I like to consider myself a techno-optimist too, but I have to say I’m kinda glad VR isn’t panning out. It’s never been easier to throw two hours of your life away on a screen. I don’t want it to become easier and more immersive.
Or see the world’s wonders.. learn a new language by total realistic immersion.. attend a distant university lecture.. go on a date with my favorite actress.. play soccer against Pele or Ronaldo..
Jun 12, 2023·edited Jun 12, 2023Liked by Noah Smith
Regarding UK stagnation since 2019, could it be in part due to Brexit and part due to a particularly acute dependence on natural gas for its electricity generation? It never had a particularly large nuclear sector (in part because the UK took a technological wrong turn by persisting with CO2-cooled graphite-moderated reactors, while the rest of the world went for water-moderated reactors), it doesn't have favourable geography for hydroelectric power, and it was more aggressive than Germany (for example) in doing away with coal- and oil-fired generation.
While the UK bought hardly any natural gas directly from Russia, it ended up having to pay far more for its gas (both domestically-produced and imported -- mainly from Norway) because it found itself plunged into a bidding war with desperate mainland European countries that had previously depended on Russian gas.
My main concern about fracking in the UK (and Europe) isn't so much that it may be environmentally hazardous, but that it may be nothing but a pump-and-dump scam with there actually being no gas there to be had in the first place!
How do frackers make money if they don't find anything? You mean promoters sell naïve investors sham projects making money even thought the investors loose?
Do you mean they worry about earthquakes and contaminated water? Europe has a lot less land than the US. That's why we can get away with things like our relatively land intensive agricultural system and fracking.
That's a reasonable decision, but how would a partial ban work? Predicting fracking related earthquakes and water contamination is not a precise science. Are you proposing a points based system? How would damages be handled? How big a bond would frackers have to post to cover the costs of providing an alternate water supply and repairing damage to buildings and infrastructure? Deep water fracking might be doable.
You set up a procedure for deciding site by site that fracking here with the proposed techniques passes a cost benefit analysis where earthquakes, and ground water contamination, and the analysis itself are part of the costs.
That still leaves the insurance problem. Is the science good enough for an insurer to cover the risks of it being wrong? It's easy to game cost-benefit analyses. It's harder to find someone to take on the risk that an analysis was incorrect. Usually, the government winds up holding the bag and the cost-benefit people whine about taxes.
“The paper doesn’t deal with the postwar G.I. Bill, but my bet is that this had something to do with the postwar upswing in patriotism.”
Your suspicion in re the G.I. Bill is, I think, well-founded. My mother worked in the White House during WWII, managing a portion of FDR’s correspondence (“Hey, Mom, throw Stalin’s birthday card in the circular file!”) Seriously, she said there was a fear in the White House that returning veterans would form a political party. (At this point, one thinks of when WW1 veterans angrily marched on the White House.) Perhaps the G.I. Bill was not only smart education policy, it may have functioned as a sort of social insurance. When I was in Grad School at a state university, a very old professor told me about his first year teaching. He said there were dress codes at colleges and universities: jackets, dress shirts and ties, slacks for the men, dresses, blouses, and dress shoes for the women. Then, he said, here came the WWII veterans, wearing army-green T-shirts, pants, and combat boots. For many, these were the only clothes they owned.
Your citation [1] that Meta is pivoting away from the metaverse says
> Zuckerberg has just held the funeral by turning to the next big shiny thing, namely artificial intelligence.
Isn't that just speculation? I have seen no announcements of its Horizon Worlds product [2] is being phased out. But yes, it has totally flopped - just pointing out it's not clear they are pivoting away from it.
#2 cites a very interesting paper. My concern is that even though new deal work programs/benefits/etc. and contemporary government investment/benefits like infrastructure or tax credits are both assistance from the government, the factors that motivate them are very different. Maybe what elicits patriotism is seeing the government respond effectively to a crisis (such as the great depression), with local spending making that crisis response more front and center in ones mind. Simple spending/benefits alone without this crisis motivation would in my mind be interpreted differently. Add in the increasing inefficacy of certain government spending (like on infrastructure) and the increasing politicization of crises (see Covid) and this link seems to weaken even further. On a somewhat related note, It would interesting to see a similar study exploiting variation in covid assistance checks (there has to be some quasi random variation somewhere) coupled with survey/military service/etc. outcome.
