>>>> It's another category of hardware if anything. I hope it won't be >>>> as proprietary and closed down as the smartphone market is >>>> currently. >>> >>> Hardware is not really the issue, in my opinion. The Oculus Rift, >>> for example, is a relatively simple device. A smartphone can be >>> based on a free hardware design but it won't matter if most users >>> run the Facebook app on it (as is the case), and the same applies to >>> VR peripherals. The problem is what is shown to users, and that's >>> software. >> >> Hardware also means that there will be firmware and drivers. And it's >> not impossible that those could be subverted to show messages to the >> subconscious mind. >> >>> I am not optimistic about freedom in VR because all the popular >>> services today are centralized and controlled by for-profit >>> corporations, and that didn't change when decentralized free >>> replacement were developed. >> >> I'm not optimistic either. It's highly likely that the VR for free >> software extremists will be just headmounted displays. >> >>> Also, self-driving cars, the internet of things and powerful >>> artificial intelligence are all proprietary, so there are bigger >>> concerns than VR everybody is ignoring. >> >> It's not that people are ignoring them. There are just not enough >> resources in the movement to fight for these causes. >> >>> I personally come from an unpopular perspective in the tech >>> community, as I am strongly against Virtual Reality in any shape or >>> form. >> >> We all come from an unpopular perspective. >> >>> There are simply too negative aspects for it to be ever acceptable >>> in my view, regardless of its legitimate uses (like assisting >>> surgeons), but I don't expect many people here to share my concerns >>> because most of them are moral in nature (for example, I think >>> letting a serial killer or rapist live out their fantasies in the >>> virtual world is still wrong, even if it would only involve >>> AI-controlled characters). >> >> I don't see what would be so bad about doing horrible things to an >> simulation. People do that all the time already, and not just to >> simulations but also to other people controlling the other virtual >> character. I would think that letting people act out their fantasies >> virtually would make them less interested in doing it in real life as >> long as the virtual reality is sufficiently realistic. > > I just want to chime in here that we don't have anything to fear from > virtual reality. It makes most people feel ill after about ten minutes > or so. That is why we just use (bigger flatter) regular screens > instead for our computing and gaming. They keep saying VR is in the > future, but they would have to work around human biology. I just > don't think that is going to happen anytime soon.
Please don't top-post and learn to wrap your emails so they are more readable. Mutt Quotes[1] has a nice little snippet about why top-posting is bad. A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? Anyways, the reason current VR makes people feel ill is that it's not advanced enough yet. I doubt that in 5 years more than like 5% of people feel ill when using VR gear. [1]: https://dev.mutt.org/trac/wiki/MuttQuotes
