What Is The Metaverse?

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Everyone's talking about the Metaverse, but what is it? It's poised to be the next evolution of the internet, and we'll experience it in fully immersive 3D virtual worlds and mixed and augmented reality. Facebook has zeroed in on this idea so much it changed its name to Meta to reflect it. In this video, I'll look at the potential for this future, the promises it holds, and, of course, the dystopian nightmare it could become if we get it wrong.
Here's Facebook's full Metaverse announcement:
• The Metaverse and How ...
Matthew Ball's Metaverse primer:
www.matthewball.vc/all/forwar...
Tim Ferriss' interview with Chris Dixon and Naval Ravikant on Web3:
tim.blog/2021/10/28/chris-dix...
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LINKS LINKS LINKS:
www.businessinsider.com/mark-...
www.thecowl.com/news/facebook...
www.wired.com/story/facebook-...
www.roadtovr.com/horizon-home...
www.theverge.com/2022/2/3/229...
futuristspeaker.com/future-tr...
salad.com/blog/mtm-2-roblox-p...
computer.howstuffworks.com/In...
uploadvr.com/meta-metaverse-b...
www.td.org/atd-blog/what-is-t...
www.cnet.com/tech/computing/v...
www.fool.com/investing/stock-...
uploadvr.com/project-cambria-...
www.intel.com/content/www/us/...
www.google.com/glass/start/
www.spectacles.com/new-specta...
www.cnet.com/tech/computing/u...
www.pcgamer.com/microsoft-rep...
www.engadget.com/microsoft-ho...
www.cryptopolitan.com/what-ar...
thenextweb.com/news/know-your...
www.businessinsider.com/what-...
moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-fir...
Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
1:10 - Facebook's Problems
2:45 - The Meta Announcement
6:11 - Meta is not The Metaverse
10:10 - The Potential For VR
12:30 - AR and MR
13:47 - Smart Glasses
18:37 - Does Anybody Really Want This?
19:24 - Web3
22:05 - One More (Contrarian) Thing
23:30 - Sponsor message
24:30 - Close

[@InservioLetum]

"a company nobody likes, offering a product nobody wants, to solve problems that nobody has" This ALONE is worth a sub..

[@kindlin]

If you're new here, there's a lot more where that came from. Go find an Intro Compilation for this channel that he posts yearly, some of them... *chef's kiss*

[@gromm93]

Well... that's not *entirely* true. Flight sim fans have been begging for exactly this since like, 1995. Which is about the only real use for the technology I have.

[@nettwench]

Totally!

[@bennyoporo1975]

Lol

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

Flight simulation is the _only case_ where I would be interested in using this technology.

[@CapnSnackbeard]

The best part of the old internet was the sensation that nobody owned anything.

[@CapnSnackbeard]

@@johnperic6860 Roblox didn't exist in and before the 90's, and when you own and posess something only at the whim and fortune of a company you don't control, do you truly "own" it in any way that we couldn't sum up more accurately as renting?

[@chilanya]

ah, i remember having a website that i built by myself, hosted for free and with zero ads, not even the hosting provider. another great thing was that you could be truly anonymous. once i started connecting with people that i knew in real life, under my real name, on facebook, the magic was broken.

[@joblo497]

and we were happy 🚬

[@kellyinCT09]

Ah yes, the wild west of the internet...the most basic chat rooms ever and it was amazing.

[@DamithaNadeeshaWanniarachchi]

sensation

[@BenjaminKibbey]

After all this time of working virtually from home, the idea of being forced to let an AR virtual workplace invade my home honestly sent chills down my spine.

[@passantNL]

Especially as your employer will basically force you to be "connected" a lot of the time to do your job. The thought of Facebook using my employer to force me into using their "services" is scary. Really scary. I see Facebook not as "the metaverse" but as a portal to the metaverse. And as that portal they will know everything there is to know about me. They will be part of my job, my social life, know which games I play, what programs I watch, my political and other views, they will know everything. And it gives them to power to offer me whatever information they want me to hear, whatever nudges my beliefs towards whatever it is they want me to believe. It doesn't matter if they do that for profit, or to push a worldview, in the end I'm being manipulated. And there's no way out because the world will basically force me to be a part of the metaverse.

[@esaedvik]

How would it invade your home more than a video call?

[@passantNL]

@@esaedvik Imagine doing most things in your life through video calls, from your home. Now also imagine that the device you use for those video calls is smart enough to listen to every call, understand and analyse everything you say, and everything anyone tells you. It listens to everything you say, whether it's you talking to your family, enjoying a movie or game, your work, etc. It would basically get to know everything about you there is to know. And this is Facebook, their business model is to know as much about you as possible, and use that to feed you new information to achieve whatever goal they want to achieve.

[@esaedvik]

@@passantNL You mean like owning a mobile phone?

[@passantNL]

​@@esaedvik Do you wear your mobile phone on your face most of the day, so it sees everything you see, hears everything you hear, and it's camera even records every eye movement? Probably not. We're not quite there yet. Once the technology is mature metaverse will be to mobile phones what mobile phones were to TV, or what the internet was to telephone. It covers some of the same use cases, but is still completely next level.

[@incredimazing]

Yeah, really have to agree with you in the end there. I'm part of the crowd that wants less interactivity, and instead prefer privacy & control over social media so we can minimize our time online and maximise time to actually live real life. Imagine if companies were pushing technology to make online interactions more efficient and less intrusive in our lives, rather than pushing for it to completely consume our lives.

[@danielrazulay]

The whole tech is about harvesting your attention so it can be directed to ads

[@eekos]

"I watched the whole thing" Five words conveyed so much emotion

[@CivilEngineerWroxton]

Yep. Joe is so good at that. And as cringy as that woman was totally made it understandable as to why so much emotion was warranted there. Watching all of that would make my eyes bleed. 👀

[@legenberry3217]

@@CivilEngineerWroxton At least she looks human...

[@cgrdreamer]

​@@legenberry3217 I wonder if the producers of the video told her: "You look to normal besides Mark. Just copy him so he doesn't look so ridiculous... Yeah! That's it! Just move your hands like a crazy person".

[@CivilEngineerWroxton]

@@legenberry3217 LOL True. And having to sit across from Mr. Zuck-droid Zucker-borg, I would probably be acting a bit cringy, too. 😅

[@SO_DIGITAL]

Joe's micro-expressions. The dude should be a comedic actor. Perfect.

[@recentlydeleted]

"Imagine if a website only worked on Chrome or only worked on Firefox." We don't have to imagine that. Some websites actually do that

[@joescott]

Some services, yeah. :)

[@tma2001]

or archived pages that depend on obsolete plugins ...

[@bourbonbournvita]

Microsoft Teams 😐

[@ForgottenKunai]

I work in the medical field, I have to use 3 different browsers on a daily basis just for work. Here's hoping a government website gets off IE before it goes obsolete.

[@LaikaLycanthrope]

I remember when websites actually were rather nitpicky about what websites they used, long ago.

[@asemi4]

Things happening in real time is the complete opposite of what I want from the internet. When livestreams first became a thing I didn't understand the appeal, having to live by someone else's schedule is what old school tv was about, and I felt like we moved past that. I never managed to get into twitch because I want to do things on my own time

[@lalaciour]

same but I do like the idea interacting with a creator you like in real time. like you write a funny comment or you ask a question and then there’s a chance they could respond to that comment in real time, kind of like you're on zoom call or a singer pointing to a fan at concert and bringing them on stage. I think it's the increased access and I find it cool in theory but i couldn’t get with the schedule thing either 🤷‍♀️

[@tommyjacolbe-jrgensen7480]

My thoughts: As a tech nerd and a person with some socio anxiety, the metaverse is both interesting and scary. I guess my dream is to live in a self sustaining house out in a forest, and only enter the metaverse occasionally to buy stuff (delivered by drones) and to interact with a few people. And otherwise live completely alone in peace.

[@erikals]

if you got socio anxiety often the last thing you should do is be alone. read up on socio anxiety for more info. a balance is the golden key.

[@rumble1925]

Bro, instead of isolating yourself further you should be challenging yourself to overcome your anxiety. People have a lot to offer when you put yourself out there.

[@ColCurtis]

I dont have socio anxiety but I do hate the city, you should try to live in a small town or on an acreage. Its so nice to walk outside and not see or hear people or se any buildings

[@rhov-anion]

Hey, fellow social anxiety. Please don't listen to people who say "just get over it" or "go do the thing that makes you literally throw up" because bad advice like that always veils the TOXIC message "you should feel terrible for having what the rest of us see is a PROBLEM." It took me 30 years in therapy to 1) realize my social anxiety was a symptom of me being on the autistic spectrum, and 2) reach a level of being okay with my social anxiety, not ashamed. Your level of comfort with socializing is valid. If that means living in the middle of the woods and having supplies delivered by drones, sounds perfect to me. Quite honestly, the only "complications" with social anxiety is that it affects work, academics, and... well, the fact that you're not part of society, and that's somehow "bad." These days, you can work a lucrative job from home, attend online classes at almost any university in the world, live surrounded by books and cats with household goods, clothes, groceries, and even restaurant-quality food delivered to our doorstep. The reasons to feel "ashamed" for a different social ability are vanishing. Imagine: if society didn't force us to feel guilty for staying home, suicide rates would dramatically drop. No more feeling depressed as all of society says "you have a problem and you just need to get out there and get over yourself." A little story, if you'll indulge me: My grandmother had crippling social anxiety, so my grandfather built a house on a farm 15 miles from the nearest town, they hired a farmer's kid to do the shopping, and in 40 years she only left that farm to go see doctors. She had her family, books, and a TV. I always thought that life was PERFECT. We could totally live like our grandparents again, a cabin far away, happy with our little slice of the world, quiet solitude, socializing only being optional, and no one telling us "you're missing out on life and should feel ashamed." If anything, we're returning to our roots. So dream of that cabin!