I don't think it necessarily needs that haptic element, but VR is going to continue to suffer until it can offer a unique experience that can't be replicated by a screen and is *better* than the real-life equivalent.
You will need to be able to walk/float around a sports field during a game, the scene in a movie/show, or be practically part of the stage of a concert performance. It has to look good enough that you don't miss watching it on a TV or being in a live audience. THEN you need to build ways to connect around those experiences and bring people into them economically (not 4x $3500 headsets for the family).
THAT would sell VR enough that the haptic would actually get the funding necessary.
I'm not sure live audience is an actual competitor for most of the planet. There are more NBA fans in China than the rest of planet but they have effectively zero opportunities to watch a game live.
Same for live music outside of North America/Europe: when was the last time a big act toured Indonesia's 240 million people? Or English Premier League fans in Asia. Or opera/ballet/theatre fans outside of a half dozen capital cities. Etc etc etc.
Obviously at $3,500 VR isn't an option for those scenarios. But it is still actually cheaper than flying, hotel rooms, buying tickets to get a live experience for many of those things.
Absolutely good points, but I'd like to point out that TVs and international streaming exist, for far cheaper than $3,500 VR. Plus, I'm sure Chinese have a lot of domestic art and culture to consume that they have the opportunity to explore in person or cheaper than a $3,500 piece of tech. It's not that the tech is bad or not useful as is, just that it only really attempts to be sold to nerds who think the tech is more cool than useful.
The fundamental point is that $3,500 is a price point that leaves out a LOT of communal experiences but still has the opportunity to "wow" most people who aren't predisposed to want VR (sci-fi and video game nerds). That only leaves real world applications to bridge the gap between the tech as a novel creation of modern engineering and a useful new experience (rich) people couldn't have before.
Have you tried Horizon: Call of the Mountain, with the PS VR2? It's the first VR game I've found really compelling -- it made me wish I could clear a slightly larger space in my living room to move around in. Graphically it's just gorgeous. Still a little bit tech demo-y, they're experimenting with ways to interact with the world still. But it's a lot of fun, and very different from playing Forbidden West on the regular screen.
Glad to see this series continuing strong, these were all fascinating pieces this week.
Since this also seems like a good forum for questions: I once heard, in an introductory Economics course, that Economics is the study of "infinite wants and finite resources." I've definitely seen some left-leaning writers (and definitely the degrowth people) push back against this. Even being pro-market, I am critical of the ways advertising and consumerism affects our psychology. Do you think this is an accurate/useful description?
That's correct as far as it goes, but economics, as it is practiced, is about market centered resources. There's an entire dark matter economic world of resource allocation outside of mainstream economics. Rewatch something like Citizen Kane or read some feminist crap to get a sense of the scale of it.
You'd think they'd learn something from that. Boeing management seems to have picked up a lesson or two, but they're still on the learning curve. Maybe in twenty years, they'll be able to create a new airplane again.
I think ergonomics is still a huge barrier for VR. It feels like we're still in the "suitcase phone" era of VR as opposed to "thing that fits in your pocket".
And one thing that makes this a harder problem than just shrinking stuff down is the huge amount of variance in the experience. Some people get nauseous. Some get headaches. Some have glasses. Some are at more risk of tripping over their dog when immersed. You get the idea. They're not intractable, just ... really hard.
It's also worth considering Apple's AR as a sort of solution to the ergonomic questions. Take your example of just being able to hang out on VR with your friends. I don't know about you, but 80% of my social gatherings involve food and drink. Being able to tone down the AR/VR for a sec so I can see where I put my beer is kind of a big deal if you want your social gatherings to last longer than an 30 minutes!
