So how do we get the working class to abandon wanting to work?

 So...this is something that in the modern era, I find as a huge stumbling block for fixing American issues, and that's the American working class itself. It's not just America that has this problem, even the working class of Europe kinda goes for this stuff, but the American working class is the worst. Because as we know, many of them see themselves as temporarily abandoned millionaires rather than oppressed wage slaves, and even the ones who understand they're oppressed haven't thought far enough ahead to really work their way out of that oppression mentally. Like, they'll understand "the man" is screwing them, but rather than want to lose their chains, they'll still act as if there's some form of wage labor in which this stuff just works. And that's nonsense. The reality if work is this, we're made propertyless and pushed into desperation to make us seek jobs. There are typically more workers than jobs because 1) capitalism NEEDS to work that way to keep inflation down and 2) it keeps workers desperate. Then workers will work super hard for employers who are interested in profit, and who want to work people as far as possible, while paying them as little as possible. And then we wonder why the system feels so bad. We keep framing the wealthy as "job creators", but no one "creates jobs" to give people a living. The goals of for profit businesses actually run counter to that. But rather than recognize that the system is rotten for what it is, they somehow think they can make the system fairer, and that there's "dignity in work" and blah blah blah.

Even worse, and this is why I kinda have disdain for a lot of the working class at this point, they literally beg for their own servitude. Like I was looking into some country music star because he's gonna be doing a concert with some musician that my parents like, and this dude has a song about automation and AI killing jobs and how he has kids to feed and blah blah blah. like, the thing that annoys me about the working class most is that they know that work sucks, that businesses are abusing them, but at the end of the day, they still beg for their chains. 

Even worse, they look at ME with disdain for NOT doing so. They still have this weird martyr mentality about how they work and treat it as a noble sacrifice and if they have to do it everyone should do it and blah blah blah, "dont you understand? there's DIGNITY in work! Why should I have to work so hard while you get an easy life and get crap for free?" (in reference to my UBI ideas). I'd be willing to let bygones be bygones and be willing to admit a difference in opinion and life choices if we can both just get what we want. I actually have nothing against people working for a living. Most people buy into consumerism, and that stuff takes labor to make work. My problem with these guys comes in when they lecture me about THEIR values and insist I have to live my life the way they do. They're a bunch of crabs in a bucket, and they wanna drag me down into their bucket, where we all suffer the same fate. And that's what I hate most about the working class. I understand that SOMEONE needs to work and do the essential jobs. SOME people do. NOT everyone. But SOME people. Some percentage of the population between 0% and 100%. And if those SOME people wanna do it voluntarily, as the social science points out, fine. But dont complain all day about how hard it is and how miserable you are and how much you sacrificed when YOU decided to sign up for it, and then insist it's not fair that I dont wanna do the same thing you do, or have the same attitude you do. Because sure, I resent the idea of work. But I resent the system. I resent the billionaire class. And sadly, if you defend that system, like a dude chained up in plato's cave resents those freed of their chains, and you wanna drag me back down in your BS, then you know what? Im gonna resent YOU too. Which is why I'm writing this sad rant about how much I resent the working class in this country.

Again, it's not that I dont want these people to have a better life. But it's like motherfricker, I'm trying to help you. I understand the system, I understand how it works. How its problems actually intersect with our lives, I wanna help you, but you don't want me to. The second I try to help, you complain about my solutions and cling to your chains. And then you try to drag me down in your crappy attitudes.

Basically, if the working class wasn't a giant pile of crabs in a bucket trying to drag me down, I wouldn't have any problems here. But they are, they do, they're stupid, they don't get it, and they end up just begging for their chains.

Like the automation thing. Automation is GOOD. Freeing people from work is GOOD. Unemployment is only bad because we have a society where we're expected to spend our lives working for rich people. Like that's the norm, that's the expectation, and you're bad if you think differently. And I do think differently. And that's the thing. In a sane society, we'd see the liberation of the working class from work as a good thing. But these guys scream they wanna work, insist that there's dignity in work. They hate AI to the point of luddism, and they frame it as "populism", and again, as I see it, they just keep clinging to their chains, and even worse, trying to drag me down with them. 

 I really wish people would understand, there's no real "dignity" in work, it's all wage slavery all the way down, we shouldnt wanna work, liberating people from wanting to work is a good thing, and the only reason liberating people from work is bad is because our society is built around this bull#### expectation that the only legitimate way to get money is THROUGH work. I admit, if we want a society where we do away with work, we need a new system of economics. Right now, i still support capitalism, albeit with a UBI. UBI fills in the gaps in the market, gives everyone a universal living standard, and then the essential work is done by voluntary participants in exchange for money that buys them higher living standards. Seems fair does it not? it still rewards work, meritocracy, while ensuring poverty doesnt exist. Nope. Cant have that. That's "socialism" (even though that's something different entirely and also built on weird working class resentment politics). Capitalism is when everyone works hard and socialism is when everyone is lazy and doesnt work. Never mind the fact that, again, socialism is literally another form of work based resentment politics. it involves workers taking over workplaces. Ideally it involves democratic workplaces, but in reality we just get government controlling all industry, which sucks since the government in such an instance can be even more oppressive than the worst employers. It doesnt fix the issue, it just changes who is in charge. Because, again, REAL solutions involve LIBERATING people. But again, these people dont want liberation. They're miserable crabs in a bucket who just want to make things more "fair" in their mind, or who wanna drag people down to be as miserable as them.

And again, that's the problem. I dont wanna be miserable like them. I wanna actually be happy, free, and fulfilled. ugh. 

I know, I'm rambling, and I know if I ever run for office the oppo research is gonna have a field day with that one. Although hopefully people will be able to understand my actual points in context. Because, again, it's not about hating the working class for the sake of hating the working class. It's about resenting uneducated people for not wanting liberation from their oppression and instead dragging everyone down to their level of misery. That's what I hate, and that's what drives me absolutely insane about this whole thing. I could feel class solidarity if the rest of my class was actually on the same page as me, they're not. They love their chains too much and it infuriates me. 

Did you hear that they laid off so many people now that skill games are illegal?

 Disgusting, absolutely disgusting. I mean, I touched on this in my last article on skill games, but I wanna address this more directly. 

I don't care if skill games employ people. I am of the opinion that people shouldnt be forced to work for a living in the first place. Everyone should have a UBI and no one should be forced to take a job doing something crappy that they don't wanna do just to survive. The fact that we leverage peoples' survival when we get rid of an ethically questionable practice like *checks notes* putting slot machines in every public place imaginable is just...disgusting. it disgusts me. And it misses the point.

Really. I don't care if people were employed doing that. Those jobs were BS jobs. Those people were "goons" in David Graeber's terminology. Not only did their jobs not contribute positively to society, but they actually were arguably a negative. We shouldnt celebrate employing people for the sake of employing them.

This doesnt mean i dont feel bad for those who are laid off. However, to focus on that and just go JOBS as if it's a universal good disgusts me. We didnt evolve for millions of years just to trick people into giving away their life savings to some brightly colored machine that preys on them psychologically. Hell, the whole practice of slots being so attractive is BECAUSE our systems makes people so desperate in the first place where an alternative to working and earning money very slowly is to instead gamble and hope you win, but probably lose and ruin your life worse than it was before. Why are we not talking about THAT more? No one wants to talk about that. it's just OMG what about the jobs! Again, people shouldnt be coerced to work in this crappy economy in the first place! Everyone should get crap for free, free stuff is GOOD actually, and #### your work ethic bull####. That's my honest opinion on this. I dont care if you lost jobs. I dont care if bars are losing customers. Alcohol sucks too and hey, we say when people are drunk they can't consent and that sex is rape, but hey, if you give a machine all your money when drunk, hey, that's totally voluntary, right guys? Again. I don't care. I'm over it. I don't care if businesses lose money and workers lose their jobs because we banned some quite frankly unethical practices from existing. I really, really dont. Again, sucks for them. And those people should have a UBI that protects them from this, but let's be blunt. The fact that our economic model expects people to make a living doing unethical things like this is just a moral condemnation of the whole thing. It really is. Our whole society is sick, and we need to rethink how it works on an existential level. More jobs arent good, more business isnt good, it just seems good because we force people to work to earn money in a world where that isn't even necessary any more to some degree and keeping that practice alive is actually quite harmful. Really, this whole skill games thing is just an example of why employment and GDP growth at all costs is actually a bad thing. 

I know this is gonna rub some people the wrong way, but sorry not sorry, that's how I see it.  

Election Update 10/16/26

 So I'm doing it Friday after all, last Saturday had nothing and then Sunday had a bunch of polls. So I guess there isn't a good day to just put them up for a weekly update, but not doing it on Friday felt off, so...yay, Friday.