[@thatfunkyduck]

Can't you already do both of those things on the internet?

[@Quijanos1]

Dude, you're killing me with hilarity. You're correct, the Mark Z. Interview with the leather jacket girl was surreal.

[@bakerboy8910]

Cringe worthy for sure

[@Viva_la_natura]

I wish I would have seen this comment before posting. I had to pause the video to comment on what cringe-worthy corporatists these people are. These are the people we're going to let drive us off the edge of a cliff?

[@curiousworld7912]

Whenever Zuckerberg tries to act like a real boy, the Pinocchio in him always comes through.

[@stephenlang7870]

Your right, parody couldn't make leather jacket girl more uncomfortable to watch.

[@joescott]

I kinda feel bad making fun of her because she's clearly not an actor but someone was behind the camera who yelled, "Cut! Perfect!" when she was done. Like, someone decided that was a good take. That's who I'm really making fun of.

[@alpha_ornativum]

I did not yet watch the video, just one quick remark: If the current internet is not already considered a dystopian nightmare I don't even want to see the next one.

[@elinope4745]

The internet was awesome up through the early 2000's. It sure got a lot worse after it was cleaned up. Come to think of it, the rise of Facebook coincided with the fall of the internet.

[@elinope4745]

@@wasdwasdedsf Yes, although the censorship of the internet started before that. All groups that had something to censor are equally guilty. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean other people don't.

[@howdareyouexist]

@@elinope4745 google has had the largest hand in "cleaning up" the internet

[@NineSeptims]

@@howdareyouexist hard to advertise thats why blame advertisers

[@brll5733]

Not if you use it right

[@francoistrempe]

I'm surprised that there was no mention of "the Oasis" from ready player one. This was a very detailed metaverse where everything was integrated with the virtual world. In that book, kids would exclusively go to school in the virtual world and most businesses only had a virtual office.

[@SixofQueens]

I decided long ago that I will side with interacting with the real world over the digital one wherever possible (my music library is about the only purely digital media I possess). I just wonder if, when I'm 50, that'll still be an option.

[@diyeana]

This makes me think of The Oasis from Ready Player One. I don't think the metaverse will only cost 25 cents to set up, though.

[@TraderDan58]

Yes RP1 is exactly what I thought of. I’m also invested in crypto which is also building metaverse projects like Decentraland.

[@robshnob123]

And Facebook feels like IOI...

[@paulschmidt9827]

Lol no it will be freemium

[@rabbitttz]

I hate that movie. So so so much that it’s an inside joke between me and my husband. If that bs becomes reality idk what id do.

[@joescott]

Yeah, somehow I did this whole video without referencing Ready Player One.

[@lemming2040]

I would say that the optimist in me sees the potential to "augment" our every day lives. Cooking food? Have the recipe and instructions right in front of you while you do so kinda thing. Sounds fantastic honestly. Then the real world me interjects with, "Have you seen how invasive technology and especially the companies using said technology have become?" And its at this point i remember that I have to run an adblocker just so a lot of websites are even tolerable these days. I remember that i no longer answer my phone because I can't stand essentially being on call 24/7 to anyone and everyone. Like imagine you have a rough month and can't pay a bill on time. And now the electric company or whatever can invade your everyday life with reminders that you owe them money being actually seen 24/7, like you didn't have enough stress already lol. So yeah, the optimist in me wants to believe, the realist in me is bloody terrified xD

[@iknklst]

'Having the recipe and instructions in front of you...." Oh, like a cookbook? Imagine that! Wow!

[@AileTheAlien]

One of the clips Joe shows with popups and ads is a short film highlighting these negative things. Pop-up ads, malware, lack of privacy...

[@fattiger6957]

It's hard to be optimistic about this when it really seems we're headed to a cyberpunk dystopia

[@aspacelex]

>Have the recipe and instructions right in front of you I have a phone and surfaces to prop it on.

[@lemming2040]

@@iknklst Did you read the whole thing I wrote? Also as for "A cook book" do you still use one? Or do you use your phone? I mean you're currently on KZbin so you must like technology to some extent.

[@KariahBengalii]

When I was younger, my dream was to have contacts that allowed me to browse the web while I was doing (or supposed to be doing) something else. As I get older, I realize that those would necessarily come with advertisements everywhere, with being constantly accessible to people, with a sort of corporate hellscape of always being monitored because data, and I feel an almost uncontrollable urge to move to the middle of nowhere and swap my laptop for a typewriter. I don't want this. More importantly, I am now at the point where I would refuse it. It would not be healthy for me involved in the 'metaverse' and I don't believe it would be healthy for most other people either.

[@ianwilbanks3015]

I agree with your considerations at the end of this video so much. Why would I want something to be synchronous rather than asynchronous. We have been constantly working toward making this asynchronous. One of the big reasons streaming services decimated cable is that you can watch whatever you want whenever you want. Why would we want to move away from that.

[@wolf1066]

Fully agree! I love asynchronous! It enables you to spread out the demands on your attention and time. Got three things coming at you at once? You can deal with one and the other two are queued up in your messages for when you are ready. I don't want real people and phone calls bombarding me all at once, I'm not going to want virtual adverts, news feeds and virtual people all bombarding me as well. I love setting my own schedule at any time when I cannot avoid being constrained.

[@NorthgateLP]

Because we're social beings after all. I mean we like to go out and meet our friends, so synchronous interactions with other humans are always something that I think we'll value very highly. The metaverse isn't about being always there, but it enables the possibility to have genuine synchronous interactions independent of where our physical body actually is. So the answer to Why would I want something to be synchronous is: Because you like to talk to your family and friends or anybody for that matter.

[@ianwilbanks3015]

@@NorthgateLP I think my point was perhaps unclear. There are some things that have been made asynchronous, like watching a video or sending text messages. Those things are better than their synchronous counterparts, like watching a cable channel or making a phone call. Part of the explanation of the metaverse appeared to me to be suggesting that we would be moving from those asynchronous things to some new synchronous versions. For example, rather than watching a video of a concert whenever I wanted, I would now have to show up online to the concert at the time it is being done. I agree with you that some things that are synchronous are enjoyable, and lose value from not being synchronous, especially socializing. It is more enjoyable to socialize with friends or family synchronously, but my point isn't discrediting that.

[@MsCateStar]

@@NorthgateLP Sometimes, some of us don't always want to talk to family, or friends in real time, & definitely not just ANYbody. Some of us are less social than some others.

[@NorthgateLP]

@@MsCateStar Well you won't be always online. You can login whenever you want. And when you want to be on your own. Just don't login. But I think it could be a good way to have friendships accross borders or longer distances.

[@enthusia492]

But VRchat, Steam Home and Oculus Home already exist. They're pushing "invite people to hang out at your virtual house" like it's a new thing.

[@fattiger6957]

That was happening 15 years ago with Second Life and Playstation Home. There's nothing new about it at all.

[@3949zxcvbnm]

Tower Unite

[@samhill6590]

@@fattiger6957 A lot longer than that. Active Worlds came out in 1995 and is still operating. I put on what may be the first virtual CD release party in 2000 that drew the interest of Sony.

[@einarsteinsson]

For me, I am starting to try to pull myself back from social media back into the real world. Social media and the virtual world is not all bad but it is still so much more interesting here out in the physical world. And it is important to remember that if you are getting something "free" you are the product.

[@LeeannG]

Same, I’m actually starting to make more phone calls too. I’m sick of having long conversations by text. I’m still not going to check my voicemail though 🤣

[@vtr279]

"If the service is FREE, then the product is ME..."

[@jaegrant6441]

Great to hear, all!

[@GregK2754]

Hey Joe! Heavy VR user here. Been into it since 2016 and I have owned 6 different headsets. I also was a Invite only Beta tester for Horizon Worlds by Meta. I also own a pair of Vuzix Blade Updated glasses and man they are cool, Still not there yet but the Shield will be awesome. If you have questions about any of these things I think I can answer. I would love to give you a personal tour of the things my friends and I have created.

[@ollywright]

Interesting video, thank you for making it! Small detail: MMOs have been around since the 1990s (i played them then! Check out Ultima Online from 1997) and MUDS (multi user dungeons) since the 1970s. As for the company that cracks the consumer friendly AR glasses - my bet would be Apple, though i hope we see a new company do it instead. I'm with you on the contrarian part however - self care in the 2020s means being offline.

[@jameschance6829]

I couldn't possibly be less interested in a meta verse (in reference to you asking our thoughts on the subject, I enjoyed your video). Actual reality is far more interesting and there's still so much left to discover. If people want to live their lives in the cloud that's fine. It just doesn't seem like living to me.

