I was watching a video on the recent achievements in the Tetris community, and my mom came up and watched over my shoulder for a bit. There was a moment in the video where the narrator was talking about the moment Blue Scuti reached the game's killscreen for the first time. Years of effort, countless hours of practice, chasing something that people thought was literally impossible for decades, and then he fucking does it. This is a seriously cool and inspiring story, right?
"Does he get paid for that? You can't spend that much time on something if you're not getting paid."
Are you telling me you literally can't imagine wanting to do something just to do it? That you can only imagine spending effort if it's to chase a cash prize or a wage? That you can't imagine the desire to just... be the best at something, or achieve something before anyone else? I love that woman but a lifetime of being in the system has burned out a critical part of her brain - she can't imagine having a job and not spending all of your free time sucking up to management for a promotion, she is exactly the person all of the "hustle grindset" bullshit influencers and motivational speakers try to turn you into, and i swear to god if she hadn't worked for the government her whole life she would have gotten in on the ground floor of an MLM and made a shitzillion dollars.
It's so fucking depressing.
Random musing:
I've been playing Morrowind recently, with the Tamriel Rebuilt mod. It's a mod that's been in development for 23 years (yes, before the game launched too - when Bethesda announced it wouldn't be the entity of Morrowind Province, but only Vvardenfell). The first release was in 2006.
The project apparently has like over 200 people working on it, they managed to complete like 65% of the planned area, while already having a game that rivals the original in quality, but with like three or more times as many quests, writing, npcs, cities, etc.
It's seriously impressive... and it's a free project by some dedicated nerds wanting to expand a 22 year old game.
I dearly love the TES modding community and my heart pressure spikes every time Todd tries to rip it apart with monetization schemes.
I'm not a computer person so I just throw this idea out into the universe for free whenever it's relevant: Fallout: Thailand
Wouldn't that just be modern Thailand? I always got the impression that fallout was just something that happened to America and actually the rest of the world was fine; kind of like the state that Rome was in versus the state pre-Roman Britain was in (with America being Britain in this context). A bunch of irradiated mayos eating radroaches in America, refusing to leave because "huhuhu, at least it's not China" while actually the rest of the world is fine, and Americans having been so thoroughly propagandized they no longer need news stations to keep them scared of the world, instead they have a self sustaining system of delusion about the rest of the world.
People in Thailand living their best life while mayos cower in destroyed buildings eating giant cockroaches, consoling themselves that everywhere else must be worse.
Edit: Fallout Thailand would be about an American making it to Thailand and crying about how Thailand is actually completely fine and how it's not fair.
I work from the assumption that someone somewhere in the chain of nuclear reaction targeted southeast Asia for some reason, or there was an accident: maybe a US bomber went down on it's way to China, or nuclear elecromagnic craziness made a missile crash off course. Also if the US was invading Canada they were probably doing cold war shit all over for years beforehand, there could have been western nukes hidden in the area already. Maybe one was an old GLADIO backpack nuke set off as part of some harebrained forgotten strategy of tension, or by a lone actor for reasons lost to history. For whatever reason, let's say that Thailand got one or two glancing hits, nothing too direct. Most people survive the fallout, but must deal with a surprise almost as nasty: a secret American black ops base in the deep jungle that was chock full of FEV.
Maybe the commander there thought the worst of the nuclear fire was yet to come, and ordered it released in the belief that they had only minutes to try and give biological life in the area a chance to survive. Maybe they knew that this region would be mostly unscathed, and in a fit of rage decided to punish these people for the good fortune not shared by their Imperial homeland. Either way, every vertibird was scrambled with a canister of FEV, and they spread it over the jungle in all directions. Dropped the empty canisters in the river for good measure. So despite surviving the nuclear exchange, Thailand got a big fucking dose of FEV.
The virus rampaged through the ecosystem, from water to microbes, insects and birds, herbivores, predators, and human beings. It would be the primary hazard of the game in most places, akin to rads in other games. The vast majority of afflicted beings simply died riddled with massive tumors or hemorrhaging from the rapid formation of new and useless organs. Of the survivors, most had children that were born with mutations ranging from minor to severe. But the extreme nature of the virus meant that each generation after it's original survivors stabilized faster than the last. During the 200 years much of the rest of the world was crawling around in irradiated ruins hunting bug meat and sleeping wrapped in the flags of a dead world, an entirely new kind of ecosystem was beginning to shape itself in Thailand. Gene pools stabilized, new food webs emerged, new microbes and mychorrizae developed new relationships with new flora and fauna.
