Mark Zuckerberg Posts Inadvertantly Dystopian Vision of Virtual Reality on Facebook

Facebook founder posted this photo on his own Facebook page, announcing various Oculus Rift-related announcements:

I ask you, readers of this 10 year+ virtual reality blog, which of you find this an appealing image? A lot of my technorati friends are on the page Liking this photo like crazy, but interestingly, the most Liked comments are these:

Damn, It's kind of creepy [17,000+ upvotes]... Mark - doesn't it feel strange to be the only one walking with your real eyes, while everyone else are zombies in the matrix? [8000+ upvotes]... i dont want to live in a world like this. I want to be able to touch a flower in bloom, and smell it. i want to be able to hug someone, and tell them i love them in person. i want to watch a sunset with a tear roll down my cheek. I want to be able to feel the breeze on my face , smell a sweet cooking smell, i want to feel connected in a human way. I dont want to sit in a gray suit, and be told whats cool, under an air conditioned led illuminated hall of electronic devices tracking my every move, be human is to be free. [3200+ upvotes]

Also notable: Those comments have been upvoted more times than the photo itself has been shared (under 17,000 at this writing).

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Comments

[pussycat catnap]

My thoughts kind of go along with what I posted last night in the "Sansar needs something special to succeed" article of yours.

None of the companies in tech get it when it comes to the users.

All of what we see here has very limited practical uses. Its not community angled enough. The companies don't get that community is the value.

That's kind of funny considering that Facebook is supposed to be THE global community. But I'd posit that Facebook is where it is almost by accident of just happening to be the only provider of what it does when it came along (mySpace that it replaced was in spirit the same as Facebook intended to be: a promote yourself space... But mySpace succeeded in its mission and so failed in the public, Facebook failed in its missions and so succeeded with the public).

What I see is a tech-disconnect. They truly do not understand why this image would be jarring to the masses. What so many of us, even many of us in tech itself, see as Dystopian... the people running the tech companies see as Utopian.

They look at the cold hard future of a Cyberpunk novel and see a perfect heaven because they just see the wonder of the cyberspace and the cyberbody giving an 'escape' from having to be a 'meat body around other stinky smelly meat bodies'.

And yeah - as a bit of an OCD neat freak I get some of that, but not for the same reasons and I get that, and in fact myself also - crave social contact and physical contact with the world around me.

If you watch the new show on Hulu; Second Chance... consider the character of Otto Goodwin. He's the tech leader stereotype way overdone... (And he represents the white fantasy of an emasculated asian male - especially when coupled with his sister who is getting increasingly sexualized with each episode as she interracts with the square jawed white male hero - another white-power fantasy about asians... but despite this other angles of the show have interesting points)...

Otto represents the disconnect of techies. And Hollywood overplays with weird stereotypes... but they're also tapping into something real.

My point in the other blog was that Second Life succeeded by failing: They set a mission of being a dystopian sandbox (they would call it utopian) - not community, but a place for people to "experiment". When they accidentally succeeded in the wrong way and became a community they tried to kill that by switching to the 'corporate show house' - a place to show off your new model car for an auto show or have business meetings...

And when they failed at that because they succeeded at community... they again tried to kill community by becoming a gaming platform...

And as they are now failing at a gaming platform because they're succeeding at community... we are starting to see them trying to instead become a dating service... (ok, at least the ads I get on the sidebar her imply that).

They are at least trying to accept their community now, they just only partially understand it.

(And I think Sansar is actually the ONLY generation 2 VR that stands a chance for the same reason: LLs is horrible at community, but they are also the ONLY brand in the field even allowing for one... Sansar will succeed by failing in the exact same way Second Life has.)

I rehash all those points here and now because they are what I see in this image: That VR companies do not get it at all in what the actual likely user will want... And the ones that do rise to the top will NOT be the ones with the best gadgets... they will be the ones that most dramatically FAIL to kill off their user communities...

And that's probably going to be Sansar just because LLs has a record of screwing up and letting a community sneak in past the screeners, and the others are already managing to lock the door before the place can get 'messy with peasants'...

[Rin]

The grin on Mr Zuckerbergs face makes me think that what is going on in his head is:
"And now everyone will see what I want them to see, do what I want them to do and think what I want them to think. Perfect little sheep that will happily give me all their money."

