Panel for PAX AUS 2016

http://aus.panels.paxsite.com

PAX have opened up registrations to be involved in a discussion panel at Pax Australia, 4-6 November 2016 in Melbourne.

PAX panels provide an absolutely massive amount of visibility to political issues. Last Year Senator Scott Ludlem (Greens) was in one and the interest was absolutely massive - long queues and they had to turn people away well before they even started filling because there were just too many people to even fit in the room.

This is a perfect opportunity to bring attention to political issues that affect gamers, the technologically mindful, the younger generations (older ones too) and diverse demographics, and it provides visibility to the party and it’s values too if we participate.

I think issues of censorship and copyright reform would be excellent topics, among others. The main topic of the expo is Games (video/board/card games/cosplay/culture etc) so the topic must tie in with gaming in some way.

PAX would generally put like-minded topics into the one discussion panel with a varied range of viewpoints/reps sharing the same panel. So for example if the topic is COPYRIGHT REFORM, they would have about 4-8 experts from a range of different organisations discussing it in front of an audience. Some panelists are basically in agreement with each other but not always.

The Greens will no doubt be participating again this year because it was such a huge platform for them, and I think that Pirates could join in on similar panels in collaboration (we don’t have to necessarily agree on issues, just run a panel together) or perhaps tackle issues that the Greens do not focus on as much as we do.

Obviously our main efforts are on election but this is too big an opportunity to miss as well, so we should be doing something in this space.

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I’ll be there for the whole 3 days, so I’m willing to participate in anything, or help any other members who want to.

I can! I go every year, and I’m guessing im probably the most hardcore gamer in the party. I also have a Jedi robe and am somewhat famous in the eve online gaming community.

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I’m putting together a panel proposal, but I’m not too enamoured with it.

Also, who could we get to be on the panel?

https://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/PAXPanel2016

ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME!!! did I mention me?

I LOVE PRESENTING SHIT LIKE THIS. I LIVE FOR IT. MY SHITTY JOB, CAREER EVERYTHING ELSE I DO IS NOTHING COMPARED TO WHAT I GIVE FOR THIS. OMG OMGOMG.

So anyway, I might be interested and could maybe help out a little if you needed.

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We’d need to get people from diverse backgrounds/expertise as well.

Can you think of anyone worth approaching?

From what perspective - gaming? politics? social media?

All, and/or game designer or author. Cory Doctorow would be amazing, if we could convince him to come down.
Though I think a sociologist might be better than a “social media commentator”.

what messages are you thinking of? I can get a range of pretty big heavy hitters if I have an idea of what your looking to present from a theme perspective

See the pad for theme. It’s just a suggestion so far, but I was thinking of something like the debate about art imitating life or vice versa with regard to dystopic futures.

I think Pirate Party has unique and valuable perspective - coming out of a future vision for transparent democracy and how this relates to the coming robot / automation impact to society and economics of transparency and digital currencies… I think it could be really interesting.

I’m writing an email to Cory Doctorow, so could you put your idea in the form of a panel summary that I could send to him to try to draw him in?

Never mind. He replied on Twitter to say he’s booked out for the rest of 2016.

I would talk about:

History of Hive Mind - from science fiction to modern politics
Examples of Hive Minds in action: 4chan, Anonymous, Google Project Management
Weaponisation of Ideas: Meme wars
Transparency: Its bigger than you think. Game Theory, Economics, Corruption
Gamification: Boring work made fun through systems
Building a future politics for decision making in a Meme world, The Pirate Party
A world without labour: Place of humans and ideas where labour is automated

Each of these areas has many sci fi / game examples to illustrate.

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And the panopticon.
And the romanticism of the military in Star Trek.

And can all, or some, of these topics be put into a 500 word summary with an engaging narrative, that you might read about in a pamphlet for a panel discussion.

Normally I do presentations, like with powerpoint and stuff…

Only just saw this. I’ll be at PAX this year and would be happy to participate.

I was thinking of something of a broad interest topic in the gaming community, rather than being used as a soapbox for the party.

One of the very foundations of the party is around COPYRIGHTS and copyright reform. This is close to my heart. There has been a lot of improvement around Copyright in the spaces of GOG (PC games - DRM-free honesty system) & Steam (PC games - DRM as a positive feature) which has shown to be effective in stopping piracy that was absolutely RAMPANT on PC before Steam came along. I grew up in an era when Piracy was considered the “norm” and purchasing was the exception. Everyone pirated everything. Now it is opposite. Personally I have 100% done away with all copyright infringing activities many years ago.

This is in comparison to Gaming Consoles and other media (Movies/TV/Music) that rely on DRM (technical limitations) to stop piracy rather than actually provide a better service than what the pirates are offering. They always get cracked in the end.

There is a problem of Hardcore Pirates who will do anything to Pirate content (even pay to pirate content eg: VPN subscription) even if there was a cheap and easy alternative not to (Why are they holding out?).

What would be a game dev’s opinion on the issue? An indie game dev? A game dev/publisher who only releases for Console? A game dev/publisher who releases on GOG/Steam? What does someone from the Copyright industry think of it? Government rep? What do Gamers think of it? What to Pirates think of it? Audience participation.

I am MORE that equipped to participate in a panel like this if PPAU would let me but I’m sure others in the party are also just as well equipped on this issue too.

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