Zuckerberg Comes for the Metaverse

[Luna Bliss]

On 11/18/2021 at 3:46 PM, Nick0678 said:

On 11/18/2021 at 9:05 AM, Luna Bliss said:

Fascists will be fascists. ..

Hmm.. yeah well, i wouldn't say it's wise to call a Communist.. Fascist.

Might get you into trouble thinking that way... good thing you live in the U.S.

I wasn't using the word 'fascist' in a literal sense to define a governmental style...was using it as an expression of someone being too controlling or taking more power than they should in relationship to others -- "fascists will be fascists". It was in response to Arielle's observation that both China and Evangelicals compare gaming/VR/the Metaverse to opium addiction.

It's an interesting topic actually, this 'opium accusation', and is used by those in power to assert control over others -- they gain sympathy easily as actual addiction is not viewed favorably and so a means to control it is less resisted.
While addiction to anything can be a problem for sure, I'm always suspicious when a group claims to know 'the true self or society' they claim an addiction is taking someone away from. Perhaps their 'true self or society' is simply their own form of addiction they approve of.

[Nick0678]

20 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

I wasn't using the word 'fascist' in a literal sense to define a governmental style...was using it as an expression of someone being too controlling or taking more power than they should in relationship to others -- "fascists will be fascists". It was in response to Arielle's observation that both China and Evangelicals compare gaming/VR/the Metaverse to opium addiction.

Ok but you understand that calling a Communist Fascist, is a paradox. China doesn't do something different than what was always done in Communist countries since the early days of 19th century Bolshevism..

[Luna Bliss]

47 minutes ago, Nick0678 said:

Ok but you understand that calling a Communist Fascist, is a paradox. China doesn't do something different than what was always done in Communist countries since the early days of 19th century Bolshevism..

I wasn't literally calling a communist a fascist. It's only paradoxical if you don't understand the way I was using the word. Maybe it's not used in Greece the way I've heard it used here -- it's used sometimes to denote someone who is overly controlling and taking a kind of 'my way or the highway' approach.

~~

"fascist" connotates an official form of antisocial behavior, if society is understood to have valid comfort needs not met by a harsh authoritarian work ethic or supervision style.

"fascist" behavior can be observed in some form in everyday life, but is especially obvious on TV when ordered by right-wing politicians, mean bosses, and greedy corporations. Parents can be both fairly or unfairly labeled, because some parents are minor fascists, yet teens can't always tell what is fascist over-control, from what is just good parenting.

"That's fascist!"
"A fascist cop demanded to know where I was going."
"My fascist boss likes to say, 'My way or the highway'."
"My fascist dad won't let me stay out after 10 pm."
"Don't buy stuff from that fascist corporation; they fired employees sickened by handling their toxic waste."

 ~~

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fascist

[Lindal Kidd]

Those inaccurate usages simply show the speaker's ignorance.

Words mean specific things. When we broaden that meaning, they become mere expressions of the speaker's approval or disapproval.

This happened to the term "gentleman" in the 19th century. At one time, a gentleman was a specific term meaning a man who owned land but did not hold a noble title. It was a rank between yeoman and knight. Now gentlemen, being of the nobility, were expected to exhibit certain qualities, not that everyone actually did. Nobles, including gentlemen, were expected to be honorable, generous, deal fairly, and defend the weak. Since these were desirable qualities, it became common to refer to someone who exhibited them as "a true gentleman", whether they were in fact a gentleman or not.

Thus the term gentleman, once an accurate description of a particular social class, broadened and devolved to its current meaning, which is simply "a good man". But we already HAD a term for that, we did not need another.

Here we have "fascist" being used in the same generic way. Instead of meaning one who believes in form of far-right, authoritarian ultra-nationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy, it's being used to mean simply "a bad person", or worse, "a person I don't like".

 

[Luna Bliss]

52 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Those inaccurate usages simply show the speaker's ignorance.

Words mean specific things. When we broaden that meaning, they become mere expressions of the speaker's approval or disapproval.