Senate

So, this is obviously a busy time of year with polls, and with more info we get, the less any specific info matters. it moves the needle less, and things arent shifting around wildly, just 1/10ths of a percent, really. So the map isn't really changing. This week, Maine, Alaska, and Minnesota have regained some of their D advantage, while Texas has lost a little. Arkansas is now a swing state. Added it today with it only being R+7. And think about that for a second, just how bad are you F-ing up as a republican to get ARKANSAS down to R+7?! It's insane. This is a completely bonkers map for democrats. And you know what? I did a futuristic forecast for a discussion yesterday about what the senate will look like, and this map is so nuts that in 6 years, when the dems likely have a normal election in 2032, they're gonna LOSE several seats because they won't be able to replicate how bonkers this map is. Unless this is a permanent trend and we're really seeing realignment into the 7th party system FOR REAL, yeah. This map won't be able to be replicated again next time. Even a decent night for dems might cause them to lose 3-4 seats. That's just how good THIS map is for the dems. 

Obviously, it's not a lock though. A republican overperformance of R+2.5 will still net the republicans the senate. And the odds of that happening is around 25%. 28% if we wanna go by the actual tipping point. So keep in mind, nothing is written in stone here. This is a forecast that measures current averages and relative probabilities. Unless youre up by 8+, you're not really out of the woods. Even then, at 8 points, there's still a 2.3% chance, or about 1 in 45 or so, that something can go funky. Probably won't happen, but you never know. 

But yeah, dems favored in senate, likely 54-46 or 53-47 D, with a 65% chance of control.  

House

 

Not much as changed here, dems still have a lock on the house, and the margin is the same as last week, with 234-201 with a D+8 generic ballot. It fluctuates around D+8ish these days. Sometimes higher, sometimes lower, but it stays around there. Moving on.

Governors

 

Not much has changed on the governors front. Again, we're talking lots of little micro changes around the edges, nothing radically map changing. The maps seem to be settling into where they're gonna be.

Still, something to keep in mind. We are 2.5 weeks out from election day. The momentum of changes from here, especially in that last week is essential. It could tell us what direction the momentum is going. Keep in mind, polling is a lagging indicator. you can take a poll today, it won't be published until next week some time, and by then the electorate can change its mind. With that said, if we see significant movement from here that can't be attributed to just new data where I had a lack thereof before, that could be meaningful to figure out what side of the aisle the polling error will favor. Remember 2016. it was supposed to be a massive blue wave for clinton then as the last minuters made up their minds it shifted to Trump. So the momentum we see from here can be important.

At the same time, voting is already happening. I got my ballot this week, already filled it out and turned it in. So to some degree, the maps we're seeing now can be indicative of where the electorate is going, especially in states with widespread mail in ballots and other early voting practices. With that said, it's like Jim Carrey once said in Sonic the Hedgehog. "The time for talking is over! It's time to push buttons!" The button pushing is already happening. Sure, we'll still have significant day of voting that can tip elections either way, but minds are already being made up and some votes are already in. 

Conclusion

 With that said, while we are seeing some votes already being cast...there's still a lot of room for change on election day. Especially as the tuned out middle starts tuning in asking deep questions like "is Ted Cruz running against James Talarico?" and "how do I vote for president Trump again?" I've heard anecdotes suggesting people are literally asking things like that, similar to asking "why isn't Joe Biden running again" at this time in 2024. Yeah...the average voter is horrifically uneducated and very unpredictable. Polling tells us the direction things are going, +/- a few points, but given that +/- a few points, things are uncertain. If I had to guess, the general electorate is gonna vote against the incumbents. However, it's very possible they don't even know republicans ARE the incumbents. Like, really, despite all of this math I'm doing, the outcome is still very much in question and a few points can decide the fate of, for example, the senate. It's amazing the democrats have a chance there, it's even more amazing that they're ahead, but who knows how far they'll STAY ahead. Republicans seem to overperform polls a lot in the past decade or so. At the same time, they're also messing up really really bad. I like to say, inside me, there are two wolves. One of them asks: "How come the republicans still have any support at all?" and the other asks "how TF is Arkansas now a swing state?!" I guess I kind of reconcile those two views with the idea that I fully believe 40% of the population to be unreachable politically, but yeah. Even accounting for that, and how much I'd expect the maps to shift from 2024, this is beyond my wildest dreams. Doesnt mean it's a lock that it will happen, but generally speaking its about 65-35 that it does. Which is a lot higher than it has any business being. 

But yeah, not a ton has changed, some people are voting already and this is indicative of their voting habits, but at the same time, things CAN change by election day. Keep in mind I had Clinton up by 6 at this point in 2016 with her having an 81% chance of winning. Still, I honestly ain't expecting any cavalry to come to save the republicans this time when gas is $4.35 a gallon around me currently. 

Yes, your 10 year old graphics card is "low end"

 So I apparently ruffled a few feathers online lately by calling cards like the GTX 1080 and 1660 ti/super "low end." I keep being told that, in fact, these cards are NOT low end, and they're still very capable cards today. However, I want to remind people that the GTX 1080 came out 10 years ago. And while it was a powerful card for the time, and it is still reasonably powerful on paper, again, it's a 10 year old card. It lacks modern features, and can't run many modern games. 

I mean, here's how I see it. The minimum requirement for modern games is a GPU with: 

1) 8 GB VRAM

2) Support for ray tracing and modern APIs

3) Roughly 5-6x GT 1030 performance (yeah, I'm still using 1030s as a unit of measurement). 

 Generally speaking, the minimum cards that meet this are cards like:

RTX 2060 12 GB 

RTX 2060 super

RTX 3050 8 GB

RX 6600 

Arc A750

I would say those are, generally speaking, the minimum that you need to run modern games. Anything less than that is dated and "low end." To explain why I call some cards low end:

 GTX 1070/1080/1080 ti- Lacks RT support and support for modern APIs

RX 5700 XT- Ditto, lacks RT support and support for modern APIs

GTX 1660 ti/super- Lacks RT support, support for modern APIs, and has only 6 GB VRAM

RTX 2060 6 GB- Has only 6 GB VRAM

RTX 3050 6 GB- Has only 6 GB VRAM, only 4x GT 1030 performance

RX 6500 XT- Lacks VRAM and power 

"But but...it runs everything I throw at it!"

Sure, it might play what you play, and that's fine, but that doesn't mean that it runs all modern titles decently. Try playing Doom the Dark Ages on a card like that, or Gears of War E day, since that's tne newest title that's making or breaking a lot of cards. 

Also, let's keep this in mind, "low end" is relative. Every low end card was once high end. Low end is what used to be acceptable 5 years ago in a lot of cases. But you gotta keep in mind, 5 years ago was 2021. A lot of the above cards are MUCH older. GTX 1000 series was sold in 2016/2017. 16 series cards were sold in 2019-2021. RTX 2000 cards were sold in 2018-2021.  RX 5000 series cards were sold 2019-2020. I mean, we're talking 7-10 years old here. A RX 6000 series or RTX 3000 series card came out in 2020-2022. Most of them still work for modern games, so requirements are doing what they always did, targeting 4-6 year old cards. Stronger cards from 8 years ago still work like the RTX 2070 and above. Even a 2060 is still fine IF it has 8-12 GB RAM. Cards like the RX 6500 XT or the 3050 6 GB were specifically designed to be cut down and crappy and if you bought them, you bought crap. I mean, you should've known that. Sorry to say it but reviews were never generous to these cards. 

And yeah. The market is the market. And I guess it sucks if you decided to hold onto your 2010s era card through that 2022-2025 prime age of upgrading and now you're stuck on a really dated card through RAMpocalypse, but yeah, I mean...you had years to buy. And it wasnt like the signs of the cards that are dated being dated havent been there for a while. Games started pushing modern standards in 2023 when we left the "cross gen" period between gen 8 and 9 consoles where gen 8 was cut off. And the gen 9 consoles are basically running RX 6650 XTs or 6700s. If you don't have at least the minimum mentioned above, youre gonna have a bad time. And for a while, that minimum was easily accessible for $200-300. I admit, if the market were healthier, we shouldve seen sub $200 for that stuff, but the closest we ever got was maybe $180-190 for a RX 6600. 

And yeah. Idk. I'm not doing this to spec shame people. I just get annoyed when people get super defensive over their quite frankly old hardware that by historical standards is REALLY old. Like, to explain how this looks going even further back, imagine acting like your 8800 GT from 2007 wasn't old by 2016. Imagine thinking a HD 5850 or GTX 460 wasn't old in 2018 or something. You'd be laughed out of the room given you could get $80 GT 1030s back then. I get that the market has stagnated since then, and it has allowed such old cards to remain relevant for longer, but even if some of them are powerful enough, they dont have the modern RT or API support, and some of them lack VRAM. So...yeah. Again, I know the market is really REALLY terrible and that the current crisis is basically COVID 2.0 as far as pricing goes, but again. No, your 8-10 year old card isn't good any more. It's good for you if it still does everything you want it to, but it IS time to consider it "low end" or incapable of running the most demanding modern games. Because it is. 

Discussing Kyle Kulinski's views on roller coasters

 So, I wasn't gonna cover this story, it didn't seem political, and even if it was, it didn't seem important enough to discuss, but Kyle just had a take on the situation that I really resonated with HARD. So...there was a freak roller coaster accident in Georgia the other day. And idk, I just looked at it as "wow, that's a messed up tragedy" and kinda moved on, but then kyle's rant here kinda inspired me. 

