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Honest to God, the best take on this theory was actually the Consul's tale in Hyperion explaining why he was against the Hegemony. The degradation of Maui-Coven

Honest to God, the best take on this theory was actually the Consul's tale in Hyperion explaining why he was against the Hegemony. The degradation of Maui-Covenant is just so very realistic and easy to visualize. Reading that as a child actually led me to travel less than I really want to as an adult. Instead, I enjoy making my small part of the world 'mine' instead of trying to make the rest of the world 'mine'.

quest88 8y ago
What do you think of traveling to experience other parts of the world that you can incorporate into your part of the world?
- Loughla 8y ago
  Genuinely. I can't come up with a reason or 'thing' that I wouldn't be able to learn from the internet/video chat/vr (hopefully soon). What were you thinking of when you wrote this?
  - plouc 8y ago
    Learn, sure. But it's all about the experience! Especially when you talk about traveling, the travel itself is an experience you can't really feel reading a book or watching a video.
zanny 8y ago
It doesn't hurt that you can get a large chunk of the travel experience virtually now. Either watching someone elses travel vlogs (from just phone camera stuff to professional productions on various places) or using something like google maps lets you "tour" the world. If I want the sensation of being somewhere busy I could just drive an hour and walk main street in my closest city. I'm sure all the shops and attractions there would love to see you more often as much as the ones halfway around the world would. And the good news is a lot of missing pieces (the grandeur and immersion that comes with being somewhere in person) can be improved on with VR. Really looking forward to virtual tours of places being commonplace within my lifetime. To be fair its much the same problem remote work experiences. Its mostly subjective experience that people feel is lacking telecommuting more than anything physically being absent. Which makes it a personal thing if you are satisfied with it or not. But it just being an option means many people can experience 99% of something without having the immense marginal costs moving bodies around the planet.
- mitchdoogle 8y ago
  VR can only ever satisfy the visual and auditory experience, which I would argue is much less than 99% of an experience of visiting a different place. Even if VR came along that could reliably emulate our other senses, you would still be missing out on a vital part of most experiences - interacting with others.
  - Loughla 8y ago
    > interacting with others. What? Why wouldn't there be substantive human interaction as part of this process. If we can do that via text (see this post for an example), why not vr? Virtual Tour guide could be a thing. Or Just think of a VR version of Second Life, but with less sexual overtones.
agambrahma 8y ago
Upvoted just because it's the only time I've heard anyone else talk about this (read Hyperion some time back, can't believe it took me this long to get to it) :-)
shadowxs76 8y ago
Wow, read the book years ago (books actually, there are four that I remember but the first is by far the best) and you just brought me back to the emotional impact of that particular story. It was powerful. The story of Rachel and her Merlin's sickness also. The story of the priest, the cruciform parasite and the bikura was viciously disturbing on the other hand.

quest88 8y ago

What do you think of traveling to experience other parts of the world that you can incorporate into your part of the world?

Loughla 8y ago
Genuinely. I can't come up with a reason or 'thing' that I wouldn't be able to learn from the internet/video chat/vr (hopefully soon). What were you thinking of when you wrote this?
- plouc 8y ago
  Learn, sure. But it's all about the experience! Especially when you talk about traveling, the travel itself is an experience you can't really feel reading a book or watching a video.

zanny 8y ago

It doesn't hurt that you can get a large chunk of the travel experience virtually now. Either watching someone elses travel vlogs (from just phone camera stuff to professional productions on various places) or using something like google maps lets you "tour" the world. If I want the sensation of being somewhere busy I could just drive an hour and walk main street in my closest city. I'm sure all the shops and attractions there would love to see you more often as much as the ones halfway around the world would. And the good news is a lot of missing pieces (the grandeur and immersion that comes with being somewhere in person) can be improved on with VR. Really looking forward to virtual tours of places being commonplace within my lifetime. To be fair its much the same problem remote work experiences. Its mostly subjective experience that people feel is lacking telecommuting more than anything physically being absent. Which makes it a personal thing if you are satisfied with it or not. But it just being an option means many people can experience 99% of something without having the immense marginal costs moving bodies around the planet.

mitchdoogle 8y ago
VR can only ever satisfy the visual and auditory experience, which I would argue is much less than 99% of an experience of visiting a different place. Even if VR came along that could reliably emulate our other senses, you would still be missing out on a vital part of most experiences - interacting with others.
- Loughla 8y ago
  > interacting with others. What? Why wouldn't there be substantive human interaction as part of this process. If we can do that via text (see this post for an example), why not vr? Virtual Tour guide could be a thing. Or Just think of a VR version of Second Life, but with less sexual overtones.

agambrahma 8y ago

Upvoted just because it's the only time I've heard anyone else talk about this (read Hyperion some time back, can't believe it took me this long to get to it) :-)

shadowxs76 8y ago

Wow, read the book years ago (books actually, there are four that I remember but the first is by far the best) and you just brought me back to the emotional impact of that particular story. It was powerful. The story of Rachel and her Merlin's sickness also. The story of the priest, the cruciform parasite and the bikura was viciously disturbing on the other hand.