#VR – will it need safety standards?

The following quote describes the [current] experience of VR [virtual reality]:

‘“The gap between ‘things that happen to my character’ and ‘things that happen to me’ is bridged,” Stephan said. This distinction can transform an experience from merely flinch-inducing to sincerely frightening. “The way I process these scares is not through the eyes of a person using their critical media-viewing faculty but through the eyes of I, the self, with all of the very human, systems-level, subconscious voodoo that comes along with that.”’

Given how immersive even normal gaming can be, I do not find this phenomenon all that surprising. What I do find surprising is the genuine note of warning sounded in the article. You can find the entire story here:

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-coming-horror-of-virtual-reality

[and thanks to the Passive Guy for pointing the way]

Back to VR. As a gamer, I’ve been thinking about the consequences of addiction for a long time, and in Emmi’s story [in The Vintage Egg], one of the ideas I toss out there is that in the future, legislation will stop gamers from ‘playing’ for longer than a few hours. For their own good.

Will society really impose restrictions on the use of VR and AR [Augmented Reality]?

-shrug- Who knows, but it is gratifying to find that someone else is also thinking beyond the ‘oh goody, a new, supa doopa toy’ to the possible consequences of using that toy. I suspect that we will have to have deaths before the technology is regulated, which is a sobering thought. One thing I am certain about, however, is that next five to ten years will deliver a world-wide, totally voluntary [and probably expensive] social experiment on disruptive technology. 😀

We live in interesting times, neh?

Meeks

 

John Farnham and The Voice

I wasn’t going to do a post today, but when I saw this video clip on David Prosser’s blog I couldn’t resist sharing it:

For those who have never heard of John Farnham, you can find his Wiki entry here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Farnham

This particular song is from the album Whispering Jack and catapulted Farnham to the top of the charts for something like half a year. I bought it. Everyone I know bought it, and we listened to it until we knew all the tracks by heart. Why? Because it was and is an incredible song. But there was more to it than that. The Voice said something about what we believed in and who we were as a nation.

Things seem to have gone downhill since then as we now ‘sit in silence’ and watch our duly elected government ignore compassion, justice and the hope of the future in favour of…?

To be honest I have no idea what the Abbott government is in favour of. Before the election the buzz words were looking after ‘Australian families’ and ‘balancing the budget’ but they don’t seem to have done either of those things. Instead, they have managed to trash our reputation internationally while drumming up hysteria and hate towards just about every segment of our society. Oh and the economy? That’s going downhill as well.

-cough- Apologies. The Voice reminded me of who we used to be. The contrast with today is not pleasant. Now we seem to be afraid of everything – afraid of ‘boat people’, afraid of Muslims, afraid of gays, the list goes on and on.

We would do well to remember Frank Herbert’s Litany Against Fear :

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

I hope we aussies become that nation of fair-minded, egalitarian, anti-authoritarian, big-hearted, larrikins again. One day.

cheers

Meeks