I don't use my vr headset for the same reason I don't use my iPad. Not worth the extra effort to achieve something I can with my phone.
Like my iPad however, there are use cases that my phone does not support: for the iPad is handwriting, for the headset is playing golf with my friends across the world.
1 - I would love to see -- and there may be something out there -- on how to differentiate patriotism from nationalism. (There was a cheesy--I think Chris Rock--movie where the antagonist was running for president with the slogan 'God bless America, and no one else' that of course became 'God bless America and everybody else! but it's kind of a nice way to demonstrate the distinction).
2 - One of my frustrations about (elements of) the Left is that they're trying to pitch two messages. 1 - The US is a genocidal, imperialist, racist, and illegitimate nation and we'll remind you of as often as possible. 2 - We need to invest more in public goods and other efforts to improve the lives of all/particularly the most vulnerable Americans.
So which is it? Should we be proud to be American and be willing to contribute more of ourselves to others based on their involvement in this imagined identity? Or should we be ashamed to be American and retreat into our other identities and communities? Because the pitch of 'Be ashamed -- and contribute more to this illegitimate enterprise' is not a compelling one.
3 - I wonder how the form of government intervention affects the resulting patriotism. The New Deal's interventions were visible and easily attributable to the federal government. If you are employed by the WPA or if the feds pay off your farm loan, it's easy to attribute the benefit to the feds and reciprocate by being patriotic.
What about all that Covid relief? I don't really think it did much to increase patriotism. My three hypotheses as to why (assuming this is true) are that:
1. A lot of relief benefited people indirectly, e.g., by ensuring their state didn't go bankrupt or allowing their state to lower state taxes; not seeing the direct benefit, people under-reciprocated.
2. People felt entitled to the relief, which made them not feel like reciprocating. Either a) they felt like the relief was payment for pandemic sacrifices - they were already doing what they should for their country, or b) we see the effects of the New Deal only because the relief was novel; today, people expect things like Covid relief as a matter of course.
3. Bad Orange Man; the New Deal increased patriotism because FDR was a personification of the country who felt worthy of our reciprocity (plus, he was president for both the federal government giving and later asking during the war). Maybe that personification of the government helps (and maybe that's why the Queen was so important?) or maybe Trump has a unique ability to short circuit good will.
I really like these round-ups, too. Taking the long view, I suspect that the haptics will, as you suggest, revolutionize entertainment. I’d add that, as always, the porno industry will be the proving ground for the new technology and will be the reason the cost drops dramatically. Then, after many men are addicted to the artificial sex, and many exasperated women—who I *think* will still always choose real kids over faux ones—are happy enough with fake male friends, we neo-pastoral types (aka “old hippies”), will get the somewhat depopulated, female-centric earth we truly crave.
I’m only sort of kidding. Let the robots bring in the crops and the wildlife return. I think I’ve just talked myself into liking the promise of VR, forty years after first reading Neuromancer.
Haptic is not happening. You would need a full body suit with haptic sensors and whatever-they-call-the-things-that-push-back-on-you. You would have to be naked inside it. And it would need thick insulation to keep the real-world haptics (right now my butt is sore 'cause I've been sitting on it too long) from interfering with the fake ones. And it will never get the feel right even if you do all that.
I like to consider myself a techno-optimist too, but I have to say I’m kinda glad VR isn’t panning out. It’s never been easier to throw two hours of your life away on a screen. I don’t want it to become easier and more immersive.
Well, maybe, but also I want to be able to hang out with my friends in other cities without buying a plane ticket!
Or see the world’s wonders.. learn a new language by total realistic immersion.. attend a distant university lecture.. go on a date with my favorite actress.. play soccer against Pele or Ronaldo..
These roundup are substantial.
I'm really loving this series, and hope it continues!
Thanks!!