[@alalalala57]

Man, I guess this is what it feels like to be really old. I feel like my nieces and nephews would stare at me weird for saying that, same how I stared at my grandparents when they talk about the war or some shit.

[@vblaas246]

Mars (HiRise stereo imagery) in VR though.

[@ribertfranhanreagen9821]

well to majority it is, since living is basically collecting experience, no matter the experience is product of matrix and simulations. still it need to increase the Immersivenes first, if at some point it reache the mases with 100% like reality. than i believe more than 70% will. choose to live in it

[@bakerboy8910]

It's already having that effect on the real world. I'm old enough to remember the age before the internet, and honestly, the internet, especially social media, have ruined us as a species.

[@yardsale09]

Social media ruined us as a species? Not slavery? Not war? Not genocide? Woof talk about snowflake.

[@bakerboy8910]

Those are part of being HUMAN. War, genocide, slavery....like it or not but it's hardwired into us.

[@timfriday9106]

@@bakerboy8910 no.....you think it's hardwired because we have so much attention tto it in history but, there is very little proof to support the idea humans fought each other in early humans. to the point they are changing the accepted theories that homo Erectus killed off the Neanderthals, as there is little evidence of the violence of this collection of the decades and now we see neanderthals were more intelligent/advanced than originally theorized.

[@alaskansummertime]

It really has. I start every single day blocking several people who were up all night saying nasty things to people. I block a dozen people a day on Facebook. I've been trying to get removed from FB but I'm stuck there with a business page.

[@krunkle5136]

It was great when it was just Usenet and email, and mostly in the hands of university students.

[@raikenleo1902]

I think having the world get even more immersed into a virtual setting might not be the healthiest ideas. As Joe mentioned in the video no mental health expert is gonna tell you to be more hooked onto the internet. Our evolution favored interacting more in person and with the world around us more than the virtual setting. We aren't fully equipped as a species or society to even deal with what the virtual offer in a healthy way.

[@testedTransgressor]

Okay so while I love the potential applications, I really recommend you check out the short story The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster. The people of that live in their own little bubbles and have basically an entirely virtual world surrounding them, and the concept when I read it in 2009 seemed absolutely buckwild, but now... Now, it sounds like the next step to our current reality. And if you read the story, you'll understand why that's actually sort of scary.

[@JohnDoe-yq9ml]

It’s not the next step. It’s not even close. Until we can do something like sword are online then the meta verse will never exist or take off.

[@howardhendricks323]

Or imagine authoritarian agencies jumping into your home and deciding your lifestyle is inappropriate and imposing restrictions immediately such as freezing your virtual abilities, finances, and real world rights. And you might not even know that they were there. Same with criminals virtually breaking into your home to steal your digital assets, case your home for a physical break in, or invade your privacy.

[@yankee1376]

Canadians already getting a taste of that.

[@breeknow]

How exactly will they virtually break into your home? Does that even make sense?

[@breeknow]

@@johnperic6860 he said virtually, even then, how would someone metaphorically break into one’s home? What are the risks involved? I get it meta has been collecting info on the space in our homes. So far it is dealt with by algorythms, no one is playing voyeur. That doesn’t mean they couldn’t though. If they wanted. But for criminals to invade my home? Not sure how it would work. Not saying that it won’t happen. I’m just at a loss here.

[@ontheruntonowhere]

@@breeknow Of course Meta, Facebook and all the rest are playing voyeur. Right now there's 100K greasy tech guys slobbering over the naked pics your daughter has sent. Why would it be any different if it was Meta or criminals (other than tech companies, I mean)? You think criminals can't figure out how to extort or profit from your 'private' activities?

[@howdareyouexist]

that stuff already happens

[@The23s]

My first experience of the Metaverse was in the early 1990s, when Steve Jackson Games hosted a MUD by that name. It was all text-based, like playing Zork, but otherwise it was intended to be everything Zuckerberg’s (and, originally, Neal Stephenson’s) version was supposed to be: a shared virtual space where people could work, collaborate, conduct business, and play. Play was all anyone really did, though. There were all kinds of plans for bringing businesses in, giving them tools for commerce and collaboration, virtual meeting spaces… but no one took it all that seriously. I don’t think even SJG, the owners, ever conducted any serious business there. When the Web started to hit big, it became clear where the future of online business lay, and the project was dropped. I don’t foresee things going any differently this time. There’s just no compelling reason to create a whole new reality just so people can keep doing the things they’re already doing. The text-based Metaverse was great as a way to interact socially online-I met a lot of lifelong friends there, including the person I would eventually marry-and the new one will probably be great for that as well. But as far as changing how we interact online on a fundamental level… I’ve been here before, and I’m not seeing anything to make me think it will be different this time.

[@mitzpestargazing]

Best video you've done in a while. In depth, informative, comprehensive, and pensive. Thanks 👍

[@mortified776]

"Google Glass came out in 2013 to mixed reviews. Some people called it ugly, while other people hailed it as remarkably stupid." 😂💀 It's pretty much the IBM Simon or Apple Newton of smart glasses isn't it? A product which fell short not because it was a bad idea but because it was a concept impatiently leaping to market before the technology to properly realise it was ready.

[@bigginsd1]

“It might not be as popular as the tech bros think.” Nail on the head. It smacks of 3D Televisions. Gamers will love it, but seriously this is not the way most people will want to relax in their leisure time, let alone to work or live. Meta is the modern equivalent of a telecommunications company in that nobody has a warm feeling about them and most actively dislike them but use them for the basic utility of keeping in touch with their friends. Actually interacting with the company is tedious, as that cringy hand waving presentation showed. Apple has fans, Google has fans, PlayStation has fans, Xbox has fans, if you said you were a fan of Meta most would look at you like there is something wrong with you. Data-miners who cause mental health issues, that’s what I think of Meta.

[@fattiger6957]

A lot of gamers just want to play video games, not go into some boring fantasy version of real life.

[@RhizometricReality]

Capitalism needs to be destroyed

[@axnyslie]

The Metaverse is the answer to a question nobody asked.

[@charlesevanshughes3638]

Whatifalthist had a great video on this recently. Tech bros live in a bubble where everyone wants new tech. Silicon Valley may want to put invasive pieces of tech on their faces, but South Bend doesn't.

[@ianbelanger7459]

Meta is the finale commodification of humanity. It is an unbroken line of grift from cryptocurrency through NFTs that allows those with resources to strip mine every aspect of a person for profit. An immutable identity eliminates the idea of privacy and assumes a person should only be judged as the sum of all their actions eliminating the idea of change. You become the number that visited that locations meaning you should never have access to this and should be pushed that.

[@jameswalmsley9038]

When you started talking about going back in time with VR it triggered a memory from my university years (I smoked a LOT of weed) but I had an idea that I would buy a few 360 cameras and send them to people around the world to set up once every year at a landmark for 24 hours a year, and during significant events, then uploading them to a folder to compile a database of relivable history. It would obviously take a very long time to be significant, but I was thinking long term, because if a kid could go to school in 100 years and instead of hear about what life was like before the internet, but experience it, I think that would be a transformative leap in education, but also a nostalgia machine. This was my attempt at conceptualising what a real life time machine could actually be (a LOT of weed). The idea would be to load up an interface of a small living room type space you could walk around in, then choosing a year and location to travel back to, and having the internet automatically load popular tv from the time on this virtual living room system, on technology of the time. Interior decor popular to the year etc etc. It’s ambitious and most likely won’t ever happen, but unreal engine also takes the whole 360 camera idea and could possibly change the decades to a couple years of hard work, to build a platform for an invaluable piece of education and possibly even rehabilitation tool. Just an outrageous idea, but I think regardless if a variation of this idea comes about, VR education is gonna make a lot of kids way more engaged in the next few decades.

[@dougrogan379]

They will probably be able to generate close approximations using land marks from Google maps and catalogues to dress people in the garbes of the era and cars etc. We are already pretty good at that. Good idea though weed opens the mind

[@Lymbe06]

That's an excellent use of weed. I played Football Manager and the intro to "Nothing Else Matters" for 3 straight years.

[@Jjangbunbun]

sounds cooool

[@ldIezz]

weird when I smoke lots of weed I just think of dropping tungston rods on russia from LEO

[@angelaengle12]

Just adding two cents, but there was a project of rebuilding a religious historical building in 3-D that had been ruined by terrorists. It was a massive under-taking to copy it exactly but it would be pretty amazing to walk through historical ruins in virtual space when they were at their peek beauty and before the wearing of time. Weed is a powerful thing btw, lol.

[@myty3278]

Great Video! I enjoyed every minute of it. Thanks Joe!

[@BD-ph9qw]

Excellent, very informative video! Appreciate the effort into all the research and graphics, I can only imagine how time consuming it must be. Keep it up Joe!

