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The Internet - Our Future World

Posted: February 28th, 2019, 10:50 am
by Burning ghost
I watched a mini documentary (if it can be called that) the other day on youtube about the growing popularity of esports and the increasing money involved in these domains.

I was fascinated to learn that in the US pro-players are now being offered scholarships and that esports are starting to rival actual physical sports - 6 figure numbers for income now. This has happened incredibly fast and the same thing has happened, as you now, with various other forms of “entertainment” (meaning podcasts and streaming by just about every single type of person you can imagine about anything you can imagine). Literally anything have interest in is out there with tutorials, free exchanges, critiques and crowd funding. We’re truly living in the age of plenty regarding choice, chance and opportunity.

One comment really struck me about the possible pitfalls of the esports industry. In traditional sports people can play football, or whatever sport they choose with relative freedom, yet in esports the organisations literally “own the ball”. In broader terms we’ve seen over recent years people being “banned” from various platforms on the internet so it seems we’ve created a double-edged sword. We have freedom to communicate, but intellectual/cultural divides in place dictated by the whims of the major organisations. We’ve seen attempts by governments to inhibit freedom on the internet and whilst unsuccessful (meaning they cannot shut down everything they dislike) it is reasonable to assume it is having a greater global impact given that content that is harder to reach/distribute effects the global culture/s.

(Note: As a pop-culture reference the recent movie “First Player Ready” takes this to an extreme conclusion with the influence of the online gaming industry in the future).

With every stage of human social evolution we’ve found ourselves in revolutionary positions where freedom abounds, wealth increases and then freedoms are quickly bound up to avoid self-destruction or to push some political ideology - note I’m talking about this on a grand scale not merely over the past few centuries; such as how binding ourselves to the land through farming led to physiological changes and societal changes too.

In terms of youth there are many positives to esports in schools. In the US many schools now have their own esports teams that compete with each other - as with football. This has been very beneficial for the “geek” community and helped bring people together who would’ve previously have spent their time alone in a room communicating via video chat/messaging. Now they meet in the real world and have a real world social group, ironically, because they are interested in playing games online.

In the mini documentary it is easy to see how parents struggle with this huge shift. To most of us (I imagine) this is a strange world. I did play League of Legends myself to relax a year or two ago whilst listening to the radio, and now I play the popular game PUBG every other day. One thing I have noticed is that there is a HUGE space in the market for more advanced gaming; meaning that if a group of people really got to together and created a vaster and more far reaching gaming platform for the whole world, much like the above mentioned movie, we could all easily be sucked into this. The question is then what this would look like? What “game” would appeal to the majority of an adult audience?

Here it is: Esports: Inside the relentless training of professional gaming stars

Re: The Internet - Our Future World

Posted: March 4th, 2019, 2:34 am
by Intellectual_Savnot
I am typing this section before reading the post, I have been waiting for a challenging topic all week so I hope its as good as it looks BlessRNG

Okay after reading: Probably a stupid game called "Real Sex Simulator" or "Battle Simulator: Fight Ops" or some spoopy crap like that. Honestly, in the future we might just go into a simulator that pumps us full of happy for indeterminate amounts of time at a millennium per second so we can experience infinite joy and never have to enter the pains of real world society. Nothing like a game, which has two aspects: The harsh struggle to be entertained and real life benefits such as "talking to friends" and "wasting time". Games would be obsolete in the face of the omnimedia that would be around in a while from now.

Re: The Internet - Our Future World

Posted: March 4th, 2019, 8:26 am
by chewybrian
Burning ghost wrote: February 28th, 2019, 10:50 am With every stage of human social evolution we’ve found ourselves in revolutionary positions where freedom abounds, wealth increases and then freedoms are quickly bound up to avoid self-destruction or to push some political ideology - note I’m talking about this on a grand scale not merely over the past few centuries; such as how binding ourselves to the land through farming led to physiological changes and societal changes too.
This reminds me of Rousseau, reminding us how much we gave up to become 'civilized'.
The first man, who, after enclosing a piece of ground, took it into his head to say, "This is mine," and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, how many wars, how many murders, how many misfortunes and horrors, would that man have saved the human species, who pulling up the stakes or filling up the ditches should have cried to his fellows: Be sure not to listen to this imposter; you are lost, if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong equally to us all, and the earth itself to nobody!...

We may easily conceive how the establishment of a single society rendered that of all the rest absolutely necessary, and how, to make head against united forces, it became necessary for the rest of mankind to unite in their turn. Societies once formed in this manner, soon multiplied or spread to such a degree, as to cover the face of the earth; and not to leave a corner in the whole universe, where a man could throw off the yoke, and withdraw his head from under the often ill-conducted sword which he saw perpetually hanging over it...

The worthiest men learned to consider the cutting the throats of their fellows as a duty; at length men began to butcher each other by thousands without knowing for what; and more murders were committed in a single action, and more horrible disorders at the taking of a single town, than had been committed in the state of nature during ages together upon the whole face of the earth. Such are the first effects we may conceive to have arisen from the division of mankind into different societies...

If we have a prince, said Pliny to Trajan, it is in order that he may keep us from having a master.

