Explaining GPU power scaling in GT 1030 terms

 So, just a dumb idea, but given all the GPU talk, it might be good to contextualize how powerful GPUs I'm talking about are. I'll use the GT 1030 as a baseline given its roughly on par with modern integrated and given it's the cheapest card I recommended. Should give you an idea of how powerful the cards are relative to each other. 

Steam deck- 2x GT 1030

Arc A380- 3x GT 1030 ($140)

RX 6400- 3x GT 1030

RX 6500 XT- 4x GT 1030

RTX 3050 6 GB- 4x GT 1030 ($200)

RTX 3050 8 GB- 5x GT 1030 ($260)

RX 6600- 7x GT 1030

RX 7600- 8x GT 1030 ($260)

RTX 5050- 9x GT 1030 ($300)

RTX 5060- 11x GT 1030 ($340)

RX 9060 XT- 12x GT 1030 ($360/470)

RX 7700 XT- 13x GT 1030 ($410)

RTX 5060 ti- 13x GT 1030

RTX 5070- 16x GT 1030

RX 9070- 18x GT 1030

RX 9070 XT- 20x GT 1030

RTX 5070 ti- 21x GT 1030

RTX 5080- 24x GT 1030

RTX 4090- 28x GT 1030

RTX 5090- 37x GT 1030

It's kinda like measuring in raditzes in DBZ abridged. And while I'd say, your typical gamer is around a 3060 or 7600 tier card, so around 7-8, yeah, it scales up as you pay more. This is why I said that yeah, even an A380 can be a huge boost. All things considered 5x GT 1030 is around the minimum acceptable performance for modern games, although I'd still recommend getting 7-8x for the same price. 

Anyway just a dumb thought experiment i thought of before bed. 

Discussing HWunboxed's RX 6500 XT video in light of my GPU recommendations and praising of the RX 6000 series

 So, Hardware Unboxed did a video on the RX 6500 XT 4 GB in light of AMD bringing back 4 GB cards with a RX 9050 OEM model, and uh...I wanna discuss it. This has been kind of controversial.

Some think that it's unfair to criticize the new card given the 6500 XT is...well...as weak as it is. No, not really. Here's the reality here. I know I low key gave it SOME praise recently, but that requires A LOT of context.

Right now, the sub $200 GPU market is more or less nonexistent. You buy anything less than that RX 7600 I recommended basically and youre getting a paperweight for NEW games. You can play older ones, or even lower spec newer ones on SOME cards I suggested, but really, there's a reason I emphasize the RX 7600. It's because if you want a decent gaming experience, you need a RX 6000 or RTX 2000 card with at least 8 GB RAM and decent horsepower. Period. While the RX 7600 isn't as low as you can theoretically go and meet that, given the RX 6600, RTX 3050 8 GB, and RTX 2060 super exist, it's the cheapest card on the market worth the money. RX 6600 and 2060S arent sold new at decent prices any more, and the 3050 costs as much as the 7600 while being around 33% weaker. 

When you go below those cards, you get a compromised experience. The RX 6500 XT is anemic. It's only like half as powerful as a RX 6600 XT, and maybe around 60% of a RX 6600. It comes with 4 PCIE lanes, which with older PCIE 3.0 systems (ie, the kinds of old systems you'd put this card in to begin with), it loses a lot of performance. And it has 4 GB VRAM. 

The reason most games dont run well AT ALL in HW Unboxed video IS the VRAM. If you have enough VRAM, your card should scale down to SOME playable experience. However, if youre stuck at 30 FPS with horrible lows even at like 720p with FSR enabled, yeah, that's VRAM. You're not gonna run games on that. And even a newer card like a theoretical 9050 4 GB will get crap frame rates due to the VRAM bottleneck. RAM in general is all or nothing with gaming. If you have enough, the experience is smooth. If you don't, it's miserable. While I cant say theres NO in between, the amount of in between that exists is minimal. 

8 GB is a hard requirement for new games. I am die hard on saying "you need 8 GB" for new games for a reason. You do. If you have less, they're gonna run like crap. Even 6 GB is too borderline in some situations. And honestly, the GTX 1060 6 GB will probably outperform the 6500 XT  4 GB in most games for a reason, despite having similar amounts of power. 4 GB is just crap for new games. it reached its limit in 2022, and starting in 2023, we got past the PS4-PS5 "cross gen" phase and started seeing the first true "next gen" games not compatible with the older hardware. At that point, 8 GB started being a hard requirement, and playing on a 4 GB card in 2026 is gonna be a bad time in most games.

Some games, they showed that if you scaled the game down enough you can get 60-80 FPS. Those are the games where you DONT get VRAM bottlenecks. And yeah, some still work...and the RX 6500 XT is just an anemic card for those.

Like really, the only reason I gave the RX 6400 and 6500 XT any praise was because they're better than nothing. My praise was conditioned by "in a sea of GT 1030 tier ewaste, these are actually compelling options by comparison." I mean, compared to THAT card, which has 1/4 the horsepower and 2 GB VRAM, the 6500 XT actually is a relatively decent offering. It's on par with an old RX 580 4 GB or like a GTX 1060 in theory. It's just that...those cards are a decade old now, they're not good for modern games, the 4 GB VRAM no longer cuts it since it's not the mid 2010s any more, and the 4x PCIE lanes are just....wtf, why? Like, seriously, you just lose 1/3 of your performance on old systems for no reason with it. 

Again, better than GT 1030s, GT 740s, and similar cards, but....yeah, basically crap too. There's a reason I'm like "yeah dont go below the RX 7600" these days if you wanna play new games. Even that 3050 6 GB is gonna have compromises due to VRAM and not a ton of power. Not to mention Arc and their drivers, bleh. The entire low end of the market below $200 is just literal ewaste at this point, the 3050 6 GB is like...just short of what I'd say the reasonable minimum is, and you need to pay $260 for a 7600 or 3050 8 GB to hit it, and given the 3050 8 GB is pointless next to the 7600, yeah...again, see why I keep saying it?

I mean, these cards were the worst the 6000 series had to offer. They were cut down borderline ewaste at the time, they're basically ewaste now, and the only reason i say maybe we judged them too harshly is because the only modern equivalent card that exists is an intel card that has its own host of issues. The market is just crap and if youre forced to choose between bad options, my goal here is to navigate to the absolute least of the evils. Generally speaking the 6000 series was only good with the 6600 and above, and while I will glaze the 6600, 6650 XT, and 6700 XT until the end of their lifespans and possibly beyond at this point, that doesn't mean everything is a winner. The 6500 XT is just better than what exists now on the market at that price point.  My attitude is that if you can't afford a GOOD GPU capable of playing modern games, you should still buy the best you can get your hands on. Something like a 6500 XT, or 1650 super or something would at least get you up to 2022 era games or so. And isnt that better than literally nothing? Beats integrated...or a 1030 at least. Even if it is crap. In theory, it's 2x steam deck performance. 

And that's something to think about too. The RX 6500 XT is...2x as powerful as the steam deck. ya know, that handheld that everyone glazes for being able to barely run AAA games at 30 FPS on minimum with FSR on? If it can even do it? Yeah. Well...the 6500 XT is 2x that performance wise. Just to put things in context. Is 2x the steam deck a good experience these days? Hell no. Again, you want at minimum like a 3050 8 GB if you wanna do modern gaming at all. Which is...40-50% better than a 6500 XT, even ignoring the VRAM. And ideally, you probably want more than that, like a RX 6600 or 7600 or something to COMFORTABLY run games. Yeah...

That's also why i dont find the steam deck compelling fyi. It's basically ewaste thrown into a game gear type form factor. Sure, it'll run the old stuff decent, but it's not really good for AAA games. But yeah. Again, this is why i dont do PC handhelds. Too much money for too little performance. Id rather have a PC and an android device dedicated to low end android games and retro gaming.  Ya know, but I digress. Just wanted to contextualize things a bit. 

Discussing "woke 2.0"

 So...AOC made a strange comment talking about Francesca Hong's old posts, and her response was basically "woke 1 was crazy." The comment seems to have invoked a firestorm from those who still adhere to "woke 1", but looking into it, "woke 1" was the kind of idpol politics that I despised, where everything is super sanitized and tone policey. A lot of Hong's brainrot comments were "woke 1" stuff, like her going on about indiginous people and Thanksgiving being of the devil. 

Woke 2, on the other hand, seems more up my alley. It's the "dark woke" politics of people like Kyle Kulinski (who often refers to himself as "dark woke"), and even myself. It's more the politics of provocation, "when they go low, we hit them in the nuts" and triggering the cons. basically, it means fighting back. Dont do the whole "ERMAHGERD HOW DARE YOU" type crap that quite frankly makes us look like a bunch of losers. It's more "shut the #### up you dumb ####" when dealing with morons on the right. And now THEY get all ERMAHGERD HOW DARE YOU! while we just continue triggering them. 

If you notice the energy shifting since 2024 on that, yeah, you're not the only one. Even people like Nick Fuentes pointed it out. Republicans were the cool ones and now they're the offended snowflakes and we're pushing THEM around. And quite frankly, that's how it always should have been. We won during the Obama era with that strategy, and quite frankly, woke 1 was a mistake and source of much of what has been wrong with the modern left. Note how we barely backed away from any policy positions on marginalized people either. Because we dont have to. We just need to change up our rhetorical strategy and meet people where they're at, and meet the right where THEY are at. Rather than getting offended, we seek to offend.

Honestly I'm 90% for this. The only thing I will say in opposition to it is we gotta be careful with the most extreme stuff though. We live in an era of NSPM7, trump declaring left wingers terrorists, and directing law enforcement to investigate prominent progressives and the like. Honestly? I'd be careful about getting TOO spicy and doing stuff like sharing those luigi memes, or gullotine memes, or quite frankly, anything that advocates for or celebrates violence. Ya know? Youre just gonna get yourself potentially in trouble with that stuff. And that aint gonna age any better than woke 1. 

Also, I wanna avoid the escalation trap that the alt right got into. They started out with dark and edgy humor, but then they kept taking it seriously until we ended up with an outright fascist, and its hard to tell if people actually support fascism or if they're just joking, or both. Ya know? Remember, I'm for a left wing TEA PARTY, not a left wing MAGA movement. One is about getting back to our roots, and the other is about escalating authoritarianism that threatens the fabric of our society.  

