Actually now that I've had some time to think about this, 'artificial difficulty' is already doable - just start a rudimentary social network that gives people missions and shit a la Fight Club and rewards them with badges or achievements or crypto or some other such bullshit. I can totally see it taking off.
About 15 years ago there was this brief popular media obsession with the Amish tradition of Rumpsringa. The purpose of course was to a) mock the Amish b) convert as many young Amish people to modern degeneracy.
Here's the crazy thing. There was less distance in cultural mores between Amish young people in 2004 and teenagers in the 80's and 90's than there now is between teenagers in the 80's/90's and teenagers now.
Crazy if you think about it.
I tend to think they'll but many, many Amish-type communities established. Often quietly and in hidden places. They won't stop technology in the 1890's but in the 1990's. For some things.
Trucks 3, 4, and 5 *should* be a pastor, a parent, and a pet. I'm not sure that we have to go full Ready Player One TM *too hot for tv edition* in order to get the point across that social and fiscal hedonism are penny wise and pound foolish.
Should a parent allow their child to be spoiled and unhealthy? Should a pastor counsel his parishioners to seek out easy and immediate solutions which will leave them incompetent and unsatisfied? Should you let your dog chase cars in traffic all day (even if he really wants to?)
These seem like examples of the same relationship that are maybe, less bizarre and dystopic, and probably easier for norm's to digest. They are also natural, familiar, and sentimental examples of the same monarchical sensibility.
Could we spin our call to adventure as more "epic road trip to the future" and less "bug eating holodeck prison on mars"?
Previously when advocating neocameralism Yarvin used the profit motive to encourage good government: the old fashioned idea that human capital really is capital and you want healthy "productive" citizens. In this piece he is trying to deal with the situation when most humans have no economic value. Maybe people don't have to be miserable post singularity, but what's the motivation for these rulers to be as altruistic as Yarvin wants them to be?
I think his argument here is conceivably compatible with neocameralism. Remember that the villages are natural intelligence data centers, and can perform mechanical tasks for machinery. They could absolutely be profitable. The motivations of the shareholders would dissuade doing anything dehumanizing, and the free movement necessary for successful neocameralism, as he said, applies to the villages (anyone can leave at any time if they choose)
also let's not forget (let's NOT forget!) that the computer pod thing was not a serious suggestion and the real one was along the lines of banning Bakugon and stuff.
Still, in any case, there will be a situation where humans are never optimal for any economic activity, and neocameralist profit based incentives will not work.
You're absolutely right and dealing with that fact requires a high degree of urgency. The most straightforward answer I can think of is that we'll have to improve humans with CRISPR and cybernetics to make the average person capable of doing the complicated/creative work of researching or engineering, or at the very least, fixing the machines that fix the machines that fix the machines.
Sending people to other planets as colonists is also one of the only ways to make use of people we otherwise don't have a use for.
It's really about finding ANY solution other than just culling people who are a net liability. Escaping the neocameralist profit motive framework is not much of an option, unless, of course, Yarvin will tell us that it is in the coming months.
Even that requires the unproven assumption that cybernetic people are going to be better at something that pure computers. There is no guarantee that there is any human function that cannot be surpassed by machines. A machine attached to a body may be less efficient than a machine attached to another machine.
OK yes I did put it too strongly, but it is quite likely that in the future, for any particular task, there will be a fully automated option that will be more profitable. Maybe your vacuum cleaner operator's pod will require two megawhiffs of power per day to sustain, but if you don't use the computer that takes half of that, you are failing your fiduciary responsibilities. You are now liable to be replaced by a new CEO who will have a difficult time finding a use-case where humans are optimal, besides the bio-diesel tanks.
I know of many, many sources that skirt around the issue and then just say whatever their dumb ideology tells them, and a few like Yarvin that look at the problem squarely and offer incomplete solutions. Have never read a single person really satisfactorily address the bio-diesel tank question but maybe we'll see here.
"And it must be as carefully engineered. No one’s country can blow up on the pad."
This is hilarious. Dear, we have an engineered country, complete with Alien AI that's trying to run the founders machinery ...oh say since 1965 ....and ends in despair, nihilism and above all being louche. Also runaway Kleptocracy. We can call the Alien AI the Underpants Gnomes.
"No one’s country can blow up on the pad." That's exactly the closing Act of the New Dealers dear, it's happening right now. See Syria, Ukraine, or look out the window.
