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[Sharkey]

I love it when people declare their inconsequential dismissal of the physical world, dismissing trees, water, ashphalt, smokestacks, sex (the real kind, har har), fists, bullets, and pandas driving combine harvesters at one fell swoop.

That's funny, if someone did that I must have missed it.

Not in a Matrix kind of way, but in the same way we take for granted entirely "imaginary" things like telephone calls or money.

Considering games to be as real as anything else isn't replacing reality. They just become another part of it, the vast fucking majority of which is imaginary. And those fists, rocks, and trees may be "more" real, but we have more and more control over them. The reality of my fist doesn't much matter until I have the idea to crack your head with it. Debt can be just as real a prison as being trapped within walls.

Of course, there's always that really distant future where we convert all the matter in the solar system into foglets or a cloud of matrioshka satellites or whateverthehell turns you on, but we hadn't even gotten to that.

[Mongrel]

There's nothing wrong with having a conversation on the phone.

But what if someone told you they were more comfortable having phone conversations than face-to-face conversations. What if that same person would go as far as avoiding any and all face-to-face conversations in favour of phone conversations? 

Would that seem a bit odd?

I think that ultimately, supra-MMOs, value-added internets, parallel digital worlds, infinite sandboxes, better-than-life, or whatever-the-hell-you-want-to-call-it is simply media. Possibly educational, possibly entertaining, and possibly as revolutionary as the printed word, sure. But it's still just a new medium for the transmission of information - and maybe a way to have a little fun.

It isn't is a panacea to solve our problems nor is it some kind of replacement - partial or otherwise - for conventional human interaction. As long as we remain these fleshy biological units, we will be always be constrained by these forms to at least some degree (no matter how much we love to try and deny this).

People don't have a clear picture of how this new medium will change society. But man, do they love making guesses. Wild claims are always made with regards to new earth-shattering technological innovations, it's simply that in this case, the vast amorphous form of this new coalescing network makes it harder to refute such pronouncements and harder to see that the 'internets plus' is simply another techonological innovation: neutral when considered on it's own, only gaining one value or another through use by humans. No more or less than a clay tablet, printing press, telegraph, camera, or computer. And at least some of us are old enough to recall the grandiose claims made regarding that last one (Dibbell and Barlow, you poor bastards).

When we look at what the medium itself has to say*, what I've seen so far has been a mixed bag. We have increased access to information and valuable information redundancy, but also isolation disguised as social contact, the loss of existing social skills, and information corruption. Like any advancements in our past, theres been a tradeoff. I worry that while the quantity of information is increeasing expotentially, our ability to use it, and use it effectively. is remaining static, or is even decreasing. Witness the recent subprime meltdown. It's not Facebook Final Fantasy, I know, but bear with me. Those of you familiar with current financial services may know something of modern-day risk management. Modern risk managers had an unprecendented wealth of historical data, formulae, closed testing environments, intercompany communications networks, daily spot tests, and other safeguards to help minimise their risk and provide an accurate picture of what was going on. And then reality rolled into town (well, really, it never left. In fact, it IS the town) and a lot of folks lost their shirts (and houses).

The perfect example of my griping would be the current smouldering fire in the background over control over IANA and ICANN. It's all well and good to talk about interconnectedness, but there's a small-but-real chance that real-life meat-and-iron power struggles will shatter the internet's inviolate state. In the worst case scenario, the resulting balkanization will all make us wish for the glory days of uh... 4chan.

I'm not forecasting the end times here, I just wish that people would stop assuming success is assured and that technology will fix all of our damn problems. You want to talk about evolution, well you'd like to think that that we could at least learn that one damn lesson. We've only had 40 000 years to try. 

P.S. Other than the beginning, this post isn't really a direct response to you Sharkey, more just me clarifying my earlier trolling yelling pointlessly for the kids to get off my lawn

*As a Canadian, I'm honour-bound to invoke McLuhan ;)

[Brentai]

I always hoped VRML would put an end to this sort of conversation, honestly.

[Sharkey]

I don't prefer to talk on the phone with someone any more than I prefer to shout at them through open windows across an alley. But the point remains that you're talking to someone. Sometimes it's not better, but sometimes it is. There are some people I just plain can't or don't want to be in a room with.

The reality of that $5 in my pocket is just a near worthless sheet of rag paper adorned with some extraordinarily bad art. But it's also a beer, a bag of mice, or a really lousy blowjob. And the potential to be all those things is better than actually being one of those things and resorting to barter. The idea is much, much more powerful than the reality in that case.

