Ross Scott

Itch.io had a gigantic game pack for sale a week or so ago, that ended up coming to 1700+ games. The majority of this stuff looked like games I wasn't interested in, but there were some promising ones. I was going to attempt to filter through these on a livestream to see which ones I was interested in, and which I would pass on if people are interested. This will of course be to my own tastes (you can see those in my games list video), but I'll explain my rationale. In any event, some people may want to check the video afterwards at the end and see what I whittled down the list to. I originally thought I would be able to do this in one sitting, but that was back when it was "only" 700 games. I'll just go at it for a few hours and see how many I get through. If you're interested, it will be at twitch.tv/rossbroadcast at 5PM UTC on June 20th. This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here »

No, it's like I said in the video. Be able to do as much as possible with just one hand, then do even more with 2 (left hand for hotkeys, I even said in the video a custom pad could do a lot). I actually wasn't criticizing hotkeys, just the current implementation of them. It's when you need BOTH hands on the keyboard and / or poor ergonomics that I think they aren't a great solution. In other words, I want to minimize the switching and I personally do too much with the mouse (sometimes where the keyboard would be a poor choice also) to make the keyboard the primary control (I think this is the case for most Windows users). For others, the mouse is only sparingly needed, so the keyboard makes more sense to them. Both camps don't like having to switch hands more than they have to.

My understanding (which was apparently incorrect) was if I'm editing a text file, that's only in system memory. The copy on the disk is still safe. If a power failure occurs, unless it was in the middle of saving and writing to the file, the original copy on the disk is still safe, all I'll lose are any edits I've made in memory since my save. Instead, the ENTIRE file was written blank. Don't worry, I'll probably move to Notepad++ at some point. And of course theme look is subjective, I was hoping to see a variety which might give me ideas of what I'm looking for. It is true, I think yours don't have enough contrast between the background and the text and some of which look poor against a bright windows frame, but I appreciate the input. This is a thought I had after making the video I think has a lot of potential and may or may not happen. I was envisioning something different from Eagle Mode though, I think that goes TOO far with zooming and kind of reminds me more of microfiche, which can get confusing. I appreciate the outside-the-box thinking though. I plan to talk about zooming in the follow-up later on. Yeah, I'm up against decades of conditioning, it might be a fool's errand. But I'm looking for that gap between the cracks to make things better. I'm actually more optimistic now than before I made the video. That's a great analogy. I'd argue it's more than just the lack of standardization, it's kind of the Windows 8 Metro problem as well: The GUI simply can't accomplish all the functions expected of the OS, so of course it commonly gets dismissed. If it was the case where there was no GUI standardization, but every desktop manager did almost EVERY function a typical user could need, I think that would be far less of a problem. You have a lot of excellent points in your whole post, but your example is a great one to look at. First, that would not be fast for me, just because I simply don't deal with non-typical characters very often, like *,$,&, etc. I can touch type, but I realized, for many of those, I still have to look down, but hey, that's an example where I'd be faster if I adapted. Second, I make plenty of typos. The longer the command is, the odds of that happening go up. While they're rapidly fixed with backspace, it's still an average slowdown that's going to accumulate an average minor slowdown for me (even typing normal sentences like this). Finally, I look at this from 2 ways: 1. How would I do this right now in a file explorer? 2. How could that be improved if there was more free reign with the GUI? With way 1, it would be Right click in the space, hit new folder (or hit a new folder button set aside for it). Then hit a tab to organize by filetype, select all txt files, move to folder. I say if there's only a few files and no scrolling, the GUI will be faster. If there's a LOT of files, the CLI will be faster. Either way, I admit it doesn't feel great on the GUI, it feels clunky and sluggish With way 2, I'm seeing lots of potential for optimizations: -I could have a mouse gesture assigned for creating a new folder (a gesture specific to my file manager), so I don't have to go through the slowdown of hitting a tiny icon to create a folder, or right clicking and scanning through a submenu, I just do it instead. -I could have a hotkey or gesture that pulls up a submenu of icons representing all the different file types contained in that folder. I could then select .txt and then the window only shows me .txt files in that folder, or another hotkey or gesture that selects all of them. -I could make a quick gesture to copy what I've selected or use a hotkey -The folder tree could be represented visually somewhere, additionally I could have an ongoing history of folders I've been to or created. -I could then hover over that folder, then hit the paste hotkey or gesture and it's done. For Way 1, the time involved highly depends on how many files there are. For Way 2, I could imagine these actions all occurring within 2-3 seconds. regardless of how many files there were, and less likelihood of a mistake (for me anyway). I think this time would put it as competitive with the CLI. With file management, I think right now, the GUI loses ground if there's a MASSIVE number of files AND there's a wide variety of filetypes in one directory, due to scrolling required, but I think changes could work to mitigate that (like in my way 2 method + I have more ideas I'll put in the followup). I think the CLI starts losing ground the longer your commands or names get. So if I need to move files from a subdirectory 8 levels deep with long names to a completely different one multiple subdirectories deep, my understanding is that slows things down. With the right GUI, that's almost irrelevant. EVERYONE ELSE: I saw a lot of great posts and I'm reading all of them, I just don't always have anything special to add

