Chris Perkins leaving Wizards of the Coast didn't surprise me too much and it wouldn't surprise anyone who knew him, as much as I'd like there to be a dishy version. Crawford did throw me for a loop; I sent him a mail whose subject line was "WHAT" and whose body text read "but also whaaaaaat" to make sure my bewilderment was properly registered. But I know him, too. He's been a great friend and ally during some very complex times and my life has been enriched by both of these men. My expectation is that James Wyatt - ironically, the first ever Acquisitions Incorporated DM - will be getting more of the limelight, which he will probably hate. That is the fate of the true dork; you do your dorky thing and then people like the dorky thing and suddenly you are a public person through no fault or design of your own. Alas.

That is all assuming that things are as we know them to be - a fool's conception, the conception of a fool. Just beneath the skin of reality, there is another truth.

I read another gruesome article over at Polygon on what tariffs are doing to just a single industry, boardgames. I know a lot of people who make these games that have pinged me completely out of the blue to type messages about the future they see in muted lowercase text. I don't say this to be glib. This is literally what I'm getting. And not one or two times.

I namechecked Lysenko last time I mentioned this shit because it's a useful model to describe how reliance on rigid dogma invariably comes into contact with phenomena it is unable to resolve. I have to explain this shit over and over again every time my kid comes home from college. Like many nineteen year-olds, I too invented socialism.

Everyone is subject to dogmatic thought, and I have terrible news for people who think they aren't. What's more, this adherence to scripture naturally drives itself headlong into the very situations it can't resolve and it is only through violence to others or the self can these circles be squared. If you're curious about a few particular cases, read a book. Pretty much any book. It seems to be our doom.

What is happening with these tariffs and my friends is an example too, if you're looking for something more immediate or you don't have time to read a book between that last paragraph and this one. I realize now that it was a rude request and I apologize. There are a million conversations to be had and I would love to have them all, lots of fun little angles to share. Cool numbers goin' wild. Crazy lines going every which way. It looks like they're doing this, but they're really doing this! This is all beneath your intelligence and it's disgusting that we're forced to endure it. It's even below my intelligence, annealed as it is beneath every obliterant known to man.

At the very root - currently mid-gnaw by Nidhoggr - is a set of dogmatic beliefs about the world and our place in it. As it must, it has come into contact with its nemesis wave. The true believers enacting all this will not be harmed by the spells they're casting, they functionally live on a higher plane of existence from us, which is why they haven't had a single conversation that would disabuse them of these notions. In the meantime, they've literally set fire to small business generally. But it is our pain that squares the circle. To them, it is just the smoke of a burnt offering; they dance and caper in its scent.

(CW)TB out.