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tover153

@ tover153 @lemmy.world

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1
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40
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • The Only Solution Capitalism Has Is to Sell Us More Useless Junk: Ad makers will never say the quiet part loud, but they increasingly know that we're unhappy and looking for solutions.

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  • Thank you, I really appreciate that.

    Yes, I’ve read The Machine Stops, and it’s hard not to feel it hovering over moments like this. Forster saw the danger early. What he couldn’t have known is how normalized the machine would become, or how willingly we’d narrate its failures and keep feeding it anyway.

    My instincts tend to run a bit later. More Pat Cadigan, a little J.G. Ballard. Less catastrophic collapse, more systems that keep functioning long after they stop making human sense. I’m interested in the quiet failure modes, the ones that don’t trip alarms but slowly change how people trust, notice, and relate.

    If this landed for you, that’s probably the overlap.

  • The Only Solution Capitalism Has Is to Sell Us More Useless Junk: Ad makers will never say the quiet part loud, but they increasingly know that we're unhappy and looking for solutions.

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  • What feels different this time isn’t hypocrisy. Capitalism has always been happy to sell us our own anger back at retail. What feels different is that the ads no longer presume a shared reality at all.

    Advertising once depended on ambient trust. Not belief, exactly, but a background assumption that words meant roughly what they said, that fear was proportional to risk, that reassurance implied some intention to follow through. That layer is gone. Now the ad doesn’t ask to be believed. It just asks to be noticed.

    When companies openly dramatize the harms of the systems they profit from, they aren’t confessing. They’re signaling that truth has become optional. The message isn’t “we see the problem.” The message is “nothing means anything long enough to matter.” Anxiety becomes just another raw material, interchangeable with humor or nostalgia or menace.

    This is where the information economy starts to eat itself. If every message arrives pre-saturated with irony, critique, and self-awareness, then no signal can rise above the din. Warnings, reassurances, satire, and sales pitches collapse into the same register. The audience isn’t persuaded or misled so much as numbed.

    AI accelerates this collapse because it removes the last residue of intent. When the thing soothing your fear of replacement is itself replaceable by a cheaper, faster version, trust doesn’t break. It evaporates. There’s no betrayal because there’s no relationship left to betray.

    And that erosion reaches even here. A reply like this would once have felt like an intervention, or at least a refusal. Now it lands as another object in the stream. Legible, maybe even accurate, but easily skimmed, quickly metabolized, and just as quickly forgotten. The critique doesn’t fail because it’s wrong. It fails because the conditions that once gave critique traction are gone.

    At that point advertising stops functioning as communication and starts functioning as weather. It happens around us. We endure it. We don’t argue with it because there’s nothing there to argue with.

    That feels new. And it feels brittle. Societies can survive a lot of lies. They don’t do well when meaning itself becomes non-durable.

    (I write fiction and essays about witnessing systems as they fail quietly rather than spectacularly. If this kind of erosion, of trust, meaning, and shared signal, is something you’re thinking about too, my work lives here: https://tover153.substack.com/)

  • What lyric has stood the test of time for you?

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  • Days, up and down they come Like rain on a congadrum Forget most, remember some But don't turn none away. Everything is not enough And nothin' is to much to bear. Where you been is good and gone All you keep is the getting there.

    To live is to fly Low and high, So shake the dust off of your wings And the sleep out of your eyes.

    ...

    We all got holes to fill Them holes are all that's real. Some fall on you like a storm, Sometimes you dig your own.

    The choice is yours to make, Time is yours to take Some sail upondive into the sea, Some toil upon the stone.

    To live is to fly Low and high, So shake the dust off of your wings And the sleep out of your eyes

    Townes Van Zandt

  • 'PromptQuest' is the worst game of 2025. You play it with AI

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  • What's the oldest video game you still find yourself playing?

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  • I am realizing my life is not really marked by birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, or any of the normal milestone stuff people list. It is marked by video games.

    Thanks for this thread, because it reminded me of one I cannot leave out.

    There was a week I spent in a mental hospital with a major anxiety spiral. Pretty much everything felt unmanageable. The one thing I could handle was Pokémon FireRed on a Game Boy Advance.

    That was it. That was my anchor.

    It was actually written into my chart that I was allowed to plug my charger in at the nurses station while I slept so the GBA would be ready the next day. No arguments. No debates. Just accepted as necessary.

    Not my oldest game, see my other replies for that, but it is probably the only one I have mentioned that might have saved my life.

  • What's the oldest video game you still find yourself playing?

