Discussing the wedgewood polls debacle

 So....Wedgewood polls, a small and upcoming polling organization that was relatively new to the block, ended up being exposed as a fraud by fiftyplusone. Wedgewood released their own statement claiming that they were doing a social experiment to see how easy it would be to fake polls and still be taken seriously, but regardless, the cat is out of the bag now.

Some might wonder how this has and will impact my own election forecast. The answer is: not a lot. I get my data from realclearpolling.com for the most part, and they tend to be one of the most cautious aggregators, often excluding newer and less reliable pollsters almost to a fault. If anything, RCP sometimes comes off as TOO cautious, being slow to report on trends that others are picking up on, like tossup nebraska and kansas. There is a reason I've been occasionally using 270towin and new york times as backup aggregators at times. Now, when I use THOSE guys, yeah, they tended to include wedgewood polls in their averages. Of course, my reliance on them is short lived because once RCP starts reporting their numbers, I'll swap to them since I quite frankly trust them more. I've been using RCP since 2008 and while never dead on, no one is. Polling has error, as you guys know, and there's bound to be some randomness leading to error in even the best, most sound predictions. However, RCP tends to keep things pretty grounded and tends to perform reasonably well. Using them, I only tend to get 1-2 races wrong per election cycle, and often they're no less reliable than anyone else. They haven't had a MASSIVE mess up since 2000, where they infamously predicted Bush would get like 375 electoral votes, although to be fair, Gore DID overperform, leading to that election cycle being A LOT closer than it was expected to be. 

With all of that said, their impact on my own analysis was minimal. I already take data from my secondary aggregators less seriously BECAUSE I don't trust weird new pollsters with no record like wedgewood very well. Some people are pissed off about this development, like Mallory McMorrow who claimed Wedgewood's negative polls helped kill her campaign. I'm not 100% sure of that, as that data was replicated in other polls. If anything, my own take, having seen others post wedgewood's numbers in a variety of races, is that they seem to do a lot of herding to stay under the radar. Most of their results are noncontroversial. They just kinda straddle the averages. I can get why some would suspect they had a darker purpose, like to manipulate elections or betting markets (did I mention I think online betting markets should be banned?), but yeah. Mostly they just seemed to toe the line of what everyone else was saying at the time. 

Anyway, I just wanted to post this in part for transparency's sake, since my election predictions do rely on the aggregates that others put together, and in part because, well, it's kind of a big controversy. However, I dont want people to get the wrong idea and act like ALL polls are fake because these polls were take. Wedgewood was some low grade pollster that more serious aggregators never took seriously. Also, polls are mostly accurate for what they are, if you understand what they're actually measuring and what their limitations are. There's a reason I convert averages to probabilities. I assume a 4 point margin of error and I let statistics do the talking from there. I'd say my model holds up reasonably well, assuming the data fed into it isn't total garbage, and since I rely most on RCP, it mostly isn't. And if there are limitations, I normally discuss them in my models and explain why such data should be taken with a grain of salt. 

Once again, if you can't support progressive democrats this election cycle, gtfo of the democratic party

 So, James Carville came out of his complete and utter irrelevance in 2026 to say that he would rather see the republicans win the mid terms because if democrats win due to progressives, they'll be "held hostage to the DSA". 

I really dont know why people care what this guy thinks so much. yes yes yes, he was a hot shot in 1992. And in 1992, I was like 4. I didnt have opinions on politics. All I remember first hand from the 1992 cycle is vague memories of Bill Clinton playing the saxophone and my parents spending hours in line trying to vote and me wanting to go home. And at this point, I'm more or less middle aged. So this guy is as has been as has been can get. No one should care what this guy has to say. It's the equivalent of caring about what strom thurmond thought in 1992. Like, okay dude, you hate the modern democrats, we get it, go join the other party or something. You're not "it" any more. 

But I do wanna talk about this a bit more deeply. Because...I'm not gonna lie, I HATE the hypocrisy. After years of "vote blue no matter who", these guys are showing their true colors. They held the democratic party hostage on US. They told us we HAD to be moderate and if we werent we'd lose elections. They told us that if we didn't support the democrats it was the equivalent of directly supporting trump. And now when these guys gotta vote for DSA candidates, they're literally saying they'd rather trump win. Again, if that's how you feel, get out. The future is now, old man. You're not with it any more. Go wear a MAGA hat and cheer for trump already. I'm sick of this crap.

I NEVER EVER wanna hear about voting blue no matter who if these guys can't vote for democrats this time ever again. Trump is a literal fascist, he's as dangerous as it gets, and yet, the same guys who has been screaming hes a fascist since 2015 are suddenly like "I'm with the fascist." THEN GO AWAY. You're making your bed, go sleep in it. It's our party now. The sooner you guys give up the reins of power, the better, because then we can get some actual change in this country. 

