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Comment by bugbuddy | Hacker News Reader

It is disingenuous to conflate artificial physical and artificial virtual environments. If this is the kind of thinking that is accepted in contemporary discourse without challenge, then it won’t be long before everyone becomes completely subjugated by mediocrity pretending to vanguard. I would take a mediocre physical couch over a virtual one any day. At least, my buttocks will have some cushion with a real couch.

What this whole AR/VR obsession is all about is concentrated tech capital jealousy afraid of anyone even appearing to be slightly more technologically advanced. It is all ego.

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That conflation is what Baudrillard addressed in Simulacra and Simulation (a book that the cast of the Matrix were required to read before filming started). When environments are designed, the blueprint is what one experiences in those environments, the conceptual underpinning, even if the environment consists of matter. In a sense, they try to tell us what to think. The book came out in 1983, so these are old ideas, not really vanguard anymore, but it raises legitimate points that are becoming a lot more noticeably believable with the rise of information technology. I think the OP has a point.

As much as I enjoy the Matrix as a movie, I would never consider it a valuable social commentary about how people should live their lives except for maybe to go outside and touch grass regularly.

> It is disingenuous to conflate artificial physical and artificial virtual environments. If this is the kind of thinking that is accepted in contemporary discourse without challenge, then it won’t be long before everyone becomes completely subjugated by mediocrity pretending to vanguard.

Why? To either claim.

Also, is it possible to accidentally be disingenuous? I’m happy to be wrong, but I guarantee that I’m not intentionally being disingenuous.

> I would take a mediocre physical couch over a virtual one any day. At least, my buttocks will have some cushion with a real couch.

I don’t really follow. I certainly haven’t suggested replicating a couch in VR. I think it would be just as bad as trying to replicate a couch on a monitor.

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