I mean...first, his take on roller coasters. He doesnt like them. Neither do I. He doesnt enjoy being thrown around at high speeds, neither do I. I dont get the appeal either. I've always been iffy on roller coasters. There was a phase when I was like 9-12 or so where I was kinda into them. I know I went on some down in Busch Gardens when I was finally tall enough to and found them fun. But then I started getting sick on them and yeah, I very quickly grew out of them. i think the last time I went on one I was, idk, 12-13? It was the Phoenix in Knoebels. And after I got off of the thing, I felt like I was gonna hurl for like an hour and I was like never again. I kinda outgrew amusement parks after that. I never liked the idea of being thrown around and feeling G forces. 

And Kyle here...has another interesting point. How well maintained are these rides? like they're SUPPOSED to be maintained to be safe, but Kyle is framing this like they kinda knew the ride was defective and kept it open anyway for profit. And you kinda gotta admit, yeah, a lot of corporations would do that if the negative outcomes they get when deaths happen, either in PR or lawsuits/regulation enforcement, aren't severe enough. It's a lot like the ford pinto case where Ford figured it was cheaper to pay out legal settlements from lawsuits than to recall the car. So how safe are these rides really? Well, there's always a risk of something going wrong, and it's best to avoid that entirely.

Kyle also kinda goes further than me. He was bashing air travel for example too. And I got a lot of issues with air travel where I'd never wanna go on an airplane, between the tight schedules, long lines for security, etc., but then he's going on about air traffic controllers being replaced with AI now and how when things go wrong, they go horribly wrong, like worse than car crashes...and eh...I'm more mixed here. I mean, air travel is statistically safer. yes, when something goes wrong youre dead, but still, the odds of that happening are FAR lower than with cars. Last year, there were around 37k deaths from car accidents in the US, whereas there were only around 320 aviation deaths a year in the last recorded year. 

I mean, sure I get the fear, I certainly wouldnt wanna die in a flying metal tube as kyle said, but my issues with air travel are more how expensive and inconvenient I find it and factors surrounding it, rather than a fear of death itself. Cars actually are far more dangerous and an accident on a local highway or interstate going 60-70 MPH is probably going to be more likely to kill you than air deaths were. Not super important to the roller coaster story, but kyle mentioned it so I figured I would too.

Still, I definitely feel kyle on coasters. I dont like being thrown around either. I havent done amusement parks since I was like a YOUNG teenager, like again, 13ish. I kinda got out of the hype surrounding amusement parks once I hit puberty. And I dont enjoy being thrown around until i puke to be quite honest either. But yeah, I didnt even consider this tragedy a political issue, but it kinda is. And I guess I am on the page of "yeah I dont like amusement parks either" here. Just wanted to discuss it. Quite frankly, for that kind of money, I'd rather buy video games, or if I go out, go see a movie or even...gamble, right after I wrote an article bashing gambling. But again, make a day of it. Go to a casino, play some slots and horse racing. Go home not spending any more than if I blew $50-100 getting into an amusement park. Again, you see why I can honestly say that gambling can be fun in moderation? Because if you know what you're doing and you're responsible, it's not gonna cost any more than a day out anywhere else. It's just about playing RESPONSIBLY. And I find it to be far more fun than spending half the day waiting in line and then being thrown around until I wanna puke. Just saying. 

Clarifying/reiterating my position on "skill games"

 So the ban has gone into effect and everyone on social media is whining about it. Some are saying the only people who want this are the casino lobbies and stuff, and given I basically have a position of "you should gamble in a casino", I wanted to reiterate my position.

Look, when i was growing up gambling outside of the lottery was BANNED in Pennsylvania. And I thought that was BS. I think gambling should be legal. And when it was legalized in 2006 I thought it was a good thing. In the 2010s, I started doing casual gambling at PA casino/racetracks like hollywood casino in harrisburg, parx in philadelphia, mohegan sun in wilkes barre, and delaware park in wilmington DE. I wouldnt gamble much, just like $5-10 on slots a day, maybe spend the day playing horses betting $2-4 a race, ya know, REAL casual stuff. Sometimes I'd win, sometimes I'd lose, I'd lose more than I win on average, but hey, as I like to say, cheap days out, all things considered. Cost less than going to see a movie or going to an amusement park, and I'll be getting to amusement parks later in a different article tonight. 

But....I also had a lot of time to sit on the experience and think about the negatives with casinos. I mean, I'm intelligent. Like, I studied stats in college, I understand these places are there to make money. The house "always wins" in the long term, any wins you get from casinos are temporary and if you play long enough, they'll win their money back. The only winning move is really, not to play, or if you do get lucky, RUN while you're up. 

But I also understand I'm not everyone. A lot of people develop gambling addictions and get pathological about them. They dont understand the odds and probabilities in the real world and they just keep throwing their money at the situation. Eventually they lose the house, they ruin their lives, they're blowing their brains out in the parking lot. And reading stories from casino employees on reddit, yeah, that stuff happens. I also notice that when people go, you get these slots zombies who will sit there throwing their money at the machines until they win, and you always hear about the wins, not the losses. I know my dad told me a story about my great grandma gambling so much at a casino in atlantic city back in the 1970s that the rest of the family had to intervene to make her stop. I mean, it happens. And the older I get, the more I kinda understand that, gee, the prohibitionists have a point. I mean, gambling IS a vice, it IS an addictive behavior, not everyone CAN resist the temptation, and while I certainly dont wanna go back to BANNING it outright, eh, I do believe it should be regulated somewhat. 

And in the 2020s, I feel like the pendulum has swung the other way, from full prohibition all the way to "let's have gambling on your phone, let's have it in the grocery store, or the laudromat, or the gas station, or the local diner." And it gets...excessive. I liken gambling addiction to alcoholism. No, we shouldnt ban alcohol entirely, and doing so is harmful for society. People are gonna do it anyway to some degree if there arent legal alternatives, and we're just gonna return to the days of rampant organized crime if we make it full on illegal. And as someone who DOES enjoy it on aforementioned casual level that IS responsible, I certainly dont want it made illegal because OTHER people can't handle it properly. 

So...for me, it's about a balance, and the right level of legality is somewhere more permissive than "ban it entirely" and somewhere less permissive of "let's have unregulated betting everywhere on everything." I mean, I'm not even getting into prediction markets and how corrupt those are and how they're creating all kinds of perverse behavior. Apparently politicians are basically doing and saying certain things to make money off of bets on these markets and thats problematic. Gambling in sports can possibly create corruption in sports. I mean, unregulated gambling on EVERYTHING can create really perverse incentives and corruption in our society as well, that's another argument. 

So yeah....again, don't want it entirely banned, but I'm certainly not for unregulated everything. Even if I liken myself a libertarian, I'm not CRAZY about it, and do believe in sometimes regulating behaviors for harm reduction. And I think limiting gambling is fine.

I think we should rein in prediction markets and sports betting, for example. I dont think people should have unlimited access to real world gambling from their smartphones. I don't think that we should have slot machines sitting in every day places people go. I do think that it should be relatively inaccessible. Not as in, illegal, as in, you should have to go to a designated site that is designed specifically for the activity, like a casino, a racetrack, an OTW site, etc. It shouldnt be made too open and convenient, because there is some segment of the population that has a legit addiction problem, and pushing it in everyone's faces everywhere is just straight up predatory. It should be there for those who want it, and out of sight, out of mind for everyone else. Just my opinion. 

So....with that said, yeah, I'm okay with banning "skill games". Also, another hilarious argument I keep seeing the advocates of these machines whining about. "OMG THIS IS DESTROYING JOBS!" OH NOES NOT THE JOBS! Okay, that last part is sarcasm on my part, but I HATE this argument. I dont even think everyone should work. I hate job creation for its own sake in principle, and if the jobs are doing predatory things, those are BS jobs that not only dont help society, but probably hurt it. I mean, these jobs fall under the role of "goons" if we wanna take David Graeber's BS jobs into consideration. They're jobs that potentially harm people that dont really need to exist, but only are seen as a good thing because we insist on forcing everyone to work for a living and we probably shouldnt. So yeah, I'm not gonna argue that such jobs are useful. Maybe they contribute to GDP on paper, but they dont actually provide a useful function for society and if anything are actually harmful. I just wanted to address THAT given my own niche interests on THAT topic. 

But yeah. I'm fine with the skill games ban. If you wanna gamble, go to a casino. Make the conscious effort to drive to a designated places that allows gambling and gamble. I dont want this crap shoved in peoples' faces everywhere. It's not healthy for society in my view. And yeah, that's my view, I'm sticking by it, and yeah. If you don't like it, tough, I don't care.  

So let's discuss what's happening with gaming

 So...I won't go into details, but I'm seeing some crazy stuff online recently. Apparently, due to AI, every gaming system it seems is being jailbroken, and people are acquiring a lot of paid content for free if you know what I mean. No, I won't be showing it or discussing the details for obvious legal reasons. But uh...yeah. This isn't really good. It could blow up the entire current business model for gaming, and odds are, in the long term, the industry is going to strike back. I know some people are framing this as "gamers won", but uh...no, we haven't we really haven't. 