[@Trippy_Space_Bunny]

My sister’s boyfriend brought over the oculus for Christmas and it was my first time using anything VR. The coolest thing was the exploring apps(?) The solar system, some woods, and underwater. I would love to be able to use AR/VR for that whenever/wherever. Both real world places (the pyramids, Jungles, the ocean, coral reefs, mountains, volcanoes, Mars, museums, famous libraries and other buildings and places I will never be able to see irl) or made up ones (Starwars, Piltover/Zaun, spaceports, the worlds of Dune or Valerian or Hyperion, the woods of the Witch Hunt game). Something I think would be very cool is being able to be in the world of a book series while listening to an audiobook (The fifth Season comes to mind, sit there listening to the book as one of the gigantic obelisks floats over your head) or immersive movies (be watching Arrival and see one of the spaceships landing/hovering) All that being said no one should own the meta-verse it does need to be like the internet in that regard, and Zuck can take a hike.

[@uku4171]

They are not aiming to own it.

[@aab350z]

@@uku4171 They want to own everything. Every corporation does.

[@christiancarassai9540]

Internet is not a neutral place since 5 years ago. As drug dealers, the firsts are free, then...

[@amandajones661]

Great ideas!!

[@hurtighansen1]

VR HS is like, jump in, be there. The 360cams bring you there. Is's the future. But not, like, living in a HS. II have VR content on my channel. Not a lot, like it. 90% don't see the teknik, like, move phone, not ur fingres. To mush work. Get a lot of 👎on that content. But some get all excited. 360 is love-hate thing. I use 360 to catch the perspektiv, moments, reframe it. Just a great tool. In content making. But also sucks, need to be close to action. 10m+ no zoom in-HD. Need new 360cam lol or do i.

[@kevinbealer6320]

I'm a programmer, so I'm fairly tech savvy. I always thought that I would never have to experience that "old guy" thing. Where young people view old people as out of touch and tech inept. I'm starting to think Meta is my old guy moment. Kids will start to say to their friends about me, "grandpa doesn't understand".

[@axnyslie]

The problem is the Internet is NOT for the tech savvy anymore like it was in the 1990s. Social medial oversimplified access which allowed everyone's parents and crazy uncles through the digital velvet ropes and now it's an endless toxic sewage thorough Minion memes. TikTok is where I drew the line and said no more. I can not dumb myself down enough to find any of that interesting.

[@danisusaki2816]

It's good to see, someone has this perspective.

[@bbdumplin9146]

Nah im 22. My kids and my grandkids are going nowhere NEAR this stuff. We have a whole planet . they can play in the real world with real people.

[@Columbus1152]

"But Grandpa, this is real!" "No it isn't Suzie, it's just a program that someone wrote to make you think it's real"

[@JoelMurphy77]

Honestly, Instagram was already that for me. Early Facebook made sense to me because it was a feed, much like a bulletin board system from the 80s/90s. I'm not part of the selfie generation (in fact I find the term "selfie" rather unpalatable) so I have no use for an image-only feed. Vine and TikTok are even worse, from my perspective, because they're video instead of still images.

[@robbaxter2786]

This was awesome. Love the diversity of this channel.

[@StrangerYann]

man ure making this whole thing feel exciting the whole metaverse concept very insightful imo thx pal nice one tc aye :)

[@GhostFS]

Most "meta" experience with quest I had was before lockdown. End Jenuary 2020, to test "big screen" a virtual cinema app on quest I watched episode 3 of stawars in a virtual cinema, with 3 strangers. Chatting with them. One was from Alaska, blocked at home for a record snow. One was from Australia, blocked at home for a fire. One wasn't chatting much as he was bad with English. He was Chinese, blocked at home because a lockdown for a virus was just enacted. That strange film evening was more defining of what will come than i was able to realize at the time.

[@olencone4005]

I'm soooooo skeptical of this whole "lets hang out together in the metaverse" thing. When I was younger, my friends and I often gamed online together. And, no matter what, everyone insisted that we all put some headsets on and join Ventrillo (or Discord when it came out) so we could all chat and keep up.... but no one ever chatted. And I got real tired real fast of wearing some itchy headphones just so I could listen to people slurp on their drinks or crunch on some chips while I was trying to follow a storyline quest. Then Facebook came along, and everyone wanted everyone else to be on it so we could all chat and keep up. "It'll be just like old times" they said... except it wasn't. All anyone ever did was repost news articles and give everyone's post a thumbs up or something. There was no interaction, no discussions, no camaraderie -- it was just "likes" and silence. And with all the nonsense during and after the last election, I got real tired real fast of having to scroll through 500 reposts of the exact same news article every five freakin minutes, all with hardly a word of commentary, just likes and emojis. And now the next big push looks like it will be doing the same thing with "the metaverse," where I can wear yet another uncomfortable headpiece and have a virtual avatar who will... what... sit on a virtual chair and virtually scroll through virtual emojis posted by my virtual friends and virtually wonder why virtually nothing is different than when I was doing the exact same thing IRL? Yeeeaahhhh.... no. Unless they have some waaaaay better offerings, Imma gonna pass on this till we have some Sword Art Online-style full-dive VR going. Cause at least then I won't be aware of some bulky headset and I can wander off and do my own thing while everyone else crunches their chips and spams likes or whatever.

[@MiaLovedByChrist]

I love this comment

[@redmondhenry398]

You never talked? When i play with the bois we are busting balls all night, on one occasion i had a noise complaint because I was laughing way to loud. Get better friends if you dont talk to them lol.

[@jasonpapai73]

What are you like 40? Believe me you are not the target demographic

[@user-tg2km]

@@jasonpapai73 Come on man age ain't got nothing to do with it. In fact it could also be the reverse. I was the real target audience when Facebook was created, 18. I used it as a student. When it got big and my mum joined, I knew it was time to leave, in like 2009. Their target audience for like 13 years has been older people and even though I'm starting to join that demographic, 13 years later I still don't have Facebook. Eventually, if they want to be profitable, all sections of society will need to be investing in it, especially older people with more money. Hell I know 50 year olds at work who play Fortnite!

[@ArmstrongMixture]

Sounds like you just had shitty friends lol

[@melanezoe]

Our university had a large Second Life space about 10 years ago. I taught technical writing in a virtual classroom. I even presented at a conference, “My English Professor is a Vampire.” It was fun, yes, and about 25% of my students embraced it wholeheartedly. But it was a bloody lot of hard work for me so I eventually gave it up. I can see how the metaverse could make teaching/learning more effective. But I’d prefer to just keep working on developing anti-gravity and crack the problems of transporter booths and fusion energy. In Real real-time.

[@TexasRy]

GREAT VIDEO, thanks Joe!!

[@jerrywood4508]

I remember the first time my mother said, "I wasn't made for this world," and that was just when I told her what the house she and my father bought in 1950 was selling for now. I'm 68 now, and I am pretty damn sure I was not made for the world you describe. I wonder if the political cleavages of the future will be between those who embrace this stuff and those who want to resist it.

[@Ashley-1917]

I predict that political struggle will continue to be along class lines. Embracing technology is not always the progressive option.

[@Ashley-1917]

Btw, what was so surprising about the house price?

[@katymaloney]

It's still the same old struggle: strategic resources. The future looks bleak over both worlds, material and virtual... our actual resources are being hoarded and the land abused, and then virtually our minds and our identities are being sold and abused by merchants of dreams, who are classical exploiters in many ways: our "data" is the resource they need to secure more money and power in this brave new world they are "building for us". They are colonizing the web.

[@williamcozart8158]

Yeah scary, war between the virtuals and the reals..

[@iomeliora9430]

I personally think I am made for the world when all these egomaniacs, be them big tech, oil companies, world leaders and the like are all a thing of the past, and we would finally realize what makes us humans, by having just enough for everybody, and no one pressuring us into their own view of what we should be wanting.

[@tjakal]

3:11 This interaction explains how the zuck can believe the metaverse is a good idea, his human interactions are already indistinguishable from a computer animated cartoon in the real world.

[@iknklst]

You would think that DARPA would have come up with an idea better than using rebuilt Chuck E. Cheese animatronics running Widowds Vista when trying to build an entity to convince everyone to allow the government to collect all their data. "Sweet Baby Ray's." "Sweet Baby Ray's." "Sweet Baby Ray's." "Sweet Baby Ray's." "Dammit, someone tell Fred it's glitching again and he needs to getr his team out there asap."

[@noobhero6661]

The key points needed for a metaverse, that was in the video, reminded me of ready player one and how the virtual world was depicted in the book and movie.

[@mrgrimm2129]

Love the video! The future is inevitable! The risks grow when the tech does, but it also reduces massive risks in other areas and hopefully pushes out the great barrier of progress and survival. Only when we have time, from tech Joe, can we make these decisions. Keep being awesome

[@donaldduck7628]

The real train wreck is the fact that every cloud belongs to their respective owner, NOT the person that created or purchased whatever it is. Going there gives some cloud owner everything. No ownership means no privacy. No privacy means they own you. People become the ultimate commodity. Companies want to own you and everything you have.

[@davidturpin9135]

That's what Blockchain does, makes it so that no single entity can control any one whole thing. It also makes storage super inefficient, but pros and cons. KZbin can take down this video if they want to, but an NFT, for example, is (capable of) being stored in a decentralized way. In the future, blockchain wallets will go away and will be replaced by your own identity, which could be linked to your fingerprint or your iris pattern or even your DNA. You can then access your virtual belongings from anywhere even if some cloud servers go down. Your virtual Last Will and Testament then adds to the blockchain with instructions to disposition your belongings upon your death. This is the world as I see it before I die.

