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Computers Will Entertain Us to Death

104 points by aaronwhite 15y ago

maeon3 15y ago
Hopefully capitalism and women will prevent a disaster by rewarding productive and diciplined humans with wealth and children. If a society does not threaten its people with poverty, misery and slavery as a consiquence to wasting your life on video games, then that society will crumble to make way for one that does.
- kpennell 15y ago
  Great point, thx.
- Apocryphon 15y ago
  The point I'm wondering though is will technology make it so that it's just as easily to accomplish productive tasks from within a physical-less VR simulation, as it is to play video games? In which case neither producers nor consumers need to remain in physical reality for long, since they can accomplish their tasks via thought alone? In the last few decades we've seen white collar workers become shackled to the desktop, and then shackled to the internet. Just how many hours a day do any of us spend away from the Net? How much of the physical world are we missing compared to our ancestors?
Zirro 15y ago
I've been thinking about this myself. I concluded that if a Matrix-like option was offered (not forced), where your body would be used as a power source but your mind would be in some distant, impossible fantasy world which you are able to make up yourself, many people would take that option instead of continuing to live their normal life. I know that if I were offered something like that, a world where I could live out fantasies with no conditions, other than that I give up my body, I may very well take it. The end of humanity as we know it, perhaps, indeed.
RyanMcGreal 15y ago
I assume the title is an oblique reference to Neil Postman's seminal book Amusing Ourselves To Death, in which the author argued that TV had created a Huxleyan culture in which it became impossible to carry on the kind of informed, rational public discourse that a functioning democracy requires.
- aaronwhite 15y ago
  How uncultured am I? :) Haven't read/heard of that, but will seek out, thanks!
stuffihavemade 15y ago
You might want to consider changing the lime green color background to something more neutral.
- aaronwhite 15y ago
  Right now, I coded my blog to a different 'fun' color that varies w/ the day of the post. Cooking up a new theme w/ readability improvements, I'll reconsider that color (though do check out http://restrictionisexpression.com http://restrictionisexpression.com for full effect)
  - king_magic 15y ago
    The color is absolutely brutal on the eyes. I read about 3 sentences and then closed the tab. I actually came here to complain about it as well.
    - muraiki 15y ago
      I actually felt pain in my head. Real pain, not virtual. :)
  - tycho77 15y ago
    As long as we're nitpicking, you are using "it's" incorrectly. "It's" is not the possessive form of "it", it is a contraction of "it is". The word you are looking for is "its". Usually doesn't annoy too much but you do this twice in the first paragraph.
    - aaronwhite 15y ago
      Fixed; forgot to proof read that paragraph, thanks Tycho. Always up for improvements no matter how small.
- Zirro 15y ago
  Oh, I didn't realize. Without scripting enabled (I use NoScript), the background does not appear.
Vivtek 15y ago
This kind of article bugs me. It's evolution in action. Think of it as speciation: H. sapiens for those that stay, H. cyberneticus for those that go down the rabbit hole. Either way, if you don't want to play - don't play! More world for you! Where's the problem here? Of course, I'm also looking forward to my property values going up when all you coastal people find your houses a mile offshore, so maybe I'm just excessively phlegmatic to start with.
- AznHisoka 15y ago
  The problem is we aren't evolved to handle such stimulation right now. That'll lead to unintended consequences. Just like eating fast foods leads to obesity, and modern loneliness leads to mental diseases. Many a million years from now.. but not now.
  - adrianN 15y ago
    That's a pretty strong statement. If the simulation is good enough, what part of our reality-honed brains would be uncomfortable with it?
    - AznHisoka 15y ago
      It's not really a strong statement. I'm saying it will have unintended consequences.. we don't know what they will be, but since it's so drastically different than the conditions we've had, I can't imagine we'll adjust "normally"
  - rjknight 15y ago
    Speak for yourself. Most people aren't evolved to resist serious strains of flu, but when an epidemic happens the next generation will be those who were. There are probably people who are perfectly capable of adapting to virtual reality worlds right now, just as there are those who can avoid getting obese despite the presence of vastly calorific foods and can avoid mental diseases despite the highly unusual (from a historical perspective) nature of modern society.
scurfuration 15y ago
There's an assumption behind these worried articles that there's a natural, non-virtual mode of existence for human beings when we're not reading books, watching movies or playing games. Perhaps we are living in the outdoors, breathing fresh air and weaving accessories from wild grasses. However, this can't be true. As David Deutsch has argued, humans are knowledge creators: we thrive only by thinking about our environment and our problems and trying to improve stuff. It has been thus since we split from the rest of the primates. We cannot perceive reality directly. Thinking itself is a form of virtual reality rendering. In order to improve stuff, we have to imagine how it could be different. So we all exist in virtual realities, whether we want to or not. Obviously this doesn't address all the concerns in the article, but it might be a better starting point. One could go on to consider the educational value of games, perhaps by asking whether all learning can be regarded as forms of gaming. And then: which games are better than others and why?
xibernetik 15y ago
This reminds me a lot of this article: The Acceleration of Addictiveness (http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html). Same theme. It goes a little more into talking about societal implication; e.g. there'll be a divide in society as a result between the norm - "addiction" in some regards - and those who can/choose to stay unaddicted.
- akkartik 15y ago
  Clay Shirky also describes 'society's collective bender' in more optimistic terms: http://google.com/search?q=cognitive+surplus http://google.com/search?q=cognitive+surplus
jerf 15y ago
It's interesting to go back and read previous generations attempts to look 40 years into the future and guess what the biggest problems will be. Generally you end up with "amusing" rather than "prescient", such that the exceptions are noteworthy. While I fully anticipate that this sort of world will cause some sort of problems, I doubt we can really call them this far in advance. I'd also observe that if one lives more or less their entire reality in some sort of VR simulation... so what? I can make arguments in both directions (at length, actually but I'll spare you) but it's too rich a question to implicitly assert an answer.
- DanielBMarkham 15y ago