This happened to the term "gentleman" in the 19th century. At one time, a gentleman was a specific term meaning a man who owned land but did not hold a noble title. It was a rank between yeoman and knight. Now gentlemen, being of the nobility, were expected to exhibit certain qualities, not that everyone actually did. Nobles, including gentlemen, were expected to be honorable, generous, deal fairly, and defend the weak. Since these were desirable qualities, it became common to refer to someone who exhibited them as "a true gentleman", whether they were in fact a gentleman or not.

Thus the term gentleman, once an accurate description of a particular social class, broadened and devolved to its current meaning, which is simply "a good man". But we already HAD a term for that, we did not need another.

Here we have "fascist" being used in the same generic way. Instead of meaning one who believes in form of far-right, authoritarian ultra-nationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy, it's being used to mean simply "a bad person", or worse, "a person I don't like".

 

Lindal, I've grown to like you over the years, even though I continue to dislike your pedantic rants. I'm afraid what you like about any word or what you think should remain forever in our lexicon doesn't matter in the long run, as language changes and morphs according to what others do with these words and they aren't fixed forever or set in stone at the precise point in time you are acquainted with said word, and before you know it some previously unknown word or phrase even ends up in the dictionary!

I'm sure it happens, but I've never heard someone call another a fascist simply because they disliked them -- they call them a fascist when they are exhibiting the essence of fascism, the heart of the word, its most condensed characteristic -- an attitude which is anti-democratic and doesn't consider the needs or perspectives of another but instead insists their perspective is the only true one. Kind of like how you would not address others by their preferred pronouns but instead insisted they would have to fit what you deemed as the correct binary language. You insisted on this, and would not display a drop of sympathy, even though these marginalized people have been abused and denied their very personhood and are finally getting to name themselves as they know themselves to be instead of being forced to acquiesce to the demands of society. You chose to shove them down, but people should be able to name themselves and request others address them accordingly. And you did it because your pedantic obsession with words overrides the painful experience of oppressed people. Shouldn't people's feelings and the right to define themselves supersede your obsession with words you are familiar with and believe should never change?

I have no investment in championing the usage of the world 'fascist' to denote an anti-democratic person, as I don't think it hurts anyone not to use it in the way denying others their identity does, but it's not ignorance to use the word in such a way -- it's very much to the point, capturing the essence of what actually makes any person, group, or government fascistic at its core.

[Luna Bliss]

Just an interesting side note -- many are saying China is fascist now, or on the way to being so:

https://ipolitics.ca/2017/10/12/the-dawn-of-a-fascist-china-and-what-it-means-for-us/

https://www.varsity.co.uk/opinion/21586

[Bree Giffen]

Calling someone a bigot, fascist or racist is used so often today that these terms no longer have any meaning to normal adults. The world hasn't suddenly become worse than it was a few years ago. People haven't become more bigoted, racist or fascist. It's a fad used by the intellectually bankrupt.

[Luna Bliss]

12 minutes ago, Bree Giffen said:

Calling someone a bigot, fascist or racist is used so often today that these terms no longer have any meaning to normal adults. The world hasn't suddenly become worse than it was a few years ago. People haven't become more bigoted, racist or fascist. It's a fad used by the intellectually bankrupt.

Well I don’t hang out on Facebook or Twitter so I wouldn’t know. But I do think that if an evangelical group believes all of America should adhere to their beliefs via governmental interference that this is very anti-democratic or fascistic in nature. Someone posted a link to one such group and I begin researching other groups that are freaking out over the metaverse, and so I’m concerned about them coming into power in the US in 2024 and what it will do to virtual worlds, including SL.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Thus the term gentleman, once an accurate description of a particular social class, broadened and devolved to its current meaning, which is simply "a good man". But we already HAD a term for that, we did not need another.

Lindal, I'm puzzled about your attitude here towards the change in the word. Are you arguing that we should still be using "gentleman" to denote a man below the rank of noble, but of a status permitting them to carry weapons? Even in the UK, which is possibly still the most class-conscious nation in the developed world, that social rank literally no longer exists, because the legal, political, and social conditions that underwrote its definition no longer existed. Just as England no longer has "squires" in the original meaning of that word, it no longer has "gentlemen" in the way that you define it.

