Right, and you get why this is impossible for most people? That was my original point. Most people, even if they want to do this, can’t. It’s unaffordable.

The point is that your suggestion that someone is free to do this is just very much not the case.

Ok, but if your plan is to live solo forever and not interact with society, you’d basically need to pay for it upfront. That means you need a lot of money all at once, otherwise you’ll still need income, which limits the ability you have to be separate from society.

Yes I know, I’ve looked at them. That’s how I know they are quite expensive.

They’re free to go live in the wilderness, with no roads, no fire department, no water or electricity, no services whatever, and find out how much they’re actually benefiting from our collective.

Where?

This is what I want to do, but I can’t afford to buy land on which to do it (and not just any land is useful for this either, it needs to be capable of supporting people before you can count it). Land enough to support a small homestead isn’t cheap, and zoning/local laws often restricts what you can do on it. So for example you may buy land, but not be allowed to drill a well, even if you have the means and knowledge to do so. Or if you buy land you can afford, you may not be allowed to build a permanent structure on it at all.

You’ll get kicked out (and possibly fined) of both state and national parks in the US if they find you “permanently camping”, which they are likely to do since there are frequently people out there. The only other option is squatting on private property. If you get caught before whatever time passes for squatters laws to take effect, you lose everything you’ve built up.

I mean don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind paying for things I’ll never use because it makes society as a whole better. All I’m saying is opting out of living in a society is nearly impossible for most people even if they are ok with not having all the stuff society funds like roads and fire control.

I’m super into this. All of it. I don’t think it’s one thing but several and that makes it more compelling, because I’m honestly not super sure. Because I’m not familiar with any of it. It’s like reading about OS behavior on systems I’ve never touched.

You seem to be referencing a few people or channels or something, could you provide some links to their content so I can watch it? I’m genuinely interested, and I have enough time on my hands to go searching if all you can give me is a link to the creator. This sounds like exactly the sort of phantom goodness I want more of.

Demakes are so interesting. They are more constrained than coming up with something new for an old system, but, seemingly because they use IP people are already familiar with, they can leave more unsaid/unshown and just implied, and still have it be cohesive.

That was a really good one, I can see why it’s your fave!

Oh man yes actual time dilation as a core mechanic of the game sounds awesome. Disorienting as hell, but awesome.

I bet a game like that could be used for therapy, too, like in a big way… let people live out where their life is headed, or the life of someone they’d target for hate crimes or whatever. Let them struggle. Maybe they’d come out wanting to make some changes. That’d be cool af. I’d totally playtest that. Repeatedly. And end up like time-frozen Jessica after she wakes up 😜

That sounds like x-files, and I’m not super surprised lol

Ooh, I’ll have to look into that book, thanks!

Yep those all count :) I’ll have to watch those episodes again! Same with the black mirror one, those are all good but man I gotta be in the right mood for ‘em… lol

It’s honestly a wildly broad category, so kinda no wrong answers.

There’s all sorts of things that count. A picture with game hud elements to imply gameplay, videos of whole fake games, books that mimic play through guides that describe how to play games that don’t exist.

There’s even fake video games that are just one cover art picture, and a sound track that implies how levels would be played.

Ooh yeah that’s a good one, I have a big long think about that every time I read that book.

I love BMO 🥹

Oh man, I get into everything, especially if someone presents it to me with enthusiasm. I love learning about new stuff, and super bonus if it alters my perceptions or broadens my horizons :)

Oh, I don’t remember that one, I’ll have to watch it again!

Get a friend/friends to split the costs and items with you. Most stuff comes in multiple packages, so it’s pretty easy to split this way. If you have an uneven number, split so the person who is likely to use it faster gets more.

I’ve done this before and it works very very well to keep costs down for 2+ people who don’t live together. It probably won’t cover everything you want to buy but it dramatically reduces the “omg I’ll never eat all this” feeling.

Oh that’s exciting! I hope he loves it as much as I did!

I can’t speak for the revised version, but the original was super engaging when I was a kid (probably got it around 95 or thereabouts, so somewhere in the 6-8 range), but not so serious or complicated as to distract from the whimsy. It’s also educational in a natural language way, which I feel is better for developing interest. It’s not difficult to read.

It’s one of many things that led me to a deep intense curiosity about the world around me!

I didn’t have any of those but I DID have a copy of The Way Things Work by David Macaulay, which is an exploration of mechanical concepts demonstrated with adorable illustrations of mammoths. Kinda similar presentation, according to my search.

I should get a new (old) copy.

Strong smells, especially campfire. Cannot stand the smell of campfire. Gives me headaches and makes me super sneezy.

I don’t have AC, and it’s legal to have campfires in town in private yards, which means I have the joy of being uncomfortable nearly every nice night for half the year. If I open windows for the nice breeze, my house stinks of smoke, if I keep the windows closed, it stays hot. Can’t win because people are selfish af.

People should not be allowed to burn shit in town, regardless of the fire spread risk. It negatively impacts other people who have zero say. I don’t have asthma, but if I did I’d probably just die living here.

And nobody else thinks it’s a problem because they LIKE having fires now and then. It’s the same mentality of not putting limits on rich people because they wouldn’t want limits on themselves if they get rich.

I would consider dev mode in rimworld to be cheating in a “technically it is” sort of way… spawning infant thralls that are then adopted by my colony, or spawning whatever activity site I choose are definitely not how the game is supposed to work. The mods are sort of also cheating I guess, tho most of them are content heavy… there are definitely several hacky mods in my list, like minify everything.

But while it’s cheating in a technical sense, it doesn’t impact anyone and it’s teaching me a lot about how video games function, which I find more entertaining than completing hard-coded objectives. It’s the first game I ever put a lot of mods on, and between troubleshooting and testing stuff, it’s been nearly as illuminating as rendering lag that adds each texture layer individually starting from low poly (my ps4 is having some major lag issues I’m trying to sort out, and horizon zero dawn is fascinating for this rendering issue, so so many layers! And then to realize it usually gets processed in real time! 🤯)

As for cheating in multiplayer, it hasn’t come up in decades. WoW was the last multiplayer game I played, and I stopped that when whatever the third expansion was came out. So like 2010 or so?