The descendents of the first FEV victims -plant, animal and human- had come to terms with the new environment. Some plants became violently carnivorous to compensate for the lack of sunlight from worldwide nuclear winter. Some people developed enhanced senses for safety from new and lethal predators, or longer legs to walk through the waters, or extra arms crowned with natural tools and weapons. Some animals became unfathomably deadly, while others were elevated to undeniable sentience. The elephants gained psychic abilities, and in places began working together with the humans voluntarily, each species making up for the shortcomings of the other. Moat humans do the work that requires physical finesse (such as crafting) while most elephants do the work that requires either inhuman strength or unimaginable psychic empathy (like diplomacy). Together they build a new thriving society against the many threats of the new environment.
The black ops base was also exposed of course, but it's been shrouded in rumor and mystery for 200 years, deep in the densest mutated jungle. Nobody outside is sure if it ever really existed at all. The soldiers there have spent the centuries locked underground devolving into a militarized quasi-society of cannibalistic combat monsters, supplementing their FEV with steroids and various poisons from the in-house lab. Some mutated while in their power armor, and have become horrifying amalgimations fused forever into their hulls. Death is the only purpose they can remember, and they are preparing for the day they unseal the bunker and bring it to the world.
That sounds really cool.
I've got a half-baked Fallout: Seattle setting, based on the idea that the rebuilding of society is coming along and international trade is starting up again, making port cities like Seattle major points of conflict. You've got the NCR coming from the south, the Commonwealth (Canada edition) coming from the East, and from across the sea the newly-reconstituted USSR and PRC, all while Seattle itself is basically a city-state run by its own city council.
The major theme is historical materialism. Seattle has more or less a "Merchant Republic" economy that's been ruled by a handful of landowning families for the past century, but the concentration of Capital occurring in the city as multiple railroads have been connected to it and the ports are being rebuilt is causing that to change.
Some of the "old powers" have read an economics textbook or two, and are trying to get ahead of the change by willingly converting to a corporate structure, some resist it, California, the Commonwealth and the USSR are trying to coax the city into joining with them officially, the "tribals" in the region are trying to defend the pastoral lifestyles they've created for themselves against the settlers in a repeat of history, the vaults in the region are little micronations of their own who might side with anyone or noone.
As for the Seattle City Council, they would prefer to remain independent, but actually doing that is basically impossible without at least one of the four major powers backing them, as both the Soviets and the Californians are willing to use military force if necessary to take the city (the game's bad ending is both of them trying this at the same time and the city getting nuked during the fighting). When the trailer says "war never changes" it shows an NCR flag in the foreground and a USSR flag in the background, implying that the war in this case is the cold war.
Also there are ten people all claiming to be Elvis, who was saved from the bombs by aliens and has returned to Earth. The player can go on a very long quest to figure out which one is the real one, which is randomly determined when you press "new game", and if you successfully figure out the real one and invest in his comeback tour you make a stupid amount of money.
I work around a bunch of hustle types and it's nonstop. I mentioned I used to run an HTML radio station back in the early 00s. I got asked why I didn't turn that into a career. I took a bunch of classes on folklore in college. I got asked why that's not my job. I mention I make music, I get asked how much money I make. Everything's a job.
But it's not like these people even do anything neat with the money they get from grinding. If I had a bunch of money I'd first arm a few homeless and queer comrades. After that though, I'd at least try doing something interesting. I'd donate to artists I like, I'd do some cool interior design. I'd get into sculpting or something. I'd try to do fulfilling things.
But everyone I know who makes money from grinding/hustling just wants a bigger house. Not even to live in, they want it to raise the property value and sell it. They'll go on trips to other countries, but that's to take instagram photos. The only leisurely thing they'll do is get a nice car. They're just wired differently. It's ideology so deep it's rewired the pleasure centers of their brains. They can't feel good unless they're doing a scheme to make more money.
capital exists to create more capital, use-value is a byproduct, number go up
When I hear comments like that, I like to imagine that there's a wistful sentiment at the core of them: "it must be nice to have the freedom to pursue an esoteric goal with no economic incentive, and it's too bad that people can't generally do that and get by in the world".
