I’ve noticed personally just how different my mind works when I am constantly presented with data for my actions. Even though these random data points have no real affect on my life, I’m still drawn to having those numbers be bigger than before. From the votes I receive from a social media comment to the reactions from a meme posted in a discord server, all I want is more attention through a click of a button from someone else’s screen.

I hate it. It feels like my value is placed into a number. For me, I prefer my value to come from how I treat other people. I feel a far greater sense of self when I am able to put my time and effort into helping other people. I get to learn the inner workings of someone else and teach them to empower themselves. It feels rewarding when later on those people I helped express their gratitute and trust in me. That is far more rewarding compared to the quick hit from any brain chemistry when looking at a bunch of data points or a bunch of money.

Unfortunately, I can’t make money this way. Not in the way I want to learn, teach and empower other people. I’m terrified of going into a career that will destroy my innate desire to help others. I know it’ll wreck me in the process. Again.

Capitalism destroys everything it touches by sucking all the life, creativity and humanity out of it until there’s a empty shell left behind. An empty shell that looks like every other empty shell. All those empty shells can be counted, given a value and sold. Reducing us and the human experience to yet another data point.

I truly hope more people come to understand that these data points don’t have to put us in a competitions with each other. That our value as people can come from places that don’t have/need to be from a number value.

One day, our planet will die. One day the last historian will die and all that data and preserved knowledge will sit and decay. It’s human knowledge and it’s meaning has more value to humans than any other living creature on our planet.

Personally, I’d rather live a life where my actions are responsible for the wellbeing of myself, my community and the land under my feet. It doesn’t matter to me anymore if my value can’t be reduced to a number.

This feels like satire? A site called real men, real style with an article about penises?

I’ve found myself lately a lot more interested in games that don’t focus heavily on graphics but instead allow other parts of the game to speak for itself. This allows for the imagination to fill in the gaps, as you mentioned.

I’ve been playing a lot or Caves of Qud recently. It’s a rogue-like game with tile graphics and colourful text. Somehow this menu simulator game has drawn me into it’s harsh and unforgiving world. The tile based graphics actually allows for an amazing amount of creative freedom both from the developer and player point of views. The developer has created this futuristic planet with mutants and cybernetics roaming the planet trying to survive. The player has the freedom to play as they like and create the most unique characters they can imagine. My current character has two hearts, a scorpion tail, a fanged beak, two dagger wielding claws and a habit for stabbing.

I think the rise of constantly better technology has inadvertently encouraged a focus on better graphics over other aspects of video games. While there are some absolutely beautiful games with higher hardware demand, I think as of late, I’m yearning for games that focus more on story or gameplay. Games where you can feel the developer’s passion. Games with polish and attention to details in the most unexpected ways. Games that attempt to push boundaries within certain limitations (think hardware or graphic styles for example).

I think what I want is a game that feels like I’m reading a fiction book in a way. What I mean is that when you read a work of fiction, your imagination is filling in all that visual information. A game can provide you more than just text, but if it can balance graphics, gameplay and story, it can really transport and immerse your imagination into that world.

After finally getting fed up, I went on a 10 month campaign against mamagement calling out all the sexism, racism, poor management and absolute disrespectful treatment of apprentices and contractors. I made it very clear that the work culture was awful in every way.

I got predictably fired but I secretly was working with corporate to deal with the the awful HR manager who was enabling this work culture.

Without going into much details, After my company fired me, I put in a complaint to the government labour board over a wrongful termination case. A month later after my submitting my case to the labour board, the HR manager was forced into early retirement. A month after that I settled out of court and got my severance plus a little extra to cover lawyer fees.

My coworkers knew, most got upset at me for challenging authority, some respectfully supported me at an arms length and even fewer people actually supported me.

What was undercover hate wasn’t very hidden by the end of my time there. Although I doubt they fully knew how much I couldn’t stand them. I still had to maintain the peace somehow.

I used to work in the trades. I was surrounded by straight-acting men. There’s nothing more gay than a group of straight-acting men.

Unfortunately it’s the creepy, repressed kind of gay that would make a tolerate person’s skin crawl.

I feel awful for their wives and children.

A long time ago I came across a game that was part of a 1mb challenge. It’s called A New Zero. I played it quite a lot, just flying around and dive bombing boats was entertaining enough for me.

I was impressed with 1mb but 13kb and 96kb is pretty amazing. I really enjoy seeing stuff like this.

This game has caught my eye. The visual style alone is what really draws me in to the world.

There’s something about the Half-Life-ish graphics and unique style that sort of hits a personal nostalgia for me. It has a wonderful combination of weird and abstract with a touch of familiarity. It also feels both vibrant and gritty at the same time. Something I didn’t realize I was missing so much. Especially after playing Baldur’s Gate 3 which has absolutely gorgeous but very busy graphics.

After I get over my Caves of Qud hyperfixation, I am definitely going to pick this game up.

It’s much easier to understand that shorter, milder winters means you can make people be even more productive. Now winter can’t slow down that road widening project.