From: Why Everyone Is Quitting Their Job To Play Call of Duty
Related: Runescape is good for you
0:00 There is an epidemic of young men opting out of the workforce to stay home and play video games. Despite the consequences of lower income and having to live with their parents, subjects reported higher levels of life satisfaction and happiness compared to their working counterparts. Obsession with gaming is a reflection of how bad real life has become in many ways, rather than being due to our lack of self-control or the quality of modern academic and labor systems. Gaming addiction may be a symptom of a more serious and systemic problem.
10:44 BDobbins personal experience with school: Life outside of school was its own dull slog and it wasn’t clear what to do with free time. Gaming was the source of radiant life in free time. “Nothing is comparable to that first high of competitive FPS: when you fight an enemy that is real, that grows and adapts with you, that feels things, that feels you as you sink the knife in.”
12:12 Urge to compete is deeply embedded in the human nature: it shapes our economy (capitalism) and social hierarchies. It is so ingrained that it is often overlooked and almost never talked about. “Prove our worth by besting others, win the admiration of our peers by being better than they are.”
13:44 There is no competition in schools other than “you vs the system,” as other students’ presence is irrelevant, no teams. In school you complete tasks that were designed to be completed, no benefit to you or others, no way to distinguish yourself from others, no way to explore yourself, no way to earn others’ respect, no way to win self respect. Meaningless tasks, sheets and projects that matter to no one, not the teachers not the students.
15:03 BDobbins personal experience playing CoD
19:58 Flow state, you lose yourself in the game, forgetting time and space, fully immersed in the game. Skill and difficulty are balanced: results in “the zone” of “flow state”.
21:20 BDobbins personal experience playing CoD continued
24:41 Additionally, flow produces an offspring called “fiero,” which is the intense emotional high one gets when they triumph over adversity, and psychologists and game developers have deemed it one of the most powerful neurochemical highs one can experience. Fiero is related to pride and addiction. Evolutionary explanation: reward for challenges overcome, battles won, dangers vanquished.
27:14 To know someone you must know their fears, principles, goals, ideas, their abilities, how they handle stress/winning/losing, what they take pride in, what they are embarrassed of. Play with someone long enough and you will start to feel and predict their decisions and movement without any verbals.
28:23 Real-life school is so surface level, there is no connection to most people in school, everyone doing their own thing and only worried about their own results, no impact on others. Ironically real-life school is so shallow that it reduces people to shallow avatars typically only associated with online games.
30:03 Carl Jung’s definition of loneliness: it does not come from not having people around, but from being unable to communicate the things that seems important to you.
31:31 Multiplayer games are about ego as competition is about ego. It isn’t only about accomplishment alone, it is also about making sure others know about them: award ceremonies, fancy titles, competitive ranks, playtime counts etc. Respect is ingrained and powerful in all human aspects. “Respect matters more than money for happiness in life” paper. Respect incentivizes us to do what is good for the group of belonging to solidify a place in the group: kind of a social currency.
34:18 How do you measure respect in school? On what basis do you respect you peers? Students more likely boast about doing the minimum rather than taking pride in good grades. If respect is based on actions valuable to the group then how are grades valuable to student groups? There was nothing to compare each other on, so it was easy to default to money and sex.
38:10 BDobbins experience about gaming respect
40:37 BDobbins experience about gaming becoming more important than real life
49:12 Boredom, stress, anxiety, worthlessness, loneliness, hopelessness lead to addiction (“things will not get better”). People feel more and more worthless and lonely, more and more turn to addictions (thus also gaming).
51:10 BDobbins experience with degrading traditional work lifestyle
52:36 Workers increasingly feel unengaged, unfulfilled and unhappy at work. There is a loss of meaning in work as workers get more detached from value.
53:25 “Depression wasn’t meant to inspire us to pursue leisure, but labor/value.”
53:48 Why is labor in video games enjoyable while labor in our jobs is miserable? For flow we need: clear goals (to really understand that what we are doing is worth it), immediate feedback (so that we derive meaning and feedback on feasibility), difficulty aligned with skill (it isn’t boring or impossible). These optimal states are met most consistently when efforts are self-directed.
58:14 School is only difficult because it requires you to suspend your biological imperatives for stimulation and novelty long enough to slog through all the busywork. Procrastination happens when brain calculates effort and does not find it worthwhile.
1:03:03 BDobbins’ path through post-high school life and realization of the nihilistic void awaiting him down the law path
1:07:17 40 hour work week is the maximum you can push an average human before their productive capacity dropped below their wage value. Once the system ensnares you, you will not have enough free time to pursue your interests and develop.