> blowing up on the pad; that's exactly what they're up to...it's the plot of Diehard I: blow up the building, escape to the beach in say...oh...the Eastern end of the Med perhaps?
Collect 20%.
Here's what's happening and it's the biggest event of the 21st by far: The vote is beginning to count again, and it scares our hapless elites who lost control and let it happen shiteless.
After decades of being lulled to sleep by competent zookeepers, a generation of looting and two generations of chaos have caused and unintentional failback to the last working configuration.
Democracy inherits the wreckage of The New Deal because it's the only other system in town.
The Great Beast is returning....and there are no Masters of the Beast.
They'll rise, they always do... but none in sight at present.
What Rough Beast indeed slouches towards Bethlehem, it's hour come again...all we know about them is their pissed off, heavily armed and STARVED of leadership.
So starved they elected a Carnival Barker just to piss off the elites, and boy did it work.
Phase I: Elect Carny Barker to cause elites to lose minds.
Mr. Moldybutt I hope you don't mind me cozyposting. As with UR, I doubt you read our comments, and I like that, it means this isn't a two-way street. Perhaps the people mulling over your essays will one day mindcuck them, but that time is not now. Before I complete my cozypost I'll first leave you with a quote from my dear Kierkegaard:
So there I sat and smoked my cigar until I drifted into thought. Among other thoughts, I recall these. You are getting on in years, I said to myself, and are becoming an old man without being anything and without actually undertaking anything. On the other hand, wherever you look in literature or in life, you see the names and figures of celebrities, the prized and highly acclaimed people, prominent or much discussed, the many benefactors of the age who know how to benefit humankind by making life easier and easier, some by railroads, others by omnibuses and steamships, others by telegraph, others by easily understood surveys and brief publications about everything worth knowing, and finally the true benefactors of the age who by virtue of thought systematically make spiritual existence easier and easier and yet more and more meaningful—and what are you doing? So only one lack remains [in our time], even though not yet felt, the lack of difficulty. Out of love of humankind, out of despair over my awkward predicament of having achieved nothing and of being unable to make anything easier than it had already been made, out of genuine interest in those who make everything easy, I comprehended that it was my task: to make difficulties everywhere.
*Fart* Uh oh Stinky Poop Ahahahahahaha Poopies Funny poopies Elelelele Haha Funny poop, poop funny Wheee Haha Yay for poopie Good poopie Poopie funny Hahahahahahaha Poop poop poop poop poop poop poop, funny Yay Fun fun poop! Tee, hee, hee Poop poopie, yay Poop make me happy, happy, happy Yahahahahaha Uh oh I think I made a poopie Poop in pants, no diaper, that's funny! Hahahahahahahahaha Oopsie, poopy ######### now Hee heehee We want poopies We want poopies Hahahahahahahah Hahahahahahahahahaha Hahahaha Poohoohoo-ah *cough* Poop
I am not sure how much it affects your argument but I believe that, under a reasonable interpretation, your quip about the Lincoln quote is mistaken.
(1) OF THE PEOPLE
The government expresses the will of “the people.” (≈ collective consciousness)
(2) BY THE PEOPLE
The government is executed or administered by “the people.” (at least mid-level staffing)
(3) FOR THE PEOPLE
The government acts for the sake of “the people.” (intended or real beneficiary)
These three are all separable and a government could satisfy any two without satisfying the third.
(2&3, ¬1) One can imagine a society whose popular consciousness favors action toward the benefit of, say, the Church, but whose ruling class is 'Enlightened' and favors raising the material standards of the masses and destroying the Church. The administrators are drawn from among the people; the beneficiary would be the people (rather than the priests); the popular will is continually thwarted or repressed.
(1&3, ¬2) would be a virtuous plebiscitarian dictatorship that actually performed as ordered.
A sufficiently repressive modern state apparatus with a sound system of surveillance does seem to be able to go contra popular will (¬1) while still staffing itself from among the people (2) for a pretty long time. (Certain phases in Soviet history?) I think it is analytically mistaken to say that, given (¬1), there is no difference between a government staffed "by the people" (2) and one that is exclusively staffed from a pre-ordained or hereditary class of governors (¬2).
The above is a little messy, as befits a comment on a blog post, but not, I think, wrong.
Edit: Bureaucratic inertia arising out of an originally "by" and "of" system could convert it insensibly and by degrees into a "by" but not "of" system, as well.
