Facebook Metaverse

[ahalpert]

VR gaming is actually more physically demanding than watching TV or playing 2d games. I can't do it for more than an hour or two. But, I was speaking in relative terms. Social media interaction in VR will be more humanizing than what it currently is, mostly faceless people vomiting vitriol on each other without any emotional consequence. I play this VR game Star Wars Squadrons, which in multiplayer mode you play in squads of five against other teams and communicate with each other over comms. While the novelty of the game has long worn off, I keep coming back to play because of the camaraderie and social interaction with the people I've met on there. The amount of toxicity drops when people are actually talking to each other.

I see what you're saying. Perhaps the positive benefit will depend on if it replaces time spent on other social media with less emotional feedback or if it replaces time spent in the real world. My fear is that more immersive technology will lead people to spend even less time unplugged and offline.

I'm also not certain that the emotional dynamics that underpin social media will change. The goals of Facebook remain the same: get people to spend as much time on the service as possible. So, they'll still want it to be as addictive as possible. And triggering strong, especially negative, emotions is a great way to foster engagement.

And it will still be possible to form echo chambers where you can say all the nasty things you want and your targets aren't present to show you their hurt feelings and evoke your sympathy. Maybe in 10 years the American Nazi party will gain seats in Congress and we'll be lamenting how Meta led us down this path because the Nazis threw the best virtual luaus and indoctrinated our youth

 

[J Michael]

This might provide a little more insight https://voicesofvr.com/parisis-metaverse-manifesto-unpacking-his-seven-rules-for-the-metaverse/

 

[Batutta]

And it will still be possible to form echo chambers where you can say all the nasty things you want and your targets aren't present to show you their hurt feelings and evoke your sympathy.

This happens to a certain extent in apps like VR Chat, which is basically already what Zuckerberg wants to do. Some people get on there just to be nasty...but...it's different when you actually hear their voice. For one, they are mostly kids and teenagers which you can tell right away. You can hear their immaturity and realize they aren't worth engaging with. Two, it's way less tolerable, so people like that get muted very quickly.

 

[ahalpert]

This happens to a certain extent in apps like VR Chat, which is basically already what Zuckerberg wants to do. Some people get on there just to be nasty...but...it's different when you actually hear their voice. For one, they are mostly kids and teenagers which you can tell right away. You can hear their immaturity and realize they aren't worth engaging with. Two, it's way less tolerable, so people like that get muted very quickly.

It sounds like the key ingredient is oral communication rather than VR. That's sort of what people say about Clubhouse: that it offers more ways to interact and receive social feedback.

Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape Navigator and investor in Clubhouse, had this to say about textual vs oral communication in an interview:

Andreessen: This is a very old and very important debate that traces back to classical Greece. Socrates himself was famously on the other side of your position, an Oral Supremacist versus your Text Supremacist. Socrates argued that text is markedly inferior to oral information conveyance, precisely because text can't interact, it can't talk back. He predicted that a future of text would stultify cultural development and the transmission of virtue, to which [waves hands and points in all directions].

Later, media theorist Walter Ong articulated the profound differences between Textual (Literate) and Oral cultures. Textual cultures are abstract, analytical, mathematical, clinical, universalist. Oral cultures are grounded, intuitive, emotional, interpersonal, group oriented. I think this maps to what Vilfredo Pareto and James Burnham described as "combinations" and "group-persistences", which also maps to what we know today as libs and cons. Yes, I just called you a lib. Sorry. And then anthropolgist Joseph Henrich in his ultra-important new book "The WEIRDest People In The World" shows how growing up in a Textual culture literally changes your brain's physical structure; your brain reallocates processing power normally devoted to analyzing faces to processing text. Which explains a LOT.

Today we live in a hybrid world, part Textual, part Oral. As Ong and Henrich describes, this certainly applies between different cultures -- some much more Textual, some much more Oral. But I think this also applies within each culture, including our own. The Internet extensively enables both Textuality and Orality -- a fountain of writing alongside a fountain of audio and video. But also, you have a medium like Twitter, which Antonio Garcia-Martinez argues is actually Oral masquerading as Textual -- on Twitter, you think you're reading and writing text, but you're actually absorbing and spitting Oral fire.

So what role does Clubhouse play? I think Clubhouse is quite literally Socrates' Athenian Agora; it's Oral Culture implemented online in its full glory, for the first time. We should expect it to exhibit all of the virtues and pathologies of Oral Culture for sure -- but since we have lived mainly in a Textual culture for the last 300 years, Clubhouse is a timely and important nudge back to the middle.

But interestingly, Clubhouse, at least so far, is *nicer* than Twitter -- conversations on politically loaded topics that would instantly collapse into all out warfare on Twitter can sustain for many hours on Clubhouse, tense but not explosive. Why is that? Draw a two by two grid, with "Active and Passive" on one axis and "Approve and Disapprove" on the other. Twitter has three of the four boxes filled: Retweets are Active Approval, Likes are Passive Approval, Quote-Retweets are Active Disapproval (dunking). But Twitter is missing Passive Disapproval -- in person you can Passively Disapprove with a glance, a sound, a motion, but there's no equivalent mechanism on Twitter. But on Clubhouse you have several ways to Passively Disapprove -- you can vocalize a sound or go silent, you can leave the stage, and you can leave the room. The reputationally-homicidal battle arena of Twitter has its place, but there should also be a setting to talk about important topics without getting an RPG up your virtual tailpipe, and hopefully Clubhouse is it.

https://niccolo.substack.com/p/the-d...arc-andreessen

But re: identifying teenagers by their voice, won't they just be able to make themselves sound like Darth Vader? What of the much-vaunted self-disguise options that Meta et al offer?

 

[Batutta]

It sounds like the key ingredient is oral communication rather than VR. That's sort of what people say about Clubhouse: that it offers more ways to interact and receive social feedback.

Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape Navigator and investor in Clubhouse, had this to say about textual vs oral communication in an interview:



https://niccolo.substack.com/p/the-d...arc-andreessen

But re: identifying teenagers by their voice, won't they just be able to make themselves sound like Darth Vader? What of the much-vaunted self-disguise options that Meta et al offer?

You can pick up on other cues, even when someone changes their voice. You can’t conceal immaturity and ignorance. I’m not advocating for Zuck’s meta verse, just trying to elucidate what his end game is. Obviously it’s the collection of personal data first and foremost but I think the poor public perception of Facebook and him probably hurts him on some level and he sees this as a way to rectify the problems endemic to his social media platforms. Social media at the end of the days is a way for people to connect with each other remotely, and the current platforms are just a transitional phase to something more fully dimensional and robust.