Day 122: Habemus Papam, Retreat Part II-III, and Living a Cyberpunk 2077 Life

 

I'm back! After a two-week break, I have returned to blogging. The cause of my disappearance is the usual suspect: real life.  In addition to that, I just needed a break as fitting in a blog entry every few days started to feel less like a hobby and more like a job. It helped that politics quieted down a bit.  I mean, this admin was as nuts as ever, but the last few weeks were more about Trump and his minions embarrassing themselves than it was about actively destroying the nation.  

But now, with the help of a rainy day (writing weather!), I am back at it.  

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We have a new pope! And he is American!

I was stunned when we learned he was an American because I agreed with the mindset that America, being a superpower, would never be given even more power by having 1.4 billion Catholics come under the sway of an American pope.  So much for that logic! The reasons why an American pope was picked are still much debated. Of course, there has been speculation that an American was chosen as a way to counterbalance Trump's malign global influence from within, so to speak. I am not sold on that. Political pundits have a nasty habit of injecting American politics into theology. This is understandable as evangelical Christianity has proven itself amenable to accommodating its theology to contemporary politics, as seen by their rabid support of a man who is not only a convicted felon but also a philander, but that is not how the Catholic church operates. As an institution over two thousand years old, the Church has seen empires rise and fall.  As such, it has a far less reactionary view of politics. Contemporary crises must be addressed, of course, but the rest are transitory trifles on an eschatological scale.

Be that as it may, I pray that Pope Leo XIV lives up to these tumultuous times. Being a member of the, um, august Augustinian order, which is now 781 years old, I am sure he is up to the task. 

(As an aside, I am amused by the Ideogram AI-generated image I used for the header of this entry. It appears to have Trump as Pope admonishing Trump as president. It reminds me of the yin-yang of Gollum! I find it something to think about.)

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Like a whipped dog, Trump was forced to retreat yet again, this time on the Asian front of his trade war. Despite his bragging that nations were lining up to "kiss his ass", and that China's Xi was going to call him and beg for a deal, in the end, it was Team Trump that fell to their knees and gave China everything in exchange for nothing. As Robert Kuttner writes:

Trump’s deal with China follows a familiar script. Trump imposed preposterously high tariffs on China of 145 percent, effectively a boycott. China retaliated by imposing its own tariffs of 125 percent and blocking exports of critical materials such as rare earths that America needs.

Predictably, the damage was expected to be massive. So Trump needed an escape hatch. Once again, his administration has “suspended” the exorbitant tariffs, lowering them to 30 percent—the same range as the current tariffs of 25 percent on much of China’s exports. The Chinese reciprocated by cutting tariffs on U.S. exports to 10 percent.

The “suspension” of the higher tariffs will be in place for 90 days, while a joint working group addresses more fundamental issues. This will not solve the immediate looming shortage of Chinese imports that has been building for over a month, and even 30 percent is a stiff tariff. But more fundamentally, the deeper issues dividing the U.S. from China will not be solved in 90 days, if ever, and today China has the upper hand.

Remember when Trump boasted how the start of his global trade war was "Liberation Day"? How America was going to collect so much money in tariffs, that we would be able to eliminate the income tax? How domestic production would flower like so many wildflowers? Well...what happened? If tariffs are so great, as Trump and his circus of economic illiterates keep telling us, why repeal them?  Yeah, that's a rhetorical question because as anyone with an IQ higher than that of a sack of hammers knows, tariffs are not great, which is why their use is reserved for scalpel-like incisions and not a blanket policy.  Hence, like a whipped dog, Trump had to retreat once again. 

Of course, the damage is done, hence why Walmart has announced price increases, something that puts the lie to Trump's idiotic rhetoric that countries pay tariffs and not companies, or consumers.  And now the American people are going to reap the results of such antediluvian economic policy. As my governor posted:

Or, as Tony Negron shared on Bluesky:

Yeah. Pretty much that. This is what happens when couch potatoes who believe reality TV is real, vote for a president based on anything but sound policy. And now they are going to get what they deserve. 

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Speaking of racism, today Trump engaged in another show trial where facts were absent but white aggrievement was quite present:

Trump Lectures South African President in Televised Oval Office Confrontation

There have been killings of white South Africans, but police statistics do not show that they are more vulnerable to violent crime than other people. White South Africans are far better off than Black people on virtually every marker of the economic scale.

The encounter in many ways exemplified Mr. Trump’s selective concern over human rights in other countries.

While he showcased allegations of mistreatment of white people in democratic South Africa, just a week ago he traveled to three Middle East countries ruled by repressive regimes and told them he would not lecture them about how they treat their own people.

He cheerfully visited with and praised the Saudi crown prince who, according to the C.I.A., ordered the murder and dismemberment of a Washington Post journalist during Mr. Trump’s first term. Mr. Trump did not offer a word of reproach.

