Discussing James Talarico and his "hating Christianity" comments

 So, another scandal is breaking in Texas, where the republicans released audio of James Talarico calling himself a "Christian who hates Christianity." Honestly? My opinion is that this is a nothingburger. I mean, anyone who is outside of the segment of Christians he's clearly referencing will understand what he means. I see this sentiment a lot with liberal Christians. They're christians, but they hate the ideological Christianity of the fundies and the Christian nationalism of the republican party. They support the spirit of the law, rather than the actual letter, and think that fundies are basically Pharisees, that they're spiritually dead inside but put on a lot of airs and act holier than anyone without being so.

Honestly, anyone who is outraged by this is exactly the kind of Christian Talarico is referencing. And you know what? Those are the Christians that drive my "new atheist" vibe as well. Those guys do so much damage to religion that some of us, like me, just cant stand religion in general. No offense to the moderates, I still think that they're "lukewarm" and I'd rather just disavow myself of the entire movement, but yeah. I can see how moderates with different interpretations look at the crazy guys and how they're like 'OH MY GOD STOP YOU'RE ALIENATING EVERYONE WTF". And yeah. I mean, for a while, I was one of those liberal Christians in the late 2000s/early 2010s. I just decided that I had enough and felt it was more philosophically consistent to just give up on the entire religion. I mean clearly there was more to it than that, but that was...part of it. 

Then again, as they say, preaching to the choir.

Anyway, some are saying this is gonna outrage religious republicans, but you know what? Good. And before people think this will hurt him a ton, well, again, if youre outraged, you're the target of the criticism. And let's face it, most of those guys are white hot balls of rage upset that a trans person went into a different bathroom within 1000 miles of them. So...screw them, as I would say as a secular humanist with new atheist vibes, your boos mean nothing, I've seen what makes you cheer. Bring it on. I welcome your hatred.  

Discussing a new theory for the 7th party system and the future of politics

 So I've been trying to figure this out lately. There's been debate. As we know, we're in a weird political time. I believe that these times can be at least somewhat explained by VO Key's party realignment theory. He had a theory that there were generational coalitions that made up the parties, and once in a generation, they implode and remake themselves to fit the politics of the time. There are arguably at least six major realignments in American politics.

First Party System: Federalists vs Anti Federalists (1796-1828)

Second Party system:  Jacksonian Democrats vs Whigs (1828-1860)

Third Party System: Lincoln Republicans vs Confederate Democrats (1860-1896)

Fourth Party System: Populist republicans and democrats (1896-1932)

Fifth Party System: New Deal democrats vs Eisenhower republicans (1932-1980)

Sixth Party System: Reagan republicans vs Clinton Democrats (1980-?) 

As we know, there is some debate over the current era, and what path we are on. I've posited several theories in the past, but I think I have an idea what's going to happen next. I'm going to take a page from history here.

The transition from the fifth to sixth party system

So, the theory somewhat breaks down in the modern era. The strict 32-36 year period between alignments kind of broke down here, and we didn't transition clearly from 5th to 6th like we did the others. There arguably was some messiness in other alignments too. Both the transition between the 1st and 2nd and 2nd and 3rd had an election where the coalitions seemed to implode, before being remade (1824/1856). The realignment into the 6th was supposed to happen in 1968 but didn't. Or did it?

In a way it did. In 1968, we had George Wallace's third party run fracture the south off of the democratic party over civil rights. 

In 1972, Nixon engaged in the southern strategy, attempting to woo these guys to the republicans over dog whistle politics.

However, Nixon imploded and in 1976 we got Carter, who basically temporarily revived the New Deal coalition. But then he crapped the bed and we got Reagan in 1980.

Reagan was THE realigning guy. He won over almost the whole country overwhelmingly. 1980 was THE moment, and in retrospect, I dont think we can deny that, that's where everything changed. Reagan came in like a bulldozer, and remade the country in his image, similar, to FDR. His administration was so successful it led to 12 years of uninterrupted republican party role and when the democrats came back, they moderated and spoke his language. They cobbled together whatever coalition they could, and that largely defines the political map we've had since. Yes, Clinton did win part of the south, but he established the democrats as socially liberal and fiscally centrist. And those have functionally been the coalitions since.

2016 and glimpses of the future

Now, if we follow the theory, 2016 should be the next realignment. And in a way it was, but it wasn't. I'm actually going to go with the whole "it wasn't" argument. It was more the DEalignment, similar to 1968. it was the year the 6th party system broke, BUT....I don't think the true 7th party system has emerged yet. And I don't think Trump is a successful enough realigning figure to pull it off. 

2016 did give us glimpses of the future though. It split the country into four factions:

Establishment Republicans- Old guard republicans like Jeb Bush, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, etc.

Establishment Democrats- Old guard democrats like Hillary Clinton

Anti Establishment Republicans- Trump and his populist MAGA brand

Anti Establishment Democrats- Bernie Sanders and his economic populism

So there are two divides, establishment vs anti establishment, and left vs right. Four factions, with different visions. But I don't think we actually saw a real realignment yet, and here's why.

Why we are still in the 6th party system

So I've been discussing the coalitions of the parties for years now. Especially the democrats, who seem somewhat torn between their efforts to reach out to "moderates" (establishment republicans) and bring them into the party, and the democratic party base, which is where most younger people are, who was a more progressive vision for the country. In the modern era, the democrats have a problem. They can't go too far to the center or they alienate the progressives and lose elections. They also cant go too far to the left without losing moderates, arguably speaking, although I would dispute this. But generally speaking, the democrats are still operating off of the coalition they made for themselves in 1992, and the leaders are aging, and very old, and often out of touch. This causes their brand of politics to be fundamentally unpopular, making them relatively unreliable in winning elections.

