On the one hand, I agree with the general sentiment. On the other, well. It’s not easy, you know? A lot of things that used to bring me entertainment or joy have just ceased to, even before my swerve into ML proper. Sometimes even rudimentary, instinctive acknowledgement of materialism is enough.

To not be empty worded: I’ll rant about videogames and movies elsewhere, and focus on one specific example here. There’s this fanfic (for the lack of a better term) I used to like, called something like “Humans are space orcs”. The basic idea of the author was to highlight some strange things about human biology and behaviour that we take for granted - i.e. having a stupidly corrosive acid right in the middle of our bodies and having to constantly regenerate special cells just to keep it in. Sounds simple fun, right?

Except it doesn’t. The author’s biases and lack of materialism are so glaring, reading stops being enjoyable and becomes infuriating. I.e. alien species in this setting are essentially categorised into having some single trait that defines them (except for humans, coz we special). One species is obsessed with rules and regulations, but the author fails to actually analyse the implications and just handwaves it as “oh they’re bureaucratic haha”. Another is apparently obsessed with material (read: monetary) gain, but the author never really connects it with capitalism. Instead it is humans that teach them capitalism! And once again, the author fails in the analysis, instead trying to portray modern day US as essentially what future humanity is. It’s annoying.

And it’s the same with everything. And on top of that, enjoying simple things (a good book, some miniature painting) gets rather difficult when there’s a very real and serious threat of violence and war looming overhead.