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The Great Bifurcation

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Re: The Great Bifurcation

#41

Post by handrous »

f38zf5vdt wrote: post #5

As the online world socially envelopes our subjective view of reality, is anyone else who grew up predominantly online simply dropping out? I've been spending more time on my meatspace hobbies, watching TV and movies, and generally avoiding interactions with the internet outside of work. I feel better for it and like I had been wasting so much time before on internet arguments and getting dopamine-hits from outrage b…

"Elder millennial" checking in. I'd not have any Internet service at home, including on cell phones, if not for a few things that require it—even if I didn't work from home, my spouse's job (teacher) requires home Internet these day (even pre-pandemic), and it's practically required for kids in k-12 school now, too.

If not for external pressure to have it, I'd not find it worth ~$1,000/yr for home Internet and ~$400/yr for my cell phone's Internet service. That's a hell of a lot of entertainment money to put toward something else, and that's before you pay for anything on top of it (say, streaming services). In fact, it'd almost be worth paying that much to get my wasted Internet time back (he writes, on HN).

In my teens I couldn't wait to jack straight in to the 'net. Now? Screw it. I'd rather live entirely in meatspace. I think the whole thing's been, overall, a mistake that I wish we could obliterate.

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#42

Post by maxwell »

strict9 wrote: post #9

I'm glad he addresses Stephen Diehl and his anti-crypto screeds. Nearly all of Diehl's criticism is some form of “None of this digital stuff has any real world value.” But the thing is, this digital stuff does have value to the people that own them. Diehl's opinion that the value is zero does not make it true. It's very reminiscent of Clifford Stoll's articles. Stoll was a brilliant engineer and writer, but a terribl…

Terrible predictor?

"While the Internet beckons brightly, seductively flashing an icon of knowledge-as-power, this nonplace lures us to surrender our time on earth. A poor substitute it is, this virtual reality where frustration is legion and where–in the holy names of Education and Progress–important aspects of human interactions are relentlessly devalued."

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#43

Post by Rastonbury »

bsedlm wrote: post #29
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…

[delete]

If they already do it, then what is the point of a new 'metaverse' for government? Most manage taxes and what not just fine with whatever identifiers they have been using

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#44

Post by abletonlive »

jayd16 wrote: post #35
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.

really? I have yet to seen anybody that actually cares about AR at all in my day to day interactions

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#45

Post by skybrian »

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…

I think the limit was reached with the backlash against Google Glass. Having a camera on your face was a bridge too far. Phones you can put away.

Some people like VR but they use it at home.

On the other hand, earbuds and smart watches haven't had the same issues.

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#46

Post by shostack »

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…

Expense is coming down, and form factors and weight are rapidly shrinking while performance of displays improves.

Whatever gripes you have about the space, it is hard to deny the rapid evolution we're seeing due to the influx of investment.

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#47

Post by Rastonbury »

larrysalibra wrote: post #14
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…

Because you might want to leverage the reputation, credibility and following you built in one online community to another. Example: I learned about patio11 here on HN and was impressed by him actions in this community which lead me to follow patio11 on Twitter. I agree that one of the great things about the internet is that you don't have to have the same identity in different communities. It's optional. Facebook's b…

He's patio11 though that's his identifier like any in-game name, it make no difference if used as a username or as a 'metaverse' identifier. If I want to verify metaverse user 102372193, I'd go to their profile hoping they've linked their twitter

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#48

Post by bmitc »

jayd16 wrote: post #35
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.

Hasn’t VR been gaining steam for a while now, as in, never coming around? All I see are companies massively pushing for it, but I don’t see any real take up. Anything that I’ve seen seems like a gimmick and not something that will actually stick or resonate with people.

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#49

Post by NineStarPoint »

abletonlive wrote: post #44
jayd16 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

really? I have yet to seen anybody that actually cares about AR at all in my day to day interactions

Quite a few people interested in the circles I walk in, but pretty much everyone also agrees that the technology just isn't particularly close to viable yet (cost is high, general usability is low). And that's ignoring the google-glass style problems there would be with general use.

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#50

Post by monodeldiablo »

skybrian wrote: post #45
sofard wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think the limit was reached with the backlash against Google Glass. Having a camera on your face was a bridge too far. Phones you can put away. Some people like VR but they use it at home. On the other hand, earbuds and smart watches haven't had the same issues.

Boiling frogs, man.

Google Glass was just too sudden a change. Another decade of eroding our collective sense of privacy and boundaries means it might be more successful now than it was back when we still had some expectation of personal privacy.

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