I gotta say, the internet is a lousy place to spend your time. Sure, there is a ton of wonderful out there, but there is a lot more madness, despair, and straight up false information. That last bit is probably the worst. There is a long standing theory that most of the internet is bot activity–pre-AI algorithms roaming around and churning up madness. Maybe it wasn’t but with the proliferation of click farms and high end digital production, there is more fake than real. You can hardly trust the news anymore. In truth, you can decide what news you want to believe and there is a stream of it out there just for you. There is also a version of any reality you want to reside in. I’m not sure that is a bad thing, so long as you stay in that reality. This was, after all, the main idea behind Ready, Player 1.
The book (and later movie) told of a digital utopia masterminded by a singular corporation through an extensive online realm which simulated a living universe. The ‘verse had a world game built in where you could solve a puzzle and win, well, everything. However, it was the casuals (as it always is) who powered that world. It was the scores of players who didn’t play that world game and instead preferred to lean into different kinds of games and realities, escaping the dark and dreary one that they actually existed in. We’re not there yet. We have to get past this whole AR era, but that deep digital era is definitely coming. Art imitates life, some say. Art preludes life when it comes to science fiction.
Meanwhile, I’m thinking about the opportunity to buy a tiny house and power it through solar so I can escape into a space we control. That seems to be the only way these days… very sci fi.