Was chatting with @jangles on Twitter and decided much of my post-by-post on twitter should be a longer-form article. And this ain't it, but this was easier.
Funny, as you'd of course, know, we at #SecondLife have "owned the term" #metaverse for a long while now.
I'm often struck by the similarity between the current "story" and GK Chesterton's "The Everlasting Man," where the character of The Church keeps coming back with "we've been doing that for ages now..."
I am an expert on absolutely nothing, but I'd be happy to come on FIR and rant outrageously on the ongoing missed bet of #SecondLife. I'm sure @LindenLab wouldn't want me to. Not that they can apparently be bothered. (Heck, you've been on -my- podcast...)
I shall have to skip ahead a bit then, I'm about a year behind on one of my podcatchers, not quite as far on the other, but I follow the FIR podcasts on both. So you and I are publicizing #SecondLife. Where's @LindenLab ? Didn't they used to have @EdelmanPR ??
Stop by and say hi to Grizzly Silversmith sometime you're in the neighborhood. (grin) If they listened to me (they don't), @LindenLab would have you lead their PR efforts.
"Including the community." The community is not virtual (checks) yep, I'm still a real person, all of us are. As for SL being "too fringe," well by definition if it does achieve mainstream adoption it's not "too fringe." And as for that technobump, all of them have one.
Every online service has a "learning curve," a bump to get over to understand it enough to live there. The Wild West was supposed to be the theme, but the Rail Barons made an uglier and more industrial foundation, till it was no longer wild.
Another often forgotten aspect of the Snowcrash Metaverse. SL tried to create the Metaverse and then bring businesses in. In Snowcrash, the businesses created their own connections, -then- everyone else came. Why and how is a good question. Check out M. Darusha Wehm 's series.
Darusha's series creates imagery of a society built around a 3D immersive online reality, true. But the interactions of most are very pragmatic -- it's where you work, and on top of that it's a place to live. And life there can be as intense as anywhere else. Anyway...
So many of the obstacles of the Metaverse have already been faced, and to an extent overcome, well or badly. So many we haven't resolved are dealt with by the VR wannabes with vague waving of hands. Wanna see how AR does and doesn't work? Come to SL.
Wanna see what happens when you open up your society to all comers, nice or not so much? " Ich bin ein Berliner." We've already been there, and we didn't find a great solution, but I suspect neither will They. But we will "pay any price, bear any burden..." We've proved that.
So "I for one welcome our new Metaverse Overlords." Yeah, right. I ran a BBS back in the 1990s, and along came the Web with their so-much-better alternative, which doesn't work near as well, and sometimes not at all. I'm not skeptical, I'm realistic, because I live the reality.
So, yeah, Metaverse guys, bring it on. But don't bring something lesser or something phony. Bring something better, or don't waste my time.
I note that, sure, the VR Metaverse wannabes sometimes might produce a "butterflies and flowers" loving and cozy environment. But that's what you get if the only people who -can-come have to afford an expensive 3D headset. We've got "regular folks." Many are nice, not all are.
If you want a snide comparison, the founders of the US created a noble society "where all men are created equal." In a society where all MEN were also land owners and often slave owners. Easier to be noble when you own someone else who does the work, and they're not included.
Ditto for what the US actually became. Easy to say if you give folks all the truth they'll make wise decisions. But many won't, many will be manipulable, and some of those fooled will be the loudest voices when the news is circulated. And then there's news.
I have a half-assed theory. Human societies always depended on our storytellers to inform us what is normal and righteous in our tribe. In the '60s our storytellers were TV fiction and TV/newspaper news. Now our storytellers are algorhythms, in particular Facebook and YouTube.
But those algorhythms are -not- at all focused on providing with truth, righteousness or what should be. They search for engagement. And getting y'all pissed off is more engaging. So I suspect we're taught our truths are all about being pissed off. Anger and indignation are News.
So my suspicion, my theory if you want to go that far, is that we're being taught our societal truth, our normal, is anger and rage and hate. We may, to save ourselves, need to kill the messenger. We need our storytellers back.
I don't think you can kick off the bad behavers, because the algorhythms are telling them that hate and rage are anger are our social norms. So the behavers aren't going to stop, because they're being told by our Storytellers that -this- is Normal and Right.
The part about convincing Managers to convince employees to support righteous behavior assumes that Our Glorious Leaders at the top actually want employees to actually -have- opinions, rather than wanting them to shut up and not say anything negative about the company.
I saw with my last employers on the one hand create several mechanisms for employee communications -- and then make sure that "regular" employees never say anything they weren't told to say by the Bosses. Communication is both ways, or is non-existent.
I understand why, I don't know I'd do better as a Boss, it's unlikely I would. But if you're unwilling to ask, you can't complain when you don't get answers. And when you get a Potemkin workplace, you get what you asked for, worthless as it is.
And no, I understand exactly why I'm mostly unemployable. Might be another Autistic thing. I will tend to give an honest answer. And I tend to be utterly baffled by less-than-honest questions.
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