Discussing Hasan Piker being banned from the UK

 So, Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur have been banned from the UK for "antisemitism" apparently. *sigh*

So...I'm not gonna lie, I aint surprised our government is acting in authoritarian ways, but the UK? Really? It seems ridiculous to me. Criticizing Israel is NOT antisemitism. You can be for freedom of religion and discourage hate actions against individual groups while still criticizing a government doing bad things. In my case, I dont like Israel OR palestine. yes, I do condemn Hamas. I dont believe in "from the river to the sea", but that doesn't mean what Israel is doing is morally correct either. Just because one side is bad doesnt mean the other is good. And I cant in good conscience support a faction of Jewish radicals who think bombing another people into oblivion on an industrial scale is acceptable. Nor can I support their massive lobbying efforts to influence western governments into...taking away peoples' free speech rights.

I mean, we love to talk about western culture this, liberal democracy that, but Hasan touched on this in his video and I wanna say I've been noticing the same thing here...nothing we're doing here is liberal. The highest virtues of liberal democracy are that of freedom of speech/thought, and limited government to stop tyrants from restricting peoples' freedoms and rights. Some might ask where those rights come from, citing 'god", but they're just human concepts that are good ideas. They dont have to come from religion. I justify many of them through structural functionalism. 

With that said, we are massive hypocrites as far as how we talk about those values. Hasan called our dedication to them a "sham" in his video, and he's right. The longer this goes on, the more it seems like we care about when we talk about western culture is white people, christianity, and work ethic. We seem horribly islamophobic, tbqh. If anything is an issue its that. We seem to be expected to foam at the mouth at muslims and those from islamic cultures existing and having opinions (like hasan and cenk), but then when it comes to judaism and christianity its like HOW DARE YOU CRITICIZE THINGS DONT YOU REALIZE THOSE ARE OUR CULTURE?! Now, the UK does claim to be a more overtly Christian country where the US is more secular, so maybe it CAN actually claim a higher level of cultural affinity there, but Americans kind of do this stuff too. And it irks me. Because we're supposed to have freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and freedom of religion. And if we wanna invoke the paradox of tolerance on anyone, let it be on the TRULY intolerant. Those who actively wanna take rights away from others. But does Hasan do that? or Cenk? Or me? (I didn't get banned but I also didnt apply for a visa). I dont think so. I never got that vibe from them. And in my own case, I view it like this. Everyone has the right to their own opinion, unless your opinion harms others, I don't see why we should regulate everything. And even with opinions harming others, i tend to have a relatively maximalist approach to free speech due to my American heritage. It's only in narrow cases that I would actually invoke some sort of restriction or punishment. Even if it comes down to cancelling people, I only believe in doing so if the offense is extreme and blunt. Like outright calling for concentration camps or something. Ya know?

So it comes off as hypocritical when western governments these days ride this high horse of western cultural superiority and the demonization of "the other" when "the other" are just peacefully expressing their views, while those screaming so loudly about western culture are themselves violating the most core tenets of it while pushing the parts of it that are either not that important, or even harmful. Like religion. I dont hold a judeo-Christian worldview myself. My views are closer to secular humanism. I have no inherent sympathy to israel. They're just another country. And they're a country for as much they scream about being western, the only thing 'western" about them is aesthetics and their obvious "colonizer" attitude. Meanwhile they're killing journalists and committing war crimes on a mass scale. Basically, they're not much better than Russia at this point. And that's the thing. if we wanna hold ANYONE accountable to western moral standards, it should be Israel. After 1945, we said "never again" (and to ask rhetorically, who were the ones genocided in 1945?....duh).  We established all of these international criminal courts and international organizations against genocide. And then....we just...look the other way when the shoe is on the other foot. It's fricking bizarre, man. 

Like, that's the thing. Not being a Christian, I have no special empathy for Israel. I dont see them as this "chosen people" elevated above other people. They're just...people. And are subject to the same morals and standards as the rest of us. So why the insane double standard? 

But this is what happens when we seem to define being western as...having the right religious outlook, and having the work ethic...which is...associated with said religious outlook. Again, it seems to come down to "judeo christian good, everyone else is bad." And that's not what western values are supposed to be at all. Western values are supposed to be secular and based on freedom of religion, freedom of thought, and freedom of expression. 

So yeah, I do agree with Hasan that there seems to be a weird double standard here, where the ones who scream loudest about western culture seem to support all the worst elements of it, while apparently being willing and able to rip up the best of them and pretend they dont exist. It's messed up, to be frank. Like they dont actually care about all that crap about freedom and democracy, and now that the facade is failing, we're seeing the evil racist colonizer narratives underneath it all. Again, it's like it's all about being white, judeo-Christian, and has the work ethic. That's all these guys seem to really care about. I throw in the white stuff because let's face it, you end up being brown and of muslim heritage? Suddenly these guys seem willing to scream about how you're an extremist when they're as normal as any one of us. Cenk certainly aint extremist. Hasan is cringey at times dont get me wrong, but he aint some nick fuentes type either. But yeah people act like these guys are ISIS or something and they're not. It's crazy. So...yeah.

Anyway, that's enough ranting, it should be obvious I'm against this and pro free speech. Because that's what being "western" is ACTUALLY about. If we wanna represent the actual good and moral version actually. It's like what Jon Stewart said once. When we think western values we think freedom and democracy, and they? Well, they're thinking knights templar.  

Am I "like Trump supporters" for ignoring Graham Platner's scandals?

 So...more stuff came out about Graham Platner lately. Apparently sexted people who werent his wife or something and of course, the progressive derangement syndrome is coming out again. 

And yeah, I do wanna point out: THIS IS PROGRESSIVE DERANGEMENT SYNDROME. You got these centrists who have this crazy, irrational hatred toward progressives like Graham Platner and Abdul El Sayed, and who are taking every minor thing and making a mole hill out of it. OMG EL SAYED APPEARED WITH DOG ABUSER/LEFT WING RADICAL HASAN PIKER AT A RALLY! And then basically you watch an El Sayed rally and it's clear these guys just wanna make peoples' lives better and the middle are taking seemingly irrelevant issues and blowing them up. Why are they doing this? Because they wanna tank these candidates and get the median voter to support some uninspiring centrist instead. It's the same with Platner. 

Now, Platner IS a colorful fellow, and he isnt above criticism. But we discussed his nazi tattoo. The dude ain't actually a nazi so I don't care. He was a reddit communist on r/antiwork in 2020, which....should appeal to me, but keep in mind i got banned from that sub for arguing with said reddit communists who place their hatred of capitalism above hatred of work. And Im not big on communism. But, the guy has distanced himself from that, and is running mostly as a democratic socialist type akin to other progressive left candidates. Since then the controversies are getting more pathetic. It's stuff like him using the R slur in like 2010, or him cheating on his wife, or him pleasuring himself in some shady marine corps porta potty in like 2005 or some crap. It's like...who cares? This dude is still way better than the other candidates, and if you'd abandon Platner over these nothingburgers to vote for Susan Collins, that says more about you and your politics and morality than it does about mine.

The reason, I support progressives is this: I want change. I dont like the current right wing status quo as it exists, and I want people who break the mold, flip the script, and shift the overton window left of where it is to accomplish changes that make my life better. I admit, Platner might be...ahem...TOO far left if he still holds reddit communist views, but he aint coming off that way in his campaigning. He's running on a more acceptable socdem platform, not some weird niche reddit communist crap, so let's hold him to that. Hasan Piker is also too far left for me, but I often find myself agreeing with him more than liberal counterparts as well. 

And honestly, what are these scandals supposed to signal to us? How does Platner cheating on his wife impact me as a constituent? Is the message "if he cheats on his wife, he will cheat on America?" Okay, so what does that mean in practice? is he gonna sell out to corporate PACs? I got news for you, in that regard, I still trust Platner more than I trust Mills or Collins. Like that's the thing. The people cheating on us, the American people, are the same people putting out ads bashing progressives like Platner and El Sayed. They're the ones who can be bought. They oppose those candidates because they CAN'T. They CAN'T be controlled by corporate interests, and that's why those interests are so invested in tanking their campaigns. It's why McMorrow, herself not a bad candidate on paper, went so hard with the negative attacks on El Sayed. And what did THAT do? It spoiled me on McMorrow and made me want to support El Sayed. Because if she's putting out those kinds of attacks, can I trust her? I mean, this was the same playbook centrists always use, and I hate those guys for a reason, because they're anti progress. 