To preserve their profits, this kind of largescale jailbreak is going to lead to drastic action by the industry. It's probably gonna end this console generation and force the next out, even if it isn't affordable to the masses yet. Based on videos I've seen discussing cracks on previous consoles, yeah, that's what drove a lot of businesses like nintendo and sony to create new consoles. They feared piracy eating into game sales, so they'd jump ship, trying to create the next generation of hardware that was supposed to be unhackable, until people find a way, and then things would continue from there. 

Normally, it would take long enough for cracks to happen that by the time they did, the businesses will have made their money and they could comfortably jump ship. And, of course, emulation is tricky where it requires systems FAR more powerful than the original hardware to pull off. By the time it becomes common, the console has largely been defunct for a long time and it doesn't really cost the industry much money. 

 However, AI is kind of changing things. It's figuring things out in seconds that it would take humans a lifetime to, meaning that it's now effortlessly bypassing traditional security measures, AND decompiling games, allowing for them to be ported to other platforms natively. AI has long been criticized of taking IP from the little guy, but now it's doing so on a level that's destructive enough to cost MAJOR industries money. And what I fear most is the reprisals for this.

The closest analogue to what we're seeing is going to be similar to what happened in the early 2000s when file sharing allowed for people to just effortlessly download music that they used to have to buy on CDs and records, etc. And the industry reacted negatively, going so far as to sue individual users for downloading pirated content. We might see a return to that again. 

Some fear that we will never get a console again. Like, with RAMpocalypse, there's real debate over whether we will ever really "own" our own hardware again. Future consoles might rely solely on game streaming to ensure that individuals never have access to files ever again. After all, if AI can crack that stuff effortlessly, then the existing industry might lose money. We might also see future operating systems be more locked down to discourage people from operating outside of the closed ecosystems that the industry wants for us. That's why people fear the end of physical media in the first place. "You will own nothing and be happy" is actually the direction the businesses want to go in, and that's why some are celebrating now. But again, this is gonna be just a short term victory so to speak. IN the long term the industry will likely win. They'll lobby the government to change the rules, or push for stricter enforcement of IP laws, or they'll change the business model for the worse.

 And that's something that's also very related to topics I normally discuss on here. How do I really feel about IP laws? I mean, I recognize they're necessary to some degree, but think they're written WAAAY too far on the side of the industry. And given the nature of technology evolving, it seems like we're artificially keeping antiquated models going so people can keep making money. We live in a society of artificial scarcity. We dont all need to work, but our society starves people out unless they do. We then talk about creating jobs and that being a good thing. We then try to push for artificial scarcity so people spend money to give to businesses. IP laws are one way of doing this. What AI is doing now, is just the core conflict with technology vs IP and the capitalist business model all along all over again. The internet kinda reminds me of that story with Jesus and the loaves and fishes. He just straight up copied that crap and fed the 5000. But in our current economy, that's "piracy", because think of how many jobs that Jesus destroyed. Fishermen and bakers make their money by selling stuff to consumers. But if Jesus can feed people for free, there aren't as many consumers. If there arent as many consumers, the businesses can't make money, and then they go out of business. And then they'll starve, even if we have free food for all, because some guy can just copy it instantly and distribute it for free. Capitalism requires gatekeeping and artificial scarcity to function, and it seems intent on enforcing that scarcity. IP laws are just a way of doing this. Taking a product that someone could take and distribute to free to everyone, and putting it behind a paywall to preserve the industry, its jobs, and its profits. Because that system being compromised or destroyed kind of causes economic chaos and capitalism is based on the idea of you work, you trade with others, and you pay each other for goods and services. When technology can reduce the marginal cost of something to zero, that's an entire industry destroyed.

Now, to be fair, with an industry like gaming, or music, or entertainment, it takes work to create something. If people dont pay for it, then there's no incentive to do it. And that destroys future creativity and ensures that the market adjusts so that no new media is created. Now, of course, creative individuals will likely still create things, youd still have a vibrant indie gaming scene. BUT....the AAA game industry as we know it would go out of business. So again, I'm not entirely against IP laws. I just support them to the bare minimum extent to preserve the core industry existing, even if I don't think that they should go as far as they do now.

And it does seem like, evolving past the early days of the web, an equilibrium came to exist. Sure, eventually hackers and jailbreakers would eventually win, but  by then, the industry will have made its money and moved on. AI is disrupting that balance. Again, it's dismantling complex security that take humans years to crack in seconds, and its able to rewrite apps natively to any platform so anyone can use them on any sufficiently powerful piece of hardware. That's kinda game over for the current form of the industry, unless they do something drastic. And that's where my fear comes in. They could do some crazy "war on piracy" where they start locking random people up and suing them into oblivion for downloading copyrighted material. They could change the business model where everything is done through weak hardware that can't run everything and game streaming, since native gaming inherently has security risks. Ideally, they'd just nerf the AI, but with AI being entirely unregulated and hurtling toward "superintelligence" as some say, odds are its effects are just going to get more disruptive to the current world economy (and possibly other things) because its reined in. I mean, AI in general SHOULD be regulated. There's talk that AI if left unchecked could basically nuke the world like every science fiction movie in my lifetime warned about. It could end up causing job destruction on such a massive scale that even my proposals (which rely on some semblance of the old world still functioning) arent enough to handle it. Seriously, AI could really upend the entire capitalist system if left unchecked. As I said, that whole you need to work and pay others for their work system? AI might obsolete ALL of that in such a rapid amount of time that we won't know what to hit us. Thankfully, AI will also be so fast it likely will have thought up all of the solutions to that before we can. And probably act on them. Or...it could just kill us all. I mean, that's a possibility too. 

But yeah. Scary times we live in. Even if I kinda WOULD like the work and profit based system as it exists to disappear in favor of post scarcity, I obviously would like it to happen on a scale where we can...you know...adjust to it properly. This stuff is just happening WAAAY too fast. And again, I really do fear that this could cause the special interests and businesses to use the force of law to crack down in draconian ways to preserve the status quo. This is not the first such challenge to ever threaten capitalism in this way. Back in the 1930s we were already talking post scarcity and how we were hurtling toward a world where we wouldnt have to work any more. We responded to it by creating this hell of the modern economy with its obsession of consumption and job creation. I really fear what happens next. I kinda fear the reactionary forces that wanna preserve current business models more than I fear the changes to some degree. Because they'll just use the force of law to FORCE things to stay the same, or to keep the rules written in their favor, and then enforce their ideas with extreme prejudice. 

But yeah. That's my reaction to this. It's just another front on this never ending war between technology obsoleting capitalism's institutions and capitalism trying to preserve them. The idea of something just being free and widely accessible to all is just unthinkable from the capitalist perspective, and they'll continue to find new ways to preserve artificial scarcity to force us to continue using the existing system and its institutions. Which is why I aint necessarily optimistic about this. Sure, "gamers have won" for now. But the industry will strike back and I fear what that's ultimately gonna look like.  

PA "skill games" are basically just slot machines

 So, everyone is in a big fuss about so called "skill games" being banned. Why are they banned? Because they're basically slot machines. My opinion? Yeah, no crap. Like, it's not even subtle. The machines I see around PA look exactly or almost exactly like the machines that exist in casinos. And slot machines are basically designed to take your money. Doesn't mean you can't hit here or there. I was lucky on my last AC trip, but that's not the norm, and in the long run, you're gonna lose money. 

My honest opinion on gambling is this. I think there are some issues with it. I recognize not everyone has the education in stats that I do where they realize these things are rigged against them, and given capitalism is as messed up as it is, a lot of people will fall prey to them because let's face it, the idea of winning lots of money from gambling is more appealing than working. But much like with everything else capitalism, those delusions of success are often more appealing to people than the cold hard reality, and some people will just throw their money at the machines until they pretty much ruined their life.

This is why some want gambling to be banned. It's a "vice", like drinking, smoking, drugs. It's fine in moderation, it's addictive, and it can ruin lives. I dont agree with a full on ban, dont get me wrong, I am a libertarian and believe people should have the freedom to partake in vices. But that doesnt mean I dont support regulating them either. Im fine with say, "sin taxes" on marijuana or cigarettes. I'm fine with limiting gambling to casinos and limiting casino construction to certain zoning practices. I think the option should be there for anyone who wants it, but it should also be out of sight, out of mind. I dont like the proliferation of gambling as exists where people can throw money at sports betting apps or "prediction markets" willy nilly. I think it does prey on psychologically vulnerable people who do end up getting sucked in and making irresponsible decisions. 

Like, from my own perspective, as an EXTREMELY casual gambler, it's fine to go to a casino with a set amount of money, and spend the day gambling. I mean, people will spend $15 for a movie ticket and insane amounts on concessions for a 2 hour movie. People will spend significant money eating out or going to an amusement park. Concerts cost hundreds of dollars at times. What's the difference if they go to a casino and gamble instead? Ya know? if you're gonna spend a day out, there's nothing wrong with some casual gambling. Just like there's nothing wrong with going to a bar and ordering a drink or two. it's when the behavior becomes addictive, compulsive, and has negative outcomes that it becomes problematic. 

