VR Isn't Ready Yet

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VR is kind of gone during the web one era in web two. We've got that moment with second life, which isn't VR, but is pretty meta versing. There's this piece in Wired by Kevin Kelly who's the original executive editor 2016 or about Magic Leap and then 2019 as we're going to have a digital twin of the physical realm. It's coming sure there will be ads sure there'll be privacy issues But who cares it's gonna change everything like just get ready. And I was reading all that and just thinking like if history doesn't repeat itself Like it definitely rhymes and my god does this rhyme with the VR hype cycle of the late 80s

Paris Marx is joined by Dave Karpf to discuss Meta’s misguided attempt to turn Facebook into a metaverse company, how Wired Magazine has evolved, and why the tech billionaires are destroying the world.

Dave Karpf is an Associate Professor of Media and Public Affairs, George Washington University. He’s also the author of The MoveOn Effect: The Unexpected Transformation of American Political Advocacy and Analytic Activism: Digital Listening and the New Political Strategy. Follow Dave on Twitter at @davekarpf.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Dave wrote about the history of WIRED Magazine’s future predictions and why VR never dies.
People Make Games made a video looking at what’s going on in VRChat.
Meta’s legs demo wasn’t real.
Douglas Rushkoff’s new book Survival of the Richest looks at how the rich are trying to protect themselves from the crises they’re making worse.
Science fiction books mentioned: Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, and William Gibson’s The Peripheral.