World Economic Forum organizing to do something about the Metaverse.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

22 minutes ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Some headsets will accommodate glasses pretty well. Or, you can order prescription lenses that can be fitted to the VR headset itself.

I'm good never touching VR in my life (see above motion sickness - plus I find it hilariously ridiculous).

 

2 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

OMG! The expense to have prescription lenses put into a VR headset is probably way out of my reach.

I'd probably laugh if someone went through that kind of trouble in the first place, to be honest. 😂 Especially after seeing the kind of experience Horizon Worlds is pushing! Maybe once these metaverse things stop looking like Wii games, I'll stop laughing at them.

Granted, Half Life Alyx in VR looks fabulous - but that's not at all what Facebook is doing, so. Oh and I still find it deeply unsettling that you have NO ARMS - just floating hands. And the motion sickness is no better. Ugh.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

12 hours ago, Paulsian said:

 I can see the ads now on tv "did you use one of these vr headsets call now to speak to an attorney..

LOL...Have YOU been injured by VR?!

The really funny part is I still remember the OLD jingle with their old telephone number.

 

 

[Ceka Cianci]

1 hour ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

I'm good never touching VR in my life (see above motion sickness - plus I find it hilariously ridiculous).

We had a headset at one point, but I wouldn't use it.. I mean i tried it just to give a look in there to see what it was like..

The little bit that i did use it which may have been  not even a minute.. It wasn't wowing me..

That might be  because when many of my senses get taken up like that, I tend to concentrate on the ones that aren't.

If my sight and hearing are impaired  from the outside world by something like a VR headset, my other senses kick into gear.. The exact reason for that is, because of having the crap scared out of me so many times from people sneaking up on me thinking it was a hilarious thing to do, when I was just wearing headphones..

I couldn't enjoy VR if I wanted too.. hehehehe

Even if I wanted to, without on the anxiety.. They still need to get to a phase where you are not wearing something 1/2 to 1/3 the size of my head. Many of those things still look like the design from the early 90's that sat on a little tripod. lol

[Ayashe Ninetails]

1 minute ago, Ceka Cianci said:

We had a headset at one point, but I wouldn't use it.. I mean i tried it just to give a look in there to see what it was like..

The little bit that i did use it which may have been  not even a minute.. It wasn't wowing me..

That might be  because when many of my senses get taken up like that, I tend to concentrate on the ones that aren't.

If my sight and hearing are impaired  from the outside world by something like a VR headset, my other senses kick into gear.. The exact reason for that is, because of having the crap scared out of me so many times from people sneaking up on me thinking it was a hilarious thing to do, when I was just wearing headphones..

I couldn't enjoy VR if I wanted too.. hehehehe

Even if I wanted to, without on the anxiety.. They still need to get to a phase where you are not wearing something 1/2 to 1/3 the size of my head. Many of those things still look like the design from the early 90's that sat on a little tripod. lol

I agree a million times. I'm a huge multitasker, so there's no way I'm going to want to slap something on my entire face like that. I work in one tab, have Twitch, YouTube, or Spotify going in another, I'll be chatting with friends simultaneously on Discord, checking news on Twitter, clicking on dumb TikToks my friends send me, and might have a game running in the background even.

Also yeah, the designs are hilarious to me. I've seen motorcycle helmets that look more futuristic. 😂

[Ceka Cianci]

26 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

I agree a million times. I'm a huge multitasker, so there's no way I'm going to want to slap something on my entire face like that. I work in one tab, have Twitch, YouTube, or Spotify going in another, I'll be chatting with friends simultaneously on Discord, checking news on Twitter, clicking on dumb TikToks my friends send me, and might have a game running in the background even.

