The Metaverse and Facebook’s Future of the Internet part 2

it's just it's just total dogshit. Um Everything about this, I don't know, seems like a waking nightmare to be to me so far if we're actually talking about like what they are, what they are immediately trying to because a bunch of this is aspirational nonsense that as we've stayed at this, like you are never going to play a perfect game of basketball in a mix of real and a R courts with your friend in Hong Kong, Like that's never going to happen. Never. That's not how

physics works, that's not how electronics works. Maybe when we find out how to literally hack the human brain, we can like put you into a quasi seizure state that

that that that mimics that. But like the closest, the closest thing we have to this right now is actually uh VR board games is the best is the best example of this, or you can play with you can play Settlers of Catan with your friend, a classic across the Yeah, and there's some cool ship you can do with haptics and haptic feedback is like the basic example of it is when you like touch your phone and your phone like vibrates under your hand to like let

you know that you've you've touched like a command. And there's there's people who think like at some point we would be we may be able to make using haptic feedback, like a virtual keyboard that feels like a real keyboard, that might be possible. That's still that's still like kind of like the idea of a keyboard that isn't there but feels like a real keyboard might be possible. Close

to that, that's still on the fringes of possibility. Like this, the fucking ship they're showing in this video is like nonsense. We will have laser cannons before we have any of this bullshit, Like we will be shooting each other in space before we have this nonsense. Um, And thank god for that because at least that sounds fun. So the actual will center of what they've built in terms of

the products that that Facebook is launching now for the metaverse. UM. The core of it is Horizon Home and Horizon Worlds, and I think Horizon is kind of the brand they're going with for all of their different like meta programs. UM. Horizon Home is the home spaces thing that they discussed earlier, where people can like make their own like houses. And one of the things they don't talk about in this They keep saying like you can build whatever you want,

you can make it look like anything. They don't say a word about how like decorating your digital home is going to be monetized versus how much of it will be sweat equity. And again, like the smart thing would be make it all sweat equity, make it like Minecraft, make people be able to build anything they can conceive of if they're actually creative enough and spend the time. They won't do that um as they talk about in that, Like in the video they played like we're like, oh,

this is a cool world. It was made by a developer, Like, yeah, you're gonna buy the cool ship. Um, I don't. I don't know what You're gonna buy it, and it's gonna suck because all you can do is sit at a table. Yeah, and it's like you can't go into bed, Like you can't, Like all of this stuff is just cosmetic, Like it's you're not gonna be tricked to thinking it's real. I've I've been in some cool VR like three D rooms and like they're cool to look at for like ten minutes. Yeah,

any boring. Yeah, Like it's you're like, oh yeah, it's like the real world, but I can't touch anything. And when they show you the stuff that's closer to real, like the different like people chatting in the metaverse and whatever,

it doesn't look fun. There's a there's a scene where they like show people like watching a YouTube video together in the metaverse, and they're all like these disembodied upper torsos because of course VR sets can't can't read your legs, so it's like a bunch of torsos floating around a maximized YouTube video window. And it's like I would rather

just show a friend my phone. I would even rather text the video, and is being in person with somebody watching on a on a phone or even but even even if without like it's the kind I think that they're expecting that, like everyone's kind of bummed when they send a friend video over signal or text and like wait for them. No, I would rather do that for this ship. I don't want to hang out as a bunch of torsos around a YouTube. We don't want have to schedule of a VR session every time I want

to share a YouTube video. No, that sounds horrible, and it sounds like I would constantly have to be in VR. Like he talks about how we're not trying to expand screen time, but like, am I just waiting around in VR to like show friends? YouTube are really unclear about how often you need to be in a headset, and it's it's kind of suspicious. It's almost like they don't actually plan on doing anything. I want to play another

video that they claim to be a use case. And the way this video starts is like this actual person is in an actual real world concert for some guy I've never heard of that Facebook. I think he's he's some clearly some sort of musician with a following that

Facebook hired to do a concert for this video. And she like calls her friend on the metaverse, and her friend digitally hops into the concert and they're like the digital girl and the real girl are like dancing together at the show, which I don't know whatever, like that is more possib both in the basketball shit, Um, I mean yeah, watching of having a like a VR version of standing in a room where musician plays. Sure, I mean it's not Yeah, yeah, I would debate like whether

or not it's doable. But then after that they see, like during the concert, this like digital thing pops up. That's like, do you want to go to a free after party? Um? And first off, all of these after parties will cost money and they'll all be dogshit. But um, that's the same with most real after parties. So I guess that's that's at least Facebook accurately delivering on the

promise of the real world. Um, but I want to play like what happens in this metaverse after party that these two both hop into digitally after one of them. So like as this starts, the lady who was actually at the concert like sits down at home and gets into the metaverse. Imagine your best friend is at a concert somewhere across the world. Uh, what if you could be there with her? Yeah? Yeah, real, yeah, real and clear? How that works? Yeah, that was the first of the concert.