[@bramvanduijn8086]

@@davidturpin9135 Who is managing the identities?

[@shubhamkumar6689]

3:22 you have my respect Joe for enduring the whole interview. Lol This video was hilarious.👍👍

[@slicingonions4398]

Dang you got me psyched for it now

[@BabyYodaZips]

Thanks for the great video Joe. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is one of my favorite books. I didn't know he was the person that coined the phrase metaverse.

[@SaHaRaSquad]

I enjoy the internet BECAUSE it is asynchronous. Because I can block ads, because I can be anonymous, because literally $5-computers can freely access it. VR tech is great for some things, but if it actually becomes this dystopian everyday metaverse thing I'm gonna stay the hell away. I'm a software developer and huge tech enthusiast, and yet I don't use anything "smart" beyond a smartphone and even that may be temporary. I don't agree with all this corporate hostility against users and their privacy, and when I see what's going on in the industry I can't just go and help fund the decay of our freedoms.

[@staroceans8677]

Well said!!

[@fattiger6957]

I remember when privacy was considered an inalienable human right. Like when it came out that the NSA was listening in to normal people's calls and everyone was outraged. Now social media companies have made people think it's 'fun' to give up their privacy to giant, soulless corporations.

[@lievenvv]

My phone wanted to mine personal data to CHANGE THE FREAKING BACKGROUND PICTURE

[@christiansnyman8326]

I thought I was the only weirdo developer that doesnt like all these new "smart tech" nonsense. 🤣 Well said!

[@Tsukiyasi]

Totally agree, I don't want a everything connect internet where i have a unique identity that is used in everything and the only way to access things is by putting a device on my face(even if it's a normal glass). I just like the way things are today, where I have my smartphone that i can freely access everything and don't need to wear it, where i can use different identities for different sites. For me there's nothing that will ever succeed that. VR is great, i hear a lot of good unique experience from playing certain games on it, but that's all, is just to experience a small amount of games, nothing more.

[@thecookiemaker]

I have gotten to the point that if I want to talk to somebody I will talk to them in person. If I want to buy something I will drive to a store and buy it from the single checkout lane that is actually staffed. After living by myself and working from home for the last few years, I crave human connection that you cannot get from a virtual world.

[@2Ten1Ryu]

Yeah, I heard nobody talking about all the other sensations souch as smells, tastes temperature, wind, rain etc that you experience in the real world that you can't adapt into VR. if I were to have a movie night with friends, I want to prepare food and snacks and share them right there and then. I want to grab the chips out of the same bowl for crying out loud! you can't replace that and I think, most of us know.

[@JohnHarbot]

Another fine presentation, I {more than like} LOVE all your videos♡ @Joe Scott you might want to use an HDMI capture device (ie. Elgato) to help you record your VR endeavors (eg. @ the 12:22 minute mark) I've been casting my Quest2 into a chrome stick to share the (ahem, not so very) glorious moments;-)

[@ohkee]

Dude, you made me laugh way too much. Keep it up! Loved this ep!

[@phoschnizzle826]

Ah, yes, that Zuck interview where he looked like he had to physically restrain himself from licking his own eyeballs. I'm all for an interactive, virtual space for fun and collaboration - just nothing to do with Meta or any other big name mainstream media. The Oasis from "Enter Player One" would be amazing - without, of course, the draconian corporate overlords.

[@midnightrambler8866]

Oh gawd that's hilarious! "Licking his own eyeball"!

[@albertofernandez2490]

I think you missed how the real world in EPO looked like.

[@chrisblight6069]

Unfortunately, they seem to come hand in hand.

[@intensivecareunitpee5838]

Realistically it would only take off with these mega corps pushing it. Instead of saying things like “it would be cool if…” let’s just say no to it. Because that allows for the corps to find other ways to convince people.

[@Bitterjackal]

That first sentence damn near made me do a spit-take. Well done Pho

[@THEmickTHEgun]

Hey Joe just want to let you know that not only are your videos very informative but also entertaining for me. I often find myself having a good chuckle when watching you and I appreciate your efforts.

[@joescott]

Thanks for saying that!

[@cawfeedawg]

love the longer deep dive of this video. Moar please!

[@punditgi]

Nice avatar, Joe! Enjoyed the video also. 👍

[@tommymclaughlin-artist]

We "could just take the glasses off" in the same way that we "could just put the phone down". The danger is at least twofold: content that is designed to be psychologically addictive and the economic pressure that exists when people are financially incentivized to spend their time in the metaverse. Think about smartphones today: if you don't have one, then good luck getting a job or finding directions etc. A smartphone is more or less a requirement to be able to compete these days. The glasses will become the next requirement. And when people do take them off, they'll jump right back into their phones. This thing is a nightmare nobody wants.

[@suzanneguernier5352]

"This is a nightmare nobody wants." The tide and backwaters of society, change is constant. There will be positive effects ( but the addictive effects will be " nasty") . For me, I feel uneasy about it. Will this be another division of society?

[@KarlDupereRicher]

I don't have a smartphone and quite honestly I don't feel the need to own one and I don't ever feel I'm missing that much.

[@price3216]

Doubt that, imagine AR helping guide you through a mall or find the nearest bathroom, logging on and playing multiplayer Skyrim like game vr with your friends, this will also help way more people work from home which is a major save on US infrastructure and business investments, in home schooling where you can tour the human body or the Milky Way with your teacher. The potential is limitless. The long term financial cost alone is a holy grail, not because what you will make, but the money saved.

[@davidnelson7719]

I don't understand why you need a smart phone to be competitive... I have bachelors degrees in chemistry and mechanical engineering, and a masters in economics. I've never needed a smart phone... I'm doing pretty well.

[@aetherwizard3218]

As he said that I was just thinking.. Yeah.. for now. This is also a very good point you make.

[@thirteenthandy]

The most vivid thing that comes to my mind is a day when, like the mass adoption of smart phones, the majority of people walk around in mixed reality all day every day. You are in some kind of normal act like shopping or eating lunch, when someone approaches and begins a conversation. At first you respond even though you're a little irritated, because that's only polite, but then suddenly - SON OF A BITCH IT'S A VR BOT. That's right, it's the new equivalent of a pop-up ad or more accurately a robo call. A virtual person who intentionally tries to masquerade as a real person, to make you think it's part of the physical world, until you realize it's a damn recording trying to ask about your car's extended warranty. No thank you.

[@CivilEngineerWroxton]

Bravo! You hit the nail on the head. Not being able to distinguish between the real world and the virtual/augmented world because of tricksters and frauds is going to be one of the absolutely terrible realities (Pun intended) of Web 3.0 and this new place for people to hang out and live their lives.

[@lh3540]

Or you're just blind. PROBLEM SOLVED. I'll be in the woods with my one creepy goat-eye. More trees for me.

[@stevenparisi]

Nice one, Joe. Thanks for that

[@miguelmoran8110]

As always Jo made me fall from my chair laughing out loud! Thank you for this video, like all others in the channel, so detailed and fulfilling! Great Job! Greetings from 🇨🇭

[@ArmstrongMixture]

"You can always take the glasses off" is like telling someone being cyber bullied "just turn off the computer/phone/whatever" If/when society gets to that point, people who 'take the glasses off' will be like those without email addresses in 2022. People will ask how you function.

[@zwussow]

Yeah, you can take the glasses of, but you can't see any signage in public places, nothing has prices, you can't work at most jobs, etc etc. So optional!

[@gormauslander]

I mean, it's not bad advice. You don't need to be on your phone as much as you are. And I've never been cyberbullied carrying out non-social functions on my phone

[@fensoxx]

What a great point. Thanks.

[@fensoxx]

@@dominic.h.3363 I think he’s inferring that certain technologies become such an essential part of everyday life that you cannot just turn them off.

[@gormauslander]

@@fensoxx except calling toxic social media "essential" is like calling cigarettes essential. And like I stated above, strangers harassing you is almost invariably on social media. If I only use my phone for "essentials", things I actually need to function today, that would be Google searches, document viewing, calls, and texts. I can block phone numbers faster than people can spoof them. I can choose not to scroll to the bottom of a news article to read interactions on it. The original comment is made by someone who doesn't like the advice even though it is sound and works, because they, like an addict, have forgotten what life was like before the substance and doesn't want to live without

[@wlittle8908]

Strapping a brick to your eyes reminded me of putting a brick to your ear when cell phones first came out. If this comes to fruition then there goes one on one human contact. Yup i can see only good things coming from this. Maybe im being a bit pessimistic. Anyway great video Joe.

[@joescott]

I think that's actually an astute point. People said the same thing about those brick phones back in the day and look what they became...

[@AileTheAlien]

I don't think real human contact will disappear with AR or VR tech. I'm sure there will be a lot of initial hype and over-use, but we already went through this with the internet and smartphones. You'll always have that one friend who spends too much time isolated, but I think people are generally starting to realize that never seeing your friends IRL or stepping outside isn't healthy.

[@custos3249]

But think of the SAFETY that offers! - which will be how they'll ultimately sell it to people.

