It occurred to me that I have opinions on Metaverse and I don't actually have much concrete information about it. The handful of screenshots I've seen look curiously similar to Second Life, so I decided to do a look around Youtube and had a really hard time finding any footage that wasn't snide and snarky commentary or naive news stories that conflate footage of Roblox with Metaverse. I read articles about it but somehow the actual thing itself feels like an imaginary bogeyman that exists purely for internet personalities to dunk on.
What I'm asking is does anyone have a decent unbiased video overview of the platform? Something that shows off its best side? I'd like to be able to see it as more than just a re-launch of Second Life.
I really like the author's sentiment, but for an article published in 2022 it seems to not really consider the last twenty years or so. Their references to a better, less exploitative internet seem to exist in a 2000-bubble. Today, videogames are right smack dab in the middle of what he perceives as the big grift, and I'm sure books would be too if only publishers had an easy to implement model for doing so.
I'd be more interested if the author gave clear examples of where this works in today's internet, because saying you are part of the Geocities or Neopets forums side of the internet is like the old man yelling on his lawn lamenting how much better things were when he was young.
He did write a sequel of sorts to Generation X called Generation A in 2009. I haven't read it so I can't comment on it, though I suspect it is already 'of it's time' in the way that, say, Microserfs is. It's a fun novel to be sure, for something that emanates a huge "now-ness circa 1994" it's still very enjoyable today, but maybe that's because I can vaguely remember life back then. I'd wonder what a younger reader might think about it?
I've been reading Douglas Copeland's 1994 novel "Microserfs" recently and there's a bit where the main character starts reading up on actual highway construction in response to the information superhighway.
When a movie has a love story that doesn't involve a love-triangle or infidelity I breath a palpable sigh of relief. Realistic or not, does all romance have to involve competition or deception?
Same. Could it be that maybe seeing 'impossible' shapes colliding and passing through each other is common these days, so the brain won't automatically register as "bouncing back an forth"?
I feel like clicking the link and getting hit immediately with four tiers of subscription option from the Financial Times was a strong enough case in point that I scarcely needed to read the article itself.
Replacement could imply more than habitual use of substances. I've found the hardest part of not drinking to be the loss of the sociable activities I engage with while drinking. I've certainly used marijuana as an "intermediary" between drinking and not drinking as it seemed like a way to engage with inebriation without drinking and later would stop using marijuana when I realized I was enjoying my activities more or less the same with or without its use.
What I'm asking is does anyone have a decent unbiased video overview of the platform? Something that shows off its best side? I'd like to be able to see it as more than just a re-launch of Second Life.