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Zuckerberg Comes for the Metaverse


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1 hour ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

I mean it all depends on how people view it, calling it a second life is very subjective.

No, I'm referring to that the whole article is written with the assumption that the platform no longer ceases to exist.  I mean the way it's written makes it sound like it not available any longer.

For those who may not remember it, Second Life was a virtual platform created 15 years ago that allowed users to interact with other people through a customizable avatar. Naturally, due to the technical limitations of the time, the Second Life world looked and felt more like the Sims than actual life.

 

Similar to the metaverse, Second Life was hailed as a game changer. People could live out their lives in it, buy virtual property, do virtual work for virtual money, and build up virtual communities. Companies and universities created virtual campuses, buying into the hype. Even The Office had a short segment on it.

For a while Second Life was enormously popular, boasting millions of users. But eventually, the novelty wore off and people stopped using it. In trying to please all people, Second Life began to turn most of them away. No one could say what it was, and this became a problem. Was it a social media platform? Was it a space for virtual meetings? Was it a massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG)? 

 

Edited by Sam1 Bellisserian
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3 hours ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-metaverse-is-a-second-second-life/

Um....someone needs to do their research a little better since they are talking about Second Life in the past tense and that it is no longer active.

 

This is a rather annoying piece on a great many counts.

It's extremely paternalistic: apparently, users are lost unless they are given simple goals and tasks, and "told" what the point of the platform "is," a little as though we were children in playschool being led in an activity. That we are quite capable of creatively occupying ourselves given a wide variety of tools to make things and activities for ourselves seems not to have occurred to the writer, which is the more odd given that he supposedly teaches in a creative field, English literature.

Also rather bizarre, given the writer's occupation as a teacher of literature, is his suggestion that the "virtual" is rather valueless, because it's not "real." What, exactly, does he think that poems, plays, and novels are? Does he tell his students "Close up that volume of Whitman's poems! It's not real! We're going outside instead to run our fingers through the grass!"

Just . . . stupid. What real contempt he seems to hold us all in.

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9 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

 

Also rather bizarre, given the writer's occupation as a teacher of literature, is his suggestion that the "virtual" is rather valueless, because it's not "real."

Exactly. If it's that valuless then you wouldn't get  medical and other professions using it! A few links which are interesting (not recent but I think relevant nonetheless):

https://www.healthysimulation.com/virtual-reality-in-medicine/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2821584/  (The National Center for Biotechnology Information)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-43744009  (Virtual reality game helps ease pain for burns victims)

https://fortune.com/2015/08/17/virtual-reality-hospitals/

https://trainingindustry.com/articles/learning-technologies/3-ways-virtual-reality-training-is-producing-better-outcomes/

Those kind of statements make me mad because the person obviously hasn't bothered to research the value of the virtual properly.

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13 hours ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

No one could say what it was, and this became a problem. Was it a social media platform? Was it a space for virtual meetings? Was it a massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG)? 

Ahhh... yes.. WHAT was Second Life for the majority of users over the years?

It was all of these and nothing... which reminds me of Dave Gahan..

 

 

 

 

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17 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

This is a rather annoying piece on a great many counts.

It's extremely paternalistic: apparently, users are lost unless they are given simple goals and tasks, and "told" what the point of the platform "is," a little as though we were children in playschool being led in an activity. That we are quite capable of creatively occupying ourselves given a wide variety of tools to make things and activities for ourselves seems not to have occurred to the writer, which is the more odd given that he supposedly teaches in a creative field, English literature.

Also rather bizarre, given the writer's occupation as a teacher of literature, is his suggestion that the "virtual" is rather valueless, because it's not "real." What, exactly, does he think that poems, plays, and novels are? Does he tell his students "Close up that volume of Whitman's poems! It's not real! We're going outside instead to run our fingers through the grass!"

Just . . . stupid. What real contempt he seems to hold us all in.

