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The justification for VR is pretty depressing. Could be true, I know many people who enjoy losing themselves in digital worlds, but the idea of escaping so purp

The justification for VR is pretty depressing. Could be true, I know many people who enjoy losing themselves in digital worlds, but the idea of escaping so purposefully just doesn't sit right. "I just think [AR as the more useful technology] is only true for people who live in a really interesting place in the real world... So for everyone who doesn’t already live on a college campus or in Silicon Valley or in a major other city, the new environments we’re going to be able to create in VR will inherently be much more interesting."

tartuffe78 8y ago
Yea, the book "Ready Player One" really made me feel queasy about the effects it could have on our lives. Already I see it, myself and other people escaping into Farming/Business/Life simulating games to simulate the success we might not find in the real world.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Success, and control. This is an unfortunate side effect of our civilization. Out there in the real world, between the laws that protect us, corporate interests that manipulate us, the haves that have more say, the neighbours of which we don't - and can't - know more than 0.1%, the jobs that are so hyperspecialized that not many of us contribute an atomic piece of value to anything - between all that, we find ourselves with little real autonomy. Little influence on the environment. Little space to grow. And we can't have that, we can't have autonomy and fun, because that would be destructive to the fragile fabric of society. This is the one aspect about progress that depresses me. We're slowly morphing into a civilization-scale organism, where an individual does not matter, and is nothing more than a single cell is for one's body. (People from smaller towns and villages may disagree; but this is how living in a 21st century city feels to me. It's a wonderful place, but also a straitjacket.) Given all that, I can entirely understand the kind of escapism that tries to make you feel that you matter, or that you're a part of something that matters, or that you and your friends have some meaningful control over the shared environment, don't have to deal with as many people, escapism where there's no jail time attached to half of the fun things one may do.
debacle 8y ago
> the idea of escaping so purposefully just doesn't sit right. I know this feels like a VR thing, but I have found the same sort of issues with Minecraft, Ark, Terraria, etc. It seems like escapism is a huge part of the "survival" genre. VR will obviously magnify this problem a hundred fold, but the problem already exists now.
- slfnflctd 8y ago
  Minecraft in VR is still one of the most immersive experiences I've had with it-- I wouldn't hesitate to pull that out on a plane, or just about anywhere else I'm stuck sitting for a while and want to shut out the world. I believe John Carmack also made comments about finding it rather compelling.
Animats 8y ago
Did he see "Ready Player One" too many times? We have virtual worlds now. Second Life. Sansar. VRChat. Sinespace. High Fidelity. The technology is good enough that we can see what they're like. They're OK, but not compelling. They mostly appeal to people with too much free time. Like Everquest, in the early years. We even know what a fully immersive full body VR experience is like. Lucasfilm and Disney have one running at Disneyland.[1] They have good cordless VR gear, good position tracking, and a custom-built space you can move around. The space is just blank walls with an occasional prop you can touch, and it lines up with the VR. They have a neat trick to make the space seem bigger. It turns out that in VR you can get people to turn a little while they think they're walking in a straight line, if you slowly rotate the visual world. So you can make the players go in big circles and think they're covering a lot of distance. This is close to the "holodeck". It works now. And it's just another Disney ride. (Is Marc Andressen thinking of the Ready Player One model as a way to allow the real world to suck more while keeping the peons happy? Only the 1% have a good real life, everyone else goes on line and pretends.) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfD28LYYwWM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfD28LYYwWM
- matt_m 8y ago
  I got to try the VOID Star Wars attraction shown in the video (although it might have been set up in a smaller space than the Disneyland installation). It was a short, scripted, minimally interactive experience. The hand and prop tracking were pretty glitchy and somewhat immersion-breaking. The equipment was heavy and ridiculously cumbersome (even compared to current consumer VR headsets). I'm sure the cost/work of setting up a system like that is basically prohibitive too. I don't think it's a great reference point for predicting the VR market in the next 5 years or so, as the cost comes down and more polished and inexpensive mass-market systems come out (like the Oculus Quest) that are cordless with good tracking. Millions of people spend huge amounts of time playing games on tiny rectangles they hold in their hands. I think it's overly skeptical to assume they won't want holodecks, if the cost is $400 and the HW/SW isn't terrible. I expect it'll at least be an increasingly less-niche gaming platform as not-terrible standalone devices come out (I tried a tennis game that was pretty fun, I'm not a gamer but I could see myself playing some VR games if it was a way to get real exercise). The current non-gaming uses like corporate/sports/military training probably will grow too as the quality and ergonomics improve. I'd really like to try a system with good body/face/eye tracking. I think that is kind of the minimum for social applications with really huge appeal. It's hard to get an idea of if it's compelling or not (or how far away it is, what needs to be improved, etc) without trying it though.

