[HN Gopher] We need technology that is less immersive, not more
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We need technology that is less immersive, not more
Author : filiph
Score : 258 points
Date : 2024-01-12 14:43 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (filiph.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (filiph.net)
| kamaradclimber wrote:
| Many of the most talented artists of our time don't do any art --
| they work in advertising.
|
| I think the original quote is: The best minds of
| my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads
|
| (source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/06/12/click/)
|
| which is very close to article's paraphrase
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| Ads have existed long before clicks on and the most talented
| artists have worked on them long before the most talented
| programmers thought about making people click on them.
| baliex wrote:
| That's true and doesn't detract from it being a waste of
| talent
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| The unsaid context of the quote is that programming is among
| the most lucrative fields (top 3 large employment fields),
| and most of the money is programming field comes from ads,
| which is why the best programmers are working on ads.
|
| Artists at ad agencies probably never broke even top twenty
| jobs by salary.
| whartung wrote:
| Is that true though? Are most people working at Google
| working on Ad tech, or on the services that the ad tech
| helps pay for?
|
| Now, to be clear, I don't consider GMail "ad tech", even
| though it is ad supported. I don't see anything wrong with
| someone like Google want to drive traffic through services
| that are monetized through advertising. Nor Facebook for
| that matter.
|
| I will complain about lock in, dark patterns, and other
| nefarious things. But you can have good ad supported
| services without necessarily having all of the bad things.
| Those just bump your margin and revenue.
|
| So, if you feel that the "good" programmers are working on
| ad tech and analysis, while the "less good" are working on,
| say, GMail proper, I'd be curious in how that conclusion
| was drawn.
|
| How many people here work on ad tech directly? (vs, some
| dual use technology that can be used for ad tech.)
|
| I know a lot of people, tangentially, indirectly, "6
| degrees of separation" kind of thing, and I don't know any
| of them being directly involved in ad tech. None of the
| "lead geeks" I'm familiar with are in the field.
|
| The closest it got was a friend of mine who worked on
| Farmville in its heyday, and that's more a dark pattern
| addiction game than ad tech.
| com2kid wrote:
| > Ads have existed long before clicks
|
| Not really. Advertising is pretty new, modern advertising
| with targeting market segments didn't exist until around the
| start of the 20th century[1]. The first ad supported media
| was in 1838[2].
|
| Behavioral ads targeting individual user's are super new,
| though I'd argue TikTok and gacha games are orders of
| magnitude better at using behavioral manipulation than
| advertisers are.
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Barratt
| [2]https://qprintgroup.com.au/history-of-print-advertising/
| monkeynotes wrote:
| If they are doing advertising then they are art directors, not
| artists. The most talented artists make art, it's not something
| they have a choice in. They will suffer poverty to make their
| art.
|
| Talent isn't in the execution in art, it's in the ideas, and
| tapestry of the artist's life.
|
| > The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to
| make people click ads
|
| This is also not true, because those minds aren't intelligent
| enough to see the folly of their attention. The best minds see
| past this and do the work they are driven to do, similar to
| artists.
| pimlottc wrote:
| Let's not over romanticize the starving artist. There are
| plenty of creative people who could create good, worthy art
| if they had the means and support to pursue it fully. It's
| not a moral failing to have a need to make a living,
| especially if others are relying on you.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| The article literally said "the most talented". The top
| talent artists are certainly making art, and it is a fact
| they are driven to do it more than anything else. That's
| the attitude that makes them "the most talented". I am not
| romanticising it, it's just how it is.
|
| > It's not a moral failing to have a need to make a living,
| especially if others are relying on you.
|
| Exactly. People make choices in what they do, it has
| nothing to do with talent being taken out of the market,
| it's always been this way. There have always been more
| profitable things to do than making art.
| bena wrote:
| You do know you can do what you like outside of work, right?
|
| You have a hyper-idealized version of what is and is not art.
|
| And execution definitely forms part of the talent. We should
| know that just as well. We all know "the idea guy", the guy
| who has all the "right" ideas, but just can't seem to
| actually do the thing required to bring the idea to life.
|
| And that's because most ideas are just half-formed thoughts.
| I'm almost on the other end of the spectrum. It's mostly
| about execution and the idea actually means very little. The
| idea of "what if you couldn't make new memories" is the
| central struggle in two very different movies. In Memento,
| it's used to tell a detective noir story where we're told who
| the killer is in the first scene. In 50 First Dates, it's
| used to give Adam Sandler a hurdle to plowing Drew Barrymore.
|
| And you can find joy in the doing itself. You _can_ make good
| commercial art. It is possible. There is craft there. And
| where there is craft, there is art.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| > You have a hyper-idealized version of what is and is not
| art.
|
| No, I made an assertion that the most talented artists make
| art.
|
| > And execution definitely forms part of the talent.
|
| Seeing that many, many top, full time, talented artists
| have technicians that execute, I don't think it's the
| defining quality of a top artist. Execution can be
| offloaded, ideas cannot.
|
| > And that's because most ideas are just half-formed
| thoughts.
|
| Talented artists have fully formed thoughts. That's their
| talent.
|
| > And that's because most ideas are just half-formed
| thoughts.
|
| Well, I'd suggest your job is at risk. Execution can be
| automated, ideas not so much. Who is gonna tell the GPT
| what to do?
|
| > And you can find joy in the doing itself. You can make
| good commercial art.
|
| Yeah, those people failed to be the top talent in art and
| did something else. They are still highly talented but not
| in the realms of top talented artists.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| I don't know what the original actually was, but around
| post-9/11 derivatives finance boom, physicists and electrical
| engineers started lamenting that all the smartest people of the
| current generation were wasting all that brainpower on
| relatively zero-sum arms races between hedge funds trying to
| win trades against each other.
|
| The one about making people click ads grew out of that after
| the GFC when software salaries started to boom like finance had
| earlier in the decade.
|
| I'm sure there was something else earlier that diverted
| intelligent, talented people into socially unproductive
| pursuits because it paid better. I recall when I was in college
| there being huge dilemmas among all the students studying
| geology whether they should sell out and go work in oil and gas
| exploration.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > I'm sure there was something else earlier that diverted
| intelligent, talented people into socially unproductive
| pursuits because it paid better.
|
| The problem is in my experience (for quite some smart people)
| not "which job pays so much better (and thus facing a
| potential dilemma about selling out)", but rather about
| actually finding a job.
|
| The job market does not like very smart people, but rather
| self-promoters and sycophant: I know quite some really smart
| people (with a focus on people having degrees in mathematics
| and physics (often comparable to PhD or post doctoral
| experience)) who had quite some difficulties actually finding
| a job in industry, and thus rather had to take the job
| positions that they could get.
| sureglymop wrote:
| I've heard a similar thing said about drivers. Those who
| drive more respectfully and thoughtfully end up in more
| crashes because the rest is less respectful of them in
| traffic (and of them crashing). It's an anecdote I just
| heard from a friend.
|
| Maybe there's something similar in the job market where
| smart people are more self aware that they may take someone
| elses spot and more respectful and less good self
| promoters. Because the other set of people don't even think
| about that they end up getting the spots.
| noqc wrote:
| Well, the first is talking about artists, and the second is
| referring to programmers.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| > Many of the most talented artists of our time don't do any
| art -- they work in advertising.
|
| > I think the original quote is:
|
| > The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to
| make people click ads
|
| No, it's a paraphrase of a quote attributed to Banksy and it's
| specifically about graphic arts, not CS or psychology.
|
| > The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it
| attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people. -
| Banksy
|
| First time I heard it was in a conversation about how the best
| students from directing/film making (or was it 3d artists ?)
| ended up making ads for cars rather than video installations
| and I am pretty sure it was before 2010.
|
| The sentiment is the same though but I cannot ever let pass an
| occasion to throw in my favourite quote: "when all you have is
| a hammer...".
| mellosouls wrote:
| _No, it 's a paraphrase of a quote attributed to Banksy and
| it's specifically about graphic arts, not CS or psychology._
|
| Nope, the most famous form is Ginsberg; I don't know if he
| lifted it from somewhere too.
|
| _I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,
| starving hysterical naked_
|
| - Howl
|
| (EDIT: the grandparent link actually points that out)
| johnchristopher wrote:
| > Nope, the most famous form is Ginsberg; I don't know if
| he lifted it from somewhere too.