The shift in meaning of the word was driven both by the reality that there was no real social or legal category of "gentlemen" anymore, and by a democratizing principle that seems to me, on the whole, to be a good thing. It was one of the tools by which the ancient, rigid, and exceedingly iniquitous social hierarchy was gradually dismantled.

So, take the situation of having to speak in the third person about a man who is obviously a blue collar worker. Ordinarily, today, we might say something like "This gentleman would like to be directed to the washrooms." By your logic, we should actually be saying something like "This mechanic (a term originally used to refer to low-status people who worked with their hands) would like . . ."

Or perhaps "This labourer."

Or maybe "The menial."

How about "This peasant"?

Language changes for a reason, and very often that reason is to reflect a changing social reality.

[Rowan Amore]

26 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Lindal, I'm puzzled about your attitude here towards the change in the word. Are you arguing that we should still be using "gentleman" to denote a man below the rank of noble, but of a status permitting them to carry weapons? Even in the UK, which is possibly still the most class-conscious nation in the developed world, that social rank literally no longer exists, because the legal, political, and social conditions that underwrote its definition no longer existed. Just as England no longer has "squires" in the original meaning of that word, it no longer has "gentlemen" in the way that you define it.

The shift in meaning of the word was driven both by the reality that there was no real social or legal category of "gentlemen" anymore, and by a democratizing principle that seems to me, on the whole, to be a good thing. It was one of the tools by which the ancient, rigid, and exceedingly iniquitous social hierarchy was gradually dismantled.

So, take the situation of having to speak in the third person about a man who is obviously a blue collar worker. Ordinarily, today, we might say something like "This gentleman would like to be directed to the washrooms." By your logic, we should actually be saying something like "This mechanic (a term originally used to refer to low-status people who worked with their hands) would like . . ."

Or perhaps "This labourer."

Or maybe "The menial."

How about "This peasant"?

Language changes for a reason, and very often that reason is to reflect a changing social reality.

Serf?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Serf?

There have been times I've felt like one.

[Lindal Kidd]

I'll try to respond to both Scylla and Luna.

Yes, of course language changes, and no, I'm not advocating re-establishing the old meaning of "gentleman"; I was using its change in meaning as an example only. As Scylla correctly points out, that usage is now archaic and no longer required. But, at the time, it was a real social rank, and the term became diluted before the rank of "gentleman" became obsolete. Language should change and evolve, but it ought to do so in ways that provide more clarity, not more noise.

"Pedantic rants".

• Pedant has two definitions according to the American Dictionary:
  • One who ostentatiously exhibits academic knowledge or who pays undue attention to minor details or formal rules.
  • A schoolmaster; a teacher

If you used pedantic in the first sense, then I believe I shall be offended, and also note that you've missed the point. My whole point, in this and in other discussions of language is that there is no such thing as "minor" details, and that people are not paying enough attention to their own language these days. If you intended it in its second sense, then I gladly plead guilty as charged.

• Rant. Merriam Webster defines a rant as "bombastic extravagant language", but I'll allow its use in the more modern sense of any substantial screed published on the web. Guilty. My posts urging people to think, speak, and write correct language ARE rants. I'm passionate about it, and increasingly alarmed at our society's descent from precise, meaningful discussion into simple incoherent screaming at, or past, one another.

 

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

[Arielle Popstar]

4 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

... I do think that if ?????? group or person believes all of America should adhere to their beliefs via governmental interference that this is very anti-democratic or fascistic in nature.....

Fify. Laying aside any particular prejudices or bias towards any specific people or groups, quite a few have fascistic tendencies especially those who cry about it in others. I think it is that they don't like the competition.

In any case is there a relevancy to the accusation by some metaverse detractors that a tendency towards addictiveness for virtual realities, could lead to negative consequences for a society as a whole? That might be a good question to ask before jumping onto the zuckerberg bandwagon, especially being that he is already the creator of an app many call "crackbook" and now seeming to be switching gears to going from a textual format to a 3d one. Would he really be doing that if he didn't deep down believe it will result in even more profits for him?

