Capitalist realism: the belief capitalism is the only viable system, or at least the only one compatible with modern human rights. You don't believe that here, right?

I think we'd need to create a living example of post-capitalist society e.g by reforming some country; most people don't fight for unproven futures. We mustn't lull anyone into believing the reward will be either perfect or instant, or they'd cherrypick any homelessness or corruption on our part as "proof" our system doesn't work even if they have it too.

I don't consider capitalism either the best possible system nor some supernatural evil; either would be reductive, and I don't have to downplay the vast good that has come from capitalism to imagine an even better way. While I know the bad parts of capitalism, framing them as capitalism-specific would stop us from solving them assuming they transcend any one -ism.

My parents accidentally threw away a large piece of unused clean wax paper and then insisted on not using it even though nothing visibly stuck to it. As a concession I've decided to well, see title. I've decided to keep it in my workplace so I can think up some use at my leisure.

Avoiding direct food contact is the preference. It also has to be some practical use.

Tradeoff

Theoretical limits and diminishing return points mean at some point we will only be able to make new devices better in some ways and worse in others, e.g having more compute but costing more power. This could easily give factions/brands their own technological flavor. You're welcome to mention how your futuristic tech is worse than modern/previous counterparts.

This is often thought to involve ***utilitarianism***, making tech better for many but worse for a few, but this is only when production comes from govs/corporations without custom manufacturing tech. While removing the headphone jack undeniably benefited everyone - everyone likes more durability and component space - the niche who specifically preferred wired couldn't have enjoyed paying for the good of many, nor will I when it's finally my turn. A more solarpunk solution I explore in my open-source nanopunk ***Fall's Legacy*** setting would be community forks where you can modify your stuff the way you like. Whether it's holes-for-none utilitarianism or holes-only-for-those-consenting customization depends who makes the decision.

Enshittification

New advancements are made not to improve tech so much as water it down and/or squeeze revenue from users and business partners. Cheap but bland scifi food is obvious, but what about a cheap implant that spams ads into your brain? Unless your evilcorp has local monopoly status , explaining how it retains customers at all would be quite the Worldbuilding challenge in its own right; maybe there's a de facto cartel where they legally mandate their anti-consumer practices onto everyone under some weird pretext - we have to backdoor your nanoprinter before you make guns or whatever. Cultures could also make their tech worse to save short term user costs. How could truly enshittified tech benefit a faction though? Maybe they have a lot of cheap units?

At first this seems to require scifi tech like nanotech, but I also think we could have local workshops taking local feedback. Maturing "reprap" would obviously speed up 3D printing adoption exponentially. We may stop having single main versions of a device, and start having open-hardware community forks we can make on demand.

I know the iPhone Air uses bulk-friendly 3D printing for its more compact USB-C, so we already have some in place.

Let me tell you what got me into customizable manufacture in the first place. While I can't deny the majority benefited from removing the headphone jack - would you give up durability and component space to force on you a hole only a few would net-gain from? - I'm free as ever to question the decision being made for us. While I benefited that time, eventually it'll be my turn to pay for the good of many as is the cost of utilitarianism. The niche who specifically prefer wired are as relevant as any customer. The rise of Bluetooth surveillance also threatens to offset the vast gain.

My go-to example of techno-utilitarianism is the headphone jack removal, which improved everyone's durability and reclaimed space for more/bigger components at the cost of the niche who specifically preferred wired. I've never said the majority benefits would be obvious; in the short term the feature that went away sadly spoke louder than the repairs people wouldn't have to pay for or performance they wouldn't miss out on. While I personally approve this specific change, utilitarianism is loyal to no one; eventually it will be my turn to pay for the good of many and it will also be yours. We need an escape hatch in the form of being able to make tech that only a few want.

At first this seems to require scifi tech able to custom-print e.g a headphone jacked iPhone 16. However I think we can also decentralize expertise and machinery into local workshops flexible enough to make relatively small amounts of devices per local demand, not to mention open hardware. A lot of our utilitarianism comes seemingly from govs/corporations since they have to operate under it themselves, so it'd be less dominant in a solarpunk society. I'd hope for a society that cares for what individuals want instead of forcing the majority's collective preferences on everyone.

My idea for my Fall's Legacy setting: touchscreens have shrunk due to being only an emergency fallback should neural interfacing or AR goggles be unavailable. This is similar to how Bluetooth audio phased out a durability-killing hole, though the latter still had niche advantages like slightly better sound quality and exemption from signal interference. I could also lean into the utilitarian ethics aspect of this by having a niche of touchscreen enthusiasts.

What I'd need:

- Dice app

- 3rd party rule wiki: Game rules aren't copyrighted, potentially allowing wikis to be perfectly legal if they limit 1:1 official text and with reasonable purpose; this might be how Fandom-based rule wikis operate. However the D&Reddit schism around a certain 1:1 copying non-Fandom 5e wiki - a few subs ban it but others openly discuss it - hints at a whole world of fair-use acceptability debate even many players/DMs much less me remain ignorant of.

- Let us know if word processors and spreadsheets aren't fit somehow.

- Friends: Possibly the hardest to prepare, though I know there are tools for arranging online.

While I could use theatre of the mind, I know they make money via props and rulebooks for those who like their rules in a first-party format.

How common is it to play for free or on a budget?

Dnd-5e advantages:

- Better SEO, to the extent of being among the top results for searching a creature

- More focus towards fair use e.g reformatting into a searchable wiki. Game rules aren't copyrightable in the US, and while their text is they could easily argue they're doing only the bare minimum to be useful. Some subreddits allow 5etools discussion, but it's still controversial.

- Better UI in my opinion; I'm just more used to Fandom

Disadvantages:

- Unlabeled homebrew (alleged, may or may not be fixed now)

My view: fair use, NTA. While rules are available 1st-party as PDFs, I'd personally prefer a searchable wiki. While we're at it, I'd like any mods passing by to clarify whether it's ok here to encourage such wikis for future reference. I know piracy is broadly any 3rd party reposting of copyrighted content, but I find the format transformative. If I wanted to lean into fair use as a wiki owner I'd omit specific adventures or other straight book copies and just focus on general rules.

The issue seems to have polarized D&Reddit; a few subreddits auto-censor 5etools, others openly accept and discuss it. If I were a mod trying to stamp out piracy I'd draw the line only at links or statements like "you should get PDFs from (Very Famous Internet Library Site)"

I'd also ask if any of you find 3rd party wikis a solution looking for a problem given the rules are online and you don't even need to buy anything for DND. If so, I'm curious what the rest of you like about 5etools and other 3rd party wikis.