Mailbag #2: 10 more questions from my subscribers

Answering the age old question - does pineapple belong on pizza?

In my first mailbag, I managed to get through 10 questions sent to me from my subscribers, but many many more were sent! I thought I’d try to get through some of the rest of them so no one feels left out :)

1. Does pineapple belong on pizza? - YS-MAC

Here’s my actual opinion: People are free to enjoy the food they like. I personally don’t hate Hawaiian pizza, and the pineapples I think are like, B-tier additions to it. They aren’t the best thing ever, but when people gatekeep too strongly I’ll come on the side of yes, pineapples belong on pizza, because c’mon, just let people like stuff they like!

2. Going deep today: Do you believe in having choices (free will) or is everything fixed? Is the outcome pre-planned or do our choices matter? - MarciJoy

I think I’ve mentioned before that I didn’t grow up with any kind of religion, so even though I generally respect religion, it’s not a fundamental part of my life or thought process. With that in mind, I would say I believe in free will and don’t think everything is pre-planned.

But, things like quantum physics are really interesting, where small picture things can seem random, but big picture they fall into patterns that are predictable and can seem more planned out. Sometimes I can somewhat see that kind of thing in other parts of life.

So, I don’t think I could ever say we don’t have free will and our choices don’t matter, but I do think there’s much more going on than we generally perceive day to day that influence things. Whether that’s related to science or more spiritual, I am too dumb to say.

3. If you could have one immaterial wish right now, what would it be and why? - Aleena Tristan

Hmm, if immaterial, I think I would wish that there is something satisfying and non-final waiting for us when our human bodies die. And maybe that’s already true, who knows. The thought that everything just goes to black and is over is not particularly satisfying!

4. How to manage our ego? - Y.A

Hm, for me I kinda just think humans - myself included - have pretty broken brains, and if we start to think we’re right all the time, then we’re doing it wrong. I don’t think I’m particularly stellar at anything, and I like to be generally realistic about my strengths and weaknesses, even if I usually understate my strengths and am very willing to admit my weaknesses.

But I dunno, that’s just me. I think I’m okay-ish. I think it’s more fun to think about myself less and think about stuff and people I like and admire more.

5. What is your favorite project that you are the most proud of and why in your lifetime? - KittyTellesWolf

I have a hard time being proud of anything I’ve done if I didn’t work hard on it, which is why I don’t put dogecoin as my favorite project that I’ve done - it wasn’t a passion or anything, just something silly I figured out how to do.

Probably my most proud is coding a video game and composing the musical score for it. I like writing music because I can always come back to it and listen forever, it’s a tangible thing that exists that reminds me of the time and place I wrote it.

6. What are some things on your bucket list? - Pro𝕏ima Centauri B

There are so many places I want to visit!

• Europe, like, pretty much anywhere in Europe

• Monaco

• Iceland

• Turkey

• Greece

• Dubai

• Australia

• Yadda yadda I could go on and on

I’ve been to lots of parts of the US, New Zealand (which I LOVED), Canada, Mexico, Japan, Thailand, and Singapore. But there’s so much more world to discover!

I want to publish a video game, write a musical, write a book, go on a fancy cruise, win a decent-sized poker tournament, and yeah. Lots of things. But I’m also pretty willing to just kinda take the hand I’m dealt, and it’s okay if I don’t get to do everything I’ve ever wanted to do!

7. What facet of a game plays the largest part in drawing you into it's world? - BSP3

Off the top of my head -

• A “good” tutorial - i.e. introducing new, interesting mechanics in an interactive and clever way

  • The BEST example I can think of is Blizzard games. Their RTS campaigns, like Warcraft 3 and Starcraft, are essentially tutorials as each stage introduces a new mechanic and lets you toy with it. I highly prefer this to on rails tutorials with lots of interjections.

  • There’s also a great video by Egoraptor on the subject that I generally agree with:

• A “hook” - usually a mystery, or something I want to explore (like in Zelda BoTW, seeing the world and all the places you can go), or anything that hooks me into wanting to understand the world more.

  • Sometimes game intros are… Very long, before getting to anything that is intriguing. I find this tough - like, it’s cool that there’s a lot going on in this world, but I kinda need to care?

• Good characters - I tend to care a lot more about characters with decipherable personalities, cool design, and realistic dialog than “story” a lot of the time. If characters don’t act like anyone would act in a situation, it can really take me out of the game world.

  • This doesn’t necessarily matter if the story is more emergent based on your own personal experiences, like with World of Warcraft - I couldn’t tell you a single part of the actual game story, but I could tell you plenty of stories of things that happened while playing!

• Good music - the thing about music is it’s the thing that will most stay with me after I finish the game and leave me with a more positive nostalgic feeling about it. The games I remember most fondly, I also remember the music the strongest.

8. Do you have any recurring dreams? - Anna Rae Aurora

I have quite a few! I have the classic recurring dream where I’m in a class that I’ve not attended and have a test and haven’t prepared, that’s happens pretty commonly actually.

One recurring dream happens whenever I get a new car. It’s weird. It’s happened since childhood, whenever my parents would get a new car. I’m trapped in the car, and I look outside at the moon, and a circle envelopes it and it slowly phases to different states (full, half, crescent) until it disappears altogether. It’s super weird. But literally happens every time I get a new car (or my family got a new car).

9. What dream (or dreams) have you given up on? Why? - 𝕏 Gabbie Stephanie ✨The Dogenie ✨

When I was a kid I wanted to be the shortest basketball player to have ever dunked in the NBA. But, due to busted knees and mid basketball skills and age, I think we can safely say that dream will not become a reality, except in virtual reality or video games!

10. How do u see social media user trends evolve now that ai will be able to create a majority of the content we see - Gainzfeldt

This is a tough one. I think a lot of things get overtaken by bots and made crappier - online gambling, online games, and social media are three such examples. But aside from bots, I think AI can help augment things - for example, I use AI to make the art on my newsletter, and that’s great because my own drawings are pretty mid and it takes a lot of time and effort.

As it is right now, I think we can generally tell when something isn’t organic, and I’m not sure in my lifetime it will be something that isn’t obvious - it’s very hard to imitate organic human things without being a little bit off. So I think there will be a place for human creation and shitposting and whatever else on social media throughout my lifetime.

Or, at least, I sure hope so!