|
| No, they appeared in very different contexts and Ginsberg
| goes in a different direction (1955, drugs, jazz, etc.):
|
| > I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
| madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves
| through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
| angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
| connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
| [..]
|
| while Banksy deals with the then current state of arts and
| marketing (~2000/2010?).
|
| Also, it's not explained in the article how Ginsberg and
| Hammerbacher ideas relate except for an "en-pasasnt" quote
| from the person originally inquiring the quote investigator
| opinion, so the grandparent link doesn't actually point
| anything out.
|
| edit: to summarize: that quote is taken out of context even
| if it seems to fit
| allknowingfrog wrote:
| "Best minds of my generation" is a pretty specific phrase
| which appears in the Ginsberg quote and not in the Banksy
| one. I would argue that famous quote are more often
| related by structure than context. Most quotes about "the
| smell of <something> in the morning" are not about the
| Vietnam war, for example.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Reminds me of an aphorism with a moon but I can't quite
| put my finger on it.
| throwaway4aday wrote:
| You could really say this about anything, the only moral to the
| story is that people have to work to pay the bills and the work
| that pays is the unglamorous stuff that needs doing.
|
| I believe this has been true throughout human history. The
| greatest artists and thinkers throughout history have earned
| their keep by providing services to the wealthy or teaching
| paying students (also often wealthy).
|
| There are upsides, the artists get to eat but they also have
| all the benefits of being connected to their employer/patron
| including time spent practicing their craft. If they were to
| quit and focus on pure art then they would likely earn far, far
| less and possibly spend less time making any kind of art
| commercial or not.
|
| It reminds me of this survey that made the front page not long
| ago about author's that contained this illuminating paragraph:
|
| > While 80% of respondents considered themselves to be
| professional authors, only 35% said they were full-time authors
| while 53% said they were part-time authors (with the balance
| being one-book authors or undecided). The primary writing
| occupation of part-time authors outside of publishing books was
| professor/academic (8.5%), followed by book illustrator/author
| (4.2%), editor (2.9%), poet (2.4%), journalist (2%), teacher
| (2%), and entrepreneur (1.5%).
|
| So even people who consider themselves professional authors are
| unable to work at it full time. It makes sense, there's only so
| much one person can produce and it's quite difficult to find an
| audience willing to pay for what you make. This likely holds
| true across all professions i.e. you have to do the work that
| they want done and not the work that you want to do.
|
| https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/p...
| em-bee wrote:
| _the work that pays is the unglamorous stuff that needs
| doing_
|
| no, the work that pays is the unglamorous stuff that someone
| wants to get done to make a profit. the stuff that actually
| needs doing is the stuff that would be a benefit for our
| society.
| nostrademons wrote:
| "Profit" is just the difference between what people are
| willing to pay for a service and the full cost of what it
| takes to provide that service (which itself is defined as
| how much the different suppliers could be making doing
| other stuff). Business owners are rewarded for shifting
| resources away from activities that consumers don't value
| highly (as evidenced by their willingness to pay for them)
| to ones that they do. If you feel that businesses are
| focusing on the wrong things, spend your money differently.
| wharvle wrote:
| Blaming consumers for the modern advertising industry is
| like blaming Soviet factory workers for bread lines.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Blame is counterproductive. The world simply is the way
| it is, but it is helpful to have a realistic picture of
| why, and then you can make local modifications that might
| at least make your own life a bit nicer.
|
| In advertising's case, it's such a huge industry because
| it works. It moves the needle on purchasers' decisions.
| You can make it work a little less well on yourself with
| a few mental habits: never buy on impulse, don't save
| your credit cards, put time and distance between yourself
| and the purchase decision, have a rigorous self-directed
| research process before you open your wallet, learn to
| skip or tune out ads, go for paid media instead of ad-
| supported media, etc. And you can make it work for you by
| taking the other side of trade and getting paid when
| other people click on ads. But there are 8B+ humans who
| you don't control, and they will do what they want to do.
| em-bee wrote:
| i can with good conscience say that i am doing all of
| what you suggest. no impulse, do research, skip and une
| out ads. except for the paid media to avoid ads. i use
| adblockers for that.
|
| but i struggle with that other side. i'd love to earn
| some money on sidebusinesses like that, but i feel like
| making them ad supported would be close to unethical. i
| want people to stop paying attention to ads, not take
| advantage of them.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Not everybody wants the same things. Giving them what
| they want so you get what you want makes both of you
| better off.
| wharvle wrote:
| > Business owners are rewarded for shifting resources
| away from activities that consumers don't value highly
| (as evidenced by their willingness to pay for them) to
| ones that they do. If you feel that businesses are
| focusing on the wrong things, spend your money
| differently.
|
| So... that's not blame? Is "businesses only do this
| because you tell them to, with money, so stop telling
| them to if you don't like it" _not_ the intended reading
| of that?
|
| My point is that the modern advertising industry is
| better classed as a result of large-scale structures and
| societal-scale rules, the same way bread lines were, than
| as something explained by consumer choice. I mean, FFS,
| the point of it is to _influence_ consumer choice. This
| is like saying if the gas pedal doesn 't want the car to
| go faster, it should stop getting pushed so much.
| em-bee wrote:
| my budget for meaningless entertainment is zero, so i am
| spending my money differently.
| wharvle wrote:
| Right, the key reason this line stings so bad is precisely
| that 99.9% of money and effort spent on advertising is
| capitalism-friction. It's waste-energy. It's escalating
| zero-sum games. It emphatically _does not need doing_. It
| 's an accident.
|
| [EDIT] And that's the _optimistic_ take. In fact a great
| deal of it is _harmful_ , not just wasteful.
| feoren wrote:
| > the unglamorous stuff that needs doing.
|
| You're thinking of picking up the trash, driving trucks,
| fixing toilets, and assembling wheelbarrows. That pays shit:
| the things that "need doing" are mostly just _not done_ , and
| what is done pays nothing. Advertising has never "needed
| doing", it's always been an exploit that psychopaths use to
| enrich themselves at the expense of all of humanity. And the
| advertising industry is nothing if not glamorous.
| anonzzzies wrote:
| The moral of the story is that a lot of humanity is just
| working for cash instead of anything useful, interesting, etc
| for humanity and even themselves. The basic needs and sometimes
| a bit beyond, still, quite worthless on any scale beyond your
| few m^2. Depressing, but it seems not improve with us all being
| better off.
| photonthug wrote:
| I wonder if the original author knew they were also
| paraphrasing, riffing on Ginsberg's "I saw the best minds of my
| generation destroyed by madness". Glad to see quoteinvestigator
| mention that context
| 0xdeadbeefbabe wrote:
| I haven't played a video game that was better or more immersive
| than Tarzan. I hypothesize that artists, like Burroughs, could
| have more success than they are having today.
| jdksmdbtbdnmsm wrote:
| My favorite video game is Tetris, and I don't think it's a
| coincidence that it was produced by a society that placed
| consumer choice low on its list of priorities.
| omikun wrote:
| I don't think making less immersive games is some how more
| important than more immersive ones. The more important problems
| aren't gated by lack of talent but lack of money and or political
| will. Throwing talent at it (if you could) doesn't magically add
| money or political will to solve them.
| filiph wrote:
| I agree that it's not just about talent. That said, having more
| talented people interested in a field often has the effect of
| bringing money and political will.
| coldtea wrote:
| Hah, wrote my comment directly after reading the parent and
| then read yours, which says basically the exact same thing!
| coldtea wrote:
| Money and political will comes from interest. And talent goes
| where the interest is too.
| uoaei wrote:
| Bait and switch. Headline is about technology, but the article is
| about "entertainment".
|
| It is a position of privilege to take that technology should be
| considered primarily as a consumer product.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| Let's wind this back to the days when people thought reading
| books was an indulgent waste of time.
|
| The best artists are writing trivial drivel for women to read.
|
| The best minds are finding new ways to sell books.
|
| It's a stupid heuristical argument.
| filiph wrote:
| It looks like you're countering with the "it's always been the
| case" argument. I use it often myself, but I think it's good to
| realize when it's stretched too far.
|
| Yes, I'm sure there were some people in the past who said that
| reading books is an indulgent waste of time. I'm sure you could
| find articles in old newspapers.