You can argue the primacy of meat and iron all you like, but meat and iron are moved by ideas.

Maybe we'll get a setback. Maybe there'll be a global economic collapse, or an asteroid impact. But those have happened before, and life gets back on its feet and refills those biological niches far faster than they took the first time. Human society does it even faster, and sometimes it's the best and only way of backing up and getting out of a dead end. And looking at the thing as a whole, yeah, it trends inexorably toward greater complexity, and more toward the primacy of thought. And if the time comes that little widgets directly stimulating my nerves can make things and people that are indistinguishable from real, I'm not going to waste a lot of effort trying to distinguish. That's putting Descartes before the horse. And besides, I wouldn't try to mime reality with it, anyway. Reality is a damn inefficient mess. There are better ways of managing information, and there will be far better ways of making personal contact.

So fuck yes, I think this stuff is augmenting reality, and will do so more and more. And in the long, long term, it will probably even replace reality. In a lot of places it already has, ever since we started thinking in the first place. I sure as hell don't think it'll solve all our problems. At best it will solve a bunch of them while introducing new, terrifying, far more interesting ones. But nobody ever said it was going to do that. Or that we should just throw our hands up and say "Fuck it, Jehova Technology will save us."

[Zaratustra]

For there are only two worlds...your world, which is the real world, and other worlds, the fantasy. Worlds like this are worlds of the human imagination: their reality, or lack of reality, is not important.
What is important is that they are there. These worlds provide an alternative, provide an escape. Provide a threat. Provide a dream, and power, provide refuge and pain. They give your world meaning. They do not exist; and thus they are all that matters.

[Mongrel]

Again, what are some actual points of these claims? I'm not debating that ideas and symbolism play a powerful and important part of the human experience, I'm saying that arguing on the internets or playing CS is something short of a revolution in interpersonal contact. I'm also saying that while money has it's place, so does the meat. Money can represent meat and can often be used to aquire it, but I think it's a mistake to think that the two are effectively interchangeable. Anyway... THAT'S a pointless debate that can go on forever.

There's a lot of grand predictions being made, but I don't see much in the way of specifics. Games will save us? Another session of Kingdom of Loathing perhaps? I think there's a step I'm missing. I guess from my point of view, direct human contact does not actually fully take place online, as the medium heavily moderates the messages propagated therein, smiley emotes notwithstanding. Before any real sea change can take place, communication must be clear and not subject to nearly as many peculiarities as it is now.

Ahh well...

[Norondor]

Well, that's the point, isn't it? If Kurzweil is right, and i personally pray God that he's actually being too conservative in his projections, then in a few years the technology will exist to allow human interaction that is not limited but actually expanded by the medium in which such communication takes place. You could argue that the medium still moderates the experience, but reality may in fact be a stricter moderator in that i can't shoot laser beams at you to underscore my point in this matter.

[Bongo Bill]

It's augmented reality that excites me a lot more than virtual reality.

Hmm. There's something you could say about the best game developers being like world-class chefs who understand that sometimes people just want a corn dog.

[Mongrel]

Well, that's the point, isn't it? If Kurzweil is right, and i personally pray God that he's actually being too conservative in his projections, then in a few years the technology will exist to allow human interaction that is not limited but actually expanded by the medium in which such communication takes place. You could argue that the medium still moderates the experience, but reality may in fact be a stricter moderator in that i can't shoot laser beams at you to underscore my point in this matter.

Right, I understood that. But it seems that the only thing anyone can say to back that assertion up is to flog Moore's Law et al.

[Bongo Bill]

For the shorter-term developments, you can point to many component technologies currently in development. Prototypes and works-in-progress and new-big-things whose development is limited by the absence of some other technology which is also in development. In those cases it's a matter of considering when they're all going to be able to fit together.

[Norondor]

Right, I understood that. But it seems that the only thing anyone can say to back that assertion up is to flog Moore's Law et al.

Are you asserting that it's not going to be the case?

[Sharkey]

If Kurzweil is right, and i personally pray God that he's actually being too conservative in his projections...

Tee Hee.