It's almost certainly too optimistic, but as someone who used to say such cynical things, I like to imagine that others are on the same journey.
Yeah that's definitely a nicer interpretation of it. idk in the moment the comment seriously bummed me out, it's a real generational gap in my experience - if I tell a millenial that I really don't care about getting promoted they totally get it, but anyone older (especially my family entirely made up of liberal striver types) and they start going on and on about how I need to add more things to my CV.
I do fractal wood burning sometimes and one of the most common things people ask is whether I've considered selling them. Just the thought process of "How would I even make it profitable" because it generally takes a long time to do a single piece is exhausting.
It's actually fairly easy to get started doing it, but the neon sign transformers that won't send you flying if you somehow came into contact with the leads take a long time to crawl across the wood, I'd probably have to get several going at once to make it efficient. Even then it wouldn't be feasible for more detailed stuff where I'm actually making images instead of all the stuff you see on etsy where they just let it go wild.
Making art for its own sake is so confusing to people. I know a lot of professional artists who are unhappy with the art they make for clients, or burn out from selling hundreds of prints at art shows and having to Customer Service voice all weekend to people who don’t want their original art, just prints of fan art.
I can find some measure of satisfaction painting and playing music for myself.
I've tried to sell art stuff I make to bring in money for more supplies and it's always been very depressing. Something that takes me hours or days to make can be stamped out instantly in a factory and unless someone thinks that "hand made" adds intangible value to a piece there's no way I can "compete" with mass production stuff. I really gave up when Etsy opened the doors to mass production stuff. The things I make always proved a little too weird to sell at art fairs, it's mostly quasi-medieval larp accessories and the market for that isn't huge (and a lot of people who participate are dirt ass poor so their money goes in to essential equipment, travel, and camping fees instead of fancy pieces). idk. Sucks. There should be more beautiful things in the world made for the sake of beauty.
The societal focus on monetizing this stuff feels oppressively omnipresent. I tried doing art school at the local community college, and the coursework was centered around developing a marketable body of work. I make pretty, functional, or tasty things for friends and family, and they think I'm an idiot for not making that stuff professionally, even though they have no comprehension of the materials, time, or market.
I just want the pretty, functional, or tasty things to just be pretty, functional, or tasty. Why can't that be enough?
✨capitalism✨
fractal wood burning
I'd never heard of this, but I looked it up and it sounds cool and there were a bunch of articles about people dying doing it lmao. I can't talk about safety tho 'cuz I ride a motorycle.
People tend to jump on me whenever I mention it online and say I'm going to get people killed by saying it's pretty safe if you respect what you're doing. My main defense is that every single death I've ever read about was from people using microwave transformers, which you could probably find videos showing the power difference. The microwave ones almost immediately set the wood on fire and will make huge arcs when the circuit is about to close. I've actually gotten brushed by the leads using a neon sign transformer, which run at almost half the voltage of the microwave units when I first started and it doesn't feel great, but you're not going to get fried unless you maybe held each of the leads in a separate hand and created a circuit through your body. The way I do it is setting nails in the wood and then make no contact with the wood while keeping my finger on a kill switch.
Hustle culture is why I never started any hobbies. It's like "why bother if it will be years until I can make something baseline sellable?" And then people wonder why things are such shit, if everything is gatekept by wealth. Then only wealthy people have the privilege to be creative, and this means art sucks. Look at all the dime a dozen fashcomics on Twitter that are the same mean-spirited potshots on loop that wouldn't be too out of place in a 6th grade lunch period. The only reason they're popular is because normies simply agree with the politics, nothing more.
Are you telling me you literally can't imagine wanting to do something just to do it?
Unfortunately this is me and I hate it. I grew up learning this until it became second nature to think this way and midway through anything I inevitably start thinking this. I hate it; it makes me feel like doing it (writing, learning to program, etc.) is pointless because I probably won't turn it into a decent amount of cash, so why bother? I try to do my best to talk people out of being like this.
I grew up learning this until it became second nature
The more I think on it the more this becomes the most depressing part about it. When we're kids basically everything we do is on a whim because we think it will be cool, and then that gets beaten out of you when you're a teenager.
