I'd rather do book reviews and be hated for it than do retro gaming and have a circle of seemingly copacetic friends.

I considered recording a podcast episode on this topic and sharing it to Patreon, but perhaps too few of you could relate to this: I see a very different aspect of human nature when talking to middle aged men about retro video games —a kind of detached, analytical use of the mind that is utterly absent from politics, religion, philosophy, history, linguistics, economics, charity work, academia, and other fields I've known. It is a very strange contrast: why is it possible for people to care so much (and talk in such a productive way) about the failure of the Sega 32X, and yet they're incapable of talking about the failure of Communism, or the failure of the vegan movement. My answer is nihilism: in talking about the 32X, it's clear that there's nothing to be believed in —whereas in talking about Marx or Wayne Hsiung, practically everyone aside from myself is trapped in this loop of, "believe, believe, believe". Only when belief stops being a virtue are people able to think (and speak) analytically, and I've seen the truth of this even in the writing of the history of video games. Nevertheless, as I said above, "it is an illusion worth discarding", etc.