Regarding UK stagnation since 2019, could it be in part due to Brexit and part due to a particularly acute dependence on natural gas for its electricity generation? It never had a particularly large nuclear sector (in part because the UK took a technological wrong turn by persisting with CO2-cooled graphite-moderated reactors, while the rest of the world went for water-moderated reactors), it doesn't have favourable geography for hydroelectric power, and it was more aggressive than Germany (for example) in doing away with coal- and oil-fired generation.
While the UK bought hardly any natural gas directly from Russia, it ended up having to pay far more for its gas (both domestically-produced and imported -- mainly from Norway) because it found itself plunged into a bidding war with desperate mainland European countries that had previously depended on Russian gas.
Yep.
And because they have the same hang-up about fracking as the rest of Europe.
My main concern about fracking in the UK (and Europe) isn't so much that it may be environmentally hazardous, but that it may be nothing but a pump-and-dump scam with there actually being no gas there to be had in the first place!
How do frackers make money if they don't find anything? You mean promoters sell naïve investors sham projects making money even thought the investors loose?
Pretty much.
But this is a matter of poor securities regulations. Restricting the underlying activity subject to fraud seems highly sub-optimal.
Do you mean they worry about earthquakes and contaminated water? Europe has a lot less land than the US. That's why we can get away with things like our relatively land intensive agricultural system and fracking.
If the concern is earthquakes and water contamination, I think you do not totally ban the technique.
That's a reasonable decision, but how would a partial ban work? Predicting fracking related earthquakes and water contamination is not a precise science. Are you proposing a points based system? How would damages be handled? How big a bond would frackers have to post to cover the costs of providing an alternate water supply and repairing damage to buildings and infrastructure? Deep water fracking might be doable.
You set up a procedure for deciding site by site that fracking here with the proposed techniques passes a cost benefit analysis where earthquakes, and ground water contamination, and the analysis itself are part of the costs.
That still leaves the insurance problem. Is the science good enough for an insurer to cover the risks of it being wrong? It's easy to game cost-benefit analyses. It's harder to find someone to take on the risk that an analysis was incorrect. Usually, the government winds up holding the bag and the cost-benefit people whine about taxes.
“The paper doesn’t deal with the postwar G.I. Bill, but my bet is that this had something to do with the postwar upswing in patriotism.”
Your suspicion in re the G.I. Bill is, I think, well-founded. My mother worked in the White House during WWII, managing a portion of FDR’s correspondence (“Hey, Mom, throw Stalin’s birthday card in the circular file!”) Seriously, she said there was a fear in the White House that returning veterans would form a political party. (At this point, one thinks of when WW1 veterans angrily marched on the White House.) Perhaps the G.I. Bill was not only smart education policy, it may have functioned as a sort of social insurance. When I was in Grad School at a state university, a very old professor told me about his first year teaching. He said there were dress codes at colleges and universities: jackets, dress shirts and ties, slacks for the men, dresses, blouses, and dress shoes for the women. Then, he said, here came the WWII veterans, wearing army-green T-shirts, pants, and combat boots. For many, these were the only clothes they owned.
Nobody said a word about a dress code.
Your citation [1] that Meta is pivoting away from the metaverse says
> Zuckerberg has just held the funeral by turning to the next big shiny thing, namely artificial intelligence.
Isn't that just speculation? I have seen no announcements of its Horizon Worlds product [2] is being phased out. But yes, it has totally flopped - just pointing out it's not clear they are pivoting away from it.
[1] https://www.thestreet.com/technology/mark-zuckerberg-quietly-buries-the-metaverse
[2] https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2532035600194083/
#2 cites a very interesting paper. My concern is that even though new deal work programs/benefits/etc. and contemporary government investment/benefits like infrastructure or tax credits are both assistance from the government, the factors that motivate them are very different. Maybe what elicits patriotism is seeing the government respond effectively to a crisis (such as the great depression), with local spending making that crisis response more front and center in ones mind. Simple spending/benefits alone without this crisis motivation would in my mind be interpreted differently. Add in the increasing inefficacy of certain government spending (like on infrastructure) and the increasing politicization of crises (see Covid) and this link seems to weaken even further. On a somewhat related note, It would interesting to see a similar study exploiting variation in covid assistance checks (there has to be some quasi random variation somewhere) coupled with survey/military service/etc. outcome.
