13 Comments

I'm still amazed that nobody ever mentions Second Life, the hugest hype cycle of 2006-2008 - and Second Life still exists!

Second Life is just a sandbox you can do stuff in with your fursona. (OK, it's basically just furries now.) Linden Labs makes its living renting server space to users who want to build their own corner of the world. It's not unicorn valuation stuff, but it is an actual profitable living.

The Metaverse keeps offering Second Life But Shit, On The Blockchain. I submit this is not a compelling offering.

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[1998: reads Neuromancer in high school]

[becomes convinced that a virtual reality dataspace is the greatest, most necessary thing in history and not a dystopian hellhole chock full of hackers, criminals and grifters]

[2021: adds .meta to twitter handle]

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“… the most recently-concussed PR professional.” Priceless.

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I ended up going down a research rabbit hole back in 2014 or so to see where the concept of virtual reality originated, and as best I can tell it was coined by the philosopher Susanne Langer in her 1953 book "Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art". The main difference with her version, though, is that "virtuality", as she called it, was more generally the perceptual reality created by a work of art, and the examples she used included paintings and dance. So, yeah, this whole thing of strapping a gizmo to your face and braving motion sickness is honestly unnecessary for the purpose of "virtual reality", per se, when you can just play Dungeons & Dragons using little more than paper and pencils with your friends.

(Speaking of 1940s and 50s philosophy, a "cyborg" is just an organism and the systems—or tools—that it helms, so, for example, a sea otter breaking open an abalone with a rock is a cyborg. You don't need a chonky VR headset or cochlear implant in order to be a cyborg; simply wearing a pair of glasses qualifies.)

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I'm not convinced about Metaverse blah blah blah, but I *love* VR stuff, despite being an early skeptic.

- Being immersed in Google Earth is not the same as just looking at Google Earth on my monitor

- Playing a rhythm game in VR is a zillion times more fun than, say, rockband or Just Dance on a typical console. I think Beat Saber itself is pretty overhyped, but it's just one of many options in VR! (I happen to love Synth Riders myself)

- Exercise in VR is currently... a mixed bag, given the unpleasantness of sweating inside of a bulky headset. But -- unlike with web3/crypto/blockchain bullshit -- I and others can clearly imagine a future in which *reasonable* technical advancements (goggles vs. headset, for instance) take away the bad stuff and leave the really cool stuff in VR. But even today, a zillion (not sure exactly how many, but clearly a very large number of) people are finding inspiration to exercise with VR; witness Facebook's purchase of "Supernatural" where people are paying $15-20/month (!) to flow and punch and meditate in genuinely beautiful 360 environments. And -- as you'll see if you ever visit a Supernatural FB community -- these folks are RABID fans (for better and worse).

I'm not sure *Large Community* scales in VR any better than it scales in normal online areas (looking at Twitter, for instance), but small communities? Get togethers of friends in farflung places? Wandering in Google Earth together with a parent across the country? These are all honestly kick-ass things that are already possible in VR and will be more seamlessly possible and powerful in the years to come.

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The point that truly immersive VR technology is going to end up going through the FDA is an excellent one. Although, I expect it's more likely truly immersive VR will be enabled with psychotropic drugs rather than sensory implants, either is going to entail regulatory hurdles that tech companies typically try to just bullshit their way though.

On the other hand, it was John Carreyrou and the WSJ rather than the FDA that ultimately did in Theranos, so maybe it's not going to be a big hurdle...

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I deeply suspect that the whole Meta 'intro to metaspace' video was thrown together in a couple of weeks as a distraction, and the sports example of VR Fencing is so painfully, pointedly inappropriate to a virtual reality system without any force-feedback -- how do you block/parry? -- it just blows my mind people take any of it seriously.

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I've been saying for years now that AR (or MR since the line is fuzzy between the two) will be significantly more impactful to most people than VR over the next few decades. We've already started to see it with all of the "see this furniture or paint color in your home" or "try out these glasses without coming into the store" applications.

Other quite obvious things that will be coming are visualizing out-of-stock items in stores via headsets or terminals, virtual display of plans or manuals for repair or trades work, and better versions of games like Ingress or Pokemon GO.

Once we actually get an AR headset that is what google glass was supposed to be (except without the creep factor) all of this stuff will take off.

The applications for fully fledged VR right now are far more limited.

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