site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   2947 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 22, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Gaming subthread.

I have so much free time (and OOMs more money) and I barely play any video games. 15 year old me would cry. At one point, I would have chalked that down to depression and anhedonia, but that's way better now.

I find myself bouncing off 90% of the ones I do try.

  • Didn't finish BG3, though I think I made it halfway.
  • Played like 2 hours of Clair Obscure before getting distracted
  • Reinstalled Teardown, didn't play it
  • Rimworld, an all-time favorite: I refuse to play Vanilla, no insult to Zorba, but it's such a painful experience. I also have an addiction to installing 17 gb of mods for a 500mb game, which is great fun till it all breaks and I have to debug it. Happened again a few months back, after I had already spent 3 hours fixing my modlist, and now a DLC came out and I have to wait for everything to finish updating.
  • Total War Warhammer 3: Another favorite, same issue as Rimworld, down to updates breaking mods, or just mods breaking mods.
  • Arma Reforger: I play it semi-regularly, but it's by far best enjoyed with friends. I was a senior NCO (don't laugh) in an American clan, but then it imploded because of internal drama and burnout. I hop on modded pub matches for a few hours, but it's just not the same.
  • Escape From Tarkov: A good (but uncompromising) game ruined by bad development decisions. I no-lifed it for a while, but just couldn't bother to repeat that process. I had a lot of good buddies in Singapore and Malaysia I met playing on those servers, but the latency doesn't allow for that anymore. Great guys, I personally raised half a dozen Timmies who would shit themselves if they heard a bush rustle into cracked PvPers who are far better than I ever was.
  • There are so many goddamned games collecting bit rot in my SSD. The only saving grace is that I pirated most of them, so at least I'm not losing money.
  • I left my old Quest 2 back in India. Don't feel like buying a new one here, and it would be inconvenient in a shared apartment.

What's wrong with me? I splurged on the world's 4th best gaming pc (1 CPU and GPU down from the best of the best), I have the time. It's not anhedonia, because I clearly still enjoy reading, writing, and arguing with people on the internet. I still watch people play and talk about games, I look forward to new ones and wishlist them, I just don't really play them. I don't like this, what's the point of having all this money and fancy hardware? Don't tell me I'm getting old and crochety :(

At this point I might have a kid just to have someone to play coop with.

I believe there is like some form of gamers depression, where a game that is too good can truly ruin a gamer. And its not too good in the sense of like "oh my god this is my dream game and the best thing ever".

But more that its like "oh wow this is the perfect feedback loop of addiction, skill up, and reward" and once you hit that game, or a few of them nothing ever scratches the itch quite right ever again. Kinda like a first hit of heroin it ruins everything else. My game was EVE online and Skyrim. The first burned me out on teamwork based online games, and the second burned me out on personal skill up type games. I've been chasing the dragon on both for a while. I think you got burned on Tarkov.

I've definitely been alpha-widowed by my favorite games, lol

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats