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Learning To Enjoy What Matters

Fri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

For some time in the last couple of years, there has been a crescent discontent with the state of the entertainment industry, most notably video games and movies. From bug-filled releases to bad CGI, from bad sequels, prequels, remakes and remasters to the pandering and DEI… it does seem as if the industry leaders have a fetish for stifling innovation and take the lazy approach of over-promising and under-delivering instead of putting the effort into delivering good products with originality.

Given this bleak picture of today in stark contrast with the creative and innovative scene of yesterday, becoming disillusioned is natural. The attention one once gave to these art forms is redirected towards even more shallow forms of entertainment that not only fails to often deliver a significant message or reflection, but also aids in eliminating the faith in the existence of meaningful entertainment.

What most people in this wave of frustration miscalculate is the extent and the impact of this degradation, and how achievable the solutions can be. In this post, I will enumerate the main problems I observe concerning the perception of these issues. By criticizing each point, I offer some solutions I compile and apply myself to deal with this in an individual, actionable level. I will give more focus to video games in this post, but this can apply to other media as well.

While you're out there complaining, I'll be here gaming.

The Three Problems

Problem 1: Of advertisers and bubbles.

Many things were, are and will be created to take away your money without giving much in return. This is the end goal of hardcore capitalists, after all. What we can grasp for but a moment is the experiences they provide and how much value each experience has is up to the individual. This subjectivity is what makes this debate so hard.

Each of us is like a flame, irradiating knowledge and wisdom by burning away what time and energy we have left to live. The “life radiation” we emit brings warmth and lights the way for those around us, and it is fueled by our work and leisure. By sharing our experiences with others, we inspire them to burn brighter, seek their own experiences and, eventually, inspire others.

However, some people abuse this power. On one side, we have big publishers constantly promoting the next new shiny thing. A hype machine composed of different entities: the marketing departments of game studios releasing ambitious advertisement campaigns and journalists disseminating rumors, controversies and reviews. On the other side, we have the consumers who, consciously or not, bombard our feeds with constant exposure to the same shiny new thing, be it by reverberating the hype machine’s byproducts, be it by producing excessively positive or negative criticism of the product or its context, which can feel very tiresome the more you are exposed to them.

The true goal of marketing.

One way or another, we are overexposed to the hype marketing that distorts our notion of value and hijacks our brains’ reward system. This induced hyperesthesia is even more severe if you are susceptible to targeted advertisement and/or if you happen to participate in a specific community. The latter poses an extra problem, for many people take advantage of others by their common tastes to gradually perpetrate some narrative or belief system. The great danger of internet bubbles is that instead of inspiring, they alienate.

When different bubbles come into contact, they get reinforced. Each one erects a totem of the other to be ostracized. This leads to a feedback loop in which members of each bubble constantly attack the others’ totem while never really providing valid criticism and instead resort to fallacies to sustain their claims. Even worse, they play victim while openly harassing the opposition.

Coming back to our flame metaphor, it’s as if the hype machine and the internet bubbles are an uncontrollable wildfire that is fueled by passion, drama and hate. It suffocates our flames and destroys all the joy of gaming we had left. What remains after is just cold ashes in a dark, barren land.

What once was the means of assessing the quality of a product has become an instrument of polarization. Either something is the best or the worst thing ever, depending on who you ask. This is why it is so important for us to break the barriers and be open to different perspectives, as well as to question how people (including ourselves) come to their conclusions and what are their biases and interests. Once more, exercise critical thinking.

As for managing the hype and FOMO, here’s a very good piece of advice: NEVER buy games at launch and ALWAYS wait for updates or discounts. Since video games are often released in early access or in an overall unfinished state, the experience of someone playing after the first year or so should be better and cheaper. Reducing one’s presence online can make this task much easier to achieve.

The key takeaway is to refrain from constantly engaging in meaningless discussions online and save that energy to enjoy what matters.

Problem 2: Of entertainment density and frequency.

Many things were, are and will be created to take away your time without giving much in return. We live very busy lives. We wake up, eat, work, sleep and repeat. There’s barely enough time there for having fun. So, why waste this time on passive, low density and mind-numbing pleasures? Why do we spend so much time “doom scrolling” when we could use this time to play video games or read books?

Our modern lifestyle leads us to live constantly in autopilot. We are required to be always available, always achieving something. When downtime comes, we can’t engage in active, high density and mind-enticing pleasures because we can’t slack off for long, we must go back to work soon. Fun is forbidden!