  I'd also observe that if one lives more or less their entire reality in some sort of VR simulation... so what? The meta-question here is very interesting. At what point do humans controlling their environment cease being humans? So yes, you could sit absolutely still and live a tremendously-rewarding virtual life because you have designed a world that emotionally compels you to never leave. To the rest of us, you look like a potted plant. Does that make you less human? Or, to put differently, if you were completely paralyzed, yet were able to think (I believe they call it "locked in") is there anything wrong with you that the rest of us should care about and fix? Is how we define being a human inexorably linked to physical social participation? I believe so, but I'm not comfortable with my own line of reasoning here. Note that I don't have a problem with us evolving into something else. My only concern is that we acknowledge what's happening so that we can realistically talk about it. If we are evolving, then there will be a selection function that we had get pretty damn good at meeting. I imagine that function is going to be the ability to turn the system off from time to time. What I see instead is millions of folks who spend more time than even they are happy with plugged in and are in a great bit of denial as to exactly what social effect that is having. If you ask me, the singularity is already here. We just can't see it.
  - Apocryphon 15y ago
    If we were to take the concept of a VR "thought is action" simulacrum seriously, I think that maybe current standards for what is seen as socially good can still apply there- it is better to "produce" so that others may "consume", than to primarily consume yourself. So maybe VR actors, musicians, and coders will still be seen as doing something worthy of more prestige than typical VR gamers. The only difference between then and now is how much physical activity your body needs to spend to accomplish that.
markbao 15y ago
Using technology as not only a getaway but as a replacement for the 'human OS' (if you will) has been slowly happening over the past 30 years, and will continue to happen as long as technology makes real life better. Think about how you work today: you sit down in front of a screen. You sit there for 5, 8, 12 hours and stare at a screen to do your work. Millions of desk-workers everywhere have become people staring at screens for about 8 hours a day, playing with a handheld screen when not at a desk. A large part of it is because technology is enabling and seen as a benefit, but that doesn't detract from the fact that it is an invasive effect in the lives of the first world. As technology gets better, becomes more enabling, and allows us to do more with it, I don't see that stopping.
- cafard 15y ago
  Well, yes, but 30 years ago I was at a desk staring at sheets of paper. Working at the computer is better for my posture, etc.
ctdonath 15y ago
As if writing verbose rants (mirroring equivalent rants about movies, radio, books, plays, etc. throughout human history) is somehow a superior activity. the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. - Ratatouille
DanielBMarkham 15y ago
Obligatory reminder of the article I wrote 3 years ago and posted here, "Technology is Heroin" http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/02/technology_is_h.php http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/02/technology_is... Good to see people continuing to recognize this troubling fact and the community trying to come to terms with it.
- boredguy8 15y ago
  I mean, "Amusing Ourselves to Death" was published in 1985, and Nietzsche wrote in 1874, Increasingly we lose this sense of surprise, so that we are no longer overly amazed at anything and, ultimately, find satisfaction in everything—this is what is called historical sensibility, historical cultivation. Stated noneuphemistically: the massive influx of impressions is so great; surprising, barbaric, and violent things press so overpoweringly—'balled up into hideous clumps'—in on the youthful soul; that it can save itself only by taking recourse in premeditated stupidity. So I'm not sure what the point of the "pre-date" claim is. I am curious if you've come up with any good suggestions on how to 'fix' the problem in those intervening years, though.
  - DanielBMarkham 15y ago
    Don't forget Kierkegaard, who made very similar observations well before Nietzsche. No doubt there is a very human pattern at work that hasn't changed over the centuries. Also no doubt that there is a technological amplifier at work as well. I look at it like money: having lots of money tends to make you more of what you already are. So if you're a jerk, being rich is just going to exacerbate that. In a way, then, being able to handle great wealth is an indication of a very stable (and perhaps dull) personality. Technology is doing a very similar thing with distractions. Some folks are easily distracted. Some are not. As technology improves, people who are less-easily distracted are finding they are spending more and more of their time plugged in. The best argument here is self-reports: many people freely acknowledge that they spend more time plugged in than they are comfortable with. As far as solutions, I tried a couple myself, along with some volunteers from HN. Didn't get a lot of traction, sadly. "Purposeful interruptions" was the line we were pursuing. At the time of the essay, my money was on a new form of morality taking hold -- that it simply won't be "cool" to spend too much time physically inert. That hasn't happened, sadly. PG also wrote an essay a few months after mine along these lines. I keep hoping that with so many smart people looking at this we will start seeing some breakthroughs.
cturner 15y ago
I was obsessed by games when I was kid. They've almost lost their grip on me. Even when I go actively looking for some distraction I can't find anything good. There has been one exception in the last couple of years, minecraft. There's virtually no innovation, but I'm not sure that's the reason, I think you just move on. I remember a crossover point where I looked at realistic graphics and thought "I could just go outside and go for a run" and then did.
- mattgreenrocks 15y ago
  > There's virtually no innovation Innovation doesn't please shareholders nearly as much as re-hashing the same banal gameplay mechanics with slight tweaks every year or so (Call of Duty). The industry did it to themselves when they sold their soul to the casuals. I have little sympathy for them, but perhaps it's better for me personally. I make time for a few games a year, and call it good. I'll get hooked from time to time, but never like I used to.
  - ajross 15y ago
    "Innovation" doesn't please shareholders because it doesn't sell games It's for the same reason that P&G or Nestle shareholders don't prioritize "innovative" food products. Games are a mature market. To first approximation, buyers want better versions of what they already like. Sure, there's the occasional innovative hit (Portal, Minecraft, Angry Birds) that drives a bunch of profits for an lucky (usually independent) developer. But the overwhelming share of revenue in the industry goes to the rehashed genre pieces like CoD or Skyrim. If you want to blame someone, blame the buyers.
    - nickpinkston 15y ago
      I think "Blame the Buyers" is a false notion of how powerless we are to make change for society. This is equivalent to "making a better horse" as opposed to building an affordable car. Too many people misinterpret the 4Steps/Lean methodology to just do the startup equivalent of P&G's incremental "innovation" - instead of trying to be the Unreasonable Man that we all should be striving to be.
wazzupflow 15y ago
This kind of stuff always reminds me of Nick Bostram and the "Simulation Argument" http://www.simulation-argument.com http://www.simulation-argument.com
- wladimir 15y ago
  It always reminds me of Nozick's "experience machine" thought experiment.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
digitalsushi 15y ago