[@MrMaxenceBoulard]

I've studied art for a while, and the metaverse makes me think a lot about Marshal McLuhan, and many other during that time, who went kinda crazy, either in dystopia or utopia, about the emergence of the internet. Their writing often sounds quite old and frivolous now. There's Lev Manovich, a more contemporary author who writes that every tech is the extension of an old one, just quicker, stronger, etc, but that at every step, there's this craze that happens, and we get into this tunnel vision. The theremine did not replace classical orchestras, nor did any electroacoustic technologies, but both still exist and flourish and completements each other. Sure there's Spotify, but the vinyle industry is flourishing like it never had in the past decades since, well it cannot go any smaller so the ''large, analog, slow and high maintenance'' gives this ritualistic element that people enjoy. Same for lamp bulbs, LED, and just plain old candles. Let's keep being open. It's not going to be the end of the world nor the cure for all things. I think the Metaverse will have cool elements, all my friends are around the world, and seeing them in virtual space would be amazing, but i'm also worried about how cyberspace will be controlled by corporation. But it's the same old, but now in colour.

[@theWanAndOnly]

wow that "here are some of the highlights" line delivery had me choking for breath ! XD

[@albertmiller2electricbooga897]

I find the whole technological world terrifying now, people are buying assets that are just lines of code, algorithms decide what news you see and shape your views, and it's gonna increase surveillance and our reliance on tech

[@wrongtimeweeder1076]

All good. A big fat solar flare is all that's needed to cleanly wipe those lines of code. Then us "plebs" can kick back laughing (at least, a little bit) :D

[@AileTheAlien]

Digital assets don't bother me in and of themselves, but the issue is with companies deciding whether or not you still have your stuff. (Shutting down old services, going bankrupt, etc.) NFTs could in theory help with this, but right now they're mostly for scams, and companies aren't in any way standardizing this stuff so that we have a standard record of ownership, that works across companies (including bankruptcies). Right now it's all the downsides of in-game hats, with more, new downsides layered on top.

[@powerdude_dk]

True, true and true.

[@peterkleve3529]

18:45 Couldnt agree more. The best times in my life I've been in the middle of absolutely no where. Didnt know what time it was, or check my phone. Just my map, compass, and backpack in the wilderness. I dont want more "connectivity" in my natural world

[@iknklst]

Truth. When my kids were still living at home from when they were quite young to being in their twenties regular hiking, fishing and camping trips away from everything was what we did every chance we got. Now that they're older I have three kids who grew up outdoors with kids of their own. I get to tag along with their families when they go out in the wild and teach my grandchildren what I know and how to survive in the wilderness. My greatest accomplishment.

[@MargoMB19]

I'm only 4 minutes in but I'm loving this video. Joe's reactions and facial expressions when talking about the Meta announcement, just priceless! Personally I think I agree with your 'contrarian' view, I'm sure there will be groups of people who would completely embrace this to the fullest but I also think this vision of the future revolving around this sort of thing is fairly overestimated.

[@micahchermak6386]

I totally agree with your final musings that we are actually going to be looking for more meaningful “real” time with people. I just don’t know what that would look like.

[@dngjr]

I think you're missing a fairly major competitor in this space: Valve Valve are one to watch for a number of reasons: they have launched possibly the most highly rated VR headset and controller system so far, and they have just launched a portable gaming device with impressive processing power. The two combined, with a few more iterations, make for potentially the strongest AR/VR proposition out there. They are also responsible for the only major trading platform for digital assets.

[@danatronics9039]

I think that last sentence is the biggest deal in this space. Valve doesn't need to fool around with "decentralization" and NFTs, they can rely on their existing impressive reputation.

[@eegernades]

The handheld hardware is impressive, but not by much. For a handheld, it's battery life is meh tho.

[@mcarpenter2917]

I think Valve's reputation for not being corporate a-hole's might be an important factor. Wonder if they will manage to not blow it.

[@katyhall5142]

While I agree that Valve rep is for not being big corporate a-holes is a huge selling point but what do they have to pull the masses to spend an extra $300-$500 on a VR headset? Why aren't people spending the extra money on a better product? I mean I looked at them and second guessed getting the Quest 2. Also, I was second guessing the Quest 2 because I had got extras which added up to around $200. While I have a gaming PC that can handle the other headsets not everyone does and that's another $1,000+ added onto the VR headsets.

[@mcarpenter2917]

@@katyhall5142 What I was alluding to is that Value will probably not try to setup a monopoly or exploitative VR space, and it's the VR software platform that is going to be the most important factor in VR. So pick the headset you can afford.

[@kawawangkowboy9566]

This reminds me of back in the dial up days, when companies (mostly colleges and museums iirc) were doing this 3d browsing thing. Links were actual rooms you walked into, and people in the room were people on the site (in some cases). It was lame then, and VR is lame now. 99.99% of the time, I don't even want to see pictures when I go online. VR internet would be a living hell of a dystopian future. If I wanted it, I would play Shadowrun

[@Shadi_Wajed]

I know what you're talking about, but VR is totally different. People tend to underestimate the difference between experiencing something on a screen and being inside the experience itself.

[@progtentious]

Yeah but have you ever played Beatsaber?

[@ryanroberts1104]

@@Shadi_Wajed I've had friends make me try their VR shit...I still call it VR shit and keep reminding them I spend less on my mortgage. Not impressed....at all. I totally agree, it looks like the old "rooms" they tried to force on us back when a computer mouse was still an advanced item and everybody was impressed with the idea of a "GUI". And it's still 1000% as lame now as it was then. As for all the games people essentially live inside of today - we call those people "losers", and the majority are morbidly unhealthy because of said game. They live in VR because they are not very welcome in real life. This is like how the US mint keeps trying to force dollar coins down our throat, and nobody ever wants them.

[@Shadi_Wajed]

@@ryanroberts1104 lol. Everyone from websites of the 90's to the US mint are trying to force you to do something. Ever heard of paranoia?

[@breeknow]

@@ryanroberts1104 So, the motion sickness is that bad, huh? But hey, don't let it keep you down.

[@tatortoot123]

This makes me think of the Oasis from Ready Player One and I would love to be able to experience a virtual world like what's described in that book.

[@Clairoline]

My fear of sword art online coming true 😭

[@Kirlian222]

Omg, Lawnmower Man reference warmed my heart

[@MauriceM0ss]

I am beginning to feel that I am reaching the age of my father when he 'gave up' on newer tech. He was a COBOL engineer and always busy with computers. He was in my eyes a magician, when our lovely MSX or 286 would break, next day: voila. Fixed. He got me into tech and taught me a lot. But there was a time when we got from CLI to GUI, and then further from old school 'simple' GUIs like Win95 to crap-eh-fancy GUIs like WinXP. But also more intricate GPUs, more options with CPUs, different everything. That's when he clocked out. And I am beginning to feel that the time for me to 'clock out' on that level is coming with Web 3 and that META business. I really don't see the value personally and I do not want to be continuously connected at all. My work is still in tech and loving every day. But when that time comes when my interface becomes a pair of glasses... I dunno.... I mean I don't miss the 'read only' internet, but sometimes I do. Getting nostalgic and I don't think I'm ever going to get used to virtual worlds. But that's just me, but hey you asked for our opinion :)

[@paulhaynes8045]

Spot on. I remember my dad getting too tired of it all, just as the net started to take off - he would have loved surfing the net and arguing over stuff, but, at around the age I am now (late 60s), he'd just had enough. He'd got used to CAD at work (he was a draughtsman), he used email, and he had a mobile phone (although only for 'emergencies'), but that was enough, he'd rather read a book than sit at a PC. I was sad about this, because he had exactly the inquisitive, analytical mind that was made for the internet, and I didn't really understand it - just an old guy getting stubborn, I thought. Fast forward 25 years and I'm surprised to find myself in the same place. I spent my whole career in IT, I even understand how most of it works, but I've ever used Twitter, or almost any other digital platform you can name. I use old-fashioned text on my phone, no what my kids use ('m not even sure what they use!), I - reluctantly - use Facebook, and I watch a lot of KZbin. But that's about it. I spend hours a day on my phone or at the PC and can't imagine a world without the internet or smart phones or online shopping, but I've had enough new things to learn. I'm OK with what I've got, it works for me, and I can't imagine needing anything else badly enough to bother learning how to use it (although I will do if need be). And my kids look at me like I looked at my dad 25 years ago...

[@Shadi_Wajed]

You're already continuously connected, your already continuously producing data, the difference is it's through more than one device and platform. If you work in Tech you're supposed to know that already.

[@laurendoe168]

@@paulhaynes8045 That's me too. I am exactly Bill Gates age. My interests matched Bill Gates' in the 70's and early 80's. My activities matched his. I watch a movie about his life story and say, "me too" over and over again. This is a perfect example of my not being in the right place at the right time. But... like you, my interest in technology has dwindled significantly. No doubt, a large portion was my lack of success but up until now I thought that was the whole reason. I now see there are others like I am. Dunno. Maybe this is all part of getting tired of living and getting ready to die. The realization "I've done all I can, and there's nothing left I care to see." (Wow... this went a lot darker than I originally intended).

