Links to Consider, 6/13

Ben Thompson explains Apple Vision; Erik Hoel on Twitter competitors; Mary Harrington on Gen Z safetyism; Samuel J. Abrams on Gen Z activism

Note: you can join me Thursday at noon to discuss the book Better Money: Gold Fiat or Bitcoin by Larry H. White. Participation is free, but you must register.

Ben Thompson writes,

Apple Vision is technically a VR device that experientially is an AR device, and it’s one of those solutions that, once you have experienced it, is so obviously the correct implementation that it’s hard to believe there was ever any other possible approach to the general concept of computerized glasses.

As I understand Thompson, when you wear the glasses you are fully immersed in a simulation. It just so happens that you can choose the simulation to be “what I would see right now, if I took off the glasses.” Thompson points out that it requires tremendously fast processing to enable you to experience reality even though you are looking at a simulation.

When you have a smart phone in your hand, you have a choice between being fully present with the people around you or “somewhere else” looking at your phone. It sounds like with the Apple Vision may make us even less present with other people. Thompson writes,

Apple is leaning into a personal computing experience, whereas Meta, as you would expect, is focused on social. I do think that presence is a real thing, and incredibly compelling, but achieving presence depends on your network also having VR devices, which makes Meta’s goals that much more difficult to achieve. …bullishness about the Vision Pro may in fact be a function of being bearish about our capability to meaningfully connect.

Erik Hoel writes,

This process will inevitably continue until the site becomes as terrible as all the big social media sites, transforming into places of witch hunts, derision, barely formulated thoughts, snuff videos, clickbait, and occupied with all your favorite anime avatars threatening to kill you. For a new social media website, going from “omg it’s so great we’re inviting another 5,000 people!” to “we will beat you with hammers” takes about two weeks.

This is his view of the prospects for creating “like Twitter, only better.” He locates the problem in human nature.

A big chunk, maybe even the majority, of people who accumulate a million followers accrue them by being at the front of the crowd throwing rotten vegetables at people in the stockades.

Mary Harrington writes,

According to a new survey from the American Cato Institute, three in ten Americans under 30 support the installation of cameras in the home to monitor for wrongdoing.

…there has been a pronounced turn away from the foundational liberal norms, and toward a baseline of authoritarian control and surveillance in the name of safety, care, and the avoidance of harm

The kids are not all right. She blames the experience of day care and the online world.

Samuel J. Abrams writes,

Compared to almost half of their grandparents, only a quarter of Gen Zers (25%) stated that attending town halls, community forums or local government meetings such as school board meetings helps to make for a functioning democracy. But when it comes to protesting, Gen Zers were twice as likely as their boomer counterparts to believe that activism of that sort is critical for democracy — and also to post positions on social media.

I believe that you are more likely to help your community by connecting to people in person than by doing something on line. But I may just be showing my age.

Substacks referenced above:

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Devour Me, Mummy

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Stop trying to make a "good" social media site