Whether it is the indiscriminate deportation of anyone with brown skin by the Gestapo-like ICE or the recent arrest of an African American congresswoman on trumped-up charges, racism is everywhere, and they are not even trying to hide it. 

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Wow, there was a lot more stuff I needed to mention than I thought. Well, here is another.

Trump, again, like a whipped dog, retreated from yet another pledge, this time to end the Russo-Ukrainian War, something he promised to do even before he was sworn in as president.  Like the clownish conman that he is, he failed once again to deliver anything of value:

In Trump Call, Putin Notches a Diplomatic Win, With an Economic Caveat

His hard-line position has withstood pressure from Ukraine, from the European Union and, until recently, from the United States for an immediate cease-fire. After speaking with Mr. Putin by phone on Monday, President Trump said that he welcomed direct peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, in effect making a final break with his earlier promise to bring a swift end to the conflict.

When one steps back to look at the achievements of this administration, it is striking how much of a failure it has proven to be. Again, this is not a surprise to anyone with a functioning brain, but even I had expected a modicum of success. Instead, Trump 2.0 has been little more than a series of incompetent jokers stepping on rakes over and over again. 

Such is the modern Republican Party.  Not that the Democrats are doing much better. Now, more than ever, we need a viable third party.   

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Lastly, a family friend recently underwent cataract surgery. Later in the day, I remarked that he was living the cyberpunk life. When he asked what I meant, I pointed out that he was benefiting from technology that, just a few decades ago, would have seemed like pure science fiction. His cataract was removed by a laser-wielding robot, and inside his chest, a computer not only regulated his heart rhythm but regularly phoned home to his cardiologist. Remarkable! And yet, we hardly stop to marvel at these things—they just quietly become part of the everyday.

For some reason, we expect the future to arrive in one shocking leap, as poor Squidward experiences in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode “SB-129.”

But it doesn’t—it seeps into the present drop by drop, until one day, we wake up and realize we're already living in it. Even as I wrote this reflection, I shared the thought with Copilot, the artificial intelligence tucked into every Windows 11 machine, and it immediately engaged with the idea, offering insights and expansion. The future here and now—yet again.

These thoughts drifted through my mind as I completed the main campaign of Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt RED's once-troubled, now-redeemed champion. A few years ago, I wrote a somewhat critical review of the game that I still stand by. It has since received substantial quality-of-life improvements, smoothing out some rough edges I highlighted. Yet even with these fixes, Cyberpunk 2077 still feels somewhat shallow in actual gameplay.

So, why did I stick around long enough to finish the main campaign?

Because the writing was that darn good.

Despite nearly half a century(!) of gaming, I can count on the fingers of both hands the number of campaigns I’ve actually completed. As I’ve noted before, most game stories exist to service gameplay, rarely rising above mediocrity. But in Cyberpunk 2077, the writing pulled me in so deeply that I needed to see how V’s and Johnny Silverhand’s journey concluded. (No spoilers—just know that it’s proper noir.)

That’s rare for me. Usually, I ignore a game’s story, but this one stuck.

What’s more, finishing the campaign left me regretting that I had done so too soon. Though I could continue with the Phantom Liberty expansion, returning to play after the weight of the main story’s finality felt disjointed. In hindsight, I should have avoided the point-of-no-return bait and waited. But oh well—what’s done is done. Now, I have no choice but to… start a new playthrough to 100% the side hustles and the Phantom Liberty storyline.

What is happening to me? LOL.

For all its flaws, Cyberpunk 2077 is one of those rare games where the sum is greater than its parts. Maybe its appeal stems from the lack of real competition—it remains the only cyberpunk title with any pseudo-open-world glitz—but I now understand why, despite its gameplay limitations, the game continues to hook players worldwide (40,000 people played it on Steam today!). There’s magic here, even if it’s cobbled together from bite-sized elements, like tinkering with the advanced photo mode.

Rumors now suggest that CD Projekt RED, seeing the unexpected longevity of Cyberpunk 2077, might not abandon the title in favor of a full-fledged sequel just yet. Instead, they may inject fresh content periodically. I hope that’s true—many core areas could use expansion, especially in making Night City feel more alive and reactive. We’ll see what they decide. But regardless, I’m glad I didn’t write this game off entirely. While not the greatest thing I’ve ever played, the ride was undeniably fun—thanks to the gorgeously realized, if somewhat superficial, environs of Night City, the compelling narrative, and the stellar voice acting that brought it all to life.

And in a time where tech billionaires have orchestrated a high-tech heist of the U.S. government, imposing a dystopian reality where the ultra-rich siphon resources from the poor, Cyberpunk 2077 feels less like a game—and more like a warning.

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