Saturday, September 22, 2007

Before you continue...

Today I've googled a bit on the sites that link to me and at consolenomad found a brilliant posting - one of the YouTube video. The ending of this video very well resonated with the areas which I think we need to reevaluate in the digital age.

The huge problem I see with the emergence of SL as a "platform" is that despite of the slogan "your world, your imagination" - it is by many means just a digital projection of the everyday 3D meatspace - the permissions on objects, the monetary system, the partnership field - all of these represent the artifacts of the RL squeezing into what could be something different. Maybe not better - at first - but at least the price for the mistake at this stage is much less.

When the VR becomes the media of everyday activities of a significant portion of population - it's going to be too late to change anything.



We transfer the concepts of copyright, law, social norms, and many others into the non-euclidean hyperspace. Yes, we can squeeze the triangles a bit such that the sum of the angles is still 180degrees (or pretend we see it as 180 degrees) - but it might be interesting to try to use this time and see if we can get a better model...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, this might be completely different thing from the meatspace. But, majority of residents is afraid of it. Like it or not, but most of the people you meet on the street are afraid of any change. Recently I was talking about noobs that need somebody to tell them how to use search. (I cannot remember with who) It is unbeliveable, somebody is standing on the help island and asking where and how to go next. I mean, there is a pretty big blue button on the botom of the screen. Any computer user will look there and in drop-downs, right? And if you see something that says search, you'll try to click it, goddammit! Tehe rest is pretty obvious for anybody that uses internet more than three hours. But no. It was a mistery to me, until the person I am to blame I cannot remember who said it is fear of failure. One can press that button and then it will not do what is expected, better leave it and ask what to do. Since then I have an urge to shoot some noobs. Better die now than live like that.

Same goes for the rest of the life, and answers your question. No, they won't try anything else. They will remain in photorealistic humanoid avies, they will find a job (or use credit cards), they will live second lives exactly as they live their first lives but with a bit bigger boobs, yachts and more blingy things. They will live the virtual replicas of their social lives. They will partner. They will never, ever try to be different. maybe that is happyness. Who knows.

Dalien said...

Hmm... I think that's why I don't go out to the streets that much :-)

*plugs the jack back into the back of the head* :)

Interesting idea about the happiness. Would this mean that *all* of the stuff that is new is the result of being unhappy ?

I'm reasonably happy with what the current world is - I mean - it could be much worse :) - but still, when the price for modeling is not so big, it is a pity that we don't do it, imho.