Is Reality Obsolete?

[@WisecrackEDU]

Check out guard.io/wisecrack for a 7 day trial and 20% off your subscription + the ability to protect 5 family members from hackers and scammers!

[@ArtamisBot]

I put USB cables in all my holes... cuz I'm a computer 🖥️ Hey, you asked...

[@maa3563]

0:42 what is that?

[@robertvierra4500]

oh my god i dont give a shit about this channel anymore its so boring now

[@robertvierra4500]

wheres Helen i miss Helen

[@WisecrackEDU]

@@robertvierra4500 She's off making and doing very cool things but she'll be back soon we hope!

[@chrisgenovese8188]

Michaels long-lost dad here: he IS doing a good job, and i DO love him. way to go, Mikey!

[@zackmnr19]

Yeah, Michael. We are all proud for you.

[@SaskatchewanICE]

How’s Mike’s mom doing?

[@LuisSierra42]

wholesome

[@chrisgenovese8188]

@@SaskatchewanICE she's really into knitting right now. there are skeins of yarn everywhere, and i keep sitting on knitting needles. and dont get me started on the sweaters she keeps making.

[@SaskatchewanICE]

@@chrisgenovese8188 she sounds like a handsome woman 👌

[@rhondawest6838]

I tried plugging a USB cable into myself, but it wouldn't go in. So I flipped it over and tried it that way and it still wouldn't go. Then I asked myself "am I the power supply, or am I the device?" and suffered an existential crisis

[@WisecrackEDU]

If there were such thing as "comment awards", this would be the current winner. Well done.

[@rhondawest6838]

@@WisecrackEDU I am honored

[@captchasuck]

You are either the charger, the battery or the product these days.

[@randomcdude4430]

I assumed I was the device on account of how many times I have been called a tool. Thus I only got a tingle and a runny nose after I plugged the other end into the wall.

[@nitrosherbert888]

@@WisecrackEDU Do you mean the pin comment?

[@deadcard13]

I just learned this morning that two Tech banks defaulted over the weekend. I spent the entire weekend holed up playing Metroid and woke up to be surprised by another sudden recession. I think I would blue pill and enjoy my steak. And plugging the USB into ass went how you'd think: I had to flip it twice before it'd insert.

[@Combaticus]

Best USB 2.0 to ASS joke. The compatibility!

[@IrocZIV]

When I first saw the Matrix, I 100% would have chosen the real world. Now I would be asking a lot more questions about what the virtual world would be.

[@GBart]

Never thought that would be the case but me too

[@atomicgator5207]

Lol! I was thinking the same thing.

[@LuisSierra42]

I want to live in a simulation where i can have a cute anime gf

[@fireaza]

It's pretty sweet, we finally got a _Half-Life_ game, and it's even better than _Half-Life 2!_

[@joshuaafromagic946]

The virtual world has steak and… really good noodles!

[@jameslongstaff2762]

In my opinion, I think the fact people want to watch dystopian movies, read sad books, and study philosophy are evidence enough that at least some people prefer reality over virtual reality. Seeking after upsetting material is counterintuitive to someone who just wants a nice and comfortable time.

[@deep_fried_analysis]

There are a loooot of "bluepills" out there though, who just want a care-free life of happy mindless consumption. They are the main source of what that keeps these parasitic, exploitative capitalist systems in place. I think if those that you describe was a majority, then things would have been a bit different by now.

[@JB52520]

I seek the uncomfortable to find the satisfaction of understanding or considering something new, and just for the experience. That doesn't mean I enjoy having disabilities and knowing I'm going to die in less than 50 years, getting dumber, more tormented, poorer, and more terrified the entire time. Given the prospect of creating new realities in perfect health with enhanced intelligence, I'll take that. A nice and comfortable unlimited time of meaningful challenges and growth as a perfect human and beyond.

[@bootywarrior69420]

I can agree to that but for me i've watched enough doomer wojak type videos and that made me lean hard on reality over virtual reality. And not just those videos but other videos as well. Its more like you will look like this if your online, VR or whatever for long amount if time v.s. you will look like this if you go for goals and dreams in your life.

[@lebaronmarcus]

People think escaping reality is a recent invention, but it really isn't. That's what alcohol and other mind-altering drugs are all about

[@ElBobDestroyer]

So many of the questions asked in this video are already answered just by observing addiction.

[@MaryJosephrobi]

Don't forget religion

[@lebaronmarcus]

@@MaryJosephrobi Religion isn't the same thing: when a religious person listens to stories about angels or demiurges or whatever, they aren't trying to escape reality, they believe that those creatures are real and they listen to those stories to better understand the universe. To somebody outside that religion it might seem like a fantastical story that's equivalent to a superhero movie or an acid trip, but the religious person doesn't see it that way

[@blacklightredlight2945]

@@lebaronmarcus You just described escapism, treating X as real to escape Y being real. You read a book and get lost in the pages for a moment, to avoid your parents fighting. You bury yourself in religion and promise yourself immortality, to avoid your pending mortality.

