Speedrun to endgame.

Endgame is running the same handful of dungeons over and over and over. Because it’s always the same shit, players learn to speedrun it. Because speed is the whole point, groups gets progressively tightened and optimized. It means they progressively create their own, community-driven, gatekeeping min-maxing.

It’s a perfect recipe for a toxic community. The players are always the same ensemble, it’s game design that funnels them into an acid pool, becoming toxic.

New players, for speedrunners, become obstacles and annoyances. They slow you down, so you kick them out of your groups. That means new players have nowhere to go, end up in party queues for longer and longer time. The more time passes, the more you’re left behind. The gap increases over time.

On the other hand, the speedrunners are having their worst time ever. Run over and over the same stale content, trying to keep up with the power curve, day after day, catching up to this impossible standard.

Until you realize you HATE all of it, and that you’ve turned enjoyment into some sort of fastidious compulsion. That this game only contributes to the ugly parts of your life, not the good ones.

Once again, all everyone talks about is the Pay 2 Win, which is, once again, completely irrelevant. (or rather: the design bait that forces a certain toxic gameplay loop)

(“Throne & Liberty” was so much better despite dying to very similar pitfalls. I don’t quite understand how the same studio, with more money, can go backwards while repeating the exact same mistakes. The engine runs so much worse despite not looking any better, especially with a large number of players. Art is fancier but significantly worse, from a technical standpoint. UI is worse in every area, much worse customization, less options, more lag. And so on. Combat is a lot more static, class design and choice is severely limited. Aion 2 is significantly worse, but wins out on its presentation on being mainly PvE, to T&L that was presented as mainly PvP. Yet this claim doesn’t produce any difference. Aion 2 is T&L with the whole PvP layer removed and without anything more added to compensate. The gap is in perception. You still run dungeons over and over, and you still try to keep up, daily. Until on one hand the game becomes inaccessible and toxic to new players, and on the other a negative compulsion that makes you hate yourself for wasting time on it. It should be obvious that all of this is EASY and QUICK to fix, because in both cases there’s a good game in there, with some minimal changes… But nope, NCSoft apparently loves repeating mistakes. The game’s population will, predictably, fall off a cliff and the game will die in record time. Just like capitalism in general, the goal is fast extraction of money, rather than growth of business, and the quick demise of the product is the point. The host is not expected to survive, therefore the squeeze for money is optimized for a limited amount of time. I guess they’ll go mobile next.)

Short to the point: there seem to be a divide between AI criticism and AI “accelerationists.”

The divide being that on one side “they get it”, on the other they don’t. But what?

Let’s say that the part that AI critics “get” is that the math doesn’t make sense, and it’s all a bubble, and it’s all gonna blow up soon. This thesis assumes the “other side” “doesn’t get it”. That they are blind. They do not see the problem. They refuse to see or see infinite growth.

But what if they do see the problem? What if this high ground vision is THE gamble.

Considering this discourse about the bubble is all over the place, you can assume the other side acknowledges and acknowledged it, long ago.

This is where I see things different than, I suppose, everyone else. What if they are actually well aware of the risks, but are actively maneuvering for THAT reason, rather than blissfully ignoring it. What if their hand is precisely hidden because they want everyone to focus on this “bubble” and its very obvious risk, while they gamble on a different game? When they wage war at a critical point that is left completely undefended?

As with heuristics, we keep observing and predicting what comes next, by using data coming from the past. “It only follows.”

My point is that they aren’t trying to play within the known rules: the goal is rewriting those rules, therefore taking control of the rules themselves. The attack point is ABOVE, in respect to where everyone expects the attack to be.

My point is that the link between AI and fascism isn’t merely opportunist selfishness, but a path that is naturally fascist in taking control not of “power”, but of the system that allocates that power. Of reality-rewriting kind of deal through force and manipulation. To make wishes true by controlling the frame itself, not objects within.

The economy is this big heuristics we take for granted. Some objective reality whose rules you can’t escape. A dictator of objectivity. These AI companies lose money, it’s an inescapable fact.

What if the fascists want to take control of the economy, not as a form of sheer power, but control of the rules. Of PRE-EMPTING those rules. To “come before” every regulatory system by manipulating perception. Of what you see and goes unquestioned.

We keep tracking these things through rules and patterns. Previous data, previous bubbles, previous systems. Because that’s all the knowledge we have. Expecting these fascists to play by the rules, somehow. Who’s “not getting it”, really?

What if the fascists want to preempt this whole system? To shut down the system of rules, from within. Once for all. All the while all of us are distracted tracking a trajectory of something that has been hijacked a long time ago. Expecting that objective reality is still worth something within this new system. Measuring the new with the old, and coming short. Because this threat is being underrated.