Zuckerberg Comes for the Metaverse

[Rowan Amore]

Pedantic rants ^^  😁

Edited November 21, 2021 by Rowan Amore

[Luna Bliss]

2 hours ago, QwiQ said:

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.

Yeah, am concerned about that...the potential for excessive brainwashing.

Personally, I might find such hyperreality interesting for about 5 minutes, but then I'd get a massive headache:

 

[Lindal Kidd]

10 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

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?

[Luna Bliss]

Just now, Lindal Kidd said:

12 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

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?

So why don't you accept there is nonbinary existence and so refuse to address these people correctly?

[Lindal Kidd]

Because I've decided to simplify my life and remove gendered pronouns entirely.

Everyone shall henceforward be "it".

Zuck wins!

Edited November 21, 2021 by Lindal Kidd

[Dyna Mole]

The conversation is starting to drift off course again.

[Luna Bliss]

1 minute ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Because I've decided to simplify my life and remove gendered pronouns entirely.

Everyone shall henceforward be "it".

Zuck wins!

It can't be more simple than simply asking someone their preferred pronoun if there's any question in the matter, or switching to the preferred pronoun they request if a mistake is made.

[Luna Bliss]

Back on track...

Hyper-reality...what is it?

 

Edited November 21, 2021 by Luna Bliss

[Luna Bliss]

3 hours 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.

Yeah but people track us via our phones and the internet already. What do you see as the greater danger in a metaverse? Advertising having more of an effect there, or greater chances of brainwashing due to how VR is so all-encompassing?

[Theresa Tennyson]

15 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

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"?

 

Heaven forfend we just say "person..."

 

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

I stopped using face book 2 years ago. When they blocked me for 3 days for telling my cousin On April fools day if he brought me a box of donuts and I opened it and there were veggie sticks in it I would kick his ass. I was responding to a meme he posted. And then once again for telling a woman who was 24 and bragged about having 52 sex partners that she might need to look into her self and figure out why she thought needed so many. The group I was in was a self help…. Both cases I was labeled a bully and my site was locked for 3 days. So he can kiss my ass. I would never use any platform he is behind. Plus I do not like the fact that people in SL can create account there. SL avatars. I had one but shut it down years ago. Yes I know a lot of you have them and that’s your bag no worries. But for me it is a hard no. 

[Nick0678]

1 hour ago, Tarina Sewell said:

a woman who was 24 and bragged about having 52 sex partners

Can i have her phone number?

Edited November 21, 2021 by Nick0678

[Cackle Amore]

On 11/18/2021 at 3:42 PM, Mr Amore said:

Stories like these are the future of the metaverse.

 

 

 

I feel like it's worth noting that this isn't going to be the same experience for the regular users, at least with Roblox.

She likely got that much since it was a partnership with roblox and not just her making stuff to sell through the normal channels regular users use.

 The average joe or kid making stuff in roblox only gets like 20% of what ever profits they make off of roblox with after an extremely high cash out minimum

 

[Drayke Newall]

On 11/21/2021 at 1:32 PM, 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.

Just a correction. Firstly, the rank of Gentleman never permitted a person to carry weapons. It was simply a person that could bear arms (armorial bearings aka heraldry). Whilst in the 19th century this expanded to a person who was wealthy enough to not have to work, its original meaning never changed. It still exists in is original form and can be easily seen in grants of arms from the College of Arms letters patents. This is what it meant that a gentleman could bear arms... nothing to do with weapons.

Secondly, the rank of esquire also still exists and has specific protocols pertaining to addressing a person within the UK. It is also used in letters patents as well as defines a person of gentle birth and next in line to a title if needed. It also is, as has been the case for centuries, allowed for use by the Queens Counsel due to letters patents they obtain stating them as such.

Both ranks still exist despite America and the public thinking they don't.

_______

As to the topic at hand, I think people here are not realising that the term metaverse has changed from what it meant when SL was made or even from just a few years ago. The metaverse is no longer defined as a virtual world but instead mixed reality. Also with Apple glasses just around the corner and them also looking into both AR and VR (mixed reality) the 'Apple effect' will be in full swing and therefore will probably see a boom in uptake of VR.

