{"id":12770,"date":"2024-08-01T22:48:49","date_gmt":"2024-08-02T02:48:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=12770"},"modified":"2024-08-01T22:59:09","modified_gmt":"2024-08-02T02:59:09","slug":"a-mind-forever-voyaging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=12770","title":{"rendered":"A Mind Forever Voyaging"},"content":{"rendered":"

I mentioned this before: A Mind Forever Voyaging<\/em>, a computer game from the 1980s, one of the text adventures of the legendary Infocom, a game in which you play an AI protagonist, sent to simulations of the future to explore the factors behind the decay and collapse of society.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As you venture further and further into the future, things get worse. Inequality, homelessness, violence.<\/p>\n

I was again reminded of this game this morning when I saw the news: New mortgage rules are in effect, allowing borrowers less down payment and longer terms. As a result, the monthly mortgate payment for a $500,000 home is “only” around $2,700, give or take.<\/p>\n

Has it occurred to anyone that perhaps the problem is not on the borrowing side but on the supply side? That if we lack affordable housing, making it easier for people to borrow money that they cannot afford to repay is not really a solution?<\/p>\n

The same newscast again mentioned an increasingly frequent problem, “renoviction”, when people are evicted from their rent-controlled apartments because the landlord renovates, only to learn that they can no longer find a place of residence that they can afford.<\/p>\n

Also on the news: yet another old business (opened 1954) is shutting down at the ByWard Market. In their case, it’s the changing nature of the business post-COVID but for many others, it’s the deteriorating public safety. Increased police presence only pushes the problem elsewhere, like Centretown. I had to drive across town today to our car dealership, for an oil change. I saw panhandlers at every major intersection. Not too long ago, such sights were rare, dare I say even nonexistent here in Ottawa. Now, downtown sidewalks are full of homeless folks.<\/p>\n

I have said it before when I lamented about AMFV<\/em> here in my blog: It’s a piece of (interactive) fiction. Please do not mistake it for an instruction manual. Let’s come back from the brink before it is too late. Unless it is too late already…<\/p>\n<\/fb:like>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I mentioned this before: A Mind Forever Voyaging, a computer game from the 1980s, one of the text adventures of the legendary Infocom, a game in which you play an AI protagonist, sent to simulations of the future to explore the factors behind the decay and collapse of society. As you venture further and further […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,64,44,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-canada","category-computer-games","category-local-ottawa","category-politics","category-22-id","category-64-id","category-44-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12770"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12773,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12770\/revisions\/12773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}