Btw, I wanna point out, I can't stand these guys for the same reason they cant stand me. There IS a huge ideological difference between the centrist "new democrats" and the modern left. And I dont fully align with either faction on everything, but I am a bit closer to the left.  At least they want change, you know? And after telling us our differences dont matter, when they gotta vote for lefties, suddenly they go full rightoid. Cool. You're showing your true colors then. Then get out and don't come back. Do us all a favor. 

Really, I'm sick of playing nice with these people. If you can't support the modern democrats in 2026, then go away. You won't be missed. If anything, in some instances, your exit might be a blessing to us. Because it's one less out of touch guy stuck in 1992 that we gotta deal with.

Explaining the origin of Nvidia's GPU naming scheme

 So....RTX 5050, 5060, 5070, 5080, 5090. How did we get this naming scheme? Even more do, why dont they use terms like 5040, 5030, 5020, 5010, etc. I'll explain all of this since the history is kinda interesting. 

Going back to the GTX 200 series

The origins of the modern naming scheme go back to the GTX 200 series from 2008-2009. And it even goes back further as I'll express with their even older schemes, but I do wanna discuss this. 

So...yeah, Nvidia used to have like 9 or so product tiers. These ranged from being really cheap crap, to really high end. 

At the bottom end was the GT 210. And if you've ever heard of this, it probably comes off as infamous as being one of the biggest POSes to ever grace gaming. It was infamous for not being able to run much of anything, and being virtually useless today. No one wants this thing. It was awful. 

The GT 220 and GT 240 werent much better. Both were budget cards that were dated. They typically were sub $100, although I think by the time you got up to the GT 240, you got something okay that could come close to the venerated but aging 8800 GT/9800 GT. Not bad for sub $100, but by the time we got to this point, this was becoming budget performance because of how fast the industry moved and how much performance uplift Nvidia could get out of it.

The GTS 250 was the official midrange card. It matched the previous flagship, the 9800 GTX+, and it was available for around $150. It wasn't bad. Once again, aging, kinda budget, but decent. The real mid range price/performance king was the GTX 260, the lowest end of the more higher end gaming cards. Originally it as released for an eyewatering $400 or something, but eventually dropped to around $250, which was pretty reasonable. Again, they had to compete with AMD at the time, and it was on par with AMD's HD 4850 at the time, which was their third highest end card (because even then AMD was always second rate, but hey, their aggressive pricing offered good market corrections at times). 

The GTX 270 was a bit more power for a bit more money, with the GTX 280/285 being the highest end cards at the time. And then the 295 was a dual 280/285 model for the spare no expense RTX 5090 type crowd. The series was initially overpriced, but again, AMD forced a market correction and it set the modern standard, virtually every series after followed this general format.

We had cards like the GT 420 and 440 which were crap, GTS 450 was okay, being close to a 260, the GTX 460 was on par with the previous 280, and had to compete directly with my HD 5850 at the time. The 470 and 480 were more premium cards, premium being around $350 and $500 respectively. And things kept continuing.

Eventually, Nvidia stopped producing the 10-40 cards. They simply werent big sellers. people wanted these cards for gaming performance, and the sub 50 cards ended up being borderline ewaste. And again, back then, even the 50 series was cheap, generally going for around $150ish or so, with the 60 series being $200-250ish, the 70 series being $350-400ish, etc. This is why we never had many sub 50 cards starting with like the 900 series on. No one wanted anything below the 50 cards because the 50 cards were the bare minimum that could actually game decently. 

The before times

Even before the 2 digit cards, the last time we had 4 digit cards, nvidia followed a similar scheme. You'd have high end cards be 8 or 9 models. We had stuff like the 6800 GT, the 7950 GT, the 8800 GT and GTX, the 9800 GT and GTX. These were all typically expensive, although the 8800 GT and 9800 GT became quite affordable models that were close to "60" cards in pricing, while getting like 80% of the performance of the much more expensive GTX cards. 

You'd have more midrange cards like the 9600 GT, 8600 GT, 7600 GT, and 6600 GT. They didnt use the 7 cards a lot for some reason, skipping straight to 6, but these models were often much cheaper than the 6, but also a lot weaker. Typically around half strength or so, although the 8600 GT seemed exceptionally weak given what a jump the 8800 GT was (it was closer to 1/3 performance), and the 9600 GT on the other hand was about 75% of the 9800 GT despite costing a lot less. And pricing varied. Historically it was closer to $200ish, so more like your typical "60" card even then (so basically the same general naming scheme). Although at one point the 8800 GT and 9800 GT dropped down pretty cheap due to competition from AMD and then dropping their 200 series, which again, had previous flagship performance at 40-50 card tier performance.