[@quandaledingle968]

@@blacklightredlight2945 It's a false notion that religious people are such because they're coping with the fact that they're going to die. A meaningless death being inherently terrifying is an idea people assert casually, but look how many meaningless deaths there are everyday that no one cares about. Death is neutral.

[@ikebear]

It's kind of impressive you went through this whole video without mentioning VRChat even once. If you go beyond the public instances filled with children and "tourists" into non-public instances, social groups, events and whatnot that are where more dedicated users of VRC usually are, you'd find out that there are a ton of people who choose VR over real life experiences for any number of reasons. Not to say it is good or bad, each individual has their own reasons, but there are plenty of people who spend huge amounts of their lives in VR already. While for some people it may have an unhealthy impact for various reasons that may or may not be issues for them IRL as well, for others it's actually an absolute blessing. We tend to think of questions like this from a perspective that only considers a healthy, able bodied individual. People aren't all the same though, and when you consider than a person who is stuck in their bed, or stuck at home due to a disability can now go socialize and go to live music events, and fly virtual airplanes or go take a walk on the moon, this question hits very differently. If you were unable to leave your home and live the kind of life somebody without their mobility impaired by disability could live, would you choose to look at the same 4 walls around you all the time until you eventually passed away instead of using VR? Would you choose to have your social life only consist of support workers and medical appointments, or would you choose to VR where you could socialize endlessly with as many or as few people as you want, in any environment somebody wanted to create? Humans inherently desire connection, and when you consider what VR represents to people who are isolated from others for reasons beyond their control and then you offer them not only a way to leave behind the tiny box they live in to go experience the beautiful creations people have made, and the ability to share those experiences with other people and socialize, you'd be hard pressed to find a person who would turn it down that didn't have some issue with the tech itself creating a barrier. It certainly beats trying to use things like social media for social contact to try to relieve feelings of isolation, by a long shot.

[@gregoryferraro7379]

I used to consider myself someone who would never escape reality for a digital world. But as the life I live continues to degrade into something that makes me feel trapped and helpless, I have found myself drawing more and more into the digital world to escape. I can travel on Google maps and KZbin, find friendship on social media, and creative expression in computer games. I don't WANT to withdraw into a digital world, but it fulfills needs that I can't fulfill in reality right now.

[@kainingyao7873]

I believe that the thing with VR today is that the artificial, virtual world is not the separate realm of experience like we visualized constantly in pop culture, but instead something that has been integrated into the real world and has thus become an extension of it, sort of like a pattern woven into the fabric of our lived experiences with reality.

[@deep_fried_analysis]

Which is why it's more important than ever to unplug and focus on real-life problems that literally threaten our existence on this planet as a species.

[@justinrivera1618]

Our world is less like the matrix, and more like ghost in the shell

[@DankDope]

​@@justinrivera1618 I think so too

[@bgoodfella7413]

One huge appeal to VR over reality is that in VR we feel no pain and can be invincible. We can experience all kinds of activities that in real life would be extremely dangerous and life threatening. Plus if the real world just continues to suck more and more, VR becomes more attractive. We're already too deep.

[@lovro4744]

Thank you, wisecracks. We have missed philosophy mixed with great movies.

[@madeleinedacey8489]

It's interesting how if you instead ask people, "Imagine this is not reality. Reality is actually much, much worse than this. Do you want to stay in this simulation or go live in a worse reality?" they tend to want to stay in the simulation.

[@BlapwardKrunkle]

Kinda sounds like the movie. Personally I would live outside of the simulation so long as I can contribute to making reality better.

[@oversonder]

Love this question.

[@user50]

this is a much better framing (which obviously avoids the status quo bias)

[@covle9180]

Anyone who says they'll choose reality is probably lying to themselves. It's just the evolution of doom scrolling but with the possibility of sleeping with every crush you've ever had at the same time. Every day. It's almost worth giving up what little privacy we have left.

[@callmeuriah.5433]

I think a big takeaway from this video is the difference between being presented a hypothetical vs being presented with actual decisions. When we are presented with one big question with all the ideology and impacts made clear to us, we are likely to side with whatever side seems more virtuous. The question 'Would you choose to give up on your 'real life' for an empty world of satisfaction?' when presented this clearly has an obvious moral aspect. We are not supposed to choose suicide (and I think this is really at the heart of this question). Even if death is a place where you are finally free of desire because you are free of self (which seems to me like the only reasonable prediction for reality) we are still supposed to live on, to insist on the absurd. (I disagree with Camus on most things, but I do think that people feel this need to insist on at least the search for meaning, on embodying the absurd/cosmic hero (also see Ernest Becker).) However, when we are presented with smaller/mundane decisions we tend not to do the work of philosophizing about the potential consequences of our actions. We just do what is more convenient. Over time this leads to the result which we have a moral objection to, but we arrive there without thinking and once we are there we provide post hoc justifications to not change our behavior. Anyway, anyone want to revolution?