|
| That in itself doesn't mean that working on a VR headset
| technology is as meaningful as working on a more sustainable
| energy source or developing software for cancer research, does
| it? Just because you find a similarity with something that
| happened in the past doesn't mean you can just abandon all
| critical thought.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| I'm not disagreeing, but I believe it is a better use of ones
| time to prioritize things that spark personal significance
| rather than attempting to quantify/compare meaningfulness
| universally.
|
| I would never listen to someone who proposes reallocating
| high-level talent resources as an important and solvable
| problem where the solution is, tell those people their
| passions are a waste of time. I also don't believe this
| person understands the talent market as they quote the "Many
| of the most talented artists of our time work in
| advertising," nonsense. Yes their are smart people working in
| advertising, but it's no deeper than that. There are other
| spaces and industries that have more brilliant minds.
|
| The truth is, you don't know with certainty if working on VR
| technology is more meaningful or not.
| monkeynotes wrote:
| > I think it's good to realize when it's stretched too far.
|
| Who is the arbiter of when it's stretched too far? I am
| working with the data we have to make an empirical
| expectation. Speculation is fine, but if we are going to make
| an effort to ground it in reality I feel like prior art is as
| the best bet we can make.
|
| > Just because you find a similarity with something that
| happened in the past doesn't mean you can just abandon all
| critical thought.
|
| I think I am actually applying critical thought. I am
| challenging a narrative that doesn't seem to have a precedent
| and looking at examples from the past that were similar
| unprecedented technological changes. This seems to be a
| reasonable approach to set reasonable expectations. Of course
| I could be wrong, but I feel like at least my pitch is based
| on some historic data.
|
| FYI the book reading this wasn't just an aside in a
| newspaper, it was a cultural concern shared by many.
|
| https://timeline.com/what-technology-are-we-addicted-to-
| this...
| andybak wrote:
| I rather missed the point where he explains _why_ immersive games
| are bad. There 's some hand-wavey bit about "[they] don't teach
| them anything valuable about the real world, and don't relax them
| at all" but that appears to be it. The first bit is beside the
| point and the second hugely debatable.
|
| Similar criticisms could equally be levelled at engaging with any
| creative output - reading, listening to music etc. And I love
| being out in nature but it's not _teaching me_ much.
|
| His other point seems to be "talented engineers could be doing
| something more important" which is slightly more valid but then
| everyone who isn't saving starving babies could probably be doing
| something more important.
| gukov wrote:
| > I rather missed the point where he explains why immersive
| games are bad.
|
| I think it's the fact that so many resources go into the final
| few percent of making games 100% realistic whereas there are
| other, more important issues that get largely ignored.
| filiph wrote:
| > I rather missed the point where he explains why immersive
| games are bad.
|
| The article's title isn't "immersive games are bad".
| ghusto wrote:
| Anything is more important than making entertainment. It's
| literally the first thing to be sacrificed in times of crisis.
| andybak wrote:
| The orchestra at the siege of Leningrad and the theatre
| troupes in WW2 camps beg to differ.
| adolph wrote:
| There is a balance between immersive and ambient. A large number
| of people are working on the latter in terms of smart home
| devices, advanced driver assistance systems and fitbit-like
| quantified self devices, to name a couple of sectors.
|
| Maybe a challenge for ambient technology is that its nature is
| non-engaging. If it were engaging, it would be immersive and not
| ambient.
| haswell wrote:
| I don't think ambient and immersive are mutually exclusive.
| Ambient tech just widens the potential space in which someone
| can become immersed. Before ambient tech, I primarily
| interacted with my computers. With ambient tech, I interact
| with my computers _and_ the environment in which those
| computers exist. Now, I 'm one with my apartment. A thought
| leads to spoken words which lead to direct control of the
| devices around me.
| incrudible wrote:
| By the end, it reads more like a virtuous justfication why his
| game graphics are so basic.
|
| I also do not buy the core argument. The game industry tends to
| ask for more and pay less exactly because people romanticize it.
| That is not to say the most talented engineers do not end up
| hired to produce bullshit, just that it probably is not games.
|
| Lastly, the desire for faster and more realistic graphics is what
| commoditized massively parallel computer architectures. Keep
| chasing those FPS, the future of humanity depends on it!
| haswell wrote:
| While sitting with my iPad typing the other morning, something
| about the experience struck me in a way that it never had before.
|
| I've been typing since the early 90s, and can type around 120WPM
| without looking or thinking about it, and it hit me that in a
| very real sense, the iPad (and other computing devices) are
| already an extension of me. I've invested the time to integrate
| this hardware into my brain via the keyboard interface, and once
| typing is automatic, the friction between brain and machine is
| very low. I can transmit information from brain to computer and
| back relatively quickly.
|
| The thing about immersive tech is that we're already immersed in
| tech. The next generation of VR/AR promises to immerse us even
| more, but I think it's interesting to consider the idea that
| we're already immersed and don't always realize it.
|
| When you start to look at the space around you as an extension of
| you (and I think there are good reasons to look at it this way -
| your immediate surroundings are in effect a projection/construct
| formulated by your brain, and the actions you take within that
| space modulate your average conscious experience), and when you
| start to look at the computing devices around you as part of that
| extension of you, it starts to raise really interesting questions
| like:
|
| If I could implant a chip in my brain, and if people could
| control my brain with that chip, I would probably never allow it.
| But when that chip is _outside_ of my brain in a device I keep in
| my pocket, why am I more willing to allow other entities to feed
| me stimuli?
|
| I tend to agree with the broader idea that we need to be less
| immersed in tech, if for no other reason to reduce this kind of
| external control mechanism we've all hooked ourselves in to. And
| I don't think immersion is limited to the obvious developments
| like that next generation VR/AR headset. Immersion is already
| extremely high.
| filiph wrote:
| I didn't want to bore the reader with various definitions of
| immersion but you're raising a very good point. Apart from the
| "immersion for entertainment" that I'm mostly talking about,
| there's also the "flow" and the "tech as augmentation". I have
| obviously no problem with people being more productive through
| technology. What I have issue with is the (unwitting) funneling
| of the world's talent and resources into tech that makes us
| immersed in non-existent worlds just for the sake of
| entertainment.
| em-bee wrote:
| that's a great point. i guess i can say the same about how i
| interact with my computer, but for me there is a different
| quality to it. while the computer and phone and various
| messaging apps or forums like hackernews are often my only
| social interaction, so i spend a lot of time on that in search
| for someone to connect to, i also have all notifications off on
| all devices, and i expressly do not allow other entities to
| feed me stimuli when they deem it fit, to the point that you
| can't even call me because i won't hear the phone ring. i want
| to be in control.
|
| there is of course a balance to it. not getting notifications
| means i spend more time checking for new messages than i would
| if notifications were on, but at the same time i also forget to
| check for messages when i am actually focused on something,
| which i think is the more important aspect of it.
|
| so i am immersed with my tools only as an extension of my self,
| controlling the tools to do what i want them to do without
| giving up any of that control to anyone else. (at least so i
| like to think)
| eddd-ddde wrote:
| That we have arms and legs that we can control is nothing but
| an accident, a very complex accident but still.
|
| Our eyes and ears are no different in that sense, only they're
| mostly input rather than output.
|
| Input is just as dangerous in our bodies as it is in some
| backend that connects to a database, marketing makes use of
| these vulnerabilities to control us in some way or another.
|
| I don't think people argue we should cover over ears while
| walking outside out of fear we get hijacked from things we
| could hear. In the same way, I don't think there's an issue
| with immersive technology, one just has to learn to treat it as
| more external input that needs to be validated and sanitized.
| huijzer wrote:
| I think Buffett has a very great counter to this which he
| learned from his father: inner scorecard. By judging yourself
| on your inner checklist, you're less likely to be pulled into
| the latest fads. Your goal is follow your own path instead of
| the path that happens to be fashionable that day.
| foobarbecue wrote:
| When my computer glitches, e.g. if a key stops working on my
| keyboard or the mouse doesn't respond as expected, I sometimes
| experience a physical sense of of discomfort or disorientation
| that's not unlike dizzyness or the feeling of missing a step on
| stairs. I think it's because, as you describe in terms of
| immersion, my brain has extended its concept of my body through
| my typing fingers to the computer screen, building a
| proprioceptive loop which includes the computer.
|
| We are already cyborgs.
| whatwhaaaaat wrote:
| I don't buy this for even a minute. If my starter solenoid
| goes out on my old time Jeep I get the same feeling. (It's
| happened a few times now). Does this mean the Jeep is now
| part of my body? Of course not.
