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Comment by foxes | Hacker News Reader

There is a part of me that is disturbed. I like working at my big wooden table overlooking the city, nice natural light filtering in, the ability to detach from the screen and pace around to take a break. VR for work seems like a trap, you'll be consumed, ensnared by something that demands all your attention. You won't know freedom. Maybe this is the current state of headsets, clunky, like a chain with cables, bad tracking and screens. Maybe if it was seamless and I could slip it on as needed, like a pair of sunglasses.

The other part of me is that having a giant whiteboard and endless space seems cool. Imagine if the entire virtual space had powerful programming environments, some more powerful version of Mathematica, I could gesture and run a some powerful. Maybe that would be worth it, but it doesn't seem there yet.

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> my big wooden table overlooking the city, nice natural light filtering in, the ability to detach from the screen and pace around to take a break

Nice flex, but not everyone has this kind of setup.

A decent size table, natural lighting and room to pace is a flex?

You skipped "overlooking the city".

In post-communist countries in Europe millions of people live in soviet-style tall residential buildings (typically 7-20 stories high), a nice view of the city is not a luxury there (like I guess it is in the US?).

Completely depends on which city.

And his table went from big and wooden to "decent sized"

For some of the jobs I've done over the years, definitely. Gosh I do not miss those.

> my small plastic table, looking out on the blank concrete wall of the building next door, some fading indirect light filtering in, the ability to turn around and take a whole step back before bumping into my cabinet to take a break

Sounds more reasonable for Tokyo and I imagine, HK or Singapore.

Central Tokyo maybe. Tokyo is huge and on the outskirts you can get some nice places with a view. I personally just moved a bit outside of Tokyo to a house on a hill. Often working from the roof and enjoying the sunset.

Aside from that, this post is about to make me buy an Oculus.

Of course I was exaggerating for effect, but it’s certainly possible.

Japan is nowhere as bad as Hong Kong or Singapore space-wise. Hong Kong people have mastered the ability to self-traffic control in the one-person wide aisles of supermarkets, to give you some idea.

We should put our efforts toward making pleasant living and working spaces a reality for everyone, rather than funneling ourselves into non-reality.

> There is a part of me that is disturbed. I like working at my big wooden table overlooking the city, nice natural light filtering in, the ability to detach from the screen and pace around to take a break. VR for work seems like a trap, you'll be consumed, ensnared by something that demands all your attention. You won't know freedom.

That's exactly the point, with VR someone in a small apartment they share with an extended family can ALSO have a nice big wooden table overlooking the city. Even if they are facing a beige wall ...

I am pretty sure he does not find a virtual light/view/desk equivalent to the real deal.

No where did I say they did. I'm saying that they have a very privileged, first world view of this issue.

Not sure what’s the privileged view here. VR is being pushed by wealthy businessmen from the first world, who probably have nice tables. Instead of using their resources and acumen to make sure the rest of us get nice tables too, they’re providing us with a virtual world of material luxury while they get to camp out in the real one.

https://www.wired.com/story/billionaires-use-vr-avoid-social...

Thanks, now it feel even more disturbed lol

I hear you, but there are layers to this. In a way, VR is like a hyper realistic lucid dream, and so actually gives a sort of freedom. VR is like a protective bubble of reality, you can substitute an unpleasant, ugly, and claustrophobic room for a big wooden table overlooking the city. Also there is something strangely anti-materialistic about VR. Why have all this big bulky, expensive equipment, furnishings, decorations around when all it takes is to slip on the glasses. It may be pseudo-dystopian, but I'm really interested in VR on planes so I can cross the continent while watching movies in my ski chalet.

> I'm really interested in VR on planes so I can cross the continent while watching movies in my ski chalet.

It works great, and I actually use my Quest 2 for this.

The only, er, slight issue is it detects rotation using gyros, so when the airplane turns it'll be immediately visible in a way it isn't when you're not using VR. It ironically makes you more aware of your surroundings.

> You won't know freedom

You can...take off the headset.

Until your workplace requires you to use it. And so does every other company you might move to.

How? afaik I can write my code on a piece of paper and run it through ocr - nobody would care... People cannot establish a common ide for a team, let alone establish a common obligatory vr headset.

Because you have a headset strapped to you providing metrics indicating you are not wearing it. Because your work is now tracking your eye movements and they know you aren't focused in the way that the latest ai produced productivity metrics associate with the 2-4% gain they want this quarter.

It does add separation from work and not-work. Take the headset off and you go from work to home without any commute.

Isn't this why everyone is burnt out from WFH? The desk is right there, you can sit down/strap in any time, and "leaving" work is mostly just a mental shift

What? Since when does WFH burn everyone out? At least my perception is that people want to stick to it... I'm confused

It's difficult to tell apart the effects of WFH from the effects of pandemic lockdowns.

I know plenty of people who had a shitty time and ended up dealing with a lot of mental health issues.

My wife is in HR at a large international tech company. The number of people that want to work remote 100% of the time has been steadily dropping for the past year. People mostly want flex time now ... 2-3 days in the office max, no Fridays ... but the do want to come into the office.

I absolutely do not want to return to our office at least. I save so much time and money by working from home that it's insane to even think about going back. Not to mention that I have a much better ergonomic setup at home, and I can take short breaks whenever I want without getting weird looks. The ability to just lay down for a minute is a blessing. I also eat much healthier when I'm at home.

I'd be _fine_ with going to the office once every other week to just meet up, but not more than that.

Yeah, there are definitely people that want to be full remote. My team is full remote, a friend's team has settled on meeting once a week for retros/sprint planning and a mid sprint catch up.

When you get up from the table, and you still see the environment you work in, you never leave. But when you take off the VR headset, you can't see the environment you work in.

It depends on how you design the VR office. I've found myself staring aimlessly into the distance in Microsoft's WMR Cliff House a number of times.

> Imagine if the entire virtual space had powerful programming environments, some more powerful version of Mathematica, I could gesture and run a some powerful.

Not sure.

But I think that there will be far fewer people who work relative to those who play in these virtual+immersive environments than there are with any of our more augmented ones.

Let's hope the AR hybrid will be possible soon :).

Sit down and your real room just widens virtually, your window remains and big screens pop up next to it.

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