But sorry, Mongrel: You keep saying the long-term projections are worthless because they aren't specific. Or trivialize the potential because it hasn't been realized this week. Is Kingdom of Loathing or Second Life or some other thing I hate a substitute for "real" human interaction and accomplishment? I don't much care for them, but for some people they're at least a necessary supplement, or else they wouldn't be messing with the things. You wouldn't have korean cybercafes full of dead WoW players if they weren't getting something so much more fulfilling than their shitty lives that they actually forget about their own bodily needs.

Hell, the very fact that I come here to hash it out with you instead of going to a bar and bugging a stranger with this shit is pretty much screaming that for some interactions, this is better. You can get together more people with more common interests more practically. And every year it gets easier and easier.

Life stripped of communication technology? I've lived like that- geographically isolated with the same hundred people and nothing but a couple landline phones... puts this shit in perspective. This stuff isn't replacing real life, at least not completely and not for a long while, but anyone who thinks it's not better this way, or that it doesn't improve things meaningfully despite apparent unreality can't have any fucking idea what they're talking about.

[Kazz]

Iron Mongrel:

On the one hand, online poker is awful, because you can't see your opponents.  I'm not claiming that I'm some kind of Matt-Damon-In-Rounders Meatreading Pro.  There's just a concreteness that you can't replace.

On the other hand, I could always tell when Friday was a wolf, over the forum or over IRC.  I couldn't you what changed about her behavior, really; she'd say or do something and it would just click.

Anyway, this is a dumb argument, because I suspect that you and Sharkey are trying to say the same thing but in such different ways that you can't meet in the middle.  That, or I don't understand either point.  At any rate, I've taken it for granted that, within the next 20 years, someone is going to Gibson me into the cyberverse and torture me for eternity.

This cake is delicious.

[Mongrel]

Right, I understood that. But it seems that the only thing anyone can say to back that assertion up is to flog Moore's Law et al.

Are you asserting that it's not going to be the case?

LOL Cute.

But sorry, Mongrel: You keep saying the long-term projections are worthless because they aren't specific. Or trivialize the potential because it hasn't been realized this week. Is Kingdom of Loathing or Second Life or some other thing I hate a substitute for "real" human interaction and accomplishment? I don't much care for them, but for some people they're at least a necessary supplement, or else they wouldn't be messing with the things. You wouldn't have korean cybercafes full of dead WoW players if they weren't getting something so much more fulfilling than their shitty lives that they actually forget about their own bodily needs.

Hell, the very fact that I come here to hash it out with you instead of going to a bar and bugging a stranger with this shit is pretty much screaming that for some interactions, this is better. You can get together more people with more common interests more practically. And every year it gets easier and easier.

Life stripped of communication technology? I've lived like that- geographically isolated with the same hundred people and nothing but a couple landline phones... puts this shit in perspective. This stuff isn't replacing real life, at least not completely and not for a long while, but anyone who thinks it's not better this way, or that it doesn't improve things meaningfully despite apparent unreality can't have any fucking idea what they're talking about.

I'm not saying they're worthless because they're specific. But everyone here seems to think this revolution is assured, when they can't even say what form the revolution will take other than a hazy outline at best. Technological and social change is coming, yes. But I'll reserve my judgement for when it's actually here. Potential is just that UNTIL it's realized (I'm a cynic, sue me etc.).

As for the dead kid, I guess I'd call that a waste. And arguments that try to justfiy that death by retroactively adding meaning to WoW that isn't there are kind of depressing. That fellow wasn't some kind of martyr for human connectivity - he was dumb. Or perhaps in terrible pain. If he found that to be fulfulling, we need to ask ourselves why is quote-unquote 'real' life so awful that this is a palatable, even rewarding, alternative.

If the real world is that bad, we need to deal with that problem, rather than creating a false escape from it. Those Korean WoW-ers still had to do 'real' things in the mundane world to stay connected. Not everyone is going to have information-based jobs that will allow you to spend 24-7 plugged in. None of this is free. So you'll still have to go to that shit job that you hate, come home and spend time playing games to feel better. That's not fulfillment, that's drug addiction (okay, the comparision's excessive, but I digress...). I know you're not arguing that this won't replace real life, that this is a mere supplement to it, but for the dead gamer, it DID replace real life, to the point where the physical body was forgotten until reality reasserted itself. Neither virtual reality nor cranial jacks were needed. I would call that a negative experience and a net loss, both personally and for the species (unless you're some kind of hardcore darwinist LOL).