I've lost friends to WoW. To my perspective, they could literally be dead and I would have the same experience - I know they are online but they are completely inaccessible inside their game world. That Bruce Willis movie with the immersive VR was a catchy prediction for the new opiate. Large portions of society are waiting for the chance to lose themselves in a deterministic, programmed world that is more pleasurable than their reality. It's terrifying to consider the ramifications of this. If you can plug in, feed yourself some poptarts and hydrate every 8 hours, and otherwise float in limbo being someone you love more than your real self, we're going to see entire classes of people disappear, just like my WoW friends that I'll probably never chat with again.
- boredguy8 15y ago
  http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/mopiidx.html http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/mopiidx.html Caroline continued. "So they learn where the pleasure points are by hook or crook, then stimulate themselves directly. And when they get it right, they never do anything else. They get everything maximized, tuned up, and they just sit there forever enjoying it." "Right. Now is a creature that is doing that, not interacting with the world at all any more, human?" Caroline thought about it. "No." "Prime Intellect thinks otherwise. But it has its doubts."
  - TeMPOraL 15y ago
    Reminds me of http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Orgasmium http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Orgasmium.
  - klipt 15y ago
    Without God/Prime Intellect to keep these people blissfully alive, though, natural selection will quickly check this kind of progression. Once you short circuit your pleasure systems - which evolved to keep you alive and reproducing - you'll soon be displaced by a species with better self control.
- acuozzo 15y ago
  > Large portions of society are waiting for the chance to lose themselves in a deterministic, programmed world that is more pleasurable than their reality. It's terrifying to consider the ramifications of this. If you can plug in, feed yourself some poptarts and hydrate every 8 hours, and otherwise float in limbo being someone you love more than your real self, we're going to see entire classes of people disappear, just like my WoW friends that I'll probably never chat with again. You're describing the Metaverse from Neal Stephenson's `Snow Crash'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash Read it. It's fun.
TeMPOraL 15y ago
It's also known as superstimulus; relevant LW article: http://lesswrong.com/lw/h3/superstimuli_and_the_collapse_of_western/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/h3/superstimuli_and_the_collapse_of_...
Jach 15y ago
> If I could take a pill to skip meals or sleep in a healthy way, I would. Multivitamins and melatonin? The only real question I have is: will this super-entertainment world be better than this one outside of the entertainment-sphere? I don't really care if people waste their lives in WoW or equivalent, so long as I'm not forced to join them or support them living in that world. (I'd like to see the day when basic needs like food/shelter/water are next to free in costs so people could waste their lives without burdening anyone else, if they wanted to.) Even if I could be convinced that joining them would make me feel so good about the decision afterwards, I'd resist in the same manner I resist buying/making meth today. I'm still fascinated by reality, and I want to continue to be the sort of person fascinated by reality, so I'll refuse your drug that would make me say the same things about your virtual reality. Others here have noted that the prediction pattern-matches against lots of older ones, it certainly goes back throughout the ages. It would be amusing if Star Trek got it right in the end: a holodeck used as occasional recreation (and for other things) in the same way our t.v.s and games are used as occasional recreation, rather than something real that many people spend their lives in.
- sliverstorm 15y ago
  Melatonin doesn't replace sleep, it makes you sleepy.
  - Jach 15y ago
    Ah, I read the original wish as "sleep in a healthy way", instead of "skip meals or sleep". I probably need some sleep myself.
- georgieporgie 15y ago
  It would be amusing if Star Trek got it right in the end Don't forget that Lieutenant "Broccoli" Barclay had a Holodeck addiction/obsession. Also, didn't Star Trek Enterprise variants always have some huge number of crew (or civilians, I don't recall) aboard? They couldn't all be transporting down to exotic locations every episode, so they must have had to make up something to do all day.
paylesworth 15y ago
See also - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation
gojomo 15y ago
Perhaps the only thing saving us from enslavement to superstimulus is the hedonic treadmill. And vice-versa.
gojomo 15y ago
There's even the theory that addiction to video games helps explain the Fermi paradox: http://www.edge.org/q2007/q07_print.html#miller http://www.edge.org/q2007/q07_print.html#miller Previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1550112 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1550112
- rsanchez1 15y ago
  Excellent, that is an interesting explanation to the Fermi Paradox. So what we have to do is gamify exploration and conquest and we'll rule the galaxy within the next thousand years.
kpennell 15y ago
I'm trying to stay unaddicted and I have friends who are far better at me at it. I don't game, but like most people, I'm a FB, Quora, Reddit, HN checker and I've started to realize that I'm hitting a point of diminishing returns with all these articles, photos, memes. I still come back and love the thoughts this article and discussion have provoked, but these are few and far between. It's a hard balance. It's fun to go Reddit/funny just to have a few laughs and it's fun to post links and songs to entertain friends in other states/countries, but at what point is this really good for me or satisfying? Wouldn't it be better to take all my mindshare and energy and go learn the skills that will get me a more satisfying job? Or do the things that would get me more time with women (affection/sex)? More time in nature? More friendships? Strengthen my body...etc. etc. I'm still in love with physical reality. I'm always in awe of the world when I look at Boston.com's big picture or watch nature videos on Vimeo. I don't really have a point, just that it saddens me quite a bit to think how much people are missing out the world. And this is in an old argument, but it's no wonder people don't care about the destruction of the species/habitat when they're so amused in some virtual world. It's hard not to cross my fingers for some massive power outage/food shortage temporary wake up call.
badhairday 15y ago
The lime green background color is killing my eyes. Didn't even read the whole article.
mannicken 15y ago
Quite frankly, ordinary life is not that different from WoW. You go on quests, you level-up your character through education and courses, and then you earn points (money) that you can spend on shiny things like cars. Seriously.
- ajuc 15y ago
  But real life is not balanced, and not fair, and everything takes forever. And you can't save and load game, so most people are too afraid of failure to try anything really cool or dangerous. But they want to feel the achievement so they do it in games, where everything is fine-tuned to be achievable.
feor 15y ago
While I agree with most of the points the author makes, I can't see why he would concentrate on video games. It's not much harder to be addicted to the internet, or to anime or visual novels (see the Japanese hikkikomori), or to anything else that we can play/watch/do alone in the comfort of our own rooms. And these other addictions have much the same effect as those the author describes. In fact, I'd wager that most people who have played a game like Diablo 2 or World of Warcraft for a long time don't continue to do so because of the game itself, which has lost its immersive quality for a long time, but rather because of the friends they made, and the alternate society they are a part of. The greatest danger of MMORPGs is in my opinion that they are social games.