This all not even taking into account Apple's new patent of mixed reality lenses that project the image into the eye rather than just a screen which, they claim removes the motion sickness and other adverse effects current VR gives.

As an example of what the modern metaverse is using mixed reality Microsoft are doing things like this: Microsoft's metaverse brings ancient Greece to life with augmented reality | Windows Central . Whilst yes in Second life you can build ancient Greece virtually, it cannot compete with a metaverse that allows an augmented reality system whereby a person can travel to Greece and see and explore in real life what it looked like.

The metaverse will happen, I just hope Facebook/Meta doesn't succeed as the frontrunner.

Edited November 22, 2021 by Drayke Newall
added bit about Microsoft metaverse example, really late edit to add heraldry bit

[Luna Bliss]

9 hours ago, Drayke Newall said:

As an example of what the modern metaverse is using mixed reality Microsoft are doing things like this: Microsoft's metaverse brings ancient Greece to life with augmented reality | Windows Central . Whilst yes in Second life you can build ancient Greece virtually, it cannot compete with a metaverse that allows an augmented reality system whereby a person can travel to Greece and see and explore in real life what it looked like.

Great article...and looks like so much fun. It demonstrates how mixed reality could enhance life so much, and with some controls it wouldn't have to launch us into total hyperreality or transhumanism! lol

[Luna Bliss]

Where did this link come from? This thread?  I'm lost in the link rabbit hole     Anyway, great article by someone who knows more what they're talking about than some who are evaluating SL and the Metaverse in general.  Very positive regarding SL.

https://venturebeat.com/2021/09/03/the-deanbeat-will-the-metaverse-bring-the-second-coming-of-second-life/

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, Luna Bliss said:

Where did this link come from? This thread?  I'm lost in the link rabbit hole     Anyway, great article by someone who knows more what they're talking about than some who are evaluating SL and the Metaverse in general.  Very positive regarding SL.

https://venturebeat.com/2021/09/03/the-deanbeat-will-the-metaverse-bring-the-second-coming-of-second-life/

I posted it in this thread...

 

[Mr Amore]

On 11/21/2021 at 5:53 PM, Luna Bliss said:

Yeah but people track us via our phones and the internet already. What do you see as the greater danger in a metaverse? Advertising having more of an effect there, or greater chances of brainwashing due to how VR is so all-encompassing?

With the phone and Internet, a user still has some control over their privacy by limiting the apps they install and using VPNs.

The metaverse has no opt-outs, every transaction, every human interaction, every scripted engagement, even the direction your avatar is facing and the duration they're focused onto any object will be recorded. Virtual worlds are synonymous with mass surveillance.

AI will monitor humans at work in the metaverse too, then replace them. Yeah, that sweet waifu hostess you thought was flirting is actually code.

As to brainwashing in VR, it has the potential of becoming magnitudes more intense than television. Where 'news' outlets have shaped impressionable minds for decades, interfering with their ability to reason, and controlling who they'll next vote for.

 

And for something fun, one of the finest films from the 80s, Videodrome, took media brainwashing to a whole other level.

(Trailer contains some freaky scenes of body horror).

 

[Mr Amore]

On 11/22/2021 at 2:17 AM, Cackle Amore said:

I feel like it's worth noting that this isn't going to be the same experience for the regular users, at least with Roblox.

She likely got that much since it was a partnership with roblox and not just her making stuff to sell through the normal channels regular users use.

 The average joe or kid making stuff in roblox only gets like 20% of what ever profits they make off of roblox with after an extremely high cash out minimum

 

 

I haven't seen the actual percentage for cashing out, in another thread I estimated the creator receives only 8.5% of their earnings.

For every $100 made:

• Roblox takes a 75.5% cut of earnings = $24.5 remaining
• When cashing out, Roblox takes a further 65% = $8.5 for the developer

Each celebrity must be negotiating their own percentage, else some day soon Zara Larsson will open her account expecting $1M, only to find $85k.

A sum Roblox could argue is a reasonable annual wage for employees who've generated $1M for their employer. And judging by the speed of Roblox's growth, which is almost entirely user driven, the creators are in agreement.

