You are quite right. There are contradictory predictions that people will
start walking a lot more, interacting with local people, getting "back to
nature" (whatever that means).
I think these two things merge well. I see people using advanced comms to
stop having to interact directly with people they don't want to, and to stop
losing time to pointless stuff (like walking around a supermarket, or
commuting to work; like not having to put up with office managers).
But we still need human contact, we just become freer to choose who that
contact is with. For instance, I telework to the US, so no commuting. But I
walk to the local shops (20 minute round trip) at the drop of a hat; for
milk or a loaf of bread. I often do my work in the local cafes - it's nice
because there are people around, like at work, but they don't ask me if I
can fix up their excel spreadsheet; and there's good music instead of some
hideous baby-boomers golden oldies classic crap radio station, and when my
latte is empty it gets replaced. Much of my professional help, like lawyers
and accountants, comes from people in walking distance. I know a lot of
local people in businesses in the main street; I very rarely go into the
heart of Melbourne. I don't run a car anymore.
I'm not saying I'm indicative of the norm; for instance, I don't run a car
anymore. But I think the way I'm making choices will become more popular;
it's the time of "lifestyle". People choosing "lifestyle" (another one of
those weird ill defined words) over corporate slavery. And this will mean
optimizing out stuff that is dreary and avoidable (like commuting), and
replacing it with "lifestyle" stuff.
I'm still waiting for them crazy robots, however. I'm not sure why robotics
people are so hung up on making human-equivalent brains; there's plenty
around now, implemented in wetware. Just give us good, high bandwidth,
immersive remote controls. I'm there!
For instance, I'd love to be able to rent a robot body for the day from a US
robot-rental dealer (robo-hurtz), and be able to turn up to my US clients
and actually interact with them, whilst tucked in my little hidey-hole in
Melbourne. I'd pay money for that.
Emlyn
----- Original Message -----
From: "[ Robert-Coyote ]" <coyyote@hotmail.com>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2000 2:03 AM
Subject: Re: TV: Documentary Science of Beauty
After spending countless hours; years? on chat networks, I have seen a
predictable counter reaction to immersion, in that people after a time begin
to crave RL enriched experience.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:36:31 MDT