Also yeah, the designs are hilarious to me. I've seen motorcycle helmets that look more futuristic. 😂

Motorcycle helmet would have been a better design. lol

[Silent Mistwalker]

24 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

Motorcycle helmet would have been a better design. lol

Definitely safer from what I've seen of people using VR headsets. Wouldn't hurt to include knee and elbow pads along with shin guards and other protective gear. 😇

[Ayashe Ninetails]

8 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Definitely safer from what I've seen of people using VR headsets. Wouldn't hurt to include knee and elbow pads along with shin guards and other protective gear. 😇

[Paulsian]

4 hours ago, Lindal Kidd said:

Some headsets will accommodate glasses pretty well. Or, you can order prescription lenses that can be fitted to the VR headset itself.

that's neat about lenses fitted to vr super fancy. I liked the VR system in the millennium, about 1000 years in the future the VR systems will be Desktop and designed for extreme comfort. Users will not put them on, they will be like monitors with the adjustable arms, users will bring the vr system to their face maybe? ship to 43:50 

 

Edited May 29, 2022 by Paulsian
added photos

[Silent Mistwalker]

36 minutes ago, Paulsian said:

that's neat about lenses fitted to vr super fancy. I liked the VR system in the millennium, about 1000 years in the future the VR systems will be Desktop and designed for extreme comfort. Users will not put them on, they will be like monitors with the adjustable arms, users will bring the vr system to their face maybe? ship to 43:50 

 

[Luna Bliss]

On 5/28/2022 at 10:14 PM, Katherine Heartsong said:

I'll add it took six tries and more than 100 years of unsuccessfully arguing cases in front of the SCOTUS to finally twist the actual written words of the Second Amendment and ignore the damn apostrophe emphasizing "as part of an organized (that is, state) militia" to finally buy them off get them in the mid 1980s to favour the NRA's interpretation of the words. Tossing aside the principle of stare decisis has been biting you US folks in the behind since then, sadly.

I wasn't aware of all the historical details regarding the NRA and repeated attempts to change the court.
I knew the Founders never intended to create an unregulated individual right to own a gun as many of the gun-freaks believe, and that the Constitution was actually referring to the right to bear arms in a militia, but I had no idea this effort to change the constitution went on for 100 years spearheaded by the National Rifle Association and those they bought off. Sadly I'm not surprised.
From a little research on how the NRA rewrote the 2nd amendment:
  https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/how-nra-rewrote-second-amendment

The stare decisis stuff is a bit confusing, where some court decisions are apparently based on precedent. It seems that when a Judge or attorney wants to use it for their cause they do so, and when it doesn't serve them they ignore settled law and reach back to originalism (as in the recent abortion case where Alito claimed abortion was not originally in the Constitution and so felt fine about ignoring precedent).

I feel sorry that folks in the UK don't have these types of governmental officials protecting the country, and I have slipped into silliness as a way to cope with it all, and no, this is not a satirical ad from the Onion:
https://twitter.com/VoteFiore/status/1450501765661478914?s=20&t=HzS92HYPtY4a0DCuBosBuQ

[Luna Bliss]

On 5/29/2022 at 12:23 AM, Prokofy Neva said:

On 5/27/2022 at 11:14 AM, Luna Bliss said:

I agree some regulation is needed, and that there should be less violence everywhere. But if "video games to aggressive social media to violent movies" produced school shooters, why do we not see all these school shooters in Europe where they are equally exposed to the same media violence?

Well, why doesn't everybody who smokes cigarettes get lung cancer? Why did our beautiful dancer friend who never smoked a cigarette in her life get lung cancer and die, leaving two young children? Obviously, not everything in life works like a computer, and even computers don't work like computers.

Despite its abandonment of religions (except for new immigrants), Europe still has a lot of civic traditions and PS, less free speech. Curbing the Internet and free speech enables the suppression of violent media. The chief issue of gun control is obviously reducing access to guns, which Europe has done out of its traditions and Australia has recently done for all kinds of interesting reasons worth studying. That's all great and grand.

But the US has a far larger and more diverse population with more diverse laws in each state and a black market in guns, so while you can make picture-perfect laws "like Europe," you don't have European culture and you have freedom of speech and more illegal trade in weapons. Are EU laws now more pervasive than US federal laws? That's a question to ponder. So you still have to work on the cultural and moral side of it, and it's more than fine to focus on the effect of violence on the psyche. I didn't see any reason to have my two children exposed to violent video games endlessly but I couldn't control their exposure at their friend's houses. They definitely affected my son, but fortunately today, he no longer plays those games, and the reasons for this are all part of what the society as a whole has to do to deter school shootings. 

