The bad graphics alliance

In video gaming, there’s a meme that goes, “I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less and I’m not kidding.” To reassure you of the meme’s utter seriousness, the words are traditionally put into the mouth of Sonic the Hedgehog. The meme originates from a tweet in 2020, but continues to echo throughout games criticism.

Sonic says "I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less and I'm not kidding

I think a major reason for the meme’s popularity, is that it represents an alliance of two interests. You have people who are upset about the poor work conditions of game devs. And then you have gamers who are tired of the monotony and conformity of big games, who think “worse” graphics make a game better.

Of course, gamers far outnumber game devs. So the tendency is to emphasize the concerns of gamers, and treat game devs as an afterthought. It is assumed, or openly argued, that the two concerns are aligned, which is certainly convenient for gamers.

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The aspiration of homeownership

In my last post, I was talking about our search for a new apartment. For the record, my motivation was that I hadn’t written much lately, so why not write about what I’ve been doing? I was not specifically trying to comment on the politics of housing.

But the politics of housing are surely relevant, and worth talking about–at the risk of repeating myself.

As I’ve said many times by now, my household is relatively wealthy. Plainly stated, we are millionaires. That’s not a brag, I simply think you deserve my honesty. Since around 2020, my husband and I have become tech workers without any dependents, debt, or expensive tastes–it’s a recipe for wealth. In our position, some people expect that we would buy a house. But we don’t want to become homeowners, and we are ideologically opposed to the expectation that we should.

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Our “luxury” apartment

For the past few weeks, my husband and I have been apartment searching.  That’s right, we’re renters!  Not sure if readers find that surprising.  But when I talk to coworkers, who are of similar economic class, they’re usually shocked to hear that we’re not homeowners.

So why rent, when we’re wealthy enough to afford a house?  One major reason: we hate cars.  We use public transit.  (This is also a shock to coworkers.)

So if you take transit time, and multiply it by our hourly wage, getting anywhere is very expensive.  We can afford it, it’s just time.  But it’s easily worth thousands of dollars per month to live in precisely the right location.  We want a place next to a grocery store, a train stop, and our workplace.  The typical suburban hellscape of single-family residences doesn’t work for us.  When you consider the economics of it, what we want is a good apartment complex.  In other words, we want what they call a “luxury” apartment.

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Link roundup: August 2026

Artificial Life | Emergent Garden (video, 35 min) – A video about simulations that simulate evolution or generate life-like complexity.  He draws a distinction between three kinds of simulations.  In the first kind, entities are given a goal, and they find a solution via genetic algorithm.  In the second kind, entities are given space to wander around freely, and evolve organically.  In the third kind, entities are not explicitly coded, and instead we see life-like patterns emerge from the rules.  I’ve played several games like this (mostly of the second kind), and I kind of want to make such a game, but it’s probably beyond my ability.

The underlying misogyny of grand romantic gestures | The Soak (video, 47 min, via) – I’ve never seen most of the movies discussed, but I’m still familiar.  I think film often depicts grand romantic gestures because they have to convincingly present a romantic entanglement within a very short amount of time.  Perhaps this is not unlike how porn jumps right into the sex, because that’s what the audience is here for.  Narrative justifications aside, I think many people have taken the trope seriously, and it’s damaging to people’s social skills, especially men’s.  Like, public education can’t realistically teach people about respectful dating etiquette, so instead people are left to absorb norms through movies.

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The modal ontological argument

The king of all useless arguments

Arguments for the existence of God are, generally agreed, not very compelling, and irrelevant to any real political arguments associated religion. And the ontological argument is king of the junk heap, as it is especially unconvincing and irrelevant. The ontological argument attempts to prove God’s existence a priori, with all the certainty of a mathematical theorem. Most people would say this is overly ambitious, and doomed from the start.

The ontological argument presents a deep and enduring mystery: who actually says this stuff? Does anyone say this stuff? What’s their deal?

The number of people who advocate the ontological argument is nonzero, but it’s quite rare in practice.  Let’s round down to zero and say nobody actually says this stuff. Theistic readers may proceed unthreatened, knowing that I’m talking about an argument that none of them actually advocate.

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