This concept touches on why video games are so popular with young men. They get the sense of accomplishment by leveling up or questing and a feeling of productivity by converting their time into achievements. It feels good b/c men need purpose. (Of course women do too, but in fundamentally different ways IMO). The only issue is that these things are 1) not real and 2) far easier to accomplish than IRL. As a result you have people that feel disempowered in many/all domains of their life and like water finding it's path, pour into video games for a sense of accomplishment, achievement, and purpose. The great irony is that in many cases this eats up discretionary time and exacerbates their failures in the non-digital world, creating a vicious cycle.
I see this same thing happen in my life, though not with video games. (As a result, I self-righteously tell myself I'm a better person as a result). I'm learning a language via an app, working through a book, and working out (more than is productively necessary). Whenever I find myself with some free time or feel overwhelmed, I'll turn to one of these outlets and tell myself I'm a good person b/c I'm not wasting my time on video games like immature children, but the reality is that I'm escaping meaningful relationships or business ventures via something much more easily accessible (and thus fleeting and less meaningful).
Fun fact to remember - doing a difficult task in a video game on Xbox literally gives you points and a badge to display to friends. These points are called an "achievement"
I was coming to make this same mistake. These activities give a false sense of accomplishment. At least if I sit on my butt all day and watch cartoons, I know I'm doing nothing. But if I play an eight hour game of Civilization on the PC (sub in game of choice), I feel like I overcame something and did something real.
But... power off, and poof, it's all gone. All these innate drives that exist to get me to change the world (or at least myself) have been satisfied, but no improvement occurred.
Problem is, as you point out, Bor, the line is pretty blurry.
I've found some better balance over time, and find it much easier to stop a game after an hour or so instead of 4-10 hour stints. This has the side benefit of making it more okay if I'm busy and can't play at all (these things are likely related and both stem from being busier in life).
I've made conscious decisions to play games or watch tv with other people, which is a lot of gain because it can help build relationships and fulfill the social aspects as well. Playing by myself, I find something is missing and helps me turn it off once I achieve whatever it was that I needed - which is usually a break from thinking and whatever stress I can't do anything about at the moment. For that reason I find building things in games to be much better than anything adversarial. Minecraft, Hotseat Civ games where I'm playing all the nations, whatever doesn't have a real challenge but still provides an avenue for creation. Or, if the weather is nice, putzing around the yard cleaning up sticks and stuff also covers the same needs.
At least learning a language is somewhat useful and working through a book requires some mental effort. And it would probably make for more interesting conversation.
What's striking about your comment is that those activities you mentioned can be meaningful and not escapism to some people -- learning languages and/or reading books can add skills and knowledge to your job(s), and working out can be good for your overall health and/or relationship prospects. And just because something doesn't have any payoffs now doesn't mean you won't see benefits in the (very) long term. But I think what you said alludes to something that's rather scary (to me, anyway) -- what if most of the things we do that we think are pushing us forward in life actually aren't? And what if we don't realize this until it's too late (for a given measure of "too late")? It's one thing to have your mind tricked into thinking you accomplished something after playing video games and "leveling up," but what if the things we do that we're told are "good" for us are really just doing the same thing?
I also can't help but think about how people these days are born into being surrounded and inundated by all kinds of these distractions, which are more numerous and higher-quality than what even I had growing up (mid to older Millennial) -- video games, porn, blockbuster movies, social media, TV, etc. When you're developing in that kind of environment, you don't really learn how to tell the difference between what's real and what's fake, and what's truly productive vs. what's "malignant escapism." And it becomes that much harder to get into the habit of learning how to (and getting used to) taking actual effort and initiative in improving your life in reality when you rarely get the chance to practice it in your formative years.
My point was one of diminishing returns. Working out for 70 minutes instead of 60 isn't going to yield substantial improvements. Ignoring my children bc I'm tempted to do 20 minutes on DuoLingo instead of just 10 today isn't a net benefit to my life. Reading 20 pages in my 8th book this year instead of mowing the lawn I should've a week ago but is effort is taking the easy out and rationalizing that it's self-improvement. If it was actually better for me, it wouldn't seem substantially more attractive.
