3 ms·

You Are Already in the Metaverse

1 points by conanxin 4y ago

eesmith 4y ago
If I am, then when did I enter the Metaverse? > To get on the world wide web ... all shared with peer-to-peer networks like Napster or BitTorrent To be technical, the "world wide web" here is used as a synecdoche for the Internet. Neither Napster nor BitTorrent used a World Wide Web protocol. They (like ftp, which is no longer supported by the major web browsers) are part of the Internet. > So whereas in Web 1 users had their offline and online worlds, in the Web 2 era, the two dimensions increasingly merged. FWIW, my online world started in college around 1990, primarily on the local campus network. This includes chatting online to people in the same room, and going to (physical) parties with network friends. While there was Internet, my online world was primarily the local network. This predates HTTP, so in this part of the text neither "online" nor "Web" should be seen as a synecdoche for Internet. Reducing complexity and simplifying history helps support what seems to be a rather Wiggish history used to support it conclusion, rather than challenge it. > The metaverse is just our name for the final evolution of the internet, where the borders between “the real world” and the digital dissolve. Aren't all those "if you know where to look" articles essentially the same pearl-clutching we heard about Gen-X slackers, lazy hippies, (mid-20th centrury) hipsters, 1920s flappers, and 1890s claims of fin de siècle social degeneracy? > Whether you’re absorbed with massive multiplayer games ... So .... to make sure I understand, a "discourse-themed video game" like Usenet of 30 years ago, is part of the metaverse, yes? People certainly dwelled in that virtual world. > it will be irreducibly entangled with the metaverse. While this sounds deep, aren't we also already irreducibly entangled with movies, with literature, with sports, with ships, with criminals, with dogs, and so many other things? I wonder if a century or so ago many people thought life was irreducibly entangled with the telegraph.

1 points by conanxin 4y ago

If I am, then when did I enter the Metaverse? > To get on the world wide web ... all shared with peer-to-peer networks like Napster or BitTorrent To be technical, the "world wide web" here is used as a synecdoche for the Internet. Neither Napster nor BitTorrent used a World Wide Web protocol. They (like ftp, which is no longer supported by the major web browsers) are part of the Internet. > So whereas in Web 1 users had their offline and online worlds, in the Web 2 era, the two dimensions increasingly merged. FWIW, my online world started in college around 1990, primarily on the local campus network. This includes chatting online to people in the same room, and going to (physical) parties with network friends. While there was Internet, my online world was primarily the local network. This predates HTTP, so in this part of the text neither "online" nor "Web" should be seen as a synecdoche for Internet. Reducing complexity and simplifying history helps support what seems to be a rather Wiggish history used to support it conclusion, rather than challenge it. > The metaverse is just our name for the final evolution of the internet, where the borders between “the real world” and the digital dissolve. Aren't all those "if you know where to look" articles essentially the same pearl-clutching we heard about Gen-X slackers, lazy hippies, (mid-20th centrury) hipsters, 1920s flappers, and 1890s claims of fin de siècle social degeneracy? > Whether you’re absorbed with massive multiplayer games ... So .... to make sure I understand, a "discourse-themed video game" like Usenet of 30 years ago, is part of the metaverse, yes? People certainly dwelled in that virtual world. > it will be irreducibly entangled with the metaverse. While this sounds deep, aren't we also already irreducibly entangled with movies, with literature, with sports, with ships, with criminals, with dogs, and so many other things? I wonder if a century or so ago many people thought life was irreducibly entangled with the telegraph.