See the holographic version of how the person see that. Yeah, well that she's dancing. Is everyone wearing VR and seeing the world through VR, because I'll tell you about Like right now, I'm I in our brain put on put on. I put on on Oculus as a joke, and right now I have it on the pass through, which means I can see the real world through my cameras in the oculus And you know what it looks like? Shit, it's black and white. It's super grainy. I can't there

has it has no like exposure range. Everything is like it's it's like you look like you're wearing a sunglasses case in your once look like the world. But like I can't do anything because it all is like a horrible digital like like I can't like it's not really

like again do anything. Aspects of this one Like at some point passed through mode will be in color and the latency will be low enough notice it right like and there won't be late and seeing like yeah, but it'll but it's not gonna be human eyeballa, It'll it'll

still be a thing. So that girl is going to have to be at a concert dancing, getting super sweaty and like she's wearing something even if it's as small as like regular glasses and she's not like better, but what's more to the end, But like, if people are actually gonna a helop this technology, the real way to do it is with a R, not not VR, because with a R, yeah, you could have put on like actual glasses and have like a person show up on the thing and make it look like they're there, well

actually still seeing the real world. That's gonna be the way to do it, Yeah, And I think that's what to do it. Yeah, I think that's what they're like claiming here, But it's really unclear how it's all going to interface, how the a R is going to interface with like the full VR stuff, Like, are we gonna have two separate sets of gear, one for when we're in the real world and we can't be fully immersive and one for when want to dive into the metaverse?

An do we always carry it around wherever we go? Yeah? But I want to play the section. I sorry, I played the video where they were at the concert just because it it looks very silly. I want to play the section where they're at the after party because it's it's dystopian as fux so here's the all all metaverse after party that looks like a bunch of fucking connect avatars standing around and like a room made out of

glowing neon, the digital room. Yeah, nobody's drinking, which is the only good thing to do with an after party that's not cocaine. So from from the jump, I'm like, well, what is the only good thing about an after party is if you want more drugs and all of the drugs places are closed, maybe at the end you can hook up with a digital avatar. Yeah, it's anyway. I'm just I'm just gonna play this dog shit where this is wild? Is it? They're just slowly dancing as a draftman.

Check this out charity action for n f T merchandise party that looks like ship of your favorite song. Yeah it looks dog Yeah. So it's like it's it's a it's a horrible three D chat. And we already have these these already exhast and they're not tons of fun. The only they're fun is when you're in first suits and you're walking around a fake city destroying it. That's the only fun way to do this. And the thing they're showing in this is that like an autographed poster

for the concert. Um is an n f T that you can buy for a charity auction, and like, as they're looking at it, the actual musician walks by and tells them it looks cool, and so they buy it and they have the musician come in for that number one to like try to make this kind of like, yeah, you'll be able to do these digital events where you can meet actual celebrities, which like, no, I'm sure celebrities will agree to do q Q and as in the

multiverse like they do anywhere else. But they're not going to just walk around in some dogshit virtual party because they have money and they can do actual fun things the actual real world. They're gonna be fucking supermodels while skiing down a mountain in Lake Tahoe because they're rich. Um, they're going to be like flying in their private jets or driving in a fucking yacht and eating lobster that's

been tortured so it tastes better because they're rich. Like they're they're not going to be hanging out in a digital lobby telling you that a fucking dogshit poster in f T is cool and that you should buy it. Um, unless you're a millionaire and they want your money because they're Nicolas Cage and they have an addiction to buying Tarannosaurus parts. I don't know, it's it's silly, it's it's ridiculous.

Um Yeah. So one of the things that I thought about when I was watching this is like the concept of metaverse culture. Um. So, like at some point, if this is a thing, there's going to be like like if there ever is a metaverse, people will develop a culture for it, just like they've developed a culture for Twitter, a culture for Reddit, a culture for Facebook, just as they were like internet culture or was fantasy. Yeah, it

had with every community you make online. Um And and that's the thing, Like, there's no I see no space in this thing that Mark Zuckerberg has envisioned as he is presenting it for organic evolution of None of the things that here are gonna make people want to form a culture around it because it's all it looks like it looks like boring yuppie ship, all of it, but none of it is actually looks cool or fun, and none of it, none of it is He's not talking

about any of it with like the there's no there's no openness in it, Like there's no I don't see where a culture could evolve, and if one does, it's going to be directly like in opposition to Facebook moderation, um like yeah, um well yeah, and I mean and there's there's an ex sense to which it's like they can't write because like if you actually let people just like do things, like imagine the griefing that's going to happen in one of these spaces, right Like every person's

avatar is going to be like sixteen thousand dongs like this just as literally this all it's going to be like this, This is this is what Twitch looks like, right Like every twitch chat is a guy posting a hydramate of dongs. Like it's like none of none of this can actually work if you let people do literally anything. But if you don't let people do anything, like why would you're going to want to do it? Yeah? Yeah, like how how are you going to sell them this crap?