Speaking of 50 series, yeah, we had 5 series cards too. The 9500 GT was like a budget card, similar to the 8600 GT, but around $100ish mostly. Again, crap used to be CHEAP. You'd get acceptable, but kinda bare minimum performance out of them. Previously you had the 8500 GT which was kinda crap, but I guess it was similar to a 6600 GT.

Once again by the time you got to the 400 cards you were getting crap. The 8400 GS goes down as one of the worst cards ever made, similar to like a GT 210. It was only good as display adapter and that was it. But it was like $60. So we're talking REAL cheap. Better than integrated I guess, but kinda like buying a GT 1030 today. THe 9400 GT was better, similar to the 8500 GT. Some people I knew used that one, and their gaming abilities with it actually surprised me. They seemed to be able to run stuff I never thought they'd be able to run on it. So I guess it wasnt THAT bad, but yeah, again, super cheap budget card, not really made for gaming. Eventually they stopped making these mostly. 

There were also weird budget cards like the 6200, the 7300 GT, that were also display adapter tier, but I considered them when I was shopping for my first card. I went AMD for the HD 3650 for obvious reasons (8600/9500 GT performance for less than $100 and compatible with my old AGP system). 

And yeah, again, similar scheme. 

Going back to the modern day

 Yeah, after a while anything below the middle of the road "5" series stopped being produced due to lack of demand. They were just display adapters with weak gaming abilities. A 40 series card like a 9400 GT, 240, 440, they weren't BAD BAD, but it was like...for a little more money you could get a 50. For a little more than that, yuo can get the 60. So eventually the sub $100 market just collapsed and became a sea of ewaste, in retrospect it always was basically. It was boots theory of economics all the way down where you'd get diminishing value from cost savings as youd lose more performance than you'd save money. Didnt stop them from occasionally releasing stuff like the infamous GT 1030, or the short lived 1630 which was ridiculously overpriced for what it was (a GT 1050 for like $130 when you could get 970/1060 performance from a 1650 for like $30 more), but yeah, again, you can see why the value just wasnt there. So I dont feel bad for the loss of the lowest end cards. Outside of maybe having a 30-40 tier display adapter model they were rarely worth buying. 

The real problem comes from the inflation of the rest of the stack. Due to the problems with the RTX 2000 series and onward, 60 tier cards are 70 tier pricing a lot of the time, and that's relatively luxury relatively speaking. We're talking like, $300-500, which used to be the high end. For the lowest tier, or second to lowest tier card. The 3050 and 5050 both had MSRPs of $250, historically 60 tier territory. And those would be the new low end. They wouldnt even bother below that. AMD DID try with the 6400 and 6500 XT, but those were anemic and again, boots theory of economics at work. And nvidia just straight up abandoned the REAL 50 tier with the 1650/1650 super being the last card they ever produced for it. And that's what I see as the real problem here. Once again, RTX killed gaming. It killed the affordable entry level $150 gaming card. Because there's no way for them to make an affordable RTX card with all the new bells and whistles at that price level I guess. it wouldnt be worth it, and if you tried, well....do I gotta show you the 6400 and 6500 XT again on the AMD side? 

And that's the problem too. It's a similar problem of what happened with the 40 card before it. You'd go from 9800 GT, a relatively high end card, to the GT 240 and get similar performance. And here, it seems like the market was perpetually stuck at offering RX 580/GTX 1060 performance at that tier forever. So they just sold the old cards which couldnt do it any more despite being quite venerated for their time, and they never released new ones. 

Now the baseline for gaming is around 1.5x that performance with the 3050, with the real baseline being closer to 2x with the 3060/4060/5050/6600/7600 tier cards. And i gotta wonder if, in the long term, they abandon us too and just start their product stacks at like $400 and if you dont like it, tough. Again, do i gotta keep belaboring the point? The market is screwed up. 

Again, it's fine to kill the sub $100 market, it seems like you couldnt make a good GPU at that price no matter what you did. People wanna game on cards, the minimum viable card was like, the GTS 250/450/1050 ti/1650, etc. Anything below that is crap. So they stopped producing it. Fair. Next. 

But now we're talking like sub $300 being on the chopping block. it's getting ridiculous. Not all of us can just pay more and adapt to higher prices, a lot of us will just drop out, stick to older hardware, and play lower end games. heck, it's already happening. This is how you get a situation where your average gamer buys 1 game a year and most money is made from a handful of whales. Now the only gamers that matter were the ones bringing their "80" money to the table and everyone else can either adapt or do without. it's getting ridiculous.

Anyway, I know I'm ranting a lot but I wanted to give further thoughts on this so people understand what exactly we've lost over time and just how good and affordable and accessible PC gaming used to be.  

