61–70 of 142 posts
Effective altruism on micro scales. And using ethical and legal means only, obviously, since the overarching goal is to be positive-sum.
It wouldn't be fun. Grind, grind, grind, never get anywhere. Work twice as hard for half the reward, then get fucked over in every other aspect of life. Games are about escapism, a chance to win at something, not experiencing bleak and abject failure for reasons outside of your control.
It could be most beneficial to people currently in poverty, to try out strategies for escaping it.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/632300/Hobo_Tough_Life/
It's basically one of those survival horror games where you have to build a base with whatever stuff you find around to not die in winter. It seems like the people who played this game more than me were motivated to finish it because it's actually a pretty damn hard game.
If you want to know the secret of how to win though here it is: It rains a lot in this game and if you get wet you become stinky so things get hard, but there's a few places to beg for change where it's dry. Try the exit to the train station and you will make thousands. It's hella menial but you just make way more money doing that than working the crappy in-game jobs on offer.
I used to work in a homeless shelter where the fine gentlemen in there would joke about how people were stupid enough to give them money all the time. It's crazy how much money you can make on forgoing all sense of humility and exploiting people's sympathy in public. Addictive street drugs aren't exactly cheap.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looks interesting. Seems to be more of a fantasy-dystopian "last civilization on earth" version of SimCity.
There's a lot of social problems that you have to cope with, like low food, low healthcare, forcing workers to shovel coal at gunpoint or else the whole outpost freezes to death. It's brutal.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/632300/Hobo_Tough_Life/
UK homeless charity Centrepoint created an experience in this vein - “In their shoes”: http://centrepoint.org.uk/intheirshoes
"CHANGE: A Homeless Survival Experience" is one of the best games that gives you an immersive experience and challenge of an everyday homeless person.
Yeah it's a pretty depressing and challenging game. I beat this game with all the different scenarios. If you play long enough though, you can find a pretty simple formula to win: - Find the nearest homeless shelter that is near a job board - Take freelance jobs, putting the bulk of your earnings in a savings account and only keeping a little cash on hand for laundry and other things (otherwise it gets stolen at the…
Browsing through the catalogue of stuff for your house and all you can afford is the most basic version.
I'm sure this can be improved upon with mods. Afaik they already have apartments.
Most important to keep in mind the caution from Pulp's "Common People", which isn't even about the sort of poverty you're describing but just the ordinary lives of people who wouldn't consider themselves "poor" at all. But still you'll never get it right / 'Cause when you're laid in bed at night / Watching roaches climb the wall / If you called your dad he could stop it all The thing we can't simulate about poverty i…
But at least in a game I suspect that's more obvious than it is to someone on their gap year.
Well said, though!