It's fine if we add a little spice to our politics, but too much is problematic, ya know? Just saying that because it seems like part of the thrust of these politics does seem to be going in the whole "let's joke about violent actions" direction and uh...yeah. That's too spicy even for me. Being offensive without threats of violence can be funny, but yeah, we shouldnt cross THAT line.

And, let's face it, I don't want a literal communist revolution either. I know some on the socialist left seem to be edging that way, but I wanna make it clear, I'm a reformist. The point of criticizing capitalism isnt to abolish it, it's to implement the correct reforms that solve the problem. Ya know? Just because I feel like we gotta clear THAT too, and some of the ones most likely to lean into the extremist stuff are...well...extremists. We shouldnt celebrate or give cover for those guys. Yeah, again, we need a little spice to our politics, but we gotta be careful who we enable here. It's about balance. 

So yeah...just wanted to discuss this. It seems like woke 1 died with 2024, and good riddance. The one silver lining of that mess. And while woke 2 is better, again, we should avoid the extreme impulses that some have with that stuff.  

Trying to decipher El Sayed's "medicare for all" plan

 So...unlike Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in 2020, El Sayed does NOT have a set in stone healthcare plan. However, after watching a Secular Talk video today, El Sayed said that he doesn't plan on banning all private insurance. This brings him closer to my own stance on paper. At this point I support a public option due to costs, specifically the medicare extra for all framework, although my moderation is driven by my support for UBI and its costs not being affordable along side full blown single payer. So I decided to delve into what his plan actually seems to be. 

So it seems like he doesn't support full on single payer, he emphasizes he doesnt wanna ban all private insurance. Mainly because unions get pissy about it. "I EARNED my private insurance benefits blah blah blah." Not gonna lie, love unions, but unions do stupid stuff like this all the time. Their ideology is ruined by jobism and fixation on work and jobs, when we should be trying to break that obsession. M4A is a step in that direction. 

Still...given my own compromises, I can get behind it. THere are downsides to not having ANY private options. Not just high costs but what if republicans wanna ban access to say, abortion? They could do it through the healthcare system. Having a multi payer system could mean we dont put all of our eggs in one basket. It also makes things cheaper, which is my angle.

Which brings me to other aspects of this. What exactly IS his plan? Well, it seems like he wants to eliminate all out of pocket costs. This goes further than I would. medicare extra for all does maintain a system of premiums, copays, and deductibles. However, it reduces them to managable levels. I'm willing to accept this because those things will scale with income, meaning those on the poor end of things still get free healthcare, while those who are higher income pay increasingly more as their incomes go up. Of course, given this exists along side UBI, most people would benefit in net under this plan vs just M4A. The extra income your typical family would get would offset higher out of pocket healthcare costs and then some. 

Honestly, people will pay for healthcare under either system. Premiums and taxes start looking kind of similar when discussing the ins and outs of universal healthcare plans. Just different ways of paying. The right screams about higher taxes, the left screams about out of pocket costs. The real key is, who pays what? The right wants a market based system tied to employment that doesnt guaranteed access. The left wants a socialized system that guarantees access and offloads some costs onto the wealthy while guaranteeing free/cheap access to others. All in all, universal healthcare systems are generally better in my view, but this is very much ideological. Which is why I took a jab at the union guys too. They want to preserve market based employment linked healthcare because of their jobist tendencies. I want a more universalist system in theory, but I'm willing to accept some compromises so I can fund other projects. 

Speaking of which, how much will El Sayed's plan cost? Without any solid plans, it's hard to tell. The general gist is probably "more than medicare extra for all, less than single payer." Single payer would cost an additional $3 trillion a year at this point, with a total healthcare bill to the government being $5 trillion. Its why I backed off of it. Im already supporting a $4.6 trillion UBI plan, so I went with a cheaper medicare extra for all idea, which would cost $300-600 billion give or take. Maybe a bit more with inflation. Honestly, and this is the rub. The more you cover, the more expensive it gets for the government. The reason medicare extra for all has so many variables is different structures of coverage for different income groups. Medicare extra for all covers 80-100% costs depending on the plan and the income bracket. THe more that's covered, the pricier it gets. The more people you cover, the pricier it gets. And the better the public plan is vs private plans, the more people go on the public plan, and the pricier it gets. Due to these variables, it's hard to get an idea on costs. I'm imagining it would expand healthcare costs by over a trillion, assuming it covers all healthcare for roughly 2/3 of the country though. 

Maybe this guy doesnt wanna put anything in stone because of political backlash, or the uncertainty of whatever plan would end up making it through congress. THere are a lot of possible plans out there, and the details of which would have to be hashed out in congress.

Either way, if theres anyone who knows more about this issue than me, its this guy, he literally wrote the book on the subject, and having read it, yeah, he's well familiar with all of the stuff im talking about and the options we have. Still, being a bit of a policy wonk myself, I would like to have some concrete ideas here. 

I just wanted to discuss this since he seems a bit more moderate than full blown medicare for all, but still more radical than I am on the subject, given my preferred plan accepts some level of out of pocket costs. 

Has the RX 6000 reached "GOAT" status for me?

 So...I did a tier left of GPU generations a while back, and perhaps the most controversial pick for me was the RX 6000 series. It was borderline S (GOAT) tier, but I knocked it down to A because it wasn't all roses. However, after looking at the current GPU market, the loss of cheap RX series cards is being felt, and I feel like we've regressed. The market was literally better 3-4 years ago when I bought my last GPU, and people today are getting a rawer deal than they were back then. I shouldnt have to recommend Arc cards for entire price ranges because nothing else was available, and that RX 6600 series sweet spot is just...gone. The closest thing is the 7600, which is still sitting above its MSRP, and for a while there was hovering around $300. I just can't help but feel like people really had a much better deal just a few years ago, and that maybe it's time to consider the RX 6000 series as "GOAT" status.

History

So, one of the reasons I didn't make RX 6000 GOAT status was because of its history. It didn't start out as a series of cheap cards that revolutionized the market, but a series of overly expensive ones that tried to compete directly with Nvidia but totally failed. The series launched in 2020-2021 to compete with the RTX 3000 series. Unlike the 5000 series that came before, it had modern features like ray tracing, newer API support, etc., which makes a big deal with compatibility. It didn't quite reach feature parity with nvidia as they had better ray tracing/upscaling, but it was still new enough to "just work" and not have the issues of the previous series. But yeah, price was, it literally wasnt any better than the RX 5000 series, which were an okay value for their time, but lacked the modern features the 6000 series had. It also started out where the 6600/6600 XT were the lowest end cards priced at $330 and $380 respectively, trying to compete directly with the RTX 3060/3060 Ti, despite being inferior. Not that prices mattered because YAY! COVID AND CRYPTO SCAMS! So for much of its early life, it was always sold out, always at an insanely high price, and not available. 

The real magic, and why I love the series so much, is because in late 2022, as the market finally returned to "normal" the price of this particular series of cards crashed faster and harder than the others, leading to a renaissance in PC gaming. The market had been stagnant and even regressed since the 1000/1600/400/500/5000 series of cards in the late 2010s, and us old 2016-2017 era buyers had ZERO upgrade options for the same price since then. While that is part of what makes the Nvidia 1000 series GOAT status for me, having a huge price/performance bump and not being challenged in price/performance significantly after that, it also has been terrible for the market as the value structure did not move either, trapping people on those older cards as they aged. But with these cards reaching as low as 55-60% of their original MSRPs, they ended up defining the market in the post COVID era, with the subsequent RX 7000 series and RTX 4000 series following the general price structure that the 6000 series set. 

The series was sold well into 2025 until the release of the RX 9000 series finally obsoleted it. Those $200-220 RX 6600s stopped looking as good when the RX 9060 XT 8 GB was $270 and offered significantly more performance, not to mention nvidia options like the RTX 5050 and 5060 being available at $250-300. Since then, the supply of 6000 series cards has dried up, and then RAMpocalypse has made things unaffordable again, with the current value of cards being similar or worse than what the RX 6000 series offered in its hey day. If anything, doing my "what card should people buy now", the loss of the 6000 series is acutely felt, with many of the deals being equivalent at best and often worse than the RX 6000 series offered. 

Given that, if I bought now to replace my nearly 4 year old card, I'd be replacing the RX 6650 XT which I paid $230 for, with a 7600 for $260 or a 5050 for $300, it's time to consider elevating the  RX 6000 series to GOAT status, since this is getting ridiculous. 4 years with barely any price/performance boosts in the market and the card still going strong? I expected to replace this thing by the end of 2027, but it looks like there's no point until the RAMpocalypse ends. With that said, this card is on track to last longer than my venerated GTX 1060, or other GOATed beasts like the 8800 GT in its day. 

Discussing the RX 6000 product stack and why it offered better value than today's offerings

Looking at the offerings today, it's pretty obvious why I feel nostalgic for this series now. It really has "you dont know you're in the good times until you've left them" energy. While not all cards were winners and some were flat out stinkers, given the  state of the current market, even the bad ones are getting rehabilitated to some degree.

RX 6400- $130

So...the RX 6400 sucked. Everyone knew it sucked. It was a cut down 6500 XT and that sucked too. It was severely cut down vs the RX 6600 series, only being around 1/3 as powerful, offering 4 GB VRAM, and having 4 PCIE lanes, which severely crippled performance in older systems. BUT....would I have recommended it over an Arc A380? Of course I would have. Honestly, while it was kind of a crap card and a crap value, well....in a sea of GTX 1030 tier ewaste, it still stood out. And it was a serviceable bare minimum graphics card at the time. 

RX 6500 XT- $160

Once again, this was always a bad product. It launched at the height of COVID price gouging for $200 and was the 5th coming of the RX 480...a card from 2016 that had 8 GB VRAM for $250. This one came with 4, said to be good because "crypto people wouldnt want it, only gamers", but yeah, basically, this was an RDNA2 version of a 480/580/590/RX 5500 XT. And it was worse actually because again, only 4 GB, and 4 PCI lanes, which crippled it. At the time, I probably would've said go for a 1650 or 1650 super, but....in the modern era, NONE of these cards are sold at the appropriate price point, so again, you cant even get a card new like this at a decent price any more. I've seen these being sold at $200+, which is ridiculous. Speaking of ridiculous...