[@andyjdhurley]

Yeah, I don't even remember a 'read only' internet. The one I used in the early 90s was definately two way, I could create my own pages (mostly full of links of things I found interesting) and participate in forums (fora?). The line between that and Web 2.0 is very blurred to me, I mean I guess social media was the dividing line but how are they really any different than dial-up forums and newsgroups which predated the WWW (other than in sheer scale and adoption)? Obviously the look and feel has changed but that is really a reflection of connection speed and it has not necessarily made things better. Tim Berners-Lee designed the web standards to be an interactive way for scientists and engineers to share data (think wikipedia), it was never meant to be read only.

[@Shadi_Wajed]

@@andyjdhurley The term "Read-only Internet" doesn't mean read-only exactly, the same as Moore's law is not actually a law. By read-only they actually mean that most of the content on the Web were not made by the users, and users usually "read" the content rather than produce it.

[@JL-lt3gg]

VR still has a long way to go. After my own experience with it I've realized it will not catch on with the masses until all of our senses can be totally engaged and it becomes completely immersive. Because like you said, who wants to put a brick on their face. That said, in the near term smart glasses are definitely the holy grail. When someone finally gets it right I think it will take off like wildfire sort of like smart phones did.

[@ZachRULES96]

We are like 30 years away

[@memesfromdeepspace1075]

To make it beter we need 4 improment . -baterai -display -prosesor -sensor

[@floridanews8786]

Don't worry they will install chips in your head pretty soon.

[@faze_buendia9514]

I don't think I've ever seen so many big words in a single sentence before Mr. Ball's quote, well done Sir

[@kathymaree5871]

Excellent work

[@einekartoffel2490]

Do NFTs really work as a confirmation that something is authentic? So far I've heard of many counter-examples, where people steal artworks they don't own and then sell them as NFTs, ergo those NFTs aren't really authentic or authenticating.

[@exceedcharge1]

Folding ideas has a video that has everything about nfts

[@abram730]

They seem to be hyper links in the blockchain and are vulnerable to input fraud.

[@Lecksite]

i have been using second life every day for 10 years and i was laughing to myself when the concert in the metaverse had technical problems. there are issues with streaming content into second life the users and developers have figured out ways around already, so problems like this are rare in second life, where you can experience a concert without a problem. if the metaverse is struggling with basic things like this, they have a long way to go (3 years minimum, probably 5-10 years) before working out bugs so this is usable for what they want. having everything realtime is going to be a challenge in itself. imo they are trying to do too much too fast with the metaverse. they need to build upon the metaverse layer by layer so it's not bug ridden for years. don't combine AR and VR and promise everything will work head and shoulders above companies who have been doing a similar thing for decades, albeit those companies don't have anywhere near the resources microsoft and meta do.

[@edwardjcoad]

OMG! The best laugh I've had for weeks; the Meta announcement's hand-waving interview and secondly seeing you do the same thing because, and I'm going to speak for the 350k people who've seen this video, that is exactly what we hoped you'd do!! Total entertainment.

[@NaukasNiki]

Good day. I am verry happy to be a long time viewer and a big fan of the channel. You actually were the biggest inspiration for the creation of my own science channel in bulgarian. Obviously i hold your appion in a verry high reguard and honestly i was wayting for you're appinion on the current event with i can only describe as a war between democracy and despotism. Right now I personally am torn between continuing with my plan on covering telescopes, CERN and other subjects or just trowing the planed scripts out the window and making a video about how moraly wrong the current situation is. I know that i will probably not get a responce you have hundread of comments and i wish you even bigger success but i am still hoping to hear your opinion.

[@rachel_sj]

As a User Experience Designer and User Researcher, with a background in Anthropology and passion for understanding how people use technology as tools, I think you hit the nail on the head with this video. I find that having a space to play around with virtual worlds, for the Sake of Creativity, but it'll take A LOT to sell a VR headset and smart glasses to the public for mass usage and enjoyment. In the midst of all of us learning about Web 3.0 (myself included), I think it's normal to be very skeptical of NFTs (similar to how people were freaked out about buying items onine with credit cards in the 1990s) and how digital goods can be "owned" by one person (which kind of goes against the whole idea of the Internet being a equitable common space for all people, ideas, transactions, etc). What really bothers me about all of this is that the technology doesn't seem to solve a lot of real world problems (caused by tech or otherwise). It's fine to have spaces to experiment and have people join, but it's another issue to try to push an idea or medium that seems too abstract to people. We still have 99% of websites that aren't Accessible, along with massive gaps in Internet access for people of different areas of the US/World, demographic groups, etc that are just being ignored for the Next Shiny New Toy (tm) while those people have to deal with or struggle with what scraps are left. I'd like to see technology step up to solve current problems (through AR, well-designed interfaces/experiences or other means) and see experiments used to fix problems that we face on a daily basis, vs the Rich People of the World strapping a brick onto one's face to escape such problems (like burying ones head in the sand, but while standing a looking at pretty things)...

[@Koyy206]

I don’t have the same experience as you, but I do think that smart glasses would be a fairly popular thing. It would basically be a cooler smart phone. I don’t see it being integrated into the work space like Meta would suggest though. But I agree we have a lot things regarding the internet that need to be fixed, before we create a bunch of new problems in something like the Metaverse

[@rachel_sj]

@@Koyy206 It’d be interesting to see if Smart Glasses take off in a similar way that VR headsets are, but remain a stable tool of tech in the years to come. I’ve always wondered how Smart Glasses would work for someone like me who’s worn corrective lenses/glasses for more than two decades. Do I have to buy an accessory that attaches to the pair I’m wearing? Are all glasses going to be made to be “smart”? I guess that remains to be seen…

[@Koyy206]

@@rachel_sj Apple has a couple of patents on adjustable lenses, so we will have to wait and see if they’re able to perfect it in time, for whenever they launch their product. I’ve seen rumors about being able to buy your smart glasses with your prescription, but it would obviously cost more. You bring up an interesting point, smart glasses definitely have the chance to make regular glasses obsolete for a lot of people. I can see the tech world adopting Ar pretty quickly, once the technology is more readily available

[@kyleohara8700]

MMO's go back to earlier than just second life in 2003, there was Ultima Online (97), Everquest (99), Ashron's Call (99), RuneScape (01), and Dark Age of Camelot (01) were all released and all had virtual spaces prior to 2003.

[@samhill6590]

Don't forget Active Worlds that came out in 95 and is still operating. I wasted several years there...

[@nicholasming5976]

Incredibly thought provoking argument at the end joe.

[@kenny5760]

Classic "answers" with Joe, leaving me with more questions 😂

[@JusNoBS420]

Is Joe Scott the new VSauce?!? Answers a question by asking 20 more questions?

[@naiknaik8812]

@Redneck Shaman good for you!

[@bsmithhammer]

Big props for mentioning "Snowcrash." I've been bringing this visionary book up a lot recently, in regards to a variety of things (like cryptocurrency) that this book accurately predicted decades before its time. I remember reading it at that time it came out, and thinking "wow, this is a pretty wild, and somewhat distrubing, idea of what the future may look like." Now, much like the movie 'Idiocracy," I realize it has largely aged into becoming a documentary.

[@aboxarox]

Diamond Age

[@splagada76]

Best analysis of "Metaverse" done. I fully agree with the conclusion.

[@blzrdphoto]

I had literally the exact same response to Vader immortal. Glad to know I wasn’t the only one that had that experience. My wife didn’t understand. The expansive cave when you’re on the skiff gave me the same sort of awe experience.

[@lolbored801]

I always imagined VR will eventually get to the point where its a giant room where the world builds around you. Just like in Star Trek. Can you imagine playing Skyrim or Morrowind or any number of open world games?

[@JGooden762]

Yeah, but it feels a lot more like Lt. Barclay than Elementary Dear Data...

[@ElmoRitter]

I went hiking and it was crazy. There was an open world that seemed never ending. I could touch everything and it felt so real.

[@user-xl8jm3zy1f]

skyrim vr is epic. It's super fun if you get mods. I can say spells out loud and they appear in my hands/fight the enemy with weapons that I pull directly off of my hips or back. it's amazing. You can even turn it into a workout if you install programms that force you to move your legs to move in game and get mods that disable/limit fast travel. You really appreciate the distance between whiterun and markarth if you have to walk there. Don't even get me started on the blades temple. I think there are at least two dragon spawns on the route from whiterun to there. It's a super fun adventure

[@lolbored801]

@@user-xl8jm3zy1f Yeah I am pretty excited to try it. Just can't afford it right now. But I have been watching lets plays and it look like a ton of fun.

[@krunkle5136]

The more detailed it gets the more easily its shortcomings are noticed though.

[@garyjohnson8622]

So excellent. Thanks

[@allthewayfrom]

18:00 "Does anybody really want this?" Great stuff, Joe.

[@likearockcm]

When I was a kid in the 50's I watched a 3d movie at a movie house .It was very cool and fun .It didn't seem to catch on until recently .Humans will use it for fun, some will use and abuse it and some will get addicted. All in all it won't be a big deal anyway. Virtual currency now that has the ability to shake up everything.