BenoitEssiambre 15y ago
I sometimes reflect about this and one aspect that was not mentioned and I believe will have a lot of weight on how all this evolves is the maltusian limits of the real world vs the cornucopian and limitless aspect of the virtual. Simple economics tell us that as population grows and natural resources are depleted, real physical goods and services will become scarce and costly especially compared to virtual ones which seem to be created with a shrinking amount of matter and energy. The implication of this are interesting for the evolution of humanity. Will reality become a luxury, where the common people will be able to afford nothing more than basic subsistence including low cost per calorie diet and a few cubic meters of real word dwelling? Will only the rich be able to afford the additional matter and energy to provide for further floor space, better food and physical travel? The cost difference between virtual experiences and real world experiences might become so large that most people will prefer to get the better bang for the buck available virtually. What are the implication for jobs, how will value be created and distributed when people spend most of their time in a virtual world? Here, I don't mean just entertainment goods that are only worth something in the context of a game. I mean things like education, artistic virtual experiences, virtual social events, virtual performances, movies, music, etc. The virtual economy will be greatly influenced by intellectual property laws and I assume, a lot of these goods will have to include DRM for sustaining jobs even if the goods are really cheap compared to real world goods. What activities will give meaning to human life? Intellectual endeavors, artistic endeavors and socializing should remain low cost and may still offer a lot of depth and complexity to people's lives, especially as the tools to support these activities become better. In fact, if you evaluate your life by the breath of ideas, relationships and arts you are able to master, a life lived virtually might become more fulfilling than one encumbered by the limits of the real world. How will serious social relationships evolve in virtual worlds? What are the implications for reproduction? In a virtual world, it is going to be really easy to move away when not getting along with a community. It will also be really easy to create new communities for like minded individuals. People might not have to get along they might just isolate themselves in smaller communities. What are the implications for the way politics will be performed. What are the implication for law enforcement? What are the implications for war and how will all this spill over into the real world? The communities will still have to collaborate to maintain real world security and defense. Then there is the issue of the physical body's health needs. Will the human body be able to adapt to this type of life? Will resource scarcity push humanity to a virtual existence? When you look at people living in their parents' basement spending all their time online, sometimes because of the lack of economic opportunity in the real world, it sure makes it look like the transition has already begun.
Tichy 15y ago
Isn't most of what humans do wasteful? What about "lieing on a beach sipping cocktails to death" or "commuting to death" or "painting to death" or "watching TV to death" or "reading to death"? If you condemn computer games, you condemn all other forms of art at the same time. So I suppose the only worthwhile conducts of human life are technological and scientific research, and building infrastructure? I don't think it is as simple as that. And if you have created the perfect infrastructure and won against cancer, then what? Why live? What did you optimize for? That we can enjoy stuff seems to make us want to live at the same time.
- a3_nm 15y ago
  > If you condemn computer games, you condemn all other forms of art at the same time. Creating computer games can be an art. Playing computer games seldom is. There aren't that many games that you can play creatively, and really few where your creations can have any value outside of the universe of the game.
  - Tichy 15y ago
    So art should never be consumed, only be created? If somebody listens to a song, he is wasting his time, but then what is the point of creating a song?
  - J-J 15y ago
    this game can be played created creatively - it's over 10 years old and has a following of at least thousands today in 2011 http://www.project1999.org/ http://www.project1999.org/
- D_Alex 15y ago
  the only worthwhile conducts of human life are technological and scientific research, and building infrastructure Wow... the basis of my philosophy! IMHO: technological and scientific research - and art! - are basically the worthwhile "ends". Building infrastructure (as well as mining, agriculture, most manufacturing, health care, SOME lawmaking, SOME politics, SOME entertainment, SOME advertising etc etc) ARE worthwhile, being the means to the abovementioned ends. (and MOST politics, entertainment, lawmaking, advertising and so on are plain old not worthwhile, or even harmful).
drblast 15y ago
I've been playing Skyrim lately and I can only describe it as endlessly entertaining. I had the very same thought that the article talks about. Skyrim is almost completely realistic-looking. At some point in the near future, the games we play will likely be indistinguishable from reality, or even more likely, much better than reality in every way. But the more surprising thing is that Skyrim has a system that randomly generates more stuff to do than you could reasonably do in a lifetime of playing the game. Now, it's essentially the same thing over and over, but there's no reason to assume that games in the future won't become even better at this. The key point is that there is stuff to do in the game that someone didn't have to manually create. The logical conclusion is that at some point in the future, there will exist an endless supply of stuff to do that is more entertaining than reality, not just in the current "addictive until you eventually get bored a year later" way, but in the "automatically generated by algorithms so complex that the game is constantly new and surprising and you will never get bored" way. I wonder where that will lead. Maybe it's the ultimate bread and circus for the populous, where one could lead an extremely happy and fulfilling life in a virtual world with essentially no cost to anyone. And if you take a step back, that's exactly where we are today, at least in the developed world. For the most part, if you abandon all the trappings of the modern, virtual world, you can live a happy and fulfilling life for nearly zero cost. But we choose to buy cell phones, TV's, and other forms of entertainment that aren't really necessary. Beyond the necessities, it's all entertainment, including that 40 hour job that you don't really have to do to live or that startup you founded because you believe it will make your life better.
econnors 15y ago
This article reminds me of one of the Pendragon books: http://djmachalebooks.com/books/pendragon/the-reality-bug/ http://djmachalebooks.com/books/pendragon/the-reality-bug/ In the book, the protagonist discovers a world in which people have abandoned reality in favor of a more enjoyable virtual world. As a result, society declines to the point where the real world is crumbling down. Not saying that's what will happen, but it's an interesting read.

