I’m not much of a video gamer. I’m stuck in a (virtuous) cycle of compounding disinterest: I don’t play many games, so I never gain the proficiency or patience to become a good gamer, which makes it harder to enjoy video games, which further discourages me from gaming, and so on. That’s not to say I don’t have my vices. I’m caught in my own peculiar cycle of consumption: reading longform and Wikipedia articles, which encourages me to read even more “for understanding and context”, which takes me to more articles; and the next thing I know, it’s the end of another glorious but wholly unproductive day.

I guess it makes sense, then, that the only video games I currently play are those that scratch some obscure intellectual itch. For the last six months, those have been Kerbal Space Program and Civilization V. I will surely write about my experiences with Kerbal in the future, but for now, I’d like to share one of my favorite little features of Civ5: the Technology and Wonder quotes. Continue reading →