RX 6600- $190-210

So...for years after the Pascal/Polaris era of 2016-2017, I've long castigated the market for lacking a $200 "every man's card". Everyone wants to pursue the high end market, but we need a card for mainstream gamers, stuff that costs $200-300. I always respected the 480/580 cards, and even though I went 1060 instead, I always felt like cards like this were good for gamers. We need cheap, available cards. Well, post COVID, this became "it". The RX 6600 was a blistering 75% or so faster than the RX 6500 XT, and came with 8 GB VRAM. It became THE affordable budget card for years to come, with its value not really being beaten by anything. While gamers still flocked to nvidia and paid out the butt for it, I considered the 6600 to be the new 480 of our time at the time. Only reason I didn't buy one was because I bought the next one on the list.

Currently if you wanna pay this much, you get an Arc A580, which is roughly as powerful while having way more drawbacks, or the RTX 3050 6 GB which is...well....kinda pathetic for the money. 

RX 6600/6650 XT- $230-250

This is MY card. A bit faster than the RX 6600, but still mostly the same thing. About 20% better, costs about 20% more. Similar performance to the newer RX 7600, which is currently going for $260. But yeah, same level of power, lower price. Imagine telling myself that 4 years later you'd get worse price/performance. I cant say I wouldnt believe it, given I just lived through the COVID pandemic and crypto boom, but it would be an OH GOD I BETTER BUY NOW moment. I might've even upgraded up to a 6700 XT to make sure I got something more futureproof. 

RX 6700- $310

The RX 6700 was an awkward card and not widely loved by the community. The big thing is that it was barely faster than a 6650 XT.....but cost like $60-80 more. You get 10 GB VRAM with this one, but oh wow big deal. Really, it wasn't a huge huge deal. And it was always awkwardly priced and an awkward value.

RX 6700/6750 XT- $350

This was the one to get if you wanted a more premium but still budget friendly card. At $350, it competed favorably against the RTX 3060 at the time, and had 12 GB VRAM. It was kind of the big step up from the 6600 or 6650 XT style cards. But it was also a bit of an awkward value too IMO. It was only 25-33% better give or take than the 6650 XT, while costing upward of 50% more, and the big draw was the VRAM. As it has aged, it feels like it falls in a weird place. RDNA2 is showing its age a bit and outside of VRAM constrained situations it really doesnt come off as significantly better than the 8 GB cards below it, but when VRAM does become an issue, it can shoot up to 50% better. I feel like the architecture is aging faster than the actual VRAM or lack thereof, especially with 8 GB still being mainstream and probably remaining mainstream until we're finally done with RAMpocalypse. 

Vs the 5060 today....well the 5060 is a little more powerful in terms of raw power but the 8 GB VRAM is oof. So not really a significantly better card than this. 

RX 6800- $480

So....at this point we're out of the "low end" like full stop IMO, but the RX 6800 was a pretty decent value too for the money. It had 16 GB RAM and offers similar price/performance to a 16 GB RX 9060 XT today. Which is actually kinda sad, and another reason why I'm writing this. We really havent moved from late 2022 pricing here. 

For a while this was available down around the $400 mark, competing directly with the 7700 XT, with the 7700 XT having a newer architecture, but the 6800 having more VRAM. Again, I actually wonder if the way things are going if RDNA2 will actually fully need to utilize its VRAM in its effective life time. It seems like with RAMpocalypse that's gonna become a major constraint where other issues like driver support and an aging architecture AMD is not enthusiastic about supporting (they tried to cut support for it, only for the community to lose their crap because hey, it's still perfectly modern and these things were being sold well into 2025...) are going to become issues first. Still, the price/performance is there.

RX 6800 XT- $600

So this is where the RX 6000 series falls off vs modern cards. Modern $600 cards like the RTX 5070 and RX 9070 are a bit more powerful than this, but it did provide a decent value in the day. Most 6000 series cards kicked nvidia in the rear enough to force them to compete better.

RX 6900/6950 XT- $700

Same here. By the time 6000 series became affordable, Nvidia was already rolling out the 7000 series, with the 7900 XT/XTX variants being the top tier premium option, but the 6900/6950 XT were made cheaper in response. While the 9070 XT offers a full 35% more performance for the same money today, for 4 years ago...not fricking bad at all. And again, we're out of the more budgety price range.

RX 6000 vs GTX 1000 series

All thing considered, the pricing structure is very reminiscient of the venerated GTX 1000 series of GPUs. You had the "50" series (RX 6400/6500 XT) for like $150ish, and while not a good value and very anemic for their time, hey, beats a 1030, and probably a better product than an Arc A380. The RX 6600 and 6650 XT were the GTX 1060 equivalents at the $200-250 price range and they are the GOATs of the modern era for affordable GPUs. The RX 6600 is sorely missed from the market, although if it still existed it would probably be closer to what the 6650 XT used to be price wise. 

The RX 6700 was an awkward product, but the 6700 XT was priced a bit lower than a 1070, and offered a similar value arguably, being a bit more futureproof but probably going to hit architectural limits the way pascal did before it's fully required for modern gaming. Might last a bit longer than the "60" cards but it arguably shouldnt matter much. 

The 6800 cards are similar to a 1070 ti/1080 price wise and offer similar value arguably. Once again, probably will hit architectural or driver related limits rather than be flat out obsoleted. 

The 6900 XT/6950 XT were like the modern 1080 ti price wise and are aging similarly well.

However, there is one thing that holds me back from just flat out GOATing the 6000 series in the same way, and that is AMD's software support. Assuming AMD supports these cards, they can be considered GOAT status, equalling or even surpassing the likes of the GTX 8000 series or 1000 series respectively. Those cards were viable for a solid 6-8 years in part due to them aging well and in part due to drivers. The 6000 series is aging similarly well, BUT, the driver support remains a possible issue. AMD is not nvidia. While for a while, through the GCN (HD 7000 series - RX 500 series) era, AMD did have a level of "fine wine" driven by long driver support, AMD seems a lot less willing to offer similar longevity to RDNA2, despite them selling along side RDNA3 cards for most of their lifespans. Theyve already attempted to move RDNA2 (6000 series) to the legacy driver branch and are slow to release new features for the series like FSR 4, because they dont have the same fancy AI architecture that is driving up the price of modern cards. As a result, performance is starting to lag in some newer titles, although it will at least RUN them. Still, if AMD drops support for RDNA2 sooner than later, we could get a situation where these cards die not because the specs are actually obsolete, but because the software is just not supported. 

It's hard to say. Assuming AMD offers at least basic driver support, they should work. To my knowledge the only real benefit of the newer architectures is newer versions of upscaling that look better than older ones, but as long as games support FSR 2/3, things should be fine. 

In all fairness, Nvidia 1000 had a similar issue. While AMD's FSR greatly expanded these cards' lifespans by giving it some basic form of upscaling, Nvidia largely abandoned new features like ray tracing and DLSS on them. And ultimately, while the GTX 1000 series still had driver support until 2025, AMD support is already winding down with AMD focusing their primary improvements toward the 7000 and 9000 series, while putting the 6000 series in a legacy branch. While new games will still run on the 6000 series, as I see it, it's only a matter of time before AMD pulls the plug entirely. 

It's kind of sad because literally the only thing newer architectures offer to my knowledge is on board AI capabilities that allow better upscaling, but if I'm fine playing with older upscaling (I mean, I hate upscaling but as a card ages I'd rather have it than not have it), then I'd rather get at least basic support there. So the future of the 6000 series and how it continues to age is in question. In raw specs, the power is there, and the architecture is powerful enough to run newer games, again, the real question is whether AMD will offer extended software support to maintain compatibility over the long term. Right now it promised to do so, but it's AMD and they dont have the best track record at doing this. I've seen AMD users get burned over time as well. Heck, my last AMD card, the HD 5850, suffered a similar issue as AMD just dropped support for the 5000/6000 series in 2015 despite the higher end models still being capable. The GTX 400 series, on the other hand, was supported until 2018. 

So....GOAT or not?

Honestly? I think it's the only thing in the modern era that qualifies. Here's the options. 

RTX 2000 series- prohibitively expensive, cheaper models aged poorly, but expensive ones are still viable today.

RTX 3000 series- Also expensive. Became cheaper like the 6000 series did, but not to the same extent and didn't offer similar value IMO. 

RTX 4000 series- At least it had the 4060. That one was decent. But honestly, at this point, I might as well consider the RX 7000 series, which has aged similarly well.

RTX 5000 series- Between 8 GB VRAM on the low end, and RAMpocalypse, not counting on it, if we eventually get a $200 16 GB card if RAM prices crash, I'll consider it, otherwise I consider it mid at best. 

RX 5000 series- It had value, but lacked long term support due to poor drivers and a poor feature set, also topped out at the 5700 XT.

RX 6000 series- started out poorly as indicated but is borderline GOAT at this point due to affordable cards that, in theory, have the power to have long life spans. Being the prime AMD series between the crypto boom and RAMpocalypse and the fact that 8 GB cards are going to have their lifespans expanded makes me hopeful it will become GOAT status, but it could easily be sabotaged by AMD's competence.

RX 7000 series- Also theoretically in the running, similar price/performance as 6000 series and longer driver support, but it being newer automatically means less overall lifespan. I expect this to be a strong series, but an average one. 

RX 9000 series- Started out strong but RAMpocalypse has reduced its price/performance to not a whole lot better than the 6000 series, despite being several years newer. 

All in all, the 6000 series is probably the best series of the modern generation. Not only are the cards seemingly aging relatively well so far, still offering awesome value years later, but honestly, they also power a lot of interesting devices that also contribute to their longevity. They're the technology behind the PS5 and Xbox Series X. They power the steam deck with a IGP 2/3 as powerful as the entry level RX 6400. It's in everything. Idk, again, if anything is "GOAT" in the modern era, it's this. But yeah, it's still like borderline A/S tier for me. Ultimately it depends on software support and how long 8 GB VRAM is supported, if the 6600 can still run new titles in 2028, on low, with a decent level of performance, I think it's time to say, yeah, it's officially GOAT. But it's kinda early to tell, and it's kind of tenuous. 

The cheap GPU list version 2

 So....I went over the cheapest GPUs that are worth buying last week, but I do want to offer a newer, more consolidated list. Some of the deals offered were temporary deals. Sometimes I want to consolidate to offer a cleaner list of choices, and yeah. So, condensed version!