Re: The Internet - Our Future World

Posted: March 5th, 2019, 3:27 am
by Burning ghost
Intellectual_Savnot wrote: March 4th, 2019, 2:34 am I am typing this section before reading the post, I have been waiting for a challenging topic all week so I hope its as good as it looks BlessRNG

Okay after reading: Probably a stupid game called "Real Sex Simulator" or "Battle Simulator: Fight Ops" or some spoopy crap like that. Honestly, in the future we might just go into a simulator that pumps us full of happy for indeterminate amounts of time at a millennium per second so we can experience infinite joy and never have to enter the pains of real world society. Nothing like a game, which has two aspects: The harsh struggle to be entertained and real life benefits such as "talking to friends" and "wasting time". Games would be obsolete in the face of the omnimedia that would be around in a while from now.
I thinking that something more sophisticated would start up. There is a “game” that helps develop programmers. I cannot remember what it’s called now? Basically some companies will (are?) starting to hire people based on how good they are at certain games. I can imagine this becoming a partial replacement for mainstream education.

Many of the current games do involve quite a lot of brain power regarding how quickly players need to make quick and efficient calculations on the fly. More slower paced gaming would be more akin to pure mathematics I’d say.

Re: The Internet - Our Future World

Posted: March 8th, 2019, 11:59 pm
by jonathan
Certainly I could see games becoming part of education at large. There are already learning games for toddlers on iPads and such. The school I teach at is rolling out a math curriculum that is all computer-based. It’s not a game per se, but the students work by themselves, and the teacher does basically nothing. It’s anybody’s guess though whether this shift is for the better, the worse, or just different. I’m an English teacher though and something of a luddite so I place a lot of stock in tangible, 3D text (books) and long, uninterrupted periods of time for thinking thoughts. I fear that educational technology will double as entertainment and sort of feed that beast, and pull people away from books and meditative practice, making it even harder than it already is for kids to come to enjoy learning for its own sake.

It’s interesting though you mention the social aspect. I was ready to get all up on my soapbox about how technology is ruining kids socially, but it does provide some benefit. If it helps to dispel the pack mentality of schools and elevate kids who have been traditionally marginalized, it will be a good thing.

Re: The Internet - Our Future World

Posted: March 16th, 2019, 7:54 pm
by LuckyR
Technology is, as many have pointed out, just a tool. It is neither good nor bad. Thus there is no guarantee of a better future. Take television, initially there was broadcast TV with a few sources that were well funded/supported. The quality was high but the selection was narrow. Later, with the cable boom, there were hundreds of channels, with little to watch. Currently bandwidth providers (Netflix and HBO, for example) have switched to providing content, so there's truly more to watch. But if the music industry is any guide, the more technology provides options, the more interest in cocentrated into fewer megapopular sources. People are sheep.

Re: The Internet - Our Future World

Posted: March 17th, 2019, 8:37 am
by Belindi
After the murders by an extremist in Christchurch we need to ask who should police the internet.

Re: The Internet - Our Future World

Posted: March 17th, 2019, 2:18 pm
by LuckyR
Facebook and Twitter are trying to scrub their sites of the live feed videos. Plus minus on effectiveness but interesting that they are even trying to police their realms

Re: The Internet - Our Future World

Posted: March 17th, 2019, 5:44 pm
by Belindi
That's optimistic Lucky I hope its a good sign

Re: The Internet - Our Future World

Posted: March 17th, 2019, 9:30 pm
by LuckyR
Belindi wrote: March 17th, 2019, 5:44 pm That's optimistic Lucky I hope its a good sign
There is no inherent "good" in the sign. Merely an alignment of motivators, Zuckerberg was made a public pariah, so he's trying to play the "decent" card. Worked this time.

Re: The Internet - Our Future World

Posted: March 18th, 2019, 5:25 am
by Belindi
Lucky, at least can't we claim that public opinion is sometimes quite a power for good?

Re: The Internet - Our Future World

Posted: March 18th, 2019, 8:25 pm
by LuckyR
Belindi wrote: March 18th, 2019, 5:25 am Lucky, at least can't we claim that public opinion is sometimes quite a power for good?
Absolutely. Sometimes the most powerful motivator. That's why home solar panels are commonly placed on the roof surface where neighbors can see them, rather than the surface that gets optimal sunshine exposure.

Re: The Internet - Our Future World

Posted: March 19th, 2019, 6:50 am
by Belindi
LuckyR wrote: March 18th, 2019, 8:25 pm
Belindi wrote: March 18th, 2019, 5:25 am Lucky, at least can't we claim that public opinion is sometimes quite a power for good?
Absolutely. Sometimes the most powerful motivator. That's why home solar panels are commonly placed on the roof surface where neighbors can see them, rather than the surface that gets optimal sunshine exposure.
Then it's evil to restrict large swathes of internet as do Russia and China.

What is the moral difference between that on one hand, and self policing by the media on the other?

Re: The Internet - Our Future World

Posted: March 19th, 2019, 3:13 pm
by LuckyR
Belindi wrote: March 19th, 2019, 6:50 am
LuckyR wrote: March 18th, 2019, 8:25 pm

Absolutely. Sometimes the most powerful motivator. That's why home solar panels are commonly placed on the roof surface where neighbors can see them, rather than the surface that gets optimal sunshine exposure.
Then it's evil to restrict large swathes of internet as do Russia and China.

What is the moral difference between that on one hand, and self policing by the media on the other?
I agree on the authoritarian rule issue. Self policing is basically authoritarianism lite.

Re: The Internet - Our Future World

Posted: March 19th, 2019, 7:14 pm
by Belindi
LuckyR wrote:
Self policing is basically authoritarianism lite.
I understand. As usual with me I see a continuum. Liberty to express anything one likes is the more dangerous the more people are affected by any potential for morbidity . It's similar to the ethics of hygiene for cooks. Lack of hand washing matters little when one is cooking for oneself, matters a a lot more when cooking for the household, and matters most of all in a vast food factories that makes food for thousands.

Morbidity is not the same as causing pain. I have no right to not be offended.