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  • Close, but mine was Gorf on the VIC-20, not the 2600. See my other reply for the longer story.

  • What's the oldest video game you still find yourself playing?

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  • This thread is turning into a memory dump for me, so here is another one.

    I go back farther than Warcraft 3. I still fire up Warcraft 2 on DOSBox now and then, usually when I have had a bit too much to drink and want something familiar.

    When Warcraft 2 was new, I was a junior computer programmer for a very large corporation, top 25 in the world. I set up a LAN at home using token ring, which tells you roughly how old this story is.

    My wife is not really a gamer, although after thirty seven years of marriage and putting up with this stuff, maybe she qualifies anyway. We would sit at our desks, hold our daughters on our laps, and battle each other in Warcraft 2.

    The machines were 80286 boxes I built myself from parts. Thanks, CDW back when it still meant Computer Discount Warehouse.

    So yeah, I guess I have been around for most of this history. Some people remember patches and balance updates. I remember toddlers, token ring, and orcs on beige hardware.

  • What's the oldest video game you still find yourself playing?

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  • Joust brings back a very specific memory for me.

    I was in early high school and happened to live in the town in Iowa that called itself the Video Game Capital of the World. There are enough documentaries out there that it is not exactly a secret. When I joined the Army at eighteen my nickname was Radar, which probably gives it away anyway.

    I had a good friend from junior high computer club. He had a TRS-80 Color Computer. I was a Commodore guy. By high school we had mostly drifted apart. Then one day he called me up, yes phones did exist, and told me he was going to set a world record on Joust and asked if I wanted to come help support him.

    Somehow I got permission from my parents. I spent the entire weekend at the arcade with him, mostly watching, bringing food, keeping track of things, and just being there. He set the record. I do not know how long it stood, but I know I was there when his name went up on the big board Monday morning.

    I got an unexcused absence from school for it.

    Still worth it.

  • What's the oldest video game you still find yourself playing?

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  • That one hits close.

    I started Minecraft because my kid talked me into it. I bought him the last Alpha version, then bought myself the first Beta so I could play with him. At the time it just felt like blocks and wandering around, but it stuck.

    Now I play with my grandsons.

    Last weekend was my oldest grandson’s eleventh birthday. Along with a Steam gift card and probably some Robux, all he really wanted was to spend the day playing Minecraft with his grandpa. So that is what we did.

    Not my oldest game, but definitely the one I play most consistently. At least once a week.

  • What's the oldest video game you still find yourself playing?

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  • Oldest game I still play is probably Taipan.

    I first played it on an Apple IIe, but now it is just a web browser thing I poke at once in a while. It is basically spreadsheets and bad luck. You trade, pirates wreck you, the math never quite works out, and you lose anyway. I think that is why I still like it. No graphics to hide behind.

    After that, Seven Cities of Gold, usually on a C64 emulator. That one still holds up more than it has any right to. You sail off thinking you are doing something heroic and slowly realize you are kind of a problem. The exploration feels lonely. The map still feels bigger than it actually is.

    But the oldest one I keep coming back to is Gorf on the VIC-20.

    I owned the cartridge. Bought it not long after it came out. I paid for the VIC-20 by walking beans and putting up hay all summer for a farmer when I was eleven or twelve. Hot, dusty work. Long days. I remember counting the cash and realizing I could actually afford a computer.

    Gorf was loud, ugly, and mean. The voice mocked you constantly. The joystick barely survived. I loved it anyway. Sitting on the floor, TV buzzing, thinking this was the future and I had somehow managed to buy a piece of it.

    Also, side note. I am trying pretty hard to become a professional writer. I write essays and stories over at tover153.substack.com. If anything there hits a nerve, feel free to subscribe.

    So yeah. Taipan, Seven Cities, Gorf. Not because they are good by modern standards, but because they still feel like something.

  • COMMUNITY VOICES: Trump Removes MLK Day & Juneteenth as Free National Park Dates, Adds His Birthday

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  • I spent more than two years volunteering in the National Park system. Swore in thousands of Junior Rangers. Stood in gypsum dunes, Civil War battlefields, and a lot of places where kids looked at the world with the kind of hope adults forget they once had.

    So hearing that MLK Day and Juneteenth were dropped from the fee-free calendar and replaced with Trump’s birthday just knocked the wind out of me.

    MLK Day is a day of service. Juneteenth marks freedom. These days mean something.

    Trump’s birthday does not.

    I cannot imagine looking a kid in the eye after that oath and explaining why the end of slavery no longer counts but a politician’s birthday does. I will not volunteer under that. Not for one more hour.