Edit: Bureaucratic inertia arising out of an originally "by" and "of" system could convert it insensibly and by degrees into a "by" but not "of" system, as well.
Of course he doesn’t read the comments, but for the benefit of future archeologists; While all non leftists were dixing around with tax codes, UBI, theory etc The Left built a prison. But the prisoners were unhappy, so they elected a carny barker as Tribune.
A coup was then attempted against the carny barker, it failed but the carny barker revealed he was all bark, no bite.
Presently we are now one month from the legitimacy ritual called “ elections” and the Coup plotters-academics and lawyers all-have published their scheme for Full On Color Revolution, this too is unlikely to succeed or be punished.
There is a possibility this will then become a sort of Continental sized Syrian Civil War (the next step in failed color revolutions) but this too is both unlikely to succeed or be punished.
The actual Dire Problem being no one seems to give a fuck about anything as long as the checks keep coming - and all the checks Dear Hearts come from Uncle Sugar now.
And I question the whole project of going back to first principles. Every living thing in this universe starts from where it is. We never get to go back to the start. We keep going straight ahead and from time to time we get to make a minor course correction. That is all.
In "Its peaceful, apathetic voters are not only a not mob—they are not even a crowd." I think either "not a mob" or "no mob" would be preferable.
More substantively, you are too optimistic about human nature when you write, "It is hard to imagine that any human being, granted this quasi-divine power over so many fellow human beings, would fail to use it with at least the care and reverence of a zookeeper." Exactly how much care and reverence did the Countess Báthory employ? What's to keep a Countess Báthory from becoming DM -- or a DM from becoming a Countess Báthory?
I think he'd probably argue that Bathory is an anomaly and that ultimately people like her typically cause more problems for the people who would benefit from her position than she would help. Consequently the cruel and unusual nobility typically don't wield power very long.
IE maybe the simulation's programmers find themselves a new DM.
But whatabout the wimmin? They sure aren't gonna be hunting dragons with swords and armor! They are still going to be sitting in coffee houses saying "I can't believe she said that."
Or they could gossip outside the coffee house while picking coffee beans for the artificial difficulty. If there is anything more natural/normal than women gossiping I haven't heard about it.
"According to the National Violence Against Women Survey, 34% of American Indian and Alaskan Native women have suffered attempted or completed rape within their lifetimes. This is greater than the 18% of white women, 19% of African American women and 7% of Asian and Pacific Islander women that completed the survey."
Don't know how that brakes down between reservations that have casinos and ones that don't, but that is a big yikes.
They’re naturally more anxious (on average), and therefore less complacent. They’re also more sensitive to social expectations (on average) and thereby more afraid of being a disgraceful layabout (on average).
Women already do this on their own. Just make them build huts out of cow manure or something - they'll happily do it as long as they think it benefits the poor indigenous people of Whateverthefuckistan.
Wow. You did it! You solved the great spiritual problem of our decade, if not our age. The problem of the connection between gaming and governance, play and power. The connection has always been there in our Millenial lifetimes. Gamers were the first to resist the Cathedral in any serious, significant way. I always figured that was REALLY significant, but I couldn’t figure out why.
But as to your conclusion, where do train sets fit in? They’re not cheap plastic foreign crap divorced from reality—just the opposite. They are PRODUCTS and RECREATIONS of reality! Exactly what good, productive play should be. Trains must stay on the tracks and be on time. Ya gotta be Really Useful in this world of ours. Trains are a product of man’s genius. The Steam Engine killed God. Maybe that’s reason enough to not do it. But it seems like a sensible stopgap and compromise.
https://i.imgur.com/wLx0wX9.jpeg rude...
https://www.amazon.com/JOCKO-WHITE-TEA-25-CT/dp/B01KP8PCOU
Civilization collapsing? GOOD.
IQ Shredders shredding? GUT.
Social pressures to become woke? Okay sweaty.
Media ran by Reds? Да камрад.
Moldbug posts a new article? Well ugh you know aaa ugh aaa did you know ughh.
Actually now that I've had some time to think about this, 'artificial difficulty' is already doable - just start a rudimentary social network that gives people missions and shit a la Fight Club and rewards them with badges or achievements or crypto or some other such bullshit. I can totally see it taking off.