It's appealing b/c it's much easier, but I can still lie to myself that I'm accomplishing something. I am! But I'm accomplishing less than the alternative.
Taking this point a step further: I feel the pendulum is swinging, but certainly 10 years ago society would've looked much more fondly at the lifetime student pursuing yet another degree vs the person that gets a BS and then goes into business. Education is always great, right? Not if you're just pursuing it for the sake of accumulating knowledge like a dragon with coin. It's only useful insofar as it can be applied. It's the real world that matters.
I think this is true for most activities we get into. Realizing this is true can be very helpful, since you can avoid treating them like an end unto themselves. Enjoy a brief stint of a game or other activity, then go do something more productive.
What really ends up mattering a lot more is relationships with people. That seems to be a good unto itself, and benefits both you and the other people. Video games or whatever else we get into sometimes benefits us (with huge diminishing returns), but socialization can benefit multiple people simultaneously.
Boy I hate to be the bearer of bad news RC, but it seems like you ought to be drinking more alcohol.
I used to work at a seafood restaurant when I was in my early twenties where we would lay down ringed rubber mats over the tiled kitchen floor, so no one would slip. At the end of the night we would drag them out back caked with batter and breadcrumbs for cleaning. I would often volunteer for this firstly because I was a smoker and I could probably smoke 2-3 Marlboros in the time it took to clean the dozen or so mats. But the second reason that I volunteered for this otherwise disgusting task was I was granted license to operate the magestic machine called a power washer, and I'll just say that the folks on the internet got this one right, I did in fact maintain an erection throughout. No great feat perhaps for a man of twenty two, nevertheless I remember it fondly.
You articulated the tension in my life brilliantly. I go through stages. Sometimes I'll feel almost proud, that I have eradicated most of those forms of isekai I was obsessed with - drugs, video games, porn, thinking up idealist socialist utopias. But then, at least every second day, I'll stop myself and say, what the fuck, aren't you acting the same way today, but with different isekai? Instead of doing your PhD work, you decide to stay home all day to write your novel - that you'd be lucky if you mother even reads. Instead of showing up for your psychology tutorial that you teach, you ask for cover because you are going to watch a sport, live. Instead of actually getting out there and getting a girlfriend, you scroll tinder and imagine not only the sex you'd have with these quasi-real people, but the babies you'd have too.
I know what is real, is staying in uni, completing my PhD in Clinical Psychology, and becoming a Clinical Psychologist. But writing novels is real fun. And the escapism is so encapsulating.
So the thing I find striking, is how "productivity" itself can become a malignant escapism. "Smart" watch tracking, breaking down every last enzyme and protein of what you're eating, creating "sleep stacks", listening to podcasts at 2x while running every morning at 4am...
I think this was something I only just put my finger on the other day - we seem in a productivity curse.
There is 'good' use of time (work, exercise, social interactions in person, earning money eg making hobbies into side hustles, learning which extends to reading) and then there are what are largely maligned (gaming, social media, porn).
But, then, as an avid reader, I got stuck in a goal of x number of books per year, rather than the enjoyment. The escapism. And, is scrolling insta materially 'bad' if I'm otherwise still working, socialising, exercising - I don't need to endlessly be in the 'good productive' and can, in fact, have leisure, of neutral or no great net productivity. I don't need to exercise 'more' or socialise more or even work more. It's ok to have do bits of all the things...
RC's post is about when the balance tips too far the 'wrong' way. And I get that... I do
What's profound about this is taking responsibility for the person your activities will create.
It's more than moderation as counter-steering away from vices, or straw-man arguments about being good because you're not so bad.
It recognizes that striving humans (read: authors and readers) are essentially psychotic: separated from reality by delusions of power, grandeur, attractiveness, intelligence, fear, conspiracies, etc. because -- as all the preachers and self-help gurus and bootstrappers say -- you have to imagine it before you can be it (and you're off the hook if you can blame someone else).