Same with this. Am I supposed to look at this and suddenly be like "gee, Janet Mills is looking like a good candidate about now"? Becuase Im not doing that. Id still find Platner as a senator more appetizing than I would some milquetoast centrist who I know isnt gonna do anything and who I know can't win. Or Collins for that matter. Why would I vote for ANY republican? Even though collins is a moderate,  she still votes with Trump a lot more than she doesn't. Even if she breaks with him on some key issues showing she has SOMEWHAT of a conscience, doesn't mean I like her, or that I'd support her over Platner. Why should I give up supporting a candidate I agree with 80% of the time, for someone who I agree with maybe 20% of the time? 

Of course, this is what got me nailed by some neocon type as being "like a Trump supporter." Ie, they support their guy no matter what, no matter how bad he is. Well, not really. And I wanna use my past conservative self as an example. 

If I were a conservative in the Trump years...

So....when I was a conservative, when I was a teen, yeah, I basically was a full blown Reaganite, agree with republicans like 96% of the time, whatever. But I was mostly too young to vote in that phase, and when I could vote starting in the 2006 mid terms...I voted split ticket. I'd vote republican by default, but I also voted for quite a few dems. I honestly was in a position where I didnt feel the republicans were in a good position under Bush, and I thought split government would do Bush some good. I ended up regretting that as the house dems were very obstructive of Bush in ways I didn't like at the time, but I still voted for McCain in 2008, even though i didnt really like him. I thought the republicans were in a bad place. I didnt like the war in Iraq and thought it was a mistake. i didnt like the national debt increases to pay for said war. I wanted Ron paul in 2008, and considered crossing over for Clinton, but not Obama. I considered voting for Bob Barr, the libertarian candidate at the time. The fact is, I didnt like McCain OR Obama, and I temporarily found my home in the tea party, before realizing I no longer aligned with conservatism at all. 

But let's say I didn't align with the democrats and I still had conservative views in the modern era. How would I view Trump? Not well at all. Sure, a lot of the relatively minor scandals, I wouldnt care about, same with Platner. I wouldnt care about, say, Trump cheating on his wives. Or him being a bit vulgar once in a while. But you know what? There would be SEVERAL support breaking problems with him:

1) His authoritarianism- He clearly wants to act like a dictator. Putting people who disagree with him on lists. Deporting people for being outspoken on Israel. Hell, his deportation policy in general would be too extreme for me. Again, he's doing nazi type crap with that one. He's putting people in concentration camps, holding them without due process. You think I, a formerly Ron Paul style libertarian, would sign off on that? No, I'd be more aligned with the likes of Thomas Massie on that one.

2) January 6th- You incite an insurrection, you're done. Period. This isn't a partisan issue. I mean, again, it's basic constitutionalism. I was a bit of a constitutionalist back in the day. The constitution was designed to constrain would be autocrats. I would support checks and balances against him. Heck, based on how I voted in 2006, I'd be inclined to support moderate democrats to control Trump, since the republican party sure as heck ain't doing the job. 

3) The Iran War- Let's face it, his foreign policy is a disaster. he's destroying our international alliances, the greenland thing was just...no. Bullying other countries is just...no. And then he goes into Iran on some faked up pretext that was flimsier than Bush's in 2003, and we're supposed to just go along with it? Let's face it, he distracted from the Epstein files. It's blatantly obvious.

4) The epstein files- I mean, okay, you do weird crap with consenting adults, but with kids? No. Just no. I'd be in with the massie/MTG types on this one. 

5)  The economy- Look, I dont normally blame presidents for the state of the economy. I remember when prices went up around 2005ish under Bush and I was like "what, do you expect the president to control the gas prices?" But invading Iran was an unforced error driving prices higher than they've ever been and his tariff policy is disastrous. Quite frankly, Reagan always opposed tariffs and Trump's interventionist policies are clearly contributing to inflation. All of this are unforced errors. Trump screwed up. And honestly, we should oppose him.

With that said, I'd be inclined to be anti Trump even if I were a republican. Maybe I'd find Susan Collins palatable in such an environment, she would be up my alley at the time, actually. I probably would support Collins over Platner with those convictions in maine. But if my choice was Trump vs a moderate democrat, say, a Hillary Clinton type...eh I'd probably break Clinton just to get Trump out. Id probably find Harris or even Biden acceptable. Not because I like them, but I can tolerate them...to get Trump out. 

Back to Platner

What would it take for me to vote for a Collins type over Platner? Well, my beliefs on the left are a bit more extreme than my views were on the right, outside of my early pre voting years. Given I can barely tolerate a Mills type from the left, a Collins type aint gonna work for me. But yeah, he'd have to be pretty bad. Like run on a literal communist platform. Let's imagine that. Let's imagine Platner was actually as extreme as Trump. Based on the above:

1) he would be flirting with implementing literal communism in the US. He would be adding anyone who doesnt agree with him to an enemies list. he'd be illegally detaining people who criticize him or show any signs of right wing thought, especially immigrants. 

2) He's refuse to accept election results and incite riots in response to losing.

3) He would support interventions overseas to spread communism.

4) He'd diddle kids

5) His policies would destroy the economy, leading to high prices and supply shortages. 

Now...is platner gonna do ANY of that. IS he that extreme? no. Hell no. If Platner WAS LITERALLY a left wing Trump, would I vote for him? Also hell no. I would tolerate Susan Collins in such a situation. Just to get Platner out. But we would need to talk him being that extreme. Not even getting into his massive corruption, the ball room crap, yeah, if we had this dude act like a wannabe Stalin, yeah, i WOULD vote for Collins. But that's what you'd need to make an analogue to Trump that works. Given Platner is still within the realm of normal scandals and normal politics, I see no reason to drop platner for a moderate candidate who represents my values in objectively worse ways. Sorry, not sorry. Platner being elected isnt gonna cause a massive constitutional crisis like Trump's presidency currently is. Hes not gonna be a tyrant. He's not gonna destroy the constitution. He's not gonna create artificial disasters based on his policies.

And given the nature of the subreddit I had this convo on, I know they dont wanna hear this, but yeah, Trump literally IS that bad. He IS acting like a full on fascist. He IS a threat to our national security and constitutional rights, and he is making tons of unforced errors that are destroying the country and international order as it exists. You cant even remotely compare Platner to that. If he goes full reddit communist mode, well, we can have this discussion. But he would need to go full communist to make the comparison even remotely FAIR. That's how bad of a situation we're in with Trump. 

How would Platner's scandals even affect governance anyway?

 So I actually pressed the guy on this, and didn't get convincing answers. Basically, they gave me three assertions, none of which I agree with.

1) No one wants to work with someone with a nazi tattoo

I hate this idea that we should elect people because other want to work with them. it's this weird centrist hugbox thing. like we should elect people who work with other members of congress pushing compromise, incrementalism, what have you. No, I want someone who has different ideals. And I admit, maybe others in congress dont wanna work with them. But does that mean I should change my ideals? No, I wanna elect who I wanna elect, and if others wont work with him to accomplish goals, that's their problem, not my guy's problem. I also doubt the tattoo is that disqualifying. What is potentially is the fact that centrists hate the guy and might wanna isolate him to ensure they cant get crap done, ya know, like Bernie in the senate for 40 years, but ultimately, I want more bernies and less smarmy centrists. 

2) It's hard to replace Susan Collins' experience

I dont give AF about experience. I mean, more experienced candidates arent necessarily better. More experienced candidates might have more institutional knowledge, but if I vote the current institutionalists as corrupt and not serving my interests, I want them out. There's been talk in recent years of wanting to get rid of all these old people in congress who have been there for decades with term limits. Given Susan Collins has been in office for literally 30 years, yeah, it's time for her to go. I dont care about her institutional knowledge, especially since she doesnt ideologically agree with me anyway. 

3) She knows how to bring money into Maine

HOW?! What is she doing here? I can only think of two responses (I didnt get one from this user), either a job creation narrative, which, given my ideology aint gonna go over with me. Or she's for pork barrel projects, which I'm fine giving up to accomplish my actual goals. Either way, I see it as nonsense job creation schemes, either from trickle down economics or pork, and...yeah. I'd give that up to get universal healthcare, or a UBI. Like, i don't care. That's the thing. This isnt attractive to me. And I even pointed it out after they said I made assumptions, I pointed out that their idea of what I should want is themselves ideological. Yeah, if I wanted a steady hand who was sociable with others of a similar ideology who knew how to give a tax cut to jeff bezos to "create jobs" in my state or something, sure, susan collins would be my candidate. But you know what? None of that is attractive to me. Maybe that's what ideological moderates on the fence between centrist dems and centrist republicans want, but I DONT want that. You see where I'm coming from?