[@thelastcube.]

thanks for the dystopian dosage, i was feeling a little lively today

[@BalasielVOD]

I'd take the virtual reality every day. After all it doesn't matter how I experience things, if I can't distinguish the virtual from the real and the virtual is a place of happiness (which is a place I haven't visited for a long time), I'd go there immediately

[@xXRickTrolledXx]

I would have a hard time enjoying my happiness if not presented in contrast to displeasure. It’d be like being drunk on opium 24/7.

[@EvelynNdenial]

@@xXRickTrolledXx then you'd have that. the real point of the thought experiment isnt hollow false sensation versus reality but a perfectly satisfying virtual versus reality. if its not tailored to be fulfilling in all the same ways your best possible life in the real world could be and more, save that it was all simulated, then its not any better than real life in the first place and the thought experiment is rendered moot.

[@madhippy3]

@@xXRickTrolledXx I think a good simulation can pause pleasure with boredom to give context to our better existence. I don't think we need to suffer cancer and disease, and world tragedy to make us happy with out success. I can only speak for myself, but I cannot enjoy my successes in life because they are overshadowed by tragedy. I believe a lull in excitement is enough to not become desensitized, or maybe better yet the program is just good enough that each new experience makes the last seem trivial and you experience new euphoria with each activity.

[@taffitteal]

I think that VR is not a replacement for reality but a considerable teaching tool for it. People aren't 'escaping' just because the world feels bad but also because they are reconnecting with themselves in ways that they couldn't before. As the woman realized that she missed dancing and wanted to go to Paris, it wasn't so much about wanting to be in an alternate reality for it as much as it was a tool for helping to reconnect her with her true desires in life. So, too, do we escape into alternate realities because in them we feel a new freedom that isn't held back by money, work, and chores. We're free to do what we want where we want, and if it isn't readily available, we can create it, so it is. It is the ultimate sense of agency that even the Matrix lacked.

[@jerrys.9895]

My one and only experience with MDMA was both eye opening and soul crushing. It felt so good, so connected, so *dis*connected. And when it wore off, all I wanted was the same feeling, which isn't compatible with reality. It's more like experiencing what you can never experience naturally, which only makes you want to return to it again, and sucks the value out of lesser experiences.

[@GBart]

That's what visiting Italy is like

[@ilikegamesye]

@@GBart or gettin ya butthole licked, or suckin on some. eating the booty like groceries leads one down the Eightfold Path to ultimate nirvana~!

[@ApolloStarfall]

Wow. My take-away was almost the exact opposite. I felt better about daily life for months after

[@deep_fried_analysis]

Had the same experience. I tried micro dosing MDMA, as the scientist that i am, and fell into an even darker hole.. for months. Acid is the shit, tho. Feels way more natural, the one-ness is so much more profound and honest. But in the end, aren't all of these "enhancers of reality" just tools that we actually don't need if we're to experience life as "truly" as possible? What about the fact that our sober brains aren't honest most of the times either, due to them filtering reality with just a limited range of sensory info?

[@GBart]

@@deep_fried_analysis Acid fucking rules. Last time I did acid I met the devil and defeated him with logic

[@lizdillinger]

Good job, Michael. I'm proud of you.

[@mholber]

Like in the Netflix show Maniac: Emma Stone's character's father is a shut in who spends all his time inside an A-VOID sensory tank.

[@gosupersheep2006]

On the experience machine - Alan Watts spoke about this in a very relevant way... “Let's suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream that you wanted to dream. And that you could, for example, have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time. Or any length of time you wanted to have. And you would, naturally as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive. And after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each, you would say "Well, that was pretty great." But now let's have a surprise. Let's have a dream which isn't under control. Where something is gonna happen to me that I don't know what it's going to be. And you would dig that and come out of that and say "Wow, that was a close shave, wasn't it?" And then you would get more and more adventurous, and you would make further and further out gambles as to what you would dream. And finally, you would dream ... where you are now. You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today.” kzbin.info/www/bejne/rYaTgYyZeNh_bNE

[@koyl]

This is great. Thank you for sharing. Indeed human beings need surprises and challenges: this is what makes live worth living (despite what the AI worshipers are singing in choir)

[@addammadd]

Alan watts was a walking fortune cookie, friend.

[@Mastikator]

If you think REALITY controlled by CORPORATIONS is bad, imagine how bad VIRTUAL REALITY controlled by CORPORATIONS is going to be

[@mrstooshnov]

Slow-moving apocalypse like “10000 paper cuts”: Gibson presents us with the Jackpot in The Peripheral and then elaborates in Agency that we have already been in this Jackpot for most of the 20th century

[@kludgedude]

Reality is optional

[@christopherjackson2658]

I reject your reality and substitute my own.