$100- GT 1030 (DDR5)

The bare minimum. Basically an integrated graphics tier card. It'll run games up to 2015ish reasonably well but be iffy beyond that. I mean, if you really REALLY wanna play newer stuff it can probably work due to 2 GB VRAM, but keep in mind it's not intended for anything MODERN and it is weak.

$140- Arc A380

Yeah the 1650 super was a temporary deal. So, the Arc a380 is 3x the power of the GT 1030, giving it A LOT more power. It also has 6 GB VRAM. But it's intel, and intel cards have had issues with drivers and other issues due to the immaturity of the architecture. It might ironically have compatibility issues with some games, or poor performance with some games, so something to keep in mind. But let's face it, it's about the best youre gonna get. There's a lot of ewaste and junk the lower you go, and if $140 is all you can afford, well, this is what's available. Basically it should run games up to around 2022ish based on power alone, but keep in mind compatibility issues

 EDIT: After reviewing this more, yeah, I really want to emphasize that the experience on Arc GPUs are VERY rough. Literally the only reason this is still being recommended is because nvidia and amd have just decided not to even compete at this price point any more, with older GPUs like 1050 tis, 1650s, and RX 6400s/6500 XTs no longer being available at this price range. While the experience will likely still be several times better than what can be had out of the 1030, this is going to be a very rough gaming experience and I'd highly recommend paying more for something better. 

$200- RTX 3050 6 GB

So, after reviewing the intel GPUs a bit more, I decided to remove the A580 recommendation and just recommend this. yes, the Arc A580 is more powerful, but just like with the A380, the experience is VERY rough, and I'd just recommend the 3050 instead. 

As for the 3050 6 GB, it's not great, but again, the market is what it is. It's not a ton faster than the A380, but it is going to be a whole lot more stable. It'll play most games on SOME level, although some VRAM intensive ones may not run well due to the 6 GB. But yeah, it's what the market offers right now, and it's probably the best card you're gonna get at this price. 

$260- RX 7600

The REAL bare minimum gaming card for modern games. You want something that "just works" and gets you in the door, you want this thing. It's on par with my 6650 XT, having used THAT extensively, I can say that this will run everything you throw at it. It might not be a GREAT experience but hey, low settings, possibly with FSR? 60+ FPS? It'll do it. Probably not very futureproof, but in this market, what can you do?

$360- RTX 5060

About 30% better than the 7600, still 8 GB VRAM. Probably not futureproof but it'll run games a bit better at least. I don't even consider $300+ "low end", but at this point, it seems to be extending up to $450-500, so....yeah.

$410- RX 7700 XT

Honestly, wouldnt even bother with the 9060 XT 16 GB at this point. Yeah you get 12 GB instead, but its just as powerful and $60 cheaper. And let's face it, vs the 5060, you're paying for VRAM. $50 more for 12 GB, $110 more for 16 GB. Maybe 16 GB will be more futureproof, but yeah, you're paying a bit more for it.

What would I get?

Of these options I'd probably opt for the RX 7600, putting me at the same level of performance as the 6650 XT I already own. But here's how I look at it. Anything less has compromises. if you feel adventurous, the A580 might be worth it for $200, but I would just want something that works without compromise. The 3050 6 GB is also too weak and lacks VRAM for modern games (you really want 8). And beyond that, if youre gonna an 8 GB card, uh....yeah. Just get the cheapest one that does the job. The 7600 is the best one in terms of value. The 3050 8 GB looks like its being phased out and its ALSO $260...and it's A LOT weaker than the 7600. The 5050 is on par but for $300, why pay $40 more just for nvidia? 5060 is $350, but uh....it's still 8 GB. Like if youre thinking long term, I'd imagine all current 8 GB cards will go obsolete at the same time, since the VRAM is expected to eventually be the bottleneck. And to avoid the 8 GB trap, youre paying prohibitively more. Theres a 12 GB B580 for $310, but its on par with the 7600 otherwise and keep in mind, intel cards.... So youre paying $410 for a 12 GB 7700 XT, and then $470 for a 9060 XT. As you can see, you're getting stuck in an escalation trap at this point. Sure, you can get 30-50% more power with such a GPU, but yeah youre also paying a lot more, especially to get that power WITH more VRAM. 

So yeah. Like always, do your own research, but yeah. I just wanted a more clearly written and definitive article on this. 

EDIT: I changed some recommendations based on the intel GPU experience being even rougher than I anticipated. Seriously, just save up and buy intel or AMD instead if you can. There's no reason to buy one unless you LITERALLY can't save up for something better.  

Ya know, the more I think about this, the more I think, we're gonna do fine

 So....the GOP...they have nothing. They literally have nothing to campaign on but racism, islamophobia, and red scare tactics. Trump's calling El Sayed a communist. Mike Rogers is talking about helping hunt down Bin Laden and how El Sayed said we deserved 9/11. Like...what the actual fudge? Let's face it, we've known for a while that the GOP is intellectually bankrupt, but it's like they can't go 12 hours without showing their butts here. Seriously, we're not even 24 hours after the race was called and they're already going THIS unhinged. This is gonna be a fun election season if this is the best the GOP has. I thought they mightve actually been a threat. After all, Mike Rogers was relatively silent through the primary. He was sitting there with a poker face hiding his hand and now he's coming at us with a 7 high. It's like...wtf even is this?

Really, I'm tired of acting like the two sides are somehow equal to each other in terms of validity. The GOP has NOTHING. Like, they're barely stringing sentences together over there. And I aint saying you have to like El Sayed's politics, but holy fudge, if this is the best they got, we got this in the bag. The only thing we gotta worry about is the American people themselves being stupid here. Which...is...admittedly....a concern.  But....again, I'm just here like....really? That's all you got? I thought the republicans were actually gonna be scary. I swear, high school me could've come up with a better offense against El Sayed. Or maybe not. Idk. College me maybe? This is embarrassing. I'm embarrassed FOR you guys on the right. Holy crap. It's like your whole strategy is to scream about crap and lie and hope it works. To be fair, that's all they really got...

This is why I spend so much more of my time discussing the party infighting amongst democrats. I might not like the third way, but at least they have an intellectual framework for their ideas and it's worth engaging with. These guys, it's like that "why cant you just be normal" meme I saw recently. 

Mom: "I just want you to have food and healthcare!"

Kid: "Screams racial slurs"

That's where American discourse is honestly at right now...seriously... 

Republican infiltrators in the democratic primary?

 So....I have a friend from Michigan who explained to me that Michigan apparently has an open primary system, and given Mike Rogers was uncontested, there was apparently an effort by republicans to vote for Haley Stevens, and then abandon her for Mike Rogers in the general. Im not sure how reliable this is. It might not be reliable at all. But it would explain some things. Things like why the polls were off by like...9. Seriously, we're OUTSIDE of the margin of error now. El Sayed was expected to win by 10, won by 1. Like something is off there. But what if the pollsters measured actual democrats' responses and republicans showed up and skewed the results? That would explain some things. Like why the polls were off so much. As for the general, does this mean we're screwed? THe reason I was freaking out is if El Sayed was supposed to win by 10 and MASSIVELY underperformed, if he does the same in the general, that could be devastating to his numbers. Like he needs to OVERperform as it stands just to win. He has no comfortable buffer to underperform, and 8-9 points isnt an insignificant underperformance. That could be a sign of general election weakness. At the same time, if this is what happens after the GOP AND democrats AND AIPAC throw everything they have at him, well, there's hope. 

Anyway we're already seeing how the republican general election campaign is shaping up and it's just screaming about him being an Islamist and a communist so far. This party has no valid arguments so all they can do is the same fear mongering they've already been doing. If this was their best shot....we'll be fine. See you guys in November on this one. 

Abdul El Sayed wins; thoughts

 So....at around 2 AM they FINALLY called the race for Abdul El Sayed. What was supposed to be a roughly 10 point margin of victory was turned into a 2 point one, with lots of people saying polls were wrong. Well...yes and no. 

Again, polls have ERROR. In my own forecaosts, I assume a 4 point margin of error. Given that this applies to BOTH candidate, this gives a massive 8 point range the polls can be off in either direction. So we can expect the margin of victory for El Sayed to be between 2 and 18 with a 95% degree of confidence. When I said that I gave him around a 99% shot at winning, that's because the probability of the polls being off by 10 is about 1%. And as it turned out...that didn't happen. We just ended up at the extreme end of the 95% range roughly speaking. This was like a 2nd-3rd percentile margin of victory for Abdul El Sayed, a small margin of victory, but a victory nevertheless.  

Now, my big concern is where this leaves us with the general. As things stand, Haley Stevens was leading Mike Rogers by around 1.7%, giving her around a 66-67% chance of victory. El Sayed trails Rogers by 0.3%, this gives him a 47% chance of victory. This is not fatal to El Sayed in and of itself. Stevens is not super strong here, but El Sayed is not super weak either. Still, Stevens WAS the better candidate for the general, despite my own preference for El Sayed, and if El Sayed is gonna underperform by 8 in the primary, does that mean he stands a chance in the general? Hard to say. Quite frankly, the general looks very competitive, and once again, error will determine who wins in all likelihood. If democrats overperform, El Sayed wins. If they underperform, Rogers wins. It's that simple. But El Sayed's underperformance was significant here. We had a very comfortable margin and El Sayed only won BECAUSE he had that much of a buffer. If it were within the margin of error, El Sayed would have lost here. Because again, we got just about the worst possible outcome in that 2-18 point possibility range. We ended up only winning by 2. 

Now, to be fair, polling was funky here. After McMorrow dropped out, polling was all over the place, but then consensus polling in the weekend leading up to the election seemed to coalesce around El Sayed in a way that gave him a double digit lead. It was sudden. But with multiple polls showing similar outcomes, plausible. Well....again, while he won...it was close. It is possible that the error happened because lots of people had to make up their mind last minute and they went in favor of stevens. Maybe the sampling was off. Who knows. But yeah. Again, this just shows how funky polling can be and how imprecise these forecasts really are. Still, the model TECHNICALLY held up. El Sayed won, so...yeah. 