So yeah....once again, why should I see Platner's scandals as deal breaking? You see why I'd care more about ideology and policy than this, right? Because I ain't being sold on Collins here. I dont share centrists' values on what I want from a candidate. 

And I'll be blunt. If their candidate had a scandal, they'd still support them over a Platner type. Because the real reasons these centrists hate El Sayed and Platner is because they dont ideologically agree with them. They want some ho hum centrist type who wont rock the boat and who will use their sociability and institutional knowledge to pursue mainstream goals that dont do much for the state. But I dont want that. I want progressive change agents. Not necessarily communists, again, if you had someone try to be a left wing equivalent to Trump, you'd get a Stalinist type. But again...Platner isn't that. So...I ain't seeing the problem here. 

The fact is, centrists, your boos mean nothing, I've seen what makes you cheer. We dont have ideologically similar goals, even if we might find common ground in removing some common enemies like the Trump regime. Stop trying to talk to me like I care about your stuff and your values, because I don't. If I have to hold my nose for some centrist to get republicans out, fine, I'll do that this time. But that doesnt mean I LIKE your crappy warmed over candidates who dont stand for anything. They're about as appealing as unseasoned chicken....that's been left in the fridge for 3 days. Yeah... 

Anyway, you guys always tell us to vote blue no matter who, if you cant do that when the shoe is on the other foot, you lost all moral claim to push me toward doing so in future elections. You're on your own.  

Discussing Peter Thiel fleeing to Argentina

 So, Peter Thiel is apparently leaving the US and moving to Argentina. And my honest opinion? Good riddance. I know a lot of conservatives loves to go on about capital flight and how we cant tax billionaires or they'll leave, but uh...maybe it's good that he does.

Peter Thiel is that really weirdo dark enlightenment guy I never heard of before the Trump administration, but now his name is everywhere. He's the guy building the US surveillance state and bypassing the constitution because it's okay when a private entity does it. He's arguably a big player in the Trump administration overall. Some refer to JD vance has "his acolyte", as Vance has similar views and it's been argued Vance was made VP at his direction. And yeah, he fundamentally thinks AI is incompatible with democracy, and wants to end democracy and devolve us into a corporate feudal state. 

The official reason he's leaving seems to be taxes, but I've seen tons of other reasons being floated, from wanting to test his surveillance state apparatus on a third world country before bringing it back to the US, to him fleeing because he sees the backlash against AI, and sees that Trump's administration is a failed coup and he might legally be liable afterwards if he stays. I think this is most likely it. While yeah, he wants to fund some anarcho capitalist crap like a real world Mr House, I honestly think the big reason is that the Trump administration was a failed coup. Trump just attempted to take over the government using Curtis Yarvin's playbook,  Curtis Yarvin himself trying to leave the country, and honestly? I think that these guys fear political retribution if democrats win again, which, unless Trump can finalize his coup by outright stealing elections as the country swings HARD against him, it's very well possible. I mean...we all know that the Trump administration is guilty of all kinds of treasonous and illegal acts, some of which we can already see, but some...we might not even know the full extent of. For example, DOGE? I honestly think Elon Musk's end goal was to get everyone's data and give it to Palantir (Thiel's company) so that they could build a massive surveillance state to spy on Americans. I dont think we'll get any solid proof of that until 2029 or later, but I think it's coming. He might be wanting to leave because he might be found guilty of all kinds of high crimes and misdemeanors. So the ratlines are forming and they're fleeing to south america like its 1945. What country accepted the nazis again? 

 It's also possible that these guys think something else big is coming. I mean, I saw a story about Mark Zuckerburg building some sort of doomsday bunker in Hawaii. I mean, at this point this reminds me of the movie 2012 where all the super rich people know the world's gonna end so they were prepared and when the disasters in the movie started happening, they all got phone calls and suddenly they're fleeing to china to get on a huge boat and ride it out like some modern noah's ark. Some suspect this is climate related. If it isn't fleeing from prosecution from a future democratic administration looking to hold the trump administration accountable for crimes, maybe. I know that climate change is expected to get worse, and billionaires are just partying until the bottom falls out. Maybe the bunkers are because they know in a few years some sort of societal collapse is coming. Maybe its because they fear retribution from backlash against AI as they continue to eviscerate the social contract without implementing any of the ideas I keep saying we should so we can transition to a world without work PEACEFULLY. Maybe they are prepping for nuclear war.  That would explain why apparently trump's building a huge bunker under the white house. Maybe WWIII is about to hit and these guys want to flee the worst consequences of it. The article above mentions artificial general intelligence, aka, strong AI, ya know, the type that in science fiction movies ends up killing everyone, like skynet. 

Idk. All of this is speculation. But yeah. Really suspicious behavior. Either way, I won't miss the guy. For all his obsession with the antichrist, if anyone comes off as anti christ like, it's that guy. Well...that and...trump. But yeah, given he's part of that entire axis of evil (or axis of epstein, i mean, he IS in the files too...), yeah...he's definitely playing for that team. 

Anyway, we'll see. I really hope the world isn't about to end or something due to some dumb thing they've decided to do in recent years. Maybe it is just fearing potential backlash from a future democratic administration that uncovers the seriously messed up crimes they've been doing and is ready to prosecute them. Seems like one of the better outcomes at this point. 

Discussing the reality of blue no matter who

 So, Kyle Kulinski discussed blue no matter who on his program today, how he was skeptical, but came to accept its wisdom in the trump era, but now is witnessing all the blue no matter who types refuse to actually support...progressives when they win primaries. So, I wanna have an honest discussion about the practice and how I view it, both from a more abstract poli sci standpoint, but also in the current reality. Because I've shifted on this too, but the shift is more due to circumstances, and not principle. And I wanna really give people the real scoop on this idea.

Blue no matter who was always a scam

I could tell from the second I first saw this phrase that it was just some cheap flimsy excuse to bully progressives who clearly didnt like Clinton into voting for her. I mean, the democrats in 2016 would always go like...."oh bernie is never gonna win, but you better support whomever the nominee is" along side "it's always gonna be hillary." It's like, the fix was in, we gotta vote for clinton, or we get whatever republican wins. Back in early 2015, it wasnt trump. It was just...whatever republican wins, we MUST support the democrat because theyre some grand existential threat.

This never sat right with me. it's exactly the kind of phrase some bad faith actor would come up with to justify voting for a turd. And yet, this virtue of "voting blue no matter who" became so commonplace in the democratic party that you were treated as a pariah by self righteous and antagonistic centrist libs who insisted we MUST vote for their crappy candidate. It was never a good faith argument, it was always parroted by centrists, and it was always positioned along side arguments of electability, assuming people wouldnt vote for a progressive candidate. But it's apparently okay to force us to vote for a centrist one? We cant leverage power in the same way? yeah, it's bullcrap.

From a political science perspective

 While we've had a two party system since the 1796 election when Washington refused to seek reelection, establishing the two term precedent for presidents in American politics, it's never been an intended design choice. If anything, James Madison in federalist #10 kind of saw the american system as designed to prevent factions from arising, and to control them when they do arise. The founders never wanted there to be parties, and the idea of there being two parties no one actually likes but people had to vote between was just sadly one of the worst outcomes for the American system of government. 

And early on, the two parties didnt even stay the same two parties. We had the federalists and antifederalists disappear and the republican-democrats and whigs arise in their place. Eventually the republican-democrats just became democrats and the republicans replaced the whigs. The two party system existed in party alignments, which were generational, and eventually broke down. We had periods like the 1824 and 1856 elections where we had four way elections as the coalitions broke down. And while things have settled among the republicans and democrats from 1860 onward, what drove those parties were coalitions of voters, with periods of relative stability and instability. Ultimately, voter patterns drove those coalitions, and once in a generation, those coalitions break down and reform. We've had this happen six times, and arguably we're undergoing a transition to a seventh party system, if this has not already happened yet. 

What happens during these periods of realignment is voters end up dealigning from the parties in question, and then realigning along different lines. Party loyalty declines as the existing alignment no longer serves voter interests, and then rises again as the electorate aligns itself around a new set of issues. But ultimately, it's the voters that decide. If a party is no longer serving their interests, the voters have every right to walk away and even vote for a third party. We like to act like voting third party is a waste and you cant win, but if enough people get fed up with the existing coalition, and the coalitions break down, the republicans and democrats gotta scramble to get those voters back. 

