Is That All There Is to a Grind?

One of America’s biggest entertainment sectors is video games, and one of the biggest genres in the industry right now is “survival.” In the first half of 2017, the category made $398 million, and it doesn’t appear to have slowed down at all since then.

There are dozens of them: DayZ (zombie apocalypse). Fallout 76 (nuclear apocalypse). Raft (player is adrift on a raft at sea). Don’t Starve (haunted landscape). Ark (fight dinosaurs). Rust (includes nudity). Some of the games have charmingly lo-fi graphics, and others are full GPU-crunching 3D
wonderlands.

I played a bit of one recent hit, Subnautica, the other day. You crash-land on a watery alien planet and must swim around to find minerals and plants and fish you can use to make clean water, food, swim fins, air tanks, and so on.

The stunningly beautiful landscape isn’t quite hostile, although there are some predatory fish to avoid, but there isn’t really much fighting and there aren’t any guns. It’s mostly indifferent. There’s not even much plot. You’re just scavenging and scrambling and keeping a constant eye on how much air, food, and water you have left.

That’s the game. That’s all there is.

The job market

As most of you know by now, I’m looking for a full-time job. It’s an unpleasant process, and even good headline unemployment figures aren’t that encouraging when you’re part of the unemployed percentage of the population.

And even more discouraging, the folks who actually have jobs don’t seem to be much happier. Think of the poor archivists whose job it is to tape torn papers back together because nobody can persuade the president to stop tearing documents up as he reads (or doesn’t read) them. We only found out about the gig because two of them got fired for no reason, but they’re pretty sure someone else is still doing it. 

The boss likes to break things for no reason, and so some schlimazel has to tape it back together. That’s the job. That’s all there is. 

Short-form commentary

Frank Wilhoit: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” This seems increasingly true.

Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) May 31, 2018

Cultivating joy
A rather elaborate noodle-slurping race between a human and a large dog.
Shibas at the beach.
Golden + Spiralizer.

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