The VR Hat trick

The hype is starting.  The VR hype.  The Snowcrash fantasy that never dies, now colored by Ready Player One fantasies.  Also a side helping of transhumanism via Singularity.

I'm not adverse to big dreams, big hopes, and big ideas.  But there comes a point where reality needs to take the main stage.  Reality has not come to the VR business, in fact most ignore it.  As in they ignore the fact that Second Life is the one and only successful VR ever.  But because it didn't fulfill some fantasy from a science fiction book, it is decried as a failure.  A failure that is losing customers, losing money, losing content and, most pointedly, it is not Snowcrash.

Is Second Life declining?  It is hard to really argue that it is not.  Like it's MMORPG sister juggernaut, WOW, it is an old warhorse platform that is starting to really show its age.  But as of yet, nothing more advanced or more attractive has taken its place.  There have been contenders, from the many opensim worlds to the more advanced Blue Mars and Cloud Party.  Blue Mars failed and was sold to Ball State University who use it as research.  Cloud Party was just as empty and sold to Yahoo as soon as it received the offer.  The Opensim worlds remain remote also rans that no one ever visits except for those who are disappointed in Second Life.  So if Second Life is the only VR left standing...why is it a failure?  Most likely because the populace turned it into their fantasy, fantasies that are more life affirming than Snowcrash.

You see the problem with the Snowcrash VR mavens and the transhumanists is that they have a dirty little secret.  They WANT the fascistic world, the outright misery of a world gone bad that forces the fictional people in their favorite books to hide inside a VR.  Inside that VR, they become the gods, the artists, the politicians and the enforcers.  They want us to dance to their tune.  They want us to experience their rights free world in which a twisted form of corporate communism reigns with an iron fist.  Our only recourse to individuality is the ability to choose a funky avatar.

Damn did they try hard to push that sop in Second Life.  Fortunately, the people in SL fought tooth and nail for "land" rights, intellectual property rights and free speech while wearing funky avatars.  We didn't eschew real world living for a fantasy prison.  We didn't "move" into a VR and make it more real than real.  Instead we made VR an extension, a playground for relaxation.  Second Life is a virtual Club Med not a dystopic altworld.  That was what got up the nose of Philip, Mitch, Corey and the rest.  We just weren't good enough, we were real and not fictional.

So like Vladimir and Estragon they all wait for Godot Snowcrash.  He is coming don't ya know!  He is just a few hours away and he promises to arrive.  If they just get more people and more technology, Godot Snowcrash will appear with his holy Oculus device.  All the while they ignore the flesh and blood reality of the only successful VR ever made.  My forecast is that the Snowcrash will never arrive.  But the second coming of a Club Med Second Life?  Almost certainly.

And hopefully, sometime in the near future, someone will take away Lucky Kurzweil's hat.