Often times, third party campaigns can be quite influential when the two parties arent doing enough. Abolitionist parties arose when neither main party would address slavery properly. We had socialist parties during the gilded age and fourth party system when capitalism's excesses were at their worst point. George Wallace's 1968 campaign represented a dealignment as white southerners upset over segregation left the democratic party, only to be picked up by Nixon and Reagan. In 2024 just this past election, RFK's third party candidacy was a threat to trump winning, and trump brought him in and made him secretary of health in order to satisfy him and bring his fan base into trump's coalition. Even if RFK Jr is a batcrap insane health secretary, bringing a competitor into one's administration and giving him a powerful position is smart politics and arguably helped tipped the scales in Trump's favor. had he not done that, Harris very well might've won, given how close the margins were. 

So dont let anyone tell you the threat of voting third party is empty. Sure, it might seem like a wasted vote, but if neither party is serving your interest, and the party youre closer to is taking you for granted and quite literally bullying you into remaining in their coalition, you generally have every right to leave. And ultimately, the third party people, at least on the left, end up being right eventually. It might take a few decades or even half a century for the rest of the country to catch up, but eventually, the country will be forced to act on those issues to maintain itself. And the party that finally gives them attention, like Lincoln's republicans, or FDR's democrats, end up being very electorally successful.

Where I evolved with Kyle

 So, I wanna make it clear, the people screaming blue no matter who in 2016 weren't wise beyond their years when they were making threats in 2016 about how bad republicans would be. They just got lucky. Ultimately, they had no idea who would be the nominee. They actually helped elevate trump, thinking it would weaken the republicans by driving more people toward hillary (because that's how pathetic her campaign was), and the whole campaign was just an attempt to scare people into voting for the chosen one. 

The problem was...it backfired. Trump wasnt supposed to win in 2016. He was not favored for most of the campaign cycle. The 2016 election was always the democrats' to win and the republicans' to lose, and it really took some work on the part of democrats to F things up so bad that Trump actually won. 

Even if the republicans won, while the republicans would be bad regardless, we didn't know HOW bad, or how stubborn the democrats would be in refusing to learn from a defeat. The democrats learned nothing, tried the same thing in 2020 with Biden, and just happened to win due to the republicans' having election fatigue. Keep in mind the party in power tends to do worse in reelection most of the time, only performing around their first performance at best, and actively underperforming it in many situations. That's why Biden won in 2020. People wanted trump out. It wasnt an endorsement for Biden. Which is why the democrats entered 2024 in such a sorry state. 

But yeah. A lot of us...expected normal republican screwery from Trump. And in his first term, we got normal screwery. The democrats clearly had "trump derangement syndrome", going on about how OMG LOOK AT HOW BAD HE IS, but again, it was all just normal bad republican things. And that's kind of what i expected. Trump was an idiot but he was surrounded by republican experts who could help guide him and keep his worst impulses under wraps. 

The real problem happened after he lost 2020. He went NUTS, did the whole "it was rigged" thing, had his people storm the capitol, and i didnt know wtf to think at first, but after seeing the evidence put together during the biden administration. Yeah, that was a failed coup. He went for it. And Trump went in a DANGEROUSLY authoritarian direction after that. 

And in 2024, he came back with a new agenda, new people (yes people), and this whole plan to take over the government and establish a maximalist interpretation of executive power. Basically, he wanted to be a dictator this time. And by this point, the democrats just cried wolf so many times over this guy no one listened. 

But...even I saw the threat. And this is how I see blue no matter who. Look, if we're dealing with normal republicans doing normal republican things, have at it. No one is owed your vote. You dont have to vote for democrats blah blah blah. BUT...when the actual fate of the country is at stake, and the stakes get this high and the consequences of failure this severe....we kinds HAVE to vote for the democrats to keep the GOP out of power. It isn't about blue no matter who being good. It's the fact that if we wanna affect change in the long term, we need the continuation of our democracy to happen, and that can no longer be treated as a given. Not in this environment, with this administration. 

Did the democrats predict this in 2016? Eh...they did but not for the right reasons. you see, they were fear mongering. They were envisioning the absolute worst case scenario that should never happen to pressure you to vote for them. They didnt believe it. They just wanted you to. because they want a bunch of desperate people who will crawl over broken glass to vote for them even if they do nothing for you. They fundamentally believe they just have to be less bad than the GOP and you should just for joy at the opportunity to vote for them. They dont wanna be good, they dont wanna try. The fact that trump ended up this bad just happened to come true. They dont deserve credit for being right in this "see I told you so" way, as if it props up the validity of their theory of politics. They just got lucky. 

I wanna make that clear. They just got lucky, they would've been acting the same way if this dude was just a normal republican doing normal republican things. He could've been george bush III and they'd still act exactly as hyperbolic.

The same is true of SCOTUS. They had no way of knowing so many SCOTUS justices would die or retire and trump would get to replace THREE people. And even if he did, we had no way of knowing the court would become this corrupt and this activist. SCOTUS is supposed to position themselves above politics and rule independently of the other branches. They're not supposed to just greenlight whatever insane theories trump wants. And to be fair, sometimes they DO mildly push back against trump, but at the same time, they're also a flagrantly partisan institution that does do a lot of judicially activist things. But again, we couldnt realistically predict it would be THIS bad. THe dems fear mongering over the worst case scenario doesnt make them right, it makes them lucky. I wanna make that doubly clear.

So what do we do now?

For 2026 and 2028, we vote blue no matter who. Remember the realignment I told you about? It's happening, the republicans are winning. The dems F-ed up big time, and at this point, we might be lucky just to keep our democracy. But if we ever make it out of this...at some point, we ARE gonna have to stand up to the dems again. We cant just allow them to keep power over us forever. But for now, yeah, just vote for these guys as if our democracy depends on it, because it does.

So what of their refusal to back platner?

 Establishment dems are being really crappy in recent years. Like...they're at risk of losing power. because post 2024, people are tired of their crap. They're tired of the same do nothing lukewarm centrist politicians. But the fact that they're making such a big stink over zohran mamdani, graham platner, abdul el sayed, etc., shows their true colors. It was never about blue no matter who and party loyalty. if they dont get THEIR way, well, they might try to tank the coalition. And if they do that, well, that shows how crappy they are. it shows how little they believe in their own crap, and honestly, I hope we can have more honest talks about the centrist wing as time goes on. Because they were NEVER acting in good faith. it was always a cudgel, it was always a smokescreen. 

As I see it, until the threat of trump and his immediate illiberal coalition passes, we do have to blue no matter who. but that doesnt mean we should be stupid and ignore the obvious. The democrats use that stuff in bad faith to pressure us to vote for centrists, with no expectations of reciprocity when the shoe is on the other foot. Normally, I'd take their behavior as a sign of "fine, let's have this fight", but for now, i am focused on winning 2026 and 2028. Still, in the future, I am fine with throwing these centrists out of the party. Hell. I hope they join the republicans. Let them get all the stuffy elitists, let us get a working class coalition. So far the dems have been angling for the opposite. This whole mess happened because they've been trying to on board the neocons and moderate wing of the republicans, while keeping the progressive base captive. But it's been failing as they're losing more working class voters than theyre getting moderate republicans. Honestly, i think it's best for the country if these guys F off to the republicans because that's where they belong. And it is better for the country if they get these people. It leads to a weaker, less ideologically cohesive, and moderate republican party, and a more progressive and populist democratic party. 

Honestly. I dont even think losing these guys will do much for us in terms of making us lose elections, because they're what's been holding the country back. So if they wanna join the republicans, join their coalition, and water it down, making the fascist threat less threatening, make my fricking day. That's the outcome i wanted all along. 

Conclusion

Idk its tricky right now. We do gotta focus on winning, but at the same time, we cant let these guys keep pushing us around. We are undergoing a realignment. It can go two ways. Either we're stuck dealing with a centrist democratic party that keeps progressive captive while the GOP continues to rush toward fascism, or....we get a working class democratic party and the elitists jump ship to the republicans, which will probably do us a favor if anything. 

As far as im concerned, as long as the fascist threat is neutralized, i dont care what happens to the democrats. I have no loyalty to them. if anything I hate the ruling class that runs the party. I wish they'd F off to the republicans. We'd probably gain more voters than lose them if that happened honestly. But yeah. Continue to fight these guys from within in primaries, vote blue in the general, and if the centrists dont, well....shows how serious they were with this blue no matter who crap, doesn't it? Make my fricking day. I just want trump out, with my long term secondary goal of making the democrats a more working class party.  