Socrates, on hearing an old man complaining of being overtaken by time, said that evil is even faster than time, and one should assiduously avoid it. Remember, Socrates as a strong stonemason was also a war hero, largely from a losing battle; his conscience was by no means clear. The greatest evil to Socrates was sophistry, the intelligence that leads astray.
Oh for sure. You don't think I want a 2015 Honda Odyssey? Because I do. I'd name it Abes. I'd cruise in it everywhere and drop comments about the cupholders into my articles.
The following has nothing to do with this article. I'm commenting here because it's the latest place I _can_ direct a comment to RC.
This morning I received an emailed cross post titled "Isaac King’s Whales vs. Minnows and Pitfalls of Prediction Markets" and had no way to comment on it. More correctly, I received it because I subscribe to *this* substack and had no way to comment on it on its author's substack. (i.e. here.)
This is, IMO, a very unfortunate feature of substack. There's no point in me going there and saying something like "prediction markets are rubbish; this just demonstrates why I despise them," since that topic is the other substack's whole reason for existing.
OTOH, I might very well want to say something similar, though more nuanced, right here, directed to its actual author, with whom I have some history and shared context. (We've both followed Scott Alexander longer than RC has had his own substack.)
If substack is going to support crossposts, it should also automatically include a way to comment *on the author's blog*. Otherwise, crossposts should not be sent to the author's subscribers. (If substack got rid of this feature, authors could cross post manually, in their own blogs, which would automatically provide a place for their own subscribers to comment.)
So this is a little tricky, and the reason why is that there's a bit of "who deserves the benefit here" going on. In this case, Manifold paid me for the article, so it's "theirs" twice; it's a guestpost I agreed to do, and they bought the post.
So there's an element of, if I posted this here manually, and you could comment on it here, you'd never go THERE, which is sort of why other people write content or commission it in the first place. In most ways that matter I'd be making it "my article" in a way that sort of screws them over.
Honestly I think the solution here is for me to suck less at community management - like, if this happened to a guest post by Scott, you'd have the option of dumping it into one of his regularly posted discussion threads.
Thanks for letting me sign up for free (I'll probably be dropping some $$ your way on off months, but, being old, retired, and cheap, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your courtesy in letting us read your blog and pay for it as we can.
I'll be starting up this next Wednesday over at my place and will get back to my long-term addiction to blogging (Substack will be be the third platform spread out over 18 years).
I very much liked this piece. I have the guilty pleasure of actually enjoying the 1632 series by Eric Flint which slots in neatly to your description of Isekai. I enjoy it because it tells simple stories that show folks trying accomplish things that are morally ambiguous but necessary. The good guys tend to win, the bad guys tend to lose.
It isn't real, but as long as you keep your escapism within reasonable bounds, who are other's to judge.
I've been there with video games, but now I feel like I'm in the opposite situation. Currently life is affording me no time to escape and I'm constantly dealing with important work, family, food on the table, and roof over our head issues. I'm exhausted but have to keep going. If it keeps up much longer I might just stop and yell at the world to give me fucking minute.
I went down to a specialty chemical store and bought better stuff, and sprayed it all down yesterday. At current the clover still looks healthy, but I'm hoping as it gets more sun today it will start to wilt.
Strange. I have never heard of clover like that. I wonder if it's sweet to animals like regular clover. If it is, you may have the next big thing in agriculture on your hands: clover that can grow in any circumstances.
I mean it's just... it's the worst. It's all over. I think my next move is to take my lawn mower to the lawn mower repair dude, and then mow it all down so there's less biomass in play, and then spray down the lesser, less healthy clover that remains. Or something.
This concept touches on why video games are so popular with young men. They get the sense of accomplishment by leveling up or questing and a feeling of productivity by converting their time into achievements. It feels good b/c men need purpose. (Of course women do too, but in fundamentally different ways IMO). The only issue is that these things are 1) not real and 2) far easier to accomplish than IRL. As a result you have people that feel disempowered in many/all domains of their life and like water finding it's path, pour into video games for a sense of accomplishment, achievement, and purpose. The great irony is that in many cases this eats up discretionary time and exacerbates their failures in the non-digital world, creating a vicious cycle.