[@denissessions1350]

Except for food, sleep, shit and piss

[@zackmnr19]

Sure sure...go put on your goggles and suck at Zuckerbergs cock/tit. I'll be out here dying in the ongoing apocalypse.

[@BlapwardKrunkle]

@@christopherjackson2658I reject your rejection of reality and substitute it for an objective lack of reality

[@Raziel312]

Reality is on fire.

[@Waitwhat469]

Anime has a lot on this subject with the "Isekai" genera. I think sword art online really touches on it the best (yeah sue me), just in the way that people grew attachments to the artifical worlds. Which seems very real to much of lives.

[@jadedrakerider]

I think some people are wired to be happy, even without an experience machine. I am afflicted with clinical depression, the opposite. I would absolutely plug myself into the experience machine.

[@Austinkungfuacademy]

Great episode! Reminds me of that episode of the Good Place where they could just get anything they wanted at all, instantly. They all turned into mindless zombies, and actually wanted death to escape the hollow feeling of non-stop pleasure.

[@seattlekarim964]

The most important part of enjoying the Matrix is not knowing you are in the Matrix.

[@deep_fried_analysis]

Yeah, this is why the characters in the movies want their memory erased when they re-integrate with the Matrix. Makes me draw parallels with how our perception of time dissapears when we get sucked into a game or a video...

[@shouldb.studying4670]

Rawdogging reality is my new favourite metaphor 🤣

[@WisecrackEDU]

Thanks!

[@kyle857]

The Central Question of The Matrix was "how do you know your reality is real." "Is it better to live on a pleasant fiction or a horrible reality?" is a secondary question.

[@WisecrackEDU]

For sure - and we've made a bunch of videos about the first question and in this one we're considering the secondary one.

[@Raziel312]

The "experience machine" tried to offer a parade of wonderful experiences. As Agent Smith revealed, that is what caused Matrix 1.0 to fail. Perhaps humans DO define "realness" by suffering, considering how many rejected the Experience Machine.

[@kyle857]

​@@WisecrackEDU I'll have to check those out.

[@viniciusosorio2550]

Funny enough I was thinking about something similar to this. But in a way that we are going to a more automated world and someday maybe AI could just do everything and people will need to choose if they want a boring real live or a VR with everything they could want. But what disturbed me a little was thinking this could be a solution to the huge mass of people who would lose their jobs. The government would ask if you prefer to live in a building plugged to a tube that would feed you online in the virtual reality or pay a tax to live in the real world.

[@fauberkaupfmann982]

BUT, what if they didnt gave you any option and pretended that they did? Like you would be forever plugged in, being just able to choose between the s*itty reality and the fake one?. Now THATS scary.

[@kittykittybangbang9367]

this remind me of the future of Wall-E

[@katyyulig]

I’m a gamer, I officially rejected reality many years ago.

[@vettie]

W.

[@jamez34]

do you play COD mobile ?

[@mohammedyousef7d650]

That's fine as long as u dont forget ur self

[@loreleimonn3220]

Given that the Wachowski sisters confirmed the film is a trans allegory, and being trans myself, I can confirm that choosing to live in what is true rather than what has been constructed for you to fit yourself into provides joy in the pursuit of living honestly even when that life is hard.

[@AndersWatches]

Eh, if the experience in the matrix were indistinguishable from the real world but I could have the right body in it, I’d take it. Provided my loved ones were also in there.

[@sisyphus_strives5463]

But we have never particularly experienced such a reality parallel to our own but crafted towards our needs. If one’s dreams could be fulfilled, not here, but in a false world-what would their senses tell them? Perhaps the tiny point of information entailing the difference between the simulated and the real reality is not enough to push a person towards the real.

[@sisyphus_strives5463]

And of those who are condemned perhaps not to a dystopia, but whose real life conditions are utterly hopeless…will rot in their chains forever complacent. Virtual reality is not analogous to any guilty pleasure we have seen so far, it dwarfs everything and makes all possible. Perhaps there will be a Neo, a Morpheus, but that is not enough to dissuade the masses to willingly distance themselves from reality.

[@Hotshot2k4]

Given how hard Meta has been flopping, we're clearly getting ahead of ourselves with this digital transition business. On a separate note, our current VR games allow both for creative expression and learning. These experiences already can contribute to our change and growth. Who we become in the digital world is a reflection of who we are as a person - you know, minus the six packs and inhuman stamina and ability to shoot lasers from our arms and all that. If "the experience machine" was just like a prerecorded series of videos that we feel, then yeah that would suck after a while, but it's precisely for that reason that nobody would make something like that with the intention of it being the final phase of the technology.