Remember, just because the switch 2 is cheaper than alternatives doesn't mean it's a "good deal"

 So...the steam deck just jumped in price $200-300, where they now cost like $789-949, which is insane. And of course the nintendo fanboys are coming out of the woodwork going on about how the $500 switch is a great deal. Like, man, STFU. The fact that nintendo priced their switch at $450 is why i was so intent on criticizing them, because it just opened up a pathway for the other companies to charge ridiculous amounts for their own products. I DONT wanna see a $1k next gen console, or anything close to it, really. I kinda find the $500 price point most acceptable. And I get it, the AI crisis is driving these insane prices at this point, but these increasing costs were an issue before that. Let's not enable ANY of this.

I mean, I saw a video recently, well, part of it.  Gamers nexus did a video called "the collapse of personal computing" which is talking about how this AI crap is KILLING the PC industry. Basically, ever since RAMpocalypse, sales of DIY parts is falling off a cliff and no one wants to upgrade any more. Can you blame them? It's INSANELY expensive. And GN seems to think that the tech billionaires are reshaping the industry in their image and killing personal computing so they can have us rent AI powered terminals and the like to us instead. You know, "you will own nothing and be happy." I wouldnt doubt it. This crisis is driving the price sky high, demand is collapsing, that's making small time suppliers crash out too, and yeah, we're going in a corporate direction where the tech bros who run everything will basically force their crappy business models on us saying (after they killed the industry) that oh, you cant afford new computers? Why dont you rent some stupid cloud based chromebook or some crap? Ya know?

It's insane. No one should be cheering this on. And no, I'm not gonna give nintendo credit for ONLY keeping their overpriced $450 console at $500. They can do that because they overpriced it in the first place. And the other companies are raising their prices and no one can afford crap, and no one wants to buy stuff. Acting like $500 is "a good deal" because it's the new bottom isnt a good outcome. It's the last thing we should want. Even then, it aint truly the bottom. A lot of retro handhelds can still be $300 or often a lot less. You can buy a retroid pocket 5 from Amazon for $250 and maybe even something like a 6 directly from retroid for less than that. So there are options. None are as potent as these oversized, overpriced handheld PCs, but thats the point. The market is demanding too much. Software should be made for the hardware available. You target software for hardware that most cant afford, and either you fail because most people go lol no F this because they cant afford it, or gaming becomes a niche hobby for the upper class like it was in the 80s and even 90s to some degree. We're seeing the reverse of the personal computing revolution that happened throughout my life where devices regularly became cheaper and more ubiquitous over time where you can buy like a $200 smartphone or tablet and still have a decent experience, to now going in a direction of things becoming more expensive, and the industries being brought to the verge of collapse. 

And again, I wanna point out a big focal point of GN Steve's video, PEOPLE ARENT BUYING CRAP! WE CANT AFFORD CRAP. like, I go on tech subs on reddit and the people there are just so stupid and out of touch, my god. They're all a bunch of upper middle class hobbyists who arent very price sensitive, and who seem to justify every corporate decision ever even though its pricing out most consumers. But it doesnt price THEM out so they dont care.

You take me, someone who already found the steam deck a dubious value at $400-550 for reasons I've stated before, and you raise it up to like $800-950, and I'll look at you like you're fricking insane. But for some reason people are so quick to point out "but but they HAD to do this". Maybe so. I'm not actually gonna completely trash valve for the price increases, if anything they're the one company I kinda give the benefit of the doubt to here. BUT...that doesnt mean I find the price acceptable. And that doesnt mean Im gonna look at nintendo charging $500 and be like "lol, I wanna buy that now.' NO! I dont wanna buy anything from ANY of these companies at this point. I cant afford to. it's that simple. It's the law of demand. You raise the price, you lower demand. People drop out of the market because they'll say F this. Or they'll buy something else completely. Id rather put money into my PC, and as long as I can run games on my PC as is, I'm probably sitting out this crisis. not gonna lie. My GPU is going on 4 years old this year, I'd LIKE an upgrade, but given an RX 9060 XT 16 GB was $350 BEFORE this crisis,  and now it's $450...fat chance on that. As long as I can run the games I wanna play, I'll stand pat.

I mean, the idea of running AAA games on a handheld is kinda stupid. Given the target specs developers aim for being...closer to my desktop PC than those things, youre always gonna get an underpowered borderline experience anyway if they run at all (it should be noted the steam deck is indeed incapable of running many games properly, partially for software compatibility reasons but also raw power related reasons). And then on top of that, the compromises to make it happen, the large size, the low battery life, the high price. I mean it's the same reason we PCMR types have always said gaming laptops are a bad deal. Youre paying for form factor, and the compromises involve paying more for something that has less longevity and staying power. And the steam deck is just more of that. 

So no. Again, the idea of a steam deck even at $400 was always a questionable deal to me. At $800+....F that. And no, I wont buy a switch 2. I wont buy anything. I built my computer in that 2022-2023 golden period and I plan on sitting out the next few years hoping the market adjusts where things go back to normal. It's possible they never will. At which case I guess I'll just become a perpetual retro gamer. It's the law of demand. You raise prices so much, people drop out of the market. I feel like the rich ###holes on reddit love to quote basic economics at us when it benefits the supply side, but the simple demand based reality is that. You make stuff more expensive, less people buy, and steve made it clear that yeah, less people ARE buying. A LOT less people are buying. Because we cant afford this crap. Period. Take THAT economic reality and smoke it. 

Discussing Texas primary results

 So, Paxton officially beat Cornyn, and it wasn't even close. It was a 28 point swing. This is surprising, but also unsurprising. The race was pretty close until Trump endorsed paxton, and then the last crop of polls had Paxton up 10-20 points. Trump's endorsement really did a lot of heavy lifting here. Still, I didn't think it would be this extreme. Still, when an endorsement swings a race shortly before it happens to such a degree, there's no way for polls to properly measure the shift. Polls are, after all, a lagging indicator. They'e a snapshot in time, and if the race drastically changes at the last minute, ANYTHING can happen. 

Still, I suspect Trump's endorsement here is also the kiss of death for the republicans' chances at holding the seat. While the polling favored Talarico either way, the polls generally favor a matchup vs Paxton, with a 1.5% lead for Talarico. IN TEXAS! This is why my senate map is so wonky. I got blue texas, blue iowa, blue (well, purple...) nebraska, blue alaska, it's crazy. This crap shouldn't be happening according to conventional knowledge and how people voted in 2024. But...it is, because Trump is crapping the bed on the economy so hard. You really don't wanna mess with the Americans on the economy. They will eat you alive if you can't deliver for them. And when you got $4.50 gas and Trump going on about how he doesn't care about how the American peoples' plight, you start getting maps like this: 

 When in a sane year, the map would look like this:

 

Maybe a little bluer than that, I mean, NC and ME were pretty flippable even in a normal year, But yeah, anything beyond that should be a tough nut to crack. But here we are with it wide open because polling has shifted ten whole points in favor of democrats. 

And honestly, let this be a lesson to anyone who considers republicans. I know this is a tough lesson for us to learn, but as I see it, as an ex republican myself, what did we learn? That voting republican is NEVER the answer. Seriously. It's not. Even if you dont see eye to eye with democrats, for the love of god, dont vote for the comic book villains that are republicans. It never works out well for the American people. Especially given how crazy the modern GOP is. I get it, glados sucks, I dont like glados either, but you know who you dont vote for to spite glados? Freaking wheatley. Stay home, vote third party, wirte in mickey mouse, just for the love of god, don't vote for republicans. They will always screw you. Stove hot. Dont touch stove. It's a lesson we should only need to learn once, but yeah, let it change you like it changed me back in the day.  

Discussing the pace at which 3D graphics have advanced (subjectively)

 So....I had this thought experiment after having another discussion with someone else. I wanted to actually quantify (somewhat) the rate of advancement in gaming over the years. So, I'm gonna take the list from my previous article, go back, and attempt to quantify how much better games look on a scale of 0-10. 0 means the same/worse (necessary some years), 10 means a mindblowing difference. 5 means a relatively moderate but substantial difference. I'll give two ratings. One for the best games and the other for the industry as a whole, because there really was uneven growth there overall. With that said, let's begin.  

1993

So 1992 is gonna serve as my baseline. 2D games are in fall swing, and wolfenstein is the best looking game of the year. 1993 gave us doom, which was a MASSIVE step up in retrospect. I won't say it's as massive as some jumps later on, but it was still substantial. 

Still, most of the industry remained unchanged, most games were 2D, and consoles generally lacked the hardware to run stuff like wolfenstein and doom. They'd later try, but yeah, the ports were rather compromised to make work at all. Still, you had SOME advancement. I'd say star fox looked better than super mario kart. But all in all? 16 bit era was in full swing. 