104 points by aaronwhite 15y ago

Hopefully capitalism and women will prevent a disaster by rewarding productive and diciplined humans with wealth and children. If a society does not threaten its people with poverty, misery and slavery as a consiquence to wasting your life on video games, then that society will crumble to make way for one that does.

kpennell 15y ago
Great point, thx.
Apocryphon 15y ago
The point I'm wondering though is will technology make it so that it's just as easily to accomplish productive tasks from within a physical-less VR simulation, as it is to play video games? In which case neither producers nor consumers need to remain in physical reality for long, since they can accomplish their tasks via thought alone? In the last few decades we've seen white collar workers become shackled to the desktop, and then shackled to the internet. Just how many hours a day do any of us spend away from the Net? How much of the physical world are we missing compared to our ancestors?

Zirro 15y ago

I've been thinking about this myself. I concluded that if a Matrix-like option was offered (not forced), where your body would be used as a power source but your mind would be in some distant, impossible fantasy world which you are able to make up yourself, many people would take that option instead of continuing to live their normal life. I know that if I were offered something like that, a world where I could live out fantasies with no conditions, other than that I give up my body, I may very well take it. The end of humanity as we know it, perhaps, indeed.

RyanMcGreal 15y ago

I assume the title is an oblique reference to Neil Postman's seminal book Amusing Ourselves To Death, in which the author argued that TV had created a Huxleyan culture in which it became impossible to carry on the kind of informed, rational public discourse that a functioning democracy requires.

aaronwhite 15y ago
How uncultured am I? :) Haven't read/heard of that, but will seek out, thanks!

stuffihavemade 15y ago

You might want to consider changing the lime green color background to something more neutral.

aaronwhite 15y ago
Right now, I coded my blog to a different 'fun' color that varies w/ the day of the post. Cooking up a new theme w/ readability improvements, I'll reconsider that color (though do check out http://restrictionisexpression.com http://restrictionisexpression.com for full effect)
- king_magic 15y ago
  The color is absolutely brutal on the eyes. I read about 3 sentences and then closed the tab. I actually came here to complain about it as well.
  - muraiki 15y ago
    I actually felt pain in my head. Real pain, not virtual. :)
- tycho77 15y ago
  As long as we're nitpicking, you are using "it's" incorrectly. "It's" is not the possessive form of "it", it is a contraction of "it is". The word you are looking for is "its". Usually doesn't annoy too much but you do this twice in the first paragraph.
  - aaronwhite 15y ago
    Fixed; forgot to proof read that paragraph, thanks Tycho. Always up for improvements no matter how small.
Zirro 15y ago
Oh, I didn't realize. Without scripting enabled (I use NoScript), the background does not appear.

Vivtek 15y ago

This kind of article bugs me. It's evolution in action. Think of it as speciation: H. sapiens for those that stay, H. cyberneticus for those that go down the rabbit hole. Either way, if you don't want to play - don't play! More world for you! Where's the problem here? Of course, I'm also looking forward to my property values going up when all you coastal people find your houses a mile offshore, so maybe I'm just excessively phlegmatic to start with.

AznHisoka 15y ago
The problem is we aren't evolved to handle such stimulation right now. That'll lead to unintended consequences. Just like eating fast foods leads to obesity, and modern loneliness leads to mental diseases. Many a million years from now.. but not now.
- adrianN 15y ago
  That's a pretty strong statement. If the simulation is good enough, what part of our reality-honed brains would be uncomfortable with it?
  - AznHisoka 15y ago
    It's not really a strong statement. I'm saying it will have unintended consequences.. we don't know what they will be, but since it's so drastically different than the conditions we've had, I can't imagine we'll adjust "normally"
- rjknight 15y ago
  Speak for yourself. Most people aren't evolved to resist serious strains of flu, but when an epidemic happens the next generation will be those who were. There are probably people who are perfectly capable of adapting to virtual reality worlds right now, just as there are those who can avoid getting obese despite the presence of vastly calorific foods and can avoid mental diseases despite the highly unusual (from a historical perspective) nature of modern society.

scurfuration 15y ago

There's an assumption behind these worried articles that there's a natural, non-virtual mode of existence for human beings when we're not reading books, watching movies or playing games. Perhaps we are living in the outdoors, breathing fresh air and weaving accessories from wild grasses. However, this can't be true. As David Deutsch has argued, humans are knowledge creators: we thrive only by thinking about our environment and our problems and trying to improve stuff. It has been thus since we split from the rest of the primates. We cannot perceive reality directly. Thinking itself is a form of virtual reality rendering. In order to improve stuff, we have to imagine how it could be different. So we all exist in virtual realities, whether we want to or not. Obviously this doesn't address all the concerns in the article, but it might be a better starting point. One could go on to consider the educational value of games, perhaps by asking whether all learning can be regarded as forms of gaming. And then: which games are better than others and why?

xibernetik 15y ago

This reminds me a lot of this article: The Acceleration of Addictiveness (http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html). Same theme. It goes a little more into talking about societal implication; e.g. there'll be a divide in society as a result between the norm - "addiction" in some regards - and those who can/choose to stay unaddicted.

akkartik 15y ago
Clay Shirky also describes 'society's collective bender' in more optimistic terms: http://google.com/search?q=cognitive+surplus http://google.com/search?q=cognitive+surplus

jerf 15y ago

It's interesting to go back and read previous generations attempts to look 40 years into the future and guess what the biggest problems will be. Generally you end up with "amusing" rather than "prescient", such that the exceptions are noteworthy. While I fully anticipate that this sort of world will cause some sort of problems, I doubt we can really call them this far in advance. I'd also observe that if one lives more or less their entire reality in some sort of VR simulation... so what? I can make arguments in both directions (at length, actually but I'll spare you) but it's too rich a question to implicitly assert an answer.