"Gray Mirror of the Montessori Prince"
About 15 years ago there was this brief popular media obsession with the Amish tradition of Rumpsringa. The purpose of course was to a) mock the Amish b) convert as many young Amish people to modern degeneracy.
Here's the crazy thing. There was less distance in cultural mores between Amish young people in 2004 and teenagers in the 80's and 90's than there now is between teenagers in the 80's/90's and teenagers now.
Crazy if you think about it.
I tend to think they'll but many, many Amish-type communities established. Often quietly and in hidden places. They won't stop technology in the 1890's but in the 1990's. For some things.
Trucks 3, 4, and 5 *should* be a pastor, a parent, and a pet. I'm not sure that we have to go full Ready Player One TM *too hot for tv edition* in order to get the point across that social and fiscal hedonism are penny wise and pound foolish.
Should a parent allow their child to be spoiled and unhealthy? Should a pastor counsel his parishioners to seek out easy and immediate solutions which will leave them incompetent and unsatisfied? Should you let your dog chase cars in traffic all day (even if he really wants to?)
These seem like examples of the same relationship that are maybe, less bizarre and dystopic, and probably easier for norm's to digest. They are also natural, familiar, and sentimental examples of the same monarchical sensibility.
Could we spin our call to adventure as more "epic road trip to the future" and less "bug eating holodeck prison on mars"?
I think you're dead right except might put a teacher in their somewhere, maybe in place of a pastor since there's more of an authority relationship
Previously when advocating neocameralism Yarvin used the profit motive to encourage good government: the old fashioned idea that human capital really is capital and you want healthy "productive" citizens. In this piece he is trying to deal with the situation when most humans have no economic value. Maybe people don't have to be miserable post singularity, but what's the motivation for these rulers to be as altruistic as Yarvin wants them to be?
I think his argument here is conceivably compatible with neocameralism. Remember that the villages are natural intelligence data centers, and can perform mechanical tasks for machinery. They could absolutely be profitable. The motivations of the shareholders would dissuade doing anything dehumanizing, and the free movement necessary for successful neocameralism, as he said, applies to the villages (anyone can leave at any time if they choose)
also let's not forget (let's NOT forget!) that the computer pod thing was not a serious suggestion and the real one was along the lines of banning Bakugon and stuff.
Yes, indeed. Easy to get carried away.
Still, in any case, there will be a situation where humans are never optimal for any economic activity, and neocameralist profit based incentives will not work.
You're absolutely right and dealing with that fact requires a high degree of urgency. The most straightforward answer I can think of is that we'll have to improve humans with CRISPR and cybernetics to make the average person capable of doing the complicated/creative work of researching or engineering, or at the very least, fixing the machines that fix the machines that fix the machines.
Sending people to other planets as colonists is also one of the only ways to make use of people we otherwise don't have a use for.
It's really about finding ANY solution other than just culling people who are a net liability. Escaping the neocameralist profit motive framework is not much of an option, unless, of course, Yarvin will tell us that it is in the coming months.
Even that requires the unproven assumption that cybernetic people are going to be better at something that pure computers. There is no guarantee that there is any human function that cannot be surpassed by machines. A machine attached to a body may be less efficient than a machine attached to another machine.
OK yes I did put it too strongly, but it is quite likely that in the future, for any particular task, there will be a fully automated option that will be more profitable. Maybe your vacuum cleaner operator's pod will require two megawhiffs of power per day to sustain, but if you don't use the computer that takes half of that, you are failing your fiduciary responsibilities. You are now liable to be replaced by a new CEO who will have a difficult time finding a use-case where humans are optimal, besides the bio-diesel tanks.
Do you know of any sources, blogs, forums, books, communities that explore the problem of the anything-but-biodiesel tank in an in-depth fashion?
I know of many, many sources that skirt around the issue and then just say whatever their dumb ideology tells them, and a few like Yarvin that look at the problem squarely and offer incomplete solutions. Have never read a single person really satisfactorily address the bio-diesel tank question but maybe we'll see here.
Back to the Dire Problem solution, eh?
"And it must be as carefully engineered. No one’s country can blow up on the pad."
This is hilarious. Dear, we have an engineered country, complete with Alien AI that's trying to run the founders machinery ...oh say since 1965 ....and ends in despair, nihilism and above all being louche. Also runaway Kleptocracy. We can call the Alien AI the Underpants Gnomes.