|
| It's called being annoyed or caught off guard by external
| stimuli.
|
| I think there is a large portion of people on this website
| who have not spent a day in years without their devices. That
| doesn't mean their devices are integrated with their biology.
| Just that they have become dependent on things.
| feoren wrote:
| > Does this mean the Jeep is now part of my body? Of course
| not.
|
| Why is that "of course not"? Is your arm part of your body?
| Your hair? A wig? A pacemaker? A well-fitted mechanical
| exoskeleton that you use without thinking about it? A
| poorly-fitted exoskeleton that you're still learning how to
| use? A Jeep? It's not as clear-cut as you make it sound. If
| the criteria is: well, I can't _feel_ the Jeep -- well, you
| can 't _feel_ your liver either.
| photonthug wrote:
| Ever go rock-crawling for several hours off-road with that
| jeep? If the stakes are high because you're far from a
| paved road, 4x4 is also a very immersive experience. After
| a while the tires become like toes, and finding a good line
| with the vehicle starts to feel like stepping carefully
| around broken glass. You cringe almost in anticipation of
| _personal_ pain when you take a bad line. There 's surely
| some neurological basis for this, some kind of reverse of
| phantom-limb syndrome. Similarly that sense of "stumbling"
| when you're fighting with a glitching IDE or whatever is
| also very real, at least for me. If you haven't ever felt
| something along these lines, then you might not have found
| something yet that you're accustomed to fully focusing on.
| skydhash wrote:
| Even with playing a racing simulation, where it's a
| constant challenge to control the car, while the
| controller or the wheel become quickly abstracted away,
| the car itself become something your conscious inhabits.
| You react to stimuli (sound, visual, and vibration), not
| from your point of view, but from the car.
| jonahrd wrote:
| Wait but driving cars is pretty much the classic example of
| how learning to use tools can become an "extension" of our
| visual, motor, spacial perception.
|
| It's why a new driver feels so uneasy while a seasoned
| driver can almost "feel" the amount of space their car
| takes up.
| foobarbecue wrote:
| Bad news, my friend: you're a Jeep cyborg. Basically
| something from a Transformers movie.
|
| And yeah, I'm stretching the argument a bit -- of course at
| least on a conscious level there's a boundary at my
| fingertips where I know that my body ends by the more
| generally accepted definition of "me".
| blocko wrote:
| I'll get this occasionally when I've scrolled to the end of
| an article without realizing, attempt to scroll further a few
| seconds later, and then have my eyes/vision caught off guard
| by the absence of movement. Missing a stairstep was a good
| example--there's a similar moment of "frozen time" in both
| cases
| 0xfffafaCrash wrote:
| For anyone more interested in this general topic, in philosophy
| of mind, this is referred to as "the extended mind" using the
| terminology of Andy Clark and David Chalmers in their famous
| 1998 paper of the same name.
| feoren wrote:
| > If I could implant a chip in my brain, and if people could
| control my brain with that chip, I would probably never allow
| it. But when that chip is outside of my brain in a device I
| keep in my pocket, why am I more willing to allow other
| entities to feed me stimuli?
|
| This definition of "feeding you stimuli" seems extremely broad
| to me. Are you "allowing other entities to feed you stimuli"
| when you listen to the radio? When you see signs and billboards
| on the highway? When you are having a conversation? How could
| you live your life without allowing other entities to feed you
| stimuli? How are these examples different from what your phone
| is doing? (And don't say "notifications": you have far more
| control over which notifications you receive than which
| billboards you see.)
|
| If I could implant a chip in my brain that allowed me to tune
| into any radio station I wanted and listen to it in my brain,
| I'd probably do that, assuming it's safe and actually under my
| control. I'm not seeing the dichotomy here.
| ryandv wrote:
| One day I want to expand on the idea that our digital avatars,
| our images and representations of ourselves, become an
| extension of our own self-concept, in the same way our keyboard
| becomes an extension of our hands and our body. Our social
| media profiles, our timelines, photos, and digital content,
| become part of our selves, and we begin to identify with these
| time capsules we've created of ourselves, to the point where we
| _are_ the person in the photo, we _are_ that person on
| Facebook.
|
| It's a fundamentally backwards-facing view of the self that
| relies on historical or past depictions of an individual in
| order to define their current self-concept. It implies an
| immutability, a static, unchanging quality to the person, since
| after all - there "you" are, or at least all your photos and
| your memorabilia, your self-depictions and simulacra, committed
| to and preserved in the permanent record of the cloud. It's
| also one that emphasizes the importance of external markers and
| signals of identity - only those that can be extraverted - to
| the detriment of the inner life of the psyche, the private life
| of the mind which is not so readily available for examination
| or expression.
|
| This way of looking of ourselves through a digital black mirror
| continues to uphold the illusion of permanence; our self is
| like a river, and we never step in the same one twice - unless
| we freeze the river (in time) and post it to Instagram.
|
| Not to mention all the vanity and superficiality of Photoshop,
| filters, r/instagramreality, etc etc... points which have all
| been discussed ad nauseam.
|
| Moreover there is the slow death of the literary personality -
| of one who, in times where media and bandwidth were not of
| sufficient capacity to generate and retain all these
| audiovisual representations of our selves, was primarily known
| through their words and their writing. This is a fundamentally
| different way of trying to understand one's character that
| requires much more participation on the audience's behalf to
| fill in the gaps - the gaps that can't be immediately filled in
| with high definition video. It becomes harder for one to be
| identified through their words, and more and more preferable to
| identify someone by what they look or sound like; another step
| in the long, slow march away from literacy and to other forms
| of information exchange.
|
| In this regard I'm reminded of David Foster Wallace uncut
| television interview [0], which I found incredibly fascinating
| - here was one of the most articulate men in society,
| celebrated for his literary works, appearing awkwardly and
| shyly on camera, sometimes meandering off on tangents in the
| discussion, sometimes "pontificating" on the interviewer's
| questions - how does DFW's audiovisual representation compare
| to his literary output?
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGLzWdT7vGc
| pitdicker wrote:
| If wish we could merge this comment with the thread where
| people are defending Youtubes right to show ads. I am so glad
| there is technology available to choose what I want to read and
| see without being forced too much other content.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I have a different take than the author. I don't have an issue at
| all with _directed_ activities being deeply immersive - games
| most specifically. That is, I like the idea of putting on a
| headset for a half hour and playing a game, then doing something
| else.
|
| What I think is much more destructive is when "immersion" just
| looks like "constant distraction", i.e. the idea that we'll wear
| these immersive devices all the time so we can be bombarded with
| "helpful" notifications and, oh look, in-context advertising!
| That is, when I want to relax I want to relax, and I don't think
| something holodeck-like is bad for that. But when I want to focus
| I want to focus, and strapping a headset onto my face for
| extended periods is not going to help that situation in any way.
| filiph wrote:
| I agree with you. One part of the article that I cut for
| brevity but maybe I should have included talks about the kind
| of immersion that is created by bright colorful moving pictures
| on a mobile screen. A lot of talent and resources is thrown at
| the goal of keeping people glued to their phones (TikTok, Candy
| Crush, etc.). "Engagement" is a form of immersion.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _One part of the article that I cut for brevity but maybe I
| should have included..._
|
| I think that would be valuable and might deserve its own
| follow-up article. To me, immersion in the context of
| creation or play strikes me as a completely different animal
| than immersion in the context of passive consumption.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| There are a few (TNG and Voyager for sure, maybe DS9 too) Star
| Trek stories that deal a bit with holodeck addiction ("holo-
| addiction"), and I think something at that level of immersion
| would absolutely cause lots of people to completely withdraw
| from society, especially if (real world) society is bleak
| (Ready Player One deals with this aspect of it). I already know
| 30-something childless adults who spend effectively every non-
| working moment in some virtual world -- these people are
| effectively already holo-addicted. It will only get worse if
| these environments are more able to block out reality.
|
| To me the sad thing about my friends in this situation is that
| they usually aren't in some swashbuckling fantasy epic starring
| them, but grinding Runescape/WoW/Eve/etc., performing the same
| repetitive actions over and over, with the occasional burst of
| actually interesting interaction or story. They've replaced the
| real-world grind with a synthetic grind, but they are still
| grinding! At least its cheaper than a sports gambling
| addiction, and probably marginally less health-destroying than
| a drinking habit.
| LectronPusher wrote:
| This is a major plot point of the book A Beautifully Foolish
| Endeavor, sequel to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. The main
| antagonist uses high quality VR to trick the brain into full
| reality from someone else's perspective. The effect on
| society is grim, and when society is being actively graded by
| aliens on its worth, this is a big problem.
|
| Highly recommend both books.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| What if I tell you everything around us is actually technology,
| we just dont understand it enough so we call it natural?
| thfuran wrote:
| What if I tell you everything around us is actually magic, we
| just understand some of it well enough to call it technology?