 

Edited December 1, 2021 by Mr Amore

[Nextio]

Hate to burst people's bubbles, but SL is nothing like the current crop of metaverses.  It's ancient and outdated.

SL will never be a true open grid metaverse.  It has always been a virtual world closed off from everything else.  It's actually quite limited and centralized.

Upcoming metaverses such as Zuckerberg's Horizon, or Decentraland, will have interoperability with other metaverses.  In other words, cross-metaverse bridges, where you will be able to teleport your avatar, clothing, objects, inventory, and so on, between multiple metaverses, using these bridges.  All of this is already underway with organizations, such as OMI, to make a standardization for Web 3.0 and metaverses.  Sort of like how the W3C formed to make the internet standardized. 

Imagine being able to travel back and forth from your favorite sim in SL to some other metaverse that's holding a conference or concert, all while taking the same SL avatar.

I would prefer using my semi-realistic SL avatar in VR Chat, instead of an anime avatar (no offense to VR Chat).  In my opinion, SL has the best skins, shapes, hair, clothing, and so on, but they can't be shared across metaverses which is a shame.

It's basically going to be like OpenSim, hypergrid, and Kitely's marketplace, except it's not confined within the OpenSim software.

Think of it like being able to travel back and forth between portals in SL <-> IMVU <-> VR Chat <-> Sansar.  (please don't compare the quality between these, I'm just giving an example)

Not only that, but third party marketplaces such as Unity, CGTrader, TurboSquid, Fivver, already exist, and SL creators won't be limited to the SL marketplace anymore because all these other metaverses will attract more people and more sales.  It's already happening to some degree where SL creators sell virtual items in other worlds, such as IMVU.

I know a lot of SL residents get defensive about their first love of virtual worlds, but SL is not the future.

SL will eventually end up like Myspace, Blockbuster, and Gamestop.  Linden Labs needs to adapt or be left behind.  I know they tried with Sansar but it had many other issues besides early adoption of VR tech.

Edited December 2, 2021 by Nextio

[Coffee Pancake]

15 minutes ago, Nextio said:

Upcoming metaverses such as Zuckerberg's Horizon, or Decentraland, will have interoperability with other metaverses. 

Will they ?

Please cite your sources. I would be very interested to read up on these "open metaverse" claims and when / how they anticipate such interoperability will function.

 

 

15 minutes ago, Nextio said:

In other words, cross-metaverse bridges, where you will be able to teleport your avatar, clothing, objects, inventory, and so on, between multiple metaverses, using these bridges. 

This is a practical nonsense and often used in conjunction with NFTs.

An asset from SL (a car, dress, fancy hat) is useless without additional work on any other platform for numerous technical reasons, the same is true of assets made for unity or unreal.

You might as well be suggesting that games from a Switch can be made to work on a Gameboy.

 

 

15 minutes ago, Nextio said:

Imagine being able to travel back and forth from your favorite sim in SL to some other metaverse that's holding a conference or concert, all while taking the same SL avatar.\

Imagine playing metroid dread on a PS5 ... Imagine eating strawberries dipped in fish ... 

 

15 minutes ago, Nextio said:

I would prefer using my semi-realistic SL avatar in VR Chat, instead of an anime avatar (no offense to VR Chat).  In my opinion, SL has the best skins, shapes, hair, clothing, and so on, but they can't be shared across metaverses which is a shame.

None of which is in the hands of LL or the owners or VRChat.

A creator and IP holder could port their work to VRChat (or vice versa), yet no one is .. 

 

15 minutes ago, Nextio said:

It's basically going to be like OpenSim, hypergrid, and Kitely's marketplace, except it's not confined within the OpenSim software.

All of which are infinitesimal niches that barely function above a tech demonstration level.

What happens if 5000 people suddenly started using hypergrid? .. It would all crash. Instantly.

 

 

15 minutes ago, Nextio said:

Think of it like being able to travel back and forth between portals in SL <-> IMVU <-> VR Chat <-> Sansar.  (please don't compare the quality between these, I'm just giving an example)

For technical reasons that are weirdly never brought up selling this hype, none of that would actually work without significant effort by all parties .. and then still crash and burn the moment legal and IP rights got involved.

