VR as a tool to facilitate global awareness

[Angry Floof]

How VR can show us life, death, and the consequences we’re blind to

We use a lot of drone shots to be able to lift you out of your normal, everyday height and place you into another perspective to see the world changing as it is so rapidly right now. There is the potential to overwhelm the viewer. This is a very intense medium, and if you place people into intense situations, they're going to respond to it.

A topic we have discussed here from time to time is how to engage people to respond to the wider world and experience more of a personal connection to distant consequences of our choices and actions. This video focuses on climate change, but the idea applies to any problem of human activity.

It's human nature to respond to things that we experience directly. We often (most of us) genuinely care about the bigger picture of climate change as well as a great many other problems such as animal cruelty, local economic struggles, plastics in the ocean, etc. But even the most conscientious among us still make a lot of choices that adversely affect the world because it's easier or cheaper to continue making those choices.

The question I asked during one of these discussions was, "How do we engage seven million people to respond to far away events as we do with immediate, personal consequences?" A small "monkeysphere" is the evolutionary result of eons of small social groups, and of course, the ordinary limits of what any individual can do globally is a major factor.

Our brains have literally never before experienced a tribe of seven billion in a globally connected world as we have now due to technological advances and population growth. Because our most powerful drivers involve personal experiences of pain and reward, even for those who strive to take a cosmic view and expand their area of concern, it seems we are not responding well as the "knowing species" to the problems and destructive nature of our habits and institutions. At the very least, we may be adapting in useful ways but maybe not fast enough. Could VR technology be part of the answer?

 

[steve_bank]

I do not see where VR specifically does anything.

We see death and suffering 24/7 on TV. Cable news shows actual shootings.

Hamlet and Macbeth remain among the best explorations of life and deat. Through imagination we feel rge emotions.

VR is yet more escapism. People need to engage the world directly.

VR eleminates inmagination. Video games involving killing for fun and points are popular...

 

[Angry Floof]

Did you listen to the video?

 

[fromderinside]

VR is primarily a visual methodology. As such it has yet to overcome distortions outside original pov. That is the world must fbe filtered through a static perspective to provide illusion of carrying the viewer along for the ride. Augmented reality (AR) is much more realistic and productive since all ath is added to normal world view is additional information.

 

[Underseer]

I do not see where VR specifically does anything.

We see death and suffering 24/7 on TV. Cable news shows actual shootings.

Hamlet and Macbeth remain among the best explorations of life and deat. Through imagination we feel rge emotions.

VR is yet more escapism. People need to engage the world directly.

VR eleminates inmagination. Video games involving killing for fun and points are popular...

I admit that I haven't watched the video yet, but you know the saying: one death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic.

That's why those ads for charity donations tell you a story about an individual child suffering from hunger and show you a picture of him/her instead of telling you the statistics of how many children die of starvation every year (and the latter should have more effect on you).

If VR can make certain kinds of suffering more personal, then people will be more likely to feel some sort of empathy/sympathy about it.

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I'm still boycotting Facebook, so here's what I'm pretty sure is the same video on YouTube:

 

[Underseer]

OK, I think that in general there is potential here, but the specific case he originally talks about is never going to benefit from VR.

You can't convince anti-science people that science is a real thing. They are religiously devoted to their anti-science views and will only get information about science from anti-science sources. No amount of emotional appeal is going to change that.

Heck, you can't even convince climate deniers that cherry-picking the data cannot produce good conclusions since they believe that is the only way to get valid conclusions.

 

[Angry Floof]

VR technology is highly immersive, mainly because your brain is the ultimate VR tool. Our perceptions are limited and faulty; it takes a complex, tricky type of brain like ours to make it all seem real and seamless and all-encompassing, and the more advanced the VR technology, the more it totally hijacks our VR-ready brains.

This video focuses on climate change and using our own immediate perceptions through VR to close the gap between personal and faraway.

Underseer, anti-science zealots are the same kind of human as the rest of us; when they have first hand experience of something and that experience is impinging enough, the ideological identity takes a back seat.

As you know. Republicans who get arrested are apt to become quite liberal, at least for a while. Homophobes often change their minds when their own kids come out. Rich people who lose their wealth are likely to change their minds about social safety nets, etc.

One story I heard recently sticks with me lately. It was a meme showing a bird trapped in a 6-pack plastic thing. The text said something like "I always cut these things before throwing them away because someone showed me this picture when I was a kid." Obviously, it was a kid with a functioning sense of empathy and so that image caused an immediate impingement.

I think VR (and AR, as FDI mentioned) and perhaps other technologies will play an important role in helping to change our global ideological paradigm.

 

[Underseer]

I hope you're right, but in general, I find climate deniers to be in a different league than creationists. I'm willing to debate creationists because once in a while I find one that will actually try to understand the arguments and evidence presented by the other side, but climate deniers are religious zealots of a higher magnitude than creationists.

 

[Angry Floof]

I hope you're right, but in general, I find climate deniers to be in a different league than creationists. I'm willing to debate creationists because once in a while I find one that will actually try to understand the arguments and evidence presented by the other side, but climate deniers are religious zealots of a higher magnitude than creationists.

We're not talking about arguments. We're not talking about ideas or evidence or even rationality. We're talking about something entirely different and more powerfully influential by orders of magnitude: first-hand, personal, felt experience.