DanielBMarkham 15y ago
I'd also observe that if one lives more or less their entire reality in some sort of VR simulation... so what? The meta-question here is very interesting. At what point do humans controlling their environment cease being humans? So yes, you could sit absolutely still and live a tremendously-rewarding virtual life because you have designed a world that emotionally compels you to never leave. To the rest of us, you look like a potted plant. Does that make you less human? Or, to put differently, if you were completely paralyzed, yet were able to think (I believe they call it "locked in") is there anything wrong with you that the rest of us should care about and fix? Is how we define being a human inexorably linked to physical social participation? I believe so, but I'm not comfortable with my own line of reasoning here. Note that I don't have a problem with us evolving into something else. My only concern is that we acknowledge what's happening so that we can realistically talk about it. If we are evolving, then there will be a selection function that we had get pretty damn good at meeting. I imagine that function is going to be the ability to turn the system off from time to time. What I see instead is millions of folks who spend more time than even they are happy with plugged in and are in a great bit of denial as to exactly what social effect that is having. If you ask me, the singularity is already here. We just can't see it.
- Apocryphon 15y ago
  If we were to take the concept of a VR "thought is action" simulacrum seriously, I think that maybe current standards for what is seen as socially good can still apply there- it is better to "produce" so that others may "consume", than to primarily consume yourself. So maybe VR actors, musicians, and coders will still be seen as doing something worthy of more prestige than typical VR gamers. The only difference between then and now is how much physical activity your body needs to spend to accomplish that.

markbao 15y ago

Using technology as not only a getaway but as a replacement for the 'human OS' (if you will) has been slowly happening over the past 30 years, and will continue to happen as long as technology makes real life better. Think about how you work today: you sit down in front of a screen. You sit there for 5, 8, 12 hours and stare at a screen to do your work. Millions of desk-workers everywhere have become people staring at screens for about 8 hours a day, playing with a handheld screen when not at a desk. A large part of it is because technology is enabling and seen as a benefit, but that doesn't detract from the fact that it is an invasive effect in the lives of the first world. As technology gets better, becomes more enabling, and allows us to do more with it, I don't see that stopping.

cafard 15y ago
Well, yes, but 30 years ago I was at a desk staring at sheets of paper. Working at the computer is better for my posture, etc.

ctdonath 15y ago

As if writing verbose rants (mirroring equivalent rants about movies, radio, books, plays, etc. throughout human history) is somehow a superior activity. the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. - Ratatouille

DanielBMarkham 15y ago

Obligatory reminder of the article I wrote 3 years ago and posted here, "Technology is Heroin" http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/02/technology_is_h.php http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/02/technology_is... Good to see people continuing to recognize this troubling fact and the community trying to come to terms with it.

boredguy8 15y ago
I mean, "Amusing Ourselves to Death" was published in 1985, and Nietzsche wrote in 1874, Increasingly we lose this sense of surprise, so that we are no longer overly amazed at anything and, ultimately, find satisfaction in everything—this is what is called historical sensibility, historical cultivation. Stated noneuphemistically: the massive influx of impressions is so great; surprising, barbaric, and violent things press so overpoweringly—'balled up into hideous clumps'—in on the youthful soul; that it can save itself only by taking recourse in premeditated stupidity. So I'm not sure what the point of the "pre-date" claim is. I am curious if you've come up with any good suggestions on how to 'fix' the problem in those intervening years, though.
- DanielBMarkham 15y ago
  Don't forget Kierkegaard, who made very similar observations well before Nietzsche. No doubt there is a very human pattern at work that hasn't changed over the centuries. Also no doubt that there is a technological amplifier at work as well. I look at it like money: having lots of money tends to make you more of what you already are. So if you're a jerk, being rich is just going to exacerbate that. In a way, then, being able to handle great wealth is an indication of a very stable (and perhaps dull) personality. Technology is doing a very similar thing with distractions. Some folks are easily distracted. Some are not. As technology improves, people who are less-easily distracted are finding they are spending more and more of their time plugged in. The best argument here is self-reports: many people freely acknowledge that they spend more time plugged in than they are comfortable with. As far as solutions, I tried a couple myself, along with some volunteers from HN. Didn't get a lot of traction, sadly. "Purposeful interruptions" was the line we were pursuing. At the time of the essay, my money was on a new form of morality taking hold -- that it simply won't be "cool" to spend too much time physically inert. That hasn't happened, sadly. PG also wrote an essay a few months after mine along these lines. I keep hoping that with so many smart people looking at this we will start seeing some breakthroughs.

cturner 15y ago

I was obsessed by games when I was kid. They've almost lost their grip on me. Even when I go actively looking for some distraction I can't find anything good. There has been one exception in the last couple of years, minecraft. There's virtually no innovation, but I'm not sure that's the reason, I think you just move on. I remember a crossover point where I looked at realistic graphics and thought "I could just go outside and go for a run" and then did.

mattgreenrocks 15y ago
> There's virtually no innovation Innovation doesn't please shareholders nearly as much as re-hashing the same banal gameplay mechanics with slight tweaks every year or so (Call of Duty). The industry did it to themselves when they sold their soul to the casuals. I have little sympathy for them, but perhaps it's better for me personally. I make time for a few games a year, and call it good. I'll get hooked from time to time, but never like I used to.
- ajross 15y ago
  "Innovation" doesn't please shareholders because it doesn't sell games It's for the same reason that P&G or Nestle shareholders don't prioritize "innovative" food products. Games are a mature market. To first approximation, buyers want better versions of what they already like. Sure, there's the occasional innovative hit (Portal, Minecraft, Angry Birds) that drives a bunch of profits for an lucky (usually independent) developer. But the overwhelming share of revenue in the industry goes to the rehashed genre pieces like CoD or Skyrim. If you want to blame someone, blame the buyers.
  - nickpinkston 15y ago
    I think "Blame the Buyers" is a false notion of how powerless we are to make change for society. This is equivalent to "making a better horse" as opposed to building an affordable car. Too many people misinterpret the 4Steps/Lean methodology to just do the startup equivalent of P&G's incremental "innovation" - instead of trying to be the Unreasonable Man that we all should be striving to be.

wazzupflow 15y ago

This kind of stuff always reminds me of Nick Bostram and the "Simulation Argument" http://www.simulation-argument.com http://www.simulation-argument.com

wladimir 15y ago
It always reminds me of Nozick's "experience machine" thought experiment.