"No one’s country can blow up on the pad." That's exactly the closing Act of the New Dealers dear, it's happening right now. See Syria, Ukraine, or look out the window.
> blowing up on the pad; that's exactly what they're up to...it's the plot of Diehard I: blow up the building, escape to the beach in say...oh...the Eastern end of the Med perhaps?
Collect 20%.
Here's what's happening and it's the biggest event of the 21st by far: The vote is beginning to count again, and it scares our hapless elites who lost control and let it happen shiteless.
After decades of being lulled to sleep by competent zookeepers, a generation of looting and two generations of chaos have caused and unintentional failback to the last working configuration.
Democracy inherits the wreckage of The New Deal because it's the only other system in town.
The Great Beast is returning....and there are no Masters of the Beast.
They'll rise, they always do... but none in sight at present.
What Rough Beast indeed slouches towards Bethlehem, it's hour come again...all we know about them is their pissed off, heavily armed and STARVED of leadership.
So starved they elected a Carnival Barker just to piss off the elites, and boy did it work.
Phase I: Elect Carny Barker to cause elites to lose minds.
Phase II: Rough Beast wakes up pissed off, notices underpants missing
Phase III: ????
Lacking any alternative democracy awakes, where this goes I cannot say, but it is the biggest even of the 21st century.
Mr. Moldybutt I hope you don't mind me cozyposting. As with UR, I doubt you read our comments, and I like that, it means this isn't a two-way street. Perhaps the people mulling over your essays will one day mindcuck them, but that time is not now. Before I complete my cozypost I'll first leave you with a quote from my dear Kierkegaard:
So there I sat and smoked my cigar until I drifted into thought. Among other thoughts, I recall these. You are getting on in years, I said to myself, and are becoming an old man without being anything and without actually undertaking anything. On the other hand, wherever you look in literature or in life, you see the names and figures of celebrities, the prized and highly acclaimed people, prominent or much discussed, the many benefactors of the age who know how to benefit humankind by making life easier and easier, some by railroads, others by omnibuses and steamships, others by telegraph, others by easily understood surveys and brief publications about everything worth knowing, and finally the true benefactors of the age who by virtue of thought systematically make spiritual existence easier and easier and yet more and more meaningful—and what are you doing? So only one lack remains [in our time], even though not yet felt, the lack of difficulty. Out of love of humankind, out of despair over my awkward predicament of having achieved nothing and of being unable to make anything easier than it had already been made, out of genuine interest in those who make everything easy, I comprehended that it was my task: to make difficulties everywhere.
*Fart* Uh oh Stinky Poop Ahahahahahaha Poopies Funny poopies Elelelele Haha Funny poop, poop funny Wheee Haha Yay for poopie Good poopie Poopie funny Hahahahahahaha Poop poop poop poop poop poop poop, funny Yay Fun fun poop! Tee, hee, hee Poop poopie, yay Poop make me happy, happy, happy Yahahahahaha Uh oh I think I made a poopie Poop in pants, no diaper, that's funny! Hahahahahahahahaha Oopsie, poopy ######### now Hee heehee We want poopies We want poopies Hahahahahahahah Hahahahahahahahahaha Hahahaha Poohoohoo-ah *cough* Poop
This is some next level shit. Reminds me of 'Meditations on Moloch' and ol' Ted's manifesto.
Mr. Yarvin—
I am not sure how much it affects your argument but I believe that, under a reasonable interpretation, your quip about the Lincoln quote is mistaken.
(1) OF THE PEOPLE
The government expresses the will of “the people.” (≈ collective consciousness)
(2) BY THE PEOPLE
The government is executed or administered by “the people.” (at least mid-level staffing)
(3) FOR THE PEOPLE
The government acts for the sake of “the people.” (intended or real beneficiary)
These three are all separable and a government could satisfy any two without satisfying the third.
(2&3, ¬1) One can imagine a society whose popular consciousness favors action toward the benefit of, say, the Church, but whose ruling class is 'Enlightened' and favors raising the material standards of the masses and destroying the Church. The administrators are drawn from among the people; the beneficiary would be the people (rather than the priests); the popular will is continually thwarted or repressed.
(1&3, ¬2) would be a virtuous plebiscitarian dictatorship that actually performed as ordered.