I see this same thing happen in my life, though not with video games. (As a result, I self-righteously tell myself I'm a better person as a result). I'm learning a language via an app, working through a book, and working out (more than is productively necessary). Whenever I find myself with some free time or feel overwhelmed, I'll turn to one of these outlets and tell myself I'm a good person b/c I'm not wasting my time on video games like immature children, but the reality is that I'm escaping meaningful relationships or business ventures via something much more easily accessible (and thus fleeting and less meaningful).
Being cognizant of this is hugely powerful.
Fun fact to remember - doing a difficult task in a video game on Xbox literally gives you points and a badge to display to friends. These points are called an "achievement"
I was coming to make this same mistake. These activities give a false sense of accomplishment. At least if I sit on my butt all day and watch cartoons, I know I'm doing nothing. But if I play an eight hour game of Civilization on the PC (sub in game of choice), I feel like I overcame something and did something real.
But... power off, and poof, it's all gone. All these innate drives that exist to get me to change the world (or at least myself) have been satisfied, but no improvement occurred.
Problem is, as you point out, Bor, the line is pretty blurry.
I've found some better balance over time, and find it much easier to stop a game after an hour or so instead of 4-10 hour stints. This has the side benefit of making it more okay if I'm busy and can't play at all (these things are likely related and both stem from being busier in life).
I've made conscious decisions to play games or watch tv with other people, which is a lot of gain because it can help build relationships and fulfill the social aspects as well. Playing by myself, I find something is missing and helps me turn it off once I achieve whatever it was that I needed - which is usually a break from thinking and whatever stress I can't do anything about at the moment. For that reason I find building things in games to be much better than anything adversarial. Minecraft, Hotseat Civ games where I'm playing all the nations, whatever doesn't have a real challenge but still provides an avenue for creation. Or, if the weather is nice, putzing around the yard cleaning up sticks and stuff also covers the same needs.
"Same mistake"? I mean same comment. C'mon, me of 3 hours ago!
At least learning a language is somewhat useful and working through a book requires some mental effort. And it would probably make for more interesting conversation.
It's not without benefit, but the salient question is, what's the opportunity cost?
What's striking about your comment is that those activities you mentioned can be meaningful and not escapism to some people -- learning languages and/or reading books can add skills and knowledge to your job(s), and working out can be good for your overall health and/or relationship prospects. And just because something doesn't have any payoffs now doesn't mean you won't see benefits in the (very) long term. But I think what you said alludes to something that's rather scary (to me, anyway) -- what if most of the things we do that we think are pushing us forward in life actually aren't? And what if we don't realize this until it's too late (for a given measure of "too late")? It's one thing to have your mind tricked into thinking you accomplished something after playing video games and "leveling up," but what if the things we do that we're told are "good" for us are really just doing the same thing?
I also can't help but think about how people these days are born into being surrounded and inundated by all kinds of these distractions, which are more numerous and higher-quality than what even I had growing up (mid to older Millennial) -- video games, porn, blockbuster movies, social media, TV, etc. When you're developing in that kind of environment, you don't really learn how to tell the difference between what's real and what's fake, and what's truly productive vs. what's "malignant escapism." And it becomes that much harder to get into the habit of learning how to (and getting used to) taking actual effort and initiative in improving your life in reality when you rarely get the chance to practice it in your formative years.
My point was one of diminishing returns. Working out for 70 minutes instead of 60 isn't going to yield substantial improvements. Ignoring my children bc I'm tempted to do 20 minutes on DuoLingo instead of just 10 today isn't a net benefit to my life. Reading 20 pages in my 8th book this year instead of mowing the lawn I should've a week ago but is effort is taking the easy out and rationalizing that it's self-improvement. If it was actually better for me, it wouldn't seem substantially more attractive.
It's appealing b/c it's much easier, but I can still lie to myself that I'm accomplishing something. I am! But I'm accomplishing less than the alternative.
Taking this point a step further: I feel the pendulum is swinging, but certainly 10 years ago society would've looked much more fondly at the lifetime student pursuing yet another degree vs the person that gets a BS and then goes into business. Education is always great, right? Not if you're just pursuing it for the sake of accumulating knowledge like a dragon with coin. It's only useful insofar as it can be applied. It's the real world that matters.