However, their problems pale in comparison to the GOP's problems. Trump is...not a great realigner. He's a failed realigner, and I'm calling it now. It's been debated over the past decade what his status is in this, but after thinking like a republican strategist lately, I kinda realized something, the GOP is still Reagan's GOP. Trump did NOT fundamentally change the republican coalition. It's STILL the same coalition Nixon and Reagan built. It's just its final form, the logical end point of the most extreme members. The mask is off on the racism, the religious fundamentalism is rampant, the only thing he did was to have an economically populist veneer which saved the party from destruction.

This party has been struggling since 2008. The Reagan coalition started fracturing with Bush. Heck, I'd argue the ONLY reason it's still relevant is because the democrats are REALLY bad at their jobs. The right KNOWS they're in deep crap. Their coalition is aging out. They're poised to become a minority party, as America browns, and as younger people replace older generations. And that's why they're so authoritarian. These guys KNOW they have a problem, they KNOW they're screwed, and they're trying to prepare to govern as a minority party, throwing democracy out the window. If they can deport brown people, they can ensure whites remain the dominant demographic. if they can ensure more whites have babies, which their social conservatism encourages, they can ensure they can outnumber other demographics. If they can engage in voter disenfrenchisement, they can ensure that only they vote. A lot of these guys openly talk like this, they'll say things like "we're not a democracy, we're a republic, we don't want EVERYONE voting, that's bad for the country." We're seeing them talk about having one vote per family and crap so only the head of the household (typically the man) can vote. They're trying to undo the civil rights act. They're trying to gerrymander the districts. They might even try to declare that the votes in the 2026 midterms are invalid and try to force their outcome on the country. And that's scary. The GOP's path to success into the future is...basically to govern like a minority party.

In a way, they already are. They've been the minority for almost two decades now. Their coalition has thinned. It's mostly held together by electoral advantages like the massive rural advantages our system affords them. It's held together by gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement efforts. They can't win legitimately, they have to do this to remain relevant and to remain powerful. If they can't do that, then they lose the future. 

Quite frankly, the only OTHER thing holding the republicans together is the democrats being so bad at their job. The democrats are too nice, they care about procedure and decorum too much, they are the anti charismatic party. The boring party, the crappy status quo that no one likes party. And the only thing holding the democrats back from realizing their full potential is themselves. So right now, we bounce between the parties, going from republicans to democrats, and both being equally powerful, the republicans so because their coalition is imploding and the democrats because they're not even really trying, and honestly, if anything, the modern era feels like that 1970s era where we had Nixon and then Carter, and no one likes anyone, and all the politicians suck. 

And even Trump....Trump IS a failed realigner. He did temporarily save the party by bridging the aging republican coalition with swing voters via economic populism, but he has no solutions. HE HAS NO SOLUTIONS. And while he seemed to govern just well enough to be remembered fondly after his first term, in his second, he's also imploding. Heck, it really does seem like the current parties are kinda operating in that 1970s holding pattern, with Trump and Biden both being Nixon and Carter in their own ways. Trump is both nixon and carter, corrupt, but also extremely incompetent. Biden is also like carter, incompetent, but also like Nixon, kind of the guy who did build the next democratic coalition in a way. He did manage to thread the needle between moderates and progressives in his first term and while he ultimately failed to make either happy, that coalition could be used in future elections. 

I used to think that the realignment was gonna break either way: on left right lines, or establishment/anti establishment lines. One future is a populist MAGA party vs an establishment uniparty (bad realignment), one is a progressive left democratic party with a center right republican party. But what if I was wrong on that?

The new theory: 2028 and the broad democratic tent

Both FDR and Ronald Reagan won the electoral college by MASSIVE numbers. They won over basically the whole country, minus a couple states. The popular vote wasn't as extreme as the electoral vote, because there always is that 30-40% of the country on the losing side, but being able to pull together a coalition of 60%+ generally is indicative of a shift in power in politics. And as we know, that dominating coalition never remains at 60%+, FDR's coalition moderated a bit after he died, with truman still keeping it together, but Eisenhower finally cracking the code and giving the republicans a return to power. Reagan and Bush enjoyed massive margins followed by the democrats clawing themselves back with Clinton. Then things kinda normalized for a while. 

What if 2028 is an electoral earthquake that doesn't depend on either a centrist democratic party or a progressive one, but rather a broad tent one? The tent will itself be unstable, but if we can secure 60% of the vote for the next decade or two, that will force the republicans into the wilderness, as they implode. I could see this happening after Trump. Hell, we're already seeing it with the Senate map. The country is turning on Trump, he has his loyal base that is ride or die for him, but if he can't seal the deal behind him and keep moderates on his side, that coalition isnt stable. 

Even worse, after Trump, the republican coalition might implode into irrelevance. The MAGA base is so dangerous and so extreme the country might decide "never again", rejecting the republicans again and again as the name "Donald Trump" goes down in electoral history similar to "Herbert Hoover" or "Jimmy Carter." And while very popular among his base, no future replacement (looking at you, JD Vance, Marco Rubio) can pull off the same magic, leading to the republican coalition to FINALLY destroy itself as we go into the 2030s. 

This will leave the democrats as the default option that no one is quite happy with, but everyone will vote for again and again just to keep the republicans out. Over time, there will be a tug of war between the two wings of the party, the moderates and the progressives, and one side will eventually be forced out and merge with the republicans, who shift their messaging to appeal to them. This could either become a populist anti establishment party, but I suspect it will lead to a more moderate republican party who takes the establishment centrists with them, allowing the democrats to move left and the progressives to FINALLY take over the party. 

What democrats need to do

Democrats need to retake the house and possibly the senate in 2026, and then, in 2028, win the presidency. They can win with just about anyone I'd argue, but only the best candidates will truly be realigning. If the democrats fail to seal the deal, MAGA can claw their way back to relevance, leading to more authoritarian backsliding. Ultimately, they need a transformational agenda to fix the country. 

