I don't think even the Crypto VCs are approaching this from the angle of making a compelling video game. They don't need to. This is all about creating the next platform for ingame digital consumerism. Think Genshin impact rather than any GoTY title.
And the unfortunate thing (for them that is), is that they haven't even figured out how do to that yet. Nobody buys web3 games, and it's been ~2 years. Until they figure out the MVP of it enhancing digital consumerism, all other promises are just a marketing spin.
It's funny, but as someone who's played it for a year, and yes, has spent $20, Genshin has remarkably non-in-your-face monetization. Plenty of games launch where the first screen is a sales pitch, but you actually have to look for it there. It's successful because it's a very well-put-together game experience-- smooth controls, plenty of content, a reasonable level of handholding. You've got to convince people they're actually going to have fun before dropping them in front of a credit card entry form.
This is a far superior summary of the aforementioned study. It also explains how the computer-simulated experiment was conducted
>All agents began the simulation with the same level of success (10 "units"). Every 6 months, individuals were exposed to a certain number of lucky events (in green) and a certain amount of unlucky events (in red). Whenever a person encountered an unlucky event, their success was reduced in half, and whenever a person encountered a lucky event, their success doubled proportional to their talent (to reflect the real-world interaction between talent and opportunity).
The issue with this study I always had was how contrived an unlucky event (halves success) was. Do these parameters actually map to the real-world? If anyone with actual chops in this field could comment on this, it would certainly be very helpful.
And by taking a single inflammatory and ultimately inconsequential soundbite from the article, you now risk derailing the entire discussion into a flamewar.
Assuming, of course, that wasn't your original intent to begin with.
But I do wonder if your comment would be the same and the soundbite still be inconsequential had the targeted race been a certain other one...
allow me to just state that. Am observing interesting change in societal norms
Putting away the scams, environmental concerns, and lack of regulation is a big caveat though. They are an inherent cost to the crypto space that currently lack an immediate resolution (to my knowledge).
How much "previously economically inviable things" are captured by NFTs and crypto anyways? I have not seen any potential usescases that outweigh even the inherent environmental cost of cryptocurrency.
Some quick maths. an increase of +17k Fentanyl deaths in a year. Let's say they all died at 20. Of the ~2.5million annual deaths, which average to be life expectancy (78.8 years). Life expectancy goes down to 78.4.
A net change of 0.4 years is not insignificant, but I think you're ignoring the elephant in the room (China's rapid development in the last decade).
On another vein, I'd argue overdosing on drugs is an intrinsic part to the American experience.
A quick google search would show this is untrue.
Opioid overdoses kill 40,000 a year. 2.7 million Americans die per year.
Even if you were talking about a decrease in healthy lifespan, Opioids do not generally cause a person to transition from healthy to unhealthy (they are prescribed to treat a preexisting condition).
That's not necessarily a disproof - if opioids are killing people who are disproportionately young, then they could have an outsize effect on life expectancy. Say life expectancy is 79 years. If a new cause of death occurs that affects 10% of the population and kills, on average, at age 78, then life expectancy goes down to 78.9. If a new cause of death occurs that affects 10% of the population and kills at age 29, then life expectancy goes down to 74. Same reason that infant mortality had a disproportionate affect on life expectancy: the numbers of deaths might be small, but the reduction in lifespan is large.
Personally I would bet on obesity being a bigger contributor to declining lifespans than opioids, but I'm just showing that raw numbers of deaths cannot automatically disprove the hypothesis that a decline in lifespan is due to opioids.
No, I mean there could be some actual effect that selected for those people.
For example if rich people were culturally more likely to use heroin than poor people, then overdoses would lower the life expectancy more than you would expect, because rich people (when not overdosing on heroin) have better access to medical care and hence longer life expectancy.
There's a great breakdown here [0]. The first chart shows age 15-44 deaths going up ~10% from 2010 to 2016. The third chart shows drug overdose deaths going up 50%(15-24), 80% (25-34), and 60% (35-44) from 2012 to 2016.
Washington Post recent headline: "Fueled by drug crisis, U.S. life expectancy declines for a second straight year"
Quote: "Experts pointed then to the "diseases of despair" — drug overdoses, suicides and alcoholism — as well as small increases in deaths from heart disease, strokes and diabetes."
40 of 2700 is 1.5% of deaths. If those are people decades younger than normal deaths, it will bring the numbers down. Not by several years, but by a decimal or two.
> Opioids do not generally cause a person to transition from healthy to unhealthy (they are prescribed to treat a preexisting condition).
This is a very naive view.
People start taking opioids in many different paths, legal and illegal. Some lie to get the prescription, no one can prove you don't have back pain. Some get a prescription after surgery and get addicted that week.
And the unfortunate thing (for them that is), is that they haven't even figured out how do to that yet. Nobody buys web3 games, and it's been ~2 years. Until they figure out the MVP of it enhancing digital consumerism, all other promises are just a marketing spin.