And let's not forget one of the worst mass shootings in history occurred in Norway, when a deranged white supremacist shot up a summer camp, killing children and adults. I remember how Europeans tried to write this off as this particular individual reading American extremists. But American extremists get their ideas from German and Russian extremists. And it's not only about book literature but the estrangement and nihilism produced by the Internet. 

Edward Castronova has a fascinating book which seems ancient now, published in 2007, Exodus to the Virtual World, in which he explains in both social and economic terms the profound effect on humans of virtualization and the Internet, and talks about how the brain reacts to virtuality as reality and has to work hard to explain to itself that it is not real, and sometimes doesn't bother. More and more millions of people spend more and more millions of hours in virtual worlds. Despite all those theories he backs up with citations and experiments, he airily says violent video games have no affect at all on shooting incidents, small or large - and speaking like someone wearing your forum avatar hat, he blames "broken families" -- and never thinks to ask why many children from divorced or non-standard families don't turn into school shooters. 

But then he speaks at conferences funded by game companies and is like a lot of game/virtual reality scholars, he is immersed in the world run by the tech companies in whose interest it is to deny this connection constantly between violent virtuality and violent reality. It's not good for business. I feel it is vital to be far more curious about this and the subject awaits its impartial researchers.

The way you presented your argument regarding gun violence did not include additional possible causes outside media influence and so I thought you believed media influence is the sole cause of gun violence. This was why I pointed to the fact that media influence exists in Europe yet we don't see such a problem there, which proves there are other factors we need to consider.

However I do agree that media is one causal factor -- I was not denying that. The studies saying they haven't found a link between violent media and violence in society do not prove there is no link -- they only prove they did not find any. It's much too difficult to set up a study to prove this, as among other problems inherent in such a study a control group of those who never played video games and isolating this possible cause from all others would be impossible. However there are studies that demonstrate these games increase aggression and reduce empathy, and increase nihilism or a sense of detachment, and these are qualities that would be needed for more violent behavior.

What we create and put out there via media or any type of representative/symbolic reality has the potential to turn around and influence us as well -- this has been known by those who study media for a long while.
I can listen to music or observe a painting, or focus on creativity instead of some mindless activity, and my mood, the very way in which I experience reality, changes.
To say that participating in violent video games, or watching endless movies where characters are murdered has no affect whatsoever on anyone's state of mind is ludicrous.
Those who believe they completely control their reality, and that the unconscious/subconscious mind does not exist or affect them, tend to believe that the environment surrounding them has no effect because they are in complete control.

You have pointed to other causal factors as to why Europe has fewer mass murders. Yes I agree, the greater gun control and regulation of the internet in Europe are additional factors. But I see another important causal factor -- governments in Europe are far more committed to caring for their people, thereby producing a greater sense of safety and satisfaction in its citizens, which minimizes aggression. Deprivation has a tendency to produce violence. 
In Europe there is less of the "every man for himself", excessively competitive, overly-individualistic mindset we have here which is the source of both violence and the estrangement from others inherent in the nihilism you speak to.
People trust authority more in Europe too, and I imagine this would create less of a need to bear arms against a government they feel is only out to control them, as is the case for many in the US.

To expand on the lack of care felt by citizens in the US, there are so many benefits for the public good in Europe that we simply don't receive here. Universal health care where nobody is left to die if they can't afford to pay, longer vacations, longer maternity leave, less-expensive college education if one can't afford to pay, childcare tax credits to pay for the expensive child care people need so their children will be well taken care of as they work, and that also elevate many single mothers out of poverty.
These are the main benefits Europeans and Canadians receive, but there are even more.

If what they receive in Europe and Canada is related to 'socialism' then I think we need more of it here.

