By now, I've been 5 and half years here on a SIM I play. Its about horse racing. I've gone from Arizona to Georgia to Oklahoma in that time come to think on it. 6 years come this November and I started on the SIM the last 2 or 3 weeks of year 25 and its year 40 now. I've seen amazing fake horses come and go along with my own. I've had my losses and wins in that time. I still have my issues to resolve.
I haven't pointed this out to talk about myself, just giving a timeline. I've always written stories and it always interested me how someone weaves words together to form something beautiful in my opinion. Yet people remain the same, the bullying is not as bad as it use to be on the SIM. Though someone took it too far and bullied back.
The SIM is a lot of things. It’s The Steward's digital love child(yes I can hear some of you laughing). It is other's SIM-crack addiction. And for others its brings them closer to a sport they love. Some have it easy and others scrimp and scrape to make it. The SIM is a world community of different personalities that we find examples of in everyday life.
I do not expect accolades for what I write, its not why I write at all. Its because I find something I care to write about. I might use some lead way when I write but don't mistake that as anything but me lightening up a situation a bit. I wrote about someone's horse once, I liked the filly a lot and I was trying to give my best effort to that. It didn't happen like that, I got called out publicly on it and picked on. It hurt a lot and I haven't written but maybe 2 articles for the sim since. Why waste my effort on people that will tear it down because they can?
Recently I've been made aware of scattered incidents happening all over the country. It’s a really bad thing called Swatting. Swatting means to call the cops on someone to the point they send no holds barred group into the address and in the most efficiently but brutal way possible, they get everyone down on the ground like a real situation. Problem is, these people who are being swatted are streamers, those that play and make money doing something they love.
These people take Twitch and use it as a tool. Some people watch because they've never played the game before and want to see it. It gives publicity to the games being shown and might even get new users in. It’s a profession now, someone can make a lot of money like this from donations or actually subscriptions. Its their livelihood and yet there are those random jealous people out there that want to hurt them and because of the anonymity of the internet, they can do just that.
State and Federal laws are in effect for those that would use the local 911 as a prank. Its to prevent people from using it unless there is an emergency. It keeps things safe for all of us here. Using it for the proper purpose is fine but these jealous people, these hackers or pseudo-hackers want to hurt others and because they are a unknown, they can and have.
Its not that hard to find someone's address if you know their name. Its scary what there is out there on the internet. You search your real name and see all the past addresses come up. That sort of freaked me out that it was out there for free. That needs to be curtailed because that is just one easy piece a stalker needs to find you. These companies on the internet, I never gave them permission to broadcast my past living locations. What gives them the right to do this?
Its because there most likely isn't a law to prevent this that this happens. It’s a minor piece but it gives those so called hackers and stalkers a easy way to get what they want. One of my favorite authors, she can not even go out in public for fear of a stalker. I never understood why someone gets fixated on another like that. I guess there is something wrong in their brains that makes them act like that. It’s the same reason I don't understand hackers.
Don't get me wrong. There are at least 2 groups of hacker types in my opinion. You have those malicious hackers who want to hurt others and then you got those hackers that might want something not publicly available. Neither is good but like any tool its not you but how you use it that defines the good or evil of it. For example, guns. This is a big topic of argument. Is a gun evil? No, it’s a object. Objects are not evil. Its how it is used that can be defined as evil. Kill someone with it? Was it in your own defense or was it because you had it and could do that? See? Is it evil to use a gun in defense? If you said yes, then I'd probably say you need to dig a hole in the sand and bury your head.
Anyways, back to Swatting. Normally a Swat team is there as a first line assault when you get the extremist, those people that might have something going on in their heads that prevents them from having morals. That’s the nice way of putting it. These Swat teams are there for our protection when something really bad happens. Its to prevent more casualties from happening in the future.
When someone swats another, they spoof their number and call the local, for their target, 911 and call in pretending something bad is going on. Like they are going to kill their family and the like. Its hard to figure out of this is true or not so they go in as it being a live situation. Problem happens is that one of these times the cops are going to go in and someone is going to get killed because of a mistake or incident that gives them no choice but to protect themselves from harm first then ascertain whether that was the truth.
In the end someone's been hurt because of that. I've seen live incidences of this recorded on YouTube. Some handle it differently from others. One guy was upset because the cops had aimed their guns at his little brother. Another knew what was happening and had this air of incredulity about it that it was happening to him. He couldn't quite understand it. From my understanding there are about 400 incidents like this a year now and I can bet you that it will grow.
By nature humans, like animals, will pick on the weak. At least with animals picking on the weak is natural and selective. Unfortunately us humans do it to make ourselves feel better more than anything. To have power over someone and make they feel worthless. It's caused the bullied people to lash out in unexpected ways. If we can hurt someone for no reason but because we can, well that’s like the reasoning Manson killed those women, because he could. Its no different from being a murderer or a bully in my opinion.
So I will leave you with this... my thoughts on things currently that I found myself thinking of. Is it right to bully others? Is it right to Swat someone because you don't like them or because you want them out of the way during a game competition? Is it right to hurt others because you can do it? Think on that and just maybe things will start to change a little.