With the Internet revolution, it's possible for someone to write a very impressive-looking article on a website with a very impressive-looking name despite having qualifications that would end up giving them a two-word title the likes of "Random Klown" as long as they say something that makes those running the impressive-looking website happy. 

However, it also makes it easier to find information about specific Random Klowns. The resoundingly named Auguste Meyrat is a Millennial-generation English teacher at a public high school in the Dallas, Texas suburbs.

 

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21 hours ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

For a while Second Life was enormously popular, boasting millions of users. But eventually, the novelty wore off and people stopped using it. In trying to please all people, Second Life began to turn most of them away. No one could say what it was, and this became a problem. Was it a social media platform? Was it a space for virtual meetings? Was it a massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG)? 

Novelty wore off?  Could be, for some.  The largest concurrent user drop was, in my recollection, when Linden Lab "banned" gambling.  Boom.  Overnight most of the mainland regions around me were predominantly abandoned parcels.  Many of the private regions I visited and a lot of my landmarks were just dead.  I wasn't even participating in the gambling.  I was going to places that happened to be adjacent to gambling places.  When the traffic to the gambling places fell, a lot of the other hangouts and stores nearby consolidated by closing branch locations or just shut down entirely.

What was it?  To me, when I started, Second Life was replacing IRC, so, I called it IRC with hair.  I later called Second Life playing with dolls online with friends.  It's still mostly like that for me.

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1 hour ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

With the Internet revolution, it's possible for someone to write a very impressive-looking article on a website with a very impressive-looking name despite having qualifications that would end up giving them a two-word title the likes of "Random Klown" as long as they say something that makes those running the impressive-looking website happy. 

However, it also makes it easier to find information about specific Random Klowns. The resoundingly named Auguste Meyrat is a Millennial-generation English teacher at a public high school in the Dallas, Texas suburbs.

 

So what would be the appropriate credentials to qualify to write such an article? You're  obviously pointing out that a Millennial-generation English teacher at a public high school in the Dallas, Texas suburbs is dumb like rock and is thereby unqualified to offer his views. 

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8 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

So what would be the appropriate credentials to qualify to write such an article? You're  obviously pointing out that a Millennial-generation English teacher at a public high school in the Dallas, Texas suburbs is dumb like rock and is thereby unqualified to offer his views. 

I mean we have a tonne of people writing reviews, without any sort of credentials. Especially in the video game area. Does that also make them unqualified? I mean does a person with a journalist degree qualify more then someone doing it from home without a degree? 

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20 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

So what would be the appropriate credentials to qualify to write such an article? You're  obviously pointing out that a Millennial-generation English teacher at a public high school in the Dallas, Texas suburbs is dumb like rock and is thereby unqualified to offer his views. 

I would say  that perhaps in this instance that he is most likely "dumb like a rock" because he didn't even do his research to see that Second Life is indeed not a platform that is no longer available.

For those who may not remember it, Second Life was a virtual platform created 15 years ago that allowed users to interact with other people through a customizable avatar. 

 

15 minutes ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

I mean we have a tonne of people writing reviews, without any sort of credentials. Especially in the video game area. Does that also make them unqualified? I mean does a person with a journalist degree qualify more then someone doing it from home without a degree? 

A journalist would have correct information, or should, when writing an article.  Anyone can write a review but just like most things on the internet most of it is incorrect, starting with this article. So yes, a person with a journalist degree is more qualified than someone sitting at home eating Cheetos writing reviews from their basement home office.

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34 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Thank you Coffee. Natalie Clayton did her homework, unlike that Dallas dude (scroll up) who merely opined his biases. My favorite quote from her piece is "the appeal of these virtual worlds was in the freedom to explore yourself and experiment with new personalities in new social circles". She also quotes Drax as saying ""The secret sauce of [Second Life] is community". The "community thing" is what many think makes Second Life tick. Even Grumpity Linden said so at SL18B.