Then, we become desensitized to the simple things and accustomed to instant small doses of “fun”. On the surface, these types of entertainment seem inoffensive, given their small dosage. However, when combined for long periods of time and delivered by an algorithm designed to keep you scrolling for as much time as possible, their compound effect is hours wasted on the irrelevant.

To use the metaphor once more, it’s as if these activities slowly drain our flames, lowering their temperatures and attenuating their emissions, leading to less colorful and more dim lights that eventually fade away without inspiring any other flames to grow.

The solution lies in the balance between stress and relief - work and leisure - and controlling the dosage of stimuli. Take a look at your routine and find your “time sinks”. Spend a lot of time locked inside bubbles or eternally watching dumb videos? Cut that crap! Checking work notifications past work hours? Get out of there! After that, you will notice how much time you have available. You can fill those newly-found time gaps with more engaging activities.

When time comes to stop working and start playing, embrace it mindfully. Turn of notifications and avoid any other disturbances. Have 5 to 15-minute breaks every 45-55 to stretch your limbs, drink water and go to the bathroom if needed. You will realize how much attention you were giving away for free.

Thus, it becomes a cycle. After work, give yourself a break to have fun and play some games. After play, feel rewarded and motivated to do some work the next day. It comes naturally, and you will feel compelled to fall into this cycle after a few iterations. That’s a good habit being formed right there.

Lastly, be aware that some games also present the same dopamine-hacking mechanisms to keep you playing (and, more importantly, spending) for much longer than what’s considered healthy. I personally keep myself as far away as possible from these games, for the benefit they promise can usually be found somewhere else less addictive.

Problem 3: Of choice paralysis.

One very important problem that is left largely unaddressed is: what to play? How and where to find good games to play? If most modern releases are terrible, then there’s not much hope left, right?

Well, let’s start with the games you already own accumulating dust in your Steam library, or your Epic Games “free game of the week” dump, or your totally legal ROM archive. Add to that over half a century of gaming history on multiple platforms, with some of them available to purchase first hand and many others on the second hand market. And that’s not accounting for unofficial fan-made games, ROM hacks and mods, and the potentially good games yet to be released…!

Calm now, don’t panic. We all have a huge backlog of games, and that’s OK. This is why curatorship is essential, albeit subjective. Also keep in mind that not every game will appeal to you, that not playing some game despite their supposed critical acclaim is perfectly fine, and that you can’t play everything.

Start by making a two-column list of the games you have already played at some point of your life on one side and the games you never played but wish to on another side. See if they match in number and in proportion. That will give you an indication of you media literacy and help you identify the series and genres you know and love and the ones you have to still discover.

Afterwards, based on that list, seek game recommendations from friends, family members and others with similar tastes. Maybe they can introduce you to new subgenres you didn’t even know you liked. Always use your critical sense to analyze if they are valid and align with your tastes. Once again: seek inspiration, not alienation.

Once you have some suggestions, compare them to your current state of mind and listen to your “inner hype”. Maybe you can associate different times of the year with different games, like playing survival horror on October or JRPGs in the summer. This will create anticipation for these seasons and solidify affectionate memories, therefore reinforcing the habit of gaming in your life.

It’s also important to evaluate your exploit/explore trade-offs, that is, if it’s more worth to keep playing a certain game or if it’s better to switch to another one. For that, there is the spiral algorithm, first introduced to me by Cogumelando (in Portuguese).

The spiral algorithm works as follows: start with a list of the best games of a certain genre for a certain console. Then, pick some of them that aligns with your current inner hype and play them for a couple of hours whenever you can or feel like. Keep that cycle until either you beat the game, or the game beats you. If the former happens (great!), add that game to a second list of games you’ve beaten. Else, just drop it and go to the next one on the list. This way, you’re spiraling out from the more known classics to the hidden treasures.

It’s possible (and very common, btw) that you enjoy games you’ve never beaten, and that’s also OK. Maybe you got tired of the game or lacked the skill and tricks to finish it. No shame in that. Heck, if anything, it might give you an excuse to play it again in the future and make it to the end.

Personally, I have been having a blast exploring retro titles. The good thing about living in 2024 is that we have working emulators for consoles ranging from the Magnavox Odyssey to the PlayStation 3. So lately I downloaded and configured some of them to both revisit games I played growing up and play those I never got the chance to experience.

