How about chess? I know you said you are not really looking for video games, but chess to me is a bit different to video games.

I had a similar problem to you a few years ago during Covid. I was very stressed and lonely and didn’t know what to do with myself. I am completely addicted to chess now. To the point that I play for like 4-8h a night sometimes. Time passes fast, especially in the shorter time modes. And if you are looking for a more low stakes, slow paced distraction you can play correspondents chess and think about your next move for 1.5 hours.

Bonus: if i tell people that i play chess for over an hour every day, they often assume i am a genius, even tho I’m just a 800 elo idiot like most people

Not sure we can sustain any mega corps if I’m honest… but I get your point

Don’t get me wrong, fuck Jeff Bezos’ pampered ass. But growing a giant dystopian mega corp out of 250k is kind of impressive.

I know quite a few privileged people with more money than that and every chance in life one could hope for. None of them would be able to achieve anything close to what he did. They simply aren’t ruthless and megalomaniacal enough.

People in western nations are largely responsible for climate change. Someone in Syria won’t be flying around the world and buying new clothes all the time. But they will be the ones hit the hardest by climate change, so they will likely either die or become refugees trying to come to the west.

Also, a lot of our western wealth is based on exploitation of those nations (through colonialism and later capitalism or wars). So if westerners don’t want people from poor countries to come to the west they should help those nations to recover from that exploitation.

Furthermore we need to do these things, because a bigger influx of desperate migrants will steer western politics even further to the right. That’s never a great thing and will lead to more inequality and possibly the collapse of our democratic systems.

Finally to your point about migrants being more criminal. That is largely a result of worse economic circumstances and outlooks. Improve their chances and watch the crime rate drop.