Like once upon a time there was a game called Second Life. I guess it still exists, but still we're talking. People talked about it the way they're talking about the metaverse now, and that became just like it was never that, but there was like this beautiful moment where this I think and she Chung was her name. Um, this like culture writer, kind of expert lady was like doing a Q and A and Second Life that was like build as being this like big event for the platform that

was going to like make people take it seriously. And a bunch of like users showed up and made a bunch of floating dicks like float through the room during the interview, so that like while this person was trying to talk seriously about Second Life, just like floating cox resooming past her head the entire time, and it was extremely funny. And it's it's exactly the kind of thing that like, yeah, that's what all of this is going

to look like. Any mass event is going people will find a way to grief it um and that will in fact be the thing they most want to do. Is that will be the actual culture part is fucking with Facebook. Yeah, but you know, but that's the part about that that sucks. It's like, yeah, you know, it's like you're your anniversal reality thing, right, so like okay, what are people going to do in a virtual reality.

It's well, okay, you're gonna get You're gonna get a bunch of neo Nazis like figuring out a way to like show you just like the worst ship you've ever seen in your life. Like it it's gonna it's gonna be all the stuff from the two thousands were like half of the Internet was just like a video. Why this is the thousand tends to like half of Twitter is just heading videos. Said now it's in VR, it's like yeah, yeahs in the metaverse, it's going to be amazing.

Some of that's even already happening in like vir social media apps. I know of a few specific nazis involved in January six who networked and met with people via of specifically VR chat, So like this this is already a thing, um, and making it more broad than like this small, you know, because the VR right now is mostly just a small subsect of like gaming culture right and people are into it because there is VR games that are cool, like like like beat Saber is fun.

Rights yeah, absolutely, Um. In order for them to break this through into the mainstream, they need to make it appealing some way, and the only way they're making appealing

right now is by doing meetings and like concerts. So the next part I want to play doesn't say a lot about the future Marks trying to build, but it's very funny because it's him sitting down with a woman who works in his gaming department and she's walking him through like what games are going to be integrated into the metaverse, And it fucking reads like and I think you should leave sketch like it feels like a sketch where the joke is that everyone is awkward and not

talking the way human beings talk. And in case you can't watch this chunk of the video and it starts at about like nineteen thirty four. Um. In the actual Facebook video, all of the video games they're talking about, like look, Dogship, they look like the Kirkland brand of like popular like fighting games and fps is and stuff. None of them look very good. Um. So I'm gonna

play a clip from this because it's very funny. Can bailed out active communities Beat Saber has a passionate community, so do I and just past million dollars and less I pressed around a creat example in the games releasing fresh content, they've actually been working on involving the way that you inter wrapt with the tracks and feel the music. The way he's nodding in this, like his digital avatar looks more like a person. Well, here's some beats saber. Yeah,

it looks like regular beat saber. Yeah. But it's it's VR, it's our it's already as VR. Yeah, it's already a VR game. You can't wait to play this, and you can already play with incredible artists to release new music packs all the time. You can do that a little more than us have been working more of this metaverse prison Tack Well, oh god, every scene she's talking to him and he's just like Bobblehead nodding just a little bit,

but not like it's he looks. Mark actually will benefit from the metaverse, like outside of a financial thing, because a a sculpted three D representation of him will be a thousand times better. It looks more human than he looks, looks like more of a person. Yeah, it's I mean, it's just like he's scripted it badly and he's a narcissist, so he has to be the one to present it again, am I. Number one? If Steve Jobs were doing this, Number one, he wouldn't because he understood what people wanted

from technology. But if he were doing something like this. He would introduce like little chunks of it, and then he would have a famous person who's charismatic introduced the rest of it, like yeah, that's like you wouldn't be it wouldn't mean introduce how I'm sitting like a bobblehead listening, And he would introduced v R and a R into a way that actually integrats how people use the Internet, alright, because there is ways that there is ways of doing it.

It's not this like super monetized n f T like bullshit holographic fake stuff. Yeah, and there's there's aspects of this, like he goes through after this, like there's a bunch of gaming stuff, which is impossible for the reasons we've

talked about. Then there's aspects of it that seemed cool, Like there's a scene where like an architect gets onto his digital office and like somebody sends him uh schematics to a building they're making, and he's able to generate a three D and walk around the building Like Okay, that actually seems that seems like useful, Like you've developed a use case for the all of the architects out there.