See this is where we have to look at the larger picture for the user. Anything that can be launched with a keypress can also be launched with a shortcut or a mouse gesture. You just have to set up the script for what you want ahead of time, that's true in both cases. So in my eyes, if they're on equal footing, you have to look at how often you need that key, how easy is it to hit, how close is it to others that you use, etc. Plus you mention launching a video setup, well that's just your foot in the door. Once it's LAUNCHED, then I probably need to be navigating it via mouse for maximum speed. So my hand is heading back to the mouse, unless this is a one-handed hotkey launch. I mentioned in the video I saw potential with custom keypads with ergonomic though behind them. Really, I'd say that's not incompatible with anything I was saying in the video. It's once you start needing TWO hands on the keyboard to make the most of hotkeys that I think average users (or anyone who needs the mouse for maximum efficiency / convenience for software they regularly use) start losing a lot in terms of overall efficiency. Someone linked me to this, I haven't had a chance to test it, could be super powerful if it's using AHK: https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=12078

Okay, sorry, I realized I wasn't clear with my wording, I actually wasn't arguing people should be UNABLE to have desktop icons if they want them, what I meant was this was ugly as a default and a poor way of doing things. Of course, if people prefer that, they should still be able to have it. To be super clear, I want people to be able to customize their GUI in ANY way they want. As for "don't use them", yes, that is POSSIBLE, and it's going to be an ongoing battle for pretty much as long as you use a computer AND with no alternative provided. Every time you install a new program, it's going to dump icons there. Some installers give you the option not to do that, others don't. You can never escape desktop icons permanently by default. Additionally, there's no other alternative given if you want to rapidly access everything that WOULD go to the desktop. Windows is designed to have desktop shortcuts. If you NEVER want to see them AND install new software, that's just not an option under normal means. I can click in what would be the taskbar area also. I could also configure it to have them come up literally wherever the cursor was, but that would have taken more brainpower to figure out how to do, I was lazier here. There are 4 inefficiencies to what you're proposing v. my method: 1. I have to travel down to the bottom left of the screen each time 2. I have to click twice as opposed to once 3. Even when clicking once, I have a higher travel time to the folder in ADDITION to the travel time to the start menu 4. I can't fit as many programs in the same amount of space Maybe some of these can be fixed, I don't know. For the record: my method could be a lot better, but my options were limited. I think I might need an additional piece of software for this purpose specifically I'm not defending what I have here. I said in the video I thought this was an example where circle dock would be superior, because it would involve less travel time than the start menu. I've been meaning to use something better than Notepad and for a while I did, but then I had a power failure and lost all contents of a file I was editing (I thought that shouldn't be possible, since it would be stored in memory and not alter the source unless I was saving), this made me more wary of 3rd party programs, but I should probably give some more a try sometime. Again, it's something else I haven't gotten around to. I was hoping people would post themes showing the nicest looking notepad-like colors, fonts, etc. but that hasn't been the direction the commentary was gone exactly. Hey, you mention themes, what are the nicest ones for Notepad++? This has minor inefficiencies, since it involves 2 hands for maximum efficiency (if you use keyboard-only you have to hit the tab key repeatedly to swtich to the task you want) and involves a little more travel time. This was an example too where I had access to better options long before Windows did, I've had a dock system like that off and on for maybe 17 years. Well first, I've had this since 2002-ish, so I would have had to wait 13 years for Windows to give me what I wanted. Second, I admit I could be an idiot here, but could you tell me how to enable it? It doesn't do that by default. I just did a test on 10 and tried copying a bunch of files, the second job started immediately, wasn't queued. I saw the option to PAUSE a transfer, that's it. I admit, I'm either stupid on this or Windows 10 does not support queued file transfers.

