And that kind of sounds like a challenge instead of an insult, to me at least (of course IRL would depend on context).

But overall I agree. If everything is uber-colorful, that can become just overwhelming. Also we are a lot more stimulated throughout the day with screen and movies and games. In the olden days you didn't have a smartphone with a colorful screen, so putting lots of colour in your house or your church made more sense.

I'd want less advertisement, and more thoughtful color choices throughout cities and digital spaces.

I don't oppose privacy tools existing, specially for edge cases like investigative journalism and oppressive regimes as you mentioned. I mostly oppose people using and promoting unmoderated or inadequately moderated services. I guess what's being discussed here is mostly infrastructure not services, but still I think the infrastructure may be able to help promote or facilitate healthy services.

I've seen the outsized harm free for all spaces (usually "for teh lulz") can do to society, when we thought it was just innocent "shitposting".

I encourage people to participate in spaces where you know there's ethical moderation (that also leaves leeway for cultural differences), avoid otherwise, and don't encourage anyone to participate there. I think HN is a pretty good example of that.

I think some moderation is important so things don't get out of control.

The inputs to a computer game are more limited, you can't see people, their faces (and sometimes voices), the graphics are still a far cry from the more beautiful places.

Also, real life is full of responsibilities and large parts of it still, well, suck (bad jobs, exploitative practices, etc.). I think we're improving somewhat (greatly hampered by greed and power games).

If you have interesting activities IRL, like a great fulfilling job and hobbies (that are also potentially useful in other ways, like charity work), then by all means, but I think virtual worlds have their place in our lives.

Speaking of social cues, interacting with others specially in a complex environment where there can be severe competition as well as cooperation and difficult coordination, is something that also is worth practicing.

I have nothing against solo games, but this kind of thing is not practiced in a solo game.

Finally, I think other kinds of games (e.g. in competitive games) tend to have very simple interactions and objectives, compared to an MMO: there's a clear objective to win that's shared by everyone. Some MMOs have much more interesting interactions, where each person is interested in a different thing, and I think this contributes to a very rich atmosphere that isn't just 'Go win, try to win match, go out', i.e. more life-analogue (without other limitations of life, like you can't actually die, and being poor isn't as terrible as it often is IRL :( ).

I think chores aren't necessarily the terrible boredom. But having a robot as an option, you can do them as a sort of hobby if and when you want. That seems nice.

I think we also will need to develop maturity to deal with our free time, but it's probably not the disaster I've seem many claim (that we lose meaning) -- maybe their way to cope with an unfair world? or my way to cope with laziness.

The main thing is how to protect ourselves from rulers when we aren't necessary for labor. It seems like a difficult but solvable problem. Being able to choose how much to work (and play) is the dream!

The craft is an activity, kind of an art by itself. Many find it enjoyable.

The destination is the journey, dude!

In other words, what's so bad about games looking like work, or work looking like a game, if they're deep, fun and engrossing? If the job or the game is terrible, discard it: maybe the real difference is we can't always discard the job because we need to survive.