It's it's I'm still not convinced that CAD would actually be better in three D than it would be Like, sure, it's I I think it may someday. I think it could be. Like if you are one of the concreasingly small number of people who can afford to like build a house of your own, I can see why it would be neat to be like, Okay, well let's do a three D render of the house and I can walk through and I could maybe make changes at the

last moment. As I'm kind of experienced, that is definitely useful where a window is like, yeah, I can that. That seems like something number one Technologically you could do that more or less. Now, Um, I don't think it's it's not gonna be as instantaneous as this, but if you give it time to render, it could be done. And it it's something that a number of people might find useful. But again, that's a niche product because like eighteen people in our generation are going homes. I mean yeah.

And also it's it's it's expensive to develop because you would have just modeling an actual real life location is a lot of work. Um. Now, there is there is a lot of a lot of technology that's getting way better at it by machine, um and like basically filming a space and and the computer can reconstruct it pretty accurately. Uh that that that is a growing field, but still it is. It's a very niche, you know area, at

least at a Yeah. So the thing that is so anyway, there's aspects of this that are ridiculous, aspects of this that seem neat. But the longer you watch it, the thing that comes becomes really clear is that all he's really advertising is mass surveillance. Yeah. Yeah, there's a point in this video where they're showing you how they can like map a real world location so you can be in your actual house, put on your VR glasses, um, and it can map the your actual home digitally in

real time. And as you and as you pick up real things in your house, you you see them being picked up in VR and presumably other people in the VR could see it. Which we are not quite there yet. I stay pretty here in VR technology, we're getting close to this, but we're not We're not quite there. I mean we're we're we're actually we actually are where what they show in the video, And I'm gonna play you a second from it because I want to show you

something at least, I mean, like like consumer products. We're not We're not at this point yet. Yeah, and I want to show you, uh where we are because this video they're showing like actual footage. So they have built this thing. But there's a catch, and so I'm just gonna play it right now, right out the researcher. So what's critical here is that this is all happening in real time. So if you I've just paused it, well

you've got here. On one side, there's a woman in a real like house, sitting and picking up like a toy home on her couch. And then on the left you see the VR version of her house, which looks close to photo realistic, and like the house that she's holding in the real world is floating in the same way that she's holding it, like her body isn't there,

like the stuff she's interacting with is. But if you look at the house she's holding, the reason that they're able to do this and it really does work is it's covered in sensors. And and and actually every single thing in the real house is covered in sensors because that's the only way for this to work. Moving is covered

in sensors. Yeah, yeah, and it it is impressive, like as a proof of concept, like this, this is here, we can do this, but like it's still light years away from practical and more to the point, when you look at this, you realize that, like, well, if this is ever going to work, the only way to make it work is for Facebook, through this service, to map your entire home in real time, every hour of day.

And they also go on to talk about like how you're gonna have just your commands and like you'll be able to like make an expression or like a hand gesture and that will do things, which means that like this service isn't just learning what's in your home and what you do with the things in your home. It's it's learning your facial expressions and your gestures and like what they mean and interpreting those at all times. I can kind of explain where oculus which is over Facebook.

I think they're technically renaming oculus spring to just calling it the metic quest. But what wait wait wait, the medical quest that that that's that's what they're calling it instead of instead of oculus um, So where where that right now? Is basically uh, the only kind of real world interactivity that they have for their VR headsets. Again for like the consumer models, I don't know what's in link development. UM is hand tracking. This this is the

thing they've been working on for a long time. Is that you put on the headset and the camera like the cameras and depth sensors built into the headset can see your hands and like you said, you have like gesture controls where you can do certain things in your hand and it will make certain things happen. This is the only interactivity that that we have. It's okay, it's

not perfect, like it's it is. It is better than a lot of the other hand tracking systems from other companies, but like it's it's it is very much a work in progress. UM. And the way to make this work is by is very good depth sensing cameras, which I think Apple makes some of the best ones right now that they put into the iPhone. UH. The other way

of doing this is with lighthouses. So this is like separate UM separate like UH, separate cameras that you set up around the corners of your house that project different like wavelengths of light and they get it received back so they can map your house um, with not just cameras but also like like in like infrared sensors and that kind of thing. So these are these are like the two methods of doing it. Uh. Facebook is really trying to go full on, full on to the everything

is built into the headset thing. So no, so no, like lighthouses, everything is just depth depth sensing cameras. So that's why they're working on hand tracking so much, because that's something you can actually do. But like I can't pick up anything. Um, the only thing I can pick up is my controllers, which because they they have centers built in, they can be rendered in the actual game the same way like my hand can be. So that that that's where they're at. For that for the consumer

products get more than it's getting developed. Again, where they're at, you think about what Facebook has already done with the information you provided, and how so much of their money comes from selling your data. Um, the only way for this to work that they've they've passed are always watching everything every moment of your existence, including like your micro expressions, which is why I keep my oculence in the tiny

little box. And here's the thing. If they were to actually develop the technology which I don't think is impossible, although it's not particularly close. Um, it's not going to be cheap to store all that. So in order to make it outside, well, it's going to be cloud based.

