Author: Zubon

Why waste money on that big monitor when you could have two tiny ones?

Engineers at the University of Washington have for the first time used manufacturing techniques at microscopic scales to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights.

That’s right, we are on our way to Rainbows End with augmented reality. If you want immersive gameplay, project the game onto your retina. Tiny solar cells can bring power and your new monitor can also correct your vision, or why not go beyond that to built-in image-enhancement, binoculars, or wireless input from cameras in the area? Bonus points for the first guy who puts his vision as an ongoing real-time webcast, which will get surreal when the live broadcast is him editing that web page.

This will revolutionize porn.

: Zubon

Touching one last moment on the Roberts-Castronova podcast, in this election year I like the comparison between feature creep and the political need to “do something.” Games that try to do everything usually do most things poorly. The candidates will promise to solve every problem under the sun, including contradictory “problems,” and they are not even using a test server to check for unintended consequences.

A call for limited government is a desire to end feature creep in the legislature. Federalism is beta-testing before trying to upload new things to the central server.

: Zubon

Returning to yesterday’s discussion of the Roberts-Castronova podcast, they also discuss how virtual worlds reflect on our non-fun-based economy and jobs.

First, they note that few people have problems with different outcomes given equality of opportunity. This is mostly true: we think of our games as a meritocracy, where skill and/or time invested will yield results. The equality is not perfect, and we hear more from the dissatisfied. “I play rock. Nerf paper. Scissors is fine.” We prefer that games favor the exact balance of skill and time that we bring to the table, and it is always easy to think that The Other is being favored unfairly. Many people question whether opportunities can ever be equal when lawyers play alongside college students: different people start the game with differing amounts of time and money.

I like the discussion of the artisan economy. In real life, specialization and division of labor are the drivers of productivity and prosperity. That is book one, chapter one, sentence one of Adam Smith. Our in-game worlds are often structured such that an individual can do everything, and the transaction costs of trade are greater than the benefits of specialization. We like being able to do everything ourselves, and we are not alienated from our labor when we can start with ore and end with a sword. Or when we start with a sword and end with a shinier loot sword.

Linking the two, we work as we wish and yield gains accordingly. Farm for gold when you need it, use the auction house as you will, play an alt today and raid tomorrow: the system is designed to let you exercise your options, rather than constraining you to a single path. That could cause interesting effects on jobs and careers if new workers expect that flexibility. We already have a younger generation that more quickly changes jobs and expects rewards and fulfillment.

Finally, we want to earn things. We get no satisfaction from having something given to us, and we would quickly get bored with a “game” of picking up gold pieces off the ground.

: Zubon

One of ours talks to one of … a different group with which I associate myself. Edward Castronova of Terra Nova fame spends 72 minutes with Russ Roberts on the economics and sociology of online worlds. I think the early parts make an appropriate sacrifice of specificity for clarity (for a lay audience). I was surprised to hear that Prof. Castronova has never used the Linden Exchange.

An early topic is whether and why people are moving to Permutation City. Online worlds are designed for human happiness, community, and a large degree of meritocracy and equality of opportunity. Why wouldn’t you want to spend time in a world designed for your happiness, surrounded by like-minded people? Permanent flow.

I do not know that I support the view of virtual reality as a “fantasy world,” as opposed to a new world of our creation. I interact with people around the world through the internet, often with more meaning than the social pulp I have in meatspace. If we can create artificial intelligences, the majority of conscious minds in existence may not have carbon-based bodies. Will the children of our minds pity the children of our genes, bound to mortality? We may yet shed these fleshy fetters and join all our children at Omega Point.

: Zubon

Russ Roberts uses the phrase “going to the next level.” I choose to interpret that as “leveling up” rather than liquid evil.