Anyway, I just hope this doesnt mean anything for the general. Michigan is strangely in play for how blue of a year 2026 is shaping up to be, and El Sayed is admittedly the weaker general election candidate. If we get a similar underperformance in the general, we're screwed. of course, given Haley stevens was only 2 points better here, she'd be screwed too. D+1.7 actually means R+6.3 to D+9.7. R+0.3 means D+7.7 to R+8.3. Ya know? Again, this is why i didnt sweat El Sayed's electability in the primary, but if he underperforms like this, I got a bad feeling about the general. I guess we'll have to see though. El Sayed was my favored candidate so I'm glad he won, but yeah. This was nerve wracking and the general is too. Not only could this race decide the control of the senate, but also is a test balloon for the viability of progressive left candidates in a swing state. if El Sayed screws this up, centrists will just hold this over us to push electability arguments and we might end up with more moderate candidates in the future. So yeah, let's see where this goes. Challenge 1 over, but challenge 2 is about to begin. 

Still, I feel better about El Sayed than I do Hong in Wisconsin. If you notice I didn't endorse her. Yeah, it's her electability or lack thereof. Nothing against her, but uh...YIKES, her numbers are bad. Even I dont wanna touch THAT. El Sayed though? As you can tell, it will only matter if the race is super close. If El Sayed loses by less than 2 points in November, Stevens probably would've won. otherwise it wouldnt have mattered. 

Navigating the divide between centrists and leftists...again....

 *sigh*, it's a big topic these days, idk what to say, but Kyle Kulinski is kinda having it with Bill Maher and I wanted to give my thoughts. 

On the one hand, Kyle has a point. If you're willing to vote for the republican party in this day and age, you're on the right, period. Even more so, for all the talk of how illiberal the left is, the right is basically fascist. I don't care if you think the left is too far left, holy crap, the right is a bigger problem NOW. 

The problem with the left is if socialists and communists take over the democratic party 10-20 years ago, THAT'S a threat. And LONG TERM, maybe it is. I certainly am leery of DSA for that reason these days. A little bit of them is good, and will give us social democratic goals. Most DSA candidates are running on social democratic priorities, and even if further left, yeah, we're gonna see good results short term, even if a few of them are far left.

The problem comes as they gain more power. What if they become a majority of the democratic party? or a majority of the government? Well, then we literally got blue MAGA. yeah, Again, if this is our tea party moment, we do gotta worry that maybe in 10-20 years from now, we'll have a MAGA moment if these guys gain TOO much power, and start throwing out ALL moderates. We need SOME. I mean, keep in mind my overall philosophy. Conservatives (as in, conserve the status quo, not the whackjob "regressives" we call "conservatives), progressives. The two need to operate in harmony against each other. Progressives try to change things, but conservatives stop it from being too much too fast. Right now, we got conservative democrats and regressive republicans. That's a HUGE problem. We want the democrats to be progressive again. We just can't afford for them to be TOO progressive where they start changing too much, too fast, and too irresponsibly. It's a balance. And ideally, we get it right. But right now, we need more progressive politicians. If some of them are DSA, well, a little DSA won't kill us. It's when they start becoming more than 50% of the government that we begin having problems. 

And, keep in mind, unlike what Bill Maher says, many progressives, even DSA ones, aren't full on seize the means of production.  Most of them want goals aligned with social democracy, at least in the short term. Higher wages, medicare for all, free college, public housing, a green new deal. hell, Darializa Avila Chevalier, for for all of her faults, is pro UBI of all things. Bill Maher is freaking out about Zohran Mamdani and his socialist grocery stores. it's just wild. There's red scaring over literal communism, but then there's crapping on good things.

I ain't saying we all have to agree with every left wing proposal. Im not big on a green new deal. I thought Biden's BBB framework was better on that. I ain't even die hard on medicare for all these days. I'm actually for an aggressive public option instead. On the flip side, a lot of other people don't like my UBI ideas. We're not gonna all agree. But we should agree that things are fundamentally fudged and we need the biggest recalibration of the economy since the original new deal, and we should pass a suite of progressive legislation to get that done. If you wanna be on the team, we at least need to agree that broadly. I dont want centrist liberalism. Nor do I want communism. I want social democracy. But, at this point, it seems like to get that, we need a broad tent, with some to my right, and some to my left. That I can accept. 

In this moment, if you freak out over the mere thought of social democracy, like people like Bill maher are doing, feel free to leave the democrats and never come back. Really. I'm done with centrists who oppose even social democracy. If youre concerned about literal communism that's one thing, but if you just hate the idea of all progress, you're not on the team, get out. Likewise, if you're so far to the left nothing but literal communism will satisfy you, well....go have fun voting for a third party that gets <1% of the vote, you're not on the team either. 

If we can agree on social democratic goals now, you're on the team. We need to move left of where we are. That doesnt mean we need to go FAR FAR left, and again, we need to restrain the coalition from doing that long term. But that doesnt mean we moral panic over people who want socdem priorities. Seriously, this is MY beef. If you look at mere SOCDEM priorities, and you cant agree on THAT? Feel free and vote republican, you're not on the team. Like seriously, if trump's fascism is more acceptable than you than say, zohran mamdani's leadership in new york, or abdul el sayed in michigan, or troy jackson in maine, well....idk what to tell you, you're tastes suck and youre pretty much a republican to me. So go have fun with that. 

And for people who wonder what the hell I'm thinking calling people republicans and telling them to vote that way, thinking that that's a suicidal strategy, no, it's not. It's actually genius. Here's the thing. Centrist democrats demotivate the base. For all the talk of how we need swing voters, we bring them in by giving them something to vote for. The answer isnt to always moderate to the point we get this bland flavorless politics made in a lab (which is what mainstream democratic politics is). It's to enthuse people to get them to vote for you. And to basically reverse uno chuck schumer, for every moderate republican we alienate, maybe we'll bring in 2 working class voters who would otherwise sit it out or vote republican. Seriously, elections are won by enthusiasm. over the course of my life, the side that panders to annoying centrist types almost always loses. The only election in the past 30 or so years I've seen a plainly uncharismatic candidate win was 2020, and that's because trump governed so badly anyone could win. Even then, he only barely won. In 2008, I was part of that centrist demographic, and you know what? The democrats didnt need me, they needed millions of enthused young people who wanted change. And they lost subsequent elections because they couldnt maintain their momentum, because centrism is a massive momentum killer in politics. No one LIKES centrists. They tolerate centrists. And centrists create low energy coalitions that lose elections.

Hell, if we throw those centrists out and they vote republican and republicans pander to them, it kills two birds with one stone. First of all, it moderates them and their priorities, which neutralizes the fascism threat. Second of all, it shrinks their coalition because more conservative values voters will stay home if they dont elect crazies. And that's what we want. A more moderate republican party and a more progressive democratic party is exactly what we need. If we neutralize MAGA by demotivating them and flooding them with centrists who moderate everything they do, then that's a win. If we move the overton window to the left with a progressive populist coaliton, that's a win. So no, it's not stupid to tell these guys to leave the democrats. I'm fully convinced whatever side gets stuck with these losers won't win elections, and that voters will vote for progressive candidates, at least in the short term.

I do think voters will eventually tire of populism and change, but only after the first big wave of change, which fixes many of the issues. The coalition that was fired up for change in the 1930s and 1940s was significantly more divided by the 1960s when Kennedy and Johnson were in office. The reagan coalition that was fired up in the 80s and 90s became divided by the 2000s and was becoming anemic in the 2010s until trump came around. And even then, I'm convinced trump is the final hurrah of that coalition unless they can radically change our democracy to run by permanent minority. Which is why it's so openly fascist. This is the last gasp of the reagan coalition fighting for its life. If we can form a new coalition around social democracy, that will hold for a while, and then eventually fall apart as well, while politics returns to "normal" for a time. But we gotta get through this change wave first. 

And yeah, that's my strategy. Have a huge wave of change. Maybe a second smaller wave 20 years from now. And have some normalcy in between. Keep the leftists from fully taking over the democrats, but keep it progressive at the same time. Really. The threat of DSA and their illiberal tendencies are a problem in the long term. But right now, the big threat is trump. I aint concerned about DSA taking over government and doing anything radical any time soon. And if we get to that point, well, it means we succeeded with social democracy, and the rest of the overton window will hopefully be hard against them. Even I'll become conservative by that point, pulling us back to sanity. 

But yeah. It's like worrying that the heat will cook us alive one day when we're currently freezing to death. That's what all of this feels like. It's stupid. Let's raise the thermostat to a comfortable level before we worry about whether it will eventually get TOO hot.  

Best GPUs for low end gamers?

 So....after seeing a dude buy a GT710 and being like THIS SUCKS! I wanted to look at what the best deals are on the extreme low end for GPUs. Now, a big factor here in this. I'm only looking at NEW. At the price ranges we're talking, you're probably better off buying used. BUT, given the unreliability of the used market in terms of pricing, possible issues with used GPUs, etc., I understand why some might want used. For the record, I would probably recommend you save up, as we will soon see (and I'll tell you the cheapest GPUs remotely worth the cash), but yeah. All of this data will be derived from PCpartpicker. 

So the bottom end of the market seems to start around $60 and has a lot of GT710 and quadro video cards. I dont know much about quadros, I'm under the impression they're workstation cards and people rarely bought them for gaming. I guess that does set the baseline. The big problem with them is they seem to lack drivers for games, so game compatibility and optimization is gonna be iffy at best. 

For $60 you can get the quadro 2000D. It's on par with a 9800 GT, which was a high end card when I got into dedicated PC gaming in 2008. Integrated wise it's comparable to, say, an intel UHD 620/630 or thereabouts. It's half as powerful as modern integrated and IN THEORY, can play like, gen 7 games up to around 2011-2013. They might play low end games past that, but take note of the flaws with drivers. 

For $75-80 you can get a Quadro P600/620. Those are twice as powerful, approaching a GT 1030 level of performance. Just keep in mind the lack of gaming drivers. In theory, they should be able to run games through 2014-2015ish, and lower end ones past that. But yeah. This is on par with modern integrated solutions like a intel UHD 770 or RX vega 11. Again, if you have a modern PC with modern integrated, you got this level of performance already. It literally comes with your computer.

At $100, you get the GT 1030, which IS a gaming card and will have gaming drivers. Again, we're talking 2014-2015 being the limit for actual decent performance in modern games of the time, with older games past that still working. If a game requires something like a HD 5850/HD6850 or GTX 460/650 ti style card, this is on par with THAT. 