This isn't just economic at this point. Economics is important, yes, we do need a second new deal, either my own, or at least a middle of the road progressive version featuring raising the minimum wage, a public option version of universal healthcare, free college and student loan forgiveness, and some sort of build back better style climate program. 

They also need an agenda of actual political reform. They need to guarantee and expand voting rights, they need to detrumpify the government, end gerrymandering, possibly repeal the reapportionment act of 1929 to basically uncap the house and reduce the overwhelming rural advantage. Basically, everything opposite of what the republicans have been doing. If they can do that, they can rule the future, ensuring republicans can never win office again, at least in the near future. Not because of anything authoritarian, mind you, but because they're genuinely unpopular and the stigma of being associated with MAGA and trump sinks them for the next decade or two. 

From there, we can hash out our differences to our heart's content. But we need to basically have some project 2029 plan to crush the GOP the way they tried to crush us, but rather than do it for evil by taking rights away, we use it for good. Again, more voting rights, not less. More democracy, not less. 

The emerging democratic supermajority won't last forever. heck, I'm not even sure it will last for long. The democratic coalition is itself somewhat unstable. Things will eventually go back to each party winning roughly 50% of the electorate, and each party winning elections roughly 50% of the time. By 2040, it's back to business again probably. The republicans will claw their way back to relevance probably, and they'll start winning again. What will they look like? I'm hoping they moderate and come back winning over those weirdo centrist types who alienate us over here in the democrats. And then the democrats will have a left coalition, and will eventually retake power, pass more progressive stuff, and things will keep going this way until around 2064 or so, 36 years after this theoretical 2028 victory. From there, the cycle continues. The democratic coalition ages out and fractures itself apart, and by 2076, we have another realignment into an 8th party system. 

That's my theory at least. As for whether it will happen, idk, I'm just spitballing here.  

Is the steam machine THAT bad?

 So....on the other end of the spectrum from the glazers are the people who seem to HATE the thing and seem to think it's terrible in every day. They bash the specs, act like it's a low end experience that isn't acceptable, blah blah blah. Even HW unboxed's take seemed to stray into this territory, mainly due to the GPU. I wanna offer a slightly more nuanced take. 

I think that a lot of it comes down to the idea that there arent really bad products, only bad prices, and this is a badly priced PC. For $1050, you can do so much better. I provided an example yesterday with that 5600/32 GB/5060 PC, and my own dislike of it basically comes down to the form factor. Mini form factors suck. As I said, small/portable, cheap, powerful, pick 2. Heck in this case, pick...1.5. Since it actually aint super powerful, but it's enough to get the job done.

But that's the problem. In a normal, functioning market, this should be a $500-600 gaming PC these days. It's very entry level. But between the GPU market BEING screwed, and the RAMpocalypse making the situation worse, best I can do is about $750 for a similar PC, from PCpartpicker. And honestly, it makes compromises I dont like.

Like, I'd almost never recommend a Ryzen 5 5500 or an i3 12100f (intel equivalent), they're cheap, sub $100 entry level CPUs. I mean, yeah, entry level. Like, legit, real entry level. "I3 territory" as I call it. The steam machine has a CPU that's on par with a 3600x. Now, to be fair, that's roughly what the PS5 and Xbox Series X run, so that is the baseline, and it is just "good enough", but having gamed on a 7700k until 2023, and knowing that that's only about 25% weaker....eh....I was bottlenecking with that thing on my 6650 XT ALL THE TIME. It was infuriating. And I guess, an extra 33% or so performance would have given me another 20 FPS in games and mightve made things a bit smoother, but games have also gotten a bit more demanding since then, so yeah. I mean, this is weaker than an i7 8700k, an i7 from now 9 years ago. It's a budget AMD R5 from 7 years ago, comparing favorably to the i5 9600k on power, and the 10600k on price. It was never an amazing product, and it never aged well. You can game on it these days, but it's rather anemic, and it's the lowest anyone would reasonably recommend anyone buy in 2026 ever. It's the "you're trying to recommend your poor friend a gaming PC" tier CPU. Anyone who has enough of a budget to go up would get a 5600, 12400f, or maybe a 12600k since that can be surprisingly cheap. 

The RAM....16 GB....that's....acceptable. I'd say pre RAM crisis to get 32 if you could for futureproofing since 16 is strained at times and 32 GB is gonna be good for a while to come, but I also understand you need to be mr moneybag to afford that these days, and yeah. I went with DDR4, slower than the steam machine. But given the AM4 CPU tier performance, it's not that it matters. DDR5 is wasted on such a weak CPU and only adds to the cost unnecessarily. What matters more than speed here is the capacity, and 16 GB is adequate, but relatively low. It works because that's what consoles use, and in this economy, it's what people can afford, but ideally I would've liked to have seen 32. 

SSD. I feel like low capacity SSDs don't get enough hate. Games these days are MASSIVE. Like...50-100 GB massive. At the same time, storage is punitively expensive due to the RAM crisis, costing 3x what it should, so while a 512 GB SSD should be very cheap (we were seeing 1 TB for around $60 and 2 TB around $120 pre RAM crisis), this is another "you gotta do what you gotta do" scenario. It's not great, but in order to make it relatively affordable, yeah, we gotta make sacrifices. 