I think this is true for most activities we get into. Realizing this is true can be very helpful, since you can avoid treating them like an end unto themselves. Enjoy a brief stint of a game or other activity, then go do something more productive.
What really ends up mattering a lot more is relationships with people. That seems to be a good unto itself, and benefits both you and the other people. Video games or whatever else we get into sometimes benefits us (with huge diminishing returns), but socialization can benefit multiple people simultaneously.
Boy I hate to be the bearer of bad news RC, but it seems like you ought to be drinking more alcohol.
I used to work at a seafood restaurant when I was in my early twenties where we would lay down ringed rubber mats over the tiled kitchen floor, so no one would slip. At the end of the night we would drag them out back caked with batter and breadcrumbs for cleaning. I would often volunteer for this firstly because I was a smoker and I could probably smoke 2-3 Marlboros in the time it took to clean the dozen or so mats. But the second reason that I volunteered for this otherwise disgusting task was I was granted license to operate the magestic machine called a power washer, and I'll just say that the folks on the internet got this one right, I did in fact maintain an erection throughout. No great feat perhaps for a man of twenty two, nevertheless I remember it fondly.
Co-worker to you probably “can I bum a ci...woah never mind I leave ya to it!”
You articulated the tension in my life brilliantly. I go through stages. Sometimes I'll feel almost proud, that I have eradicated most of those forms of isekai I was obsessed with - drugs, video games, porn, thinking up idealist socialist utopias. But then, at least every second day, I'll stop myself and say, what the fuck, aren't you acting the same way today, but with different isekai? Instead of doing your PhD work, you decide to stay home all day to write your novel - that you'd be lucky if you mother even reads. Instead of showing up for your psychology tutorial that you teach, you ask for cover because you are going to watch a sport, live. Instead of actually getting out there and getting a girlfriend, you scroll tinder and imagine not only the sex you'd have with these quasi-real people, but the babies you'd have too.
I know what is real, is staying in uni, completing my PhD in Clinical Psychology, and becoming a Clinical Psychologist. But writing novels is real fun. And the escapism is so encapsulating.
So the thing I find striking, is how "productivity" itself can become a malignant escapism. "Smart" watch tracking, breaking down every last enzyme and protein of what you're eating, creating "sleep stacks", listening to podcasts at 2x while running every morning at 4am...
.... are you REALLY getting anything done?
I think this was something I only just put my finger on the other day - we seem in a productivity curse.
There is 'good' use of time (work, exercise, social interactions in person, earning money eg making hobbies into side hustles, learning which extends to reading) and then there are what are largely maligned (gaming, social media, porn).
But, then, as an avid reader, I got stuck in a goal of x number of books per year, rather than the enjoyment. The escapism. And, is scrolling insta materially 'bad' if I'm otherwise still working, socialising, exercising - I don't need to endlessly be in the 'good productive' and can, in fact, have leisure, of neutral or no great net productivity. I don't need to exercise 'more' or socialise more or even work more. It's ok to have do bits of all the things...
RC's post is about when the balance tips too far the 'wrong' way. And I get that... I do
Endlessly learning, earning degrees, and accumulating knowledge without applying any of it
What's profound about this is taking responsibility for the person your activities will create.
It's more than moderation as counter-steering away from vices, or straw-man arguments about being good because you're not so bad.
It recognizes that striving humans (read: authors and readers) are essentially psychotic: separated from reality by delusions of power, grandeur, attractiveness, intelligence, fear, conspiracies, etc. because -- as all the preachers and self-help gurus and bootstrappers say -- you have to imagine it before you can be it (and you're off the hook if you can blame someone else).
Socrates, on hearing an old man complaining of being overtaken by time, said that evil is even faster than time, and one should assiduously avoid it. Remember, Socrates as a strong stonemason was also a war hero, largely from a losing battle; his conscience was by no means clear. The greatest evil to Socrates was sophistry, the intelligence that leads astray.
My mom often scolded me: make yourself useful!
