I've been following video game system releases for thirty years, and you can quite often tell which system is going to "win" that particular generation, before the platforms even hit the shelves.

The PlayStation 5 community reminds me a lot of the Saturn supporters, prior to that system's release: lots of really transparent, Nintendo fan-esque "only the games matter" talk, "specs aren't important", delusionally holding on to bread crumbs like the sound chip, even as report after report from developers indicate that the Xbox Series X is miles ahead in terms of real-world performance.

And speaking of that camp, I'm getting PSX vibes: tons of enthusiasm, gloating over the specifications, rooted-in-reality excitement, and so forth. It's quite literally the opposite of lead-up to the current generation; the shoe is on the other foot, as it's pretty clear to me at this point that Sony will be the one running games at the lower resolutions and framerates this time around.

On a totally unrelated note, of course I feel for people who have lost work or gotten sick-- but at the same time, I've actually been really impressed with how people have come together, and how so many companies, my employer included, have been incredibly supportive and helpful. This has also steered people towards home schooling ("we're all home schoolers now"), and integrating their work lives with simultaneously being with their families all day. I wouldn't wish the virus on anyone, but it's also important to be optimistic and look at the silver lining.

Given the virus's low fatality rate, the biggest medium-to-long-run pain I see from this is the State and Fed literally helicoptering trillions of dollars bailing out the banks again-- what will all of this monetary expansion mean for prices? We need a whole new series of "Peter Schiff was right" videos; here he is at his best, explaining how we got to this situation.

It's also worth observing that the State has children captured in government schools for thirteen years, yet doesn't teach them even the most rudimentary financial responsibility; when I met with my financial planner for the first time in my very early 20's, the first thing he told me to do was gradually set aside three month's worth of expenses-- a "rainy day" fund, personal finance 101, day one. Seeing people like "Vee" complain, "how are people supposed to buy food without the government handing them money?" reminds me that these systems-- such as the government schools-- are not meant to educate and foster independence and self-actualization, but rather to create good little obedient dependent tax cattle who toe the line.

I think it's a compliment to the way wifey and I have set up our lives, that nothing has changed for us with this; obviously we had no way of knowing a virus would be "the pin"-- but it was totally apparent to us that the current system wouldn't sustain for much longer, and we organized our lives accordingly, ahead of time. That's all thanks to Austrian economics, traditional Conservative family and financial values, and so forth: if you want to be happy, Conservatism is the model to emulate.