I believe it's tied to aging, yes. But not in the way most would think. As we age, we begin to see how very un-black-and-white everything really is. We see that there is context in almost everything. We start noticing how biases, motivations and other subtleties play into how people behave, and when that happens, you will naturally come to the conclusion that the world is far too complex for snap-judgments... which then leads to the last understanding: unless you are extraordinarily famous and influential or powerful, you only have control over yourself, and any attempt at reaching beyond that is almost always going to be futile.

If you want to have an impact, just be the best person you can be and help others as much as you can offline.

The problem that I have is that Nintendo is a company that condemns people who do things like make personal backups of their 20-30 yr old cartridges that are practically irreplaceable on the used market and are rapidly failing due to age and uses the law as their justification for this position.  They are a major outlier in the gaming industry in terms of aggressively enforcing their legal rights to the point where, in my opinion, it is a major overreach.  Almost monthly, I hear or watch stories about how a Nintendo civil suit destroyed the life of some average person (usually a fan) that was sharing ROMs, which is admittedly illegal, while I frankly almost never hear similar stories coming from Microsoft, Sony or Sega.

Nintendo demanding that we as gamers abide by the finer points of incredibly complex Copyright Law and accuse anybody who doesn't as being pirates, criminals, etc makes me want to hold the company to a much higher standard than anybody else in the industry.  As a result, when I hear stories like this I get doubly (no triply) angry at Nintendo.  It also upsets me quite a bit to see how many gamers are making excuses for this company and minimizing a fundamental human right such as the right to form a union.  I don't know if Nintendo is guilty of wrongdoing here but if they are, I hope that they are penalized to the maximum extent of the law the same way that they have happily laid multi-million dollar civil penalties on young gamers in their parents basements that have screwed up a shared a ROM online.

From what I have heard Japanese companies hate unions. According to a cousin that works in the automotive industry, if a car factory that belongs to a Japanese company tries to unionize they will shut the factory down and let it die rather than deal with a union. I'd assume that comes from the ideal that your loyalty should be with the company and if you're with a union your loyalty lies with them. Which is a fair criticism if you run a decent company that takes care of its staff, but Japan is also infamous for so-called 'black companies' that abuse their workers so that could be a roll of the dice.

Seems odd that you are cool with theft, but not union busting.  I would think if you are the side of one, you would be on the side of both.

Some new information has come up

Some of that fuzziness is evident in the filing, which lists employer's phone number as Aston Carter's Bellevue, Washington office but lists the address as Nintendo of America's (The charging letter was sent to NoA) - NLRB regional director will take 7-14 weeks to investigate

Sorry for the double post, my phone is being weird

Nintendo of America / Aston Carter said to have

-"discharged" employee who either tried to join or support a union
- cracked down on "concerted" labor activities
- surveilled employee

Please read my post.  I didn't say anywhere that I am "cool with theft."  All I am doing is holding Nintendo to the same extremely high standard that they expect all gamers to abide by.

Seems legit. After all, everybody I know who emulates Ninty games got mutli-million dollar lawsuits. It definitely isn't just the people deliberately cashing in on Nintendo's IP by selling ROMs or hacking gear.

C'mon, chief. As a man who *allegedly* pirates anime and manga by the boatload, I'm willing to admit that theft is theft. It's easy to rationalize when you financially support the people who you feel deserve your money after the fact, but I've never lied to myself about what I'm doing. 

If enough workers at Nintendo of America decide they want a union, there will be a vote and there isn't really much Nintendo can do about there being a vote. That's why they, like many other U.S companies, try to stifle (not explicitly because that would be illegal) and retaliate against organizers (again implicitly) before it gets that far. 

The NLRA is pretty clear about there being a legal right to form unions in the United States. 

Of course any company's management, who work on the behalf of shareholders, is going to make an argument that unions "could" be detrimental. The interests of the workers and the shareholders/management (aka "the company") are almost always counterposed. But ultimately there is no legal opt-out in American law. Any company whose workforce votes to unionize must abide by the decision after that vote takes place -- regardless of the management's ostensible arguments for why "it could be detrimental to the company." The company gets a chance to argue their side in the election, but if they lose the vote they have to accept the union.