Re Japan: is there any evidence that their corporate culture will change to better suit modern times?
The topic of a future post!
I don't think it necessarily needs that haptic element, but VR is going to continue to suffer until it can offer a unique experience that can't be replicated by a screen and is *better* than the real-life equivalent.
You will need to be able to walk/float around a sports field during a game, the scene in a movie/show, or be practically part of the stage of a concert performance. It has to look good enough that you don't miss watching it on a TV or being in a live audience. THEN you need to build ways to connect around those experiences and bring people into them economically (not 4x $3500 headsets for the family).
THAT would sell VR enough that the haptic would actually get the funding necessary.
I'm not sure live audience is an actual competitor for most of the planet. There are more NBA fans in China than the rest of planet but they have effectively zero opportunities to watch a game live.
Same for live music outside of North America/Europe: when was the last time a big act toured Indonesia's 240 million people? Or English Premier League fans in Asia. Or opera/ballet/theatre fans outside of a half dozen capital cities. Etc etc etc.
Obviously at $3,500 VR isn't an option for those scenarios. But it is still actually cheaper than flying, hotel rooms, buying tickets to get a live experience for many of those things.
Absolutely good points, but I'd like to point out that TVs and international streaming exist, for far cheaper than $3,500 VR. Plus, I'm sure Chinese have a lot of domestic art and culture to consume that they have the opportunity to explore in person or cheaper than a $3,500 piece of tech. It's not that the tech is bad or not useful as is, just that it only really attempts to be sold to nerds who think the tech is more cool than useful.
The fundamental point is that $3,500 is a price point that leaves out a LOT of communal experiences but still has the opportunity to "wow" most people who aren't predisposed to want VR (sci-fi and video game nerds). That only leaves real world applications to bridge the gap between the tech as a novel creation of modern engineering and a useful new experience (rich) people couldn't have before.
Have you tried Horizon: Call of the Mountain, with the PS VR2? It's the first VR game I've found really compelling -- it made me wish I could clear a slightly larger space in my living room to move around in. Graphically it's just gorgeous. Still a little bit tech demo-y, they're experimenting with ways to interact with the world still. But it's a lot of fun, and very different from playing Forbidden West on the regular screen.
Glad to see this series continuing strong, these were all fascinating pieces this week.
Since this also seems like a good forum for questions: I once heard, in an introductory Economics course, that Economics is the study of "infinite wants and finite resources." I've definitely seen some left-leaning writers (and definitely the degrowth people) push back against this. Even being pro-market, I am critical of the ways advertising and consumerism affects our psychology. Do you think this is an accurate/useful description?
Thanks!
I think that phrase is just a colorful way of saying economics is the field that studies resource allocation.
That's correct as far as it goes, but economics, as it is practiced, is about market centered resources. There's an entire dark matter economic world of resource allocation outside of mainstream economics. Rewatch something like Citizen Kane or read some feminist crap to get a sense of the scale of it.
The insides of firms are a command-ish economy, and I'd like to think economists study this.
You'd think they'd learn something from that. Boeing management seems to have picked up a lesson or two, but they're still on the learning curve. Maybe in twenty years, they'll be able to create a new airplane again.
I think ergonomics is still a huge barrier for VR. It feels like we're still in the "suitcase phone" era of VR as opposed to "thing that fits in your pocket".
And one thing that makes this a harder problem than just shrinking stuff down is the huge amount of variance in the experience. Some people get nauseous. Some get headaches. Some have glasses. Some are at more risk of tripping over their dog when immersed. You get the idea. They're not intractable, just ... really hard.
It's also worth considering Apple's AR as a sort of solution to the ergonomic questions. Take your example of just being able to hang out on VR with your friends. I don't know about you, but 80% of my social gatherings involve food and drink. Being able to tone down the AR/VR for a sec so I can see where I put my beer is kind of a big deal if you want your social gatherings to last longer than an 30 minutes!
