Emotional intelligence has always been a sort of hidden magnet in my life that’s pulled me towards people who had the emotional capacity to treat people like people instead of treating people based off any first impressions or preconceived labels.

The people who I remember and hold closest in my memories have been people who understood that I’m my own unique person, with my own experiences that shaped me, with my own way of solving problems, and my own way of learning from those experiences. They were able to assist and guide me in a more human and understandable way. It felt more positive and encouraging. I learned so much more from people with a stronger sense of emotional intelligence in comparison to people who lack emotional intelligence.

Unfortunately, with what I believe to be a global mental health crisis brought on by the arrival of a global pandemic, it’s been obvious to me that there has been a critical lack of education in any form of emotional intelligence. Thinking back on my own education, there was more a focus on employable math and science skills, language with a heavy historical perspective, history with a heavily propagandized perspective and obedience within a narrow and confined learning structure. The only class that taught me any sort of life skills was the lowest level math class I had the option to take. The math class only “stupid” kids took.

After the initial uncertainty wore off and reality set in with the global pandemic, those who lacked the emotional intelligence to look within began to lash out at everyone around them. To them, the world turned against them as they were expected to be empathetic towards other people. It’s been difficult to process and deal with such a critical lack of emotional intelligence on such a large scale.

Those who are filled with hate for themselves and the world around them have far more energy than those with a better sense of their own emotional intelligence. Those who are filled with hate are burning out everyone else around them.

I think now more than ever, there needs to be more emotional intelligence education for both young and old. It will be very difficult to help ourselves move forward if we aren’t being empathic towards each other and the world around us.

I’m aware what I’ve said isn’t very specific to autism but it’s a topic that was made much more clearer to me after figuring out I have autism and understanding how it’s affected my life.

Pride encompasses more than just homosexuality. There’s a wide range sexuality that is there to be acknowledged and celebrated. Especially in the face of so much hate that is rampant today. It’s strange that there is such a focus on “homosexuality” in particular.

The way you talk about etiquette and that homosexuality should be a thing not discussed in public is also concerning. Sweeping up all the people that Pride represents under a rug doesn’t make the real and dangerous threat these people face magically disappear.

In order to us as a species on this planet to collectively move forward, we must be able to talk about difficult topics. If we shut our eyes, ears and minds to difficult topics, refusing to acknowledge past and current horrors and deny existence and freedom, we will never be able to move forward as we repeat history over and over and over again.

Sexuality, and by extension, the right to express one’s self freely and safely is a positive and encouraging step forward that has the power to uplift and benefit everyone, not just those who celebrate Pride.

By ignoring these people, and any other specific groups of people, we derail our chance to learn and understand ourselves and the world around us. We will only end up repeating history until we can’t record history any longer.

If something as simple as a rainbow potion is that upsetting, the game is open sourced and you can remove it yourself. The other option that I usually take when I disagree with a developer is to stop giving them my attention and money. I can’t be upset if I don’t subject myself to their artistic creations.

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I was in a situation not long ago on the only discord server I frequent. This angry American guy kept posting women hating content that he thought was hilarious. Called him out on it and he tried to justify that women and men need their own community spaces. On a discord server owned and run by a woman for a video game we all play together.

He tried to go off on unrelated tangents but I stuck to my main point. I made it clear that his type of behaviour is what makes women feel unsafe in many communities and spaces. I also made it clear that his approach to mental health care was deeply flawed and did so by a long string of questions and statements all pointing out his hypocritical actions. I think that worked?

He kept going off on trans people, I asked him why he kept thinking of trans people. He kept saying women and men need their own spaces, I told him that if he is so desperate for men’s only spaces, there’s gay bars and clubs to go to. He kept bringing up other groups of people he hated in response to mental health questions, I asked him if he cares about his mental health or just looking for someone else to blame for his hate filled behaviour. When he deflected a question about why women feel unsafe in so many spaces, I brought it back around to challenge him to ask women why they feel unsafe and find out himself. The more he talked, the more he cornered himself. His actions never matched his words so I had a year+ catalogue of his hypocrisy to throw back at him.

In the end he agreed to stop posting hate content and then disappeared for a week. He came back briefly to privately talk to the discord server owner, she laid into him with a couple paragraphs regarding his hate towards women. He never responded and has disappeared again. I’m hoping he is reflecting real hard about himself right now, but I’m low on hope.

The biggest issue I have in dealing with hate filled people is that they have what feels like an infinite source of energy and their hate completely burns out all the good people they surround themselves with. Some of us are just exhausted and only want to play games, share stupid memes and post cute pet pictures. Don’t bring your hate trash everywhere you go, please. It ain’t funny.