Id probably buy the 1030 over the quadro just to get actual software support. Pascal was supported until fairly recently so there should be lots of game ready drivers for it.

At $140 there's a GTX 1650 super available. It is 4x as powerful as a GT 1030, and should run games through 2022. It's a solid choice, although it's disappointing given this was a $160ish card in its heyday. 

There's also the Arc A380, which is weaker at the same price. I wouldnt recommend it vs the 1650 super due to intel drivers being iffy and it being worse, but it is an alternative if the 1650 super dries up. 

There's an Arc A580 available at $200. Again, drivers are iffy, but this thing pulls in performance up to around a RX 6600, which used to be the king of the $200ish range until the supply dried up. 

For $10 more at $210 there's the RTX 3050 6 GB. The 6 GB is gonna cripple it and its performance is weaker than the A580, but nvidia generally has better software support. 

At $260 there's the RTX 3050 8 GB which is WTF, this one WAS $230-240 not long ago. Anyway, if you want something for MODERN gaming, this is what gets you in the door if you dont wanna risk it with the A580. It's the bare minimum, dont expect much from it, but at least every game will RUN on it...for now at least. Kinda sad THIS is what you get. A few years ago, you could get RX 6600s and 6650 XTs for less which were more powerful than this and had better drivers than intel cards. Disappointing.

RIght now there's a deal for $260 for the RX 7600, this takes precedence over the 3050, and basically at where I'd say the minimum for a comfortable experience is. Normally, this is $280-300 these days, but for $260, dang. I know its not that impressive, given it launched at $250 3 years ago, but that's the market. I dont make up the rules here. And i hate the rules too.

The 5050 is available at $300. This is on par with the 7600, but has better (nvidia) tech. Again, its kinda bad this is STILL $300ish. This is basically on par with a 3060/4060 which has been around this price point for years now. 

Anyway above $300 youre not really at the low end anymore. Heck, by rights you shouldnt be above $200 but again, market is market. Still, I'll keep going.

$310 there's the Arc B580, which is on par with the 7600/5050 but has 12 GB VRAM. I wouldnt really recommend it due to drivers. 

At $350 there's the 5060, which still has 8 GB VRAM but is 50% better than the 5050 roughly. Worth the upsell there (yeah this is why Im still going). 

At $360 theres the 9060 XT 8 GB, which i wouldnt recommend over the 5060 given all things being equal: Nvidia > AMD > Intel > workstation cards. 

Theres a 5060 ti 8 GB for $400, although Im not sure id buy the 8 GB version at that price.

At $410 theres the 7700 XT which is roughly as powerful but with more VRAM.

And finally at $450 theres the 9060 XT 16 GB, which I'd say is the most expensive card I'll cover. Has similar performance as the 5060/5060 ti/7700 XT but the 16 GB VRAM makes it more futureproof. 

And yeah. At the end of the day, which of these would I say are the BEST deals? Probably these:

GT 1030 (MAKE SURE YOU GET DDR5)- $100

GTX 1650 Super- $140

Arc A580- $200

RX 7600- $260

RTX 5050- $300

RTX 5060- $350

RX 7700 XT- $410

RX 9060 XT 16 GB- $450

Yeah....

Surprised the 3050 didnt make it in there but the Arc A580 was so good and the 7600 was cheap enough to supplant it. Often times the 3050 8 GB is my bare minimum recommendation for new games around $230, but the A580 was significantly better for less, the 3050 was $260, and the 7600 was ALSO $260, so...7600. 

Anyway, make sure you further research ALL of these cards before you purchase if you take my advice. Especially the intel cards and workstation cards here. Seriously. I normally go Nvidia or AMD gaming cards and dont trust anything else in practice. ANd yeah. Make sure you buy what you want. Dont buy something and then be like "this sucks". Basically anything lower then the A580/7600/5050 wont run new games well. I aint even sure about the A580 there. But yeah, if you want a quality modern experience thats your baseline. The lower you get the crappier it gets. Low end GPUs is like boots theory, you spend less, you get WAY less, sometimes its better to spend a little more to get something a lot better. THis is also why I went up to $450 because sadly....that theory is true up to that point. And even beyond it. once you get into the $500+ range youre dealing with 4070/5070, RX 9070 tier cards, and yeah. It just keeps going. 

But yeah this is why i always complain. The sub $200 market is dead. $200-300 is on life support, and most modern releases cost over $300 and sometimes into the $400 range and yeah this is ridiculous. I remember when $100 was low end, $250 was midrange, and $400-500 was high end. It's crazy. And we cant just say "but inflation" on this one. Inflation has only been like 40-50% since 2010ish? Yeah. So no excuses for this. Just corporate greed. 

ANyway, that's basically what I came up with, and yeah, I wanted to do this so people dont buy fricking GT 710s or even worse 210s. Seriously, theres A LOT of ewaste i skipped here. If it aint on here, suffice to say its probably not a good value. 

Discussing FiftyPlusOne's midterm model

 So, FiftyPlusOne (previously FiveThirtyEight) released their midterm forecast and it's looking....pretty reasonable. I largely concur with it in broad ways, although I may differ on details. They give the democrats a 56% chance of winning the senate, a mere point off from my 55% forecast (and theirs was 55% earlier). On actual senate predictions, we vary, they tend to think Michigan has a much higher chance of going blue, whereas they seem to think Nebraska is more likely to go red. Their probability for each race seems far more....likely than my forecast. I tend to be more likely to reach extreme outcomes more easily (like 97% certainty, whereas they'll be at 85%), but these are all methodology issues. 

As discussed in 2024, my model is more simple. It's polling only (outside of placeholder data where I estimate the outcome based on previous cycles), and merely represents a snapshot of where the race IS, not where it may be several months from now. Meanwhile, 538/50+1 likes to do things like do long term forecasts based on fundamentals. I guess if you do a fundamentals model, yeah, youll be more likely to make michigan blue and nebraska red. If anything, that might even be more correct. I just let my model model. Sometimes the data picks up on things that seem counterintuitive, but end up happening, like the blue state weakness in 2024 in states like new jersey, illinois, and new york. So who knows? And I guess you gotta temper certainty when the election is months out and technically anything can happen. Im fine with adjusting things on the fly, but yeah these guys just do things differently.

My own house model is currently more fundamentals based given the sheer lack of polling. They come up with 231 house seats and an 87% chance for democrats. Again, willing to split the difference is this is a long term forecast and not a snapshot. My current model is like 233 with a 97% chance. It was 231 with a 96% chance this morning but RCP updated their GCV polling average and plugging it into my model boosts dems chances. 

I will say that with the lower probability, they account for a higher range of outcomes than mine. In the senate, they seem to think that democrats will get between 47-55 seats, with their median outcome at 51. My own model agrees with 51 being the median (technically 51-52 due to iowa being a tossup), but and my range of outcomes is 46-54. Not a huge difference but it is weird seeing up to 55. Do they really think states like south carolina, montana, or florida can flip? Well, they have a higher probability than my model so I guess they do.

THe house is where this really gets funky. They seem to have outcomes ranging from like 211 on the low end for democrats to around 253 on the high end. My own model has a 95% confidence interval between 220-244 currently. Even if we account for the sudden 1 point shift we're still talking 217-244. This isnt to say outliers outside of these ranges cant happen, but I tend to try to stick to around 95-96% confidence (two tailed). Still looking at their charts, it's the same. If we include extreme outliers they got senate outcomes with 58 dem senate seats and 280something house seats. No way that's gonna happen. My model doesnt even account for extreme possibilities like that, since once we get beyond 99.8-9% or so I'm just like "let's just say it's 100%." 

Again, interesting to see the methodology differences here. I'll stick to my own model out of pride but yeah. We'll see. I find my model tracks pretty well in practice. Aint perfect, but i aint expecting it to be. Again, it's the AK47 of election models. Simple, easily accessible, it just works. Might not be the most accurate or sophisticated in the world but it gets the job done. Sophisticated models are a double edged sword, the additional complexity allows more accuracy in theory, but given the raw noise of probability, it can backfire. We'll see who is more accurate on election day. At least it's better than their 2024 "50% no matter what" forecast they seemed to have. 

Speaking of 2024, let's look at their final forecast.

So, they had it 50-50, and the deciding factor was polling error. That's about where I was. Funny how I can have a simple model, they have a complex one, and they end up in the same place more or less. Goes to show how even the best models are gonna have error and inaccuracies, same as mine. On the state level they seemed to do what my model did, with MI and WI leaning left, but they also though PA leaned slightly left too. So they technically had harris winning. I know it's being really nitpicky, given a 0.6% difference between theirs and my model, but mine was actually ever so slightly more accurate in that regard (although I was personally even more bullish toward harris where i thought the error would go in her favor). Still, they knew that polling was gonna be inaccurate, and estimated it being off by 3.8 points in either direction. And yeah....that would lead to either 226-312 as we saw.....or 319-219, depending the direction it went in. 

In the house, they came to roughly the same conclusion I did. Slight dem advantage but virtually a dead heat. In the senate they gave the republicans a 92% shot whereas my model was at 87%....and yeah. Very minor differences. Again. Really goes to show how my model punches above its weight. Only slight differences from theirs as of election day. 

So interesting model, let's see how ours compare in 2026. 

Discussing the decline of Halo

 So...Halo "Campaign Evolved" released recently to mixed reception and there's been a lot of talk about the decline of Halo. The new game is basically combat evolved (Halo 1) again, but remade. While the game comes off as a cash grab, and some aspects of it like the cut scenes and voice acting are mid, it doesn't look bad. My big issue with it is I don't have an interest spending $50 on a remake. I'm gonna just play MCC and if I want to recommend halo to people, I'll still recommend MCC as you get 6 games for the price of one. While there were some awesome sales of it and those sales have dried up since the older version directly competes with the remake, Id still recommend MCC full price for those who wanna get into the series. 

But yeah. A lot of people are saying the series isn't what it once was. And after listening to Asmongold watch some weirdo anti woke right winger going on about how halo went woke and how 343 hates the military and religion or something, I wanted to discuss it myself. Because that opinion? Well, let's just say its really really dumb. 