[@fireaza]

Meta has been going rather well on the hardware side of things, the Quest 2 quickly rose to dominate Steam in the years since it came out. The problem is, Meta isn't happy with just that and keeps pushing for their metaverse. Despite that, at present, there's really not a large enough audience for a Facebook level of success nor have they really given any solid reasons why people should use it. They should focus on hardware and leave their metaverse aspirations for later.

[@videogamer596]

I think there’s another key factor that would swap a lot of people’s answers on the experience machine: if all of the people in it were able to travel to one-another’s worlds and congregate, and the simulated vs real people were demarcated in a way that was easy to check. Is it the experience that provides meaning, or the ability to have a shared experience with other people? For many, being able to connect with others in a reality of their own or mutual making would be their vision of heaven. I think another point in favor of more people preferring the VR-Chat esque approach is think of how the rich and powerful will behave with such a setup. Would they hook everyone up to the machine so they can have the real world all to themselves? Or would they be the first to hook themselves into the machine and force everyone else to remain in the real world to support them?

[@EvelynNdenial]

they'd hook up enough people to create the extreme social inequality in the virtual as they have in real life, exactly like how pay-to-win games are now.

[@BoogerDad]

There's something to be said about living the best of both worlds. Being able to go outside and enjoy a beautiful day and then relax (or turn your brain off) with video games or movies or youtube. Might as well enjoy it as is unless you got a good idea about how to make it better. even if we were just living in a simulation... our reality to us will always be the face of our limitations.

[@pavelandreev4727]

I think the question here is are we really presented with that choice? For a growing generation these things that we call technology, well, they're not, for them it's just the environment that has always surrounded them.

[@quironmiranda2591]

I feel like our perception of reality creates our reality, If more and more think that reality is boring than it will become more boring and then we will view the virtual as the best moments of our lives

[@captchasuck]

Thoughts shape (your)reality.

[@playmeafuture9957]

A book that kind of touches on a lot of these topics that I've been reading lately is David Chalmer's Reality+, which talks about a lot of the usual thought experiments (Descartes Demon, the Brain in a Vat, etc.) and argues that a virtual world could still be real and also talks a lot about the simulation hypothesis. What does it mean to live in a real world? Could a virtual world be just as real?

[@WisecrackEDU]

Having read that one but will check it out, thanks for the recommendation.

[@EvilCronos13]

There is an episode of Star Trek TNG that talks about holodeck addiction...the worse life gets, the more intriguing that kind of thing is starting to become and I don't think I'm the only one leaning more and more in that direction.

[@danielrumel7464]

I am working in the metavers since 3 years. I teach meditation and I councel people in stressful situations. During covid people around the world found a second home, made friends and enjoyed a wonderful experience. It is so nice to stay in contact with gorgeous people around the globe and to meet up with them on a spaceship that travels to alpha centaury. The metavers is a marvellous place to be. But thanks for your video, that was pretty open and not full of prejudices.

[@dylanclark9903]

I work as a private contractor online, study digital material, attend school online, play video games, and even reading could be considered a kind simulation…. I would say less than 10% of my waking time is spent in tangible reality. ie either working out or in direct human contact

[@WisecrackEDU]

You and me both buddy.

[@toaonua523]

I hate the idea of compromise but we must embrace both. Ignoring reality has let our world become miserable. We could however, reorganize and gamify society in a way that allows us to improve our daily lives, not ignore them. The existence of MMOs shows that people are willing to work (farm digital resources online) even if they are not given actual currency to use irl. Our day-to-day lives don’t need to be a tightrope walk of stress between starvation and burnout. Resources need to be reallocated so that all basic needs are met and people are gamified the opportunity to build upon reality.

[@jesusbb2]

I thnk that a virtual reality could be useful as it was presented in San Junipero, because it wasnt made expirence things through the VR but to make that the people close things or experience, that did have the oportunity to do so.

[@WisecrackEDU]

Good call!

[@brunopereira6789]

To me. It would depend on the people I'm with. If I choose virtual reality, will my avatar be able to interact and live with the avatar of my loved ones? If yes, than I'd definitely consider it.

[@Kenionatus]

I say that the experience machine does not compare to a highly virtual life. The experience machine creates an experience while a virtual world creates a situation. Often that situation is tailored towards a specific experience, but how we choose to engage with it is ultimately our free choice. I also say that in many ways the "real" world has been very "virtual" since the advent of civilisation. We engage with corporations, money and states and take those things as physical reality, even though they only exist through our collective acceptance of them. We tell each others stories, refer to each other as employer, wife, friend. None of those entities and relationships are rooted in physical reality. You can have children with someone who you don't see as spouse. You can do work that benefits someone with one or both of you not knowing or consenting.

[@SuperLocrian]

Shout out to the guys at Corridor Crew!!! 0:42

[@daltongrowley5280]

I see the eyes, Burns. I hope you feel better.

[@bigmike4133]

VR is still quite limited in its ability to replicate human experience. I think if we could curate experiences indistinguishable from reality akin to something like a Star Trek Holodeck, a great many of us may prefer it, even to the point of addiction.