Jayztwocents is not only right, but I'll go further: RTX killed affordable gaming

 Jayztwocents had a short recently where he talked about the RTX 2080 ti being one of the worst GPUs of all time. His argument was simple. Basically, it normalized 4 figure GPU prices, despite it not being that good. 

I agree wholeheartedly, but I'll go further, the RTX 2000 series was bad IN GENERAL for these reasons. 

Seriously, with Pascal, we had a really reasonable GPU stack. $110 for a 1050, $140 for a 1050 ti, $200-250 for a 1060 depending on model, $380 for 1070, $600 for 1080, $700 for 1080 ti. Remember when the top end card was $700? Pepperidge farms remembers. Even worse, remember when $700 GPUs were only for the people who were rich and would throw insane money at GPUs? Seriously, there's a reason the real star of the series was the GTX 1060 6 GB, it was the best price/performance, and it was reasonable. You got tons of value for $250. It was half as good as the $700 card. It was the best price/performance just about for the whole series, and while 1050 ti and 1070 were solid options too, with more budget oriented consumers getting the 1050 ti which had similar longevity, and more allfluent but still midrange buyers going for the 1070, there was something that pleased everyone. 

With the 2000 series, this is what happened to the product stack:

RTX 2060- $350

RTX 2070- $500

RTX 2080- $700

RTX 2080 ti- $1000

And I'm gonna be honest, I thought $350 for a 2060 was highway robbery at the time. That was almost as much as the 1070. And it only performed like a 1080. So really, the boost we got from Turing wasn't that good, although jayz mentioned that. Everything was RTX gud, and for most gamers it wasnt even worth it. The tech was very immature, hell, it still is almost a decade later. And you might be wondering, wait, what about the sub $300 market? EXACTLY. Well, to be fair, we got cards, we got the 1650 and 1660/1660 ti at the old prices, but yeah. Those cards were so weak they couldnt even support RT. And then RT and all that AI crap required specialized hardware on the card where it wasnt worth putting it on lower end models than the 2060. So anything below that just...wouldnt support anything that would eventually require RTX. They didnt even have enough VRAM since nvidia strangely regressed to some degree with turing with the 2060 only getting 6 GB, and the 50 cards being stuck at 4, and yeah. So they died off. Never mind the 470 had 8 GB for $200 back in 2016. Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. 

And yeah. Look at the market since. The 3000 series and 6000 series sucked because neither catered to the sub $300 market AT ALL. The 3060 and 6600 were both $330 with their bigger brothers (3060 ti/6600 XT) being $380-400. COVID basically jacked things up like is happening now where you were paying $400 for a 1050 ti at one point (another reason I say dont buy now if you dont have to). The 3050 and 6500 XT at $200-250 were a joke. And I swear, the only reason the RX 6000 series became as "legendary as I glaze it as now is because they couldnt sell cards when the bubble popped and suddenly they had to sell 6600s for like $200 and 6650 XTs for $250 just to move them. So eventually the market corrected itself, but it took a bubble painfully popping to do it (again, a huge reason you shouldnt buy now). 

And yeah, that's the best the market ever got. In 2023, we got the 7600 for $250 and the 4060 for $300 and that's the lowest end either company supported. At least they reached the old 1060/580 style pricing, but now at the lowest end, with that budget market basically being ewaste. It became uneconomical to make lower end cards than that in part because all this new tech everyone was chasing required specialized hardware, which drove up costs of the whole thing. 

And the 5000/9000 series initially followed similar pricing. The 5050 was $250, same as the 3050, it was a joke. The 5060 was $300 but then the ti models were around $400. The 9060 XT was $300 with the 16 GB one for $350, and then RAMpocalypse happened where now you're spending $330-400 for a fricking low end card again, this time like a 5050 or 7600, with the 5060 being like $450 and the 9060 XT reaching over $500 for the 16 GB model. It's a joke. It really is a joke.

A lot of people will say "oh it's inflation." This crap started in 2018, and most price increases since then are because the industry has suffered several severe demand induced crises from COVID and crypto, and then AI, and yeah. Us gamers have been getting screwed. 

Anyway, I just wanted to agree with jayz on this one. the RTX 2000 series IS one of the most infamous GPU series of all times for me BECAUSE it normalized this crap. Worst part is, this isn't the first time nvidia pulled this crap. Back when I got into gaming Nvidia was similarly expensive but at least AMD/ATI was cheap. And when Nvidia tried this kinda pricing scheme with the 200 series back in like 2009, AMD hard countered them on pricing, forcing them to bring it down out of the stratosphere. That aint happening these days, at least not as much. AMD seems more interested in competing with the high end now, while only competing down to that $200-300 price range when the market is bad for them and they can't move units, and taking advantage of the same crises to push expensive cards. Still better than nvidia, but make no mistake, AMD isnt our friend here. 