tartuffe78 8y ago

Yea, the book "Ready Player One" really made me feel queasy about the effects it could have on our lives. Already I see it, myself and other people escaping into Farming/Business/Life simulating games to simulate the success we might not find in the real world.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
Success, and control. This is an unfortunate side effect of our civilization. Out there in the real world, between the laws that protect us, corporate interests that manipulate us, the haves that have more say, the neighbours of which we don't - and can't - know more than 0.1%, the jobs that are so hyperspecialized that not many of us contribute an atomic piece of value to anything - between all that, we find ourselves with little real autonomy. Little influence on the environment. Little space to grow. And we can't have that, we can't have autonomy and fun, because that would be destructive to the fragile fabric of society. This is the one aspect about progress that depresses me. We're slowly morphing into a civilization-scale organism, where an individual does not matter, and is nothing more than a single cell is for one's body. (People from smaller towns and villages may disagree; but this is how living in a 21st century city feels to me. It's a wonderful place, but also a straitjacket.) Given all that, I can entirely understand the kind of escapism that tries to make you feel that you matter, or that you're a part of something that matters, or that you and your friends have some meaningful control over the shared environment, don't have to deal with as many people, escapism where there's no jail time attached to half of the fun things one may do.

debacle 8y ago

> the idea of escaping so purposefully just doesn't sit right. I know this feels like a VR thing, but I have found the same sort of issues with Minecraft, Ark, Terraria, etc. It seems like escapism is a huge part of the "survival" genre. VR will obviously magnify this problem a hundred fold, but the problem already exists now.

slfnflctd 8y ago
Minecraft in VR is still one of the most immersive experiences I've had with it-- I wouldn't hesitate to pull that out on a plane, or just about anywhere else I'm stuck sitting for a while and want to shut out the world. I believe John Carmack also made comments about finding it rather compelling.

Animats 8y ago

Did he see "Ready Player One" too many times? We have virtual worlds now. Second Life. Sansar. VRChat. Sinespace. High Fidelity. The technology is good enough that we can see what they're like. They're OK, but not compelling. They mostly appeal to people with too much free time. Like Everquest, in the early years. We even know what a fully immersive full body VR experience is like. Lucasfilm and Disney have one running at Disneyland.[1] They have good cordless VR gear, good position tracking, and a custom-built space you can move around. The space is just blank walls with an occasional prop you can touch, and it lines up with the VR. They have a neat trick to make the space seem bigger. It turns out that in VR you can get people to turn a little while they think they're walking in a straight line, if you slowly rotate the visual world. So you can make the players go in big circles and think they're covering a lot of distance. This is close to the "holodeck". It works now. And it's just another Disney ride. (Is Marc Andressen thinking of the Ready Player One model as a way to allow the real world to suck more while keeping the peons happy? Only the 1% have a good real life, everyone else goes on line and pretends.) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfD28LYYwWM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfD28LYYwWM

matt_m 8y ago
I got to try the VOID Star Wars attraction shown in the video (although it might have been set up in a smaller space than the Disneyland installation). It was a short, scripted, minimally interactive experience. The hand and prop tracking were pretty glitchy and somewhat immersion-breaking. The equipment was heavy and ridiculously cumbersome (even compared to current consumer VR headsets). I'm sure the cost/work of setting up a system like that is basically prohibitive too. I don't think it's a great reference point for predicting the VR market in the next 5 years or so, as the cost comes down and more polished and inexpensive mass-market systems come out (like the Oculus Quest) that are cordless with good tracking. Millions of people spend huge amounts of time playing games on tiny rectangles they hold in their hands. I think it's overly skeptical to assume they won't want holodecks, if the cost is $400 and the HW/SW isn't terrible. I expect it'll at least be an increasingly less-niche gaming platform as not-terrible standalone devices come out (I tried a tennis game that was pretty fun, I'm not a gamer but I could see myself playing some VR games if it was a way to get real exercise). The current non-gaming uses like corporate/sports/military training probably will grow too as the quality and ergonomics improve. I'd really like to try a system with good body/face/eye tracking. I think that is kind of the minimum for social applications with really huge appeal. It's hard to get an idea of if it's compelling or not (or how far away it is, what needs to be improved, etc) without trying it though.