I do think there should be some restrictions on it. Not shoving these things into our faces in every store or restaurant or public place is a reasonable one. And we should probably have stronger restrictions against the people who keep going to the ATM and throwing money into things. I think that people should only be allowed to gamble so much a day, or within a 30 day or 365 day period. The amount can be reasonable, although admittedly it can be hard to decide how much is too much given the vast socioeconomic inequalities in this country. What is devastating for a lower wage worker can be pocket change to some rich new yorker spending the weekend at the borgata. Maybe put it at a percentage of income, but it can be hard to enforce that. So idk how that would work. Either way, there should be stronger protections to root out addictive behaviors and put limits on them before they ruin their lives. Casinos and betting apps already use algorithms to try to root out and limit intelligent gamblers who can beat the odds in sports betting. I know a lot of people complain about, say, draft kings for doing that, but they dont seem to root out problem gamblers who are ruining their lives. Quite frankly, there isn't a profit motive to do so. If anything casinos love these kinds of players as they make money off of them.

But yeah, there should be stronger laws there. And as far as getting rid of skill games sitting at the check out lane of your local grocery store, in a gas station, or in your local laundromat, yeah, that shouldn't be a thing. Again, you should actually have to drive to an actual casino to gamble. It shouldnt be pushed in your face at every moment of every day. That's just preying on psychologically vulnerable people at that point. It's totally unethical IMO. 

But again, I do wanna point out, gambling is fine in moderation, and if you're responsible at it too. I don't advocate for banning it. Just limiting it to the right place and time. 

Why I don't recommend Intel Arc cards very strongly

 So, it's no question at this point that if you're the kind of buyer I am, intel Arc cards are some of the best value on the market in theory. The A380 is $160, and while not super powerful, it beats the sea of ewaste that the sub $200 market often is. At $210 you get the A750, a RX 6600 tier card that equals the 6600 in value when it was a thing. For around $300 you can get the slightly more powerful B570 or B580, which have 10-12 GB RAM respectively, and are basically your only option under $500 to get more than 8 GB. 

Considering how your options from Nvidia include 6 GB 3050s and 2060s at this price range, with AMD not even offering a decent card until you spend an eyewatering $340 for a 7600 (how much a 6700 XT used to cost), you might be tempted to get intel Arc. But then you also should keep in mind the asterisks involved. 

REBAR and older system compatibility

If you're considering intel Arc at the $200-300 price range, I'm guessing you're looking for a card for an older system, or building a new budget system. If you're building a new budget system, odds are you're looking at like an R5 5500 or 5600x, so you'll be fine. But if you're on an aging build with an old CPU, especially an older intel CPU, you might wanna think twice. Arc is highly reliant on a feature called REBAR, which, while I'm a bit hazy on it, has to do with how your CPU uses VRAM. Basically it lets you use all the VRAM at once instead of in 256 MB chunks, and on intel cards, TLDR, if you dont have it enabled, you're gonna have a bad time. 

Here's the catch. The techology only works on 10th gen intel processors or later, or 3rd gen AMD ones. This is a pretty generous bar these days. After all, we're talking 6-7 year old tech these days, but if you're like I was in 2022 buying a 6650 XT, and you basically were still running a 7700k or something, yeah, you're gonna have a bad time. 

To be fair, if you have a system that's that old, you probably should have upgraded by now. Intel 6th and 7th gen processors dont even run on windows 11, and windows 10 was discontinued a year ago. Still, 8th and 9th gen people, especially those with like an 8700k or 9900k still might have somewhat viable processors in gaming and yeah, the Arc cards should in theory pair well with them. But if this features doesnt work, you're gonna have a bad time. 

If you're on AMD, and you're on a 1000 or 2000 series processor, you should upgrade anyway, you can do a bios upgrade and just slide in a 5000 series processor relatively easily without needing expensive motherboard or RAM upgrades. 

So...is this a huge deal in practice? No, not really I guess. I mean, it's 2026, if you're still on 2018 tech or earlier, you should be upgrading by now. Still, I can see why people with older flagship systems like an 8700k or 9900k wouldn't want to. Anyway, I always mention it since pre 2023 I was on a 7700k and this actually was a huge deal for me. 

Game compatibility

So, I guess this is the bigger issue these games, but intel has spotty game compatibility. Nvidia and AMD (formerly ATI) have been making cards since the late 90s/early 2000s. They have mature driver ecosystems with a lot of support for legacy games. You can stick a new card in your system and still expect your old ### favorite game from 2001 or whatever to still work. 

You have no guarantees with intel. Intel cards tend to work fine on newer games, but if you're playing some legacy game from the olden days like I often do (I'm replaying a crappy RTS from 1998 lately that I loved back in middle school), eh....you might wanna think twice.

The problems were worst at launch, they've gotten better over time, although even now, some games tend to have some issues. Eh....I dont trust it, not gonna lie. Sure, Intel will patch the better known ones that are still popular, but again, if you want something that "just works" and you don't have to think about it, well...think twice. 

Quite frankly, researching this for this article, I'm convinced the issues aren't as bad as I thought they were or were back at launch. But yeah.  

Conclusion

 With that said, is Arc worth it? In this economy....I think you should consider it at least. The issues aren't AS bad as I thought they were when I research them somewhat and think about the market in 2026, BUT...if you're on an older intel system and dont wanna be forced to upgrade your CPU (AMD users can just upgrade to a 5000 series assuming they're on AM4), or you really are concerned about compatibility with older games, well....maybe reconsider. I personally would want a system that runs flawlessly on as many games across a wide period of time ranging from the 1990s to the present day, and fear the idea of an Arc card refusing to boot some old game from 20-30 years ago, so I'm a bit reluctant and would rather pay a little more for AMD.

BUT....if you're focused primarily on newer titles, and you want something cheap and good, intel COULD work here. In a normal market it wouldnt be my go to option, BUT...given the insane price premiums both Nvidia and AMD cards are having in the sub $300 market, yeah I can see the A750 or B570 being decent options.  

Election Update 10/10/26

 So, I delay it a day and then only one poll comes out on Saturday, figures. The last two saturdays had TONS of polls come out, but i switch it up to account for that and I shift Texas by 0.2. Bleh. Anyway. Here's this week's update.

Senate

All in all, some mild change, mostly in favor of the democrats. Nebraska is dead heat with no clear leader. Kansas, FREAKING KANSAS is only R+0.2. Iowa remains a tossup, and Maine remains one.

Reflecting more on Maine, and having watched part of the debate, I think I figured out what's going on there. Susan Collins is a normie moderate republican who can successfully distance herself from the Trump administration, and Troy Jackson has the charisma of a wet blanket. The debate was SO BORING. I tried to watch it but it just couldnt keep my attention. Both these guys are like watching grass grow. For Susan Collins it feels like a welcome change of pace given the flair and pizazz of the Trump administration, but with Jackson it just...doesn't work. 

Anyway, those are the tossups. Alaska is lean D with a relatively weak margin. Minnesota is...idk wtf is going on there, should be D+6, not D+2. Texas, Ohio, and Michigan are all D+3ish. And yeah, the senate is looking pretty good for democrats. On the republican side South Carolina is R+2.4. That's kinda crazy. Florida is D+7, and then Montana is D+14, with Bodnar being held back by Bankhead refusing to drop out and allow the candidate with a chance a chance. 

House

 

So I added Alaska's district to the list of districts I auto flip. Unlike the others, it's not gerrymandering that does it, it's polling. The fact is, according to my model, the outcome is supposed to be D+9, so basically soft safe D. According to polling, it's supposed to be R+9 so soft safe R. Given my model and polling are 100% at odds with each other, I flipped this district, recognizing the flaws in my own model. Honestly, there are other districts where my model and polling disagree, but not like that. Most other disagreements are within the margin of error, or have polling within the margin of error. Like WA-03, my model predicts D+14, whereas the polling predicts R+1. A massive difference, sure, but R+1 still means 40% chance of democratic win, so I figured to just let that one ride. Another one is VA-01. My model predicts R+2, polling predicts D+4. These two numbers are within the margin of error of each other so I won't auto flip them. 

There isn't really enough polling to really justify making a full polling only model. Like seriously, we only have like 5 districts of 435 polled right now. And only around 75 or so are in play so to speak. So yeah, do the math, not worth my time. Polling that goes against the cook ratings also often ends up being wrong. Again, the Alaska polling is the exception. Not only are the differences massive, but cook still has it as likely R, the polling tells me likely-safe R depending on how lenient you are with ratings (5 point MOE and it's "likely" instead of safe). And only my model has it has like, safe D. So my model is very obviously wrong there. 

Anyway, this leads me to giving a R+3 correction to my model, where dems have 234 seats and republicans have 201, with the democrats still having a 99% chance of taking the house. Idk how reliable that is given my other system, but to be fair I dont trust that other system either. I'll go with this one for now as I seem apt at detecting errors and flipping outcomes that are out of line. 

Governors

 

Map is what it is. I have little to say on this one. Wtf at Oregon though. 

Conclusion

Anyway, that's this week's update. The senate is largely holding steady, we lost a tiny amount of ground in the house that is of little statistical significance, things are gonna fluctuate I guess, and the governors are where they are. I'll update weekly through election day, I'll probably make a couple predictions before election day itself like on Monday with me constantly editing it, and you'll have the final one by Tuesday afternoon before polls closed. 