GPU...now this is ironically what gets the most hate. But again, do what you gotta do situation. A lot of people are acting like gaming on a 6600-7600 tier video card is an awful experience. But again, can't all be mr moneybag over here. It's what's affordable. The sub $200 market is screwed. The lowest end card I can recommend ANYONE buy in good faith and be able to run NEW releases is the  3050 8 GB....and even then you'll be using DLSS A LOT just to get the same result as a 6650 XT or something, which I own. Heck, as a 6650 XT owner, which is about on par with the steam machine's GPU....it's....acceptable. I mean, it feels somewhat dated, but it gets the job done. There isnt a game that WON'T run on it. THe fact is, and this goes back to before the RAM crisis, the low end GPU market is screwed. Hell, it's insulting that a nearly $300 GPU like a 7600 or 5050 can be considered "low end", but that's how messed up everything is. You gotta do what you gotta do and it works because...again, this is what the consoles run on. Basically a 6650 XT/6700 tier GPU. And as some benchmarks show, the PS5 is faster due to optimization, but you can get a "good enough" experience here.

People keep comparing it to the 5060 and the 9060 XT, and yeah, those are better, but they WERE $270-300 and are now $340-380. And those newer cards still have 8 GB VRAM which is the big bottleneck.

With that said, is the steam machine bad? Well, it tries to match a PS5 or Xbox Series X. And it can run any game in theory that those systems can run. You'll find more limitations from Steam OS than you will from the hardware itself in terms of game compatibility. But it's not futureproof, at all. I mean, I bought my 6650 XT back in 2022, and it costs $230 back then. It costs $280 now for a similar card. We havent progressed AT ALL since the COVID/crypto pricing broke in price/performance. We were starting to with the 9060 XT and 5060, but then the RAMpocalypse happened, and here we are. Now it's $190 for a 6 GB 3050 (dont buy, 6 GB doesnt have enough RAM), $240 for an 8 GB 3050 (literally the most bare minimum card you can get for new games), $280 for a 7600, and $290 for a 5050. It's not that it's great, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

The real gut punch is that...this is $1050. FOR THIS. For this mini PC that's on par with 6 year old console hardware that launched at $500. We have not really advanced at all in price/performance since late 2022/2023. If anything we have regressed in some ways. 

Now again, the form factor is the problem. If a full blown PC, you could make this for $750. Again, if you gotta do what you gotta do, yeah. Im budget sensitive myself and I totally get people dont have infinite sums of money to throw at the problem. Even tweaking builds from yesterday, I cant get a good entry level PC under $680-700 or so. That's just the market. Ideally, entry level starts around $500-600. I mean, pre rampocalypse, you could argue something like this:

Ryzen 5 5500- $85

Motherboard- $80

16 GB DDR4- $50

512 GB SSD- $35

RX 6600- $220 (variable)

500-600W PSU- $50

Case- $50

Total: $570

I mean, you could make it for $500-600, maybe closer to $600. And that's why there were so many people who thought thats what the steam machine should cost. Valve just decided to go with some weird niche form factor for some reason. So that's part of what makes this fatal. 

And yeah, now it's $700-750 for an entry level machine, and this is a relatively entry level machine given there isnt much to downgrade other than replacing a 7600 with a 3050 and saving $40. 

So that's the big problem. And it's not futureproof, due to the form factor it CANT be upgraded, which is another thing. A PC like this, you could stick in a stronger CPU like a 5800XT or X3D, you can get a better GPU. Nope, with SFF PCs, you're screwed, the specs are the specs. Again, just a terrible decision by valve to go with that form factor. That's the BIG killer. I think $750-800 would be acceptable in the current market. But $1k+ isn't. 

Beyond that, I think there's another topic that should be discussed here. And that's the future of consoles. As we know, its 2026, theres rumors of a PS6 and next gen xbox in 2027-2028, and I really gotta ask...WHY?!

It just seems like more tech bro billionaire ITS TIME TO CONSOOM HOLDING ONTO DEVICES TOO LONG IS BAD FOR THE ECONOMY. No, you wanna know what's bad for the economy? 4 years of hardware stagnation for the money. Quite frankly, I dont want new consoles. I dont want that relatively reasonable baseline of performance to go up. Again, the steam machine works because it's literally targetted to parity with the PS5, give or take a little. But if you make a console that's twice as strong, and costs 2x as much....well, the whole gaming industry is boned, isn't it? 

Like there's no need for a new generation. I dont want a new generation. Graphics arent advancing like they used to, we should hold onto stuff longer, and the market exists for the gamers, gamers dont exist simply to make rich people money. Of course, that's what the billionaires think. WE NEED OUR PROFITS. Okay, well this isn't sustainable. AT ALL. Normally console generations are driven by the expectation that after 4-8 years, we can get 4-10x the performance for the same price. Here we got the last gen consoles ending the generation at a HIGHER price than they started, and we wanna start having a NEW generation? It's insane. 

Again, to make a PC on par with these consoles is $750. I know because the steam machine IS that machine, and I tried to make a cheaper version of it a couple articles ago. What is a next gen console gonna cost $1000? $1200? Even $800 is a gut punch. We can't afford this crap. Let's at least wait until 2030 before we talk new consoles. Seriously. No one can afford this ####. 

Discussing weirdo niche hobbyists and the steam machine

 So...the debate over whether individuals can adequately construct their own steam machines for similar price points continues. And, much like with the steam deck, the weirdo niche hobbyists are rearing their ugly head arguing for their specific niche and expensive tastes and saying that no, you absolutely can't make your own steam machine at the same price point. The hangup seems to be on the form factor, the one point of discussion I freely concede the argument from the get go. Because idk about you, but I don't particularly care about the size of the PC, assuming it's at most an ATX mid tower build. I mean, if you want to get a super tiny PC, yeah, you're gonna need to go all in with a specific form factor, and that limits the parts you have access to, and that limits your options. 

