Metaverse-resilient adults and children

What do you think about all the hype around the "Metaverse"? I am not impressed. This is what Pixy Misa said back at the end of October:

The metaverse is bullshit. (Outline)

Because we already have it. It's called the internet. This is, as always, a land grab.

Hey, did you read that Ace was going on vacation? Getting away from the internet?

I have to admit that I have been a little too attentive to the internet this week, with "the trial" and all. Might still be for a while. I've seen some good discussion in the comments on earlier threads this morning. Important stuff. I mean, Ace showed up on Saturday with an update. But he really is going on vacation to get away from the internet.

I also wanted to maybe get us thinking, as relatives start to visit for Thanksgiving and all, about some ways to make sure we can live without the internet. I've seen some ads for interactive "Metaverse" textbooks, for example, that kind of creep me out. I don't want this kind of thing to become "the normal" for kids.

"Undo their capacities to think":

A: "What is a woman, from the po-mo, trans-advocacy perspective?"

B: "I'll be good faith - a woman is anyone, of either bio-sex, who IDs as a woman."

A: "But wot are they 'identifying' AS? What IS a woman?"

B: "..."

Here's a 1958 interview with Huxley. Think he was coming close?

Has the internet (or technology) altered the way Bill Gates thinks? Does he confuse real viruses with computer viruses?

In a surprising interview, Bill Gates said the following: "We didn't have vaccines that block transmission. We got vaccines that help you with your health, but they only slightly reduce the transmission. We need new ways of doing vaccines."

It's odd how he speaks of medicines as if they are like software. Try it out, observe how it works. When you find a problem, put the technicians to work. Every new iteration is an experiment. Free to try until you finally buy. Surely over time, we'll find the answer to the problem of blocking or blotting out pathogens. . .

Essentially, he has long promoted the idea that traditional public health praxis was for the analog age; in the digital age, we need government planning, advanced technology, mass surveillance, and the ability to control human beings the way a software company manages personal computers.

Do you think the author is right?

Here is an analysis of how Gates manages evasiveness with regard to Jeffrey Epstein.

Not sure that analysis reflects digital vs. analog thinking, but has Gates' mode of thinking been, um, altered by immersion in the tech world? How did he become so involved with Epstein?

My friend recently visited her sister and together they went through old letters that their mother had kept. They found one that I had written to my friend. The way I wrote then was different from the way I write now. My sentences were more complex and the sentences seemed to flow together better.

Maybe I am just losing capacity for complex thought. But I think that the internet, and TV before it, has reduced our attention spans and perhaps our ability for coherent, deep thought.

I have also been reading some letters from the last half of the nineteenth century, and find many examples of writing that seem shockingly deep compared to text messages.

Can we bring back some of that depth? I think we have lost something on a fundamental level.

Also, how can we make sure that kids can take a vacation from the phone, and, say, really appreciate nature?

Music and Dance

Cuban Pete

Progress?

Barbie Dance

Hope you have something nice planned for the weekend. Going anywhere? Company coming?

This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.

posted by K.T. at 12:02 PM

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