This is part of the reason I plan to make a followup. I didn't adequately explain that what I have NOW is NOT my vision of what I WANT the GUI to be like. The only aspects of my current GUI I defend are shortcuts off the desktop, my hotspot launching option, and rapid identification. I apologize if I made it seem like my current GUI was the way to go. Now, if you're attacking me on the pie menu system and gestures though, that's fair, I'll take that. I WAS advocating that I think that could lead to a lot of advancements. It's not that I won't try it, it's that I'm not seeing the speed increases for non-coders. If I spend most of my time doing multimedia, that means I'm on the mouse a lot and it's unavoidable. So that means switching back to the commandline to type is an additional delay in time. Again, this is partially about EFFICIENCY. I acknowledged in this thread that if you're typing on the keyboard most of the time, the keyboard could be more efficient! That was a consideration I hadn't made before. As for irrational zealots who want to take away my mouse, have you seen the Youtube comments? I'm not against using the keyboard, I'm against slowdown. If I'm working in multimedia and web browsing and many other varied programs, using the mouse for maximum speed is inevitable. So that swapback needs to be taken into consideration, otherwise my TOTAL speed goes down. But disregarding that, give me some non-programming scenarios where the CLI is simply faster and I bet I could come up with some GUI concepts that would be about as fast. There might be a few where there the CLI edge it out, but I'm guessing not a lot. I think it would have be something extremely specific before a versatile custom-designed GUI would fail.

To the "just use CLI / keyboard" people. I may put this in a followup video, but I think I realized what the issue is. I work a lot in multimedia. I'm editing images, audio, video, doing web browsing + I tend to be visually oriented. By all means prove me wrong, but I'm guessing this is all stuff you don't want to do with the CLI / keyboard-only interface. My guess is the biggest proponents of it are coders. So for you, the times you need the mouse could be in the minority, so it makes sense for you to push the keyboard as far as you can. For me, unless I'm typing emails or scripts, it's reversed. The times I need the KEYBOARD are in the minority, since so much of what I do relies on visual manipulation, which isn't the keyboard's strength. Even then, I'm hardly in love with the mouse. I wasn't kidding about wanting that Minority Report interface for video editing. So before somebody else tells me to buckle down and go CLI, maybe consider the last time you edited pictures / audio / video using only the keyboard to better understand where I'm coming from.

When I do a followup, I was going to talk more about possible improvements for a file manager. This may be halfway there, I'm not sure of its functionality. I really like the more visual style of it, I guess my question is if this is something could be auto-generated or not. Even if it can't, it might be good middle ground if you have a LOT of commonly accessed stuff. Yeah, I need to get something better. I actually had one replacement earlier that was working out okay, but then I had a power failure and it erased an open file. That was a bit of a shock for me, since I thought that could only happen if I was doing a save or something and all normal editing took place in memory, but apparently not! I forgot the name of what it was, but I uninstalled it and have been meaning to get a replacement, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

I'm too busy for that kind of fun, but I could maybe make the jump if the end result was worth it. I have a similar attitude on GUIs actually. I don't want to fiddle with this stuff forever, I want to put in the work to get it right, then forget about it for 10 years or more and bask in how much nicer the experience is. As for keyboards, care to weigh in on which method you think is best?

Yeah, it's not QUITE my look, but I like a lot going on there, I tried to include a BeOS shot in the video. See, I disagree with the "can't ever" sentiment. I think that's a lack of imagination (though to be fair, if there's one thing I'm good at it, it's imagination). I think gestures actually COULD get you there and potentially even faster, but they would really have to be thought out. It feels so weird to me, it's like we're existing in a time before martial arts even exist. Anyway, I'm glad to see some sanity. I recognize that CLI can do a lot, but I think there really are scenarios it just isn't as good as even a present-day GUI. That's why I tried to show in my video examples of selecting many specific files files from a line up to move, jumping from multiple subdirectories as fast as possible, using a frontend to change options for DOSbox on-the-fly, etc. (actually that later one I could potentially see being as fast in a CLI with the right utility, but certainly not by default). If I could express one point to the CLI die-hards here, it's that no, the CLI is not 100% faster than the GUI in all situations, even with what we have now. I think with the right tools, it could be MUCH faster, but I'm still trying to figure that out. The people who insist it's better in ALL situations I think are making it more of a religion rather than trying to look at it objectively (or hell, prove me wrong in my examples above). I think it depends on what you do too. I'm not a programmer. I'm very multimedia-heavy with my work. If I'm not typing sentences for scripts, emails, and searches, I really don't need to be on the keyboard that much. Heading to the keyboard is usually the greater inconvenience for me, whereas if you code all day, the mouse might be the bigger pain for you. Don't get me wrong, I'm not in love with the mouse either, I was getting tempted by those motion control gloves + keyboard.