The deevolution of single player

 A lot of people really point to the handing off of the franchise to 343 studios after Halo Reach as the beginning of the fall of the series, and while 343 certainly isn't innocent, I am of the opinion decline was inevitable. As I see it, the OG trilogy was perfect. Halo 1-3 had a complete story arc that was coherent, made sense, and was 10/10. The series was complete after that, and Halo 3 was the zenith of the series. There was no going back after that. 

While Halo 4 and 343's takeover of the series did bring a lot of negative changes. The art style was grittier and felt off. The lore was heavily retconned to allow for the new forerunner enemy, and it just generally missed the mark. The real problem began soon after Halo 3. You see, after Halo 3, the series was complete, it was perfect. And I'm not gonna lie, i think the decline started with ODST and Reach. 

 ODST felt mediocre. It focused on these ODST marines and not chief, and I just generally found the story uninteresting. The environments were bland and felt repetitive. The lack of flood and ONLY covenant made the game feel one dimensional. While most halo games feature battlefields in different biomes against different factions of enemies, ODST represented a shift toward one bland biome more or less, and one faction. This made the campaign feel more one dimensional.  

Halo Reach was also controversial for me. While the environments had more variety than ODST, it just felt like the same problems, and while people blame 343 and 4 for retconning the canon, Reach's story line seemed to contradict the book "The Fall of Reach" and I really didnt like that. After Reach, I stopped caring about Halo for a while. I got bored with the series. 1-3 were amazing, ODST and Reach felt mid, and I kinda skipped 4 until I found it in a bargain bin years later. 

4 did butcher the canon further. But at this point, i didn't care. I started checking out at the tail end of Bungie's control of the franchise, and I honestly believe ODST and Reach were the beginning of the decline. However, 4 clearly continued that direction. 

Honestly? I blame capitalism for this one. With a commercial success like Halo, the franchise had to continue putting out games and expanding. Even if the game was complete. Now, ODST and Reach were somewhat logical expansions. ODST was a short story between 2 and 3, Reach was a prequel. They had material for new games. But going on into a new arc beyond 3 was probably a mistake. The flood were taken care of, the war with the covenant was over. It was a good time to just end the franchise. But again, money machine had to make more money, so they persisted with new games. And 343 just wasn't up to the task of bringing the franchise into the future. 

Despite this, 4 wasnt even a bad game. The forerunners were a crime against halo lore, and not as fun of a faction as the flood, but they did add some variety to the game. And the environments were good, the campaigns were good. There's a reason halo 4 is my 4th favorite halo campaign ahead of ODST and reach but behind the trilogy. It wasnt bad. Wasnt amazing, but wasn't bad. 

Now 5...5 was bad. I didnt play it since I didnt own an xbox one and they never ported it to PC, but I did watch a full play through of it. And it was kind of a crime against the franchise. It just suuuuuckkkkkeeeedddd. Like, wtf were they thinking? Game play looked okay, but yeah, I can see why this one flopped. 

And infinite....well....5 sucked so bad that arc off screen, fast forwarding to the aftermath of untold events not directly seen in game. Again, did I mention 343 are terrible story tellers? They are. Anyway, infinite kinda had some of the same issues as ODST and reach. Mostly fighting a single faction. This time in an open world...where the world felt mostly like a bunch of the same. The game played like halo far cry edition. The open world was mildly fun, the actual campaign sucked. The story kinda sucked. The environments were boring and repetitive. It was mid. And yeah. Halo infinite is a game i struggle to play in the hierarchy because its just so different than the others. Based purely off of the traditional campaign it feels awful, but i did enjoy the open world and some moments here and there. I cant hate it, but I dont particularly love it, now that I've sat on it for a few years now. It's okay. Somewhere in the tier with ODST and reach IMO maybe. 

And now we got this remake that no one asked for, that while not terrible from what I've seen of it, seems lacking in the delivery, and it seems clear that the creators are so creatively bankrupt they're in the "let's recreate our own best hits because anything else we do just pisses people off", not realizing how the community is a bunch of whiny people stuck in the mid 2000s and who hate on anything new, even if it's just the old repackaged (there, I said it). To me it just screams that they have no idea what they're doing, they wanna make money, but their actual own ideas suck, seem to destroy the lore and make the franchise worse and worse, so they're playing it safe and still somehow fail. 

But yeah, to sum it up....343 taking over the franchise with 4 marks where the public acknowledges decline, but again, I kinda fell out of love with the series with ODST and Reach. Even those games, which are very revered by the community, just felt mid compared to the original trilogy. I'm of the opinion that the series probably should have stopped and had nowhere to go after 3. It was complete, it was perfect, and trying to expand it was a mistake. Even I was like "why dont they do reach?" at the time, but even that ended up kinda butchering the franchise for me. It just didn't land.

Multiplayer

 So I didnt play multiplayer at the time. i didnt get into it until 2019 with MCC on PC. But tracing what happened, my opinion kind of follows my single player logic as well. 

Honestly, here's an unpopular opinion. Halo was never actually good. like most early FPS games, it was actually rather awkward and didn't age well. It took off because it just happened to be in the right place at the right time, coinciding with the rise of console online multiplayer, and halo 2 just happened to be the face of xbox live at the time. Halo 3 ended up continuing that trend, and while neither 2 nor 3 were BAD, I mean...were they really good? In retrospect, no. But again, right place at the right time. 

So why did they decline? Because they were darned if they did and darned if they didnt. Because the OG games werent really good, they needed to evolve and modernize. but because the halo community is rather...conservative to the point that they see the introduction of sprint as a cancer on the franchise, any innovations to try to improve it end up being divisive. So adding power ups like sprint and armor lock ended up alienating the purists, meaning reach was the beginning of the decline. Again, 2 and 3 were seen as perfect on the eyes of the community, but as the series tried to evolve and modernize with reach, the chances ended up dividing the community.

4 tried to make the series more like call of duty, which caused the purists to lose their crap, because many online FPS communities think emulating COD in any way is evil and causes insane derangement syndrome. But yeah, loadouts? People lost their crap, even though i didn't think they were bad. ANd of course, sprint. OMG WE CANT HAVE SPRINT IN A HALO GAME! THATS HERESY! Like, really, wtf are we doing here? I really hate the halo community sometimes, they're so dumb. But at the same time, that's the problem. The series struggled to adapt and bring in new audiences, and old audiences freaked out over changes made to the game.

5 overhauled the game and added insane movement mechanics. It seemed to be an overcompensation of 4 being "too casual" so they made 5 a hardcore sweatfest. Which just alienated the casual half of the community. Fun fact, I DID play some halo 5, as 5 has a PC version that can only play custom games. So I have played it. Feels like crap, it's a total hot mess partially due to poor optimization and partially due to the game genuinely kinda sucking, but yeah, suffice to say I was impressed and it's by far the worst single player experience barring maybe CE's multiplayer mode. 

Actually I skipped one. Halo 2 anniversary remade parts of halo 2 in halo 4's engine. It's in MCC, it was fun, arguably the best halo game prior to infinite MP wise, but again, community freaked out. Apparently because it didnt play EXACTLY like 2004 halo 2 it was bad. Like, really, halo purists are something else. Hell half of them complain about MCC halo 2 and 3 because the netcode is slightly different than the xbox live versions of the OG games or...something. Idk. Again, the community is one of the most miserable I've ever met. Nothing makes them happy, not even remakes. 

Halo infinite was decent IMO, it attempted to modernize the series, and it hit all the right notes, but then the devs mismanaged it horribly in the early years due to sheer laziness and incompetence, and new content was painfully slow to the point that by the time the game got new content in meaningful amounts like 95% of players were gone for good by that point. I remember BTB went down like a month after launch and the devs took TWO MONTHS to fix it. They literally put the game out the door right before christmas and went on vacation until january and if the game went to hell in the mean time, well...so be it. Make do with what it was. And then they took a month to fix it after. yeah, they did that. Again they butchered it.

Still, there were a lot of aspects outside of their control too. The fact is, by 2021, gaming changed. Multiplayer changed. Everything was battle royales and soon extraction shooters (the new big thing recently), and traditional multiplayer shooters are dying. And halo just....is no longer the name it was back in the 2000s. People want something different. They want hyper competitiveness. Large worlds, streaming. I mean, as a millennial, i hate those changes too. But yeah, Halo just cant adapt to the modern era well. It was by far the best, most modern feeling halo game after playing all of MCC and finding it dated, but does that save it?

And the community. OMFG the community. It reminds me of the UT4 days and how THAT series imploded. They're so miserable they make the battlefield boomers look sane. They complain about sprint, they complain about the game being free. They complain about cosmetics. They just find tons of reasons to complain. Dont get me wrong, there were legit criticisms of infinite. But the criticisms that often got heard and repeated were often just....sheer stupidity. Seriously. This series is basically unreal tournament at this point. It's DOA and doesnt even realize it. They cant bring in new audiences, the old audience complains about everything they do. They cant win. The series had its moment back in the 2000s, it probably should've ended gracefully back then, and the fact that they keep making game after game that has the same core issues with failing to make the community happy while failing to bring in new audiences is just evidence that it no longer has the sauce and should probably just be abandoned like UT was. I hate to say it, I like halo itself, BUT....yeah, its way past its prime and its never gonna be the cash cow it was back in the day. 

And now we got campaign evolved, a remake of 1. It has no multiplayer, but yeah...same issues on the SP side. The purists hate it, picking it apart for not being exactly like the 2001 version. IM not sure new audiences are interested. I dont think it looks terrible but having watched a few hours of it it looks cringe. I dont feel motivated to buy it at all. It feels like a cash grab, and yeah. Again, I just feel like the series is dead and people dont even realize it yet. There's no salvaging it. i guess remakes to make money machine go brr is the best they can do. But that's about it. And even then....it's not like the remake is superior to the original in every way either. 

So...yeah. That's my view. I just wanted to share it.  

Once again, if you can't vote for El Sayed, leave the democratic party already

 So...this is being aimed more at the "other side." I came across comments from a communist who was like "I just can't vote for El Sayed, he's not for communism, he just wants a nicer version of capitalism." Cool. Can I like, plaster these comments everywhere I end up encountering the OTHER group of people screaming he's a raging leftist? Seriously. That's the point. Almost no one wants LITERAL leftist. Most people who claim to like socialism just want more government services, they dont want literal communism. And with fear of literal communists infiltrating the DSA and democratic party whipping up a red scare, I'd rather social democratic movements distance themselves from communists, and communists to distance themselves from social democrats. 