A sufficiently repressive modern state apparatus with a sound system of surveillance does seem to be able to go contra popular will (¬1) while still staffing itself from among the people (2) for a pretty long time. (Certain phases in Soviet history?) I think it is analytically mistaken to say that, given (¬1), there is no difference between a government staffed "by the people" (2) and one that is exclusively staffed from a pre-ordained or hereditary class of governors (¬2).
The above is a little messy, as befits a comment on a blog post, but not, I think, wrong.
Edit: Bureaucratic inertia arising out of an originally "by" and "of" system could convert it insensibly and by degrees into a "by" but not "of" system, as well.
Edit: Bureaucratic inertia arising out of an originally "by" and "of" system could convert it insensibly and by degrees into a "by" but not "of" system, as well.
Of course he doesn’t read the comments, but for the benefit of future archeologists; While all non leftists were dixing around with tax codes, UBI, theory etc The Left built a prison. But the prisoners were unhappy, so they elected a carny barker as Tribune.
A coup was then attempted against the carny barker, it failed but the carny barker revealed he was all bark, no bite.
Presently we are now one month from the legitimacy ritual called “ elections” and the Coup plotters-academics and lawyers all-have published their scheme for Full On Color Revolution, this too is unlikely to succeed or be punished.
There is a possibility this will then become a sort of Continental sized Syrian Civil War (the next step in failed color revolutions) but this too is both unlikely to succeed or be punished.
The actual Dire Problem being no one seems to give a fuck about anything as long as the checks keep coming - and all the checks Dear Hearts come from Uncle Sugar now.
I don't know why he says he never read comments or emails. a lot of times in UR he referenced comments or emails he received, kinda weird
And I question the whole project of going back to first principles. Every living thing in this universe starts from where it is. We never get to go back to the start. We keep going straight ahead and from time to time we get to make a minor course correction. That is all.
youre beasting
In "Its peaceful, apathetic voters are not only a not mob—they are not even a crowd." I think either "not a mob" or "no mob" would be preferable.
More substantively, you are too optimistic about human nature when you write, "It is hard to imagine that any human being, granted this quasi-divine power over so many fellow human beings, would fail to use it with at least the care and reverence of a zookeeper." Exactly how much care and reverence did the Countess Báthory employ? What's to keep a Countess Báthory from becoming DM -- or a DM from becoming a Countess Báthory?
I think he'd probably argue that Bathory is an anomaly and that ultimately people like her typically cause more problems for the people who would benefit from her position than she would help. Consequently the cruel and unusual nobility typically don't wield power very long.
IE maybe the simulation's programmers find themselves a new DM.
But whatabout the wimmin? They sure aren't gonna be hunting dragons with swords and armor! They are still going to be sitting in coffee houses saying "I can't believe she said that."
Or they could gossip outside the coffee house while picking coffee beans for the artificial difficulty. If there is anything more natural/normal than women gossiping I haven't heard about it.
Are women less negatively affected in free-UBI systems (like Indian reservations) than men are?
Not a rhetorical question, I don't know and it does matter.
"According to the National Violence Against Women Survey, 34% of American Indian and Alaskan Native women have suffered attempted or completed rape within their lifetimes. This is greater than the 18% of white women, 19% of African American women and 7% of Asian and Pacific Islander women that completed the survey."
Don't know how that brakes down between reservations that have casinos and ones that don't, but that is a big yikes.
it's possible though that the women don't need difficulty, they just need men who may need difficulty
They’re naturally more anxious (on average), and therefore less complacent. They’re also more sensitive to social expectations (on average) and thereby more afraid of being a disgraceful layabout (on average).
Women already do this on their own. Just make them build huts out of cow manure or something - they'll happily do it as long as they think it benefits the poor indigenous people of Whateverthefuckistan.
Wow. You did it! You solved the great spiritual problem of our decade, if not our age. The problem of the connection between gaming and governance, play and power. The connection has always been there in our Millenial lifetimes. Gamers were the first to resist the Cathedral in any serious, significant way. I always figured that was REALLY significant, but I couldn’t figure out why.
But as to your conclusion, where do train sets fit in? They’re not cheap plastic foreign crap divorced from reality—just the opposite. They are PRODUCTS and RECREATIONS of reality! Exactly what good, productive play should be. Trains must stay on the tracks and be on time. Ya gotta be Really Useful in this world of ours. Trains are a product of man’s genius. The Steam Engine killed God. Maybe that’s reason enough to not do it. But it seems like a sensible stopgap and compromise.