But in order to make it like cloud isn't free, UM subscription probably, I think you'll pay some, but I think in order to make it affordable, um, so that more people are on it, they're just going to sell your data in a way that has never been in a and and the government will have access to it.

Like it is. It's actually like the thing that he is actually proposing here is I want to build a machine god that knows your sins, like that knows when your heart rate is elevated, knows what in your like before you smile, that can predict like when you're about to make a gesture or laugh, because it is so accurately mapped your body and motions. Um, it's actually a nightmare. Like when you really think about what he is trying to build here, and it's like, well, what, what's what

what's the actual use case for this? And it's like, well, okay, so you haven't. You have a bunch of supposed to forces guys, you put them in a VR thing and then you know, you can you can you can you can have them drill on knowing exactly where all the rooms in the houses, where everyone is in, where everyone is in a house any given time. It's like, oh, hey, this this is gonna be great. This is yeah, it's

it's great. Yeah, it's it's really cool. Um, they have a So there is a little bit here briefly about where like Mark talks about how the last year or so has been um fucking uh. The term he uses

is humbling for them. Oh god, yeah, and you you kind of think that, like he's about to say that, like, oh, because we we made life dramatically worse and our service was integral in several ethnic cleansings and a couple of civil wars and like hate crimes on a scale that was unimaginable before it really came into being, or that we thought had been at least we thought had been consigned to a century or so ago before Facebook came

into being. But no, that's not why it's humbling. Why he says it's been humbling is that Facebook has been developing services for other platforms like the App Store, where

they don't have total control, and that sucks. And that's like the thing that that's the that's him admitting a little bit that like a big part of this is they're trying to build a service the entire Internet gets filtered through that they completely control, so that they are never in anyone else's wheelhouse, Like everything is done through Facebook, and with Facebook's approval as opposed to them, they face Facebook.

Facebook is going to become the state. Yeah, and that's the thing that it says so much about Mark that he's like, what's humbling. Isn't all of the mistakes I've made. It's that periodically I have not had total control. Um, it's great. Um. He then from immediately from this says that if we all work at it, all of us, the metaverse can reach a billion people by the next decade um, which is very funny. Um that he thinks

that that's like an enticing fucking thing. So one of the use cases they try to present is they have a beauty influencer who like made like a fucking candle line or something, uh, that she's sold on Instagram and she's she's very successful in Instagram. They bring this lady in and number one on as soon as they started interviewing her. It's it's it's what I was saying about. You have a hire a celebrity to do this, Mark,

You're not charismatic. She's immediately the most engaging person in the entire presentation because she's a successful in like, she's someone who understands how she appears on camera, how to make herself seem likable on camera, how to like interact with the world on a camera. And nobody else in

this video understands that. Um, which is just funny. It's not particularly like say anything other than that, Like, you have professionals do difficult things, Mark, don't don't hire your weird, gawky engineering staff to like be the faces of this thing. They're not good at this, and neither are you. I just want to point out. So he said that, like he can get one billion people the next decade. So

far there's only been sixteen million Vier headsets sold. Ever, Yeah, so getting that to the point of a billion seems like quite quite the challenge. I mean, it is a challenge, but you could look at like how quickly smartphones went from Yeah, except smartphones were useful in improving the world in very obvious ways, whereas the metaverse and even be our in general doesn't improve the world for most people

in obvious ways. Yeah, but that that's kind of what I'm saying, is that, like, the thing that is stupid and doomed about this isn't like, oh, you would have to sell so many headsets. If it was legitimately something every single person wanted on their head, they would sell a billion. They would sell a billion in a couple

of years, you know. Um, but they haven't made that look like like so this this beauty influencer thing is an example of them trying to like explain, here's something that people will find cool about the metaverse, um, and the way they do it is like talking about how you can have a digital storefront where like people can't

just buy products, but they can interact with you. Um. She talks about how it will be good for letting her interact with their fans, but like bringing them into my home, which sounds like a fucking we love our fans, but like, no, I do not want anyone from anybody goddamn home. I barely want my friends in my home

half the time, like absolutely not. Um, they didn't present us with a use case of how a brand in this case, this candle company this lady made that's big on Instagram could release like a new candle flavor and launch a digital experience with it, so you can buy both real and digital products. It's kind of unclear in the video whether or not you're paying for the digital experience or is it like free when you buy the