With the amount of resources and knowledge available nowadays at mere clicks away, it’s easier than ever to keep alive video game culture and preserve it for current and next generations. So let’s do our part to keep our flames burning bright and lighting other fires along the way.

Use emulation. It's delicious.

TL;DR:

Never let the entertainment industry diminish the accomplishments of the past, nor the bad apples of gaming community ruin your fun.
Never let your self-indulgence nor pointless distractions prevent you from appreciating the moment and possibly sharing it with others.
And even though you can’t play/watch/read/listen to everything everyone has ever created, never let that stop you from learning to enjoy what matters.

The Internet Is (Not) Dead

Sat, 19 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Suppose you are one of the prisoners in Plato’s Cave, and you have just now realized that the shadows projected on the cavern walls are not real. You also realize the shackles that held you to the ground are loose, and no one is watching you. Seeing this as an opportunity, you set yourself free and flee.

On your way out, you find out that the cave you were in is actually part of a much wider and deeper network of caves filled to the brim with prisoners. You also see hooded figures acting as guards, producing and carrying signs in shapes similar to the shadows you saw on your cave. You also see other prisoners lighting and fanning the flames that cast those shapes and illuminate the walls of the caves.

Having enough of this insane cave network, you seek desperately to get outside. You notice a sliver of light ahead, and rush towards it. Its brightness is far greater than anything you’ve ever seen, and you assume it must be the surface. There are other escapees to greet you, and you rejoice knowing you’re not the only one. Just as you’re about to continue, however, they ask you to sit down to rest before resuming to the top.

The very moment you sit down and observe the light being cast on the other side of the wall, you notice different shadows appear upon it. Since they come from that bright light, you assume these must be the surface inhabitants. Without your notice, however, shackles have been put on you again, and you see yourself in the same exact situation as before.

A well-known allegory under a modern lens.

Introduction

If the protagonist of the narrative above is “literally you”, then you may have noticed something is wrong with the internet.

If you had access to the older “wild west web”, you might recall how things were… different. Better in some aspects, worse in others. The internet used to be novel, avant-garde, experimental. There was a page for everyone and a forum for everything. Even social media felt more authentic and personal, in a way.

The internet served (and still serves) as the biggest gathering of information and knowledge our species has ever created. Yet, this device has been recurrently misused and re-purposed to fit other needs. It went from mainly community driven to corporate driven, losing its essence and authenticity and becoming more sterile and sanitized in the process.

With it, came an eternal recurrence of similar articles on similar websites. Always the same products, services, discussions and memes being discussed on the same platforms over and over… Nothing felt genuine anymore, and people took notice.

In the last couple of years, there has been a conspiracy theory circulating through the internet. The Dead Internet Theory claims that most (if not all) of the internet is fake. Fake traffic, fake people, fake news, etc. No influencer, no event, and no media is real. The internet has become “an ocean kilometers wide, but centimeters deep”. A bold statement truly, but a sane one.

Who killed it, though? A handful companies and their shareholders? Oppressive governments and bad actors? Blockchains and AI? Was it killed because of a feeble attempt at digital inclusion or because “we can’t have nice things”? We may speculate, but none of that really matters since it’s out of our control. What matters is: it happened, and it mostly sucks.

The internet isn't dead and will play for Vasco da Gama.

Some key observations that sustain the Dead Internet Theory include:

Vanishing accounts and websites;
Eternal recurrence of content on the internet and the news;
AI-generated content proliferation and bot infestation;
Algorithmic fiction in social media and search engines;
Homogeneity and soullessness in modern mass multimedia;
Increase of sexual perversion and degeneracy;
Differences between content on smartphones and PCs;

All of them have been covered by a plethora of different authors, therefore I’ll abstain from elaborating on them further (links below):

My aim is not to serve you a blackpill and let you writhe in sorrow, like some of the above do. I’d rather provoke catharsis. After all, I can assure you right now is just as exciting as ever to surf the web like the good old days.

I will explain the steps required to rediscover and enjoy a more open web. Moreover, I’ll also provide a guide on how to develop a moral compass to lead you through this journey. This way, you won’t stumble into yet another dead end as the freed prisoner protagonist did.

The Five Steps:

Step 0: Critical thinking

The first (zeroth?!) point I want to discuss is the most important tool to be yielded by anyone on or offline: critical thinking. This tool is so powerful and important that without it, the rest of this blogpost becomes invalid.