Best games: 8

Industry as a whole: 2

1994

1994 was a relatively unremarkable year. We got doom II, which graphically didnt look a ton better than doom 1. We did get the launch of the PS1 in Japan, which started bringing 3D games to home console, but we wouldnt officially get into gen 5 until 1995 in the US. All in all, 16 bit was still the staple, and yeah. We had some advancements, but it would take a few years for the public as a whole to make the shift.

Best games: 1

Industry as a whole: 3

1995

1995 would bring us Hexen at the high end, which was a mild jump over Doom/Doom 2, but nothing too special. Still, we started having the proliferation of the first gen 5 consoles with the PA1 and saturn, as well as ports of stuff like Doom on older consoles. So we started making the transition to 3D. 2D would still be dominant I think, but the tides were turning.

Best games: 3

Industry as a whole: 5

1996

 1996 brought us quake, another pretty strong title that had a decent uplift in graphics over what existed previously. I'd be inclined to say it was a decent jump, but given hexen bridging the gap, not a huge one. Still, we continued the transition to gen 5 with the N64. Super Mario 64 was pretty mindblowing at the time and it did look better than saturn/playstation games, even at 240p/20-30 FPS. 

Best games: 5

Industry as a whole: 6

1997

1997 brought quake at the high end. It wasnt a huge jump over quake 1, but still worth noting. The industry as a whole was really spitting out 3D games. This was the year I'd say 3D became truly normalized, with the industry being fully centered around putting out graphically impressive titles that seemed impossible just a few years ago.

Best games: 3

Industry as a whole: 8

Heck, let's start doing 5 year shifts too here so we can really see how much improvement we had over 5 years, because it seems like we lose sight of the big picture here due to how many incremental changes happen.

1992-1997 best games: 10

1992-1997 industry as a whole: 8

1998

1998 is actually the start of Gen 6. You get half life on PC, which was mind blowing. You get the sega dreamcast in Japan, with sonic adventure, also mindblowing. Perhaps one of the most substantial improvements ever, although it would take a few years for these graphics to become proliferated throughout the industry. For the most part we just enjoyed our PS1s and N64s. 

Best games: 10

Industry as a whole: 2

1999

 Sega dreamcast released in North America. So those fancy gen 6 graphics started becoming proliferated. We also got quake 3 and Unreal Tournament on PC, which kinda had that dreamcast aesthetic, so not mindblowing over say, half life. But yeah. More proliferation in the industry as a whole. 

Best games: 1

Industry as a whole: 5

2000

We got Deus Ex at the high end, which is still very...earlyish gen 6. It featured expansive levels and cityscapes so it deserves points for scale, but still. Not a HUGE jump. Still, this is where the PS2 was released and given that was THE console everyone flocked to in overwhelming numbers (dwarfing the dreamcast, gamecube, and xbox), yeah. This was the year those half life grapgics became normalized.

Best games: 3

Industry as a whole: 5

2001

2001

We got gamecube and Xbox which made the transition to gen 6 complete. Halo CE was crazy impressive, but given what existed between 1998 and 2000, still not a huge jump. Substantial though. Still, this is where the industry transitioned to gen 6.

At the high end, wolfenstein kinda looked a bit more like quake 3 in practice, but with rather crazy lighting. It was a decent jump.

Best games: 6 

Industry as a whole: 5

2002

At the high end, battlefield 1942 came out. Graphically it looked worse than return to castle wolfenstein, BUT, it deserves points for scale. And that's a tradeoff games often had to made in the 2000s and even 2010s. Do we go with a really insane looking corridor shooter, or a large scale open environment with more mediocre graphics? You could go either way, and I'll recognize progress either way. 

And by this point, yeah, everyone and their mother had gen 6 consoles, game developers were targetting them nearly exclusively, and if you didnt get one by this point, you were being left behind.  The games didnt look any better on the consoles, but the fact that more and more titles were released was big. This was like the "1997" type year for gen 6. 

Best games: 3

Industry as a whole: 4

And now we do another 5 year average. Here, we can compare 1997 to 2002. And the difference is pretty substantial. I don't think it's AS massive as 1992-1997, almost nothing matches that, but yeah, going from 240p to 480p and up from 32/64 bit games to 128 bit ones did grand us a rather massive jump. Basically those 1998 half life graphics were EVERYWHERE by this point. And some titles were even looking a little dated. Given Quake 2 was 1997's best...yeah. Pretty massive jump.

1997-2002 best games: 9

1997-2002 industry as a whole: 7

2003

 At the high end, we got UT2003, which was somewhat of a jump from say the 1999 one, but it's really just going from like dreamcast style graphics up to something thats a looks like a good gen 6 game. Not an insanely huge jump from RTCW or Battlefield 1942, but still deserves some credit. 

For the industry as a whole, we're in the middle of gen 6. Not a ton of improvements, although they did have some graphically decent games here and there. 

Best games: 4

Industry as a whole: 2

2004

2004 was the informal start of gen 7 IMO on PC. We had so many bangers with crazy graphics. Half Life 2, Doom 3 topped them showing that you can have scale and impressively modern graphics, and doom 3 was more corridor-y with insane graphics. Of course, this would take a whole to proliferate to the rest of the industry. We had stuff like Halo 2 which looked impressive on console, but really it still paled in comparison to say, UT2003. Looked better than CE though.

Best games: 8

Industry as a whole: 2

2005

Xbox 360 launched in 2005, but I dont think it really took off until 2006-2007. Still, it was there for early adopters. We had games like COD2 and Quake 4 on it which looked amazing. PC had FEAR, which would be ported to PS3 and 360 in a year. Still, at the top end, 2004 really stole it. Most 2005 titles just looked like 2004 ones but a bit better. FEAR showed a decent amount of improvement, but yeah. Things were moving, but like all these generational shifts, it actually happened over a period of a few years, not an all at once thing. Most gamers were too busy enjoying last gen titles like resident evil 4 and god of war on their PS2s. 

Best games: 5

Industry as a whole: 5

2006

 Gen 7 continued to trickle in. PS3 launched. Wii launched. Of course, both had missteps, PS3 was expensive and was a year behind Xbox. Wii had gamecube+ graphics, more akin to say, UT2003. At the top end, Gears looked amazing but nothing substantially better than 2004-2005. Still, we had more proliferation of good looking games in this time frame, so it deserves some industry points. 

Best games: 2

Industry as a whole: 5

2007

2007 is widely considered one of the best years for gaming. It was the year it really felt like gen 7 was in full swing, similar to 2002 for the gen 6 era, and 1997 for gen 5. We had SO MANY good games release in 2007, and yeah, this was peak gen 7. At the top end, we had Crysis, a game so advanced that as we'll see, it still kept pace with games 4-5 years later. If anything, this is the inflection point of where these massive increases kinda came to an end, and things became more incremental. Things stagnated in gen 7 for a while after this, and it would take a good 5 years for the industry to really move forward. 

Best games: 10

Industry as a whole: 6

2002-2007 best games: 10

2002-2007 industry as a whole: 8

2008

 2007 was so good 2008 felt kinda mid. I guess fallout 3 deserves scale points, and it did feel like a big improvement over say, oblivion just 2 years before, but still, looked pretty average for the time. Far Cry 2 and Haze looked good, but nothing touched Crysis. Really, this is where graphics started stagnating. Things were SO GOOD in 2007 that it would take a few years to top them.

Best games: 0

Industry as a whole: 1

2009

 More of the same. Btw, I never liked how fear 2 looked. yeah it had more detail but it just looked worse. Kinda like how modern games often look worse than previous counterparts. Killzone was somewhat impressive, but still, it was a console game. Nothing we hadnt seen before by this point. I think by this point, we can just celebrate reaching such a high standard of gaming and just ride the wave for a few years.

Best games: 0

Industry as a whole: 0

2010

 2010 really had some bangers on PC that kinda raised the bar, but nothing really exceeded Crysis. Yes, BF Bad Company 2 looked amazing, much better than 2/2142 but not crysis level. Metro 2033 was close to crysis level, but yeah, it didnt surpass it. A decent year for the industry, but Crysis remained the winner.

Best games: 0

Industry as a whole: 3

2011

 2011 is where I feel like the world finally started catching up with Crysis. Crysis 2 arguably had similar levels of graphics as Crysis 1, leading some to say Crysis 2 kept the crown. Battlefield 3 was amazing...but again did it really beat Crysis? Im inclined to say no. But it's very close though. This was the year the world started catching up with Crysis.