candle um. Yeah, it's like I think games is like developing is like, you know, dropping products at the same time in the real world in the digital world, but like the digital version is free because it's like because it's like an ad, right, you could try something out virtually before you buy it physically. And that's what like Epic Games is doing. And honestly, I think epics version of the Metavors is slightly more hinged. They understand more

what people actually want. Yeah, because like all the stuff they're trying with Fortnite again, it doesn't seem fun for me, but at least it's like an extension of how people use the Internet already, whereas Facebook's is not that. Yeah,

and and Mark never really understood what people wanted. He accidentally did basically make something else like he wanted a place to share pictures of ladies he thought was hot, and he accidentally built a thing that like gave people something they did one, which was a way to stay in contact with their friends from high school in college as they grew older. Right, Like that was the thing about Facebook that made it get huge originally. Um, and

he hasn't learned anything since he's just been smart. He's he's hired people who are smart enough to be like, hey, Instagram is probably gonna be a big deal by that, you know, um like that that, But I haven't seen anything that's made me think like Mark gets what people want, and this has just made it clear that like he

absolutely doesn't. So I want to play this video of like this is the digital experience to go with this fucking candle that they're they're framing is like a piece of art that everybody's gonna want to interact with who likes candles. It's it's incredible because it again feels like a nightmare. I am. I am a big candle fan. So same here what I fly effect to transports us something to magic. It's like a shitty arboretum. I don't do what what that has to do with candle's It's

Jackie as we walk through this amazing world. I just feel like this is like endless possibilities of my imaginations. I can't even begin to imagine. But I don't understand

what has that to do with candles? Yeah, like they have again, like there's I can walk around, Like why can't we can to imagine all the things people are going to I can walk around digital spaces and like quest it's again, it's fun for like thirty seconds, and then you see everything and you're like, well, I can't touch it or smell it or actually feel it or do anything. So I'm gonna go back and have a soda and yeah play and like read a book or

something like that. And they've brought in this influencer who like used one of their other services in a way they hadn't initially intended and was successful in that, which is not a bad idea in its surface, Like, yeah, bring in creative people and let them play around and make something new to show people how exciting this is. Right, that's the smart thing to do. But all they've presented

is like, look, it's a tiny little weird arboretum. You can walk around and after buying a candle and like, well, I like candles, but that's not fun. That doesn't sound like a part of the metaverse is like making like interactivity more like being able to interact with with digital things,

and like that's not interacting. That's just walking around like unless I can like take of like a bazooka and blow up our like the candle, you know, like that's like you have to do something like all of the VR games that are fun, like like like like like a super Hot or something like something. It's about, you know, picking up objects in VR and throwing them at people.

That's fun and you like also unless I can pick up this candle and it's all people with it in the game, I don't see what really the dry like, what's what's exciting about this? You were saying something, Chris, Oh, I guess you know. The thing I keep coming back to with this is it the only way this and this literally any of this makes any sense if it's just like a chip in your brain just because all

of it, all of it is built around that. But it's but it's not like it can't be like we don't the technology for that won't exist for like ages and so there it's like it's it's like they're they're selling some of it definitely is headset based, like that arboretum thing, but a lot of it. But even yeah, but like i mean I think even that right, like okay, so why would you want like yeah, you're if you're saying, like why would you It's like, okay, it's interesting for

like ten minutes, right, yeah. The only way that would be like, the only way that would be an actually interesting experience is if you could get all the full century experience you can smell and feel, yeah, right, and that that's that's that's like, that's that's the thing where something only makes sense if it's like a brain ship. Well, I mean there's there's two versions. There's one it's a

brain ship, or two it's a video game. And Epic Games is doing the thing where it's a video game and that's slightly more y. Yeah yeah, but like they don't you know, but they're they're trying to sell, like and I think part of what's going on here is also just like this is this is designed to like like this is designed to like trick Silicon Valley investors.

That is like yeah, and those people I think are just gonna be like, oh well, we'll have brain ships eventually, and so we'll just we'll talk about probably talk about that part more at the end, because yeah, this is just a scam. This is just a scam, and it is like again to talk about like the dystopian aspects

of this, Chris, as you brought up. One of the aspects is that like it's a complete panopticon of perfect surveillance if they actually make this thing, and number two is the only way to do most of what they're talking about that's cool is to give Mark Zuckerberg physical control over human being's brain chemistry on a global scale, which I think it is a bad I'm not going to sign up for that for that. I don't I don't want to walk around in a weird candle room

that badly. Like to your point, Chris about like how

it's you know, there's no sensory stuff. Is like like the most popular VR games, the reason why they work so well, there's why that they don't, like Break the Uncanny Valley is because you're in like a barren land, like you know, the Saber, You're not in a place you know, you're in the in the game interface for like for Super Hot you're in like whitewashed, abstract like concrete spaces, right, so like there's nothing, there is nothing to smell or feels like you don't feel like you're

missing anything because you're in a very like stripped down version of reality. There is. It's a really good of yr game. I forget what it's called, but it's it's based on like an office and you're like fighting robots to break out of like this capitalist office room. And it's cool because like, yeah, it's miserable because it's like it's like an office space. You feel like you're in an office because it's nothing about it's exciting right there.

