Freedom Forum Newsletter October 30, 2020

October 30, 2020

Get out and vote!

Why voting in PA is now more important than ever AJ Minnich, Editor-in-Chief As the 2020 election is only days away, the issue of voting is on many people’s minds.

When talking about the issue of voting, there are people who claim that their votes do not matter because of the electoral college. This is because deciding who wins the election is not up to the national popular vote but by which candidate wins the electoral votes of each state. Furthermore, the amount of electoral votes each state has is determined by the number of people each state has in both the Senate and the House. However, that sentiment cannot be farther from the truth especially in swing states such as Florida and Pennsylvania.

Some states, such as California and New York, have agreed to abide by the

national popular vote when casting electoral votes; however, Pennsylvania has not.

It will still operate as a winner take all system. Some states conversely do neither and instead take a more pluralistic approach by splitting the electoral votes within the state.

What this means is multiple candidates get electoral votes within the state based on how the population votes. So someone with 60 percent of the votes will get around 60 percent of the electoral votes in that state.

Because both Pennsylvania and Florida have a combined 49 electoral votes out of the 270 a candidate needs to win, both battleground states are integral to presidential incumbents and hopefuls.

Northampton County, in

particular, could be what determines the election as it is one of the biggest swing counties in the country and could be the determining factor for the electoral votes.

In the last 25 elections, only three times has Northampton County chosen the candidate that did not win. Furthermore, only 80,000 individual votes kept Hillary Clinton from becoming president and winning over key states to get the electoral votes.

Because of how close the swing is in PA and more specifically Northampton county, every single ballot cast is integral to who could be the next President of the United States.

“It is quite likely [that] however Northampton County goes will determine

the presidency once again,” said Charlie Dent, former Lehigh Valley Congressman.

It is true that in states such as California a vote for President Trump would not really matter because the state is almost always a guaranteed win for Democrats, but battleground states do not have the luxury of one guaranteed party.

Pennsylvania voted for Obama twice then flipped to Trump in 2016, which was most likely determined by three counties: Northampton, Erie, and Luzerne.

So, whether you are thinking about this or future elections, please go out and vote because your vote could be what makes a difference.

UPCOMING CALENDAR DATES ★

Tuesday, 11/3 - No School Thanksgiving Break

★

Wednesday, 11/25 through Monday 11/30

October 30, 2020

Chris Pratt and the rising danger of “cancel culture” How “cancel culture” is now becoming even more concerning than ever AJ Minnich, Editor-in-Chief The term “cancel culture” dates back to the beginning of the #MeToo movement, which outed many famous celebrities as sexual predators, such as Harvey Weinstein and R Kelly.

Since then, cancel culture has become increasingly more toxic and ridiculous.

Kevin Hart lost his opportunity to host the Academy Awards because of a homophobic Tweet in 2011.

Recently, Twitter attempted to cancel Chris Pratt only on the assumption that he is homophobic and a Trump supporter.

The situation began with a light-hearted post from Amy Berg that stated “One has to go”

and had four pictures of famous Hollywood Chris’ including Pratt. It then spiraled into a push to cancel Pratt on the assumption that he is both homophobic and a Trump supporter.

The allegations stemmed from Pratt attending an openly homophobic church and following numerous conservatives on Twitter.

To say that these circumstances are largely out of context would be an understatement.

“No church defines me or my life, and I am not a spokesman for any church or any group of people,” said Pratt over a year ago in response to the same

anti-LGBTQ+ allegations.

Pratt also stated that his church opens its doors to anyone.

Additionally, the assumption that Pratt is a Trump supporter was taken out of context as he follows numerous Democrats and Biden supporters, but despite that, there is nothing wrong with him supporting Trump. If Pratt does potentially support the President, it does not suddenly make him a terrible or immoral person.

The Pratt situation just shows the increasingly toxic nature of cancel culture on social media.

In many of these cases, people do not account for the broader context of what happened.

What someone could have said in the past might have been horrible by modern standards, but there is no reason to cancel that person and ruin a career, especially if the person has clearly shown sorrow and regret for the previous statements and actions.

Yet, current social media culture deems itself the ethical and moral code that pushes to ruin people’s careers based upon posts that are clearly dug up just to incite drama.

Should this type of mudslinging persist, it sets a worrying precedent for the future of U.S. political culture.

‘Cybercrunch’ 2077 creates concern How the rush to finish Cyberpunk 2077 reveals a worrying precedent AJ Minnich, Editor-in-Chief culture and the games industry, In recent years, there has been a growing concern in the games industry as crunch becomes more and more common throughout developer teams.

The term “crunch” in the games industry refers to companies requiring or mandating excessive overtime hours in order to get a game finished.

Previously the acclaimed developer studio CD Projekt Red (CDPR) has said that the game would not require crunch and developers would not be working mandatory overtime.

Yet, in September, Studio head Adam Badowski sent an email to employees that they were required to work one day on the weekend in order to get the game out.

“I know this is in direct opposition to what we’ve said about crunch. It’s also in direct opposition to what I personally grew to believe a while back — that crunch should never be the answer. But we’ve extended all other possible means of navigating the situation,” said Badowski, in a message to staff.

This was even after numerous delays by multiple months and being in production since at least 2012 when the game was announced.

The extent of the crunch does not end there.

According to Jason Schreier from Bloomberg News, who is a known and reputable source for exposing crunch

CDPR developers have been on crunch since May 2019.

“People have been spending weekends in the office and doing 16 hours per day pretty much since June 2019,” said Schreier’s source, a former CDPR developer, in a Reddit post.

This was well before the studio said there would not be a crunch, but the game developers had already been mandated to be on crunch.

“People have been dreading the inevitable two-year death march since long before the crunch started because they know that’s CDP rolls,” said Schreier’s source.

This issue has been a growing issue for years.

Before the release of Red Dead Redemption II, the developers at Rockstar were on crunch and reportedly working 100 hour weeks.

Another developer, Naughty Dog, was subject to this as well before the release of their last two major games, The Last of Us Part II and Uncharted 4.

This clearly is not just a problem with CDPR but the entire games industry as a whole where crunch and excessively long work hours are normalized and defended.

The fact that these major developers were all subject to crunch sets a worrying precedent for the future of game development and how game publishers treat their employees.