If there is a collection of pictures that could make the emerging VR look bad, this one should be included.

And Pussycats analysis above is spot on. The disconnect between the tech-industry people (the worse of them I tend to call 'singularity cult') and those that would be the users of the technology is often very big. Or maybe not not so much between them and the users and more between them and the possible social implications of what they are doing ... it is like I once heard an interview with one of those who went on and on about how silly the idea pf privacy is and how everyone would be so much more happy by giving their live completely over to the new shiny emerging technological future ... that those people will controll.

It is either like Pussycat above wrote, that they read all the cyberpunk novels (as did I actually as I absolutely love this genre) and missed the dystopian parts of it or ... they understood it all perfectly but never seen anything wrong with it.

I tend to think that in the most cases it is blindness towards the negative parts and dangers of what they do and the absolute ... cult like ... beleive that they will bring happiness and salvation to humanity as a whole.

In the case of Mr Zuckerberg on the other hand, I kind of imagine him dreaming about his future as a powerful cyberpunk megacorporation mogul. He kind of looks this way on the picture ;P

[Cyberserenity]

Minions we will conquer the virtual world.

[Rin]

I should have added that bit into my comment above, but I kind of forgott about that one impression I had while seeing the picture for the first time. It still got into me mentioning that I see Mr Zuckerberg as the megacorp mogul of the evil cyberpunk future but I guess I should have mentioned it more direct:

He kind of appears here as the only one seeing the reality while the blind masses are all helples and lost in VR.

I guess it is kind of telling of the structure of power es envisioned by our glorious self-styled tech-pioneers.

[Riesstu]

I've always thought there was a race between a Terminator scenario and a Matrix one. So far it looks like the Matrix is winning.

[Clara Seller]

This makes me think of Apple's 1984 "Think Different" ad. In contrast, the "runner" is now trying to enslave the masses instead of liberating them.

Pussycat's analysis has heart and mind. The spirit she conveys should have been the foundation that Sansar was built upon.

On a very broad scale, all of this just looks like a portrait of our modern day golden calf. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so pathetic.

[melponeme_k]

You see? The bigwigs do know what they want is dystopian. Because they aren't about freedom, they are about fascism. Privacy and freedom is only about themselves. The ones with the money. What they want for us is Feudalism.

Make no mistake, this is feudalism with a futurist, sci-fi twist.

Those pictures of people with VR glasses are too, too reminiscent of the 1950s photos of people wearing dark glasses while watching nuclear explosions. This isn't attractive it is frightening. And if regular people are frightened by VR now (many of them like the idea of SL just afraid they are going to be molested and mugged in a dark alley), those glasses will send them running for their safe rooms.

[Iggy]

Remember Apple's amazing "1984" Commercial?

"We have created for the first time in all history a garden of pure ideology, where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests of any contradictory true thoughts."

My first impression of Zuckerberg's grin and the zombified masses. Maybe it's that eerie blue light...

[olehio]

how bizarre

[sirhc deSantis]

Oh, I don't know. Those who have been battered by SL et all might even have an advantage. Plus the possibilities...either churn out digital pap for these zombies - or take up cat burglary again, knowing that houses will be full of slow moving armchair dwellers unaware of their physical surroundings.
But where are the feeding tubes? Bet Ole Smug Z has that somewhere on the todo list :)

[DrFran]

where are the ladies?

[Iggy]

The ladies are in the headset, DrFran. As I said on my FB page, I look at the chubby bloke near MarkZ-Mark and can almost hear him thinking "I. See. Naked. Women. In. Here."

Yabba Dabba Doo!

[zz bottom]

It scares a lot, cause it is already a reality, we don't need 3d gadgets to see so many youngsters glued to facebook all day.

[Adeon Writer]

It's because you're looking at the headsets from the wrong side.

[Extropia DaSilva]

I would imagine if you showed a photo of an audience watching a movie it might come across as weird and creepy. All those people staring straight ahead. But you would be missing the larger picture.

[sirhc deSantis]

Extropia, the big picture at the movies would be the - big picture everyone in the audience would be watching in linear fashion at the same time, I believe. As in a 'shared experience' :)