Btw, I just voted today so....yeah. This crap is already going on. Love mail in ballots.  

GPU prices are getting worse

 Just when you thought it couldn't get worse....it gets worse.

Okay, so you know how it is, Im gonna use PCpartpicker and list the prices of the most recommended GPUs by price, focusing primarily on more budget segments I'm more sympathetic toward.  

GT 1030- $105 

Okay so this came back down, for a while this was up to $125, which is insane given it's basically my old HD 5850 from 2010 except with 2 GB VRAM. Seriously, this card launched for $80 10 years ago. The 1050 which was priced at $110 at the time cost as much as this. The 1050 ti was $140. And again, this was 10 whole years ago. Imagine wanting $100 for like an 8600 GT in 2017. I mean...to be fair, that's not far off from the GT 710 being $96, or the 9500 GT for $120, so yeah, the market really IS that crap...

Maxsun RX 580- $140 (chinese) (4x 1030)

This one doesn't show up on PC part picker, but times are so desperate I'd actually legit consider this one. Sure there are cheaper ones at $120, but they're even sketchier chinese brands and mostly refurbs and old mining cards of questionable quality. Maxsun is actually new and while the brand is chinese, and from what I can tell they're basically selling 570s with a bios upgrade, uh....have you seen the market lately? Yeah, if I had to buy a cheap GPU, I'd seriously be considering this. Buyer beware, there is some level of sketch here, it's really the fact that the market is so awful that I'm including this one.

Arc A380- $160 (3x 1030)

Yeah, even the Arc cards are going up now. The 570/580 IS a little faster than this, and AMD has better drivers, but again...the 580 I recommended above is kinda sketchy. You could get this instead and it would be more reputable. Arc cards are iffy on drivers and their compatibility is iffy on the kinds of older systems that would use budget cards like this. Still, again, it's basically the best that's available. That's how bad the market is.

Arc A750- $210 (7x 1030)

 A much stronger card for $50 more. That's...what happens at the bottom of the market. You spend a little more you get far more value than if you spent less. Kinda "the more you buy the more you save" but for real. Again, it's intel. So....unreliable drivers, not the best for older systems, but hey, it's a relatively decent card on paper for not a ton of money. Again, I surfed through ewaste to find these, there isnt anything better. I did see R9 290xs and GTX 1050 tis at this price point though, but that's basically Arc 380/RX 580 tier performance. 

 RTX 3050 6 GB- $245 (4x 1030)

 "What happened to the 3050 8 GB?" It's like $350 now, that's what. Which is...awful. Absolutely awful. Still, the 6 GB exists. And that's bad because it lacks the 8 GB VRAM needed for modern titles, but this card still will do in a pinch I guess. Just be aware it might not run ALL games. The A750 is actually better, but again...intel just has those issues where I cant just say "buy an intel." It sucks.

RTX 2060 6 GB- $274 (6x 1030)

Better than the 3050 by a rather significant margin. Another upsell. Getting closer to A750 performance, but again, 6 GB VRAM is a limitation. I would consider all these GPUs up to this point below the minimum specs for modern games. 

Well, ok, the A750 technically hits them, but then the drivers suck on older ones. Especially on old systems that dont have rebar. Bleh.

 Arc B570- $290 (8x 1030)

Not much stronger than the A750, but should be included regardless. Has 10 GB VRAM and is a newer series. Still, doesnt bring much to the table honestly. Still Arc. Still flawed. 

 Arc B580- $330 (9x 1030)

 Another marginal increase, but this one has 12 GB VRAM

 RX 7600- $340 (8x 1030)

 So, this is my official go to recommendation. You want something that is, IMO: 1) new enough to have RT and modern features, 2) AMD or intel, 3) 8 GB VRAM, and 4) At least 6x GT 1030 if you want a comfortable gaming experience. The 3050 8 GB kinda squeaks by, only running below the 6x the 1030 mark, but it's not by much and you can basically make it work, you know? But this is the first one that actually meets ALL specifications. If you wanna put up with Arc, that A750 is a good bet, and you can probably make do with like the 2060 if you're willing to risk issues on some VRAM intensive games. But yeah, as far as something that I say actually clears ALL the bars, having good compatibility with almost every game out there, this is your card. And this is about where my own RX 6650 XT is performance wise too. It's solid. Feeling a little dated, but more akin to using a RX 580 or GTX 1060 in 2020-2021 or something. Like, it works, it gets the job done, but it's not great. Such a card should NEVER be worth $340. Maybe $125-150ish if I were being honest, but yeah, again, this is how insane the modern market is. 

RTX 5050- $390 (9x 1030)

Not really worth it over the 7600 for $50 more. But hey, yeah, that's where this is at. Pathetic, isn't it?

RTX 5060- $430 (11x 1030)

I mean, worth it over the 5050 at least if you're gonna spend this much... 

9070 GRE- $550 (15x 1030)

So, I skipped over some choices. You have the 9060 XT 8 GB for $460, the 5060 ti 8 GB for $500, and the 9060 XT for 16 GB, but you should probably skip all 3 of those and just grab this. Sure, it only has 12 GB VRAM, but is probably far more worth it in terms of power than say, the 16 GB 9060 XT. Seriously, Im offering too many choices here.

Anyway, I dont even consider above $300 "budget" any more, let alone $500-600, so let's simplify the recommendations here.

Arc A750- $210

It's a solid card that tends to offer far more performance than a lot of cards above and below it. in terms of value. Seriously, its like the lower end card exist to upsell you to this. it's only real flaw is being intel which means spotty driver compatibility with old games, and old systems. It's okay, but yeah, it's cheap for a reason.

RX 7600- $340

The first real "no compromise" modern gaming experience card. Way overpriced for what it's worth, for the record I bought a 6650 XT 4 years ago that's comparable for this, and it is showing its age, but this is kinda the minimum experience if you want something that both runs new games and has broad compatibility with older games and equipment.

RX 9070 GRE- $550

While the 9060 XT 16 GB is kinda the new "minimum card" for a FUTUREPROOF experience, I'd still rather buy this despite the lower VRAM because it's only $30 more.

And of course:

RX 9070 XT- $815

If you're rich but not like "I wanna throw money away" kind of rich, buy this one.  

And yeah, that's the market. I never planned on writing these regularly, but the market is what it is, and the prices are changing so much that articles I should be writing once a year or once every two years are suddenly requiring constant updates and revision because these things are going up constantly. I cant wait for this AI bubble to pop.  

Election updates will take place on Saturday now

 So, I decided to put off my election update until Saturday, and to keep that pattern for the rest of the election cycle. The reason is simple. I chose to do it Friday because most polls come out on Monday-Friday, with fewer polls over the weekend. However, the past two Saturdays, we've had TONS of polls. TONS of them. However, Sunday is still relatively light. As such, I will do the weekly updates on Saturday afternoon/night rather than Friday. Thank you for your attention on this matter! (Yes, i know I sound like DJT). 

Tell me how this is not cruel and unusual punishment

 So, Christina Pike is awake, and YIKES, her condition is what I would describe as "death would potentially be preferable to this." She's apparently paralyzed on both arms. She can't eat. She has pneumonia. 

Look, even if you believe in the death penalty, and I don't, but let's say we did. This is NOT a humane way to do it. This woman is F-ed up from this ordeal. I honestly think at this point she would have been better dead. But now she's alive, in this messed up compromised state, and uh...yeah. Really makes you think "is this it, dawg?" Even if we're gonna be pro DP here, we can probably agree some other method of execution would've been a lot cleaner than this. Hanging, firing squad, electric chair, gas. All preferable to this, assuming they all worked. Even then, all of those have some risk of going wrong. One just has to watch the green mile to see how the electric chair can go wrong. Hanging can go wrong in grotesque ways. Bullets can miss. The asphyxiation from gas can lead to torturous effects. So yeah, I still lean toward "how about NOT killing people?" I mean, if we cant get lethal injection right, maybe we shouldn't do anything, but yeah. Honestly, I'm just left with a bad taste in my mouth like...yeah this is barbaric, can we NOT do this? 

I know not everyone's gonna agree. A lot of comments i see with social media are like "she should have suffered MORE!", but we already know what kinds of people are saying that kinda stuff. Really showing that "Christian love", guys! Jesus totally would have approved! (He totally would not have approved). But yeah. Anyway. Idk, I look at this and think that this practice of ours is messed up and should be abolished. No one should go through this, and I don't particularly care if they were a murderer either. Two wrongs don't make a right.  

Responding to Sarah Huckabee Sanders' new anti welfare ad

 So...Sarah Huckabee Sanders is attempting to channel resentment politics in her new ad against welfare. Basically, she portrays a guy stay home, playing video games, and being even lazier than I could ever be. Ya know, using grabber tools to pick up chips, which is highly inefficient. That's actually more work than picking them up with your hands. i know it LOOKS lazier, but it actually isn't. But I digress. The point of the ad is clear, you work hard. This guy doesn't. You're paying for welfare so this guy can not work, that's not fair to you, and the answer is to add work requirements to force this guy to work. And then we're all stuck working! Yay....

