Cognitive Resonance

Upon due reflection, I think this Axios piece (which I read yesterday) deserves more attention:
https://www.axios.com/2025/05/28/ai-jobs-white-collar-unemployment-anthropic

AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs — and spike unemployment to 10-20% in the next one to five years, Amodei told us in an interview from his San Francisco office.

Don't panic. Strategize.

Since I end up not posting about gameplay-completed computer games because I rarely approximate "completion," let's try a slice of one while I'm definitely not finished with it.

Avowed (Win/Steam, 2025) is a fantasy RPG evocative of the Elder Scrolls titles. It is surprisingly and rather thoughtfully accessible. Though it's very pretty, one may play it on a sturdy older machine without much framerate stuttering.

(Already we have footnotes! In reverse order: my venerable laptop has 32 GB of RAM. Many reviewers cite Oblivion, ES 4, but then they reveal they're too young to've met ES 3 = Morrowind, which I'd argue has the more meaningful callbacks. Apparently, Avowed shares a setting with Pillars of Eternity, which I haven't played and which the wiki summary links to Planescape: Torment.)

Alongside the planned-out accessibility, Avowed breadcrumbs its worldbuilding thoughtfully, too, as a former Polygon journalist explains in deliberately spoiling an early sidequest for analytical purposes. If you're very picky about spoilers: some quick, unremarked-upon visuals in the 10-min clip are from farther into the game, and they're too short to affect any playthrough realizations. (RIP Polygon, sold and many of its writers laid off since that clip was released.)

Further remarks on Avowed's gameplay have been shelved because of hand pain, the one thing so far that can keep my posts fairly short. Morrowind was a good friend 20+ years ago, and it's mostly pleasant for me to wander around Avowed. I'm so glad it doesn't require the use of a game controller.

For anyone Elder Scrolls-curious, see Walker's quick guide at Kotaku to getting Morrowind running nowadays, and a similar guide for Daggerfall (ES 2). And of all the Oblivion-rememberings I've read lately, I'd suggest The Guardian's as the most readable---just the first chunk of the linked page---although MacDonald and I disagree on playability and enjoyment.