Best games: 0

Industry as a whole: 4

2012

2012, if anything, felt like a bit of a downgrade. We had Far Cry 3, which showed that we had not in fact kept up with Crysis. Dont get me wrong, it looked great, but Crysis...man. What a game. I mean, FC3 was more fun, Crysis was boring AF but it LOOKED good. Still between 2011 and 2012 we started seeing what Gen 8 would normalize. 

Oh, and planetside 2, mediocre game graphically, but OMFG THAT SCALE. It mightve been unoptimized and crushed CPUs, but yeah, you try sticking 2000 people on a single map and having them fight it out. So that deserves points for scale.

Best games: 0

Industry as a whole: 2 

So...where do we stand?

Well...Crysis still remains top dog by this point. The industry stagnated...BUT....we did see a proliferation of games that provided an outline of what gen 8 would become in the 2010-2012 era. Console gamers didnt see it because they had scaled down versions, but on PC...yeah, a lot of those titles were looking amazing toward the end, and 2007 standards were becoming dated. 

2007-2012 best games: 0

2007-2012 industry as a whole: 3

2013

 Like with every generation, we start creeping up to it with a few years of late last gen bangers. PC really got to enjoy the good version of the above games. The consoles had their versions, but they were getting sub-low graphics at 30 FPS. But here, we had the PS4 and the Xbox One really take the level of graphics we started seeing on PC and normalized it. By this point, every game looked like Crysis 1. Every game ran at 720P+ and up 30-60 FPS. However, unlike with previous gens, we had a "cross gen" period where a lot of games came to both the 360/PS3 and also the XB1/PS4. So you'd still get scaled down ports followed by the good versions for next gen. Rather than just drop the last gen and expect an upgrade, it became a phase in period. 

Still, we had substantial movement.

And here, we finally say Crysis dethroned with...Crysis 3. While I dont think Crysis 3 had the same staying power as crysis 1, it still represented the year where without a doubt, Crysis was finally dethroned. 

Best games: 5

Industry as a whole: 4

2014

 Actually I take it back, 2014 did have a lot of next gen exclusives. Metro last night, wolfenstein the new order, far cry 4, titanfall. I'd argue metro looked better than crysis 3, but in the way doom 3 looked better than half life 2 the decade before. Corridor shooter vs open world. Still, we did have beautiful game play from far cry 4. Wolfenstein looked solid, titanfall too. Really, this yeah really set the bar for Gen 8. Kind of the "1997/2002/2007 moment" looking back at it. 

Best games: 2

Industry as a whole: 5

2015

 Star Wars Battlefront mightve been a mid game but looked amazing. Witcher 3 looked beautiful, and Fallout 4 really was a step up from Fallout 3/New Vegas. Better than Crysis 3 though? Eh...yes and no. Crysis 3 had a lot more going on with it I think, although battlefront was a bit more cinematic. Like, it's looking a little better, but it's also a lot more "dead" if that makes sense. I mean, the 2015 games might look a little better, but it's not a clear win. Still, once again, decent movement within the industry.

Best games: 2

Industry as a whole: 2

2016

So this is the year the cross gen period ended and we got the PS4 pro and Xbox One X. These improved graphics even more, while staying compatible with the base consoles. Considering the transition period from gen 7 to gen 8, I feel like early adopters kinda got burned as the pro versions were a lot faster, equivalent to modern gaming PCs at the time, packing GTX 1060 level graphics. 

We got Doom 2016, which looked amazing for its time. Obviously best on PC and those new console refreshes. Battlefield 1 improved on battlefront's graphics and looked super gritty and detailed. And yeah, this is one of the last years I was TRULY impressed by graphical improvements. 

Best games: 5

Industry as a whole: 2

 2017

 Battlefront II brought BF1 level graphics to battlefront. Wolfenstein 2 brought doom 2016 level visuals to wolfenstein. It was somewhat of an improvement, but by this point we're clearly seeing diminishing returns. Like, the early gen period and then 2016 set the bar so much that once again it felt like the industry was stagnating again. 

Best games: 2

Industry as a whole: 3 

Looking at the 5 year, I think we really saw some decent advances as gen 8 showed how good games can really look. While the effects happen at the high end somewhat (where Crysis still arguably held the throne in 2012), the real gains were in the industry as a whole, where we fully transitioned to gen 8, and got to what we can consider "modern gaming" IMO (in a good way). 

Your typical 2017 game blew Crysis out of the water, and yeah, gen 8 really did wonders for the industry. At the high end, games began looking like fricking movies to me. It was crazy the level of detail they had by this point.

2012-2017 best games: 7

2012-2017 industry as a whole: 8

2018

2018 brought RTX to the world...which did F all for gaming for the most part early on. Represented the end of affordable GPUs, but yeah. 

Games like BF5 looked amazing, RTX or not, although we're clearly getting to a point of diminishing returns.  Other games looked decent too, but again, diminishing returns.

Best games: 3

Industry as a whole: 2

2019

 Metro exodus looked great, but once again, otherwise diminishing returns. 

Best games: 2

Industry as a whole: 0

2020

2020 was the start of gen 9 and with it we got cyberpunk. The game looked amazing and is the one case of ray tracing actually shown to be worth it, but it still looked next gen even without it. Still..it didnt look AMAZING AMAZING. Like, again, diminishing returns. I had become accustomed to fancy next gen graphics where these just became....more of the same. And honestly, it was COVID, no one could afford a next gen system despite series X and PS6 coming out, and early gen seemed to mostly be remasters of previous gen games to bring them up to the level PC gamers had been playing them for years.

Best games: 4

Industry as a whole: 1

 2021

 2021 seemed like a rather mid year. It had some decent titles, but let's face it, stuff like BF2042 arguably looked WORSE than BF5 and even BF1. Halo infinite looked decent but not cyberpunk level. Far Cry 6 looked decent but not worlds better than 5. Again, gen 9 seemed to mostly be like, late gen 8 but upscaled and with better lighting. Nothing in the industry was particularly amazing.

Best games: 0

Industry as a whole: 1

2022

 2022 did have some decent releases like callisto protocol but all in all I also found this year to be kind of mid graphically. Callisto protocol looked great but it never really blew cyberpunk out of the water. And the industry as a whole...again, it just felt like gen 8+. 

 Best games: 0

Industry as a whole: 1 

2017-2022 best games: 3

2017-2022 industry as a whole: 1 

Yeah this is where we start seeing a problem of diminishing returns. Games DO look better, but outside of a handful like cyberpunk RDR2 and BF5, they dont look amazing. And honestly, it just feels like a continuation of that late gen 8 vibe. To be fair, we were still in the cross gen era, but yeah. It kind of reminds me of that 2007-2012 era where we reached a level of graphics it would take years to surpass. And by this point, these graphics are so proliferated through the industry that I can no longer say we really got the massive gains we did in previous eras. I mean, this has been a bit of a struggle for a while by this point. We would hit a plateau, stick there for a while, and then get another jump, followed by a plateau. Some of it is caused by console generations and the loss of the true "crysis" style game, but even then, the shift from late gen 8 to gen 9 just wasn't that significant. Like, it was very gradual and not super noticeable. 

2023

 So this is where gen 9 REALLY kicked off. I mean, we were finally in the post COVID era, the cross gen era was functionally ending. And gen 9 is officially in full swing by this point. And we did get some pretty titles this year. Avatar frontiers of pandora, alan wake 2, but did it really beat cyberpunk? I mean cyberpunk is the new "crysis." I guess alan wake 2 looks cinematically better, but cyberpunk still has the scale. I'll give it to alan wake 2, but still. I think 2023 is better known for the proliferation of gen 9 graphics in the game industry, rather than it being a truly breakthrough moment. Definitely better than 2022 graphically. Again, crossgen is officially over by this point, you need the fancy new hardware, you need the new console. Your 1060 or PS4 pro aint doing it any more. But still. I dont think it really hits as hard as previous gens did. Impressive year, but not amazingly impressive, especially at the top end.

Best games: 3

Industry as a whole: 3

2024

 Another "full swing" year, with some graphically impressive titles, but nothing that really broke barriers on an insane amount. We get ray tracing mandatory titles for the first time (indiana jones and the great circle) but not gonna lie, is this a huge improvement over say, BF1/BF5/metro exodus? Eh, I'm inclined to disagree. Again, for all the hype ray tracing gets, I feel like outside of cyberpunk it's not really helping gaming all too much. I mean, that's the reality of it. Ray tracing is hyped as the new big thing, but it's not massively improving visuals of games. It's more making things easier for devs...who then dont optimize and expect people to just power through poorly optimized games. 