Ugh...I know this ad is very effective among parts of the population, but the answer is, should it be? Should this be how we think about the subject? Obviously not. So...as the gamer who doesn't work and does play video games (and write anti work political philosophy) all day, let's have a grounded discussion on this.

On work requirements

First of all, work requirements already exist, they've always existed. There arent many NEETs who just live off of welfare. You could argue that the medicaid expansion gave them some healthcare access (the horror, nonproductive people getting the healthcare that they need), but for the most part, these welfare programs have had requirements for decades. The fact is, most NEETs just live with their parents or maybe in rare cases, a spouse. The state aint paying for their stuff, and the state is already draconian enough in trying to force people to work. So these guys are just drumming up resentment over a phenomenon that doesn't exist, and is poorly understood. 

If anything, these work requirements often make it harder for those who need help and who do work to get the help they need. Because the system errs on punishing those who don't work, they'd rather have situations where they punish those who do, but fail to meet requirements for arbitrary reasons. The fact is, these programs just hurt the poor more than anything. ANd I guess if your whole mentality in life is around ensuring that that one person you dont like is miserable that you'd rather punish several in collateral damage to get that way, all the power to you, but your morality is pretty crappy in my view, not that such people care what I think in the first place (I don't care what they think either, they're lost causes).

On "paying for welfare" so NEETs can play video games

Even if you did somehow pay for a NEET to play video games all day, let's think about this broadly. I'm a basic income supporter. I've looked at basic income from a mathematical perspective, and here's the reality. Basic income as I structured it would benefit 70% of workers directly. 70% of people who earn a wage, would get back more in basic income than they'd pay out. This is because if we had a $16,000 basic income, with a 20% tax rate, you'd need to earn $80,000 to pay $16,000 in additional taxes. Anyone under that is basically getting free money too. So your typical middle class income earner of $50,000 a year (roughly the median individual income) would get $6,000 (pay $10,000, get $16,000 back) under my plan. That scales even better for households. If you have a second adult like a spouse, they get UBI too so we'd be talking needing to earn $160,000 in basic income to pay back $32,000. And because I'd give every child $5,500, that's an additional $27,500 to that threshold per child. So your typical household of 2 adults, 1 kid, would basically need to earn $187,500 to pay back the $37,500 in basic income that they'd recieve. For reference, that's 80% of households in the US.

The same presumably applies with universal healthcare too. The net payers of such programs are often the top 20% of income earners, the bottom 80% generally benefit from them. How can this be? Income inequality, my dude, income inequality. We have this "K shaped economy" thats been forming over the past 40 years and currently most of the income and wealth pools among the top 20% while everyone else is struggling to get by. This is presumably why you feel like you work so hard and you struggle to get by. Because you do. And it's not right. But rather than blame some dude sitting on his couch literally not doing anything, you should probably be blaming the system that makes you miserable in the first place.

On who the real enemy is

 What this ad is intended to do is similar to that "look out, that immigrant wants to take your cookie" analogy. The system wants the overall "working class" (which in my own belief system includes the not working) to be at each others' throats. Immigrants are on welfare stealing your tax dollars. NEETs are on welfare stealing your tax dollars. There's always an enemy. And it's always trying to go to you saying, look, you work hard, so why don't they work hard, is that fair to you? And your natural response is, of course, GRRRR WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO WORK SO HARD IF THEY DON'T HAVE TO WORK SO HARD. So you basically want to make the person not as miserable as you....as miserable as you....to make it fair to you.

But that just makes us ALL miserable. The real, more productive question to ask is "why are we all working like this to begin with?" I mean, that's the question I asked, and the rabbit hole I went down, and at the end of the day, it's to make rich people rich. The economy has always been a scam to ensure that the wealthy people remain wealthy. It attempts to use the logic of "hard work" and meritocracy to give itself legitimacy, claiming that those who earn lots of money work hard, and that lazy people should get nothing. And then it always uses the resentment politics within the welfare system, as well as artificial divides like race politics, fear of immigrants, etc, in order to drum up resentment from the working class. This stops people from figuring out that the source of their misery is the system itself, and instead forces them to take it out on poor disadvantaged people who didn't do anything.

I mean, here's my viewpoint. You hate work. I mean, if you buy into resentment politics, Im guessing you dont like working. You don't think it's "fair" if someone doesn't work as hard as you. It threatens the legitimacy of the system in your mind. But because you buy into those values, your solution is "force this person to work to justify my suffering." But here's the thing. Your suffering shouldnt be justified. No one should have to go through what you go through. And that's MY point. I want a system where work is voluntary and we don't have to work. I want YOU to have the ability to sit on the couch and play video games too if you want to. And if you don't, fine, just leave me out of your twisted ideals for society if you actually LIKE your job. Because ironically, I get that a lot when I talk about eliminating work. "But I like working, there's dignity in work!". Cool. Then work. But dont try to force me to do it too. And if the system requires me to be coerced and miserable to justify your own acceptance of the system, then you should probably rethink your acceptance of the system. 

The fact is, in my view, we shouldnt have to work. We could have chosen to pursue a different path as a society, instead of going down the path of neverending growth and obsession with employing every person possible to ensure that we max out GDP, we could have chosen to work less all along. We could choose a lot of possible paths to do this. We could have eliminated poverty and made work voluntary with a basic income. We could reduce the work week, take longer vacations, lowered the retirement age, etc. Instead, we have a society that enforces unnecessary and artificial scarcity on people to force them to take jobs they dont want, and that they're criminally underpaid for, so some rich guy can make profits at the end of the day.

And that's really what it's about. The reason we went down this path was because businesses feared that if people didn't work, that they wouldnt be able to make money. So instead we created this system that imposes misery on everyone in order to keep the profits up and the rich people happy. And then they have the gall to say some dude who plays video games all day is the problem. They're not. The system is. 

Conclusion

 With all of that said, I'd advise anyone who seriously buys into this ad to reconsider their life. Odds are, you're not in that top 20% making all of the money. if you are, well...yeah, I wanna tax you so the rest of us can be free from having to work. You might not like that but tough, the majority should be on my side, fi they thought rationally and acted in their best interests about it.

But if you're not in that top 20%....well....actually, no, you're not paying for someone to sit on the couch. If you got a UBI, you'd be getting more than you'd be paying it. If you had universal healthcare, you'd probably be SAVING money on healthcare. With that said, reconsider your political priorities here. The fact is, you're closer to the homeless guy on the street or that NEET on the couch in terms of your class interests than you are to the wealthy whose system you're defending here. I advise you to think about what's best for you, and to actually support MORE welfarism, not less.

Or you can just take off your clothes or go back to the pile south park style because that's basically what you're doing if you buy into this stuff. Just a giant hugbox of misery and people voting against their interests.  

The Christina Pike situation disgusts me

 So....they tried to put this 50 year old woman to death in Tennessee for a murder they committed when they were 18. It was a controversial case, I remember reading some articles before it happened, some wanted to call it off and appeal it, given she went through some sexual assault trauma that might have affected our mental state, but our illustrious conservative supreme court was like "nah, go ahead." So they went ahead with it. 

Well...it ended....badly. Very badly. Lethal injection has been debated a lot in recent years. In theory it's humane. You stick a needle in their arm, they go to sleep and...die. But then other countries who manufactured the drugs used in it were like "we don't want our stuff being used to kill people", so the US has been forced to shift to less reliable drugs to kill people. And sometimes, it doesn't work. And this was one of those times. They couldnt' find a vein, then the drug didn't work. Apparently she was whimpering in pain and noted her arm felt like it was gonna explode, which was a sign that they botched the whole thing. And then after an hour of basically torturing this woman, they  took her to the hospital, and now apparently she's unconscious and on a ventilator. 

And that's it. They took her to the hospital...after trying to kill her. And she's unconscious, and on a respirator, if they took the respirator out, she would die, but they're apparently trying to take care of her..for what, so they can kill her again? Death penalty is weird. I get it, the doctors have an oath to do no harm and to care for people, but the whole point of this was to kill her. And it failed...kinda, although if they let nature take its course, it would be a success. A messy success but a success nonetheless. But yeah, now she's in the hospital taking care of her...so they can presumably kill her again at a later date. 

Honestly, we should just let her live. Even if I were pro death penalty, I'd be tempted to be like, nah, you survive the attempt and can walk away, you deserve to get your sentence commuted. But let's face it, I'm NOT pro death penalty. This never should have happened. The death penalty is outdated and barbaric. Maybe it made sense in an era in which not killing people meant that they would continue to be a menace to society, but prisons are rather secure these days, and the death penalty is, if anything, less convenient. Because we dont support cruel and unusual punishment, so if we ARE doing to do it, we need to find the least painful ways possible. This was supposed to be that way, but apparently it doesnt work half the time. And then considering the legal procedures to make it just, it ends up costing more in legal appeals to kill someone than to keep them alive. So it just doesn't make sense. 