The concept is simple: whenever you are given a new piece of information, pause and ponder. Try to imagine how that fits into your world view, where it agrees and where it diverges. Seek other sources that either confirms or refutes that information, acknowledging that they too bear their own biases. If possible, test that information yourself.

Of course, in practice, it isn’t that simple. Information is often presented in a way to hack your brain’s weak spots: emotions. To exercise critical thinking properly, you must set aside any emotional reaction for a quick moment to analyze what that information really is and then act upon it.

On the other hand, recognize it is humanly impossible to have an up-to-date, 100% free of bias opinion about anything in the world. Your burden is to carry your own beliefs (native or socially imposed), and the best you can hope to accomplish is a brief suspension of your beliefs in the face of new hypotheses and evidences. In doubt, a russian proverb fits like a glove:

Trust, but verify.

Now that’s dealt with, let’s get started!

Step 1: Remember the purpose of the web

Here is the very first exercise in critical thinking:

What is the purpose of the web?
What do you want to do on the internet?
Why did you go online today in the first place?

Some answers you provide to these questions might be:

Communicate with friends and family;
Research topics;
Seek entertainment for myself and others;
Work-related stuff, etc.

I believe none of them include “being force fed propaganda”, “arguing with $opposing_ideology”, “feeling miserable about my life because $other_person is doing so much better” or “whining because things change”.

Therefore, “remember the purpose of the web” is a mantra you must keep in mind while you’re online. Make a list of what you actually want from the internet and let that be your guide to help you navigate the web.

By doing so, you have successfully thought critically. Congratulations!

OK, this one was easy. What’s next?

Step 2: Take the red pill

This one require some more effort, but pays off wonders in the long run.

Chances are you are trying to ditch social media right now. Be it because of the complete decadence of Twit―I mean, 𝕏 and Reddit, be it because Meta and privacy are antonymous. This used to be seen as a suicide but the concept of leaving social media has been gaining popularity recently, and with plenty of good reasons.

One reason is to regain control over one’s thoughts and actions. It is extremely convenient to sit back, relax and passively consume new content being curated by The Algorithm™ and added constantly to your feed 24/7. Modern platforms make use of psycho-socially engineered mechanisms to retain user attention for as long as possible.

Most users don’t actively search what they want to see. When they do, they are biased at best by the very search engine they are using. In this step, take the time to think about your tastes, personal preferences, hobbies and interests. We will see how to research these things on the next step, but it is important to know what you’re looking for before typing the first character of your search term.

Another reason is to regain one’s online privacy. You’ve probably had that concern before, and maybe even started to implement some techniques in your daily life. On the other hand, you may have found some of them too unpractical and unsuitable for your daily usage of the internet.

In this step, you develop threat modeling. These are threats that affect not only your privacy, but also your attention. For this, ask yourself these questions:

Who am I protecting my data from?
What type of data am I protecting in the first place?
What are the things I actively want to avoid while using the web?
How the websites and online communities I visit can influence my world view?

Given the answers to these questions and remembering the purpose of the web, you can start researching and adapting different strategies and tools to your personal needs.

Step 3: Seek and save websites and resources

Now that the monster is out of the cage, what is there to see outside? You may ask:

Where do I start looking for new websites?
How do I keep in touch with them?

There are some good starting points for your exploration of independent websites. These include Wiby, Curlie and Neocities (a.k.a where this website is hosted). Although these search engines might not yield the best results at first, they serve as a good enough first step in your new internet odyssey.

Make sure to explore webrings and list links (like mine) as well. Eric Murphy wrote a great post in his blog about these approaches to web discovery. There might be some roadblocks, dead-ends and shady streets on the way though, and this is where critical thinking can make sure you don’t stray from your moral path.

There are also some hidden gems in your path worth saving. The moment you find them, be sure to keep them bookmarked so you won’t need to search for them again or rely on your browser history. Also, if they have an RSS feed available, be sure to subscribe to them. RSS is a great way to keep up with blogs and podcasts you might find along the way. I personally use Thunderbird as an RSS reader.

You may have also grown accustomed to some facilities of the modern web. You don’t have to give up all of them to use a more free internet. You may also ask, then:

Is there a way to benefit from a certain site or service I used by some other means?
Are there alternatives to these platforms that respect my privacy and attention?

