JoeJ said:

But what if this industry, driven mostly by nerds and geeks, is not skilled enough at social competence to guide people at all? Zuckerbergs legless Metaverse is my favorite example. No fun, no function. But it's ‘the future’. Well, i guess not. But if so, echo chambers and virtual societies may indeed become a bigger problem. I would not wonder.

Oh boy, I never thought about that, and now it really frightens me. Come to think of it, most ‘social technology' can be traced back to the largely self-isolating introverts of the 80a and 90s (arguably even the 70s), which might mean a small piece somewhere in the entire idea of it could be missing. If someone had told me as a kid that I could get away from boring sports and booze culture and geek out through a secluded social network through technology, you bet I'd have jump on that wagon! Maybe that mentality still lingers over the social aspects of technology. And big business is not shy about cashing in on feeding it…..

This is not a deep analysis, your remark just got me thinking….

The fact that I'm here at all is proof that I'm not isolating myself, isn't it?

Because there is no “we”. There is only you and me, and no matter what superficial similarities you and I share (such as being game developers), you and I are nothing alike.

Is this a safe space for me? Well, maybe, because it's a civil place for discussing ideas without getting personal. In that sense, any similarly civil idea-focused place would be equally safe, regardless of the topic of discussion, although obviously some topics of discussion interest me more than others. And at the same time, no, because no social space can ever truly be safe for me.

If I stick to a few online forums, it's mainly because it's hard to find non-toxic forums where interesting discussions take place. And, well, because I don't particularly like to socialize at all.

@a light breeze

“The fact that I'm here at all is proof that I'm not isolating myself, isn't it?”

Unless this is where you like to isolate yourself?

“If I stick to a few online forums, it's mainly because it's hard to find non-toxic forums where interesting discussions take place.”

The weird thing is, people say this in many forums. I get that there are horrible forums out there (or YouTube comment sections….shiver), but it seems more and more like people are just painting many forums they do not frequent as in some way bad. This seems more and more to me like people really want to isolate themselves in a few places, but feel they have some special reason for it.

“And, well, because I don't particularly like to socialize at all.”

And that is a perfectly reasonable reason for isolating oneself. The isolation is not ‘wrong’, but it sometimes worries me how many seem to do it and give a lot of reasons for doing so, when we keep hearing about the problems that isolation creates. That people dislike socializing may be a cause for that, whether people are fine with it or not. But that's just my thought on it, of course…

Programmer71 said:
Joej , I know that this is off topic, but I'd like to know something about your game tech you have been working for so many years, if you mind share it of course.

I work on realtime GI, which is faster and more accurate than current approaches. Industry should be interested. But it's not easy to use. It requires a hierarchy of surfel probes, so we get all the downsides of level wide global parametrization, breaking instancing, introducing new preprocessing times and streaming challenges. I still have many problems to solve to proof this can work in practical production.
That should be enough work on the plate. But no - i decided to turn shortcomings into advantages, by solving another problem on my way, which is LOD. As my surfel hierarchy already does this, i though i could try to use the same data for rendering too. And content creation could become easier es well. The PS4 game Dreams is a good example for the kind of opportunity that i see. I have many ideas about rendering, ranging from point splatting to traditional triangles, but currently i work on the content generation part in form of 3D terrain simulation. I thought that should be easy, but it's not. Already worked more than a year on this alone. Nanite also was quite a shock to me. I always saw LOD as a way for more efficiency, but never considered it could enable insane detail. I won't be able to beat this, but maybe my stuff can do at least some things better.
Sometimes i think i should just stop all this experimental stuff and focus on GI alone. But there always is some progress, and i feel close, and so much time has been already invested, so… :D

Oh boy, I never thought about that, and now it really frightens me. Come to think of it, most ‘social technology' can be traced back to the largely self-isolating introverts of the 80a and 90s (arguably even the 70s), which might mean a small piece somewhere in the entire idea of it could be missing.

Haha, yeah, that's one way if saying it. I'm really not sure about my impressions here. But that's the conclusion i got after connecting all those dots.

But…

Embassy of Time said:
My brother and his wife are from opposing clubs, but it is so rare to see any events that span across clubs. Same with online communities, it seems like a lot of people go there to avoid other communities.

… is this something new? Again i remember childhood. I kept away from the soccer guys too. I felt bullied by them, was shy, and could not catch a ball even if you bring it to me on a silver tray.
Then, as a teen, i was interested in rock music, played guitar, and grew my hair. I found new friends also in my village. Other long haired guys, and girls too. And i did feel well in this group.
But the soccer guys did storm our bar, beat us up and called us anti social drug dealers. Then they jumped into their muscle cars and drove drunk through the village.
Now we are all old and wise, but the groups still rarely merge.

So maybe that's just normal behavior of regular people.
And our technology is not the cause if this. And i think the inventor is never responsible about the causes on society from his invention, anyway. Society is responsible, of which the inventor is only a small part.
The business man is not responsible either. If people buy it, he sells it. If he has success, he becomes the scapegoat for his customers. But that's to be expected and the price to pay.

So, i don't mean Zuck does harm to society with his vision. What i criticize is his (imo) failure on offering a product that the people really want. And this also applies to us.
Basically, tech is so big, we no longer realize we are in a echo chamber at all. Zuck is surrounded mainly by sycophants, praising and desiring his vision.
Thus, we come up with products based on a skewed perception on demand. Everybody is doing the same thing, so there is no competition to reveal the flaw. It works for some time, but then - crash, downfall and game over.
Some years ago, the headline was: Doom finally runs on a micro wave oven display. Headline some years ahead: John Carmack now works on controller logic of micro wave ovens. :(

That's my main worries here. Maybe a bit selfish : )

Joej , at times I think that my days as a graphics engineer are numbered, I will never be able to beat nanite or lumen, so was it worth to spend all this time on rendering tech ? i am starting to think I have wasted a considerable amount of my precious years.

Was I censored for speaking the truth?

No taby what did you say ?

Sorry. What I was going to say was that we, as 40 year olds, are past our sexual prime. Our network shrinks, as we prepare for death.

taby said:

Sorry. What I was going to say was that we, as 40 year olds, are past our sexual prime. Our network shrinks, as we prepare for death.

Totally agree, I am starting to think if in the afterlife ( if there 's an afetrlife ) there are computers as well, and if not, what the f*** am i going to do ?