You join <social virtual world> and make a fancy hat .. which <social virtual world> has permission to make that fancy hat show on another companies <social virtual world>? What would the legal terms of service for <social virtual world> look like to enable this ... would you agree to that .. probably not.

What happens when a different <social virtual world> has a differing terms of service that is more or less permissive in distribution and sub licensing than the one you created the fancy hat in.

(and no, NFTs are not the answer to this problem)

 

15 minutes ago, Nextio said:

Not only that, but third party marketplaces such as Unity, CGTrader, TurboSquid, Fivver, already exist, and SL creators won't be limited to the SL marketplace anymore because all these other metaverses will attract more people and more sales.  It's already happening to some degree where SL creators sell virtual items in other worlds, such as IMVU.

The cited marketplaces offered licensed content that stipulates usage conditions, some even explicitly prohibit use of assets from their marketplace being used or resold in virtual worlds.

 

15 minutes ago, Nextio said:

I know a lot of SL residents get defensive about their first love of virtual worlds, but SL is not the future.

Not as it stands, but it is also the only populous platform that is both profitable for the operators and users.

There are and have been dozens of competitors .. that no one actually uses.

 

15 minutes ago, Nextio said:

SL will eventually end up like Myspace, Blockbuster, and Gamestop.  Linden Labs needs to adapt or be left behind.  I know they tried with Sansar but it had many other issues besides early adoption of VR tech.

I agree, it is imperative that LL advance the platform they have to stave off irrelevance. 

[Qie Niangao]

2 hours ago, Nextio said:

All of this is already underway with organizations, such as OMI, to make a standardization for Web 3.0 and metaverses.

"Already" LOL. This ancient myth just will not die. I can't count the hours I wasted in absurd meetings with "open metaverse" fanatics griping to whichever Linden got stuck babysitting the session. (On the plus side, the Lab did occasionally offer a glimpse under the technical kimono.)

[Maryanne Solo]

WWW search, date: 2040.
Terms: "Mega Meta failures, the trigger"....
Search results:
The beginning of the decline of Meta, nee Fb, etc, began as a small, seemingly insignificant
act of censorship whereby the self appointed "elite" of the tech generation and arbiters of "community standards",
removed all imagery of one of modern arts most esteemed and creative works from its digital toilet roll pages. 
Posts containing Images of the cover of Houses of the Holy, Led Zeppelins 5th vinyl album, designed by Hipgnosis artist
Aubrey Powell, began to be removed as it had been banned, being deemed offensive by the worlds foremost authority on
art, culture, personal & community standards of conduct & beliefs -> Facebook.

Howls of disbelief and outrage soon arose in a steady chorus of shock and revulsion as the rest of the world shook its
heads collectively, aghast that a small group of non contributors, (to human art & culture), could consider such work
in any other way *cough (search engines can cough all by themselves in 2040), than the weird fantasy scene depicted by the amazing
LP cover artwork.

This utterly repulsive incident was the big F's first ever truly monumental blunder.
Quickly followed by a repeated series of no less offensive personal information security breaches and
lack of effective policing on a myriad of sensitive issues, the die had been cast.
A subsequent name change and circling of the many many corporate wagons was nowhere near defence enough
to prevent the public from driving the stake of pure outrage irreversibly home.
👉R.I.P Meta 2023.

[Lucia Nightfire]

18 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

A creator and IP holder could port their work to VRChat (or vice versa), yet no one is ..

A few SL creators ported some of their work to VRChat, only for it to be ripped off without consequence.

[Mr Amore]

Over the past months the big publishers have been preparing their consumers for the NFT era. And so it begins (BBC article).

 

In a world where people pay thousands for another man's used trainers (and display them in some living room shrine), NFTs are set to become hugely profitable. It's strategic that Ubisoft's 'digits' keep record of every previous owner, it gives value to worthless items for having been associated with celebrity streamers in the past.

These are closed systems and not as we envision NFTs for the 'metaverse', where an inventory could cross boundaries from metaverse to metaverse. But all eyes in the industry will be upon Ubisoft's digits now.