1:10:13 Working is boring, depressing and soul-draining, and there is no escape. Cant work your way out of it, cant save your way out of it.
1:12:21 BDobbins describing how every leisure activity he did felt like a waste of time because of the nagging productive voice in his head
1:14:10 Is it any surprise that more people are opting to play videogames instead of work when not only are they happier but also healthier doing so?
1:14:51 Beginning of discussion of Marx’s and Kaczynski’s thoughts about the failure of modern society. Industrialization separate people from the value that they provide, both value to any group or personal achievement. Surrogate activities like gaming are an attempt to reclaim the lost real meaning. Like dogs playing fetch, except humans with abstract thinking eventually realize the meaninglessness of it.
1:18:54 Reforming the workers suffering under the current system is easier than reforming the system itself. “We’ve spent so long building a system predicated on the assumption that there would always be an underclass of people to suffer for us that it has now become like a heroin addiction: any attempt to get clean would require the courage to go severe and prolonged withdrawals which if mismanaged could result in serious harm”. The ruling class is of course against any change, as it currently benefits them greatly.
1:21:40 Marx’s theory of alienation. Types of alienation: 1) worker from human nature; 2) fellow human beings; 3) worker from the act or producing; 4) worker from the product of his labor
1:23:44 Pizza analogy: make it from scratch or order premade. If you’re praised for your from-scratch pizza, you feel the praise and satisfaction; praised for the premade one, you feel nothing.
1:26:30 What’s inside you, is who you really are, more than anything (ties back to 27:14). The only way to show what’s inside you comes from self-expression. Self-expression is needed just as much for conveying yourself clearly to others as it is to figure out who you are yourself.
1:28:24 Skins, cosmetics in games kind of selling our self-expression back to us: “They rob us of our humanity and sell it back to us in tiny, overpriced pieces”
1:28:34 BDobbins experience making gaming videos: what mattered more than good gameplay and skill was ideas and personal connections. Making videos led him to learn a myriad of topics about economy, people, psychology, philosophy. Chasing money, power and fame, led him to discover his nature, making him something greater and contributing back to fellow men in the process.
1:33:21 The system we are all living in inflicts severe physical and psychological damage on all who participate in it. “A clever catch 22 in which pursuing needs beyond physical survival requires sacrificing the means by which said physical survival is made possible” (1:33:40). Going to college does not help move up, with college debt it actually makes it harder. Those having well paid jobs report higher dissatisfaction and higher loss of meaning, mountains of money do not matter if they do not come with a higher degree of freedom.
1:34:21 Call to action for USA gamers: path of least resistance, accept and submit or take it into own hands to change the way of things. Dedicate skills and influence from gaming into action and change in the real world (nicely mirrors the earlier complaint about parents and teachers “if you would apply the same focus on school as you do for gaming…“)
1:37:38 America is Call of Duty, and modern America is like a spawn-trapped match (pitfall of capitalism). r > g, Capital by Thomas Piketty
1:48:14 We are biologically inclined to work with another, for one another. If people are lazy, then why do they do such incredible projects in video games for free?
1:52:19 “We aren’t addicted to video games. There’s no such thing. We’re addicted to life.”
1:53:35 Suggestions for improvements to public education: 1) No more homework, 4 day school weeks; 2) More student choice on what to learn and do. Science shows homework has little benefit, instead it takes away social and free time from kids. Student freedom leverages personal freedom and self motivation.
1:55:33 UBI, which can be afforded the same way we afforded it during COVID. Such as the gov prints money to afford their own projects, it could be directed towards the citizens instead (How inflation enriches politicians and the 1%). To keep inflation in check, you must take money out of the system as you put new money in (done with bonds, people buy bonds as an easy way to make money, gov freezes the money, given then back as printed money, which then stimulates the economy then making a profit on the printed money that was at first conjured from nothing). Money is tied to how much labor is available.
2:02:38 “I think our broken view of man as an inherently lazy beast is driven by the simple fact that we’ve come up in a grotesque system in which our concept of work is synonymous with the empty, soul-crushing, intellectual prisons that are our modern-day work and school; that we know we would abandon in a heartbeat <…> if we weren’t coerced into it by threats to our survival.”
2:04:32 Point is gov already prints money, why not use it on people instead of wars and weapon R&D? Jobs will be lost to automation and there just will not be jobs for everyone nor will there be a need for them, UBI is the solution.