Honestly, if I didnt have so much reluctance to embrace intel due to their quirkiness, I'd be glazing them so hard now. Although even they're getting more expensive too, slowly but surely. It sucks. This whole market sucks. But yeah, I do blame Nvidia's greed first and foremost. And now, it's not just "inflation" that did this, it was Nvidia explicitly taking advantage of market conditions (and in some cases engineering them) to maximize profits, even if it makes gaming more unaffordable for people.

I miss 2016 and before when $500-700 GPUs were for rich people, most people bought $200 GPUs, and even $100 GPUs were viable for budget buyers. I miss when I bought the HD 5850 for like $260 only to get the 4th strongest single GPU in the world at the time (seriously, only the 5870, 470, and 480 were better, and yes, the 295 and 5970 existed but those were DUAL GPUs, SLI/crossfire driven monstrosities with absurd price tags and almost no one actually bought them but the hardcore enthusiast crowd). Seriously, why are we suddenly okay with $300 GPUs being the bare minimum to run games? Jesus Christ this market is broken. And the idiots on forums who defend this are just as ridiculous as the whole situation is. This is why I always say, no, the problem isnt just the top 1% or 0.1%, it's the top 20% in general. Their insane purchasing power is driving up costs for everyone else, and we need to tax the #### out of them to bring prices down for everyone else. 

But yeah, I digress I guess.  

Screw bipartisanship

 So I listened to James Talarico's CNN/Jubilee town hall tonight, and while I won't go over it since I dont have the patience to do those any more I wanna discuss the first question. Talarico was asked if he was gonna be bipartisan and blah blah blah, and UGH...I'm SOOOO TIRED OF THIS QUESTION in every debate. Heck, this is basically the tone for the whole townhall, but I'm tired of compromising with republicans. And I dont mean, it's the 11th hour, we need a bill passed now and we're 1 vote short and we need to compromise to get someone on board. I might not always like doing that, and tend to resent the standout member for making it so hard, but if we HAVE to we HAVE to. i'm talking compromise for its own sake and being bipartisan for its own sake. 

I HATE THIS. Bipartisanship is dead, it died in 2010 with the tea party. not that the pre 2010 ideological consensus was even a good thing anyway. If anything my own politics are literally designed as an antidote for that. I'm part of that partisan vanguard from the 2010s who was like WE NEED CHANGE, SCREW THIS OLD WAY OF DOING POLITICS, AND NO, WE GOTTA FIGHT THE GOP, NOT COMPROMISE WITH THEM! I believe Ronald Reagan is responsible for everything wrong with the country today, and a lot of Trumpism's roots evolved from his movement, and even Nixon's before him (southern strategy, anyone?). I think that the modern democratic party should viciously oppose this movement. I think we should call out the wealthy as responsible for all of our problems, because they are. Call out trickle down and this obsession with job creators and trying to appease them as the source of all problems. Because they are. And I think that we need to be like FDR where we stand against the elites (at least performatively, FDR never REALLY challenged his power in a way that REALLY hurt them as we know), and welcome their hatred. Except i wanna do it for real. I wanna draw lines in the sand where I say "this is what I'm for, and if you disagree, vote for the other guy if you like him better." And you know what? Unlike talarico who basically just did all of this attempt to appease moderate and conservative audiences with his "reach across the aisle" BS, I'd be like "no, I don't see a problem with abortion, I don't care if you do, if you dont like it, vote for the other candidate." No, I dont care about NATURAL FRICKING LAW in catholicism, I'm a secular humanist. Religion is a personal matter, politics is a public matter, and if you want to inject your religion into politics, vote for the other candidate. No, I dont support voter ID and the save act, it's just a stealth way to do voter suppression, even if it sounds reasonable on paper, vote for the other candidate if you disagree. Ya know? I want a democrat with BALLS. That's actually why in the primary I liked Jasmine Crockett better. She had balls. She was willing to take the fight to the republicans. And while I dont like the direction she's taken since she lost where she's being a petty sore loser about it and doing all this toxic idpol, at the time, this more confrontational style is why I liked her. I dont WANT bipartisanship. I don't WANT compromise and precompromise. I dont WANT religion in politics. I hate the conservative ideological hegemony that exists in this country, and I want to overturn it in favor of a second new deal era. And you know what? I want candidates that will fight for that vision. The republicans treat us like enemies, act like we're literally satan, and we're just there trying to meet them half way and being too timid on everything to stand up to them. Im sick of it.  