Seriously, if you just want more government services with higher taxes, fine. If you want to basically have literal communism, not fine. Just like with the centrists, it's like, get out of the democratic party, for all our sakes. Seriously, if these guys stay they're gonna pose long term issues. We can't allow them in the tent. They're just poison the rest of the tent. They're gonna make us all look like loons at best, and at worst, if they do take over the party that's scary. Again, It's fine if we have a liberal/democratic "tea party", it's NOT fine if we have a liberal/democratic version of "MAGA". One movement was about getting the party back to its roots. The other led to authoritarianism. I know, I know, the one movement did lead to the other in a way, BUT, that's where the line is for me. Someone like Abdul El Sayed is a based candidate Im happy to support. But if you're a literal communist, no. Just no. 

I'm tired of craplibs, I'm also tired of literal communists who make us all look bad. I'm putting my foot down on this one. 

Explaining why centrist democrats are moderate republicans on an ideological level

 So...I thought I would explain exactly why I call out centrist democrats so hard and believe them to be basically moderate republicans, or at least have more in common with moderate republicans than social democrats.

Explaining the spectrum

I tend to believe in this general 7 point likert scale for politics

1) Communists

2) Democratic socialists

3) Social democrats

4) The great melting pot of moderate liberalism

5) "Centrists"/moderate republicans

6) Conservatives

7) Fascists

I'm around #3 on that scale. 5 is where moderate republicans and even some centrist democrats start blending together. The political overton window since the 1980s has ranged between 4 and 6. DSA candidates are #2, actual socdems are #3. Illiberal extremists are 1/7. 

Discussing worldviews

With that said, I wanna do a brief dissection of a moderate third way democrat's worldview. 

Theology/Philosophy- Variable, but for the sake of argument, many of them are Christian. However, they're mainline Christians, not fundamentalists. They tend to have one foot in the Christian worldview and one foot in the secular worldview. They'll profess beliefs in Christianity and reverence for its doctrines, but also tend to not take stuff literally at times. This leads to a fragmented worldview similar to what I had in the late 2000s/early 2010s. They'll be surprisingly reasonable one minute but then fall for the same old religious BS at the same time. Again, kinda all over the place. Examples of this are Hillary Clinton, a methodist, her pro life VP, Tim Kaine, Joe Biden, a catholic, John kerry, also catholic, etc.

Some can also be new atheists though, especially older generation ones like Bill Maher and Richard Dawkins, who are boomers and have always had that more moderate liberal mindset. 

Morality- Due to the conflicting nature of their metaphysical worldview, you get that leaking into their morality. Probably stage 4 on kohlberg's stages of morality, indicating they still get their morality from external sources and have a relatively fixed understanding of the world. May have some conservative brain rot in there as a result. Think Hillary Clinton, who was pro life personally but pro choice politically. Anti homosexuality personally, but pro LGBT rights publicly. Internalize the protestant work ethic and as a result generally believe all humans should work and inherently believe in a more limited role to safety nets. Think clinton again with "god given potential" rhetoric, Biden with "work has dignity" rhetoric, etc. It stems from this inherently conservative mindset driven by Christianity. Like, you generally dont have the free thinking secular humanist stuff, even if their religious worldview is tempered somewhat with humanism. 

Psychology/sociology- Due to the undercurrents of Christianity, still believe in free will, moral accountability, personal responsibility, and probably believe that humans are sinful or evil in some way. They dont deny social sciences like the right do, but these moral beliefs do leech into their politics.

Law/politics- They're less likely to support overt christian nationalism, but the christian worldview leaks into their morality, which thus influences their politics, serving as a moderator. They tend to believe a lot of similar things as the right, but more in a "let's not get carried away with it" sort of way. Again, they might have issues with abortion, or LGBT rights, where they come out in favor of it when public support is on that side, but if it isn't, they'll be fine with throwing those issues under the bus and upholding a moderate consensus. Again, public position vs private position.

Economics- The same is true with economics. Their morals are basically the same as conservatives. Capitalism inherently good, it has SOME flaws, but ultimately more pro capitalist then, say, I would be. Still believe everyone must work, focus on "equality of opportunity" and job creation. Limited support of safety nets, and this is where they bristle up against progressives.

Progressives tend to not be limited by this christian impulse. They're more willing to acknowledge that these systems exist for humans, not humans for the systems, and are more willing to change things. Progressives often support large, universalist safety nets, and centrists just freak out about that. You cant just tax people and redistribute wealth, that's immoral. Like, imagine the hard right believes that everyone should work and what people get they get, and if you dont get enough you deserve to suffer. Moderate liberals look at that system, recognize the moral justness of it, but due to being moderated by humanist impulses, want to soften the edges of it. But still, they dont go far enough because they ultimately believe in the same moral system conservatives do, just with more nuance.  And then you have "the left" come in and question the very ideals underlying the system for whatever reason and they end up having a moral panic, saying I CANT SUPPORT THAT and blah blah blah. Which is why in this moment, they're joining republicans in this weird mccarthyist fervor to punch left at social democrats. because despite claiming to support social democracy, their morals are still fundamentally conservative in nature. And I realize it, and they seem to not see it that way.

History- I wanna include this before wrapping back around to discussing economics more, but I do wanna discuss this a bit too. Because of the fractured worldview, they often dont have a very coherent account of history. Biblical Christianity offers narratives based on myth. The more I study history as a secular progressive, the more driven I am to conflict driven narratives about how our society has been driven by the authoritarian impulses of a ruling class. And that they use the conservative ethic to entrench their power. While I inevitably support some iteration of existing institutions, I'm fine with more heavily reforming things, wanting to avoid the problems associated with "leftism", but I kind of understand how a lot of stuff conservatives and even these liberals take for granted are social constructions that dont always benefit people and they we should challenge some of them. But because those liberals are de facto conservatives, defending that belief system and institutions in its image, they end up punching left, even at social democrats and the like. 

So yeah, basically, the centrist liberal is like half conservative, half humanist. They are willing to debate the nuances of the conservative worldview, tempering that with rationality, but they'll also temper their rationality with belief in tradition and that christian worldview. Again, their philosophical bases are a hot mess, with a lot of them operating from this highly inconsistent moral framework that is held together by duct tape and cognitive dissonance. It works, quite frankly, because IMO, a lot of these guys dont think about this stuff very hard....they're more well read than conservatives, giving them a bit of a superiority complex over the "the world is 6000 years old" guys, but yeah, as someone who was once there, when I thought about it enough, this stuff collapsed like a deck of cards. 

And yeah, that's why when actual progressives start saying the status quo is unjust and start wanting more drastic changes, they lose their crap. From our perspective, the changes are just rational, and without that christian influence in my worldview, moderating doesnt even make sense. Why should we compromise with this weird irrational worldview? That's how I see it. But lacking that irrationality, the moderate will scream about how we dont share their values and start siding with conservatives over us.

Briefly discussing humanism vs marxism-leninism

Now, with that said, let's separate liberal progressivism and social democracy from hardcore leftism. 

Metaphysically, both humanism and MLism start out as atheistic, naturalistic philosophies. Which is why atheism is often associated with MLism and the right screams about atheists killing millions of people. Because MLs did that.

However, when you start delving into MLism, you start noticing that these guys made a state sponsored political religion around the USSR, where Marx is treated as a prophet, his writings as holy doctrines, and where the leftist dictators of the 20th century are also venerated to a large degree. 

Humanists....dont view things this way. We're more moderate and even handed ourselves. We tend to pride ourselves on not having gods, masters, or treating anything as sacred. Just as we question the right and christianity, we question the left and marxism too. While marx does have some valid points about capitalism's flaws, his calls for revolution, abolishing the system, and establishing socialism and communism are a failure. So I would consider humanism a more LIBERAL or social democratic philosophy, while leftism is its own animal. 

On religion, humanists are generally pro first amendment and even if we dont like religion, we're pluralists on the subject. Secularism is about protecting freedom. MLs want state sponsored atheism, not mere secularism. 

And it just diverges from there. Humanists will come back around pointing out capitalism has some advantages and communism never worked, whereas MLs are so dedicated to destroying capitalism that they end up going to weird extremes. 

So make no mistake, leftism is a quasi religion dedicated to destroying capitalism and replacing it with socialism, communism, or anarchism, while secular humanists are more even handed, recognizing that yes capitalism is horribly flawed, but also that it should exist in some form. With me, I tend to have the framework of using sociology to analyze economics both from functionalist and conflict driven perspectives, recognizing value in both, and the two moderating each other, the way for a moderate democrat, christianity and secularism mdoerate each other. But for me, this dualistic approach works, as I can recognize the objective value in something while also seeing how it sucks. 

So for me, I got my own moderating influences in pure rationality that stop me from going down the ML path and drinking their kool aid. I cant say the same of all leftists. I do think the threat of illiberal leftism is a long term threat to be kept an eye on. BUT....let's face it. Centrist libs are just moderate right wingers. So I guess we can create a new scale here. From left to right.

1) Marxist-Leninists- Left wing crazies

2) "Democratic socialists"- Moderate left wingers, still support the abolition of capitalism, but seem to have learned from some of the mistakes of the #1 guys

3) Secular humanists- Relatively even handed, criticize both christian capitalism and marxism-leninism, end up with reason driven progressivism

4) Moderate liberals- Half secular humanists, and half christian capitalist, end up being the moderate wing of capitalism

5) Conservative christians/capitalists- The real die hard ideological believers in capitalism, tend to support the belief system without limits, ignoring the flaws and downsides

Like that's basically how I'd frame it. 1 and 5 are the extreme versions of ideologies. 2 and 4 are moderate wings that tend to temper their respective ideologies with some level of rationality. And 3s are just the purely rational people who arguably end up supporting some form of interventionist capitalism. You can even say "humanist capitalism" or "human centered capialism", but I'd also say a form of social democracy works here too. 

And in America, the debate is between the 4s and 5s. The "left" is basically 3s, 2s, and occasionally 1s. And given the state of DSA, I think the overall direction of that faction is 2.5, with some being socialists, others being social democrats, but generally agreeing on short term priorities. 

And yeah, being a 3 is frustrating these days, its like you dont fit in anywhere. The 4s and 2s are both obnoxious, not even getting into the 1s and 5s and their weird ideological purism. But yeah. That's how I see it.