Does NWN Now Stand for "Negative World Notes"?

Another era of VR hype, ridiculous hair - talking virtual reality at Robert Scoble's house in 2007

Reader "Catten" recently posted a comment on something I've been thinking about for quite awhile:

Wouldn't it be easier putting a big label on top of the page saying "I don't believe in VR" or "I predict VR won't be a big thing", that way every other post wouldn't have to be about how VR will fail and the blog can go back to being why SL will fail, or why Sansar will fail or why... :D I really enjoyed this blog but its become more and more of a letdown. From being about new technologies to bashing on new technologies.

Catten makes a fair point. Believe it or not, I do try to balance my skepticism with genuine enthusiasm for this tech, which I do think is cool and will lead to some worthwhile use cases and a substantial (if relatively niche) userbase. But I know NWN posts can sometimes get unbalanced to the negative side. For what it's worth (and it might not be much), here's why I do approach this with a more skeptical eye:

History repeating itself. It's hard to miss (and hard not to bite my tongue) when, say, I notice that Bitcoin is being promoted with the same language as Linden Dollars once were (but now faces the exact same underlying problem), or that Mark Zuckerberg is making the same broad predictions about virtual reality that Philip Rosedale once did with Second Life. Which take us too a related point:

Need for a counter-narrative. More than anything, my skepticism is super-charged by the comparable lack of skepticism across the media -- both mainstream and in tech outlets, both of which are mostly buying the same hyperbolic claims with little or no analytical rigor.

Actually it's about ethics in metaverse journalism (actually). Thing is, I'm part of that history, and I need to own up to that fact on a regular basis, and recalibrate my past enthusiasm with a tempered realism.

More on all this later, but as with Catten, if you think I'm overcorrecting, please call me out on that.

Please share this post:

Tweet

 

Comments

[Adeon Writer]

Everyone I demo my DK2 to gets instantly converted to beliving in the VR hype - though all of my circle of friends are gamers.

But they were gamers that didn't believe in VR ~until~ they tried it. VR will be a big gaming thing. Don't underestimate the size of the PC gaming community. it's nearly unanimous that everyone WANTS a headset weither it be an Rift or a Vive or something else - it's just not in everyone's budget it. But people like what they see already. The tech is good enough that people want one badly.

[Ezra]

My theory is because you rarely log into Second Life and have no hobbies inside of it, have never used Sansar, don't own a Rift or Vive, you can only be skeptical because you aren't educated.

It's easy to be negative and dismissive of what you know little about. Being an enthusiast requires use of what you're writing about. Where's your Rift?

"New World Notes" is fine, the tagline "reporting first-hand" is way off however. You re-blog other blogs and actively petition for other blogs to re-blog on a weekly basis. That's fine and dandy, if you'd stop calling this blog a place for first-hand VR and VW enthusiasm, that's largely been absent since Iris lost interest in SL.

[Iggy]

Hamlet, there is informed skeptic and negative nellie. You are the former. Seems to me that you still visit SL from time to time, too. Could some of the ire I'm seeing in comments be professional jealousy that you get to do this for a living?

But back to the skepticism. PC gaming is huge, but a Rift or similar will not change the world as, say, the smart phone did for better and worse, if only PC gamers wear these scuba masks.

Those of us who drank Philip's Kool-Aid in a decade or more back recall those "the future is now!" moments.

Yeah, right. And as I've said before, technological evangelists of the late 60s promised us a Moon Base by '79 and a Mars mission in the Mid 80s. Then ten years ago we were told that global commerce would move to virtual worlds in just a few years. Mr. Rosedale was building "a new country," as the narrative went.

Never trust an evangelist; they have Faith, not Reason, guiding them. Meanwhile, let's see what the marketplace does with these rigs.

[Ezra]

@Iggy "Could some of the ire I'm seeing in comments be professional jealousy that you get to do this for a living?"

I hadn't considered that! I need to blend in better to mask my jealousy.

Hamlet! What about those revoked educational discounts on tier for 8 years ago? I take back my criticism of you blogging about the Rift but not owning one! That ain't legit at all. What's really important is the Philip kool-aid as Iggy put it and stuff about educators from a decade ago.

[Better then Ezra]

@ Adeon Writer
" it's nearly unanimous" says who the small group of nerds you hang around with? are you drinking the kook-aid thinking girls are going to see you as a cool sexy dude wearing that butt helmet?..wake up!

@ Iggy ..Right as rain!

@ Hammy.. Keep doing what your doing not everyone wants to be spoon fed and later find they got caught up in the hype..the headset is fighting millions of years of vision evolution and will fail! argument-ed reality has a much better chance of bridging the gap then the 'butt head gear gangs' not even Google glass had success and in the end faced lawsuits while hundreds of laws were written to make it a crime to use outside the home.

To not follow the crowd takes courage and belief in your own options that they mean something to you and when you share your articles your telling the world a little about yourself so if your write stories just to go along with the hipsters your denying yourself an outlet to express yourself on an ongoing basis then denying your readers who come back often not for fluffy rainbows but articles regarding experiences both personal & professional.

The only way the tech will work is simple cheap painless and effective implants into the visual cortex nodes themselves with that tech being at least 15 yrs in the future around 2030.by then it can be integrated with implanted CPU and receiver technology. VR will be successful when the time is right and the tech might be here but its not perfected on a level the average human being can see as important as a cell phone or car.

