I kind of tuned out after PS2. Where would you put the dividing line for games of sufficient quality to act as a society-wide sedative? GTA4? Or would it be more social COD games?
and, yeah, there is a self-reinforcing cycle to manosphere ideology that's really hard to break out of. guys go in thinking women are all gold digging bitches, and--surprise!--nobody wants to sleep with them, which just reinforces their belief, while simultaneously absolving themselves of needing to grow personally.
It's more a thought experiement, hyperbolically phrased. If you want to be more REASONABLE (yawn), we can ask, "What role do videogames play in squelching social unrest?"
I haven't really played video games for several years myself, but I do know they can offer substantial psychological rewards for people who have no other engagements with society, and having worked with some younger people in retail, video games were a huge part of their life.
Oh, well, if you are defining ACTUAL agency, yes, obviously, you want real-world effects. But I'm talking about the ILLUSION of agency, which is what video games and (more debatably) SM provide.
I think you need to take a close look at Ezra Klein and the very many people like him who get to the top of the pundit game by seeming independent but conveniently always seem to have opinions that line up with the power structure.
Think about it this way:
If you say, "I'm a bootlicking piece of shit," nobody will care what you say.
If you say, "The rich control everything and the obvious implication is that we should make it so they control much less," you will not get on any platforms owned by wealthy people (which is most of them).
The sweet spot is Ezra Klein: someone who can simulate independenct thought while at the same time serving the power strucutre.
His turn around on Israel was absolutely illustrative. "I am now against Israel because of all these facts that were public knowledge for all the time that I was supporting Israel." His first instinct is to support Israel, because that's where the money and the power are, But now that Israel is politically unpopular, he needs to abandon that position to maintain his credibility.
I wouldn't waste any more time on him.
edit: ezra asks the tough questions like: what is right? what is true? But he only answers the question"what is right for ezra klein? As such, his only utility is as a ruling class bellweather.
I'm not encouraging people to riot, just saying society does have feedback loops that seem to have been neutralized--at least in the US.
Yeah, we're running out of third spaces here, too. My only real hope of meeting kindred spirits is online these days.
I've been playing Launti Asuna wondering when survival actually kicks in. Why am I only running across slimes? The only thing that consistently kills me is falling through cavern roofs. Starvation used to kill me, but food sources are plentiful (I didn't realize mussel nodes were food!).
Is there a good meeting point for Luanti/Asuna? The ContentDB is pretty damn bare.
Other questions: Are biomes based on X, Y or Z? That is to say, I've been digging down and down and down, but the biome remains the same, though ores seems to increase a little bit. Is it better to just keep walking horizontally and occasionally do some shallow digs?
I'm primarily looking for obsidian (assuming magma + water?), which I thought I'd get closer to by digging down, but I just kept running into more ice blocks.
Yeah, I was a little unsure if I should gender this discussion, but a few factors went into it:
video games seem to cater to male-centered power fantasies;
men are much more often the actors of street violence;
men have a greater sense of entitlement to economic success;
currently, men are doing worse than women on a lot of measures;
and men seem to be remarkably politically active when their video game fantasy-life is threatened.
Totally agree that economics is at the root of all of it,, and at the root of all of that is wealth (and power) concerntration.
Edit: Keeping in mind gender essentialism is bullshit, men in general tend to be more attracted by themes of power and control, women more by themes of connection. I think the gendered nature of the distractions we are bringing up reflect that.
Oh, thought leader Ezra "I'm Against Genocide Now That Israel is Unpopular" Klein? I like Adam Conover. Got that interview queued.. 90 minutes! That's a walking-the-dog-in-the-park video!
I don't think games and SM are exactly the same, but they do each have reward loops that are more engaging than passive traditional media.
I think getting positive feedback for something you posted does fall under "agency vibes"", rewarding you with fake social points, whereas a video game would give a fake digital asset or ability.
Thanks for sharing that; I know things got bad before Reagan Saved The Country /s, but most of the details are from driving through some abandoned mill towns and from listening to Allentown from Billy Joel.
Hm. I wonder if there would be a way to compare economic stress between generations? But, yeah, having NO job is pretty stressful; and there's no way you could know that the economy was abot to turn around.
I think today things are looking grim because the job market is so competitive, people feel forced to get a college degree to even get a foot in the door, and now they've started their life in a debt that in a better world would have been a mortgage, and they might be able to get a job, but it's not going to pay for a car, an apartment, and their college loans, and the future is bleak af because the trend lines towards everything getting more expensive while jobs pay less and less have been ongoing for DECADES.
Yes, but I think I'm trying to focus in on the sense of AGENCY that a modern RPG might give you. I don't know that a phone game, as addicting as it is, is as metaphysically satisfying.
Well, to cursorily dismiss this theory, I would need to know that video game penetration is pretty much the same globally. I can't quickly find stats on it that would reflect black market gaming, and I'd further want to know what kind of games and console generation. Soul Calibur 2 is pretty damn good, but it's not THAT good. Maybe you need to have certain gen console with online features to really keep the revolution at bay.
I'd also not want to dismiss the psychological hold video games have on the minds of some young men; gamer gate was a politically impactful movement.
And, yes, I'm aware colonialism is a huge problem and I am definitely not a fan of it.
But you're saying traffic FROM Moroco might actually be traffic THROUGH Moroco?
Best game of 1985:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rLl9XBg7wSs%3Ft%3D5m47s
Do you want to use that dizzying intellect of yours and look up adoption rates of just consoles between 1985 and 2026?
Edit: I'm entertained by the idea that there are people who disagree with me but can't quite bring themselves to downvote Super Mario.