To that end, you can refer to The Lesser Evil, a simple list I’ve compiled of common alternatives front-ends to well-known online platforms (They don’t always work, though. YMMY). Extensions such as Libredirect and Imgsed make the process of browsing these front-ends much easier. You can even generate RSS feeds for mainstream social media and many other websites using RSSHub.

Special attention must be given to the search engine. Since this tool is usually your primary source of new content, its choice can influence what type of internet you will be presented with. Unfortunately, every search engine carries a certain bias (including the aforementioned ones). The only reasonable solution is to use multiple engines, preferably at once. Thankfully, there exists a highly-configurable meta-search engine for that known as SearX (now SearXNG).

Because of the ephemeral aspect of the web, we cannot take availability of websites as a given. In case you find content worth saving on your drive, tools such as the SingleFile extension and yt-dlp can archive webpages and videos respectively with remarkable quality.

Optional: Take part in the decentralization of the web

If you want to contribute even more to making the internet more decentralized, there are some options.

The easiest by far is joining The Fediverse, a collection of different services that communicate via the same protocol. There is no central, single instance to any of their platforms. Rather, there are several different instances, each with a specific focus or niche.

Here are some of the available web services I’d personally use:

Peertube - Video sharing;
Funkwhale - Music sharing;
Castopod - Podcasting;

Of course, there are many others that you can join as an user or even host your own instance. Beginners start here.

If you’re not so much into the Fediverse, you can start your own website (like I did). Its maintenance is notably higher compared to a Fediverse account, but it can be rewarding to see your own place on the web. Other decentralized initiatives outside HTTPS include the IPFS and BitTorrent protocols, both with emphasis on peer-to-peer file sharing.

Keep in mind the recommendations I give in this step are related to what would fit my personal needs and threat models. If any of them don’t fit yours, there are many others to explore. Be sure to do your own research and always exercise critical thinking.

Step 4: Touch grass

Great, now you’re armed with an arsenal of philosophical and technological tools to explore the web. You also performed a fugere urbem on the web, explored a lot of very cool sites and marked them on your “web map”. What comes next?

Here is the plot twist: touch grass. Go offline. Stay out of the loop for a moment. Be bored.

“Wait, what? Why?!”, you may ask. Simple: the purpose of the web was fulfilled. At this moment, your “daily dose” of internet was delivered, and thus it is not necessary to remain online. You can close the browser and disable your wired or wireless connections. Be at peace with the entries on your feed reader and the files you’ve downloaded. Once you’re done with them, you can even shutdown your computer.

There is no need to be online or have notifications enabled for every social media 24/7. In fact, it can be beneficial to go offline for a couple of hours, be it for work, gym, meditation, or to just enjoy a movie or a book without interruptions. There is a lot to experience while AFK.

Whenever those are done, then you can get online again and get updated. The key is not to abstain yourself completely (this is nigh impossible nowadays), but to interrupt this constant stream of news that flows on the internet. It’s the difference between drinking water from a bottle and drinking it from a high-pressure hose.

It is so easy to be distracted nowadays. Lots of snippets of entertainment being constantly recommended and available. Lots of drama to keep up with on social media. The modern internet seems to just want you to stay online, to keep you in for longer than needed.

You, on the other hand, feel the pressure from the environment and respond with an equally high pressure to sit down and stare at the shadows for just one more meme. But to really see the light, what is outside the cave, you must not surrender. Get up, shake the dust off, bid farewell to your fellow netizens and follow the light instead of merely admiring the shadows it creates…

Wait, this still exists?!

Sat, 15 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Hello internet, so glad to see you my friend. It’s been a while…

There has been exactly 1 year and 3 months since my last blogpost, and it seemed that my website had fallen very shortly after its initial upload. It turns out a lot of stuff happened in my life since then, and I had neither time nor motivation to continue with this endeavor.

However, very recent events have ignited in me a spark of motivation to pick up from where I left. Most notably, the collapse of modern social media (which I will explore in a later post) has inspired me once more to elaborate further my website and create a long-standing place on the Internet I can more reliably call mine. You can think of this website as my visit card, so to speak. ;)

In order to breathe new life to this website, I have completely redesign of my website using Hugo as the website generator. It took some time to get the templates up and running, but it will certainly speed up the site updates.

In the meantime, I’ll write deeper, more technical posts about different subjects (finally bringing physics and deep learning to the table, hopefully). See you some other time! :)