I would argue for like 98% of people, most are just happy to have a PC. They dont care about "OMG I WANT THIS SPECIFIC FORM FACTOR FOR THIS SPECIFIC LIVING ROOM PC", and if anything, the form factor is a negative for me with the steam machine. As I've noted before, talking about handheld PCs, steam decks, gaming laptops, etc, you're often overpaying when you NEED to have a certain package in a niche form factor. The reason i dont get the appeal of the steam deck or the nintendo switch 2 is because the idea of a machine that's that large that it barely qualifies as being portable, while being that expensive, just makes the whole thing unappealing. Just because you CAN do something doesnt mean it makes sense or you should, and normally the tradeoff of making such ideas work is cost. Size, power, cost, pick 2. A small and cheap machine isn't gonna be powerful, a small and powerful machine isn't gonna be cheap, and an affordable and powerful machine isn't gonna be small. That's just the economics and physics of computing. And I tend to go either powerful and affordable, meaning I'm fine with a full/mid atx tower build, or small and affordable, meaning I'm making tradeoffs on power. 

But again, the niche hobbyists are like some of the most annoying vocal and unpleasant people I've encountered in the tech space. They're the ones who defend the steam deck and are like ITS NOT FOR YOU, while going on about how great it is to play 2D indie games on their $400 $550 $800 device. Meanwhile I look at that machine and would rather game on a dedicated gaming PC, or an android handheld. And these guys seem annoyingly vocal and defensive about their very unique special snowflake needs. 

The same is true with these guys. I posted the builds from the previous article on several forums and I got some pretty fricking toxic responses from "SFF PC" fanboys (small form factor = SFF) who are like WELL ACKSHULLY THATS A 30L CASE, I WANT A 5L CASE LIKE THE STEAM MACHINE AND YOU CAN'T DO IT AND BLAH BLAH BLAH. yeah, I admit it, I can't. I also dont want to, because I'm not a super special snowflake with super special needs. And people might be wondering why I'm being so nasty myself, and it's because these specific hobbyists are that nasty and combative with me. It's actually kinda stupid. And my honest take is "oh my god, who the hell cares", but these guys really care a lot to the point it seems to be their entire personality in arguing online. 

Look, you're free to like whatever you want. You are free to your own special unique tastes. But it kind of reminds me of the "expensive tastes" argument van parijs made in his real freedom for all book where it talked about how people with different tastes might have different needs and a normal UBI wouldn't do it. Well, in that case, if you're really that super special and finnicky, you can either make do with less or get a job. Im not gonna go out of the way and do special treatment with that.

And with this, it's like, yeah, you can either make do with the larger form factor, just being happy to have a reasonably affordable PC, which is difficult in the current market, or you can pay out the nose because of your expensive tastes. And to use the logic you guys often use against me, if you dont like my builds, THEY'RE NOT FOR YOU. But you know what? Im sure 98% of prospective buyers out there would be happy to have a cheaper performance equivalent machine even with a worse form factor, or a more powerful machine for the same money. Not everyone wants to spend hundreds of extra dollars because they need a literal gamecube form factor. 

 As a matter of fact, this is the machine the guy I was arguing with linked me. Let's go over it

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/G6pdH3 

Ryzen 8400F- NO ONE, I mean, NO ONE, except for these weirdo SFF hobbyists buy the 8000 series ryzen parts. They are underpowered and overpriced. They literally only make sense for these specific guys. And msot of them dont even want a dedicated GPU, they want to use the powerful integrated graphics. Any sane mainstream buyer can go with a Ryzen 5000/7000/9000 series part.

CPU cooler- I mean, I wouldnt go with a processor that requires a fancy cooler if you want that form factor, or a lower price point, in mid tower builds I'd recommend a peerless assassin/phantom spirit but yeah those coolers are the size of the PCs they are talking about themselves. 

ITX motherboard. Yeah. Really special tastes here.

DDR5 RAM...yeah, totally blowing your budget spending 2x on RAM as me. 

B570 intel card, not a terrible choice but intel can be weird with some games compatibility wise. Id probably stick with AMD. 

Expensive ITX case. Yeah. Again, paying for form factor.

850W PSU...I mean, WHAT?!  You don't need that for a low power build, I put one of those in MY PC because I'm running a 240W 12900k and while I got the 6650 XT, if I go with say a 300W GPU in the future, i have the headroom. 

But yeah. THis is a totally pointless and unbalanced build. He literally made unique choices for form factor that dont make sense for any reasonable buyer looking to get the most value oriented product. Again, super specific niche expensive tastes here. 

Could I do better? Lol nope.

When I try to come up with a build, I run into the following problems:

1) For ITX, the only motherboards i can find need a bios flash to run 5000 series products, causing problems, and the 3600x is $200, despite it performing the same as a $85 5500. 

2) I LITERALLY cant find a GPU that fits into a 5L case, because guess what, those kinds of PCs typically rely on integrated graphics. So building a literal steam machine sized machine is impossible, but thankfully, I'm not a super special snowflake that needs a super special form factor and can just use an ATX build like everyone else, so yeah. 

Heck, going back to HIS build, let me try to improve THAT:

 https://pcpartpicker.com/list/GfxL9K

I went with Intel, 12100f is 5500 level performance. I went with the 7600 for additional game compatibility and parity with the steam machine. I couldnt swap out the PSU because of his dumb form factor choices and the 850W was ironically cheapest that didn't suck. But hey, this is totally HIS design choice.

Heck going for steam deck price parity, I went with this:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/NFmdH3 

 The 12400 is so much more expensive then the 12100f i just went with the 12600kf. And I was pigeon holed into a more expensive 9060 XT to upgrade.

So yeah, can I STILL make the price point work?

Yeah.

But who would want to? 

Again, I just dont see the appeal. 

And if people are wondering why im being this petty over it, it's because I find these guys obnoxiously annoying. Like again, you're free to like whatever you want, but when you start complaining other people who are finding cheaper ways of doing things arent fitting your super special specifications, it's like, screw off and shut up. Like, again, I bet 98% of people would be happy with any build I'd recommend. It's just that other 2% who have super special needs ans who absolutely HAVE to have a specific form factor aimed at a specific niche of people who are annoyingly vocal about their hobbies and seem very cult like in their defense of them.  