I would add "fairness" as something that is  a success driver. Bellisseria is "fairer" than mainland and that contributes to its success. For me, fairness is about dealing with the "tragedy of the commons" aka external diseconomies. For example, the neighbor that is running 25 scripted bots to game traffic or precludes benign vehicle traffic with banlines and orbs.

Did I have a point? Maybe the success of the metaverse has more to do with how we feel about it than what we strap over our eyeballs.

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6 minutes ago, diamond Marchant said:

Thank you Coffee. Natalie Clayton did her homework, unlike that Dallas dude (scroll up) who merely opined his biases.

So people are not allowed to have biases against things like second life, and there are things called opinion pieces. Which both articles are, I mean yeah people are gonna have biases against a lot of things. That is part of being human. I am sorry but both articles are valid and have merit. 

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1 hour ago, diamond Marchant said:

I would add "fairness" as something that is  a success driver. Bellisseria is "fairer" than mainland and that contributes to its success. For me, fairness is about dealing with the "tragedy of the commons" aka external diseconomies. For example, the neighbor that is running 25 scripted bots to game traffic or precludes benign vehicle traffic with banlines and orbs.

I think this is a really interesting point, because it underlines the difference between the libertarian laissez-faire social and economic attitude that was put in place at the creation of SL -- where "fairness" is a function of power -- and the more civil society approach later put into place in Belli.

I've often thought that the Wild West approach is a really good way to kick things off, and it has to be said that the lack of regulation from above probably had a lot to do with SL's early success. But any culture or society reaches a point of equilibrium and sophistication, where regulation becomes not only desirable but necessary. I'll entirely agree that SL benefited from a libertarian approach for its first decade. I think it's grown beyond that now, and the lingering belief that a lack of regulation is the "special sauce" has, for some time, been holding the platform back.

Belli was a really good move in the right direction; and its success is suggestive. I think more along those lines is what we need now.

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3 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

So what would be the appropriate credentials to qualify to write such an article? You're  obviously pointing out that a Millennial-generation English teacher at a public high school in the Dallas, Texas suburbs is dumb like rock and is thereby unqualified to offer his views. 

 

3 hours ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

I mean we have a tonne of people writing reviews, without any sort of credentials. Especially in the video game area. Does that also make them unqualified? I mean does a person with a journalist degree qualify more then someone doing it from home without a degree? 

 

2 hours ago, Sammy Huntsman said:

So people are not allowed to have biases against things like second life, and there are things called opinion pieces. Which both articles are, I mean yeah people are gonna have biases against a lot of things. That is part of being human. I am sorry but both articles are valid and have merit. 

The thing is, if no special qualifications or vetting are required to write an article, literally everyone else has the qualifications to write an equally valid article. In the case of Mr. Meyrat, you can very fairly argue that anyone who realizes that Second Life still exists will automatically write an article with more validity. And if that's the case, why bother quoting someone else in the first place?

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4 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

The first paragraph of that article cracked me up...

The metaverse is here! Listen to Mark Zuckerberg long enough and you'd be convinced we're about to embark on a bold, new virtual frontier—an unexplored realm of digital avatars wearing garish NFT sneakers, holding business meetings on the surface of the moon using AR glasses. 

Doesn't Freakbook use "Half-a-tars?" No where to put the sneakers unless they do what SL did in the early days --- installed into the bum!

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13 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

is a Millennial-generation English teacher at a public high school

Right.

So far, I've read about a hundred of "My First Metaverse Article". Most are either clueless or awful. Or worse, trying to find suckers to put money into something. The one on PC Gamer (UK) is the best one so far.

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9 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

've often thought that the Wild West approach is a really good way to kick things off, and it has to be said that the lack of regulation from above probably had a lot to do with SL's early success. But any culture or society reaches a point of equilibrium and sophistication, where regulation becomes not only desirable but necessary. I'll entirely agree that SL benefited from a libertarian approach for its first decade. I think it's grown beyond that now, and the lingering belief that a lack of regulation is the "special sauce" has, for some time, been holding the platform back.

