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Jevons' paradox simply states that any improvement in technological energy efficiency ends up being nullified by increased or heavier usage of that technology. For me, this is most visible in computing. The cycles-to-watts ratio of our hardware continues to grind higher, but ever-more bloated software consumes those extra cycles, drives hardware obsolescence, and leaves our computing habits as environmentally harmful as ever.¹
Gaming seems to me like a pursuit where this paradox is both very clear and where it may also most successfully be resisted. For while I must, e.g., use my bank's increasingly slow and bloated Web application to do my online banking, I have no such obligation where gaming is concerned. My gaming is driven entirely by desire and socialization, not necessity, and there are a number of ways to satisfy those desires, allowing me much more agency in the matter. Furthermore, there is already a small subculture dedicated to retro gaming, so I need not cut all social ties entirely and go live in the woods (figuratively speaking) to engage with gaming in this way. The trail has already been blazed, in other words. It just seems to rarely be described in these terms.
So I've been playing the games I had on floppy disks as a kid, games that I was too young at the time to beat. I've been sampling the open source games on offer as well, few as they seem to be. My options are limited by the fact that I'm doing all this on an ARM-based laptop with only 4GB of RAM², but I'm still finding enough to keep myself entertained thanks to projects like DOSBox, OpenJazz, Open Morrowind, SRB2 Kart, and ScummVM. And while I'm enjoying myself, my laptop is consuming no more than 6.5 to 8W, compared to the >100W my gaming desktop³ consumes while playing, e.g., Eastshade⁴.
I feel this dynamic also extends somewhat to other "retro" pursuits to the degree that those pursuits either encourage extending the useful life of things or satisfying needs in more energy efficient ways. This is something I may explore in more depth in a later entry, particularly if I manage to engage this kind of mindset in other areas of my life.
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¹ Even if you don't give a damn about the environment, note that this is also one of the ways we end up buying "things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like." As ever, pro-environmental behavior tends to dovetail very nicely with anti-consumerist behavior and quite often overlaps with it.
² The MNT Reform, specifically.
³ Which has been seeing very little use lately, as one might expect given the content of this post.