Now, to be fair, i get it, it's Texas, it's a red state, and maybe Talarico's exact blend of politics is necessary to win elections in a fundamentally red state. But this is why, to rehash the ideological battles of 2016, I never wanted to appeal to the south and the sun belt anyway. I'm rust belt through and through. Our economies suck, our lives aren't getting better, I know why, I wanna fix it, and if you disagree with my solutions (outside of some reasonable agreements in the exact policies we should implement, i'm willing to extend some courtesy to the sanders types who are skeptical of UBI and want a more conventional new deal vision), then you're part of the problem. Period. End of story. F compromise. The right doesnt compromise with us. We shouldnt compromise with them. And I'm tired of all the democratic virtue signalling about how great bipartisanship is. F bipartisanship. I want you to FIGHT for your solutions. Caving to the republicans means becoming part of the problem in this case. Period. 

Discussing polling error and all of the ways the senate elections can go

 So....as we know, the democrats have an advantage in the senate, but it's not guaranteed. The election can go any which way that the polling error (and polling itself in the next 2 weeks) takes it. We might win, we might lose, we will probably win, but we don't really know. As such, I'm going to show all of the scenarios that my model more or less can fall within, some of them being more outlandish than others, but all being at least POSSIBLE. 

The model as is (50th percentile outcome, R/D+0)

 

So this is a little different than the model I posted on Friday, but mostly because RCP changed their averages by presumably dropping older polls, not so much because we got new ones. This is the median prediction. The one my model actually predicts. In it, the democrats win 53-46, with Nebraska being too close to call. It's a very good night for democrats, and would be a decisive win that sends a strong message of disapproval of the current administration to Washington. If you asked me if such a map was possible 1.5-2 years ago, I'd say such a scenario was extreme and outlandish, but here we are...

Slight Democratic overperformance (60th percentile, D+1)

 

In this scenario, all tossups go to the democrats, which means they win Nebraska (well, Osborn does, but it's expected he would caucus with the dems similar to Bernie Sanders and Angus King). Kansas also flips. The senate goes 55-45. This is basically a nightmare scenario for republicans, but we're not even close to seeing how nuts it can get for them. It's also not outlandish. It's just....democrats slightly overperform.

Moderate democratic overperformance (73rd percentile, D+2.5)

In this scenario, Annie Andrews wins South Carolina. The senate is 56-44. And...it can happen. This would be a very good night for democrats, and equivalent to a moderate systemic overperformance. This is basically "sweeping the board". The next one isn't any better than this, just the same thing but with higher margins.

Large democratic overperformance (84th percentile, D+4)

 

Here, we don't really see any chances from D+2.5. We're still talking 56-44, but South Carolina is more decisive, and margins start tightening in Florida and Arkansas. Also, at this stage, we shouldnt rule out Montana either. yes, it's R+14, but it's a 3 way race and it can be volatile. There's talk online about what if the Bankhead vote dumps her last minute and they all line up behind Bodnar. Well, I think WINNING Montana is iffy either way for the left in a 3 way race, I mean, even an Alme vs Bodnar 2 way match up was a tossup, but at D+4, we can start clearing that kind of hurdle more that a relatively insignificant Bankhead vote might pose. Of course, this is purely speculative. As things stand it IS R+14 there BECAUSE it's a three way race, and this implies some voter organization or collective rationality from them that I don't expect them to possess. Still, think Wisconsin in the primaries with the base rallying behind Crowley unexpectedly. It can happen. But yeah, I'd say this is largely similar to the previous scenario.

Extreme democratic overperformance (98th percentile, D+8)

This is the most extreme "everything favors democrats" scenarios. Polls are massively off, democrats overperform on an extreme level. We've seen individual races do this in the past, like the rust belt in 2016 and 2020 kinda did stuff like this, but the whole country? At this point, it's 58-42, with us getting Blorida and Blarkansas. We might even get Blontana for the reasons mentioned above at this point, given the aforementioned volatility 3 way races can have. I wouldnt bet on this happening. If anything, this is just a pipedream, but it is still statistically possible. 

Now...the republican favored scenarios...

Mild republican overperformance (60th percentile, R+1)

Here, the republicans keep Kansas and Nebraska, and also rebuff democratic efforts to flip Iowa. Still, it's a good night for democrats and a bad night for republicans. 6 races are in the "lean democratic" range, with them controlling the seats in 4 of them. This means they still flip North Carolina (which is safe Dem), Ohio, Texas, Alaska, and Maine, while keeping all existing seats. The senate would only be 52-48 in this scenario for them, but that's STILL a comfortable win for democrats and a loss for republicans. Let me put it this way, if we still walk away with this map on election day, I'll still be happy. 

