Which classics? There is more than the English language in the world. You could even learn every single language and read their classics, much less all good books in human history. You are either underestimating the amount of text corpus that exists or overestimating people's reading and comprehension speed.
> literature, you can trivially read all the classics by the time you are 30
I don't think this is true, at least not for an ordinary person, unless you're dedicating your life to it (hardly trivial) or ploughing your way through for the sake of completion rather than absorbing them intellectually and emotionally. Writers like Joyce can be difficult to even parse if you're trying to read their work quickly, and to truly understand it you'll probably need to engage with secondary sources. And then there's the likes of Proust, which aren't exactly difficult to read but are extremely long (and probably won't do much for you unless you take your time with them). There's no objectively valid set of 'classics' but we're talking about certainly hundreds and arguably thousands of books. A book a week every single week from the age of 15-30 would do it if we're taking about a medium-sized set of classics...
Hey, I actually have "played all the classics" for some definition of the term.
Some time ago I started playing all the games that to me felt worthwhile to play in roughly chronological order.
I think the project is overall quite different than "reading all the classics" though - a lot of old games have aged pretty poorly so I can either skip them or abandon after giving them a fair shot.
I'm currently roughly in the 2000-2010 era of games. (It's not pure chronological, because I tend to sort play order by console, then by series, then by year.)
Games unlike books can have depth in duration of playing. While possible to play a game for 500 hours and feel very different about it on hour 501 vs 51, while books (usually) do not deliver such a feeling. Thus "playing all the classics" has much more dimensionality and as a result, requires much more time than just literally playing it once through and being done.
Games work in very different ways. Some are narratives where unless you complete them it isn’t really true to say you’ve fully played them. Others are essentially skill-acquisition challenges - you don’t have to finish Sonic the Hedgehog or ‘beat’ Civilization to be able to say you’ve played them. And others are goalless sandboxes - the Sims or Minecraft, where what you get out of it depends entirely on what you put into it.
Thank you for this comment. I myself just got into vibe coding a few projects and anecdotally I've never been more excited about the future barring the economic implications of a world more reliant on AI. It feels as if the parent comment should take your recommendation to heart and start creating!!!
No, not at all. You can count on one hand quality games released recently.
Nonsense.
Even if you take an old established media, like literature, you can trivially read all the classics by the time you are 30.
Saying that about gaming industry, which is barely 50 year old, is a joke.
One can only say that when they no idea what "high standards" actually means.
Which classics? There is more than the English language in the world. You could even learn every single language and read their classics, much less all good books in human history. You are either underestimating the amount of text corpus that exists or overestimating people's reading and comprehension speed.
> literature, you can trivially read all the classics by the time you are 30
I don't think this is true, at least not for an ordinary person, unless you're dedicating your life to it (hardly trivial) or ploughing your way through for the sake of completion rather than absorbing them intellectually and emotionally. Writers like Joyce can be difficult to even parse if you're trying to read their work quickly, and to truly understand it you'll probably need to engage with secondary sources. And then there's the likes of Proust, which aren't exactly difficult to read but are extremely long (and probably won't do much for you unless you take your time with them). There's no objectively valid set of 'classics' but we're talking about certainly hundreds and arguably thousands of books. A book a week every single week from the age of 15-30 would do it if we're taking about a medium-sized set of classics...
Hey, I actually have "played all the classics" for some definition of the term.
Some time ago I started playing all the games that to me felt worthwhile to play in roughly chronological order.
I think the project is overall quite different than "reading all the classics" though - a lot of old games have aged pretty poorly so I can either skip them or abandon after giving them a fair shot.
I'm currently roughly in the 2000-2010 era of games. (It's not pure chronological, because I tend to sort play order by console, then by series, then by year.)
Games unlike books can have depth in duration of playing. While possible to play a game for 500 hours and feel very different about it on hour 501 vs 51, while books (usually) do not deliver such a feeling. Thus "playing all the classics" has much more dimensionality and as a result, requires much more time than just literally playing it once through and being done.
Games work in very different ways. Some are narratives where unless you complete them it isn’t really true to say you’ve fully played them. Others are essentially skill-acquisition challenges - you don’t have to finish Sonic the Hedgehog or ‘beat’ Civilization to be able to say you’ve played them. And others are goalless sandboxes - the Sims or Minecraft, where what you get out of it depends entirely on what you put into it.
[flagged]
Nothing meets my standards. Nothing.
No film, no music, no game.
There's good, but there is no truly magnificent to the level I burst into tears and see the face of God.
Come on people. Your standards are too low.
This and your below comment border on satire and could pass for something on r/iamverysmart.
The solution to that is not to continue to seek consumption, but starting creation. Your consumption phase is done.
Producing things of value takes a lot of time and effort, you would be too busy to waste time lamenting about things outside of your control.
Thank you for this comment. I myself just got into vibe coding a few projects and anecdotally I've never been more excited about the future barring the economic implications of a world more reliant on AI. It feels as if the parent comment should take your recommendation to heart and start creating!!!
Everybody is maliciously taking you seriously :D
Hang in there! It gets better!
[dead]
Listen to Bach, if that doesn’t work then your standards are not high but completely wrong.
Honestly sounds like you’re just depressed. I don’t even mean that in a mean way.
I think I've just got a bigger imagination than the kind of people who can sit down to enjoy Netflix.
Anybody with a big imagination must feel trapped by mediocre content. Daydreams are often more enjoyable.