deleted 15y ago

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digitalsushi 15y ago

I've lost friends to WoW. To my perspective, they could literally be dead and I would have the same experience - I know they are online but they are completely inaccessible inside their game world. That Bruce Willis movie with the immersive VR was a catchy prediction for the new opiate. Large portions of society are waiting for the chance to lose themselves in a deterministic, programmed world that is more pleasurable than their reality. It's terrifying to consider the ramifications of this. If you can plug in, feed yourself some poptarts and hydrate every 8 hours, and otherwise float in limbo being someone you love more than your real self, we're going to see entire classes of people disappear, just like my WoW friends that I'll probably never chat with again.

boredguy8 15y ago
http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/mopiidx.html http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/mopiidx.html Caroline continued. "So they learn where the pleasure points are by hook or crook, then stimulate themselves directly. And when they get it right, they never do anything else. They get everything maximized, tuned up, and they just sit there forever enjoying it." "Right. Now is a creature that is doing that, not interacting with the world at all any more, human?" Caroline thought about it. "No." "Prime Intellect thinks otherwise. But it has its doubts."
- TeMPOraL 15y ago
  Reminds me of http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Orgasmium http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Orgasmium.
- klipt 15y ago
  Without God/Prime Intellect to keep these people blissfully alive, though, natural selection will quickly check this kind of progression. Once you short circuit your pleasure systems - which evolved to keep you alive and reproducing - you'll soon be displaced by a species with better self control.
acuozzo 15y ago
> Large portions of society are waiting for the chance to lose themselves in a deterministic, programmed world that is more pleasurable than their reality. It's terrifying to consider the ramifications of this. If you can plug in, feed yourself some poptarts and hydrate every 8 hours, and otherwise float in limbo being someone you love more than your real self, we're going to see entire classes of people disappear, just like my WoW friends that I'll probably never chat with again. You're describing the Metaverse from Neal Stephenson's `Snow Crash'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash Read it. It's fun.

TeMPOraL 15y ago

It's also known as superstimulus; relevant LW article: http://lesswrong.com/lw/h3/superstimuli_and_the_collapse_of_western/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/h3/superstimuli_and_the_collapse_of_...

Jach 15y ago

> If I could take a pill to skip meals or sleep in a healthy way, I would. Multivitamins and melatonin? The only real question I have is: will this super-entertainment world be better than this one outside of the entertainment-sphere? I don't really care if people waste their lives in WoW or equivalent, so long as I'm not forced to join them or support them living in that world. (I'd like to see the day when basic needs like food/shelter/water are next to free in costs so people could waste their lives without burdening anyone else, if they wanted to.) Even if I could be convinced that joining them would make me feel so good about the decision afterwards, I'd resist in the same manner I resist buying/making meth today. I'm still fascinated by reality, and I want to continue to be the sort of person fascinated by reality, so I'll refuse your drug that would make me say the same things about your virtual reality. Others here have noted that the prediction pattern-matches against lots of older ones, it certainly goes back throughout the ages. It would be amusing if Star Trek got it right in the end: a holodeck used as occasional recreation (and for other things) in the same way our t.v.s and games are used as occasional recreation, rather than something real that many people spend their lives in.

sliverstorm 15y ago
Melatonin doesn't replace sleep, it makes you sleepy.
- Jach 15y ago
  Ah, I read the original wish as "sleep in a healthy way", instead of "skip meals or sleep". I probably need some sleep myself.
georgieporgie 15y ago
It would be amusing if Star Trek got it right in the end Don't forget that Lieutenant "Broccoli" Barclay had a Holodeck addiction/obsession. Also, didn't Star Trek Enterprise variants always have some huge number of crew (or civilians, I don't recall) aboard? They couldn't all be transporting down to exotic locations every episode, so they must have had to make up something to do all day.

paylesworth 15y ago

See also - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation

gojomo 15y ago

Perhaps the only thing saving us from enslavement to superstimulus is the hedonic treadmill. And vice-versa.

gojomo 15y ago

There's even the theory that addiction to video games helps explain the Fermi paradox: http://www.edge.org/q2007/q07_print.html#miller http://www.edge.org/q2007/q07_print.html#miller Previous discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1550112 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1550112

rsanchez1 15y ago
Excellent, that is an interesting explanation to the Fermi Paradox. So what we have to do is gamify exploration and conquest and we'll rule the galaxy within the next thousand years.

kpennell 15y ago

I'm trying to stay unaddicted and I have friends who are far better at me at it. I don't game, but like most people, I'm a FB, Quora, Reddit, HN checker and I've started to realize that I'm hitting a point of diminishing returns with all these articles, photos, memes. I still come back and love the thoughts this article and discussion have provoked, but these are few and far between. It's a hard balance. It's fun to go Reddit/funny just to have a few laughs and it's fun to post links and songs to entertain friends in other states/countries, but at what point is this really good for me or satisfying? Wouldn't it be better to take all my mindshare and energy and go learn the skills that will get me a more satisfying job? Or do the things that would get me more time with women (affection/sex)? More time in nature? More friendships? Strengthen my body...etc. etc. I'm still in love with physical reality. I'm always in awe of the world when I look at Boston.com's big picture or watch nature videos on Vimeo. I don't really have a point, just that it saddens me quite a bit to think how much people are missing out the world. And this is in an old argument, but it's no wonder people don't care about the destruction of the species/habitat when they're so amused in some virtual world. It's hard not to cross my fingers for some massive power outage/food shortage temporary wake up call.

badhairday 15y ago

The lime green background color is killing my eyes. Didn't even read the whole article.

mannicken 15y ago

Quite frankly, ordinary life is not that different from WoW. You go on quests, you level-up your character through education and courses, and then you earn points (money) that you can spend on shiny things like cars. Seriously.

ajuc 15y ago
But real life is not balanced, and not fair, and everything takes forever. And you can't save and load game, so most people are too afraid of failure to try anything really cool or dangerous. But they want to feel the achievement so they do it in games, where everything is fine-tuned to be achievable.

feor 15y ago

While I agree with most of the points the author makes, I can't see why he would concentrate on video games. It's not much harder to be addicted to the internet, or to anime or visual novels (see the Japanese hikkikomori), or to anything else that we can play/watch/do alone in the comfort of our own rooms. And these other addictions have much the same effect as those the author describes. In fact, I'd wager that most people who have played a game like Diablo 2 or World of Warcraft for a long time don't continue to do so because of the game itself, which has lost its immersive quality for a long time, but rather because of the friends they made, and the alternate society they are a part of. The greatest danger of MMORPGs is in my opinion that they are social games.