Hey, a pixel art theme could be pretty awesome for the OS. I'm a fan of that style. When editing the video, I found myself wishing my OS looked like I was living in the racing game world at the end.

For Linux people, none of these are the perfect look or anything, but here are some example of Linux themes where I liked a lot of what was going on. I think they could use some cleaner lines, but I liked some of the shading, textures, fonts, icons, etc. In general, I want to avoid pure white, but aim for some lighter shades, plus a few normal ones with a focus on readability. I'm open to other ideas too, but I wasn't able to find anything like this in modern Linux themes. Everything felt flat and / or way too much white or black.

Christ, I can't even use my own forums formatting properly. I tried using the quote tags and everything went to hell, so please excuse the awkward formatting instead: jacquie48th There's a utility that's similar to that called waifu2x. Althought it was made originially for anime-style images, it should also work for photos. I'll give it a shot sometime, thanks. Im_CIA: Many people don't use computers for "work", and those who do, use excel. For software developers/engineers (computers ARE work), hostile GUIs don't pose as big of problem since most of the time they work in a specific scope that can be fine-tuned. True power users are a dying breed. Yeah, for me, computers are a means to an end. I'm willing to put the time in to get it working how I want to, but then I want to not have to deal with that again for years at a time if I can. Also, your desktop is a perfect example of the problem I notice visually with a lot of themes. Your terminal windows look pretty slick, dark theme, but readable colors, looking nice. Then BAM your web page is bright as hell in comparison and just overpowers the rest of it. My solution was to go for something in between, but maybe forcing everything to be dark on the web with plugins could work too. hj You, Ross, yourself, complained about "learning all the hotkeys", the very same principle applies to mouse gestures, learning how to use console et cetera. It's a fair point about me complaining about learning the hotkeys, that maybe was a cheapshot on my part, however it's ALSO coupled with that not being an ergonomically great system. So we're talking about memorization, but it ALSO not feeling great once it's memorized! hj Windows 8 wasn't hated because it was slower or because it has tablet interface, biggest reason was because they drastically changed things there. This is true, HOWEVER, Metro ALSO LITERALLY COULD NOT DO ALL THE FUNCTIONS the regular UI could! I don't think there was a Metro version of device manager, for example. So even if you liked it, it was OBJECTIVELY NOT AS FUNCTIONAL. It was like my example in the video where I tried to change the resolution in a VM using the GUI and it was LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE. No wonder those users prefer the CLI then! If I hand you a new interface, but then it can only do 60% of what your old one did, of course you're going to hate it. It's the same story with Windows 8. It's true the public fights change. However, if something is far and away BETTER, then a lot of people can end up coming around over time. For example, I don't see a lot of people going back to typewriters over computers these days. Regardless, it's possible to have OPTIONS, so the people who do want change can have it, while the holdouts can keep using what they're used to. Don't hand me false dichotomies man, I get enough of that from Microsoft. hj However if we really focus on efficiency and forgo the "easy to understand" and other things, I'm afraid we'll have to also forget the mouse. I'm not saying the mouse is great, but for some things, the keyboard is WORSE. I tried to point out some examples in that video, how would you rapidly select specific files from a line-up like I did in the video with just the keyboard? How about rapidly changing DOSBOX profile settings on-the-fly (not preconfigured)? I mean if you explain in detail how that is JUST AS FAST with the keyboard with the right interface I'll listen, but I have a suspicion it's that some people want work things to work one way, so they'll forgo other methods when that doesn't fit the mold. As for the look, I like a lot of elements of old-school Linux themes, but they could use some modernizing. I'm not thrilled about flat with lots of black and / or white. testman We need a central knowledgebase for everything related to the GUI Quest™. A place for proposed ideas, design guidelines for existing interfaces, links to experimental interfaces, list of abandoned concepts, etc. Someone on Reddit made a repo that I assume will be used for this purpose. https://github.com/HawaiinPizza/Ross-Good-Gui By all means, the forums here were just my stab at bringing order to chaos. I can maybe migrate things to that later. NightNord But honestly I don't think a lot of people really care. Hence the reason I couldn't stop my urge to create an hour-long quixotic video on the subject. danm36 For Ross's comment about the Windows shell being embedded so far in the OS that it's a pain to mess around with/replace, there's some good-ish news. Microsoft have apparently finally decided to separate the Windows shell from the OS layer, which should hopefully mean that shell replacements become much easier to implement in the future. Their main reasoning is so that they can push out shell updates without needing a full OS update, but dummying it out and replacing it with a custom shell should become trivial. How long this will take though... that's yet to be seen. As a Windows developer myself, the shell is pretty deeply nestled in there. That's fantastic news, I'm glad I made the video when I did then, so I didn't have to throw out a whole chunk of what I was going to say. I look forward to some of the video becoming obsolete. AtomicPurple If I use a GUI interface for the same tool, I have to click to open the program, click the open directory button, then click a bunch of times to navigate to the directory I already had open, and THEN I can start converting. I really don't think it's an either / or thing. Even though I showed a couple examples in the video where I think the GUI is faster, I still don't think it's GOOD there. Organzing files isn't particular pleasant at all on the mouse and keyboard, I see losing the mouse part of the equation not making it much nicer for me, I think we just need better software there to be honest. FixesComputers Now comes the opinion: Don't. Just...don't. Duly noted! Yllia Yeah I think the motion tracking gloves + keyboard are the "everybody wins" solution for getting away from mouse switching. I tend to be more visually oriented and I actually think the GUI LochNessMobster AR is one of those things I could see evolving to the Iron Man level over many years, or it may sputter out. I'm not waiting for that, I can be happier with more primitive means, but not what Windows is handing me. Also, you may find this interesting: https://www.pcgamer.com/this-8k-holographic-monitor-has-me-dreaming-about-the-future-of-gaming/ FuzzyCandle Yeah, you're beyond my level, I'm just at a point where I can see the potential of haptic controls. A problem that's unlikely to change for decades though (maybe ever) is software isn't going to be designed for it, so we'll have to focus on motion controls as a translation layer for more conventional interfaces for programs. By all means, figure out how things should work though. It's really not even a joke talking about us having to develop a martial arts style to interact with a more advanced GUI.

