming culture is worse because it's the zone of the Internet full of 14 year olds. I don't think there's any new worrying trend, compared to what I've seen before. Then again, I come from a somewhat different culture, so maybe it's worse there in the US. But! Getting back to the topic, we should consider if Mr. Carreon's initial actions weren't the really anti-social behaviors. Threatening to sue people for complaining that your (or in this case, your client's) business model rests in using content made by others without so much as a link is hardly a nice thing to do. So yes, they're human beings. Human beings who starting all this with their own douche behavior.
lambda 14y ago
> I think it's just something about Law as a discipline that it attracts people who can be very literal-minded and who at least in their own mind are moral crusaders. Why do you think this is something that is unique to the law? Should Hans Reiser be taken as an example of programmers? Should Ted Kaczynski be taken as an example of mathematicians? Should Amy Bishop be used as an example of disgruntled academics? So, you see one or two prominent crazy lawyers (and the wife of one crazy lawyer), and decide that this is something unique to the law?

by drostie 14y ago

theorique 14y ago

Disclaimer: I don't know whether Carreon's wife actually does anything legal herself or whether she just married a lawyer. In one of her article or message board comments (assuming it was actually her), she claims to have worked as a legal secretary for 20 years.

danielweber 14y ago
Yes, for her husband when he opened his solo practice. (There's nothing bad or incompetent about this.)

JackC 14y ago

I think it's just something about Law as a discipline that it attracts people who can be very literal-minded and who at least in their own mind are moral crusaders. Since this whole case is, um, horribly embarrassing to my profession, I'll just respond here and move on. The huge majority of lawyers I know are much more like the EFF lawyers here than like Carreon. They're smart, creative, resilient, flexible, and more often than not they're honest and respectful. Some of them do it for moral reasons and some are just doing a job; some of them make the world a lot better in my opinion and some of them end up screwing it up. But there's not one lawyer I know who I can imagine acting anything like Carreon, let alone his wife. I mean, even the few jerks would at least make more effective choices. In short: don't think of this guy as a typical lawyer. He's not. Think of him as a typical guy-screwing-up-his-career-with-a-weird,-paranoid-flameout,-in-an-unusually-public-way-thanks-to-the-internet. It's just too bad he happens to have a career that will let him waste a lot of other people's time in the process ...

drostie 14y ago
Oh! I'm sorry, it occurs to me that my comment can indeed be read that way, and that's not what I intended. I mean it as "they attract these people", not "they are mostly these people:" the tiny percentage of society which is A is much more likely to be L, but that does not mean that most L's are A. So for example I would guess that most programmers are pretty sociable people, but we have a nasty reputation as highly antisocial because we attract people who prefer programming to partying. The Catholic church can tell you all about their difficulties with this type of thing.
- JackC 14y ago
  Hey, thanks for the clarification. That's a totally fair point. I was probably a little over-eager to reply here since this story so much invites the lawyers-are-evil thing and I've been looking for a chance to put it in context. Like, "yes OK lawyers are evil sometimes but this isn't that." :) After thinking more about it, the literal-minded moral crusade is something I've definitely seen in the legal system, not from lawyers but from pro se parties -- non-lawyers who are representing themselves. There's a group of people who are absolutely sure that the world has wronged them and that they'll eventually be able to make everyone understand, but are unable to parse or accept the reality checks they're getting back from the system, so they go through a series of lawyers before striking out on their own. I bet any clerk's office you walked into, they could name a handful of people like that who they recognize by sight when they come in to file their next complaint (and then a complaint against the judge who handled the last complaint, and so on). They're sad situations. I don't really know anything about Carreon or the rest of this mess, but assuming that's what's happening, maybe there's some observer bias here -- the reason we're hearing about this at all is that he is a lawyer, so he's able to navigate the system well enough to cause real trouble, at least for a while.

datalus 14y ago

Interesting little tidbit, Jack Thompson was disbarred permanently by the Florida Supreme Court for making up BS about ebil vidya games and how ebil the people who play/make them are.

pyre 14y ago
Personally, I would be interested to know if the whole Jack Thompson thjng made legal headlines outside of the tech/videogame world, and what the reactions were.

