Monday Throwback: In 2012, we found that many academics enjoyed virtual experiences more than in-person experiences. By 2014, VR leaders were trying to put this into practice.

"We are not ready for a time when people prefer virtual experiences over real ones." A classic post from 2012 citing an important study that had just been published.

An article co-authored last year by leading virtual world scholar Edward Castronova (it) suggests that people get more happiness from being in Second Life than from hearing good news in real life. That is, as he wrote on his blog: "Second Life provides life satisfaction that is as great as the ‘big factors’ found by previous researchers on life satisfaction, such as health, employment, and family relationships."

Reminds me of a scene from matrix (See video above) Cypher, a man who enjoys eating virtual steak even when he doesn’t have it, decides to betray his real-life friends in exchange for a more luxurious virtual life. Agent Smith, the AI ​​representative, promises to make this happen.

"I think few MMO/virtual world players make choices as harshly and seriously as Cypher." When I observed it at that time, "But at the same time, we are already familiar with many people who sacrifice aspects of their real lives for a virtual one. That means skipping jobs and chores and ignoring friends and loved ones, so some of us can spend a little more time socializing. Or a game in a strictly non-existent 3D digital environment."

I’d argue that’s the wrong choice. Because we can often strengthen real-life friendships in virtual worlds, or, just as importantly, form new friendships that transcend distance, country of origin, and other contingencies of birth. And the Metaverse platform allows many of us to earn some or most of our real-world income through virtual world content.

But in retrospect, many in the virtual world/virtual reality industry have been willing to take on the role of Agent Smith, offering to appease the world’s poor by giving them a better virtual life. I wrote this in my book:

In 2014, shortly after Meta announced its $2 billion acquisition of virtual reality company Oculus VR, the company’s very young founder, Palmer Luckey, appeared on stage at a Silicon Valley conference on VR and the creation of the Metaverse. Someone in the audience asked Luckey why he spoke of a “moral imperative” to make virtual reality available to the public.

"This is one of those crazy person topics." Luckey began by saying: “But the bottom line is this: Everyone wants a happy life, but it would be impossible to give everyone everything they want." 

Instead, he said, developers can now create virtual versions of real-world experiences just for the wealthy.

In fact, the first person to talk about a “moral imperative” to develop a metaverse was John Carmack, all the way back in 1999. The term does not allude to Kant, but as Carmack once told me in an email, it is a line from the ’80s. movie a real genius. (“So don’t take it too seriously.”)

But he is quite serious about the moral part.

“There is no technical reason why VR headsets should be significantly more expensive than mobile phones,” he said. “This is a device that almost everyone in the world can imagine owning. This means that some of the desirable experiences of the wealthy can be synthesized and replicated for a much wider range of people, which is a reasonable characterization of the positive aspects of technological civilization.”

I tend to think that a future where billions of the world’s poorest people are queuing to get into internet cafes in foggy, sun-baked metropolises so they can enjoy a moment of virtual beach on a tropical island in the metaverse seems pretty dystopian. There is this. However, many people creating VR and metaverse platforms will vehemently disagree with me.

Among the pioneers of the virtual reality/metaverse business, Carmack and Luckey aren’t the only ones who truly believe their technology is the right pacifier for the underprivileged.

When VR pioneer Jaron Lanier was asked his thoughts on Palmer Luckey’s vision of a virtual utopia, he once said, “In a sense, some of the things he’s saying are benign in relation to what my friends in Silicon Valley are saying.” poor. “We often hear that the rich and successful will become immortal, while everyone else will acquire a virtual reality. And that’s a really evil thing that can lead to a violent response.”

Fortunately, VR’s appeal has proven to be limited, so so are the seductive powers of would-be Agent Smith. until now.