Hi Logan, thanks for posting this, interesting perspectives.
I think one addition to the post, however, is considering the inherent fairness of the games.
I haven’t played video games in a long time, so let’s take the example of chess. There is an expectation that, at the beginning of the game, the pieces would be laid out in a particular manner.
Instead, imagine every time we played, the opponent got to start off in a position where they were within three moves of checkmate.
I think this is one of the big reasons why a lot of men specifically are checking out. From the cost of housing, to schooling, to many other factors, they feel like real life has become the equivalent of “mate in three”
So they turn to these games which are at least more fair. And to be honest, considering the lived experience of some of these people, I can’t really blame them. They’re just taking a rational evaluation of the different life paths, and realize that attaining status (even for people that they like) it’s just far too much effort, and not enough reward
Hi Logan, thanks for posting this, interesting perspectives.
I think one addition to the post, however, is considering the inherent fairness of the games.
I haven’t played video games in a long time, so let’s take the example of chess. There is an expectation that, at the beginning of the game, the pieces would be laid out in a particular manner.
Instead, imagine every time we played, the opponent got to start off in a position where they were within three moves of checkmate.
I think this is one of the big reasons why a lot of men specifically are checking out. From the cost of housing, to schooling, to many other factors, they feel like real life has become the equivalent of “mate in three”
So they turn to these games which are at least more fair. And to be honest, considering the lived experience of some of these people, I can’t really blame them. They’re just taking a rational evaluation of the different life paths, and realize that attaining status (even for people that they like) it’s just far too much effort, and not enough reward
This idea of "not enough reward" for getting an ordinary job and living an ordinary life is basically the subject of one of my previous pieces!
https://lbryck.substack.com/p/dream-job-or-bust
Beautiful, I’ll check it out
By the way I hope you keep posting, your Substack is really good, you should be getting way more engagement
Thank you (: