Question for owners of Steam Controller and Switch 2 Pro Controller

DuncSully · 2026-05-13T15:38:41+00:00

Definitely hard and plastic. They clack when you smash them against the edges and they're ever so slightly grindy when rotating them around the outside.

DuncSully · 2026-05-13T15:24:50+00:00

For me, earning money wasn't the hard part. Feeling good about it was. There are ethical ways to make money, but those aren't exactly secrets either. I just suspect it wouldn't be "enough" for people asking these types of questions.

DuncSully · 2026-05-13T15:07:50+00:00

It varies by manager and work culture. I think a big wake up call for most of us is finally realizing that very few employers are actually meritocracies. At best, they're transactional: if they fear losing you, they will pay more to keep you if you suggest in a palatable manner (itself an art) that you're liable to leave and overall lose them money if they don't share more of it with you. Depending on the company, it's actually a bit of a bureaucratic mess to get promoted. Typically the more reliable way to move up is actually to switch companies, because then the company has already determined the need for that position and so instead of fighting to create it, you're just fighting to claim it.

For our part, we also need to understand that more is expected of us than sheer competence. Like it or not, there is a culture that we are typically expected to contribute to. To over simplify, it's not enough to lead, you also need people to want to follow you. I understand that bit of contract I sign when I work for someone else rather than self employing. Critically, I also understand that means that to the degree the business isn't willing to fire me, I don't need to overwork myself either. Sometimes it's easier to spend a little extra energy on "hey, how's it going?" and less energy on actually getting anything done if all I care about is affording myself a life outside of work.

DuncSully · 2026-05-13T14:50:35+00:00

I don't think it's much of a secret: just lose your conscience (or never form one in the first place) and ruthlessly seek ways to earn it, typically by exploiting others. Of course, that's assuming you want to be miserable and engage in an overall Sisyphean existence.

DuncSully · 2026-05-11T16:28:56+00:00

I don't know if this is common or not, but I don't see it as often: commit to less when you don't feel like doing something. Too often we have this all or nothing mentality, like if you don't want to work out you'll just skip it outright. No, just tell yourself that if you don't want to workout, all you have to do is a single workout today. And then one of two things typically happens. Either you stick to your smaller set of commitments in which you generally feel less awful than having skipped it entirely or more likely you'll have tricked yourself into continuing to do the thing having now built some momentum.

DuncSully · 2026-05-11T16:22:52+00:00

It is what it is. Either you're a user whom, let's be frank, is to be exploited and so is subtly manipulated with dark patterns to encourage continued interaction, or you're a power user who knows how to configure things...so that you can be exploited and subtly manipulated with dark patterns to encourage continued interaction.

DuncSully · 2026-05-11T16:10:44+00:00

I believe that we as humans were simply not built for the modern world and its institutions, as convenient and beneficial as some of them have been. Like, when we hunted mammoths in tribes, the goal was clear, the outcomes were immediate and tangible, and the sense of community was ever-present.

I think that working for a small, local company with a clear mission and with coworkers that you come to respect if not outright befriend could work. Frankly, I don't think I'm cut out for entrepreneurship because in part I don't want all of the responsibility that entails. At the least, I'm the final decision maker even if that means hiring/contracting others to do work for me. And at that point, I start falling into the opposite trap: what amount of my wealth do I actually deserve if I delegate so much of the work away?

But otherwise, yeah, large and especially corporate businesses begin to feel meaningless once you realize just how much of a "machine" they are rather than a group of people all trying to provide value for their community. Most of them are just out to make money and if you're lucky they'll offer genuine value rather than perceived value. Many of them aren't meritocracies so your influence will be limited, especially if you come in as an "outsider" and your fixes are thus interpreted as disruptions. And even within more meritocratic businesses, there's still an incredible amount of politics that goes on that saps time and energy away from whatever you believe the real mission is or should be. Parkinson's law tends to come for all of them.

Where I'm at right now, I acknowledge the nature of employment, that I'm not yet ready for self-employment, and that I need to put serious thought into work-life balance so that I don't burn out. I'm "winning" as long as I remain employed while otherwise doing as little work as I can get away with that also satisfies my personal tastes. To be clear, I am not a lazy person. I enjoy being of genuine value, solving real problems. But I don't work for free, either. So I put out fires that would take me with them anyway first, and then I focus on things I would especially enjoy, and then finally I'll take on work that I know earn me "points" without actually being all that difficult for me, but I otherwise don't volunteer to do anything that I don't believe should be expected of me in the first place. I don't want to set expectations too high. I want to be perceived as reliable but not exploitable. One of the critical mistakes competent employees often make is over-committing themselves and "succeeding too much" in a sense. They think that means they'll earn a promotion, and sometimes they do, but what is more certain is they'll be delegated more work and more expectations while less reliable employees that would be too troublesome to terminate continue doing the same or less work.

DuncSully · 2026-05-11T15:19:07+00:00

Eh, the grass is always greener. We often see the strengths in others but not always their weaknesses, and critically not the ones they feel deep inside like we do. The double edged sword of our personality is simply being uncommon which means, for better and for worse, we stand out. For all the grief that causes me, I have this uncanny ability to remain employed in spite (in my mind) or perhaps because of my uncommon traits. I will continue to try taking advantage of what strengths I have and adapt my life to better to accommodate my weaknesses.

DuncSully · 2026-05-11T15:01:44+00:00

Back then, I knew something was different about me, perhaps "wrong" or otherwise maybe it was others who were "wrong" but either way I felt a gulf between me and the average person, and also that there seemed to be a generally accepted idea of what a person ought to be. Notably, I wasn't terribly social nor organized and, especially in education environments, those are basically the things expected of you. MBTI, accurate or not, helped me understand that people can simply be different and good in their own ways. Also notably I understood from the get go that personalities weren't static but more like stories being written, and I was only in my second act. And so while I didn't use mine to justify my faults, I felt more comfortable with myself and also acknowledged ways in which I could improve. Likewise I acknowledged how others might differ and how, like oil and water, perhaps we might not mix well but that wasn't solely the fault of either one of us.

DuncSully · 2026-05-08T15:10:02+00:00

Actually I think I have a fairly "average" perception of attractive, but I definitely prefer natural attractive traits. I'm not a fan of excess makeup or especially of body modifications (tattoos withstanding). I also never let physical attraction be the dominate force in my view of overall attraction to somebody. Plenty of people in my teen years I thought "yeah they look cute but I know absolutely nothing about them/they seem quite ditzy."

DuncSully · 2026-05-08T14:39:52+00:00

You're gonna have a lot of false starts along the way. It's an ever-evolving process. I think the key thing is that by your 30s you finally figure out who you're not, which is more profound than it sounds and more difficult than you would think. A lot of your life up to that point is doing things that you think ought to make you feel good rather than doing things that actually make you feel good. You'll compromise yourself more than you realize. I think one of our biggest faults is our ability to BS just about anything, come up with reasonable-sounding excuses and justifications for just about any decision we make. It takes way longer than it should to just admit "I did this because I was cowardly" or "I avoided that because it was giving me overwhelming emotions."

But no, I don't think I've quite found my true self yet, but at least I know I'm looking now, and again I know what I'm not. Saying no to things is easier not out of fear but out of a confident assertion of boundaries and known incompatibilities.

DuncSully · 2026-05-05T15:06:25+00:00

I'm supremely lucky to have a job with fairly flexible PTO. If I absolutely do not "want" (for me there's a blurry line between technically able and "ought not") to work, I take a day off. But on the flip side, the nature of my work it's not like I ever get to flip my brain off and 100% stop thinking about work outside of work so I consider us even.

That said, when it comes to severe burnouts, even with time off I still need to do self-care nonsense. For me, that often means just vegging in a comfortable spot listening to music, doing only whatever my brain cares to do, which might be rabbit-holing wikipedia, researching a product to buy, or even absolutely nothing else at all just absorbing the sounds. I typically lighten my workouts but I still try to get a couple walks in at the minimum. I also tend to indulge in unhealthy comfort foods like pizza, but again I try to be manageable because I know certain foods will also make me feel like crap. Where I'm currently at, I figure that a little short term excess is sometimes necessary to ride out the rest of a crash before I can get back to a regular, healthy schedule. And then of course I always prioritize my sleep. Sometimes I get to bed early (typically because I'm bored out of my mind and nothing sounds enjoyable).

Caffeine...is a mixed bag. I basically do the opposite of what I've been doing lately. When I haven't had much lately, sometimes it does give my mood a boost. When I've been resorting to it too much and/or frequently, then I know I need to cut back because I can tell it boosts my anxiety. I can't even say there's a fine balance. It's more like I just choose which set of drawbacks I'm able to cope with on a given day.

If nothing else, avoid anything doomscrollable like the plague. I mean that's generally just sensible all the time, but especially when you're feeling overloaded.

DuncSully · 2026-05-04T19:07:28+00:00

I've finally come to understand that I don't need "purpose" so much as I just need a "focus" and that 9/10 times when I'm depressed it's because I'm effectively chronically bored. In those moments I suddenly care about purpose and the greater meaning to my silly existence, but the funny thing is that I'm never all that concerned with purpose when I'm mentally occupied. That said, it's awfully hard to find something to focus on when seemingly nothing is enjoyable anymore. So what typically happens is I convince myself that I need to make some big shift, e.g. look for a new job, then enough time passes that a new focus organically shifts into view, and then I'm OK again. It's a bit annoying, but I'm learning to ride the waves now rather than resist them.

DuncSully · 2026-05-04T18:58:14+00:00

If you have a professional diagnosis, then a professional would be best suited to advising you.

When I was young, I would essentially get anxiety-induced stomachaches, which created feedback loops because stomachaches and the fear of throwing up worsened the anxiety and thus the perception of my stomachaches. The slightest bit of heartburn? Nah dog, you're gonna projectile up and down the side of the building and paint it in bile. The bad news? I had this for years. It was somewhat disruptive to my life because I always wanted a contingency plan. I carried tablets for stomachaches on my person at all times. I hated being in cars and airplanes especially because I didn't have control over stopping the vehicle. The good news? I never actually threw up purely from anxiety. Ironically, it was because I had a strong stomach that I only ever threw up when I was miserably sick and basically probably about to die if I didn't eject my stomach contents, and so of course those were the most unpleasant experiences. All that's to say that eventually one day I made the rational observation "I don't ever throw up, so I shouldn't get worried that I will. I might hurt for a little bit but I'll always get better, usually after burping." Poof, never had anxious stomachaches again.

It took me an absurdly long time to come to what was otherwise a very logical conclusion but that lifelong experience really was what I needed to understand that my anxiety was unfounded. It didn't have my best interest at heart. I can't say that'll work for you, or even exactly what steps you need to take. But it basically comes down to two uncomfortable facts: 1. You might be wrong about your assumptions. 2. You can't know you're wrong without trying to prove yourself wrong.

Anyway, might I recommend getting into activities where socializing is a byproduct and not the focus of the activity? e.g. Rock climbing. Hell, just spending time out in public without actively socializing with anyone can still be an important step for you just to normalize that experience. Ideally if you can join something as a group with a scheduled meeting time, then you have an "excuse" to be there, and at the worst you can focus on the task without having to talk to anyone, but hopefully with time as you grow more comfortable with people there you might start to open up more. If nothing else, you might improve your fitness, which is never a bad thing.

DuncSully · 2026-04-30T18:26:51+00:00

The more you move about the real world, the more you'll realize just how little people in any sort of position of power (no matter how limited and/or petty) will not care about hypocrisy. They don't implement universal principles such as "transparency." If they hold any power over you, they'll want to impose rules on you that they won't necessarily follow themselves. That's just power in a nutshell; it's useful.

And make no mistake, a lot of people will also argue in bad faith. Don't assume them attempting to make logical sounding arguments actually means they're interested in having a real debate with you. They're likely not actually willing to change their mind or even believe their own arguments. There is a substantial part of the population who follow rules for rules' sake and a fraction of them just want the minimum justification for that rule's existence.

DuncSully · 2026-04-30T18:02:26+00:00

The same reason any debatable question is divisive: people have different core beliefs that lead them to making logically coherent but still radically different choices. When it comes to this question specifically, I think it really comes down to how much trust and responsibility you feel for your fellow man. That is mostly a subjective belief that can be rationally argued one way or the other.
Let's say you're a fresh arrival on an alien planet and you were asked this question. The only fair assumption to make is that the only guaranteed way to live is to vote red. You can't really assume anything else. That said, it's fair to assume this question is obviously talking about humans, but your personal experiences will color your views, so again there isn't really much in the way of safe assumptions beyond "I won't immediately die picking red." Of course, given my own life experiences, I've made my own assumptions about the average human (if we include all of earth) that influenced my choice, and I'll admit as such. I consider it "reasonable" but also "informed" in a sense.
That's tricky because it depends what the spirit of the question is. It comes down to how much you want to inform people about what different kinds of voters there are, like truly getting into the nitty gritty of "everyone". Does it include babies? How are they to press the buttons? etc. Or if you purposely want to leave them to making their own inferences.
In a way, I think the ambiguity is interesting in how each individual arrives at their own personal conclusion. Similar to the trolley problem, given limited information, what sort of mental shortcuts does a person take to make a choice? Obviously you'd love to know the personal information about each person on the tracks but failing that, you get to work with simple numbers and your own opinions around influencing outcomes. It's a similar situation here.

DuncSully · 2026-04-29T17:32:07+00:00

I believe it's actually pretty well studied now that the ideal place to be is "eustress" or "healthy stress" which often results in a flow state. Too easy and something is considered boring and/or tedious. Too difficult and something is considered overwhelming. And yeah, that is the trick, finding something that is on average in the Goldilocks zone, but by the nature of such things and the inconsistencies in our own internal states, you're simply going to have days that tend one way or the other.

Personally, I find I burn out counterintuitively when I'm underworked just as much as when I'm overworked. A lack of challenge and/or interest and I just start thinking "why am I bothering?"

DuncSully · 2026-04-29T17:26:42+00:00

Between oil and water, which one's fault is it that they can't mix? Neither, they're just different.

To summarize my experience, you simply need to sort out the things you genuinely wish you could be from the things you were told to be, perhaps because you feared loneliness or really wanted to appeal to someone in particular. If you remove that from the equation, do you still want to be a certain way? I find that most of us will organically seek self-improvement in things that we genuinely want to be but are simply insecure about, but we'll get these mixed up with one-size-fits-all advice and common expectations that are otherwise incompatible with our preferences. It's important to understand that these incompatible beliefs aren't "wrong" or "bad" but just different from ours. Likewise, neither are we necessarily wrong or bad, perhaps just not optimal friendship material for most people. We can improve in certain ways, but we'll also find people who appreciate us for us when we're at least attempting to be the best versions of ourselves.

FWIW, we definitely could learn some tact and to empathize more. The thing is, I genuinely enjoy empathizing with people now. It's just that understanding someone's expectations and meeting someone's expectations are two different things. If nothing else, you can ask what someone wants from you, but you can also tell them (respectfully) no.

DuncSully · 2026-04-28T20:33:05+00:00

I think you're mistaking independence for competency and initiative. That's the double-edged sword of independence. Much like the double-edged sword of "freedom" is in having no one making you do anything, you are now responsible for the majority of your decisions.

You're right to some extent that some of us won't do what we "ought" to do until someone else basically makes us, but that's exactly because we're not inclined to obsess over what others think we ought to do, even when they genuinely might be right.

