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The Great Bifurcation

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Re: The Great Bifurcation

#71

Post by ghaff »

moolcool wrote: post #39
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…

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

"Massive" niche resurgences. Nothing remotely mainstream.

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#72

Post by ghaff »

derwiki wrote: post #53
moolcool wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Wonder if the same will hold for books?

Ebooks never gained the completely dominant position that digital photography and music did. And even those among us who prefer ebooks for fiction consisting of flowing text still prefer printed books for a lot of more reference-oriented or "coffee table" books.

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#73

Post by heisenbit »

How many different digital selves are we going to fracture? Ben seems to manage 6 different lives.

As a rule of thumb a manager can manage about 10 direct reports. Fewer if there is deep interaction and more if there is only a very light touch expected.

Other rules of thumb indicate the people may directly interact with around 100. Given that for some thing to become a registered club in Germany one needs 7 people which may well be sensible lower threshold for a long term social endeavor. Combined give a max of 13 social circles.

This thinking is reminiscent of Google Groups social circle thinking but on a heterogeneous technical and administrative foundation.

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#74

Post by toast0 »

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.

I think the backlash against Google Glass might have subsided if it had been a useful device that was widely available. (Of course, the wide release version was on watches)

As it was, wearing a Google Glass was making several statements: I have acccess to this special thing; I'm going to wear this mostly useless object in a highly visible location on my body; and if actually using it in public, I don't care that having a one-sided conversation with a computer annoys those around me (kind of like talking on a phone/bluetooth headset, but worse). Maybe the camera was the anchor for the issue, but I don't think it was the real issue; I don't recall seeing articles about people being shunned for wearing the Snapchat camera glasses.

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#75

Post by ghaff »

NineStarPoint wrote: post #49
abletonlive wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are both technology and social aspects.

The technology has to be at the point where you can casually wear fashionable glasses which overlay easily readable information.

And other people would need to be OK with the fact that people are wearing said glasses that put them on candid camera at all times.

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#76

Post by teebs »

> This gets to the other mistake Diehl makes in that article, which, ironically, echoes a similar mistake made by many crypto absolutists: there is no reason why the Metaverse, or any web application for that matter, will be built on the blockchain. Why would you use the world’s slowest database when a centralized one is far more scalable and performant? It is not as if WhatsApp or Signal are built on top of the plain old telephone service; they simply leverage the fact that phone numbers are unique and thus suitable as identifiers. This is the type of role blockchains will fill: provide uniqueness and portability where necessary, in a way that makes it possible to not just live your life entirely online, but as many lives simultaneously as your might wish, locked in nowhere.

Halfway through this paragraph I thought Ben was arguing that phone numbers are a centralized service that shows that blockchain isn't necessary. Instead, he's arguing that blockchain will create "unique portable identities." This is an old vision that many companies have been pushing for a long time - "log in with Facebook" "sign in with Apple" etc. Today, we've pretty much settled on phone numbers and email addresses as a unique, portable identifier (plus accounts from big tech companies). You can even easily create new email addresses if you want multiple identities. Why do we need the blockchain to solve this problem either?

Another example of the same thing: he says that it doesn't make sense to use LLCs, which are built for the physical world, in the digital world. He says that the digital world can use DAOs. But, of course, "Stratechery" isn't a DAO - it's an LLC. Meta is an LLC. LLCs are already non-physical, even if they're not purely digital. That's precisely why LLCs were invented - to decouple capital from physical ownership. Why do we need DAOs when we already have LLCs? Is it just that you don't need a lawyer to make a DAO?

Ben spends a lot of time in this article arguing that blockchain can be better than centralized services for some purposes - but then fails to argue what those purposes are, in my opinion.

To me, conflating the metaverse/VR - which I think is overhyped but has some obvious value - with blockchain - which is a lot harder for me to understand - is a mistake.

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#77

Post by tenebrisalietum »

ghaff wrote: post #71
moolcool wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"Massive" niche resurgences. Nothing remotely mainstream.

I'm gonna say vinyl is a bit more than mainstream. I can buy records at Walmart. That usually means a trend is widespread.

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#78

Post by likpok »

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…

Good VR headsets are cheaper than computers today and cheaper than computers were back when Second Life was getting started. People almost universally own smartphones which can support a LOT of additional activity.

That's not to say that the metaverse will take off (I think it still lacks a compelling use case), but many of the parameters have changed.

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#79

Post by ghaff »

toast0 wrote: post #74
skybrian wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think the backlash against Google Glass might have subsided if it had been a useful device that was widely available. (Of course, the wide release version was on watches) As it was, wearing a Google Glass was making several statements: I have acccess to this special thing; I'm going to wear this mostly useless object in a highly visible location on my body; and if actually using it in public, I don't care that havi…

I tend to agree.

If/when we have AR glasses that are reasonably priced and genuinely useful, I'm inclined to think they'll be broadly accepted. Yes, there will be people including some of the people reading this who will be upset about the panopticon-like invasion of privacy associated with always-on cameras everywhere. But they'll be largely ignored just as they are today with respect to video/photos being just a smartphone in the pocket away.

It's easy to forget that less than 20 years ago taking a photo, much less a video, was a pretty deliberate act involving equipment that most people didn't routinely carry with them.

Re: The Great Bifurcation

#80

Post by jollybean »

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…

"but there's yet to be a collective awakening/action to combat it. "

Just don't use it.

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