I need to get hit by a truck a little bit
Best I can do is texting while I drive a light SUV towards you.
I am disappointed you don't have a mid-2010s minivan. Nice ride if you can get it.
Oh for sure. You don't think I want a 2015 Honda Odyssey? Because I do. I'd name it Abes. I'd cruise in it everywhere and drop comments about the cupholders into my articles.
The following has nothing to do with this article. I'm commenting here because it's the latest place I _can_ direct a comment to RC.
This morning I received an emailed cross post titled "Isaac King’s Whales vs. Minnows and Pitfalls of Prediction Markets" and had no way to comment on it. More correctly, I received it because I subscribe to *this* substack and had no way to comment on it on its author's substack. (i.e. here.)
This is, IMO, a very unfortunate feature of substack. There's no point in me going there and saying something like "prediction markets are rubbish; this just demonstrates why I despise them," since that topic is the other substack's whole reason for existing.
OTOH, I might very well want to say something similar, though more nuanced, right here, directed to its actual author, with whom I have some history and shared context. (We've both followed Scott Alexander longer than RC has had his own substack.)
If substack is going to support crossposts, it should also automatically include a way to comment *on the author's blog*. Otherwise, crossposts should not be sent to the author's subscribers. (If substack got rid of this feature, authors could cross post manually, in their own blogs, which would automatically provide a place for their own subscribers to comment.)
So this is a little tricky, and the reason why is that there's a bit of "who deserves the benefit here" going on. In this case, Manifold paid me for the article, so it's "theirs" twice; it's a guestpost I agreed to do, and they bought the post.
So there's an element of, if I posted this here manually, and you could comment on it here, you'd never go THERE, which is sort of why other people write content or commission it in the first place. In most ways that matter I'd be making it "my article" in a way that sort of screws them over.
Honestly I think the solution here is for me to suck less at community management - like, if this happened to a guest post by Scott, you'd have the option of dumping it into one of his regularly posted discussion threads.
Thanks for letting me sign up for free (I'll probably be dropping some $$ your way on off months, but, being old, retired, and cheap, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your courtesy in letting us read your blog and pay for it as we can.
I'll be starting up this next Wednesday over at my place and will get back to my long-term addiction to blogging (Substack will be be the third platform spread out over 18 years).
I very much liked this piece. I have the guilty pleasure of actually enjoying the 1632 series by Eric Flint which slots in neatly to your description of Isekai. I enjoy it because it tells simple stories that show folks trying accomplish things that are morally ambiguous but necessary. The good guys tend to win, the bad guys tend to lose.
It isn't real, but as long as you keep your escapism within reasonable bounds, who are other's to judge.
Excellent post. I have more to add to the list later, bc I'm sort of a philosopher
😝
I've been there with video games, but now I feel like I'm in the opposite situation. Currently life is affording me no time to escape and I'm constantly dealing with important work, family, food on the table, and roof over our head issues. I'm exhausted but have to keep going. If it keeps up much longer I might just stop and yell at the world to give me fucking minute.
You could *write* an Isekai instead!
I'm a helper.
😁
Nice take on philosophy! Very zen!
I hope you got rid of that clover!
I went down to a specialty chemical store and bought better stuff, and sprayed it all down yesterday. At current the clover still looks healthy, but I'm hoping as it gets more sun today it will start to wilt.
Strange. I have never heard of clover like that. I wonder if it's sweet to animals like regular clover. If it is, you may have the next big thing in agriculture on your hands: clover that can grow in any circumstances.
I mean it's just... it's the worst. It's all over. I think my next move is to take my lawn mower to the lawn mower repair dude, and then mow it all down so there's less biomass in play, and then spray down the lesser, less healthy clover that remains. Or something.
Well if it's any consolation, there's probably a Nobel prize in it for you if you can be the first to describe your immortal, invulnerable clover.
maybe worth crowd sourcing that what you're dealing with is really clover. Either way, mowing is always a good solution.
Thanks! I sort of wrote it as a sister piece to the other thing - I think they work together well.
You heard it here first, folks: There's a thing, it's my thing, and Jay has agreed to hold it until Sunday.