The reality behind VR

This post was originally written at a time when I was in severe emotional distress and when I was at a very low point. It was when I needed help. It was not written as a means to gain popularity in anonymity on a chess site.

From this post I received some good advice here and there that helped me put things into perspective. Each time someone comments on it I wind up re-reading parts of the narrative and edit areas that need clarity.

This post still acts as crutch for me because of the overall impact this VR experience had on me and my life. I figured I'd leave it here on this chess site where it started instead of moving it to a place like reddit where I think it really belongs. Thanks again for your support.

Oh, that’s terrible! I can’t believe you got a whole three months mute for that and cared to stick around here. It’s nice seeing you back, though.

What's going on is simple. The trolls are organized, and the authentic posters, though greater in number, are divided and generally unaware of their common interests as a class against the trolls. It doesn't take a very large "conspiracy" to effect change, for good or bad, in a community, when the rest of the community is either unaware of or unconcerned with the conspiracy.

It's up to the community to form the different interest groups that can defend it on various fronts from trolling posters.

In this case, I think the trolls can only continue to win as long as we the people continue to play the game that they are trying to enforce the rules of. There are so few of them in reality, that all we have to do is act in independence of them, and their whole control structure will collapse with nothing substantial to support it.

There are many trolls on the forums. There are some troll attacks that show sexual pictures and whatnot, and individuals that target vulnerable members, but nothing much else. On the clubs side, I'm sure there's much more, but I don't visit that part of the site.

I compared this site here at chess.com to the immersive VR platform I referenced in my post because of two main reasons - they both use a free signup to create an account and they both bank on the idea that their users will pay for more features once they get addicted to its gameplay. At least this site actually helps people develop chess skills. I can honestly tell you after three years of playing on here that I am a better chess player because of this site. However that's not the case with the VR platform I referenced. All it does is promote psychosis, which is not a noble thing do to for mental health. That place just makes users go on imaginary journeys and they do such a good job of it that it fools users into thinking they can supplement the VR environment for a real world experience. It completely ruins the mind.

One last thing I'll say about this site is that it doesn't do a very good job of promoting good social skills. Chats, messages, and random comments appear to go unfiltered until someone raises an alarm. The reporting feature is there, but I'm not even sure they actually do anything about it. If you guys are saying that posts, blogs, and forums are moderated by the admins then that's news to me. I never knew that. But I am sort of happy to hear about that. It should be to keep conversations ethical.

Most of human history, people have been without electricity. I'm pretty suspicious of those people who say we need to embrace all this technology rapidly, and accept virtual reality as a new frontier. On the other hand, looking at the other end of it, maybe we really can control nature enough to make virtual reality the new scene of human advancement. What do you all think of that way of framing the question?

There is absolutely a time and a place to embrace technology, especially in critical situations like emergency response and in the medical field. Look at AI-assisted detection for abnormalities on a CAT scan, for example. Less time for a radiologist to spot things with a naked eye. For humans not to embrace technology is naive. The technology is here and it's only going to creep into everything we do over time whether we like it or not. But virtual reality? That's dangerous. VR makes us think and obsess about things way too much, and it can cause compulsive behaviors that we can't stop if we are exposed to it for too long. I like the question though because it makes you wonder and appreciate who you are and what we have a little more.

Mankind exists because of technology. Our technology alters us as surely as we alter it, from fire to clothing to agriculture, we exist within the boundaries that our technology enables, and we become weaker against the natural environment that it shields us from. As our technology improves, so does our inability to cope with reality, that state of affairs that exists beyond the domain of our influence over matter. In the end, we'll have to construct for ourselves a completely artificial environment, because we will be so weakened by dependence on technology that any incursion of reality into that simulated world would threaten the life-support system. Unless we can break our dependence on technology and accept a piece of mortality into our understanding of life, we are doomed to building a virtual prison around ourselves.

No, mankind does not exist because of technology. Mankind existed before technology and we created technology to assist us. Over time though those lines have been blurred to a point where we do, in some cultures, depend on technology to do normal every day things. Writing is one of the earliest forms of technology and artificial intelligence (which incorporates NLP from the written word) is the latest. If we ever evolve as a human race where we can't embrace our natural reality because of technology, it won't be on this planet.

Civilization also wouldn't exist without slavery. Athens, Rome, basically all great cities, were built with slave labor. It seems like every means that man adopts to reach his ends are corrupting to him. Are we making progress? It seems like we're closer to destroying our environment and ourselves than ever before.