Games that are in like lush worlds they feel so much more like disconnected because you have like a weird like you have you have like you have like an uncanny valley thing, but instead of like a face or a person, it's like an environment. We're running a long time.

I want to move to something that I think is important here, which is there is one moment in this video where they try to address the fact that they've done a tremendous amount of damage to the world and they have repeatedly failed to like uh, anticipate dangers that their services have, so they need to like deal with that at some point. And this is like, well, what about if, like what about bad things that could happen?

What if like what about like unintended things? What about like ways in which this could be harmful to society that you haven't foreseen. So, because they're not completely stupid, in order to address that, they bring on a well dressed or not well dressed, but they bring on like a friendly British man who kind of kind of reads as like a like a scientific kind of expert guy. They bring on a charming British person to like talk about how they're going to not not destroy the world.

And this is very telling so far. It's it's such visionary stuff. But as you mentioned early on, with all big technological advances, there are inever to be going to be in all sorts of challenges and uncertainties. And I know you've talked about this a bit already, but people want to know how we're going to do all this in a responsible way, and especially that we play our part in helping to keep people safe and protect their

privacy online. Yeah, that's right. This is incredibly important. The way I look at it, is that in the past, the speed that new technologies emerged sometimes left policy makers and regulators playing catch up. So on the one hand, companies get accused of charging ahead too quickly, and on the other tech people feel that progress can't afford to

wait for the slower pace of regulation. And I really think that it doesn't have to be the case this time around, because we have years until the metaverse we envision is fully realized. So this is the start of the journey, not the end. So that's telling uh that he's like, we don't need to worry about like we

don't need it. Like it'll be it'll get regulated properly, it'll be safe enough because it's going to take so long to figure all this out that surely we will anticipate and deal with all of the potentially toxic side effects of this technology ahead of time. Um. And if you believe that, I would say, take a look at

Facebook's track record with that kind of thing. Um. But they are smart and having a charming British man do it, that's the right guy to have in the only aspect of good casting in this that is the right guy to have come on and try to allay people's fears that this will destroy society. You bring you bring a charming British man in, you know, that's how you do that kind of thing. Um, that's when I get canceled for the things I've been doing overseas. Um, I'm going

to hire a British person to defend myself. Do they make any more comments about like a R glasses or VR quite a few. I wanted to move on to that. Um even though yeah, we're so um they talk about they have a whole section where they're they're talking about the actual glasses they have. So they announced the number one.

They have a project. The goal, as he repeatedly says, is to make a quote normal, good looking pair of glasses that do all this stuff, which is um and he he does in order as like approve of concept, he shows us these a R ray bands that actually look legitimately rad They look like normal at least the

privn't touched a pair of these in my hands. But the the the videos that are supposed to be these real products show a pair of what looked like normal ray bands that you can take pictures and videos with, You can answer phone calls on, you can do like video phone calls on the actually that they seem neat and like they look like normal glasses. Um, and that

is pretty cool. Um. They go kind of pivot from that to announcing that like they have this new thing, project nizar um which I looked up what nazarre means a little bit ago. It's probably dystopian. Uh no, I think it was just yeah, uh, it's a town or it's a surf spot, right, it's a place and I think Portugal where there's like great waves and Mark Zuckerberg is really into surfing. He plays a surfing game at one point in this That is one of the most

um embarrassing things. Embarrassing thing because I've seen in my entire fucking life. Um. But yeah, so Project nazar is that they're supposed to be like the first true like VR glasses. So they do the good thing, which is like here's the real technology, these ray bands and look, these are pretty neat. Obviously that doesn't come close to

what they're promising. Um. And this whole thing where they talk about what the glasses, which they say they're making good progress on, are going to do, we don't ever see any fucking glasses. Um. Yeah. And and that's because they're not really close uh to to working yet. That's the air glasses are gonna be the way to act.

Like if the goal is to integrate digital spaces into the physical space, I think I think it's a good goal because what that's gonna do, that's gonna make the digital space less fake, right, It's injecting that into the actual real world. So I think that will actually really help with like dis associate of stuff is because it's actually in it's actually in the real world as well. I think that's gonna be wonderful when that gets developed.