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Same thing. A lot of stuff we don't understand is like magic.
| Think old days, show someone an AR head set and they'd think
| is magic. Look closely at DNA, it's marvel of technology but
| miniaturized but occurs naturally. None the less looks and
| acts like advanced tech
| crowcroft wrote:
| I used to work for a small business accounting software company.
|
| We used to talk about reducing the amount of time people use the
| product. Doing accounting is NOT what small business owners
| should be spending time on, and our goal was to reduce the amount
| of time spent.
|
| As the company got bigger, we started selling adjacent software,
| and suddenly time spent in the 'ecosystem' became an important
| factor for increasing revenue per user and the rest is history.
|
| Especially in the B2B space with sales reps, it's hard to sell
| people on things they don't have to do.
| safety1st wrote:
| The average American adult now spends 8.5 hours consuming
| digital media every day, including games.
|
| Most of it is probably consumed for entertainment purposes
| (news, social media etc. - social media's share averages to
| around 2.5 hours per day). Have we considered that maybe we're
| just spending too much time on entertainment? As opposed to
| doing things that actually make us better, like studying,
| practicing a skill or exercising.
| digging wrote:
| > Have we considered that maybe we're just spending too much
| time on entertainment?
|
| No, I doubt it, unless you have some data that the advent of
| digital entertainment has changed our entertainment habits.
| (I think it's a separate question when it comes to social
| media + smartphones, which work very very hard to steal our
| attention.) People don't work all day long. Before we had
| digital media, people entertained themselves with social
| visits, theater, drinking, reading, meditation... basically
| all the things we still do outside of digital entertainment.
| hn72774 wrote:
| This is a good insight.
|
| "First pass yield" was a metric I liked in the accounting and
| payments space. How many transactions went through without
| requiring a manual touch.
| Jumptadel wrote:
| Very childish and idealistic take.
| svennidal wrote:
| I couldn't disagree more. Been playing Gran Turismo 7 in PSVR2
| with a steering wheel and pedals, the last few days. Why aren't
| more games this immersive?
| billy99k wrote:
| I disagree. There are lots of learning that can be done with VR
| that can't be done with traditional applications that haven't
| been invented yet.
|
| I exclusively workout using the Meta 2 (I don't play any other
| games on it) and it works really well.
| javajosh wrote:
| The feedback loop building a simulation will always be OOM faster
| and cheaper than building the real thing. The barrier-to-entry
| for entering the loop becomes personal aptitude, not capital, and
| yet the EV is enormous. _That_ is why our "best minds" are
| working in software, not hardware, not computer games.
| rpigab wrote:
| "Less immersive so you don't get hooked and you can choose when
| to play and when to not play", that's exactly how I market my
| terminal UI Klondike Solitaire to my friends. You can't even play
| it on mobile, needs a keyboard! No fireworks when you win,
| nothing, well it's a work in progress.
|
| Shameless plug:
|
| https://rpigab.gitlab.io/solitaire-cli/
| massysett wrote:
| "I hope you'll agree that humanity has a variety of important
| engineering problems to solve, and nicer-looking graphics is
| quite low on that list."
|
| I used to sneer at the social value of entertainment. Then covid
| lockdowns hit. I spent a lot of time playing Factorio. When
| professional sports resumed playing (in empty stadiums, with fake
| crowd noise on the broadcasts) I was happy to sit on the couch
| after work and watch baseball.
|
| Without that entertainment, there is no way I would have been
| able to trudge to my computer and work from home day after day,
| when the only thing I could leave my house for was an occasional
| walk and a frightful trip to the grocery store.
|
| So even if the brain surgeon is not using those "nicer-looking
| graphics" to improve brain surgery (which could very well
| happen), the brain surgeon might just be looking at "nicer-
| looking graphics" to unwind after a day of brain surgery, which
| gets her ready for another day of brain surgery. Entertainment
| has value.
| ozr wrote:
| Even beyond entertainment, interacting with things that are
| aesthetically pleasing is fundamentally good for individuals
| and society.
| Solvency wrote:
| It's such a neckbeardy sentiment. I could also drive the
| "functional" car that Homer designed in The Simpsons, but my
| psyche wouldn't survive a week.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| More people need to appreciate that video games have been at
| the core of what drives computing technologies forward.
| atorodius wrote:
| This comment made me sad. I would hope we aim for jobs that
| don't invoke the feeling of ,,trudging" and the need for
| ,,entertainment".
| warkdarrior wrote:
| All jobs have a repetitive aspect, exactly because we want
| experts in those jobs to do the job. But for the experts the
| work may often be boring and repetitive.
|
| I am pretty sure most of a surgeon's surgeries are NOT
| exhilarating experiences for them, but rather routine
| activities. Similarly for lawyers drafting contracts,
| software engineers developing web backends, construction
| workers building houses, or singers singing their repertoire.
|
| Not all of these jobs can be automated, so some routine will
| always exist.
| filiph wrote:
| Nobody disputes that entertainment has value. The article is
| about the fact that so much talent and resources is funneled
| into immersion.
|
| Using your neurosurgeon example, I posit that having fewer VR
| headsets will not prevent the doctor from unwinding. Nor will
| having mobile phones with less vibrant colors or application
| with lower engagement metrics.
| LiquidSky wrote:
| >Using your neurosurgeon example, I posit that having fewer
| VR headsets will not prevent the doctor from unwinding.
|
| Sure, they can always fall back on the classic method for
| doctors to unwind: whisky.
| pj_mukh wrote:
| There is a tragic flaw in your logic. There's probably 10x
| engineers working on advertising then there is gaming (let
| alone VR). It's not that big of an industry and doesn't have
| the mass adoption attention destroying ad-driven social media
| does.
|
| Statistically, the neurosurgeon is unwinding on TikTok and
| hating themselves for it.
|
| Could VR become immersive and an ad-addled attention
| destroying mess? Yes we should probably stop that from
| happening. But otherwise this warning is too early.
| haswell wrote:
| > But otherwise this warning is too early.
|
| When would the right time have been to warn people about
| the current generation of social media?
|
| We now have a ton of information about how technology will
| be used and abused, and we have a laundry list of known
| problems that we have not solved. Algorithmic social media
| and engagement-driven content are front and center.
|
| To me, the warning is appropriate not based on what hasn't
| happened yet, but based on what already has.
| pj_mukh wrote:
| The warnings started appropriately early in 2011, there
| should've been regulations in place by 2015.
|
| VR is still in 2006.
|
| Maybe let the first ad run in VR before you ascribe all
| the same problems to it.
| haswell wrote:
| What is it about VR that makes it meaningfully different
| enough from the current generation of problematic
| technology that we don't need to worry about the same
| problems?
|
| This isn't a "gotcha" question; I'm genuinely curious. To
| me, VR is a new interface layer on top of a massive
| ecosystem, and the same people are building it. The
| ecosystem is where the problems exist, and VR is just the
| latest facade through which we interface with that
| ecosystem.
|
| In this framing, it's not ascribing old problems to new
| technology as much as claiming that the new technology
| magnifies or intrinsically replicates the existing
| problems.
|
| > _The warnings started appropriately early in 2011,
| there should've been regulations in place by 2015_
|
| It's 2024 and the regulatory landscape is very poor or
| nearly nonexistent. Shouldn't this encourage more
| caution? i.e. we've already proven that looking back and
| deciding "oh yeah we should have been more careful"
| hasn't actually resolved the issue, and taking the same
| approach with emerging tech that has similar pitfalls
| seems doomed to repeat that.
|
| I also don't think we had any idea what was coming when
| we were building the stacks that underlie the current
| web. We now have much clearer mental models of what the
| Internet and technology in general is capable of, and the
| resulting warnings are coming much earlier
| (appropriately, IMO).
| pj_mukh wrote:
| Sure let's legislate social media. If the claim is the
| problems with VR will be the same problems as social
| media. Let's legislate social media and that should solve
| problems in VR as well? As far as it's just a new facade
| over social media and the noisy new internet, let's
| legislate that.