Under who current products no long term health studies has been down regarding optical health or disruptions in cognitive or mental health. issues.

[Adeon Writer]

Haha I just got called a nerd on a Second Life blog.

[zz bottom]

:)

[Clara Seller]

Hamlet, it seems like the reasons that you are listing for your skepticism are gathered from life experience.

If these not-so-new new ideas are truly going to live up to their promises, they can stand up to some challenges.

The world is big enough for experienced professionals and young cheerleaders to work together. But there's no need to apologize if you see a suspicious skin growth and insist that it should be treated with a laser scalpel instead of Easy Breezy Beautiful Cover Girl.

[Fred]

Can you see mesh yet? How many years did that take. I stopped listening to you years ago because of that. Only came now because someone mentioned this.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

I kind of identify with where you're at, if I can get all Dr. Phil on you, I think you had your passion peak when you considered yourself an advocate. You got behind a potential Metaverse and SL you were at your best because you were carrying a standard.

When the concept didn't hold up I think many of us went through our own disillusion in various ways. I think the most common path was from advocate to having to admit that we're just a niche in a walled garden going nowhere.

I've always been a follower of NWN, but at one point your advocacy was annoying because it masked the problems, the decline, the shoddy practices at LL, etc.

It's refreshing to see that you're not wearing an advocate hat with VR, because it's honest, it's not trying to kiss corporate ass and most importantly it's solid consumer advice based on past experience.

So there's a few things you might want to consider. First, you have to choose sides. I don't think NWN works as something between an industry advocate and a consumer/creator space.

When you're pimping LL for example, it rings false to consumers/creators. (See a rather long thread on SL Universe called: Why do YOU think SL has declined over the years?)

Secondly, I think you'd do better as an advocate for consumers/creators. I know we're whackadoodles, but we're the thing that determines whether these companies and technologies are made or lost in the end.

As the creator industry expands to multiple platforms and technologies, I think you need to follow that. I know I'm asking for more coverage of game engine creators and news ... but the creators aren't just in SL any more, they're spread out to all things 3D and the concept of a Metaverse is already here. It's not a coherent platform, it's a variety of platforms working in disjointed spaces.

And we've got our problems. We've got TOS's and fake currency that limit our legal recourse that we'd have in any other type of business. Our goods and work gets more devalued every year, we've got multiple technologies to build for and navigate, etc.

We're everything from game creators to independent film, to manufacturing and no one is really advocating for us, our legal rights, etc.

But anyway, choose a side and dig deep to see if you can find that passion as an advocate.

Choose us and what we creators do though. We were here before LL and SL and we'll be here when they're gone. And companies are about as loyal to their advocates and consumers as any predator.

And yes that was some mighty unwieldy hair you had going on.

[zz bottom]

Good advise Dartagan and one we all should endorse fully.

[Ciaran Laval]

The Guardian published a good article on VR last May :

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/28/jonathan-waldern-return-virtual-reality-as-big-an-opportunity-as-internet

There you will see people who have seen the cycle before, excited and sceptical and there's a great video there from many years ago where you hear a lot of the hype you hear now.

I'm excited about the future of VR but there's certainly room for scepticism.

[Marianne McCann]

I gotta be honest: I've always assumed NWN had a negative slant. I assumed part of it might have been my own positive slant at first, but over time, well, it has seemed more and more like it was coming from a negative position. "Sim Deathwatch" was I think when I kinda really realized that NWN was really routinely negative.

More to the point: what does "New World Notes" mean at this point? Is the name correct for the content? It would seem to me that it is not reporting on material *within* virtual spaces, like it did when it had originally been conceived, but instead exists as a space discussing VR (and virtual worlds) from an "outside" (note, not "outsider" and not implying same) perspective.

I'm not saying that's bad, Perhaps you have no stories to tell that exist in (for example) Second Life. This is your blog, and it is going to come from your angle, your experience. It is not up to us to tell you what stories you *should* be writing. I do note that I don't tend to feel personally that there is much on the site that I'm going to find value from.

Full disclosure: Me personally, I think there are stories worth pursuing in virtual spaces, including of course Second Life, which is why I work with Drax on his "inside" and "positive" angled content (I would contend that he is also willing to tell of limitations, particularly on the radio hour, but again, I am also admitting my biases). So take my own views with their own grains of salt.

[pussycat catnap]

I've actually started getting some rather skeptical articles into my news feeds.

Of course I don't have any newsfeeds for VR, so I'm getting outside-the-hype-bubble journalists.

I'm seeing a lot of concerns over things I saw Hamlet write about - like motion sickness. I've also seen comments about injuries from being unaware of surroundings. Some of these are being passed off as humor (isn't it funny that one of our testers nearly shattered his wrist smashing it through a flat screen TV)... but I think they highlight issues that are going to be red flags soon.

I think skepticism is well placed on this stuff.

Of course my comments here have been on the very strongly skeptical side for the entire duration - so I have my bias.

But some of those who lack skepticism need to consider owning up to their own biases and filters...

I see the skepticism because of how my news gets filtered... maybe if you're not seeing it you need to become aware that your own filters are keeping you in as much of a hype bubble as my filters are keeping me out of it.

[Connie Arida]

Well. it is a niche. Get over it.