And I think the glasses are are definitely going to be a thing within the next ten to twenty years. There is ways of like illuminating glass on the side to make like like what it looks like an image. This is definitely gonna be a thing that's going to be possible. Like surveillance and privacy is like the big big fears for that because we're nowhere close to hacking the brain enough to feel sensations and like the only thing I've played a lot of VR, the only thing

that you can feel in VR is fear. That's the only thing that VR is capable of replicating as as a feeling. It's like, you can feel terrified and VR that's that's, that's it. You can't never look like there's one thing you can feel exhausted game. And I was doing like bow draws for like four hours, and I was like, we've we've developed the way to make you frightened and tired. That is, which is all, by the way, what Twitter does normally. It's true, all of like all

of like the Resident Evil VR games. Yeah, they're gonna making you tired and terrified, and that's kind of it. So we we have to close out. But I want to do that by playing Mark Zuckerberg lamenting the Internet that he played a major role in in building as a way to talk about why we need a metaverse, because it's kind of funny because we're allowed to build and use are more tightly controlled than ever, and high taxes on creative new ideas are stifling. This is not

the way that we were met to use technology. The metaverse gives us an opportunity, but it's gonna take all of us creators, develop oper's companies of all sizes together. We can finally put people at the center of our technology and deliver an experience where we are present with each other. Yeah, what what a Google? Like? All of that's nonsense. Everyone, You're not You're one of the people who has turned the Internet into an expensive walled garden.

It didn't used to be this way. Then Facebook swooped in made themselves for free um like integral to all content, and then started charging those content creators and like sucking them around and lying to them, which led to the destruction of a huge number of websites and a tremendous amount of digital culture. Like your Wyatt feels like a dead waled garden, and everything you've presented in this video

makes the metaverse feel like a dead waled garden. But I want to play his last lines in the in this video because this is him kind of summing up his vision for the future via the metaverse. And now it is time to take everything that we've learned and help build the next chapter. I am dedicating our energy to this than any other company in the world. And if this is the future that you want to see, then I hope that you will join us, because the future is going to be beyond anything we can imagine.

I agree with that part Mark the future is going to be beyond what you can imagine. What a gool, yeah, because you have no im It's just it's just using trendy tech terms to trick investors into giving them billions

of dollars. That's like the right, that's that's all it is because all of this, like this like haptic feedback replicating like human feelings and stuff, that we're nowhere close to that, and when we do, it's going to be a dystopian but we're not close to it, and it's going to be dystopian or it's going to be better in ways that like we can't yet conceive of um and then eventually it will be destroyed for profit if it actually gets cool like the old Internet was. Yeah,

it's yeah, it's it's yeah. But I think but both this and even a lot like a lot of the epic stuff just seems Ah, it's just the new way that tech companies. That's where they think the money vault is is by using these terms, and they think using these terms is going to get them lots of extra investor money because the actual technology is nowhere really close to this that it's not what people wanted out of the Internet. Anyway, it absolutely is not. But I don't know,

I think this was important. I think Facebook is important and has a major impact on the way the Internet is continuing to evolve. Um, usually in negative ways. But this is how these people who are doing a lot of damage view the future. So you should know what

they're looking at and what they anticipate. But I think I think that there's a kind of optimistic note to this though, right, was just like, Okay, so we've we've reached the point where like even like Boris Johnson is going like, oh god, climate change is coming, right, and this is the best they've got, right they have they have nothing, They have nothing, And you know what, I think, like, what are the only ways we can win is if we're facing a uniquely incompetent ruling class, and if it's

if the rule, if the if the guy were, if a guy we have to deal with in order to like not drown every single whale and like have half of the world's city is consumed, but the ocean is Mark Zuckerberg like, we got a shot some smarter people that are yeah that this is not mind the scenes, right, Like yeah, um, but I I don't think I think That's a nice note to end on because it is it is worth The nice thing about this is how clearly they don't understand what the future is going to

look like online. Um, they have ways in which they're trying to direct the future, and aspects of that will come true, like the VR will succeed in some form at some point and it will be potentially an unprecedented surveillance breakthrough that has some unsettling implications and better steps getting developed a lot of other stuff. I think the move by Twitter to create like this, like it's called like like Twitter Space where it's like this like you know,

basically like voice chat room. Like a lot of people are moving towards this concept where we try to like inject more like in person interactivity into this virtual framework, right. Which how this with like with like a clubhouse last year during during the pandemic where people like watching like Netflix in the quote same room, right, Like, We're seeing people try to do this with varying mixed success. But

this is the way tech is is inching. So it is a good idea to keep your eye on it because it has a lot of implications for like clevacy and advertising and all that kind of stuff. We'll continue to cover aspects of this, talk about the technology, talk about the surveillance implications, talk about the visions these people have. But I think this has been these episodes have been useful and like, here's what Mark thinks is coming, Here's what Facebook is pouring, like ten billion dollars into it's

dumbest shit. Have a nice day. It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or where you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It could Happen here, updated monthly at cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.