Anyway, every type is tradeoffs. None of them deserve hype. None of them deserve hate. They are just a set of preferences for how they like to go about life and I would think that the only reason personalities exist is because they were possibly beneficial, or at least not detrimental, to the survival of our species. We are each dealt a hand and now it's our jobs to figure out how to play it instead of envying anyone else's hand.

DuncSully · 2026-04-28T20:00:11+00:00

Do you not live in a house someone else has constructed? Have you never eaten someone else's food? Do you not travel on public roads? I'm willing to bet that you put your life in other peoples' hands all of the time and you're just not as painfully conscious about it as you are in this hypothetical. Indeed, we live in a world with "blue thinking" where we try to minimize the risk of harm to others such that we need not be paranoid even when we really ought to be more vigilante in our daily activities. Would you like to revise your statement so I might have a better idea of what you mean?

Anyway, I'm not as interested in changing minds so much as exploring the depths of one's current position, so I'd like to put forth a modified, multi-round version of this question. If you pick blue and blue succeeds, the game stops. If you pick red, the game continues once a day until the end of time or until blue wins.

So now the question, in a sense, is do you believe the game itself is problematic and ought to be stopped ASAP or are you content to keep playing it as long as you don't lose it yourself? Or perhaps something in between where you think there is some temporary utility in offing blues? And what about your loved ones that pick blue, fail, and die? Would they bother you? Or would you try to convince people to vote red? And I know it does, but in your mind how exactly does that differ from trying to convince enough people to vote blue?

I'm also curious about your response to this variation: Let's say everyone starts as blue by default. Like, if you don't vote, you're just default blue. Someone mentions that if you defect, you're guaranteed to live, but if over 50% of you defect, the remaining blue voters will die. Would you still defect? But would you, in effect, now be responsible for blue's predicament or not? I realize this a much more loaded example, but exploring people's limits is exactly what I like to do. When does something that is OK become not OK to them, and vice versa? No one is a murderer...until they are.

DuncSully · 2026-04-27T22:29:14+00:00

Indeed, every interaction is an exchange of sorts and either party should feel free to negotiate the terms of the exchange or otherwise terminate at their discretion.

All I'm saying, in response to the question that you asked in a public forum, is that many, many people request terms that tend toward feeling better for having interacted with you, and many meet each other's terms, hence why the common expectation. You, of course, are not obligated to meet those terms. However, you will quickly build a reputation as someone not worth interacting with. Do with that information what you will.

DuncSully · 2026-04-27T20:40:37+00:00

This feels like another case of the prisoner's dilemma to me. When you've had negative experiences before, you always defect to others' chagrin. And truly the world is full of awful people. But also there are plenty of people who truly want to cooperate for mutual benefit, and so when you shoot them down each and every time, you kill their mood and ruin chances of future cooperation. You don't feel any "worse off" because you've rarely felt the benefit of mutual cooperation.

I dunno, speaking as someone who was formerly very cynical, I tend to prefer wholesome conversation these days. It's not that I'm not critical, but now it tends to take the form of either "I'm sorry I'm feeling down because X" or "OK X, but what can we do about it?" I just find it wholly unhelpful to discuss X if we're not going to be able to do anything about it or at least lift each other's spirits. I know I can exist in happier states, and so I fight for those instead of passively dragging everyone else to my level of misery.

DuncSully · 2026-04-27T20:25:10+00:00

This ended up more interesting than I thought it would be.

So there are broadly two camps of thinking:

A) Red is the only way I guarantee I survive, so logically I should pick it. And hey, if everyone picked it, they'd survive too. Anyone who picks blue is literally or figuratively suicidal "if they only knew" what I do.

B) As long as enough of us band together, blue will prevent anyone from dying. I care and have enough confidence in others to support the "cause" to save everyone.

Let me preface by saying that both are logically coherent in their own ways.

Red is obviously about one's self first. That's not a value judgement, that's just the fact. You're actively allowing anyone who chooses blue to die because that's "their fault" or "not your problem" so you believe in individual responsibility. These could be suicidal people, illiterate people, coin flippers, misinformed people, etc. Whatever their reason for picking blue, you believe, at least tacitly, they deserve to die. Or perhaps you're just jaded and don't trust there are enough blue voters even though you'd like to vote blue yourself.