I think the big problem is when games already look like movies, and we've had movie level graphics since around 2016-2019 or so, being like "yeah but let's do that BETTER" tends to just lead to diminishing returns. Dont get me wrong, we're still getting progress, but it doesn't feel anywhere near as substantial as before. 

Best games: 0

Industry as a whole: 2

2025

Doom the dark ages and BF6 are the current new graphically insane titles in my book. BF6 finally looks better than BF5, but it does have some unwanted compromises like blur when you zoom in. Doom the dark ages looks marginally better than 2016 as previously discussed, but let's be honest, the 5 year averages aren't amazing at this point, and the 10 year ones aren't much better honestly. Again, 2016 is the tipping point where the best hit that "good enough" level and now everything looks that good or a bit better. If anything, I hate how poorly optimized games are, how ray tracing is forced while it doesnt seem to add much, and how now to compensate we need to upscale leading to blurry experiences. When accounting for price, it just feels like gaming is one step forward, 2 steps back. And now we're talking a new console is 2027-2028? Are you kidding me? Just...no....

Best games: 0

Industry as a whole: 2

With that said, let's do a 2 year average from 2022-2025. 

2022-2025 best games: 3

2022-2025 industry as a whole: 3

This era gets saved somewhat from the ending of the cross gen era, but still, gains over time are becoming marginal. I mean, you could go back to any year back in the 1990s, and outside of the most mediocre ones (like 1994-1995), you would probably get more progress than in any 5 year period from around 2016-2017 onward. 

Seriously, if I went back to 2017 and compared to 2025, we're talking like....

Best games: 5

Industry as a whole: 5

I mean, there is a difference, but that used to be like a very good single year back in the day like 2004 or 2014. not even like 1997, I mean, the shift to 3D was just an insane level of progress you cant possibly replicate. But yeah. From 2016-2017 onward, it's all been incremental, and it feels like that awkward 2007 -2013 era where everything felt mostly samey. heck, at least on PC we saw significant improvements year on year for much of that, even if crysis wasnt dethroned. It's like 2007-2013...as a console user. Yeah...

Again, this is why I feel jaded about the future of gaming. We're reaching a point where graphics are a matter of diminishing returns, most gains come from technologies that are one step forward and two steps back, and we're facing a very obvious affordability crisis as inflationary pressures are driving up the cost of new hardware while games only look maybe moderately better than they did 7-10 years ago. It feels like we're reaching "peak gaming", the end of history, where we have better tech than ever, but because the industry is so driven by creating new wants and needs for no reason it feels like we're being coerced into super expensive upgrades that barely offer anything to the average gamer. Rather than consumer electronics being reasonably affordable, the cost is going up, while we're not seeing clear gains, and the upgrade cycle feels driven more by planned/forced obsolescence through imposed software limitations than by an actual need for more raw power. 

THe last thing we need are fancier consoles with prettier graphics. This is just rampant consumerism driven by the wealthy and their insatiable profit drive than by an actual need for consumers. Meanwhile gaming suffers from these late stage capitalist impulses. Again, capitalism just gets to a point eventually where it's just creating artificial needs to keep the money flowing, than actually providing value to consumers. The system can't accept a world where consumers are happy with what they have because then they wont spend as much, so again, just gonna keep an artificial cycle of consumption going forever even though it clearly doesnt make sense.

This is why gaming sucks in the 2020s. Everything is monetized, everything is expensive, and the end user experience is no longer improving a lot. Back in the day, the rapid upgrade cycles were needed because graphics really would advance at a pace where every 5 years, the landscape would be unrecognizeable compared to the previous 5. This continued until around 2007. Then we started hitting stagnation, we saw the expansion of the console life cycle and a levelling of system requirements, but eventually we did move on again, we got some periods of rapid improvement in the mid 2010s as we finally got over the crysis hump, but again, now we're on the cyberpunk hump and tech is once again, at a relative standstill. This doesnt mean games dont look beautiful. But that's the thing. They've looked beautiful since around 2016. Everything has been diminishing returns since then, especially once we got past cyberpunk, which is the new de facto crysis. I honestly think things will continue like this until 2030 and we wont see massive improvements until some time past that. Maybe gen 10 will bring a new proliferation of better graphics. I doubt it though. It looks like it's gonna be prohibitively expensive, we're gonna be weighed down by yet another cross generational period, and we wont see major gains from what we have until probably 2030-2031. And who knows what it will cost? And will it even look THAT good? Again, it all remains to be seen. 

But yeah.  If we visualize these improvements over time, we get this. I admit I adjusted a lot of the scores for the cumulative to hit 100 after the best games just hit 100 naturally, but it really does serve as a metric of relative improvement over time. If 100 is the standard for 2025, we saw pretty strong growth among the best until 2007, where things just stagnated for a while. We hit 72% of 2025 graphics levels then by this quantification. The industry is at 64%, but it matches 2007 levels by 2011 which checks out roughly. We see more growth through the 2010s, but by 2017-2018,we're hitting 90% of 2025 levels. Which is why things are diminishing returns since. Growth in graphics has been relatively subjective since, despite hardware and software requirements still going up. To be fair, those requirements dont go up as linearly as before either, but still. 

 

 

But yeah the fact that by the mid 2000s we had games look arguably 60% as good as today is wild. We had as much progress in about 10-12 years as we did in the subsequent 20 or so.  

I mean let's really think about this. 

1992-1997:  20% best games gain, 24% cumulative gain

1997-2002: 23% best games gain, 20% cumulative gain

2002-2007:  30% best games gain, 20% cumulative gain

2007-2012: 0% best games gain, 10% cumulative gain

2012-2017: 16% best games gain, 16% cumulative gain

2017-2022: 9% best games gain, 5% cumulative gain

2022-present: 3% best games gain, 5% cumulative gain

Yeah, that puts it even more clearly than the chart does. We had pretty strong, linear gains until 2007ish....and then from there things drop off. We see a decent jump from 2012-2017 as we finally get over the crysis hump and into gen 8, but yeah. Once we hit that peak gen 8 graphics wise, things seem to drop off again. 

Put another way:

25% mark: 1998 (6 years)

50% mark: 2004-2005 (6-7 years)

75% mark: 2013 (8-9 years)

100% mark: 2025 (12 years) 

Again, we dont need better graphics, we need to make gaming cheaper, or at least keep it affordable. if that means stagnation, so be it, we're stagnating anyway.  At this rate, for us to hit 125%, we'll need to probably go another 15 years or so until 2040. With us hitting 150% by around 2060ish. Yikes. And that would represent a general jump from Crysis 1 graphics level until NOW. It will take 35 years to do what we've done in 18 qualitatively if things continue slowing down like this. We dont need better graphics. We need more affordable hardware and games.

 Put yet another way, let's look at console generations going by the peak years, given the breaks between them aren't common. By this, I mean we go by what I defined as the big defining years, which may be a couple years after they start. Basically by this point, the phase in period is mostly over and games are being designed primarily for those consoles.

Gen 4-5 (1992-1997): 24%

Gen 5-6 (1997-2002): 20%

Gen 6-7 (2002-2007): 20%

Gen 7-8 (2007-2014): 19%

Gen 8-9 (2014-2023): 14%

Remainder (2023-2025): 3%

Here things look a LITTLE more distributed over time, but keep in mind, gen 8 kinda had 2 waves of improvement. The early gen gains were substantial, yes, but the second half of the generation felt like a mini generation in itself. 

If I went by 2016 instead of 2014:

Gen 7-8 (2007-2016): 23%

Gen 8-9 (2016-2023): 10%

But yeah, it varies either way. Yeah yeah, we get it, incremental gains since 2016, I made my point, yada yada. I just wanted to define it by console generation, to really explain the magnitude in difference between previous ones and the current one. Again, this can be hard to define since what defines the console generation? is it launch? but the launch year, not everyone goes out to buy them right away and there is typically a bit of a slow transition over time. The best games could be another metric, but honestly, that has its own issues. Because I'd consider Crysis a de facto gen 8 game, and half life a de facto gen 6. So yeah. I went by 1997 because gen 5 was in full swing by then, 2002, because same to gen 6, 2007 because same to gen 7, gen 8 could go by either 2014 or 2016, as I said, there seem to be two jumps there. Gen 9 didnt seem real until 2023 I'd say, given the generation's weak start and how early gen 9 and late gen 8 kinda blend together. Honestly, that whole 2016-2022 period feels like a distinct gen in itself honestly. But I digress. Rambling.