|
| I personally think the larger space of spatial computing
| (VR, AR etc) presents immense opportunities outside of
| its ability to just be another vehicle for ads. Leave
| that part alone because our regime of regulations only
| creates calcification and monopolization.
| chimney wrote:
| Ironically enough, VR training for surgeons is actually
| booming in the medical space.
| pomian wrote:
| Ahhh, but perhaps a good working VR system may finally be
| enough for said surgeon to use it for a complex operation.
| There are byproducts likely unknown to us, with each advance
| on technology. (Good or ill.)
| paulddraper wrote:
| How things look is important.
|
| Not as important as how they function, but still important.
|
| People, software programs, buildings, landscapes... appearance
| is information, about quality, about professionalism, about
| creativity, about attention to detail.
| szundi wrote:
| Civilization 1 and 2 was much greater experience than 5,
| although graphics was quite basic.
|
| This is in some other aspects means the opposite
| paulddraper wrote:
| But at time of release, Civ 1 and 2 had best-in-class
| graphics.
| nevertoolate wrote:
| They've reached tabletop game quality and peaked there.
| Proves the point that we don't need more immersive games
| than real life tabletop games, as our creative brain
| fills in the gaps.
| badpun wrote:
| > Civilization 1 and 2 was much greater experience than 5
|
| How so? I've played all 3 of those, and much prefer the Civ
| 5. Or at least I think I do? I haven't played Civ 1 or 2
| for 20 years now, so it's hard to compare.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| Funny you mention Factorio, because there's a Reddit thread
| where most of the commenters came to same conclusion you did.
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/ml00ac/how_...
| wharvle wrote:
| Entertainment has gotten really weird now that we have
| (multiple forms of) recording, plus quick on-demand
| transmission to practically anywhere.
|
| Basically all "need" I have of new recorded (to include video
| games--on-demand and not requiring the attention or effort of
| anyone but myself) entertainment is social. Any "need" for new
| entertainment exists _because new entertainment is being
| created_. If new entertainment stopped being created _entirely_
| , my quality of life wouldn't actually drop at all, because
| there's an astounding quantity & variety of it already, far
| more than I can engage with in a lifetime _even restricting
| myself to the likely-to-be-very-good_ stuff. My friend-group,
| and entertainment media, could do exactly what we do with new
| entertainment, but instead by digging into older material we
| 've so-far overlooked, instead of new.
| dwaltrip wrote:
| > If new entertainment stopped being created entirely, my
| quality of life wouldn't actually drop at all, because
| there's an astounding quantity & variety of it already, far
| more than I can engage with in a lifetime...
|
| You don't think there will be better entertainment in a
| decade or two? That's what it sounds like you are saying.
| jyunwai wrote:
| I appreciate the comment, especially with the example with the
| hypothetical brain surgeon. I've also anecdotally known people
| personally who have become accomplished in academic research,
| who preferred easy-to-access entertainment to decompress after
| a difficult day of work. So, work on entertainment does have
| important value to many people.
|
| But at the same time, on a broader point, the author has a
| compelling general idea that it can be helpful to question how
| you spend your time away from work. I've spoken with people--
| and have personally experienced--a satisfaction from physical
| hobbies outside of computer interaction. Rock climbing is
| especially popular among the people I know (even those with
| busy schedules), along with martial arts such as BJJ or judo. I
| also know a couple people (one personally, and another
| impersonally through his biography as a novelist named "What I
| Talk About When I Talk About Running") whose life enjoyment is
| closely tied to their passion for long-distance running.
|
| Outside of physical activity, other low-technology ways of
| entertainment will remain important. Reading books, especially
| classical ones, can improve one's writing. I've also read about
| chess players who have attributed their strong ability to plan
| ahead--in life and martial arts--to their passion for the game.
| I've additionally known people whose interests in music
| performance and production led them to develop good friendships
| with others. Naturally, this can apply to immersive technology:
| video streaming or high-graphics video games also have the
| ability to inspire people in their day-to-day life, or help
| people make meaningful connections.
|
| ---
|
| My source of skepticism is therefore not with the people
| working toward on nicer-looking graphics, as highlighted by the
| author, but rather with the people who apply psychology in
| video game design to make certain video games addictive--
| especially those with free-to-play models, which employ
| gameplay loops to keep people grinding for rewards even when
| the game stops feeling fun. I think the author is focusing on
| the wrong part of the industry: certain game designers have had
| a larger role with making certain video games have negative
| effects, as evidenced by somewhat-recent successful lawsuits
| against game companies that employed loot boxes and overly-easy
| ways to make in-game purchases in certain games targeted toward
| children.
|
| Video games and streaming can absolutely have a healthy place
| in one's life--especially productions created for the love of
| the art instead of primarily for the money--but only in
| moderation and not at the excessive expense of other ways to
| spend one's free time. Graphics development isn't a problem at
| all, but I do think many people's lives can become richer if
| they also give passions that don't require a personal computing
| device a strong chance.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| The surgeon does not need images or Javascript or even CSS to
| listen or watch. She only needs the audio/video files. The
| problem with adding "graphics" that are purportedly to assist
| the surgeon in opening these files is that web developers have
| generally sold out to marketers and advertisers. As it happens,
| the best way to avoid the marketing and advertising is to
| bypass the "graphics".
| ComposedPattern wrote:
| Games certainly have social value, but I'm not convinced that
| better graphics contribute all that much. I've not played
| Factorio, but looking at screenshots it seems not to have
| particularly advanced graphics. Indeed, I still get a lot of
| enjoyment out of 20-year-old games and often wish that modern
| games had less sophisticated graphics so they would run better.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Entertainment has value.
|
| It absolutely does! But I would argue that "nicer looking
| graphics" is not required for something to be entertaining.
| edgyquant wrote:
| Using lockdowns as a reason why we need entertainment seems so
| strange. We should instead not be locked down and focus our
| attention on building tech to prevent that. Not arguing against
| entertainment mind you, just seems strange to me.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| You're missing the point. The lockdown made him realize that
| he was taking the importance of entertainment for granted.
| aisuujudjdn wrote:
| With all due respect, I think you took the exact opposite
| lesson from the pandemic that you probably should have and that
| your story implies.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Why is that? Remember that during the pandemic, many places
| shut down any other sources of social stimulation that might
| be there, including actual socializing. Unless you had a very
| specific set of existing interests, it was hard to find
| anything outside of work to do in many cases.
| EGreg wrote:
| This!
|
| And the more immersive the technology is, the more the back-end
| should be open-sourced and put under the control of a free market
| of hosting companies and maintainers, that end-users and
| communities can pay.
|
| Right now we have: People <=> Big Tech
| Server Farms
|
| What we should have is: People <=>
| Communities <=> Hosting and Service Providers
| <=> Developers <=> Conferences, Certifications
|
| The second kind of ecosystem can liberate people.
|
| Would you rather spend your years hooked up to Neuralink owned by
| Elon, or have a say in what you experience and mitigate the power
| dynamics?
|
| Would you rather spend 9 hours a day in a metaverse owned by
| Zuck+Facebook (oh sorry, Meta), Elon+Twitter (oh sorry, X),
| Bezos+Amazon, Page+Google (oh sorry, Alphabet) or would you
| rather at least have your own Minecraft server? Or better yet,
| have an open platform that anyone can fork and build on, like
| Linux, Wordpress or Ethereum?
|
| Technical overview: https://qbix.com/ecosystem
|
| Layperson overview: https://www.laweekly.com/restoring-healthy-
| communities/
| culebron21 wrote:
| Same thing regarding the utilities -- we need home electricity
| switcheable with a key/knob, not browsing it for a minute in a
| smartphone (yes, with phone full of running apps, and network
| hickups, it may take a minute). And we need public transit usable
| without any smartphone, not to make people look for the buses on
| a smartphone map (try pushing a stroller with a kid on a cold
| winter day and search for buses in an app).
| swayvil wrote:
| Getting sucked into a dream-world/story/abstraction is a feature,
| not a bug.
|
| It's an attention-conservation strategy. Looking at an
| abstraction takes less precious attention than looking at
| reality. And abstractions are so malleable, so useful.
|
| You can do it with a page of text. You can do it with no
| technological augmentation at all, just thinking.
|
| It's so easy and useful that it's become a habit. The border
| between dream and reality is so blurred now that we've forgotten
| that there's a difference.