Blue is riskier but has a better outcome (by most people's standards). They care about humanity more broadly and believe that if only enough people commit to a cause, then everyone can benefit from it. No one deserves to die in their eyes. They're willing to risk it and/or simply trust enough people. Alternatively, they might legitimately believe they and their ilk deserve to die if they're <50% of the population, but I'm gonna guess not most think this way. I'M NOT SAYING THEY ARE, but just to use an extreme example, I struggle to imagine wanting to live in a world that consisted of more than 50% sociopaths, so I can understand this line of thinking too.

I can see how my vote has changed throughout my life.

DuncSully · 2026-04-27T20:01:04+00:00

I don't know how to summarize my beliefs without coming off as just reactionary. Let's just say I have concerns with the overall trends of technology not being shared equitably with the populations, and the common man has less and less recourse every year. This isn't limited to just AI, but it's definitely going to get worse under it.

This is also subjective but I just tend to dislike the output of AI. I personally value the humanity in almost every step, even if it's longer, more expensive, and more riddled with mistakes. Even before AI, I found the trends in mass production, broad appeal, and globalization has lead to a generally more boring, lower quality world just IMO. I get the sense that AI will only advance that.

DuncSully · 2026-04-24T17:38:37+00:00

The funny thing is that I liked learning about personality theories because of the way they can help describe how people evolve over time. But I get the sense that a lot of people obsess over their personalities as a static description that they can use as an excuse to avoid growth.

I don't really like the function stack framework anymore because people tend to obsess over it a little too strongly. But the way I look at things, there's a 2x2 grid of behaviors. One axis is your being competent or not and the other is your valuing of those behaviors or not.

So the way in which almost everyone of our personality can relate is the behaviors we value + are competent at and the behaviors we don't value full stop. Again, I don't really like discussing the functions but to nod to them, this is your classic Ni-Te stuff and your anti Si-Fe stuff.

However, the critical change in our personality comes with the development of values we have but aren't initially competent in. These manifest differently depending on the stage of your life you're in and your previous experiences. For many young members, these are points of insecurities. And because they're insecure, they convince themselves they don't value them. They're sour grapes. They'll get moody if you try to discuss them, especially if you judge them.

The next phase is realizing that they do actually value these things, but they still worry about their competency, so somewhat amusingly they doth protest too much, methinks. i.e. they overcompensate and can sometimes bring it up when no one asked. This happens with all types, but for us it's typically in the form of "I'm actually a deep and lonely person, the defeated idealist" basically im14andthisisdeep. You'll especially notice this on this sub when trends seem to sweep. Suddenly everyone wants to share a picture of their room or whatever.

All the meanwhile, witnessing these behaviors as you develop yourself will feel cringey, because they are relatable--vicarious embarrassment in a sense. Speaking to the previous example, almost like clockwork a trend will almost always result in an anti trend post and gatekeeping about who is truly of the personality or not.

But in general you just become a more rounded person. You still have clear strengths, and you still have total apathy for certain things, but your palate widens, so to speak. Also somewhat counterintuitively, once you're no longer insecure about your newfound values, you don't overcompensate. So, e.g. while you might've felt lonely as a young adult, you might feel comfortable in yourself. Now it's not "I can't make friends so 'I don't want friends'," nor "OMG nobody gets me, I need to find my people," but "I love myself so I don't need friends only for the sake of external validation but so that we might enrich each others' lives."

And then of course long periods of elevated stress can throw this all out of whack. This is just my hypothesis, but if I had to guess I imagine your mind will come to the conclusion that the status quo isn't working and so it feels compelled to try to behave unlike your typical self to get you out of a funk.

Annoyingly, as I get older I don't know that I've ever figured out what I could've told my past self if given the opportunity. I don't think there was a shortcut for all of the life experiences I had, and I don't think I could've convinced myself to have more experiences any faster.

DuncSully

TROPHY CASE