

It’s even more pathetic than that. They aren’t just expressing their will to play the game, they are asking for approval despite it. It’s similar to the “nothing personal” disclaimer which is usually followed by something with significant personal disruption.
Most honestly expressed, they’d be, “I’m doing/about to do something that impacts you negatively, please don’t retaliate against me because I don’t like it when negative things happen to me.”
Edit: just noticed the commenter you replied to reversed the original saying and agrees with you.






If you had stuck around because the sex stuff didn’t bug you, it devolves into capitalist propaganda. The evil bad guys follow communism, except the focus is on making sure everyone suffers similarly and talent is kept down (because everyone must be equal, thus anyone with talent are trying to be better than others). Of course Richard changes the hearts of those he comes in contact with by carving a statue so amazing it changes their worldview. Oh and he protects everyone from the evil bad guy boss dream walker by having them swear allegiance and if they truly mean it in their heart, it’ll protect them.
Near the end, Richard monologues for pages and pages about the greatness of capitalism and became the second book I was reading for fun where I skipped over parts because even young me found the preaching to just be too much and his portrayal of communism so cartoonishly evil that it must be bullshit.