Edited May 30, 2022 by Luna Bliss

[Qie Niangao]

Possibly of interest, to the extent anything "metaverse"-related can be of interest: CNBC: "South Korea is betting on the metaverse — and it could provide a blueprint for others". There's a little Rosedale anti-surveillance sidebar clip, too, from some Squawk Box appearance.

[Extrude Ragu]

Anything that the World Economic Forum has it's grubby little hands on is something that I look at with extreme distrust.

Their hands are deep in the pockets of all the wrong people.

These are the people who make plans for our futures without our permission. The people who say that we will 'own nothing and be happy'.

[Maryanne Solo]

verse verse verse verse......
 I don't hear anything about the chorus yet?

[Gabriele Graves]

The more I read about today's visions for the metaverse, the less I want anything remotely to do with it.  Is it too late to join some kind of resistance?

Edited May 31, 2022 by Gabriele Graves

[Love Zhaoying]

14 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

The more I read about today's visions for the metaverse, the less I want anything remotely to do with it.  Is it too late to join some kind of resistance?

Maybe when people we know start trying the MV and complaining about how lame it is, then will finally be the time to say, "Come try Second Life!" ("We have cookies", etc.)

[Gabriele Graves]

So...SL...is...the...resistance?

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Gabriele Graves said:

So...SL...is...the...resistance?

Yes!

("Do you want your winner's chicken dinner now, or a certificate for later?")

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, Maryanne Solo said:

verse verse verse verse......
 I don't hear anything about the chorus yet?

That's always the tricky part and it won't be a hit if it ain't got a hook.

[Luna Bliss]

5 hours ago, Extrude Ragu said:

Anything that the World Economic Forum has it's grubby little hands on is something that I look at with extreme distrust.

Their hands are deep in the pockets of all the wrong people.

These are the people who make plans for our futures without our permission. The people who say that we will 'own nothing and be happy'.

It's not communism, it's predatory end-stage Capitalism.

[Love Zhaoying]

35 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

It's not communism, it's predatory end-stage Capitalism.

I thought the World Economic Forum was oligarchs?

[Luna Bliss]

28 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

1 hour ago, Luna Bliss said:

It's not communism, it's predatory end-stage Capitalism.

I thought the World Economic Forum was oligarchs?

Yes they are oligarchs but it's the economic system of Capitalism which produces them (or some would say an unregulated Capitalism produces them).
Because money buys influence and power those with that power have the ability funnel an unfair amount to themselves and produce extreme inequality in society.

[Love Zhaoying]

12 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Yes they are oligarchs but it's the economic system of Capitalism which produces them (or some would say an unregulated Capitalism produces them).
Because money buys influence and power those with that power have the ability funnel an unfair amount to themselves and produce extreme inequality in society.

Ok, so an Oligarchy is True Capitalism. Got it!

*Edit* I'm just yanking your chain at this point. Sorry!

Edited May 31, 2022 by Love Zhaoying

[Luna Bliss]

2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

14 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Yes they are oligarchs but it's the economic system of Capitalism which produces them (or some would say an unregulated Capitalism produces them).
Because money buys influence and power those with that power have the ability funnel an unfair amount to themselves and produce extreme inequality in society.

Ok, so an Oligarchy is True Capitalism. Got it!

I'm not really sure. Perhaps Capitalism was distorted somehow in ways it was not intended to be. I'm not sure how being a Democratic Socialist, as Bernie Sanders is, would be better, but it might address wealth inequality better.

All I know is that Democrats are not able to do much for the worker as they are far more to the right than in the past, and are beholden to corporations. That's why I'm not a Democrat anymore, but I can't say what I am other than 'exploring'.

I like what this woman did, Kshama Sawant, who calls herself a Socialist and battled against the moneyed elites in Seattle, described by Chris Hedges here:

https://tinyurl.com/yzaxz8ad

Here's Sawants organization:

https://www.socialistalternative.org/

 

[ChinRey]

17 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

Perhaps Capitalism was distorted somehow in ways it was not intended to be.

That's true for all those old ideologies. "Capitalism" and "socialism" are particularly troublesome here since historically each has had at least two distincticely different - often downright conflicting - definitions.