I’m so tired.

I’ve found myself lately a lot more interested in games that don’t focus heavily on graphics but instead allow other parts of the game to speak for itself. This allows for the imagination to fill in the gaps, as you mentioned.

I’ve been playing a lot or Caves of Qud recently. It’s a rogue-like game with tile graphics and colourful text. Somehow this menu simulator game has drawn me into it’s harsh and unforgiving world. The tile based graphics actually allows for an amazing amount of creative freedom both from the developer and player point of views. The developer has created this futuristic planet with mutants and cybernetics roaming the planet trying to survive. The player has the freedom to play as they like and create the most unique characters they can imagine. My current character has two hearts, a scorpion tail, a fanged beak, two dagger wielding claws and a habit for stabbing.

I think the rise of constantly better technology has inadvertently encouraged a focus on better graphics over other aspects of video games. While there are some absolutely beautiful games with higher hardware demand, I think as of late, I’m yearning for games that focus more on story or gameplay. Games where you can feel the developer’s passion. Games with polish and attention to details in the most unexpected ways. Games that attempt to push boundaries within certain limitations (think hardware or graphic styles for example).

I think what I want is a game that feels like I’m reading a fiction book in a way. What I mean is that when you read a work of fiction, your imagination is filling in all that visual information. A game can provide you more than just text, but if it can balance graphics, gameplay and story, it can really transport and immerse your imagination into that world.

I’m a person of colour who has a white step parent and has grown up in Canada in a fairly mixed area.

My family history would have started in India but my parents were born in South America and migrated up to North America (both Canada and the US) where my sister and I were born. I grew up “white.” My voice, appearance and behaviour are “white.” I was born and raised Canadian. I’m far from proud of this country where I have spent my life but I will identify myself as a Canadian. My family history had been thoroughly white washed and erased.

I say all this because for all this history I have behind me, it means nothing to most people.

The majority of Indian people here will look at me one way until I speak and then promptly ignore me because I’m not “Indian.”

West Indian people want to be my best friend until they find out I’ve never visited any West Indian country. Then I’ll be treated as an idiot for not embracing a culture I have no real knowledge of and have not been immersed in.

Then there are the white people… No matter how white I act, I will never be “white” enough. I’ll always be the colour of my skin. I could look, act and behave as awful as a white cop and still not be on the same level.

In fact, I have a “friend” who is a cop. He’s not really my friend, more of an acquaintance I’ve known for 10+ years through another more decent friend. This guy is just fucking awful and every molecule in his body is racist and vile. He looks at me, arms full of tattoos and tells me I’d be a perfect “UC.” Undercover Cop. My only value to him is to be used to incriminate fellow people of colour. I’m just not a person or anything close to equal. Always something less.

I’ve never really had a place where I felt I belonged while growing up. Hated for being me from multiple angles for reasons beyond my control while doing nothing harmful to anyone. There are good people out there who treat me as a person first but they are few and far between.

Another quick story, I once had a Dutch guy in Australia tell me that his last name Hoffmeister means “House Master.” You know, from the times when they used to own slaves. Thanks for telling me that to my face, you absolute weirdo.

After finally getting fed up, I went on a 10 month campaign against mamagement calling out all the sexism, racism, poor management and absolute disrespectful treatment of apprentices and contractors. I made it very clear that the work culture was awful in every way.

I got predictably fired but I secretly was working with corporate to deal with the the awful HR manager who was enabling this work culture.

Without going into much details, After my company fired me, I put in a complaint to the government labour board over a wrongful termination case. A month later after my submitting my case to the labour board, the HR manager was forced into early retirement. A month after that I settled out of court and got my severance plus a little extra to cover lawyer fees.

My coworkers knew, most got upset at me for challenging authority, some respectfully supported me at an arms length and even fewer people actually supported me.

What was undercover hate wasn’t very hidden by the end of my time there. Although I doubt they fully knew how much I couldn’t stand them. I still had to maintain the peace somehow.

I used to work in the trades. I was surrounded by straight-acting men. There’s nothing more gay than a group of straight-acting men.

Unfortunately it’s the creepy, repressed kind of gay that would make a tolerate person’s skin crawl.

I feel awful for their wives and children.

A long time ago I came across a game that was part of a 1mb challenge. It’s called A New Zero. I played it quite a lot, just flying around and dive bombing boats was entertaining enough for me.

I was impressed with 1mb but 13kb and 96kb is pretty amazing. I really enjoy seeing stuff like this.