stcredzero 14y ago

> I think when you mix that sort of mentality with modern entertainment, you get quotes like these. Sure, we say, "any normal person" understands the difference between cartoons and real life. Perhaps Mrs. Carreon would even agree that she understands the difference. But she is somehow not convinced that we understand the difference. Time to burn some Karma. Well, here's the disturbing truth of the matter: There is a small minority of gamers that don't understand the difference. Just like there's a small minority of moviegoers who "don't understand the difference" and novel readers and consumers and even producers of media of all sorts. Sturm und Drang novels precipitated suicides of young people across Europe. People who talk to the public at the Vatican had to deal with people who thought The DaVinci Code was real. (And I suspect they still do!) Also, as in other media, some celebrities act in anti-social ways and are actually somehow excused or admired for it. Again, this is nothing new. There also comes a time when the majority of sane people need to come out and say -- "Okay, that's entertaining, but here's how real people act." There are people out there who believe that all of society's rules are just hackable machines to and are out there to be exploited, and it's their right to get away with as much as they can, even to the point of throwing out basic human decency. (And if you're not aware of this, then just start some in-depth conversations at a con some time.) What disturbs me is that there seems to be considerable lionization of antisocial behavior on the Internet and in gaming culture -- to the point of there being entire ideologies to justify it. I am not siding with the Carreons or Jack Thompson. Nor am I against the Oatmeal. It's just that they're not 2D villains in some black and white narrative contrivance. They're human beings, not NPCs. Subtract the stupidity and shortsightedness from their position and see what's left. If you're honest with yourself, you may not like what you see.

icebraining 14y ago
Time to burn some Karma. Please don't do this. It serves no purpose other than hostilizing your readers. Well, here's the disturbing truth of the matter: There is a small minority of gamers that don't understand the difference. Just like there's a small minority of moviegoers who "don't understand the difference" and novel readers and consumers and even producers of media of all sorts. Sturm und Drang novels precipitated suicides of young people across Europe. People who talk to the public at the Vatican had to deal with people who thought The DaVinci Code was real. (And I suspect they still do!) Sure, but that's not what she's saying; she's claiming that about everyone who likes The Oatmeal ("...just look at their cartoons. They like to kill"). Which would be absurd when said about someone who likes war movies, but is downright insane when applied to fans of the Oatmeal, which are comics mostly about cats, iPhone apps and annoying people. It's more or less like treating kids playing Cowboys and Indians as dangerous schizophrenics. There are people out there who believe that all of society's rules are just hackable machines to and are out there to be exploited, and it's their right to get away with as much as they can, even to the point of throwing out basic human decency. (And if you're not aware of this, then just start some in-depth conversations at a con some time.) I don't get how is this related to the issue. Who is exploiting people here, exactly? Except maybe for FunnyJunk? What disturbs me is that there seems to be considerable lionization of antisocial behavior on the Internet and in gaming culture -- to the point of there being entire ideologies to justify it. There were entire ideologies to justify killing and raping. If the new are just to justify being a dick, it's a positive step! ;) Besides, in my experience, if you find behaviors on the Internet anti-social, you don't know many schools. The Internet is just the perfect medium of communication for misfits, from the people with weird passions, to the non-socials (like me), to the anti-socials. And the gaming culture is worse because it's the zone of the Internet full of 14 year olds. I don't think there's any new worrying trend, compared to what I've seen before. Then again, I come from a somewhat different culture, so maybe it's worse there in the US. But! Getting back to the topic, we should consider if Mr. Carreon's initial actions weren't the really anti-social behaviors. Threatening to sue people for complaining that your (or in this case, your client's) business model rests in using content made by others without so much as a link is hardly a nice thing to do. So yes, they're human beings. Human beings who starting all this with their own douche behavior.

lambda 14y ago

> I think it's just something about Law as a discipline that it attracts people who can be very literal-minded and who at least in their own mind are moral crusaders. Why do you think this is something that is unique to the law? Should Hans Reiser be taken as an example of programmers? Should Ted Kaczynski be taken as an example of mathematicians? Should Amy Bishop be used as an example of disgruntled academics? So, you see one or two prominent crazy lawyers (and the wife of one crazy lawyer), and decide that this is something unique to the law?