Just a quick check-in, I'll try and go through all this a little later, but thanks for all the feedback on this. I may also edit the OP later to add links to any particularly good examples people bring up in different categories also.

If you ever wanted to know all my thoughts on the GUI, here you are! This has honestly been brewing in my mind for decades and while this video took way too long to make, it's an accomplishment for me that I was able to put this into something coherent. I'm really hoping this leads to somebody bestowing GUI enlightenment upon us, though I'm not betting on it. This post also doubles as a thread for people to post any helpful information regarding my GUI quest at the end of the video. Thanks in advance for anyone who finds some answers! This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here »

June videochat with fans. Topics seemed to swing back and forth between gaming and the state of humanity. Apologies there's no new real video yet, hope to have a big one ASAP, hopefully tomorrow! This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here »

Yeah, but everything else looked promising and it was saying it was an also an adventure game, so it's brushing up against my tolerance limit.

Ask questions or topics to discuss here for the next videochat with fans on 5:00pm UTC on June 7th at twitch.tv/rossbroadcast. I'm embarrassed I don't have a new video yet, but it's coming ASAP; I really hope to have it out before the videochat. It's going to be about 75-80 minutes long, has a massive amount of editing this time. More Game Dungeon / Freeman's Mind afterwards! This is a blog post. To read the original post, please click here »

Ugh, I wrote up more on the forest part, but lost it. I was going to say the sources you listed showed it as being debatable. The goodnews article said it was growing, though that was before the Australia and Amazon fires. The Yale article said it was still going down under each metric, but only fractionally so under one of them, with it being up for debate. So it could be that part isn't as dire as I think, though you agree the biodiversity is going down, which I see as playing with fire for long term survival of the ecosystem (in a way that benefits us anyway).