[@IAmNumber4000]

Most people are already addicted to smartphones and they don’t even do that good a job of replicating human experience 😭

[@fireaza]

True, once VR is indistinguishable from reality, then it will be able to provide some wild experiences, sorta like when games got better of portraying human facial expressions. But even in it's current form, VR is still able to manipulate our dumb lizard brains, which are far dumber and easier to fool than people think. There's a great video on KZbin of a professional snooker player attempting to lean on a virtual snooker table and going ass over kettle since the table, y'know, isn't real. The fact that a professional, who obviously knows what a real snooker table looks like, absent-mindedly thought he could lean on a virtual table shows that even current-gen VR is good enough to sell the illusion.

[@huwguyver4208]

​@@fireaza my Dad did that. I showed him and Mum a VR table tennis game and Dad tried to lean on the table tennis table that wasn't actually there. Fortunately I was spotting him and pulled him back 😆

[@handy864]

An orphus full of USB, undulating string of beads, yeah, absolutely changed my perspective on reality 🙃 As for digital world versus real world or even dream world the key as always is balance. It's healthy to learn how to play in all world's you may be able to inhabit and you should prioritize shared physical reality, but you should never forget which world you stand in when you stand in it or you'll become a tangled mess and fail to enjoy whatever your experiencing. Not everyone has 57 trillion seconds to waste failing to appreciate their eternity.

[@Latman2k]

Glad Michael is feeling better from his cold.

[@kamilman0]

I love his pullover. Very on the nose.

[@NWPaul72]

A bunch of years ago, I was pretty unhappy and more or less moved into my phone. Social media was life! I don't live there anymore, but it's not like I've forgotten how to get there. I can see how one could choose it, anyway.

[@Carlosmgcosta]

Not 20 years married, only 12. But we have been together going on 18 years. And we do dance. Not sure why couples wouldn’t.

[@Carlosmgcosta]

@mwisecrack-ce4pw does this scam actually work? Please, reported.

[@lexscarlet]

"have their dad tell them: 'good job Michael. I love you.'" 🤣 man you're the only channel that can make me crack up and cry at the same time

[@markvetter4711]

I think I’d prefer the Total Recall version of VR. Still live my real life, but can have a memory implant of things impractical or unaffordable or even impossible. This would also virtually extend your life, unlike wasting tons of time on the holodeck. And you wouldn’t have to disconnect from family and friends the way our current VR makes you.

[@scrollkeeper5272]

In all honesty, I'd take my current dystopia over the matrix. It's hard to give a really good reason off the top of my head, but the best I have is that I'd rather not live in a sham that obscures and distract us from serious issues that we should be dealing with. And I know I'm a bit of a hypocrite since I, too, am plugged in like a lot of others, I'd also like to be able to know I'm actually touching and eating my food rather than just think I am and wither away.

[@zackmnr19]

I, too, enjoy the ugly, awful beauty of the real. It's not so lonely...the abyss howls back at me from time to time.

[@kagetsu13]

You technically wouldn’t be withering in a pod. I’m assuming but they never said how long humans live in there.

[@ComradeDt]

Fair

[@ComradeDt]

@@zackmnr19 but thats also a kind of enjoyment. lacan speaks about it enjoying your suffering i believe

[@olafsigursons]

OK, but you might be living in a simulation atm.

[@caesaraugustus9148]

This reminds me of the holodecks in Star Trek, where the crew can go into the room and have whatever "program" digitally and virtually play around them and for them, such as playing the parts of James Bond or Sherlock Holmes. In one episode, one of the characters lives out his fantasies within the digital room, and the question is raised whether this is ethical, since he is "experiencing" making love or being romantic with a colleage, which in real life, he is not. It's really the only episode that questions the holodecks usage as I suppose in the 80's video games were still incredibly primitive, so the idea of addiction to a holodeck probably wasn't even considered, since it was always treated as a leisure activity in the show. I wonder then if VR ever got to the sophistication of the holodecks from Star Trek, would some people become addicted in living through the virtual programs they can create?

[@vladavram9209]

I believe that no matter how great the simulation is, being aware that it is, indeed, a simulation, would make it worse. Now, if you didn't know... how can you not choose it.