    The land will outlast whoever did this. The dunes will still glow white. The mountains will still hold their shape. But the values behind the Park Service only survive if we protect them.

    If you want the longer version of why this hit me so hard, I wrote about it here: https://tover153.substack.com/p/when-the-parks-stop-belonging-to

  • Journalist Reveals FBI Is Offering a “Bounty” for Reporting “Anti-Trump Thought”

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  • If the best you can do is accuse me of using ChatGPT instead of responding to a single thing I actually said, that’s not a debate. That’s avoiding one. I write my own stuff. Always have. Sometimes I even manage to get a line right.

    But if calling it “slop” makes it easier for you to skip the point, go ahead. I grew up in Iowa. I’ve seen actual slop. What I wrote doesn’t qualify.

  • Journalist Reveals FBI Is Offering a “Bounty” for Reporting “Anti-Trump Thought”

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  • Fair point. Although in a poem I wrote recently, I put it this way: “You learn to read the sky when you cannot trust the roof.”

    Still feels about right for the situation.

    More of my writing is here, if you’re curious: https://tover153.substack.com/

  • Journalist Reveals FBI Is Offering a “Bounty” for Reporting “Anti-Trump Thought”

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  • Thanks for the summary. Your version is definitely easier to type, but I still prefer the line I wrote earlier: “There is a point where a person realizes the boat is not just sinking, it was built upside down to begin with.”

    Still, I appreciate the reply.

  • National parks fee-free calendar drops MLK Day, Juneteenth and adds Trump's birthday

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  • I know this article is two days old, but I just now figured out what I need to say about it.

    I have spent more than two years of my life volunteering in the National Park system. Two full trips around the sun spent in uniform, answering questions, pointing out wildlife, hauling gear, getting sunburned in ways the human body should not experience, and feeling lucky to do it. I worked at a National Park twice, a National Seashore, and a National Battlefield. But the truth is, all of that work added together still does not weigh as much, emotionally, as the Junior Ranger program.

    I have sworn in thousands of Junior Rangers. Thousands. I have knelt beside kids who were clutching their little booklets like they were holding something sacred. I have seen shy children suddenly stand tall when they recited the words. I have felt the weight of the oath settle into the silence afterward. I have watched their parents cry, and I have tried not to cry with them.

    Because the oath means something. At least, it used to.

    The idea that MLK Day and Juneteenth are no longer fee-free days, but Trump’s birthday is, breaks something in me I did not know could still break. I cannot imagine looking into the eyes of a child who just promised to “protect the land and respect all who share it” and then explaining that our public lands now officially recognize a politician’s birthday as more worthy of celebration than the end of slavery or the life of a man who died fighting for justice.

    Junior Rangers take that oath with their whole hearts. They believe the world can be fair, kind, beautiful, shared. They believe the Park Service is telling them the truth about what matters.

    What message do they get now. That history is optional. That equality is negotiable. That love of land is fine but love of humanity is… inconvenient.

    I have never felt ashamed in my uniform before. Not once. Not through budget cuts, shutdowns, storms, or the thousand small frustrations that come with public service.

    But I would feel ashamed volunteering under this. I cannot do it. I will not do it.

    And the international visitor surcharge? That is just another wound. I have watched children from other countries light up when they saw their first bison, their first canyon, their first soaring hawk. Nature does not ask for passports. The NPS never used to either.

    The National Parks were one of the rare places where America told the truth about itself. The land is older than power. Older than politicians. Older than all of us. And we are supposed to protect it for everyone.

    Junior Rangers believe that. I believed that.

    Now I do not know what to tell them.

    And that is what breaks my heart the most.

  • Bar owner offering free beers to people who help ICE says he’s getting death threats

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  • I grew up in an extreme conservative Christian home. Preacher’s kid. The kind of childhood where dancing was suspicious and playing cards was basically a gateway drug. So believe me when I say this: offering free beer in exchange for turning in your neighbors is not a conservative Christian value. It is not even close. It is a saloon owner LARPing as a moral authority.

    If any of the church elders I grew up with had seen this promotion, the first question would not have been about ICE. It would have been, “Why does this man own a bar, and why is he handing out alcohol like it is communion for tattletales.”

    Heterosexual Awesomeness Month. Ladies’ I’m Telling Tuesdays. MAGA cocktail menus. None of this is righteousness. This is dinner theater with cheaper costumes.

    And the idea that people criticizing him are “showing their wickedness” is rich. If anything is showing its true colors, it is a business model that treats turning in immigrants as a loyalty rewards program.

