They’re not trying to make a good product. They’re trying to get their short term gains.

Normal capitalist bullshit where a handful of people (who probably don’t even do any work) make decisions and keep almost all the profits.

The majority of the time you just click play in steam, heroic, or whatever. It’s no worse than windows.

I don’t do any tinkering on my desktop.

At the lowest level, it is possible to pull people in your peer-group out of shitty world views. It’s slow and difficult. But like I got an old coworker to be way less homophobic through our chats at work.

At the larger level, nah, fuck em.

Desktop: 0. It’s off. I close the browser when I’m done

Phone: the number says 64, but only 25 “active”. I should probably prune.

Usually they have

• multiple approaches
• reactive world and NPCs
• the world is more interactive than decorative

So the game might say “get the laptop from the 2nd floor office”. An immersive sim will try to allow as many things as you could imagine doing in real life to achieve this

• talk your way in. Convince them you work there or something
  • maybe forge or steal some ID
  • or hack their network to give yourself creds!
• find a back entrance
• find a back entrance directly to the 2nd story
• just shoot everyone
• sneak in and take people out like a ghost
• sneak in and don’t get seen
• set off a fire alarm and go in when people are outside
• do any of the above after hours

Contrast this with a more traditional game like Mass Effect. There’s typically going to be like one path, with maybe like one choice. You go in where they want, shoot the baddies, and get the thing.

A lot of people died to get the pittances we got from the ownership class. Decades of

• labor: we want to paid in real money, and work less than 12 hours a day 6 days a week
• owner: no
• labor: then we’re going on strike
• owner, to the state: HELP
• the state: sends police and troops to do violence to labor

The idea that peacefully asking for stuff on its own is effective is largely ahistorical. A happy myth sold by the people who would be receiving violence.

Also your local public library has a lot of stuff

I (a man in his 40s) pronounced Lathe wrong the other day in a meeting when referencing the le Guin story “the lathe of heaven”. Someone privately messaged me after to say “great book. BTW, it’s pronounced…”

That sounds like something out of Idiocracy. Just… it can’t all be highlights. Some things need to build!

I’ve encountered a surprising amount of seemingly intelligent, successful, people recently who of their own admission don’t read books. They just watch short videos, maybe a movie, and read social media.

I’m not a researcher but I expect that their vocabulary is stunted as a result.

But they’re so weirdly proud about it. Like a defiant 12 year old who doesn’t want to do his homework.

Conservatives will say anything to align with the in-group, to hurt the outgroup, or for personal power. They have no internal beliefs beyond those.

The doing it doesn’t bother me so much as the “Hey so I was browsing through my downvotes and noticed you downvoted me. Justify your actions to me!” PMs.

That is not healthy behavior.

Rather, it’s the presence of a competitive market.

Competitive markets are hated by private business owners

Rich people don’t want to give anything up.

Assholes don’t want their out-group to have anything nice. Even if it means they suffer.

Many people don’t know shit about fuck, and they’re just trying to get through the week.

The dark urge, as a warlock. Shit. Could be worse.

(Side note: I keep starting and abandoning Baldur’s gate 3 because I really do not enjoy DND as a rule system.)

My dad used to rant about how government should be run like a business,

Anyone who sincerely believes that is too fucking ignorant and or stupid to be taken seriously. They’re a hazard to themselves and their polity.

Management are assholes and idiots.

Nothing will get better without demands. People need to organize.

But if I’ve learned anything from history, it’s that the ownership class would rather murder all of their employees than give a few dollars more a day.

Right? I often like being around people. I don’t want to do it in the fucking office

Whenever a chat bot is aggressively presented on a website, I like to ask it how to disable all AI features. Often it will tell me to click on menu options that don’t exist.

I say this all the time, but a lot of problems are directly downstream from assholes who don’t do work making decisions. ✨ Capitalism! ✨