Belli was a really good move in the right direction; and its success is suggestive. I think more along those lines is what we need now.

I want to think about that one some more. I've argued for slightly tighter mainland zoning. There's potential for innovation in land layout and use. But I don't want armies of oursourced jackbooted thugs on the prowl for anything that might upset somebody. Facebook does. See the infamous Horizon Safety video.

Roblox has an average user age of 13, so they have the "protect the children" problem. They're trying to develop an AI system which can muzzle anyone who says anything bad within a tenth of a second. They're also cracking down on holding hands. Really.

Don't push too hard for authoritarian control. You might get it.

 

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51 minutes ago, animats said:

Roblox has an average user age of 13, so they have the "protect the children" problem. They're trying to develop an AI system which can muzzle anyone who says anything bad within a tenth of a second. They're also cracking down on holding hands. Really.

Might as well go for the industry standard 8 second delay.

Hand holding leads to sex, dugs and rock and roll so a sigh of relief there.

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1 hour ago, animats said:

I want to think about that one some more. I've argued for slightly tighter mainland zoning. There's potential for innovation in land layout and use. But I don't want armies of oursourced jackbooted thugs on the prowl for anything that might upset somebody. Facebook does. See the infamous Horizon Safety video.

Roblox has an average user age of 13, so they have the "protect the children" problem. They're trying to develop an AI system which can muzzle anyone who says anything bad within a tenth of a second. They're also cracking down on holding hands. Really.

Don't push too hard for authoritarian control. You might get it.

 

No, actually, what I'd ideally like to see are some mechanisms for a bit more community-led management in zoning. A tiny bit of manageable democracy, if you like.

Belli works pretty well, I think, but it's really a kind of top-down social engineering. As it happens, they seem to have got it right (mostly), but it's still authoritarian. But so too is the absolute tyranny of the land baron, no?

It would be nice, I think, to see a bit of scope to adjust zoning according to the dictates of those living in a particular region -- not just LL, in the case of Belli, and not just the land baron on the mainland, but the actual community. I don't mean really major things, but use the current system in Belli as a sort of baseline, and create a mechanism, a simple one, for some slight variations. For instance, I'm sure that there are people who would like a G rated, or A rated version of the communities there. Or slight more, or slightly less, freedom of the skies and the road. Etc.

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Again, a really interesting thread, on many levels.

One issue I think which might have to be raised in the future, regardless of how that future unfolds, is support for the mental health and wellbeing of current long term SL residents when/if SL is closed down. Particularly if the winding down takes a longer period of time (anything over 3 years) and happens gradually by virtue of losing a war of attrition in terms of numbers of residents..

Ironically and possibly counter intuitively, individuals who have invested large parts of their lives (both in terms of time and "opportunity cost"), and have become addicted in a real sense to a single virtual "reality" such as SL, are now displaying mental health issues similar to people who have faced forced detachment in other aspects of their life. Much as in redundancy and lifestyle changes due to new technologies in the workplace.

It's difficult for individuals who pride themselves on being early digital natives who "get it" in terms of technology, all of a sudden to discover they are now considered "legacy" in many ways (possibly combined with encountering ageism in other aspects of their lives). There are real loss and mourning and existential issues to be faced here.

In this context we do start to see the precursors of anxiety and depression become more evident. These manifest themselves early on in the form of various confirmation biases associated with cognitive dissonance.

I would suggest that these confirmation biases are evident in these forums across multiple threads, including this one.

I think therefore that as a society, we need to provide support for these symptoms and illnesses as we become more immersed and attached to our identities within the "metaverse" and hence more vulnerable to  the loss or alteration of those identities.

Edited by QwiQ
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1 hour ago, QwiQ said:

It's difficult for individuals who pride themselves on being early "digital natives" who "get it" in terms of technology, all of a sudden to discover they are now considered "legacy"...

Second life is so friggin old that if it was a real person, now it would have to join the army for obligatory service in some countries.

im-in-my-prime-funny.gif

Edited by Nick0678
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