    You do not get to wrap yourself in “Christian values” while running Whistleblower Wednesdays. Jesus did not say, “Blessed are the snitches, for they shall inherit a free domestic draft.”

    If this guy wants to talk about Christian morality, then he can start with the basics. You know, the parts about loving your neighbor instead of calling ICE on them for a drink discount.

    Until then, it is not faith. It is a theme bar with a persecution complex.

  • Trump to announce $12 billion in aid to farmers

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  • Reading this article gave me the same feeling I get when someone tries to fix a server with what a former trans coworker of mine proudly called percussive maintenance. You can tell right away that somebody in Washington thinks they are offering farmers a real solution, even though they seem unclear about what the actual problem is.

    A little background, since my political history has taken more turns than a loose extension cord. I grew up in an extreme conservative evangelical home as a preacher’s kid. That meant I carried around beliefs I had not really inspected up close. So yes, for years I showed up and did the Republican work. I made thousands of campaign calls for Romney. I worked for someone running for the state house who did not get elected while I was on her staff, though she later squeaked out a win by six votes, which felt like watching a progress bar creep from 99 percent to complete. I checked all the boxes. Special elector. County central committee. If there was an election from 2011 on, I was probably standing in a school gym with an R next to my name.

    Then the party hitched itself to President Mango Unhinged. I wrote the county Chairwoman a long, weary letter explaining that I could not pretend this was normal. I switched to Independent and then, in a moment of questionable judgment, voted for Gary Johnson. Let us call that a corrupted file in my political directory.

    Later, when the Senate Election Committee decided Roy Moore was still an acceptable investment, that was it. I went to the courthouse, filled out the form, and became a Democrat. There comes a point when you realize your operating system has too many vulnerabilities to patch.

    During the last presidential election, I worked as the precinct chair in a rural county. My grandparents all farmed, and I spent plenty of childhood summers walking beans, putting up hay, and roguing corn with a hoe sharp enough to qualify as a safety violation. But I have been an IT guy for decades now, and even I could see what was coming when the final tally came in and sixty six percent of the precinct voted for Mango Unhinged. That was the moment I knew the whole system was about to crash.

    So reading this article about a twelve billion dollar aid package funded by tariffs that Americans are actually paying feels like watching someone reboot the wrong machine. Farmers do not need giant checks mailed out after a political fire. They need stable markets, predictable trade, and equipment that does not cost the same as a mid range server rack.

    And when I see a promise to cut environmental rules to make machinery cheaper, all I hear is the unmistakable sound of someone deleting files they should not delete.

    At this point I half hope Pam Bondi has my name in a folder labeled Formerly Cooperative, Now Suspiciously Reasonable. It would be the most attention the federal government has ever given a middle aged Army veteran living quietly in an RV.

    This twelve billion dollar relief package is not a solution. It is the equivalent of taping over a warning light on the dashboard. Farmers deserve real fixes, not another round of political tech support from people who keep unplugging the wrong cables.

  • Journalist Reveals FBI Is Offering a “Bounty” for Reporting “Anti-Trump Thought”

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  • This is harder to type than it probably should be. Back in 2015, because of the way I was raised in an extreme conservative evangelical household as a preacher’s kid, I was a Republican. I had already broken with that world in every meaningful way, but I had not actually sat down and examined what I believed. So there I was, still actively involved in politics. I helped campaign for Romney. I made more than three thousand phone calls, which I am pretty sure qualifies as a minor war crime. I was on the election staff of a representative who, for the record, had not been elected yet when I worked for her. I was a special elector. I was on the county central committee. I worked every election since 2011 with an R behind my name.

    And then they picked the orange man. I wrote the Chairwoman a very long letter explaining, in polite terms, that this was not going to work for me. I switched my affiliation to Independent. Unfortunately, I still had not figured out where the world was heading, so I voted for Gary Johnson. The less said about that period of my life, the better.

    When the Senate Election Committee decided to finance Roy Moore, I walked directly to the courthouse, changed my registration to Democrat, and started working elections for that party instead. There is a point where a person realizes the boat is not just sinking, it was built upside down to begin with.

    Anyway, based on the tone of that old letter, I find myself hoping I ended up on a list somewhere for Pam Bondi. It would be nice to feel important for a moment. Besides, what a spectacular waste of resources it would be to track down one Army veteran who lives in an RV in the middle of nowhere.

  • Reddit risks losing its identity in pursuit of profits

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  • This article is mostly useless. It states the problem, but doesn't have anything new to add.