Nah it's fine, I actually wasn't looking for a debate either, it just seemed like such a bold claim to make. Besides, you already gave me gold with the no good games after 2004 comment for the games list video, don't worry about it. Again, if people aren't making personal attacks or stuff that sounds like hate speech, it's not a problem saying whatever. I think capitalism does have a purpose, it's purpose is to make profit for those who invest their capital. Wikipedia says something similar. But fine, it could be I'm incorrectly correlating growth with capitalism. How does capitalism PREVENT growth when it goes against profits to do so? Take the Amazon forest. If I let a plot of jungle just sit there, I don't make any money from that. Whereas if I clearcut it, sell the wood, then turn it into a cattle ranch or plantation, that makes a lot of money. What mechanism does capitalism have to PREVENT that? I don't see any, hence the reason I say it leads to growth. It may not be its purpose, but it strikes me as an inevitable side effect. Finally, you say I make some flawed assumptions on my worldview. Perhaps, allow me to clarify each: I don't assume that, I think it's a case-by-case basis. I think SOME growth only comes from more resources and globally we're using more resources than at any point in history. We use more minerals, lumber, livestock, fossil fuels, plants, etc. than ever before. Now sure we can become more EFFICIENT with them, but we're still using more TOTAL. I'm not assuming they don't offer incentives to save, of course supply and demand comes into play. I'm saying the profit incentive is usually greater. Global warming is a perfect example of this. Exxon was aware of the impact on climate of global warming from their OWN RESEARCH back in the 70s, so they supressed that information and now it's unlikely we'll be able to reverse the effects. Dupont was aware manufacturing Teflon was poisoning the environment from their own research, but that would have meant a loss of profit, so they suppressed that information and now it's everywhere in trace amounts, with countless levels of cancer rates increasing. There was incentive to save, but there was MORE incentive to make a lot of money! Still is! Simple version: Some problems you can wait until they manifest themselves to deal with them. Markets are excellent for pricing those. Some problems you can't, you have to be proactive or else you won't be able to solve the problem by the time it manifests itself. Markets have a horrendous track record on those. Finally, I'll end it with this: I don't know if I have much else to say here. I mean this not in a hostile way at all, but I think this view is delusional. You yourself said we have less biodiversity now. Many medicines we have come from biodiverse regions, they wouldn't even exist if they were depleted earlier as opposed to later. If what you're saying was true, plants and animals that we value would not have gone extinct under our watch, let alone by the hundreds. Humans in the past obviously valued species like the dodo bird and mammoth for food. They weren't infinite. The coral reefs are currently dying much faster than they're being replenished, this has enormous consequences to the ecosystem and our survival at this scale. We've currently extracted the MAJORITY of oil via conventional methods, it's only technological breakthroughs that allowed for more, and even then with a declining EROI. At pre-covid demand levels (which our ENTIRE modern civilization runs on), we had enough left for about 50 years assuming steady production, which was likely a fantasy. While we can synthesize oil using renewable resources it's nowhere CLOSE to the scale it's used at, there's not enough farmland on earth for that. That's oil we need to survive, the majority of fertilizers and pesticides are dependent on that. Again, we're overextended. Now it will probably take a generation or two before everything to hit, but that's not even close to infinite. Anyway, I think I'm done here, we got to the core of our disagreement. You think resources are infinite (and to be fair, so does most of the modern world, I'm the one in the minority, not you), I do not. I see this as a kind of collective madness. I presented some examples of valued resources we've depleted, I see no reason to believe there aren't more coming.

I think your logic is flawed there. Fine, let's say invaders come to the island. You could have someone bestowed with emergency powers ahead of time to take over during such an event to give orders to combat them in that event that there wasn't time for group plans. Additionally plans for many different scenarios could be derived ahead of time, prior to any invasion. The military operates this way. They have plans for thousands of possible threats, even if most of them will never come to fruition. You can't prepare for everything, but you can prepare for many different scenarios, which can also mean you're halfway prepared or more for some similar emergencies that you may have missed. You say "therefore all we can do is be 100% reactionary and let open markets do its thing". I don't see how you jump to that conclusion at all. I just explained how the military prepares for many different scenarios. That's also the purpose of groups like FEMA, to prepare for potential disasters. They don't know if they'll have an earthquake or a hurricane, or a volcano eruption or what, but they can be semi-prepared for a lot of different scenarios. You can do the same with economic crashes, medical emergencies, technology disruptions, etc. In the Invisible War video, I talk about a Carrington event. We are SO not prepared for that. We know it's almost certainly going to happen again. There's no reason we NEED to be 100% reactionary, just that's a reflection of how short-sighted we currently are. Furthermore, that's not really a criticism of any government or economic system. You can be prepared for scenarios under socialism, communism, democracy, fascism, monarchies, theocracies, etc. It all depends on what the priorities of the people in charge are. Finally, I don't get how you jump from that to saying the open market is the only way to do things. If anything, that's a liability, because preparedness is often unprofitable. If invaders come to the island and everyone is competing economically with no plans or authority, I don't see how that would protect anyone. Everyone being divided rule-wise would be easier to conquer.