[Nick0678]

10 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

I wasn't literally calling a communist a fascist. It's only paradoxical if you don't understand the way I was using the word. Maybe it's not used in Greece the way I've heard it used here -- it's used sometimes to denote someone who is overly controlling and taking a kind of 'my way or the highway' approach.

So CPC (Communist Party of China) is Fascist...  I see..

(Josef Stalin would laugh to tears how fascism is used to describe communist's )

[Mr Amore]

The legless Facebook Horizons is not their metaverse. In the future they will scan your RL self and digitize a likeness of you into their metaverse. Presumably you could sell your likeness to others, or build a collection of celebrity avatars to use. The VR headsets too will be capable of digitizing your environment on the fly, whether you're in a room, or along a walk, your surrounding is scanned, translated into mesh and textured in real time.

Meta doesn't want to be 'The Metaverse', they want to be 'The Gateway' into the metaverse, through which every account is created and every transaction is recorded. Just as Google and Apple are to their app stores. Just as we don't consider them when installing apps, people won't enter the metaverse thinking of Meta.

With thousands of independent worlds all connected to a central metaverse, gives Meta an insight into every virtual life, it goes beyond spending and social habits, they will literally know how long your avatar spent interacting with another, the context and text/audio files of the meeting. Governments will conveniently overlook these breaches in privacy since the NSA/GCHQ and agencies around the world will all have backdoors into this metaverse too.

[Lindal Kidd]

9 hours ago, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

My specialty!

[QwiQ]

42 minutes ago, Mr Amore said:

The legless Facebook Horizons is not their metaverse. In the future they will scan your RL self and digitize a likeness of you into their metaverse. Presumably you could sell your likeness to others, or build a collection of celebrity avatars to use. The VR headsets too will be capable of digitizing your environment on the fly, whether you're in a room, or along a walk, your surrounding is scanned, translated into mesh and textured in real time.

Meta doesn't want to be 'The Metaverse', they want to be 'The Gateway' into the metaverse, through which every account is created and every transaction is recorded. Just as Google and Apple are to their app stores. Just as we don't consider them when installing apps, people won't enter the metaverse thinking of Meta.

With thousands of independent worlds all connected to a central metaverse, gives Meta an insight into every virtual life, it goes beyond spending and social habits, they will literally know how long your avatar spent interacting with another, the context and text/audio files of the meeting. Governments will conveniently overlook these breaches in privacy since the NSA/GCHQ and agencies around the world will all have backdoors into this metaverse too.

Yep, 

And as I mentioned earlier, the main goal here isn't just oversight of your "virtual life".

Once AR evolves into XR and there is no distinction between Virtual and Real , only a blended continuum with various degrees of immersion, then "they" get everything.

Access to, and worse still "control", of your whole reality. The ability to actually create what you see and hear for most of your waking hours.

Genuinely this is very likely the strategic goal for MAMAA (the new acronym apparently for Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google's parent company Alphabet). If the technology is available and society sleep walks into it - why wouldn't they?

As for the technology question, Zuckerberg gave a forecast of 5 to 10 years for usable AR to be mainstream and in use, however if you look at the acceleration in announcements over the past few weeks - it looks like this timeline is pessimistic (from his perspective)

I accept that the cynics and people who don't believe in the exponential adoption of this technology may be correct and it's all a storm in a teacup (which for me actually is the preferred outcome). The upside is that we won't have to wait very long to see who's right 🙂

Edited November 21, 2021 by QwiQ

[Bree Giffen]

I wouldn't mind a future with XR. It  would be like having a constant HUD display giving me information. I was in the Amazon grocery trying out one of their techno shopping carts and it would bring up deals on the screen when I walked into each aisle. An XR future would let me look at things and a little pop up info would appear just like we have in SL.

