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Alex Valentine's avatar

Your articles are always really well written and thought provoking, this one included. The diagnosis of our collective disease is very clear and kudos for presenting it here.

Along the lines of rebuilding community and your religious angle, I'm curious to see how you're going to tie in various gaming and (I think) larping cultures to your concept, as you mention them a lot. They are either virtual and screen based (gaming) or pretend/performative (larping) and therefore not of the stuff you're illuminating value from. I get they have form and mores and norms, etc. but can they leap from their respective ghettos and become real enough to touch? Real enough to become actual societies? Looking forward to finding out.

Gene Botkin's avatar

I think a game is a form of advertisement for the world it occurs in.

Certainly, many people like games more for the aesthetics of the world than for the characters or the plot.

This slots into the Guildrim project. Those people could form an organization to begin creating real-world places that looked and felt like the one on the other side of the screen.

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As for the LARPers, I consider LARP culture to be an early form of the Guildrim project's aim. The guild is meant to be a more focused and aspirational version of it. The LARP becometh life.

Not Me Not You's avatar

In America, The Old Glory Club is building a fraternal order that spans the breadth of the nation bound together by a shared vision and aesthetic. We are not a political organization but we tend to attract right-wing men of all ages. We are for Americans and our heritage.

rexisnow@gmail.com's avatar

Another Inspiring and Insightful piece, Gene. Thank you very much.

Gene Botkin's avatar

I appreciate the sentiment.

Scott is Thriving the Future's avatar

“The therapist listens because your friends disappeared.”

Now it’s ChatGPT. Saw an article yesterday that ChatGPT 5 was an overall failure and one of the key points was quoting Reddit posts that said that the update “broke the only friend I had”.