It was really bizarre and I understand why companies are investing heavily. Competitive players spend a lot and being on a team is like a second job. They’ve captured their attention and the platforms are milking it by offering perks in the beginning and reducing them over time while raising prices.
I saw the same with physical games. We were huge fans of The Sims and had several editions and expansion packs. But every update included a little less which required another purchase. By the third release I was done. The fourth was gutted and I refused to support the company anymore.
I grew up with Atari and Nintendo and my mother used to take us to the game room and played as well. There were two consoles that came before Atari that we used to play as well. I understand the draw but I’ve seen the same unfold in other areas online. Watching people get sucked into worthless things or destroy their lives keeps you levelheaded.
They're exploiting a human weakness irresponsibly. The need to get somewhere or to be "seen". Something that's may not be easy to accomplish in the real world outside of the game or internet.
This is why people also get addicted to social media. And also because our world rewards irresponsible behavior.
As for influencers, it was never a draw and my business coach warned us against it. The majority aren’t entrepreneurs in the traditional sense with products and the like. They work for brands and the bulk of their income is derived from pushing their products. But budget cuts can reduce their earnings significantly. We witnessed this with pride day campaigns.
Influencer content comes in three varieties: aspirational, informational and entertainment. All of the channels I follow are educational and I’m always learning something or increasing my proficiency. I’m not into escapism and I was late to YouTube. I don’t look at Tik-Tok, Instagram or X.
I realized it early on and felt the practice too devious for my taste. I just hope more people realize that.
I'm youtube-only as well. I prefer watching / following influencers with relatively low views in their content (Less than 20k views per video). The quality and "connection" is better.
Influencers who have reached "viral" status or have lots of viral content seem to let the quality go (from an objective perspective) and start behaving like someone losing touch with reality.
The influencer space seems to reward the dumbest/mindless contents the most.
If you take what he said at face value it isn’t possible. The human spirit is resilient when applied. If Ai eliminated jobs a portion of those impacted will seek alternatives. But the ones who don’t are the people he’s referring to. Their willingness to accept government support in place of employment is problematic from their perspective. Because work is a spiritual act at its core. The free time won’t allow them to do xyz and we saw that with covid. The people who used that period productively were doing it elsewhere. That’s the society they want.
I don't think this is going to happen any time soon. I've used LLMs at work, and mostly google Gemini which seems to be the best at it. The quality of human work is still better than AI work. AI can do the work at a small fraction of the cost but quality goes down the drain.
I have more faith of the "exploit" I found will bring much bigger changes to the world and individual quality of life than AI. Ironically, even AI technology will massively benefit from it.
I heartily support hobbies and don’t believe a relationship should be anyone’s orbit. That position belongs to God and the kingdom is inclusive. We’re meant to impact our home, church, community and so on. When the pairing is balanced you welcome those opportunities.
Time with God.
Time with your spouse.
Time with your children.
Time with your family.
Time with friends.
Time with believers.
Time with neighbors and the community.
But that’s predicted on the principle of seeking the kingdom first (step one) and its righteousness (step two) that establishes our priority. Which is the governing influence of heaven on earth in everything and the right alignment/positioning with its authority. That‘s our compass. Once we comply the “rest” will be added. We were never meant to pursue it.
~bella
My main hobby now is skating but I avoid spending any time outside of the activity itself like researching upgrades etc. I even stopped learning new skills (just enough to be good at it) to save even more time. I now treat it as pure exercise and social activity (meeting other skaters on Sundays for only 2 hrs). It doesn't eat on my time at all because I really do need the exercise for health. Just enough to stay in shape.
I still play games where there's absolutely nothing else I can do like I'm outside and not talking to anyone and unable to work. Simple games on my phone that children might be also be playing. These games don't tend to be addictive because it's usually single player.
You're absolutely right what you said there. People tend to get lost in their hobbies, especially men. Maybe I'm only seeing this contrast in my country in Asia. Women are much less likely to play around and more mature/responsible and men tend to be the problem in relationships. It's the same pattern in both rich and poor but richer couples seem to have worse problems with infidelity and substance abuse, gambling, gaming, etc.