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The Great Bifurcation

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Re: The Great Bifurcation

#31

Post by nickdothutton »

gostsamo wrote: post #6
nickdothutton wrote: post #3

At this stage in development of a new “space” or perhaps I should say “plane of existence” in the case of meta, you need to get as far away from regulation as possible. There will be many casualties, as there always are in pioneering endeavours, but these are just a necessary part of advancement.

Are you ready to be the casualty?

At times in my career I have been a “pioneer”, at times a “settler”, and at other times a “town planner”. While university friends took up offers from Oracle, Microsoft, Sun, I started work at one of the first ISPs. Terrible pay, zero benefits. Funding the company partly on our own meagre personal credit limits, but the thrill of building something from scratch that we were sure would change the world and that should be built. If not us then who? We thought. It worked out well for us, but most others didn’t make it.

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#32

Post by ineedasername »

rajekas wrote: post #2

I agree with the thrust of this article, especially this line: "For a long time I felt somewhat unique in this regard, but COVID has made my longstanding reality the norm for many more people. Their physical world is defined by their family and hometown, which no longer needs to be near their work, which is entirely online; everything from friends to entertainment has followed the same path." The unbundling of physic…

COVID-driven bifurcation is still uncertain in how "sticky" it will be. With much of the initial panic over and many people getting vaccinated, there's already a little backtracking to old habits, along with the people who never changed their habits much in the first place through their resistance to COVID precautions.

I'd be surprised if we ever went fully back to a pre-COVID status quo, but I think the changes will be significantly slower.

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#33

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #28
lumost wrote: post #15

My two cents. Great proclamations of vaporware often come before a tech reset - be they VR, AI over reach, future money, or some other boondoggle that everyone is meant to love but actually sucks and people hate. Facebook is pivoting to a non existant technology, and no one even knows whether anyone would want it if it existed. Everyone is dumping dollars on self driving cars and other AI tech that Keeps missing dead…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#34

Post by lumost »

yepthatsreality wrote: post #23
lumost wrote: post #15

My two cents. Great proclamations of vaporware often come before a tech reset - be they VR, AI over reach, future money, or some other boondoggle that everyone is meant to love but actually sucks and people hate. Facebook is pivoting to a non existant technology, and no one even knows whether anyone would want it if it existed. Everyone is dumping dollars on self driving cars and other AI tech that Keeps missing dead…

> Facebook is pivoting to a non existant technology, and no one even knows whether anyone would want it if it existed. This is not true. The tech exists, Facebook is creating hoopla about a VR video game to distract from its offenses and to dissuade regulation. You can’t regulate something that is undefined. I don’t disagree with the rest of your point.

The Metaverse FB is pitching is either a ridiculously over-hyped video game, or vaporware. Arguably there may not be a difference.

In the media, the main reference has been the "snowcrash" novel or "ready player one" level of immersion. Which is tech we fundamentally lack a reference for how to build.

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#35

Post by jayd16 »

humanistbot wrote: post #21

I'm of the age that I remember getting sucked in to the Second Life hype. MMORPGs were also becoming popular, and there was this narrative that "virtual worlds" were on a rocketship to the future. Universities and companies paid stupid amounts of money for digital real estate. Wired ran profiles of Second Life speculators who got rich in the bubble. Now I guess we call virtual worlds "the metaverse" and think it'll b…

What makes the difference in my mind is that AR technology is gaining steam. There's a chance that we'll have a new desire to link the spatial, physical world to spatial and virtual interactions.

The push to own the metaverse seems like a land grand.

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#36

Post by yepthatsreality »

lumost wrote: post #34
yepthatsreality wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook is pivoting to a non existant technology, and no one even knows whether anyone would want it if it existed. This is not true. The tech exists, Facebook is creating hoopla about a VR video game to distract from its offenses and to dissuade regulation. You can’t regulate something that is undefined. I don’t disagree with the rest of your point.

The Metaverse FB is pitching is either a ridiculously over-hyped video game, or vaporware. Arguably there may not be a difference. In the media, the main reference has been the "snowcrash" novel or "ready player one" level of immersion. Which is tech we fundamentally lack a reference for how to build.

Again, “level of immersion” is subjective to what? How good the graphics can be? How much rumble your hardware has?

If Zuckerberg was smart he’d aim for something closer to The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#37

Post by dummydata »

> This is the type of role blockchains will fill: provide uniqueness and portability where necessary

What does portability mean in this context? I assume he just means it's a digital asset so it is inherently easy to move around.

I believe a better wording would have been interoperable.

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#38

Post by handrous »

sofard wrote: post #27
humanistbot wrote: post #21

I'm of the age that I remember getting sucked in to the Second Life hype. MMORPGs were also becoming popular, and there was this narrative that "virtual worlds" were on a rocketship to the future. Universities and companies paid stupid amounts of money for digital real estate. Wired ran profiles of Second Life speculators who got rich in the bubble. Now I guess we call virtual worlds "the metaverse" and think it'll b…

I seriously wonder whether there will be a cultural rebellion against the digitization of our lived experiences. It seems like everyone (even the youngest who grew up in a fully digital world) feels like we're on this path to black mirror dystopia, but there's yet to be a collective awakening/action to combat it. It wouldn't surprise me if down the road there's a cultural movement that decides "we're opting out of al…

> on this path to black mirror dystopia

A bunch of episodes of Black Mirror aren't really even about the future. They're criticism of things right now (or, rather, when the episodes were made).

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#39

Post by moolcool »

sofard wrote: post #27
humanistbot wrote: post #21

I'm of the age that I remember getting sucked in to the Second Life hype. MMORPGs were also becoming popular, and there was this narrative that "virtual worlds" were on a rocketship to the future. Universities and companies paid stupid amounts of money for digital real estate. Wired ran profiles of Second Life speculators who got rich in the bubble. Now I guess we call virtual worlds "the metaverse" and think it'll b…

I seriously wonder whether there will be a cultural rebellion against the digitization of our lived experiences. It seems like everyone (even the youngest who grew up in a fully digital world) feels like we're on this path to black mirror dystopia, but there's yet to be a collective awakening/action to combat it. It wouldn't surprise me if down the road there's a cultural movement that decides "we're opting out of al…

It's not like we're not culturally flirting with that already. Film photography and vinyl have both seen massive resurgences lately.

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#40

Post by meheleventyone »

Rastonbury wrote: post #8

I still cannot see any reason I'd want to connect any identifier or avatar across different online worlds apart from gaming. Am I missing something? For sure Meta wants to connect everything so it has a whole picture of its users so it can serve ads but why would people be compelled to connect their discords/linkedin/facebook or whatever personas when a key part of the web is anonymity, I don't even use the same hand…

Even in gaming having multiple identities is a bonus, or even if you have the same identity having radically different customisation per game is important. I actually find it weird playing games if they actually bother to use my steam profile picture.
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