This game has caught my eye. The visual style alone is what really draws me in to the world.

There’s something about the Half-Life-ish graphics and unique style that sort of hits a personal nostalgia for me. It has a wonderful combination of weird and abstract with a touch of familiarity. It also feels both vibrant and gritty at the same time. Something I didn’t realize I was missing so much. Especially after playing Baldur’s Gate 3 which has absolutely gorgeous but very busy graphics.

After I get over my Caves of Qud hyperfixation, I am definitely going to pick this game up.

I wouldn’t mind if societies also made some compromises for me too. Currently it feels like I’m making all the compromises to fit in but made to feel like it’s never enough.

Feels like I’m trying to fix an awful relationship by doing all the hard work myself. I’m tired.

Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, president of the ANA, said the negative workplace effects associated with staffing shortages require “meaningful and lasting solutions to be implemented immediately: eliminating mandatory overtime, enforceable workplace violence prevention plans, providing mental health and wellness resources for nurses [and] transparency of nurse reimbursement.”

How would bringing in more people solve anything when the core issues causing this extreme burnout are not being addressed?

I think all that extra money going to the CEO could be redirected to the nurses and their needs to prevent burnout. That would be an effective approach.

It’s much easier to understand that shorter, milder winters means you can make people be even more productive. Now winter can’t slow down that road widening project.

Who care about consumer spending when I’ve been watching the current biosphere die off for my whole adult life?

I’m supposed to save for a future in a society that’s pretty obviously collapsing as the biosphere deteriorates?

The only type of news I consistently paid attention to over my teenage and adult life was environmental news. These two questions strongly inspired me to do something in my life for myself instead of blindly following in other people’s footsteps.

When I was in my mid 20’s, I abandoned the idea of retirement. Took all my money out of stocks and retirement plans. Sold or donated the majority of what I owned and went off to explore and have experiences. I don’t regret it but I’m still filled with so much sadness with how much damage and loss is happening all around us.

In my mid 20’s, I blindly predicted that ecological collapse would happen when I would be in my 80’s. That number has been dropping rapidly with more news coming out about the current state of the environment. Everything is casually happening faster than expected.

I’ve been in a situation before where I went up against something bigger than me for reasons that would affect not only myself but the people around me. It was both shocking and frustrating to find out that the people who would gain to benefit from my proposed actions, were the first to turn their backs on me.

Questioning my intelligence, telling me it’s impossible and a waste of time, telling me to just roll over and accept how things are.

I pushed forward and in the process learned a lot. Understood the inner workings of a social machine. I did so mainly by myself with very little positive support behind me.

In the end, I achieved my goal of removing someone from a position of power. It came at many costs. Some included social exclusion from people who should have been supportive.

Those people were afraid and projected that fear on to me. That projected fear came in the form of anger and resentment towards me. That fear causes people to drag down others who try to improve things. It feels like insanity because it’s hard to make sense of it when everything is playing out in real time.

In the video Ross made, it appears to me that he is being open, honest and realistic of what he wants to do and is asking to learn. He wants to do something for the benefit of others and not only himself. Unsurprisingly, some of the first reactions are to question his intelligence and say what he wants to do is impossible.

Even if he tries and fails, he’ll be a wiser person for it. He’s also a content creator so it’s almost expected to anticipate a follow up video detailing what he has learned. More available knowledge is always a good thing.

As long as Ross and people like Ross who want to make honest, sensible attempt at changing the world, I will be supportive of that. Fracturing our own collective strengths will cause more harm than good.

I watched his video and I get the impression that even he doesn’t think he stands the slightest chance to accomplish anything.

It seems like he wants to learn about something to defend something else he is passionate about even if he has no chance.

At the very least he is encouraging discussion and attempting bring awareness to the issue of live services affecting games and other aspects of modern life.

I’d be wary if he was promising things beyond sensible reason but that wasn’t the vibe I was getting from that video. He seems genuine in the direction he would like to take. He made it quite clear there is no concrete plan and an expectation that nothing can happen or it will end in failure if he even goes through with it.

He is asking and he is trying to learn. If Ross doesn’t understand what he’s up against now, he will after people begin throwing him more information. I get the feeling he’ll make an update video with what he learned and I will be interested in what he has to say.

I don’t fault him for trying. Things are bleak and people are looking for any reason to resist or fight back. Maybe something will happen. Maybe not.

I’m a person who doesn’t enjoy rolling over for the status quo so I’m happy seeing more people wanting to take a stand. Let’s hope he stays sensible.