The Steam Machine is underwhelming

 So....full disclaimer before we start, this is just all opinion, any build recommendations herein are done with the bare minimum research and if you're actually intending to buy anything I recommend in its place, I'd probably advise you to do further research first. I kinda just slapped some of this stuff together with minimal research based on background knowledge I have. So yeah, discretion is advised there. Research is advised, but yeah, I'm kinda shooting my mouth off here.

So...the steam machine is out. It's $1050 for the base model with 512 GB storage and $1350 for the 2 TB model and uh...YIKES!

Now, is the price justified? yes and no. Yes, in the sense that if you wanted to replicate this machine in a 1:1 way using the closest analogue to the exact parts valve uses, yeah it's gonna be expensive. That said, given the actual VALUE here, there's some poor design choices here due to the form factor and you could build a machine similar to this for MUCH less than it costs here. 

Heck, before we go into THAT, let's discuss the actual specs and performance:

So, it features:

CPU: A semi custom AMD Zen 4 6C/12T

You might think this means, oh cool, it's like a 7600x or something. WRONG. It's like a 3600x, as per gamer's nexus's review. This is because it's using a mobile part, similar to a 7540u. Yikes.

GPU: A semi custom AMD RDNA3 28CUs

Now, this I was able to gauge a lot more accurately. Because the RX 6600 is RDNA2 with 28CU, and the 7600 is RDNA3 with 32. So it should perform somewhere in between there. Probably equivalent to my 6650 XT given that's an RDNA2 32 CU machine, and yeah, the gamer's nexus review, as well as other reviews I looked at, indicate performance bounces between 6600 and 7600 level. This is actually a good thing in my own case since I've been using a 6650 XT for 3.5 years now, I know exactly what it's capable of, and yeah. 

16 GB DDR5 RAM + 8 GB GDDR6 VRAM

the VRAM goes without saying, given this is basically a custom mishmash of a 6600 and 7600 put together. The RAM choice is kind of weird though. Given how underpowered the CPU is, you could do A LOT better going DDR4 here. Again, you lose some power efficiency and form factor, but to me, that's the least of my concerns here.

You get a 512 GB NVME SSD

Wifi 6E

Etc etc etc. 

All in all...pretty mid for $1050. Now, originally, it was supposed to cost $750. But then rampocalypse happened, and we all gotta suffer. 

With that said, I came up with an idea. What is the cheapest equivalent I could build for the money?

I came up with this: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/PHBsh9

It's $750, and I'll go over it a bit. I didnt do tons of research into components, but yeah. 

So...Ryzen 5 5500....equivalent to a 3600x roughly. One of the cheapest CPUs you can get, and sadly, this is how this machine performs.

Motherboard, I went with the cheapest I can find, you can probably swap this out if you want. It's micro ATX as well so it helps with the form factor, but yeah.

 RAM, cheapest RAM I could find, but hey, it's better than the DDR4 RAM I used to run with my 7700k. But yeah, 16 GB, for $100. In THIS economy? Nice. 

Cheapest SSD I could find that was 512 GB. You can swap this out for whatever you want.

RX 7600. Slightly better than the steam machine, and the closest analogue still on the market. Kind of a shame it's almost $300 given I got my 6650 XT for $230 3.5 years ago, but yeah. 

Found a cheap micro ATX case, that said, I didn't check the dimensions of the GPU, whether cooling would be adequate, do your own research. 

The PSU was cheap. based on the cultist tier list it's C tier so not amazing but not awful either. Fine for a budget build where you're trying to minimize costs. 

Im assuming the mobo doesnt come with wifi, and this is intended to be a console, so....yeah. I just threw in a Wifi 6 adapter.

All in all, this comes out to $744. It should be roughly equivalent to the steam deck in performance. it will be larger. There may be drawbacks i didnt consider due to cooling, minor features related to the mobo, etc, again do your own research. But uh...yeah. Id personally try to make something like this over a steam machine. 

As for how to make this better while reaching cost parity with the steam machine....:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/2CQ89K

I upgraded to a 5600, actually quite a bit more powerful to my knowledge. I considered a 12600kf, but wasnt sure i could fit it in the budget. And given other upgrades I put in, you're not gonna need an insanely fast CPU. I know the 12900k I run with my 6650 XT is like grossly overpowered. But at the same time the 7700k was underpowered. 5600 is kinda in between. Just slightly slower than the 5600x but not as slow as the 5500 which is laughably nerfed and like a 3600x.

I upgraded the motherboard to an ASUS one, and this one has wifi, so no extra adapter needed. 

I upgraded to 32 GB memory, which is more than you'll need. Normally 16 GB is fine but eh its getting long in the tooth, i know i had instances on my 7700k build where i felt like I was straining it a bit. 

I upgraded to a 1 TB SSD. You could also stick with the 512 GB and maybe stick in an HDD but HDDs are expensive too so you'd be spending more.

Fior an extra $60, I threw in a 9060 XT 8 GB. Equivalent to the 5060. Im sticking with AMD for parity with the steam machine, and the fact that I'm guessing whoever makes this is gonna try to run linux or steam OS, and AMD is apparently more compatible there.  

 I stuck with the same case and power supply.

Again, double check this stuff if you wanna buy any of it. You might find better deals, some oversight I made insofar as cooling, power goes (I aint seeing incompatibility on PC part picker here...). But yeah. 

This is why I think this is a crap value. Even in RAMpocalypse, you can build a machine that's 50% faster for the same money, or save $300 building a machine with the same performance for similar money. Either way, yeah, the steam machine is a bad value in my view. 

