Stalemate

It's winter, which means Ciro is playing Skyrim; the beautifully constructed outdoor environments feel enough like the real outdoors to fight off cabin fever.

I find myself mostly not playing. Part of that is a direct result of my play style, which is characterized by obsessive collecting; I spend so much time inventory managing to no purpose that quests are more work than they need to be. This is a danger for me in any situation that includes in-game money without an obvious mechanic for spending that money; if I don't really need to buy anything, but everything has a monetary value attached, the point must be to accumulate money. Yet no character in Skyrim ever says to me: my, look at all your money, well done. Nobody loves me for my money. It's a burden.

However, this is something I can overcome, and when I overcome it - when I decide to ignore the money - I have to face the fact that I find the game depressing, and depressing in ways that increasingly alienate me from mainstream console gaming. To wit: I like my games to have moral clarity, but the trend is toward moral ambiguity, and character models have become realistic enough that it upsets me to see violence done to them.

I don't want games to "challenge" me, or not in that way. I turn to other styles of art for that. For me, games are an escape where I get to relax and pretend to be a hero. That means I need to be able to be a hero. I want them to be a rest from the moral ambiguity of the real world, a place where doing the right thing does lead to the highest reward, and where even if you play a bad guy, it's with an understanding that you'll get your just deserts eventually.

I guess that means I ultimately don't think of games as art, because I am energized by watching films that other people find unbearably sad, and many of the scuptures and paintings I love are unsettling. It's the difference between being asked to empathize, and being given an illusion of control of a character whose only avenues are decisions I wouldn't make. In the former case, I know it's someone else. In the latter, I'm complicit.

To keep gaming, I may have to shift from fantasy titles to sports titles. For now, I'm mostly sticking with turn-based puzzle games. But neither of those grant the "immersion" first person titles strive for.

Bad Things That Happen Because of Good People

I think most of the evil in this world happens because people are afraid of the wrong things.

I didn't know that I thought that, but having examined my reaction to antivaxers, it's the conclusion I've come to. My reaction is not about about poor innocent babies, or about any belief I'm at risk from unvaccinated people. There is an element of annoyance at white, educated, suburban people who believe without realizing it that sickness happens to and comes from poor lazy brown people, but not enough to explain the electric rage that seizes the skin of my arms when somebody criticizes the recommended vaccine schedule.

They don't even have to say "autism" or "mercury conspiracy." They can say "I don't think my child needs Hep B; my child won't ever have unprotected sex with anyone who has Hep B, so why take the risk?" (The risk that is no risk. The risk that is significantly less than the odds your kid will have unprotected sex.)

I am more angry at people who say this than people who hate feminism or advocate killing gay people, or who act in other ways that actively threaten me. I am angry in a way I am not angry about other conspiracy theories or forms of science denial. Usually, those things are understandable to me, because they seek to maintain a privilege or unfair advantage. Selfishness isn't my favorite, but I can negotiate with it. I can empathize. I can have arguments about what is fair; I have a sister and lots of practice.

The antivax stuff isn't selfish, though. It's frightened people who have dramatically misunderstood the risks to both themselves and the people around them. It is scared people firing blindly into a crowd with their eyes closed. They are prosecutors who could fight for justice, who want to fight for justice, who try to make the evidence fit the first guy they brought in for questioning, while the real killers run free.

I think most of the evil in this world happens because people are afraid of the wrong things.