[QwiQ]

15 minutes ago, Bree Giffen said:

I wouldn't mind a future with XR. It  would be like having a constant HUD display giving me information. I was in the Amazon grocery trying out one of their techno shopping carts and it would bring up deals on the screen when I walked into each aisle. An XR future would let me look at things and a little pop up info would appear just like we have in SL.

I'm definitely a bit of a Geek and a bit unhealthily eager to see what can be built, and even if I could muck about and try building some of it.

But.

Lets say you're shopping for groceries but your health insurer is monitoring your activity through your XR wearable (probably glasses to start off with).

Lets say your health insurer doesn't like what you're buying and the potential impact on your health and thus the overhead in continuing to insure someone who eats like that? So you find that your monthly payments go up, or cover for diabetes 2 disappears or they might even block you from seeing various foodstuffs at all.

Lets say you go into a more high ticket environment, say clothes or jewellery or cars or ironically electronics. Your credit score is available to the XR or your annual salary or your pre-calculated disposable income. The XR might show any "unaffordable"  items as empty boxes, or the information bubble just says "not for you!".

You look for an assistant to ask what's going on, but his facial recognition app already knows who you are and what your credit rating is - no more judging you based on your clothes or how you speak - it's all there in black and white - so he ignores you - you're not worth helping.

Now let's say you decide to opt out of all of this - XR isn't for you?

Well maybe you won't be allowed in the store, because they have no way of knowing if you're a valuable prospect or not.

Maybe you won't get the health insurance because they can't monitor your lifestyle in real time.

People you meet decide to give you a wide berth because "you must have something to hide" - apparently a blank profile in SL for avatars over 1 month old is a similar red flag.

Even if they do decide to give you the benefit of the doubt, you're at a social disadvantage because you're still floundering into conversations with the old standards like "what's your name", "are you from around here", "where did you go to school"?

You can't keep a job because everyone else is getting assistance via their XR wearable and therefore are much more competent than you.

Absolute carnage everywhere you look (literally) 🙂

[Bree Giffen]

If you're saying XR won't let me buy my cookies then XR sucks! We need to fight anyone trying to develop it.

[QwiQ]

1 minute ago, Bree Giffen said:

If you're saying XR won't let me buy my cookies then XR sucks! We need to fight anyone trying to develop it.

To be honest if it's left in the unholy hands of MAMAA and big corporations then XR is going to suck hard 🙂

You will hear people use phrases like

"well if you act sensibly and don't break the rules...",
"Why should you be able to look at things you'll never be able to afford?",
"You're already overweight, why should our shareholders' dividends be reduced just because you can't control yourself",
"but we're giving you all this stuff to make your life easier, all we're asking for is reasonable access to your info to make it all possible"

As you point out though, in the right hands there will be huge benefits as well; it just depends on who we perceive as the "right hands".

As for cookies, I'm thinking lets start stockpiling for the future inevitable black market now... we'll make millions 🙂

[Nick0678]

14 minutes ago, QwiQ said:

To be honest if it's left in the unholy hands of MAMAA and big corporations then XR is going to suckhard 🙂

.....

/me hacks the system, finds out that the girl he had sex with last night has chlamydia...

[Luna Bliss]

13 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

I'll try to respond to both Scylla and Luna.

Yes, of course language changes, and no, I'm not advocating re-establishing the old meaning of "gentleman"; I was using its change in meaning as an example only. As Scylla correctly points out, that usage is now archaic and no longer required. But, at the time, it was a real social rank, and the term became diluted before the rank of "gentleman" became obsolete. Language should change and evolve, but it ought to do so in ways that provide more clarity, not more noise.

"Pedantic rants".

• Pedant has two definitions according to the American Dictionary:
  • One who ostentatiously exhibits academic knowledge or who pays undue attention to minor details or formal rules.
  • A schoolmaster; a teacher

If you used pedantic in the first sense, then I believe I shall be offended, and also note that you've missed the point. My whole point, in this and in other discussions of language is that there is no such thing as "minor" details, and that people are not paying enough attention to their own language these days. If you intended it in its second sense, then I gladly plead guilty as charged.

