The End of the World is Exhausting

I am not going to lie.

The impetus to write this was because the Nintendo Switch 2 will cost $450 and have $80 games as standard. The end of the world is exhausting, and corporations are looking for ways to cash out before the world burns. If there was any hope on the corporations, you’d think it come from ones that are flush with cash, able to take risks, to do better for the world. At least that’s the promise of capitalism. That benevolent businesses will rise to meet the needs of their consumers, at a fair marker price. It sounds silly to type this out because, let’s be real, corporations have no one in their interests, except themselves as an entity, and their share holders. Nintendo charges this much because they can, because they need to get more money from us, before there is a change in the market, or the revolution comes, or more realistically, it gets harder and harder to justify owning a device meant to distract you from the real challenges we are facing.

Maybe the ask is too daunting, maybe it is too much for one person to bear. But is that not the question at heart? How precious is our time, and what is its value, if we are just seeking one moment of distraction to the next? Maybe $450 is not a lot to ask for, as long as I get my cost per use down low enough.

This is to say, what does a communist do, when everything, including my attention has been commoditized? There is a real dollar value to my attention, a real choice as to what to do with my time. I write this as someone who was enamored with new tech. I remember signing up for Facebook when there were still networks, and you needed an invitation to join. I remember signing up for Twitter and it being so cool seeing protests in real time. I as live streaming civil disobedience by undocumented youth. I owned a video game console ever since the PS1. I got into PC gaming a few years ago, and upgraded my graphics card all by my self. I have installed Linux on MacBooks, I own an Apple Watch, and the Apple TV is the buggiest piece of hardware I own, and yet I love that it doesn’t show me any ads (except for Apple TV Plus). I love technological bullshit, computers of all shapes and sizes, and yet, I can’t help but feel dismayed.

No matter how much stuff I bought, it did not make the world a better place. It did not make me a better person, and even worse, it has diverted my attention from things that need it, and destroyed the planet in the process.

And I can hear everyone reading this saying “yeah, but isn’t having fun part of what makes being alive worth it?”

The biggest companies in the world are entertainment companies, or are entertainment adjacent. Apple, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix, Nintendo, Microsoft, NBC Universal, are all pumping out great entertainment at breakneck speeds. They have things like Andor, which I would argue is the most politically sophisticated show on television. The Switch 2 will undoubtedly be a mass success. The iPhone keeps selling and selling.

It just costs us our time and attention.

This is all without even bringing up all sorts of ethical and ecological concerns to keep the devices we love running and shiny. It’s not even new to say that we benefit from the exploitation and suffering of others. We’ve known for decades. Look, I am not saying anything new, or earth shattering. It is just a reflection, a thought that I have been lingering on. I wish I could write poetry on a dying planet. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I do this.

I am not hopeless, even though it feels like that some days. Other days I sit in the wonder that is my little black dog, Guachapori. Other days, it’s the lips of my lover. Many days, it is the taste of a meal that reminds me of where I am from, and all of my ancestors who lived long enough to have children of their own, and lived long enough to have children of their own, and lived long enough to have me. What other ends of the world did they experience? It’s funny, because one of those days was their last, and their world ended. Did they ask themselves the same questions? Did they struggle with an existence that pulled from all directions, demanding their time?

I am always thinking about this quote: “What you pay attention to grows”.

It’s no wonder the entertainment companies have gotten so massive and influential.