Moderate republican overperformance (73rd percentile, R+2.5)

 

This is a bit of a nightmare scenario, similar to most election nights with Trump on the ballot. We go into the election overconfident and like the numbers are on our side and BOOM, they're off. Republicans overperform, democratic support is overestimated, and republican support is underestimated. In this scenario, we don't have a clear idea who won on election night. The way the scenario goes to the letter, Maine goes to collins, Texas goes to Paxton, Alaska is too close to call with us not really knowing who wins for days or weeks to come. Michigan is a nail biter all night but is eventually called for El Sayed. Minnesota, same thing but Flanagan pulls it off. Ohio flips and Brown wins a seat back. All in all, the Senate ends up going 50-50 or 49-51 depending on Alaska. And keep in mind, because this is just an approximation, any deviation from this can go in republican or democratic favor. If it's R+2.8, we lose Alaska and Michigan and Minnesota is even closer. That's 48-52 republicans with us only walking away with that safe North Carolina flip and Ohio. On the other hand, R+2.2 gives us Texas as a tossup, possibly going to the republicans, but us saving Alaska. R+2 can give us Texas, but we still lose Maine. R+3 loses us Minnesota. I could make like tons of different maps showing various scenarios of how THIS might go. 

Since this is the kind of scenario where true randomness might decide the election, I whipped out the scenario and ran 100 simulations with this map. It gave me 30 democratic wins, 52 republican wins, and 18 ties. So this is a republican control favored scenarios, but even if we get something that looks like this on election night, don't give up all hope, there is a roughly 1 in 3 chance that democrats still walk away with it if it looks like it's going this way. Sure, it'll be a very stressful nailbiter and much like 2000 or 2020, we might not truly know the outcome of the night for days, if not weeks, and this will enable Trump to push his big lie crap and claim it's rigged, but assuming the process is allowed to play out, the results are the results. I fear Trump using this kind of night as a pretext to just try to do something crazy like seize the ballots though. So this is a scary scenario, and also a very possible one.

Large republican overperformance (84th percentile, R+4)

This is more of a republican blowout performance. They win all the lean D seats comfortably, causing us to flip North Carolina, but lose Michigan. This is the kind of scenario I expected going into this election cycle. And it can still happen. It's not out of the realm of possibility. This is the scenario where we walk away defeated and wondering what else we expected, because of course the current map was too good to be true. We might also wonder wtf is wrong with this country where so many people are okay with Trumpism despite how horrible it is. I don't see this as the most likely outcome, but it's within the realm of possibility. This is a decisive republican win. 46-54,with us trading Michigan and Minnesota for North Carolina. And ugh, don't remind me, but centrists will use this opportunity to claim that if Haley Stevens were the nominee this scenario wouldn't have happened, despite it very obviously being a wave scenario for republicans in general. 

So yeah, bad night for us.

Extreme republican overperformance (98th percentile, R+8)

While it can theoretically happen (2% chance), at this point my BS meter goes off, and I kinda gotta wonder in this scenario if Trump or Musk did something to unduly influence things. Really, I can't imagine this one happening. But statistically, it technically can. In this scenario, democrats actually LOSE ground, Georgia and North Carolina still stay democratic here, but we lose New Hampshire and lose by very decisive margins everywhere else. This is basically a red wave scenario and the best possible outcome for republicans to have here. Democrats walk away from this completely demoralized and wondering wtf is wrong with our country. 

Many outcomes, many futures

All of these scenarios are models of what could be, if different things happen. As we can tell with R+2.5, the scenario itself isn't even decisive. You can see tons of mini scenarios within the scenario. R+2.5 is an approximation, and R+2 to R+3 could have like 5 different scenarios between them given how tightly packed a lot of states are. Of course, that's where the tipping point for the whole senate is, hence where the most minor deviations have the most extreme outcomes. The rest of the spectrum is relatively tame. You might get some flips here and there, but yeah, the real action happens around that R+2.5 scenario.

The most likely outcome (in my opinion)

 I'm actually going to create YET ANOTHER scenario for this one, between R+1 and R+2.5. 

 

I think democrats win the senate, but it's a much narrower map than expected. I think that we flip Ohio, Texas, and Alaska, but we lose Maine and Iowa, not to mention anything redder than those two. That's the closest outcome to what I think we'll end up with. I think the current map is too D optimistic, and we're setting ourselves up for a rough night if republicans overperform again. Still, I do think the democrats will win. I'd expect it to play out like 2024. Where democrats systemically underperform, it's a rough night, we end up with something like that R+2.5 scenario, but when all votes are counted, it's closer to R+1.7-1.8. Heck, that's what happened in 2024. It looked like R+2.5 or R+4 at the time, but after all the mail ins were counted we ended up with R+1.7. So yeah. That's my guess for how election night will go. And yeah, currently, such a margin also gets the exact outcome that I expect to happen.