[@jondreauxlaing]

To your final point: a couple weeks ago, my buddy showed me his new phone. It's an e-ink display, no color, no social apps phone that's meant to be a phone. I think it only has call, text, calculator, music and a simple maps app. I was immediately enamored. It sounded so nice to be unplugged for a bit. The phone was a little pricey though, so I couldn't jump on it, but I wanted to. I have my phone on silent for the majority of the day. I stopped making digital art and went back to traditional painting just so I don't have to look at a screen all day. I have VR goggles I pretty much never use. Tech bros saw the isolation from the pandemic and thought what we needed was more technology to replace in-person interaction, but I think the lesson is how important our loved ones are to us, and that we need unstructured time and space to be with them. The only thing I really NEED technology for is to make plans with my friends to see them in person. I could live without the rest. Maybe I should (I say as I make a comment on a youtube video)

[@Tsukiyasi]

Oh, i really liked that phone, it's something i always wanted, just some phone that i can talk to people, hear music and not get lost. You know the name of that phone?

[@syyneater]

Strapping on the Valve Index and stepping into Half-Life: Alyx for the first time was a surreal experience. I found myself wanting to use the VR method of grabbing items. My wife and I both got the shot scared out of us when going down the elevator and the guard yells at you. The thing that sold me was being able to use a VR marker to write on a glass window in game. That’s when I went looking for a VR whiteboard and found an infinite whiteboard app on steam. It’s a bit buggy (backing up the directory is a must), but it was so nice to be able to use one for work again and it supports import/export. I can’t wait to see how AR/VR gets brought into the infosec realm, there are a bunch of areas that easily come to mind. We’re going to the Van Gogh Immersive Experience this weekend, I can’t wait to see it. The ad for it looks quite amazing!

[@lloydjones3371]

Well done!

[@firdaushbhadha2597]

After a decade in advertising, the Metaverse is something that deeply frightens me. Facebook (Meta) right now has access to every quest owners living space, depending on how many locations in your home you play, potentially most of it. A future, always on your face, version of this tech is going to have cameras looking at everything we see. The quest right now has decent hand tracking, what is stopping the "Glasses" from tagging what is in your hands? The scary part is the unprecedented level of access Facebook will have in our lives. Importantly, this is nothing new, MOST advertising companies (Google, Facebook, derivatives...) are driven to develop or buy novel tech to turn our unstructured "lives" into structured meaning. What we see, hear, smell, taste, touch, and with enough fitness sensors, even how you feel. The future, if this continues to be unregulated, will be terribly nosey, public (un-private), and prescribed. I am not being hyperbolic when I say, these companies are now so big they are at war with the meaning of "free will". The fact that cambridge analytica could do what it did with simply clandestine surveys and Web 2 era tech is frightening. To illustrate, try and spot the "free will" in this bleak tale: You walk into a mall, a virtual greeter that looks like your favourite actor or influencer smiles, waves and begins interacting with you. They tell you the Meta Glasses are Free! So, you pick one up! The people around you also have these "Glasses" and so the tech tags everything and everyone you see, smile at, and touch elbows with. You go into your favourite clothing store and an ad appears floating over a pair of pants. As you pick them up, you immediately like them, you try them on, they fit amazingly, like as though they were made for you. You buy them. You walk into an electronics store, the shelves have virtual discs with games for your Glasses and other "Meta-enabled hardware". You examine this game you have been eyeing but can't afford, $100, as you put it back you say "can't afford this right now". You begin walking over to the exit, your Glasses show you the nearest Uber, Lyft, and "FSD driver", you pick the FSD. On your way home, you go "full dive" into the VR Meta to entertain yourself. You turn it on, you are in "YourSpace" and on your way over to start-up Death Unchained Remastered, you read in the store page window, "Only for a limited time. A You-Exclusive deal". Your game is 40% off. You SMASH the "Take My Money", $60. You load it up, you see a montage of what your friends did over the last 3 months and once the Title Screen disappears, it shows you a list of your friends, their super high levels and the hours they put in. 100. 150. 200. All Time High: 10,000. Behind this window you see a, "Catch-up Bonus" for $25, "Don't miss out" the ad says. You buy it, up to $85 now, "still lower" you mutter. A couple months go by, you are jamming with your friends in-game and all of a sudden goes dark, for everyone. A title screen appears for the new expansion and a pre-oder bonus NFT. You are then shown an ad with your in-game avatar driving you around in an FSD car, in the REAL-WORLD, anyone with AR will see the Avatar driving you around! You pre-order it, $120.

[@butterphli3z]

it's not going to work don't even worry about it absolute garbage scam gimmick VR video games are still trash and literally never improve graphically the internet is also not powereful enough to do any of this shit reliably everyone involved in this and thinks its going to be a thing is completely out of touch with reality

[@jaegrant6441]

@sssneaky heh heh you made a pun at the end. :) the metaverse is completely out of touch with reality:)

[@firdaushbhadha2597]

@@butterphli3z I think the record breaking season that Quest just had says differently. I have one and personally, VR is the future, it will be an amazing source of entertainment for the bed ridden, hospitalized, or immobile person. It gives disabled or elderly people access to amazing views, travel, entertainment. Its here to stay. I just think Meta is the villain in this story, who is going to end up selling you a NFT coffin.

[@joeysipos]

@@butterphli3z wait till you get one yourself. Then you won’t come out 😆

[@macgeek2004]

The Quest has hand tracking???

[@emilrogengellschwaner3555]

I want a metaverse, but it needs to be organically developed, not fabricated by one company

[@datavalisofficial8730]

We could use meta's metaverse as a base But for that i would support them to make it open source first

[@powerdude_dk]

I agree.... but I definitely don't want it...

[@montanateri6889]

I forgot to add, you make me laugh so much! I love all your videos~!

[@lennyFeb01March04]

I LOVE Joe!!! Dude, he’s funny and investigates super complicated stuff and brings it to this particular layman. “I’m not sure what to do with my hands.” Hahahahahahahaha!!

[@666DarkOverlord]

The thing that I've always wanted from AR is a live translation feature, I know there's some out already as apps on phones but they don't work fully, they can translate individual words to a certain degree of accuracy but they don't handle grammar or sentence structure very well and they lose a lot of the nuance of a language in the translation, so a true translation AR functionality whether it's using a phone camera or some sort of goggle/glasses thing would be nice.

[@z-beeblebrox]

I've used google translate's AR a number of times, and it's pretty good for basic european languages, ie Spanish, German, French. Helped a lot with certain situations - especially finding your way in places where signs aren't translated. However, its Chinese and Japanese is pretty bad. Not unusable, but nearly.

[@noway8233]

Yuo need AI for that job, but is a complex process couse is "real time", and natural language ddpends on contect

[@marrrtin]

A lot of non-linguists seem to think that translating natural languages is simple, or a nearly solved problem, seeing as most ordinary people have a grasp on language. It is, in fact, incredibly complex, and even the best systems working with common languages make heaps of mistakes, and mere brute force won't achieve success. In a fit of laziness the other day, I decided get a translation job out of my in-tray by letting an MT system do it. I spent about as much time correcting the MT as I would have taken translating from scratch.

[@SilverionX]

Flawlessly translating one language to another is something not even humans can do. When AI becomes better than humans, they will be able to do it, maybe.

[@justinaclayburn2248]

So, the whole semi-transparent display is something I’ve thought about extensively as I have been avoiding writing my dissertation… I really wonder about the functionality of it on some occasions… I’m not referring to like a heads up display for like driving or whatever (my 1994 Pontiac Bonneville had that), or like 3-D modeling for architects or med students, but like, just always seeing *through* your computer screen. You see it all the time in sci-fi stuff and all I can think is how distracted I would be ALL THE TIME. How do you focus on what’s on the screen when people are moving and stuff is going on all the time.

[@DataLal]

Maybe in this meta-smartglasses future, you'd have the ability to block the ads (just like an ad blocker does today) and just see what you need to or want to see that's augmented...OR pay a fee to have all or certain types of ads removed for good. Also, if these smartglasses are integrated into prescription specs, they'd definitely need an Off/Sleep function to quiet the meta aspect sometimes. But even if they aren't prescription specs, having the ability just say, "Hey [device name], turn off/goodnight/stop" seems like a must. No one wants a world full of ads thrown in their face every waking moment. It'd be like navigating the web 1.0 or 2.0 with no ad blocker and getting all those pop-ups and banners and crap festooning every page - it'd be frickin unusable! Of course, those companies will do their best to get your data out of you somehow, and those glasses cameras will be recording everything you see. However, hopefully it will be de rigueur by then to have way more control over your data and how much of that (if any) you decide to cede for ad personalization and such. Hell, there's already apps that let you see and control your data usage and some that let you make a bit of money from that collected data.

[@justinaclayburn2248]

@@DataLal I wasn’t even thinking about that kind of distraction (not a lot of ads in the sci-fi I’m thinking of) but literal stuff happening behind the text you’re trying to read. Think about how hard it can be to read text on a photo in Instagram stories or something… and that’s intentionally integrated (or at least it is in theory). Imagine if it happened all the time behind what you are trying to read for work, and none of it was even remotely related to what you were reading. We know how bad multitasking is, even if we all spend all our time trying to do it. This would just be input overload to the brain ALL THE TIME.

[@DataLal]

@@justinaclayburn2248 Oh, okay, thank you for clarifying your point. And yeah, what you describe just sounds like an absolute nightmare, and sure wouldn't do my ADHD any favours!