|
| Maybe this is what the Buddhists call "Samsara".
| em-bee wrote:
| as others have already suggested, i think the contrast of
| immersion vs no immersion is not really the issue (only as much
| as immersion helps people get addicted to games). the focus on
| entertainment and making a profit vs doing something to advance
| society is.
|
| immersive games are fine. games aren't failing to teach anything
| or help you relax because they are immersive. they are not
| teaching anything because they don't have a good story that would
| teach something, and they don't let you relax because specific
| game elements are putting you under stress.
|
| to give two examples: i play elite dangerous. i can travel
| through space with a VR headset and i trade items between various
| space stations. very immersive and quite relaxing, until pirates
| come along and want to steal my cargo. that's stressful. and i
| wish i could turn that off.
|
| likewise i may play some puzzle game, that is not immersive at
| all, and that could be relaxing if the gamedesigner hadn't added
| a timer that forces me to complete the puzzle in a certain time.
| that's stressful.
|
| so i don't think immersion has any impact here, other than
| immersive games are just more attractive. both are a waste of
| time however if they are not educational or relaxing.
|
| but now this issue of entertainment vs advancing society is a
| problem of the whole entertainment industry. very little content
| produced is entertaining as well as teaching something.
|
| and so for me the question is not about how immersive the games
| are but how educational. i believe it is quite possible to create
| fully immersive but educational games.
|
| looking back at elite dangerous again, for example, the universe
| in that game is modeled after our actual galaxy. where possible,
| stars are named by their actual astronomical names, and their
| looks are designed after what we know about them and i can take a
| star system in the game and look up its name on eg wikipedia and
| learn real facts about it. compare that to eve online where the
| universe is completely fictional. in elite dangerous i can fly
| around and get a sense of the relative distances of say alpha
| centauri vs the north pole star or of the position of our solar
| system vs the rest of the galaxy. (assuming that it is all
| accurate)
|
| immersive and educational and relaxing (as long as i can avoid
| pirates)
| hopa wrote:
| I feel like you only see articles like this written by game
| developers. Something about making video games for a living makes
| you question the value of what you're creating.
| robot_no_421 wrote:
| The longer I remain a software engineer the more I hate relying
| on computers. Maybe the people closest to the technology are
| the ones to first realize how superficial and downright
| damaging these innovations actually are.
| skydhash wrote:
| Computers are nice. The issue lies with the kind of software
| that are being developed. I have a Kobo device that I put
| koreader on and it's miles better than the default one
| because it's actually let you read books how you want to read
| them. Most of the apps I have focus on being the tools for
| the use cases I have them for (which is why they are still
| installed) instead on trying to get in my way every now and
| then. I love nice visuals and other UX niceties, but I like
| usefulness more than anything. Some days, I'm really close
| getting back to my Arch installation. I'd prefer the glitches
| and do patches instead of suffering another enshitification.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Everyone has 'but is any of it worthwhile?' moments. You're
| going to focus that question towards what's around you.
| wavemode wrote:
| Pfft. If I'm making a game I'm at least bringing a small amount
| of enjoyment to people's lives. When working to increase the
| profit margins of tech companies, I'm probably just working
| towards bringing a small amount of misery to people's lives.
| williamcotton wrote:
| When I write poetry, song lyrics, or music, I am fully immersed.
|
| The difference between video games and art is that I create the
| environment that I am immersed within.
|
| Sure, like English or any other language, I've inherited the
| cultural context for my artistic endeavors, but that context is a
| basic requirement for any sort of immersive activity.
| slater- wrote:
| This is an important distinction that I agree with.
|
| Glancing at your username I think I maybe know you through some
| mutual sf friends. The Page called they want a lot of their
| fernet back
| Animats wrote:
| After reading the article, I was expecting his game to be
| something like Tetris or some 8-bit retro thing. It's not,
| though.
|
| Full immersion is entertainment, consuming your full attention.
| Like a movie theater or a stage play. That's OK, but not full
| time. Light immersion is walking around with your nose in your
| phone for most of your waking hours. That may be worse.
| calamari4065 wrote:
| I wonder if the author realizes that there are eight billion
| humans. They can't all work on the same thing. And the majority
| of people who are not engineers and who just work regular
| mindless jobs need entertainment.
|
| Also we've had entertainment since the dawn of time. People don't
| just go home and stare at the wall for sixteen hours before going
| back to work. Almost none are going home from work to solve
| humanity's Real Problems(tm). Entertainment holds significant
| value to _everyone_ plus or minus a few percent.
|
| But really the author has a critique of _capitalism_ and doesn 't
| want to admit it. The complaint is that art is a product you're
| expected to pay for and consume, and individual artists almost
| can't even exist without spending all their time advertising.
| Imagine how much art would be produced if artists weren't forced
| to choose between making art and paying rent.
|
| All in all, the author is yelling at clouds because other people
| have values he disagrees with and refuses to understand
| tyfighter wrote:
| Of course they realize that, because that's not what the
| article is about. The problem being described is that the
| distribution of talent/intelligence across the problems
| civilization is facing is uneven. The author's perspective is
| that individual interests and pay/profit incentives bias the
| distribution towards fun boom/bust industries (e.g. video
| games/VR/entertainment), and more critical industries may be
| losing out on this talent as a result. These are problems that
| capitalism can't naturally solve, because not every problem
| needing to be solved can be crafted into profit driven market.
| More than a "critique of capitalism", the author has noticed
| his industry is filling up with engineers/competition.
| verisimi wrote:
| My opinion is that the last 40 to 50 years, have been all about
| entertainment, as a tool of control.
|
| Are cars better, planes, houses....? Only marginally. I don't
| even want sensors to tell me my car has this or that issue, lol.
|
| But we have phones, the internet, TV programming on demand, YT,
| tiktok, games, VR, flat screens, etc etc. it's all about content
| and the delivery of that content.
|
| Basically all development has been in entertainment while every
| other industry has pretty much stood still, or devolved (eg food
| quality).
| 1-6 wrote:
| After reading the book the Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil,
| technology looks to both immersive and not immersive (but
| ambient).
|
| People can choose their tool of choice but most people will not
| voluntarily do that because of convenience.
| tqi wrote:
| Why is working on art good, but working on entertainment a waste
| of time?
| campground wrote:
| One compelling theory for why we have not encountered intelligent
| life is that any sufficiently advanced civilization will
| eventually stop exploring the universe and immerse themselves
| entirely in virtual reality, to the point that they harness the
| total output of their star for computation, and disappear.
|
| Relativity means that the Star Trek vision of a galaxy spanning
| society is probably an incoherent fantasy. Why pursue expensive,
| dangerous, and disappointing adventures in the real world when
| you can conjure any conceivable reality with perfect
| verisimilitude?
| com2kid wrote:
| An even darker take, if some renegade member of an advanced
| alien race does decide to spend a lot of resources on exploring
| the universe, and gains the means to do so, the other members
| of their species may very well plug them into a simulation
| while they are sleeping and make them think they are exploring
| the cosmos.
|
| Unless a species is completely post scarcity, there is a strong
| ethical argument to be made that this is the correct thing to
| do, versus spending a lot of resources on "mere exploration",
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| Working on my own kind of metaverse I've grappled with this
| issue, and that is why I hope to use it to improve physical
| space endeavors as opposed to replacing them. This really
| started for me in two places: the newer one was when I pitched
| to the department of education for a grant program a software I
| called Meta-Education Environment for Simulation and Gaming
| (MEESG), aimed particularly at assisting in training of high-
| risk vocations (such as high voltage-systems repair)... but
| after I thought about it, I realized that the earlier
| inspiration was the VBS simulation I trained in the military
| and how I noticed the benefits directly (later leading to many
| hours of Arma2/Arma3 playtime, the civilian version of VBS).
|
| So the main fight I see in the future is those who think
| (similar to the article) all this immersion effort is vapid and
| superficial. I don't think it is, and for more than just
| training, but also for rapid iteration in a simulated physical
| space that doesn't waste actual physical resources until a
| better product is developed. Ergo, I feel there is hidden value
| in the virtual space yet untapped in the wider market for
| combining fun and relaxation with teaching valuable things
| about the real world.
|
| Just for example, I have been adding my local flora/fauna and
| edibility properties and medicial properties to one of my
| gameworlds recently, which could help me accelerate my learning
| of that particular real world thing but also make the gameworld
| more fun and interactive.