I do think that Iowa is more of a long shot than polling suggests. i think that Maine is too. I think Susan Collins is a systematic overperformer, that voters are primarily voting democrat to punish Trump, and Collins is able to distance herself from Trump and have a moderate appeal virtually no other republican in the country currently has. I think that Troy Jackson has the charisma of a wet blanket, and won't be able to seal the deal. 

Still, I do think that Paxton is a horrible candidate in Texas and Talarico will edge it out. I think that Peltola can win in Alaska, she's done so in house races before which are statewide. I think Brown can pull off Ohio. He's done it before. El Sayed can win in Michigan. I think he's got that Obama type appeal while Mike Rogers has nothing but unhinged Islamophobia. I think Minnesota will actually be WAY more D leaning than 2.9 points. I mean, Im basically spoiling my personal prediction for 2026 (you know, the one where I take my model and then guess where the polling error will go and where on the spectrum we'll end up), but this is basically where I'm thinking right now. I think we'll still pull off a 51-49 win, but yeah. I think the current map and polling is too good to be true where it raises eyebrows for me like "is this for real?" I hope to be pleasantly surprised, but I'm going to go the other way, if only to manage expectations.I expect this to be a much rougher battle than it looks for us and we shouldnt be overconfident. We should treat this race like it's R+2.5 and VOTE LIKE EVERY VOTE MATTERS. Seriously, if youre not registered, do it ASAP, the deadline I think is like tomorrow here in PA at least. Make a plan. 

And yeah. That's a much more in depth senate forecast, but I wanted to do it. 

And since we're here, let me do the house too. I won't do a map, but I'll post the totals for the same overall margins according to my current model.

The House

No error (current forecast): 234-201D

D optimistic scenarios 

D+1: 235-200D

D+2.5: 240-195D

D+4: 242-193D

D+8: 253-180D (2 races too close to call)

R optimistic scenarios 

R+1: 233-202D

R+2.5: 230-205D

R+4: 229-206D

R+8: 220-215D

As you can tell, for me, it's not a matter of whether the democrats WIN the senate, it's by how much. A R+8 scenario (98th percentile for republicans) nets us a 220-215 house, a narrow win similar to what republicans got in 2024 when they won. On the flip side, we could see as high as 255-180D if democrats overperform by 8. All in all, I'd expect the race to settle around 230-235 Dem seats though. Keep in mind, I do think a slight republican overperformance is possible, so I expect it to stay in that range. 

Of course, this is the model where I take 2024 polling data and shift things uniformly. This model may or may not pan out in practice. Keep in mind all house models Im messing with this cycle are highly experimental and are intended to compensate for a lack of polling data. my math and assumptions could flat out be wrong. A more cook PVI based model could have far more extreme fluctuations. Keep in mind while that model gives me 234-201D too, it has A LOT more deviation, with a D+8 scenario netting us 289-146D, while a R+8 one nets us 210-225R. The flipping point is around R+4, which would get us 217-218R, although this model lacks granularity, meaning there could be a lot of deviation from these estimates. I dont really trust this model as much, but it offers another possibility.

Either way, I'm fine with being a bit more conservative than my model and estimating 230-205D for democrats. That seems to be where most other forecasts fall too.  

Conclusion

So yeah. Once again, no matter how good the numbers look, keep in mind, they could be off, and we shouldnt be surprised if things are more narrow than expected. if anything, I personally EXPECT things to be a bit more narrow than expected. I still think democrats will have a good night, but I do think that current polling and outcomes are a bit TOO optimistic. Either way, these are all the possibilities. Democrats could crush by margins that seem ridiculous. Republicans might be able to rebuff all of our efforts and hold onto almost everything. The results will likely be somewhere between those two extremes. Again, I'm guessing somewhere in the ballpark of a R+1.75 scenario between the R+1 and R+2.5 ones. And yeah. These 9 or 10 or so scenarios are basically the range of possible outcomes my model can predict. On the one hand, democrats sweep, on the other, republicans sweep, and in reality, I expect a messy fight somewhere in the middle where democrats are still victorious but we dont do as good as the median prediction suggests. Anything can happen. Just giving you guys the idea of the possible range of outcomes. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Election Update 10/16/26

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

Senate

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

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

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

House

 

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

Governors

 

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

1) 8 GB VRAM

2) Support for ray tracing and modern APIs

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

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

RTX 2060 12 GB 

RTX 2060 super

RTX 3050 8 GB

RX 6600 

Arc A750

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

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

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

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

RTX 2060 6 GB- Has only 6 GB VRAM

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

RX 6500 XT- Lacks VRAM and power 

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

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

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

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

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

Discussing Kyle Kulinski's views on roller coasters

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clarifying/reiterating my position on "skill games"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So let's discuss what's happening with gaming

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PA "skill games" are basically just slot machines

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

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

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

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

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

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

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