I don't use my vr headset for the same reason I don't use my iPad. Not worth the extra effort to achieve something I can with my phone.
Like my iPad however, there are use cases that my phone does not support: for the iPad is handwriting, for the headset is playing golf with my friends across the world.
#2 - on patriotism. Three random thoughts.
1 - I would love to see -- and there may be something out there -- on how to differentiate patriotism from nationalism. (There was a cheesy--I think Chris Rock--movie where the antagonist was running for president with the slogan 'God bless America, and no one else' that of course became 'God bless America and everybody else! but it's kind of a nice way to demonstrate the distinction).
2 - One of my frustrations about (elements of) the Left is that they're trying to pitch two messages. 1 - The US is a genocidal, imperialist, racist, and illegitimate nation and we'll remind you of as often as possible. 2 - We need to invest more in public goods and other efforts to improve the lives of all/particularly the most vulnerable Americans.
So which is it? Should we be proud to be American and be willing to contribute more of ourselves to others based on their involvement in this imagined identity? Or should we be ashamed to be American and retreat into our other identities and communities? Because the pitch of 'Be ashamed -- and contribute more to this illegitimate enterprise' is not a compelling one.
3 - I wonder how the form of government intervention affects the resulting patriotism. The New Deal's interventions were visible and easily attributable to the federal government. If you are employed by the WPA or if the feds pay off your farm loan, it's easy to attribute the benefit to the feds and reciprocate by being patriotic.
What about all that Covid relief? I don't really think it did much to increase patriotism. My three hypotheses as to why (assuming this is true) are that:
1. A lot of relief benefited people indirectly, e.g., by ensuring their state didn't go bankrupt or allowing their state to lower state taxes; not seeing the direct benefit, people under-reciprocated.
2. People felt entitled to the relief, which made them not feel like reciprocating. Either a) they felt like the relief was payment for pandemic sacrifices - they were already doing what they should for their country, or b) we see the effects of the New Deal only because the relief was novel; today, people expect things like Covid relief as a matter of course.
3. Bad Orange Man; the New Deal increased patriotism because FDR was a personification of the country who felt worthy of our reciprocity (plus, he was president for both the federal government giving and later asking during the war). Maybe that personification of the government helps (and maybe that's why the Queen was so important?) or maybe Trump has a unique ability to short circuit good will.
I really like these round-ups, too. Taking the long view, I suspect that the haptics will, as you suggest, revolutionize entertainment. I’d add that, as always, the porno industry will be the proving ground for the new technology and will be the reason the cost drops dramatically. Then, after many men are addicted to the artificial sex, and many exasperated women—who I *think* will still always choose real kids over faux ones—are happy enough with fake male friends, we neo-pastoral types (aka “old hippies”), will get the somewhat depopulated, female-centric earth we truly crave.
I’m only sort of kidding. Let the robots bring in the crops and the wildlife return. I think I’ve just talked myself into liking the promise of VR, forty years after first reading Neuromancer.
I've heard Matt Yglesias's explanation but I'd like your analysis of why Progressives let Manchin's insistence on a work requirement sink the CTC.
Honestly, I think the CTC was just unpopular so people didn't fight hard for it.
Well, I asked for your opinion. :)
Haptic is not happening. You would need a full body suit with haptic sensors and whatever-they-call-the-things-that-push-back-on-you. You would have to be naked inside it. And it would need thick insulation to keep the real-world haptics (right now my butt is sore 'cause I've been sitting on it too long) from interfering with the fake ones. And it will never get the feel right even if you do all that.
Even just gloves might be enough, if those gloves were also able to offer resistance to pushing.
I don’t know the tech but I wonder if a direct electrode to brain pseudo-haptic connection is easier.
Even if that doesn’t work, you could go a long way with just gloves and shoes.
And for a full body experience, you could purchase the experience away from home, just as in the early days, people only saw movies in a theater.