BenoitEssiambre 15y ago

I sometimes reflect about this and one aspect that was not mentioned and I believe will have a lot of weight on how all this evolves is the maltusian limits of the real world vs the cornucopian and limitless aspect of the virtual. Simple economics tell us that as population grows and natural resources are depleted, real physical goods and services will become scarce and costly especially compared to virtual ones which seem to be created with a shrinking amount of matter and energy. The implication of this are interesting for the evolution of humanity. Will reality become a luxury, where the common people will be able to afford nothing more than basic subsistence including low cost per calorie diet and a few cubic meters of real word dwelling? Will only the rich be able to afford the additional matter and energy to provide for further floor space, better food and physical travel? The cost difference between virtual experiences and real world experiences might become so large that most people will prefer to get the better bang for the buck available virtually. What are the implication for jobs, how will value be created and distributed when people spend most of their time in a virtual world? Here, I don't mean just entertainment goods that are only worth something in the context of a game. I mean things like education, artistic virtual experiences, virtual social events, virtual performances, movies, music, etc. The virtual economy will be greatly influenced by intellectual property laws and I assume, a lot of these goods will have to include DRM for sustaining jobs even if the goods are really cheap compared to real world goods. What activities will give meaning to human life? Intellectual endeavors, artistic endeavors and socializing should remain low cost and may still offer a lot of depth and complexity to people's lives, especially as the tools to support these activities become better. In fact, if you evaluate your life by the breath of ideas, relationships and arts you are able to master, a life lived virtually might become more fulfilling than one encumbered by the limits of the real world. How will serious social relationships evolve in virtual worlds? What are the implications for reproduction? In a virtual world, it is going to be really easy to move away when not getting along with a community. It will also be really easy to create new communities for like minded individuals. People might not have to get along they might just isolate themselves in smaller communities. What are the implications for the way politics will be performed. What are the implication for law enforcement? What are the implications for war and how will all this spill over into the real world? The communities will still have to collaborate to maintain real world security and defense. Then there is the issue of the physical body's health needs. Will the human body be able to adapt to this type of life? Will resource scarcity push humanity to a virtual existence? When you look at people living in their parents' basement spending all their time online, sometimes because of the lack of economic opportunity in the real world, it sure makes it look like the transition has already begun.

Tichy 15y ago

Isn't most of what humans do wasteful? What about "lieing on a beach sipping cocktails to death" or "commuting to death" or "painting to death" or "watching TV to death" or "reading to death"? If you condemn computer games, you condemn all other forms of art at the same time. So I suppose the only worthwhile conducts of human life are technological and scientific research, and building infrastructure? I don't think it is as simple as that. And if you have created the perfect infrastructure and won against cancer, then what? Why live? What did you optimize for? That we can enjoy stuff seems to make us want to live at the same time.

a3_nm 15y ago
> If you condemn computer games, you condemn all other forms of art at the same time. Creating computer games can be an art. Playing computer games seldom is. There aren't that many games that you can play creatively, and really few where your creations can have any value outside of the universe of the game.
- Tichy 15y ago
  So art should never be consumed, only be created? If somebody listens to a song, he is wasting his time, but then what is the point of creating a song?
- J-J 15y ago
  this game can be played created creatively - it's over 10 years old and has a following of at least thousands today in 2011 http://www.project1999.org/ http://www.project1999.org/
D_Alex 15y ago
the only worthwhile conducts of human life are technological and scientific research, and building infrastructure Wow... the basis of my philosophy! IMHO: technological and scientific research - and art! - are basically the worthwhile "ends". Building infrastructure (as well as mining, agriculture, most manufacturing, health care, SOME lawmaking, SOME politics, SOME entertainment, SOME advertising etc etc) ARE worthwhile, being the means to the abovementioned ends. (and MOST politics, entertainment, lawmaking, advertising and so on are plain old not worthwhile, or even harmful).

drblast 15y ago

I've been playing Skyrim lately and I can only describe it as endlessly entertaining. I had the very same thought that the article talks about. Skyrim is almost completely realistic-looking. At some point in the near future, the games we play will likely be indistinguishable from reality, or even more likely, much better than reality in every way. But the more surprising thing is that Skyrim has a system that randomly generates more stuff to do than you could reasonably do in a lifetime of playing the game. Now, it's essentially the same thing over and over, but there's no reason to assume that games in the future won't become even better at this. The key point is that there is stuff to do in the game that someone didn't have to manually create. The logical conclusion is that at some point in the future, there will exist an endless supply of stuff to do that is more entertaining than reality, not just in the current "addictive until you eventually get bored a year later" way, but in the "automatically generated by algorithms so complex that the game is constantly new and surprising and you will never get bored" way. I wonder where that will lead. Maybe it's the ultimate bread and circus for the populous, where one could lead an extremely happy and fulfilling life in a virtual world with essentially no cost to anyone. And if you take a step back, that's exactly where we are today, at least in the developed world. For the most part, if you abandon all the trappings of the modern, virtual world, you can live a happy and fulfilling life for nearly zero cost. But we choose to buy cell phones, TV's, and other forms of entertainment that aren't really necessary. Beyond the necessities, it's all entertainment, including that 40 hour job that you don't really have to do to live or that startup you founded because you believe it will make your life better.

econnors 15y ago

This article reminds me of one of the Pendragon books: http://djmachalebooks.com/books/pendragon/the-reality-bug/ http://djmachalebooks.com/books/pendragon/the-reality-bug/ In the book, the protagonist discovers a world in which people have abandoned reality in favor of a more enjoyable virtual world. As a result, society declines to the point where the real world is crumbling down. Not saying that's what will happen, but it's an interesting read.