Now, some are gonna say, "but but, it's about the ease of use, or the form factor." Okay, well, you're paying extra to make things a bit easier for you, or to get a tiny machine. But if youre okay with tinkering, and you don't need a 6 inch long device, well....yeah. Alternatives exist. For a lot cheaper. 

Heck if you want a prebuilt, i found this one looking for one for my friend, with this being an option for $900:

https://www.newegg.com/stormcraft-sirius-gaming-desktop-pc-geforce-rtx-5060-intel-core-i5-14400f-16gb-ddr4-1tb-ssd-si1440fbb-560n2/p/N82E16883420040

It has a 5060 (9060 XT equivalent), a 14400f, which is a better CPU than the build, I have, 1 TB SSD. Only thing its weak on is 16 GB RAM. But yeah, that's $900. Still cheaper than the steam machine.

Again, you're paying for that teeny tiny form factor. 

So...yeah, my honest advice? Skip this, buy something actually worth the money.  

Discussing the idea of cell phones reducing the birth rate

 Okay, the moral panic over birth rates continues, with now cell phones being blamed for it. 

And honestly, as someone addicted to tech myself, i couldnt care less. The reason this is a problem is because of the problem of infinite growth. We insist we need more workers to fund social security, and if we cant fund the programs as there arent enough young people working, then this will cause the economy to implode. OH NO NOT THE ECONOMY!

Honestly...I'll be blunt. We havent needed everyone working for a long time now. And in an age of increasing automation and AI taking jobs, we need to work even less. All of our social and economic problems come down to our fixation with work. We are insisting on creating jobs so people can earn a paycheck, because we have this moral revulsion against giving people money directly. We literally created consumerism in the first place, because the wealthy feared a future in which workers no longer wanted, or needed to work, and consumers no longer wanted to consume. And I did have another article planned on consumerism and planned obsolescence based on this video, but that kinda got sidelined, but to sum it up, yeah, Windows basically keeps people on a loop of planned obsolescence to get people to buy more hardware, even if their current hardware is fine. But you cant make money if your current hardware is fine, so we need to constantly create new wants and needs so people can keep consuming. it's why we got articles complaining about how people are keeping their devices for too long and how that's bad for the economy. Everything is bad for the economy. Fricking EVERYTHING good, IMO, is bad for the economy. If you arent constantly working, consuming, and popping out kids to create new humans to constantly work and consume and generate revenue, you're bad for the economy. 

So that's where this fricking moral panic comes from. And again, my attitude, F the economy, the economy exists for us, we dont exist for it, we shouldnt be slaves to it, work is a means to an end, not an end in itself, and GDP growth isnt the end all be all of everything. You know good old human centered capitalism. So im not on the same page as these people. AT ALL. As I see it, technology has allowed us to meet everyone's needs with relatively little effort, the big problem with the current system is the distribution of resources, since most wealth goes broadly to the top 20% and more specifically the top 1% or 0.1%, and oh will you look at that, the problem is me because im too busy surfing the internet to one to raise the next generation. Yeah, well, F you guys. 

I mean, I admit it, I'm childfree. I am so for selfish reasons. Nothing about having kids is appealing to me. NOTHING. Of course, to my knowledge, only 20% of people are actually "childfree" like I am. Most would probably have kids if they could. But I do think the economy has been screwing us. We cant afford to raise kids properly, and after all of that "dont have kids if you cant afford them" crap, now we're getting mad at people for...being responsible? You cant win either way, but that's the point, the whole system is designed to blame you no matter what you do. It's not designed to be analyzed critically. it's designed to moralize and blame YOU for not living up to ITS impossible standards. because let's face it, if the system had to face the consequences of its behavior, that would necessitate REAL change. So no, let's just blame the people for not doing things the right way, after telling them they've been doing it wrong for decades and they deserve to be miserable if they dont follow a certain morality. 

And on cell phones, yeah, they're addictive, eyah, they've changed human relationships. However, with millennials, I really do think that it's primarily an economic thing. With zoomers, we can argue differently. I will give the "its the cell phones" people the benefit of the doubt here. The internet as we know it has RUINED dating and destroyed relationships as we know them. People dont go out and meet each other any more. Everything is done through apps and social media, the environment is toxic. Men are lonely and turning into alt right incels and dudebros, women man hating hyper feminists, it's not healthy. And a lot of it is social media and algorithms. Im not saying all tech is bad, but yeah, these changes don't exactly facilitate human dating and courtship, and I am concerned how gen Z and alpha will end up due to this stuff. 

I dont think it's AS bad as the anti technology crowd makes it out to be. Vaush (see video above) and a lot of people like him just seem to have this weird anti technology streak recently. And some people have this weird idea of like "meeting people in real life and doing things in person and putting your phone down is always better." Yeah yeah yeah.  You can keep saying that, but have you ever considered that I just find "IRL" activities boring? And I always did. I was always that kid who had their nose buried in a game boy, or a book, or as i got older, the internet, computers, and evnetually smart phones.

And you know what? Maybe I do regret it a little bit. I have to admit my life satisfaction went down since I started spending most of my time online, and there is at least one IRL relationship I regret not really pursuing due to my fixation with the internet. But at the same time, again, IRL is BORING. It really is to me. And even if not for the internet, id replace it with retro games, or tv, or books, or something else. Ive always been that kind of person to be fixated on SOMETHING. It is just autistic behavior for me. SO yeah.

but thats also why i say im different than most people. Most people arent me, and i understand that. Only about 2% of people are autistic, although perhaps this internet age is raising that somewhat, at least manifesting autism like symptoms in people. Either way, if thats what people wanna do with their lives, thats what they wanna do. And I feel like the people who complain are mostly the types who hate technology, or are older and don't "get it", or they're economist types who think if you arent spending all your time working and consuming that you're wasting your time and the downfall of civilization is coming because corporations arent making their quarterly profits. Ya know? And life doesnt exist for us to work. If anything, maybe the internet finally offers that answer for what people do with their time when they no longer have to work. Seriously, thats why we spend so much time keeping people hooked into work. And we never treat that as a pathology. It's only the stuff that doesnt make rich people money that we complain about. And yeah, that's how I see it. So I don't think this is a huge problem. 