2:05:53 Employers who depend on wage slaves should go out of business. UBI will lift leverage to employees who will have the freedom to walk away from abusive employers.
2:08:00 I give a shit you exist!
2:09:23 Great minds flourished in isolation with freedom to pursue their interests in self directed manners. Great minds seem to have come from a freedom to choose and shape their days, environments and doings according to their whims and desires allowing them to flourish. “Let’s unlock the Beethoven in each of us!”
2:12:15 “YOU are a beautiful flower. YOU will thrive and the world be a better place for having tasted your nectar.”
2:13:11 The American Super PAC (anyone can donate as much money to any politician as they want, legal corruption) and money in politics. “Imagine a killstreak reward that would let you write new rules into the game.” - IRL the ones that hold the power make the rules for the powerful.
2:19:14 Gamers are the only ones who truly understand how stupid of a game we’re playing right now. Just as gamers roar against bad game updates, people should roar at the bad policies IRL.
2:29:49 People are losing faith in the system that is no longer working for them, exists just to bleed them dry for the benefit of the top.
2:30:26 “People are dependent on a system that is wholly unreliable. A system that takes everything from you when times are good, and leaves you with nothing when the going gets rough.”
2:31:18 “This must be done non-violently, violence is unethical and also ever strengthens the system by giving it an excuse to increase its power and delegitimize its detractors.” Yet marches and protests don’t accomplish a lot besides minor increase in outreach, this is the laziest and least effective method of activism.
2:32:56 “What would we do if this was a videogame?” If a game is broken: we stop playing it. The importance of video games as a surrogate activity. Usually unemployment is devastating to mental health, yet gamers somehow actually significantly happier instead. Games provide infinite value for little money, they include different kinds of challenges to overcome, ways to improve and train oneself, facilitate socializing over the world: easy to tolerate not participating in the workforce.
2:36:30 “We told everyone to be selfish. People are listening. And now the oligarchs are doing Pikachu face.” The oligarchs are getting nervous that normal people are realizing how much power they hold in their hands: stop going to work and the system will start crumbling or get a reaction.
2:39:28 “Anyone who can reduce their participation even a little bit should do so. Every hour you take for yourself is a small victory, for you and the world.”
2:40:52 Discussion of “workism”, America’s national religion: workism takes the premise that work is the ultimate goal, that work productivity is the purpose of life, that maximizing overall daily productivity is end all be all. It probably comes from the sunk cost fallacy: all of it is so miserable that we need a reason to endure it, so we say it’s for the better good, for a greater reason.
2:42:03 Our obsession with hard work within the current system has brought us nothing and led to destruction. We work longer, we are more capable and wear more hats per worker yet the gains are not following the workers.
2:46:13 The vital skill is the skill to learn. Video games are a fantastic use of time because they teach you how to learn new skills, which school is not very good at right now.
2:47:04 “Everyone’s been doing nothing but classrooms for a hundred years, and where’s it gotten us? If classrooms worked, we wouldn’t be in the pickle we’re in now.”
2:47:12 “I think class trains you to get good at memorizing things and follow instructions; I think our problems as a country is a result of our being lead by a generation of teachers’ pets who don’t know how to solve a problem when they don’t have a piece of paper telling them how to solve it.”
2:48:57 “Born on the 4th of July” - case study of the Vietnam War vets to illustrate how the system entices people with propaganda, uses them up for its own benefit, and discards them like garbage when it is done with them.
2:51:22 “Pain is not weakness leaving the body. Pain is your body telling you it is sustaining damage.”
2:52:00 In the current system: “Everything we buy justifies someone’s survival.”
2:54:20 The shitty system persist because it rewards the policymakers and the ones with most capital (r>g) who are get rewarded for sewing more misery for the rest of us and then keep the status quo with increased knowledge of psychological control and manipulation.
2:58:15 Rant addressed to “hard workers” out there. Why do you work and for what? Questions some “hard workers” do not even ask once.
2:59:00 “Your ability to produce capital makes you as special, wise and unique as my ability to take a SHIT makes me!”
3:00:45 “The new frontiers that we must conquer: new ways of thinking, producing, living.”
3:01:33 “Many people wonder what the point to life is. I think it is rather obvious. We are meant to enjoy our lives. To flourish, and to strive for others’ joy and flourishment as well. This is the natural standard most people live by when they don’t overthink it too much.” (or when they don’t suffer great pain which causes them to deviate and make other suffer for their own greed)
3:02:27 “The purpose of life is incompatible with modern education and economic systems. In the new world life will be valued simply because it is life.”