[@Maryxus]

An "experience machine" sounds amazing as a therapeutic tool for certain mental health conditions (i.e. PTSD, OCD, attachment disorders, etc.), but it's not something I think society could responsibly handle as a general use device. A lot of our system 1 cognition is wrapped up in our embodied experiences around different stimuli that we've encountered, and many mental health symptoms could be described as "chronic reactivity using a maladapted heuristic", which stem from a dearth of fundamental positive experiences and/or a surplus of negative experiences. Used as a means of introducing novel embodied experiences and/or providing an experiential bank of counter-experiences, an "experience machine" could be revolutionary. Personally, a regiment of "unconditional positive regard", "safety", and "acceptance" would do wonders for my psyche, since I was an adult before I experienced them. But an "experience machine" the sort of thing you'd want to only use in a medical setting, because it would be way too easy for almost anyone to get addicted to something like that. Psychological addiction (or, more accurately, dependency) can be characterized as an attempt to paper over/fill in whatever is lacking in a person's life with a behavior/substance that induces euphoria and/or a pleasant state of dissociation. With an "experience machine", it would be easy to find something that you always wanted but missed, or which could be better, and then just get it. People who aren't well-adjusted (for whatever reason) would be prone towards choosing the "experience machine" as a response to a stressful (internal or external) stimuli, similarly to the call of drugs/gambling/porn/etc. People who are well-adjusted usually don't fall into dependency with these things, but no one's life is perfect. If it's there, why not use it to feel better? Why deal with any pain? I think part of the reason people reject the idea of the Matrix/"experience machine", at least if they've had some time to consider the implications, is due to a fear of who we'd be and/or what we'd do if we really could have anything for nothing. It could easily be like having too much money: eroding your empathy/compassion/moral character due to a kind of hyper-agency. But it would be amazing therapy. I can't decide what it not I wish it actually existed.

[@ArtamisBot]

I put USB cables in all my holes... cuz I'm a computer 🖥️ Hey, you asked...

[@Coachcruzboxing]

Love the shirt!! Shout out to Black Star!!

[@Dutchguy.94]

when I see this question I always want to invite people to go ahead and try out "the matrix" we have today and spend a week on social VR, something like CVR or VRChat. I myself spend a lot of time in VR, but I wouldnt want to plug in. that being said, Ive met people on VRchat who wouldnt give it a second thought and would choose to plug in if it were an option.

[@SarahAndreaRoycesChannel]

I use a lot of virtual spaces, heck even my pic here is from Second Life. But giving in to illusions is not limited to the digital realm. Besides such obvious things like TTRPGs think of Disney World or Vegas. Or a mall that simulates a classic market place. Most have in common that we return from it, though.

[@cactus_vixen7093]

I think the main point of contentious debate is on the terms of knowledge. Plugging in is preferred, but only when you don't know, the vale isn't lifted. It's why some people can mindlessly scroll, but if you realize how bad some app is for your brain, it suddenly isn't a good or desirable thing to spend time with.

[@zaczane]

Honestly though….people talk So much About the Matrix…but never about how Insanely Well it is positioned within time, to juxtapose before & Now. Not that it was planned. Which makes it even more crazy honestly

[@007MrYang]

I mean if I could plug in into a VR isekai where I'm an overpowered anime protagonist I wouldn't even question it. I'd jump in immediately

[@ThatGuyJake94]

At least Michael's fertilizing the plants on his head

[@chadjones1266]

"Frost my tips and log me in"

[@MarcoServetto]

The difference with the experience machine is that in the future plugged in world, we will keep the ability to communicate with other humans, it may actually enhance this ability. That is why people refuse the experience machine: because it is isolational

[@urielswing]

If I had the choice to give up being a wage slave with constant chronic pain to live an existence of experiencing being the MC of a well written fantasy, I would nope out of reality in a heartbeat.

[@tracygilmore7983]

A high speed Experience machine for instruction and Education - might be an interesting thing to try.

[@TheCreepypro]

most people don't even know what reality is how can it ever be obsolete?

[@Nostripe361]

I think as long as I knew what was real and what was fake, I'd rather it be where you can go between the two worlds. Like you could live in the digital world but have the ability to jump out if there was something important to do in the real world. I think a major problem with the digital world is that it allows you to escape to a make believe world instead of working to fix the growing problems in the real world; like a princess protected in her tower while the rest of the kingdom burns to the ground.

[@brianwindsor7923]

I reject your reality and substitute my own.

[@Oburi7]

Good Job Michael We love you

[@justinjakimiak1998]

You hit the nail on the head with don't worry darling. Flawless victory sir

[@cofeman347]

I think humans will seek self-realization and meaning regardless of whenever is real or not. The issue for me is the availability of options *and* the ability to choose.

[@dangerousd1312]

it’s all about the peaks and valleys. can’t have that if every moment is curated to be as enjoyable as possible.

[@lawthirtyfour2953]

You don't need to make every moment maximum pleasure experience. But you also don't need to see your child die to appreciate the good moments.

[@Rithmy]

@@lawthirtyfour2953 But if someone dear dies it is strangly soothfull to appreciate the good moments.

[@isaiahzjohnson]

I think one big difference between the Experience Machine and our online media worlds is choice. For me at least, the social media of today really isn’t what I opted into when I first got on the internet. It’s changed so much it’s unrecognizable and the current dopamine-hit escapist landscape feels more like something that was introduced slowly and unwittingly over the course of my online existence rather than being there the whole time

[@isaiahzjohnson]

I feel like social media is more like the matrix than the EM. Instead of machine batteries, we’re padding billionaire pockets

[@mauricomatoscaetano3975]

when i was a teenager i always ask myself what is missing on the MMORPG's to be really and eternally fun.