Re-evaluating Biden's legacy

 So, about 5 years ago, I did a presidential tier list.

  It was pretty comprehensive, although Biden's placement was controversial. I was judging him based on his first 100 days, and that led to a relatively rosy picture.

I then re-evaluated Biden in his second year, downgrading him from an A to a C. 

With that said, now that Biden is out of office, I want to look at him relatively objectively.

Honestly, I think a C ranking is about right. Here's my rationale. On that list, I judged presidents by what they did good, vs what they did bad. Good things got points, bad things lost points. And most presidents hung out around the B or C tier, having mixed legacies, or relatively light legacies where I couldn't praise them too much, but also couldn't condemn them. You did have quite a few I also considered horrible, Trump among them. Given I already thought Trump was the worst by a wide margin in his first term, and his second is arguably even WORSE, approaching "literally Hitler" levels of terrible, yeah, no change there. If anything, DJT probably deserves his own special tier of "worse than F". 

But hey, we're not here to look at Trump. Let's focus on Biden.

As I said, C is about right, here's why. In an objective sense, I'd say he's a B. I mean, he got in, he had ambition, he tried, but he failed to accomplish much. There were carter comparisons with the inflation, but it wasnt his fault. His biggest fault IMO was his failure to pass much or have any lasting legacy. Sure, he had some small stuff, the CHIPS act, the inflation reduction act, etc. but nothing really solidified his legacy in a positive way, and given inflation, he left office kinda hated. 

I kinda knew Biden would be a mid president from the get go. Centrist dems have low ambitions, and then Biden failed to accomplish even that. He wanted to do a lot at first, hence why I tentatively gave him an A, but given congress, he just failed to get much passed, and felt very weak and ineffective in office.

However, that gives him a B. Why is he a C? I'll be blunt: it's because his legacy is giving us a Trump second term. See, neutral to slightly positive is B, C is slightly negative. And given Biden's milquetoast legacy, there is one stain that I cannot absolve him of, and that's his decision to run again in 2024. he was too old, he was clearly unqualified in retrospect, he couldnt handle the job. And honestly? He should have passed the torch to the next generation. We should've had a competitive primary, not the one where we gave it to him on a silver platter and said anyone who thought he couldn't win "just wanted Trump to win." 

And then after we did, oh, gee, he flops in the debate, it's a total disaster, he refuses to back out. He's delusional and thinks he can win. Eventually he turns the keys over to harris, and harris is so loyal she refuses to distance herself from him, which causes her to go down with him. 

Seriously, Biden's ultimate legacy is a whole lot of nothing, followed by a second Trump term. And honestly, a second trump term is a stain in and of itself. because Trump is THE worst president, and he's even more unhinged in his second term. Oh, and his justice department should've been prosecuting him, but acted slowly, and allowed him to functionally get back into office before the trials could be held. 

So basically, we got a second term of the worst guy available, because of him. Arguably, a C is too good for him. Looking at my list, and the D and F tier guys who allowed bad things to happen on their watch and were arguably responsible for them, you could argue that he deserves worse, maybe a D. But no, I'll give him a C. Because I do think that he did low key have some of the most progressive policies we had seen in a generation. He governed to the left of Clinton, left of Obama, and arguably was closer to say, Truman or someone like that, than a neoliberal. He was never fully progressive, he wasnt an FDR, he wasn't a Johnson. He wasnt bold enough to be those guys. He wasnt successful enough either. But idk, he tried. he failed, but he tried. And he did walk away with SOME mild gains, even if Trump functionally undid them all. 

But again, running for office again, a decision that doomed us to a second Trump presidency, will be his ultimate legacy, if he will be remembered for one thing, it will be "hey, remember when we ran that guy who was so old that he choked that debate and gave us Trump again?" Yeah, you are LITERALLY the guy who gave us Trump again. That's his legacy. Other than that, he was mildly positive, he tried, he always seemed to fail, but at least he tried, and he was more competent than he gets credit for. The problem is, that wasn't what people wanted. They wanted solutions, and Biden was light on them. So again, we're suffering the hellscape of a Trump second term because he didn't know when it was time to ride off into the sunset and leave the country into the hands of a new generation. And by the time he did, it was too late, his replacement was to associated with him, and it tanked her too. I think that this whole clusterfudge of events will be studied by historians for many decades and even centuries to come. Like, how did we get here? I have my own perspective on it, and I suspect it will be vindicated by history. But yeah. I think that the "Jimmy Carter 2.0" of my last evaluation will stick, although to be fair, Trump is even MORE jimmy carter like given not only did he cause inflation, he's also caused a literal 1970s oil crisis again, and that's just the tip of THAT iceberg. Somehow, the worst guys all at once is basically accurate. I would even invoke godwin's law and go "literally Hitler" given the concentration camp thing and brutal attempts to repress our freedoms. Really, I hate to go full godwin, but Trump deserves it.

And I know this isn't about trump, but again, Biden's legacy will forever be defined by his failure to prevent this psycho from getting in office again, so...yeah, it needs to be discussed. 

So yeah. C rank. Maybe even D given how Trump arguably deserves a tier worse than F. But I think C is more appropriate. If not for that, i'd give him a B. he did some mildly progressive things, he didn't govern badly, but he didn't do anything particularly amazing either that warrants an A rank. Again, his decision to run for president again, and ultimately costing the dems the 2024 election really brings him down.