| jayd16 wrote:
| It's not an XOR. Tech and social ideas and humanity in general
| advances because people dabble with it in the low risk
| entertainment space.
| theodpHN wrote:
| Really? Windows Phone Ad (2010): "It's time for a phone to save
| us from our phones." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-X0p-79SjY
| sullivantrevor wrote:
| it is easy to agree with this. however, the problem is most
| people just don't care and/or are lazy to do something more
| meaningful. and there is nothing inherently wrong with that.
| ranprieur wrote:
| Photorealism does not equal immersion. Immersion happens in the
| mind, not the eyes. The games I've been most immersed in were
| made in the 90s, when the graphics were not as good but the
| gameplay was better.
| chrisjc wrote:
| Absolutely! I remember playing Quake 3 and whatnot back in the
| day. As I became immersed in the game, keyboard/mouse/1024
| would eventually disappear (figuratively).
|
| Strangely enough, I feel like there is more friction for me to
| play video games of this era (and i don't) despite the
| advancements in and availability of technology to interact with
| said games. Perhaps the friction I feel has more to do with the
| bombardment of content (ads, microtransaction, social-media,
| etc) that gets in the way of and distracts from actual game
| play.
|
| Then again, maybe I'm just getting old.
|
| Perhaps this is what the author is _trying_ to get at? If we
| could immerse ourselves in a similar way when we were using
| "primitive" games and hardware and therefore were subjected to
| all the temptation and risk, then what is different or
| relevant?
|
| The quantity of those immersed and additional layer of
| (arguable harmful) content?
| Nav_Panel wrote:
| Reminds me of:
|
| > A very common practice in videogames is to make your game
| visually immersive--that is to say, to visually portray the
| game's elements in such a way that makes the player, to some
| extent, feel like they're "really there." The most obvious way
| this is employed is via a firstperson point-of-view camera, as
| seen in titles like Counter-Strike or Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. In
| these titles--especially in the highly fantasy-simulation-
| dependent Skyrim--part of the idea is to "immerse" the player in
| the world.
|
| > The problem is, this isn't where "immersion" really comes from.
| Ever notice how people get incredibly immersed in a great novel?
| What could be further away from the literal, realistic portrayal
| of reality that Skyrim brings than a set of glyphs in black and
| white printed on dead trees? And yet novels routinely engage
| people to the point where they are completely and utterly
| immersed.
|
| > The myth is that immersion comes from visual/auditory messages,
| but the problem is the human mind wanders quickly. We're curious
| and inquisitive and while a picture-perfect image might in fact
| immerse us for a moment, if there isn't an engaging system there
| for us to keep us immersed, we'll quickly snap out of it and
| remember that we're just tinkering with some computer program.
|
| > The thing that engages people in interactive systems is
| actually quality interaction--for games, this means interesting,
| difficult and meaningful decisions as frequently as possible.
|
| Quote from Keith Burgun's "Clockwork Game Design"
| ta2112 wrote:
| Browsing the public library one day in the aughts, I came across
| Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan. Having been raised on the Disney
| version of Tarzan, I thought, "Ho! I should read this here
| original of the classic children's story!" So I checked it out,
| and I was shocked and surprised to encounter the most racist
| novel I have ever read. There is a reason almost no one reads the
| original Tarzan. It is not subtle about being Jim Crow, pro-
| colonialism pulp porn. I'm pretty sure Disney would prefer
| everybody forget that Burroughs existed, and that their animated
| and live action mega hits sprung out of the focus group imagining
| of a childhood bear necessities Jungle dream. So yeah, Burroughs
| is a rough reference to lead with.
| egypturnash wrote:
| it is hilarious how the opening sentences written by this person
| refer to "Edgar Rice _Borroughs_ ", while pasted quotes and
| images refer to "Edgar Rice _Burroughs_ ".
|
| The latter spelling is the correct one.
| htk wrote:
| <rant>
|
| There's always someone complaining about good things being too
| good and people lose on the rest because of it. What about
| letting people have some personal responsibility?
|
| Instead of complaining about games being too immersive, doom
| scrolling being too addictive etc, how about reminding people to
| make conscious decisions on how they spend their time and
| attention?
|
| We're living in the era of external responsibility, every problem
| one has is caused by someone else.
|
| </rant>
| lukeschlather wrote:
| It's funny to read this headline as a general statement. I work
| for Strivr (https://www.strivr.com/), and we make immersive
| training. And the same forces that make immersive games more
| enthralling make immersive trainings significantly more powerful
| as learning experiences.
|
| So I don't know, there's definitely such a thing as immersive
| experiences that are harmful, but I think for educational
| purposes more immersive experiences are strictly better than less
| immersive ones. (Provided that you want to learn as fast as
| possible and you want to focus on learning.) Now, immersive
| experiences are also more expensive (especially to get right)
| than less immersive ones, so cost is a factor but I think we
| definitely want more immersive education.
| carabiner wrote:
| Zuck is spending his time farming in Hawaii to raise his own
| beef. Even he doesn't want to live in the Metaverse.
| UltimateEdge wrote:
| I agree with the sentiment that "the gaming industry has hijacked
| human play". The author justifies the development of his own game
| by the fact that "it looks like a CAD program", but I don't think
| that this makes the game any less immersive. Having seen a few of
| his dev-logs [0], I think that his goal of a 'systemic game' (if
| I remembered that phrase correctly) has the potential to be just
| as immersive.
|
| Games with impressive graphics but no gameplay aren't known for
| being particularly big drains of human attention.
|
| As another example, take the comments on the recent thread about
| the browser game generals.io [1]. One might say that 'it looks
| like a spreadsheet with conditional formatting', but it doesn't
| make it any less addictive, according to the commenters.
|
| [0]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=civUb-w1CFU
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38752385
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| We have it, it's all the apps that are bad, frustrating, and they
| don't get used.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| It is impossible to predict what effects technological
| developments will have.
|
| Claiming that effort in one field is "wasted" or "misallocated"
| is the height of hubris.
|
| I make satellites that are being used to scan the earth to
| determine the impacts of climate change, quantify coastal
| erosion, monitor foliage coverage and crop health, locate buried
| ancient ruins, predict the weather, and create high-resolution 3d
| maps of urban areas.
|
| The production of these spacecraft is very low volume, and
| therefore very expensive.
|
| Research into new lithography techniques for longer-lasting
| battery-powered consumer devices led to low-power electronics
| that allow the spacecraft I make to have greater processing power
| for a given energy budget.
|
| Advancements in more powerful graphics chips for gaming have led
| to affordable (and yes, despite what you think they are
| affordable) GPUs used to process and rasterize the data the
| satellites I build gather.
|
| Unreal Engine is used to build tools needed visualize the
| results.
|
| The low-profile RF connectors that we use were invented for the
| specific purpose of shoving Bluetooth and Wi-Fi into thin
| consumer devices like laptops and tablets and they save us
| (noticeable and significant) weight.
|
| I can't predict what will happen but I think I can predict what
| will not happen and given the size of the market I work in I
| assert that there is an exact and precise 0.0% chance that the
| resources needed to develop the technology I rely on every day
| would have been allocated in service of my market. It is too
| small.
|
| Instead they were handed to me on a silver platter by the
| consumer electronics market. People playing smartphone games--
| and militaries trying to destroy each other have directly led to
| what I do being possible.
|
| >but I had to admit to myself at one point that, long-term,
| playing video games for any extended period makes me physically
| miserable and dumber.
|
| I do not play video games, at least nothing newer than SNES
| games, but I know people who do and that sounds like a personal
| problem.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| > There are new opportunities in things like e-Ink or transparent
| screens or IoT that can help people re-focus on the real world
| around them yet still reap the benefits of technology.
|
| This assumption that only games with nice graphics are immersive
| enough to somehow be a problem is just wrong. Before I had gaming
| hardware I wasted the exact same amount of time by re-reading
| books and comics, and it was quite immersive. AAA graphics are
| not the problem.
|
| > humanity has a variety of important engineering problems to
| solve, and nicer-looking graphics is quite low on that list.
|
| That sounds an awful lot like the good old "why do we build space
| rockets when people are starving".
| sirsinsalot wrote:
| The Remarkable 2 has changed my life.
|
| Simple e-ink reader and note taker. No apps. No distraction.
| Amazing battery life. Easy to write on.
|
| Switch off. Do more.
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