Are things meaningfully improved by the internet? Sure. Are things 'better this way'? Debatable and slightly presumptuous. Like every advance, there have been gains and losses. You yourself seem to be satisfied that online conversation equates to or is comparable real conversation, while I do not (or at the very least, you feel that the quantity of contacts available to you somehow makes up for any lost qualities of face-to-face interaction). Yes, this is a difference of opinion, but if my opinion is that real-life experiences are superior to online ones, then - in my case at least - things are not 'better this way'.

By the way, funny irony: I'm married to a woman I met online.

@

  "When the revolution comes, there will be cake and ice cream for everyone."

  "But I don't like cake or ice cream."

  "When the revolution comes, everyone will like cake and ice cream."

 

P.S. I had pie at my wedding instead of cake.

[EmaWii]

You yourself seem to be satisfied that online conversation equates to or is comparable real conversation, while I do not (or at the very least, you feel that the quantity of contacts available to you somehow makes up for any lost qualities of face-to-face interaction).

I'm not the "you" here but I had a weird experience last weekend wherein the Internet felt genuine and real life seemed really fake. First impressions are probably a special case, but I never had such a contrast between a chat conversation and an actual hang-out. We got along so well and geeked out completely online, and then met in real life and everything fell so flat. Which is fine, I don't really care.

But then I realized that I have certain friends who drive me up the wall in real life, but we get along great online. It was a little creepy realizing that some people I actually prefer in their disembodied aim box form. Maybe some face-to-face qualities are better lost between certain less compatible people? Unless you get nostalgic for more traditional annoyances. Perhaps the Internet not only adds quantity, but at least in terms of text chat, makes the holes in the quality strainer bigger because you don't have to account for things like obnoxious physical behavior or intolerable lack of hygiene. (Those are arbitrary hypothetical issues that someone could have. Annnnd feel free to shred me to pieces. I'm just rambling off the top of my head, so it'll be interesting to hear what you have to say.)

[Zaratustra]

WHAT THE SODDING HELL DOES ALL OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH GDC JESUS MOTHERFUCKING J. CHRIST

sorry that this came right after your post emawii nothing personal

[Norondor]

Are you asserting that it's not going to be the case?

LOL Cute.

I wasn't trying to be cute. I was asking, seriously: is that your argument? It doesn't seem so anymore, so it's irrelevant, i suppose, but that would be a risky position to take.

That fellow wasn't some kind of martyr for human connectivity - he was dumb.

There's nobody saying it can't be both.

If he found that to be fulfulling, we need to ask ourselves why is quote-unquote 'real' life so awful that this is a palatable, even rewarding, alternative.

If the real world is that bad, we need to deal with that problem, rather than creating a false escape from it.

There is no way i could agree more with the above sentiment. Through all of human history, though, there's been no clear solution (that is palatable to the ruling classes, whoever they might be) as to how to make the lower classes totally okay with their lot in life. Religion on the whole has been a pretty good one but that has its own attendant drawbacks and it's not like it's totally reliable either. Besides which, some people are just broken to start with because human hardware is at present non-upgradeable and difficult to diagnose or repair in some cases. The truth is that probably there's no way to deal with things like that, and people MMOing themselves to death is just the way some people choose to die now, instead of just jumping in front of an oncoming train or alcohol abuse. PERHAPS TECHNOLOGY WILL SOLVE ALL OUR PROBLEMS

So you'll still have to go to that shit job that you hate, come home and spend time playing games to feel better. That's not fulfillment, that's drug addiction (okay, the comparision's excessive, but I digress...).

No, it's not.

You yourself seem to be satisfied that online conversation equates to or is comparable real conversation, while I do not

I think the only point i was trying to make above is "that might not be the case forever."

Unless you're going to argue that you would totally be able to tell if we were in the Matrix, because you possess true moral clarity or whatever. Then I'll just have to punch you in the side.

[Bongo Bill]

It's a matter of creating new ways to interact with people, and the new ways are starting to become as rich as the original, ancient forms. What does that mean? Kurzweil says that this is as big a shift as the invention of written language or language itself - so in this strange transitional period it's perfectly normal to feel compelled to switch to the new one altogether.

If new modes of interaction end up being able to capture all of the subtleties of being there in person, then it's just sentimentality to insist on remaining in the real world at all - not that sentimentality is a bad thing. If the new modes of interaction end up having shortcomings that face-to-face communication does not, then it's just a matter of whether you think those shortcomings matter. But the main idea is that no mode of communication is special. Being face-to-face with a person is just another option. Presently it's by far the most expressive option in most ways, but don't assume that it has anything to set it apart without that superiority.