• Rant. Merriam Webster defines a rant as "bombastic extravagant language", but I'll allow its use in the more modern sense of any substantial screed published on the web. Guilty. My posts urging people to think, speak, and write correct language ARE rants. I'm passionate about it, and increasingly alarmed at our society's descent from precise, meaningful discussion into simple incoherent screaming at, or past, one another.

 

I'm sorry language does not evolve in ways you prefer, but language is an organic process shaped by the whims of human beings. It changes in some locations first and is slow to change in others, and sometimes it even reverts to previous modes of usage. It's not an exact process categorized all neatly in some dictionary enshrined for all time. It makes no sense to complain about the lack of precision in a process that is inherently imprecise in the way it evolves, as you did with the word 'gentleman'.

Regarding your love of precision and clarity, let's take your insistence that you will never use someone's preferred pronouns when addressing them because 'male or female' are the only correct categories. If you really valued precision and clarity you would gladly accept the greater knowledge we now have that explains how gender identity is not so binary because human gender identity is comprised of more than the most visible characteristics of a person's body.  Intersex is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male. Approximately 1 in 1000 (some estimates say 1 in 600 or so -- it depends on how conditions are classified) people are born as intersex individuals (formerly known as hermaphroditism).

So you say you value precision in language yet won't use the precise language that a person who is not born strictly male or female uses to define themselves? This makes no sense if you value precision in language, because to force someone into a totally male or totally female category is not true and so can't be precise. I think rather that you are hanging on to previous language that appeared more precise to you due to its black & white nature but is actually false, because what you really value is language that is static and unchanging -- after all, how can something more nuanced be precise?  Either that or you are influenced by religion or a conservative political slant and unmoved by scientific evidence which proves a reality opposing your bias.

If you really love language you let it breathe and cherish the nuance that is often a part of any word -- you let it speak to you instead of pinning it down in restrictive ways. What I see you doing with language is often an attempt to control it via being extremely picky or pedantic. This dynamic is irreverent as it results in missing the big picture -- deeper meanings inherent in any languages not always evident with a surface evaluation, sometimes capturing the heart of the matter or the essence (like what you did with your irreverent treatment of the word 'fascist').

You say that you want to foster greater communication between people via clarifying more precise meanings, and that seems a worthy goal and I believe it's likely what you want... but what I often experience from you is someone who needs to control reality through particular word usage in the service of their own bias.

[Luna Bliss]

9 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

14 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

... I do think that if ?????? group or person believes all of America should adhere to their beliefs via governmental interference that this is very anti-democratic or fascistic in nature.....

Fify. Laying aside any particular prejudices or bias towards any specific people or groups, quite a few have fascistic tendencies especially those who cry about it in others. I think it is that they don't like the competition.

In any case is there a relevancy to the accusation by some metaverse detractors that a tendency towards addictiveness for virtual realities, could lead to negative consequences for a society as a whole? That might be a good question to ask before jumping onto the zuckerberg bandwagon, especially being that he is already the creator of an app many call "crackbook" and now seeming to be switching gears to going from a textual format to a 3d one. Would he really be doing that if he didn't deep down believe it will result in even more profits for him?

As usual, you've drawn strange and untrue inferences from what I've stated about virtual reality. I've never said I thought Zuckerberg's efforts in this direction were all good, and I've never said we should not pay attention to addictive aspects in gaming/virtual worlds/VR. What I have said is our concerns should not be based on the input of people like Xi Jinping, President of the People's Republic of China. Nor should they be based on how Evangelical or religious groups perceive addiction, or on the strange group of Christo-fascists who are poised to take control of our government in 2024 -- like this guy who says we should have one religion in America:
  https://thehill.com/homenews/media/581443-michael-flynn-says-of-the-us-we-have-to-have-one-religion

I've also stated my concerns about hyperreality and transhumanism elsewhere on the forum.

I am concerned about all this NOT because I'm defending Zuckerberg's efforts, but because of how SL could get caught in the crossfire when Zuckerberg is clamped down on. Trump and his cronies don't especially like Zuckerberg after being banned from his platform, you know, and retribution has been high on their list when in power.