I've actually always been against the death penalty, it's been an issue I've been most consistent on in my life. As a christian, I didnt think it was up to us to take a life, and that it was up to God. As a secularist, I still largely view it as inhumane, supporting life in prison instead for those who should never be part of society again. Ironically, as a secularist, I'm more sympathetic toward it than I was as a christian. As a christian I was dogmatically against it on principle, and refused to even consider it. But I do kind of get the desire for revenge that people have, and I even have the base urges where in SOME circumstances, I honestly think that what someone did is F-ed up enough where I can see why people would WANT it. But...at the same time, my higher principles still say no, we should let them live. And honestly, given our legal framework and the issues with it, yeah, I'm largely opposed to it.  And in a case like this, I'm definitely against this. First of all, it seems like yeah, she had issues going on that should have lessened the sentence, and second of all, we're doing this THIRTY YEARS later. like, she's almost 3x the age of what she was when the crime was committed. And again keep in mind what I said earlier. I kinda get the fiery passion for revenge, but this isn't it. This is this cold and clinical thing where this woman spent 60% of her life waiting to die for a crime she committed when she was young. it's like, okay, the fire and passion is kinda out of it by this point. I mean, it doesn't make a ton of sense to me. And in terms of her being a future threat to society, she isn't, she just comes off as some lady. Not saying she should ever be allowed in public again, but again, life in prison seems...fine here. No need to drag it out or make it worse than it is. 

Honestly, if we ARE going to have the death penalty, the people involved should have committed really egregious stomach churning crimes. Not just like a simple murder, but like, ya know, the worst of the worst. Think war criminals, people who participated in the holocaust and were true believers in it, that sorta thing. They should be a threat to society. And we should have as close to 100% certainty that they committed the crime as possible. Im not talking "reasonable doubt" here, like ALL doubt. Innocence project ended up finding a lot of people on death row didn't even belong there, and we've certainly executed innocent people before. 

Even then, I wouldn't be for it, because I still hold those higher principles against it. Again, life in prison is fine to me. I try to keep passion out of it and think rationally and principled.

As for HOW to do it...that's another problem. What IS the best method. lethal injection SHOULD be simple, but it isn't and it fails A LOT with situations like this. Gas can torture people too. The green mile shows what happens when the electric chair goes wrong. Hanging can either be instant or it can fail and be messed up. Same with the guillotine. Firing squad can be messy too. The fact is, there isn't really a simple, fool proof way to kill someone without the possibility of it being botched and torturing them instead. And maybe we just shouldn't have the death penalty.

Again, my ultimate opinion is the death penalty in and of itself violates cruel and unusual punishment. Killing someone is, by definition, cruel and unusual unless they are suffering and desire it. I dont think there's a good way to do it. I dont generally agree with the process of it. I mean, we sentence someone to death and then like 30 years later we finally kill them when the appeals process runs out? By then the whole fiery revenge instinct is just...dead in my view. And that in itself is cruel. The waiting is cruel. The fighting for life legally is cruel. Just give them life in prison without a chance of parole and move on already. This whole process is F-ed up. Most countries already banned the practice. We should too. But conservative be conservatives, and conservatives have a messed up moral compass so they're like LET'S KEEP THIS. Again, I just can't be for this in practice. And honestly, this woman's sentence should be commuted to life in prison if she ever actually does wake up again (still wild we're keeping her alive on a ventilator when the whole point of the thing that put her there was to kill her). And yeah, F the death penalty. Abolish it.  

Election Update 10/2/26

 Okay, so it's that time of week again, and we got some pretty big news. Isn't necessarily good news, but it's news.

Senate

 

So, as we start to enter the final stretch going into October, things are tightening up, and it seems like democrats are losing margin in a lot of these swing states. Maine is the most significant one for the senate, with Troy jackson now down to a 0.1% lead. What's driving that? Well, for his case, again, I think the problem is that the public isn't really trusting the democrats to make things better, this is primarily an anti Trump vote, and Susan Collins is the one republican senator who can say she's not Trump. She still voted with him 95% of the time, but that other 5% gives her cover to say she's a "moderate" republican. And given Jackson doesn't seem to be anywhere near as charismatic as Platner was, and doesnt seem to be drawing in as much support, he's floundering a bit. The average actually did go into Collins territory briefly this week, but for the official update, Jackson is still ahead by the slightest of margins. 

Osborn, well, yeah, I flipped Nebraska, but that's because RCP is finally posting Nebraska data, meaning I'm changing my source over to them, and they have Ricketts ahead by 0.5% on average. Still far more competitive than Nebraska has any right being, still, it is a flip. States like Minnesota, Alaska, and Texas are all narrowing as well. I know last week I was dooming over the public not wanting progressives in particular, but observing this further, I think that democrats are just floundering a bit going into the final stretch. They're still ahead, but the races seem to be narrowing. Right now El Sayed is in a rather strong position, but we should honestly expect Michigan to be like D+8 in this environment. Minnesota being narrow is just wtf. I really have to wonder what's going on here. Some of it is spending, but IMO democrat spending priorities seem pretty....decent, they're just being outspent since rich people prefer republicans obviously. 

Either way, before we get too pessimistic, let's think about where we started. Back in early 2025, I considered flipping the senate impossible. We're STILL favored to win there, despite these set backs. Quite frankly, it reminds me of my gambling luck in AC last week. I started with $5. yes, just $5, I'm not a compulsive gambler, I kinda understand you're likely to just throw the money away, but somehow, by dumb luck, I hit $60. Now, imagine being forced to gamble more, and you're dropping to like $45. That's where we are. WE'RE STILL WINNING, THIS MAP IS STILL OUTSIDE OF THE REALM OF WHAT I EXPECTED. But yeah, we are kinda losing at the margins, and given we HAVE TO keep spinning for the next month, and we cant just cash in and walk away with the winnings, yeah, its possible this is where "the house" gets back some of its advantage. We'll see where things end up on election day. Things still look good for us...just...not as good as they did.  

House

 

The house still looks as robust as ever, but to be fair there isn't a ton of elasticity with my official forecast.

Also, I AM getting polling data now for some individual districts, although not enough to build a model. Still, i would like to analyze how my model compares to the polling data. I only got 4 districts, but here's how the models compare:

NY-17

Polling- D+2

Model: D+4.6

 VA-01

Polling- D+4

Model: R+1.8

 VA-05

 Polling: R+6

Model: Safe R; not counted (R+4)

 WA-03

 Polling: R+1

Model:  D+14

So yeah, overall, that last one really pushes things toward my model being D biased, but the othere are close, only off by about 2-3 points from the polling. VA-05 wasnt counted since I only count states considered not safe by Cook PVI and last time I consulted them, VA-05 was still safe, it no longer is. If I applied it to my model, it would be R+4, given it went R+15 in 2024. So its is somewhat close.

Why is WA03 so off? It could be just some weird poll coming out of the pacific northwest that isnt accurate (see governor forecast), or it could be the specific candidate matchups, or district, idk. All I know is it went D+3 in 2024 so it should be like safe D this time, but maybe not all districts are. You can have weird moderate republicans running in blue areas who can distance themselves from trump crazy. Idk. 

But yeah. All in all, should I use this model going into the general? Well unless I get A LOT more polling data, I'm gonna have to. House districts are fundamentally underpolled and the polling in them is often horrendously inaccurate, so who the heck knows? Either way, I'm gonna be focusing more on getting the number of seats right than the specific outcomes of each seat.

EDIT: Added new districts up for grabs, model remains unchanged, other than reverting to a D+2 bias due to one of the added districts being a solid D district gerrymandering into a red district in texas. Still 235-200. 

Governors

Speaking of weird polling in the pacific northwest, wtf is with oregon? Looking at 2020 it was D+3.4, with a third party candidate taking 8.6% of the vote, so maybe it IS that close, but i normally consider that a blue state. Nebraska as the republican only up by 5, which is crazy. VT flips red, although not too crazy given that guy is a moderate and popular there. Similar phenomenon as NH apparently. New England seems to love democrats to some degree but also will vote for moderate republicans. And of course, now Georgia is flipping red. So not a lot of good news on the governor front. Not all of this is due to shifts, some of it is due to new data giving me more insight on races i wasn't aware of, but yeah, it's a bit less rosy for democrats.

Conclusion

With all of that said, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but stats are stats. And this blue wave might be...busting. idk. We'll see how things continue over the course of this month, but I'm not particularly confident in dem wins like I was. Of course, I always said to beware that this could happen, even a few points could mean the difference between a blue wave and a blue trickle, but yeah, as we go into october, things are....trickling a bit more than waving. I mean, they're still waving compared to the baseline but...republicans are still holding their own given the circumstances. This isn't a done deal for democrats at all, and we cant be complacent. Keep in mind, republicans overperform by around 3 points and we dont win the senate. If we account for my OTHER house model, we might struggle to flip the house. And keep in mind this is the best we can muster when we got an absolute moron for commander in chief who is governing on a level of stupidity few people thought possible. And a lot of them still are okay with it. I swear, this country might be cooked. The republicans seem to be winning the war on information and voters are too ignorant to know better. It's baffling how badly the dems have messed up since 2016. Even with all that's going on, a lot of people aren't sold on them enough to even vote against the republican. Scary. Makes you wonder what the future of our country is. 

But yeah, that's the update for the week. Same time next week give or take?