The means that certain people use to talk to other people is really orthogonal to their tendency to fatally neglect themselves and others. New technologies inevitably bring new ways to kill ourselves, and this has never been a satisfactory reasoning for restraining them.

[Mongrel]

You yourself seem to be satisfied that online conversation equates to or is comparable real conversation, while I do not (or at the very least, you feel that the quantity of contacts available to you somehow makes up for any lost qualities of face-to-face interaction).

I'm not the "you" here but I had a weird experience last weekend wherein the Internet felt genuine and real life seemed really fake. First impressions are probably a special case, but I never had such a contrast between a chat conversation and an actual hang-out. We got along so well and geeked out completely online, and then met in real life and everything fell so flat. Which is fine, I don't really care.

But then I realized that I have certain friends who drive me up the wall in real life, but we get along great online. It was a little creepy realizing that some people I actually prefer in their disembodied aim box form. Maybe some face-to-face qualities are better lost between certain less compatible people? Unless you get nostalgic for more traditional annoyances. Perhaps the Internet not only adds quantity, but at least in terms of text chat, makes the holes in the quality strainer bigger because you don't have to account for things like obnoxious physical behavior or intolerable lack of hygiene. (Those are arbitrary hypothetical issues that someone could have. Annnnd feel free to shred me to pieces. I'm just rambling off the top of my head, so it'll be interesting to hear what you have to say.)

Well, I would say that that that's an example of false or corrupted communication.

Some dimension of the conversation was missing from your online meeting that became apparent in face-to-face contact. The real litmus test would be if you went back to speaking to her afterwards as if you'd never met in real life.

No reason to shred you.

 

In my case I just have a high standard. I'm only really comfortable with well-rounded people who are able to conduct themselves in like a decent fellow both on and offline. My one caveat there being that, I've generally found people who are retarded in one sphere to be retarded in all spheres, to one degree or other. Sooner or later it always comes out. But eh, that's anecdotal.



@ Noro: The 'cute' was because that one point seemed to be a lead-in to a massive logical fallacy. Of course I can't remeber the exact name of the fallacy, but here's how I read that exchange:

<Noro> - Humankind will enter the golden land of InternetsPlus (tm) due to Moore's Law and Games
<I_M> - I do not agree.
<Noro> - So you refute Moore's Law then?

Maybe I misread, but that's where it seemed to be going.

@ Zara: Please stay on topic, this is a forum

[Mongrel]

It's a matter of creating new ways to interact with people, and the new ways are starting to become as rich as the original, ancient forms. What does that mean? Kurzweil says that this is as big a shift as the invention of written language or language itself - so in this strange transitional period it's perfectly normal to feel compelled to switch to the new one altogether.

If new modes of interaction end up being able to capture all of the subtleties of being there in person, then it's just sentimentality to insist on remaining in the real world at all - not that sentimentality is a bad thing. If the new modes of interaction end up having shortcomings that face-to-face communication does not, then it's just a matter of whether you think those shortcomings matter. But the main idea is that no mode of communication is special. Being face-to-face with a person is just another option. Presently it's by far the most expressive option in most ways, but don't assume that it has anything to set it apart without that superiority.

The means that certain people use to talk to other people is really orthogonal to their tendency to fatally neglect themselves and others. New technologies inevitably bring new ways to kill ourselves, and this has never been a satisfactory reasoning for restraining them.

Again, I'm not denying the possibilities here. I'm just saying this is all very vague. Regardless of future projections, we're not yet at that 'value-added' communications stage.

What can I say? I feel that it is perfectly legitimate to criticize overly optomistic (or overly negative) predictions that are very vague. I'm not saying 'You're Wrong', I'm saying that - at least right now - none of us know a damn thing. And that some folks need to stop acting as if they do. Prognostication has never been a profession that was kind to it's practitioners.

Finally, even if I conceded every rosy prediction regarding the future, I'd still be skeptical about games being the medium through which this occurs. Currently, video games are among the most stale, rigid, and unimaginative things being coded (with a handful of exceptions, but then there are seldom absolutes). Google, YouTube, and Facebook have all made far more dramatic contributions to communications in recent years. Whose turn is it next? I don't pretend to know, but I wouldn't bet on games. Not yet anyway.