[@jessebclimbs]

Certainly, KZbin is not a happiness machine, because I never feel good after watching a Wisecrack video

[@WisecrackEDU]

Our bad.

[@tobybartels8426]

In principle, I absolutely prefer simulated pleasure over authentic mundanity. But that is not the choice that we actually have.

[@3p1cand3rs0n]

We're all just gonna stand here... all "toodly-doodle-doodly" twiddling our thumbs while pretending our boy here, didn't just look us directly in our eyeballs and ask if we've ever stuck a USB cable in our hidey-holes?? OF COURSE we have! We're Wisecrack viewers. 🤨

[@WisecrackEDU]

And that's why we love you!!!

[@3p1cand3rs0n]

@@WisecrackEDU 😘

[@tyvuong4314]

My thoughts is that reality preference settles around the need/urge for self-efficacy. To be in control of one’s actions. In a matrix or dream machine, we are trading away some deep level of that for a manufactured reality (no matter how realistic, our awareness of its manufactured state is there). Except in the matrix where it’s thrust upon us involuntarily. But that’s really why neo and the others rebel, for that autonomy

[@seba1pimp]

Love the content

[@chrismuratore4451]

After watching the matrix movies growing up, I gained a huge respect and appreciation for the natural world. The movies also inspired a song i wrote called Monopoly on Monotony. I, too, thought it would be a single entity that brings us into the era of the virtual.

[@Nyfregja]

I would plug in to the experience machine at the drop of a hat. Then again, I struggle with depression. The only thing that would stop me is that I have friends and family I'd have to leave behind.

[@MartyD]

can’t wait for next level VR gaming to be a thing

[@kirbymarchbarcena]

Virtuality will never make my body clean and not hungry.

[@nil981]

When reality is a cruel joke that makes your situation so utterly hopeless that escapism all the more appealing.

[@HylianFox3]

Truth is people NEED challenge and hardships in order to grow and mature, and to feel a sense of accomplishment. If you were given everything you ever wanted on a silver platter (be it real or simulated), you'd both become spoiled and get tired of it real quick. "Ugh, juicy top sirloin steak AGAIN!?" It's like playing a video game with cheats, sure you'll likely win, but it also gets pretty boring.

[@jcolbino2021]

When I shoved that USB cable up my input, I saw beyond the binary and realized we're not just the ones or the zeroes, but the unique experience of our individual codes as we interact and react within our networks and environments. Be mindful of what you plug into.

[@troywalkertheprogressivean8433]

We absolutely live in an unreality/false reality, where the rich have convinced the majority that the system is fine and doesn't need or cannot be, changed. As you just said 10:01 😎

[@barknkenan7939]

I've kinda thought about Byung-Chul Han's The Palliative Society while watching the part about being happy all the time with the stimulants we carry in our pockets. He was arguing that happiness and pain can't be dissambled since they both work while the other is present. These virtual reality or so-called perfect world idea partially seems like removing the pain of real world while creating a happiness and joy driven idea with the absence of the pain. This could be point why we can't feel happy in both virtual and real world; the line between the real and virtual got so blurry while blurring the line between the joy and pain since we're always trying to run away from negative experiences. My tommy hurts a little bit, I should take a painkiller or oh sh*t another war is on the way? I'd better put on my VR glasses.

[@WisecrackEDU]

Great book!

[@tst8613]

I know this isn't the point of the video but I also think about the class aspect behind this question. If you don't have access to certain technologies due to financial barriers then unplugging from reality is less of a choice and more of a luxury. The reality that your trying to escape from is what other people have to deal with everyday.

[@inuendo6365]

I would go to the river, the park, the events at the library any day over VR. Problem is I need a damn car, gas and 20-30 minutes to get there nowadays so it's limited to the weekends. Man I need to get out of the US.

[@huwguyver4208]

I feel like it's a bit of a false choice to ask whether I would choose actual reality or a virtual reality, as if I am going to do only one or the other for the rest of my life. VR is genuinely revolutionary and wonderful- I've seen it bring people together from all over the world without even having to leave the house. None of which means for a second that I would want to spend every waking hour there, even if my circumstances permitted it. But when reality gets to heavy or too dull, it's important to be able to take a break from it from time to time to recharge your sanity, and VR and gaming in general is a great option for that- certainly just as valid a choice as sport, movies or any other hobby. It's like a holiday you can go on any time without having to take several weeks off work and book flights, hotels etc., which is why it really came into it's own during the lockdowns and travel restrictions- but it's still a wonderful diversion now when people still have work and wallet-based travel restrictions to contend with.

[@badaxtion1878]

Forget that. Plug me up!