Part of the seeming disparity you notice was a conscious choice -- I wanted the Otherland network to be REALLY different from what the characters were used to experiencing.

Thus, I pushed the VR technology forward a bit beyond what would be reasonable while keeping the rest of the technology suppressed a bit.

Once I did that, though, I tried to keep everything fairly honest and sensible, given the starting points.

I guess what I really wanted to write about (as is often true with us SF folk) was now, but with cooler toys.

That's the short answer.  There could be a much longer one, but not at this time of the night after the weekend I'm having...

True, google = libraries, amazon = mail order book clubs, online gaming = teleconfrencing paper and pencil rpgs (well maybe not).

But I think it does raise a valid point that the net overall doesn't play as major a part in society as it does in say, Neuromancer etc.  Even with keeping it simpler than Otherland could have had more sociological impacts, but i kind of liked the realism of it.  As fancy as the net gets, you still need to eat, drive, have medical treatment, produce and maintain above, etc etc in RL.

Another thing to keep in mind is that in 50 years the net will be blase to most.  The internet is still rather "new and exciting" and people are endlessly speculating on paradigm shifts etc.  Did the telephone change society and the way it functioned? Yes.  Is society still recognizably similar before and after?  Yes.  While the net alters things more, i think it'll kind of hold true that "the more things change, the more they stay the same."

Hrm.  Thanks for the responses, everyone.  Perhaps I should explain why I feel that the Internet gave such a paradigm shift in human interaction.  I know that it's a bit of a cliche, but I like to flatter myself that my reasoning is different than your average pundit's.  :p

It is true that most current Internet activities are just common ones taken to a different level.  Yet there has been a fundamental shift in the way things function.

For centuries, if you wanted information, you either asked someone or read a book.  Now, you Google for it - I certainly haven't ever picked up an encyclopedia unless an Internet connection isn't available, not to mention a dictionary.  And it's not just the method that changed - the information has changed as well.  I can get dozens of different sources, all contradictory, all of different media.  And there is the "chaff" of information that I'd have to wade through to get to the real stuff.

But it's not just that.  The impact can be seen on dozens of communities - book fans, hackers, anime freaks, etc - any fringe group that likely couldn't get a "critical mass" in RL to create a community.  Yet the Internet has made it possible to do so.  Just look at the hacker community - beforehand, just a few small groups of computer geeks, not coordinated at all.  Now, the combined force of geeks online has spawned Linux, the entire Open Source revolution, and plenty of other side effects.

I've heard from lots of people bemoaning the ubiquitous use of email in the place of personal correspondence of a more traditional form.  While I disagree that this is leading to the end of society, :) it is true that email has changed the way we communicate with others.  I rarely actually speak with people, unless I'm physically with them.  All of my other communication is done asynchronously, often in short, cryptic comments (the "short" isn't so true of me, as you can tell from my posts....).  This is fundamentally different than writing a letter - return time is faster, and it takes far less effort to write an email (and certainly less cost).

Economically, firms that previously relied on the strength of their product and sound advertising now find it absolutely imperative to have a strong, easily accessible web presence (I don't know how many of you have left a firm's site due to navigation problems, and moved to a competitor, but I certainly have).  The concept of a "store" is becoming increasingly meaningless for some types of products (for example, computers, software, etc).

The examples go on.  Chat and IMming have made the next generation of people adept at multitasking, carrying on dozens of simultaneous, threaded conversations at once, while also partitioning organizational space for other activities both on (other windows) and off the computer (eating, reading, etc).

I'll freely admit that most of these applications existed in different forms previously.  But the method they are implemented has changed the way things work fundamentally.  And I just didn't feel that the VR Tad implemented had the same far-reaching effects.

Of course, your explanation makes perfect sense, Tad.  In order to draw the sharp difference, you intentionally did it that way... hmm.  Smart.  :)

Hmm... on sort of a tangent, how consciously do you plan out the technology/magic of a world?  Is it an integral part of your basis, or do you mold it to fit your plot and characters as you go along?

I understand you're a bit busy - it sounds hectic at your house (at least from the DogBlog, that is).  Don't bother responding if you don't have time - I'm patient. :)

Ender

[ June 15, 2003: Message edited by: wiggin ]

I think your reasoning is pretty dead on on the impacts of social interaction.  But when one isn't at home, the world isn't significantly changed pre-internet.  Kids at school, people at work, etc still act fairly similar to pre-net times, and differences have to do with many non-net factors. For all the mass IMing that goes on at college dorms, the parties and the beer are in RL, and unless you can afford a really good set in Otherland they would be as well. :)

Now in Otherland everybody pretty much had a set at home, whether it was crap or not, it was there.  The big difference would probably come through Pad usage, which we really don't see that much of.  The only extended *outdoor* traipsing in RL is done by Olga, who has a pad but doesn't need to talk to anyone, and the rest is pretty much in South Africa, which doesn't have widespread cutting edge tech.

Neuroanula's i think would REALLY change society, but at the point they are introduced in the story they are still pretty new and pretty expensive. I don't know if this was intentional, but the paradigm shift of having full wrap around VR anytime, anywhere hasn't arrived.  Either it is like a great videoconfrencing laptop or a complicated system at the Poly for the true immersive stuff.

Hope this makes sense, its late on my side as well.

Tad wrote:

I'm too tired to write anything intelligent now.  Somebody remind me to come back to this topic tomorrow.

(Yawn...)

Yep.  Definitely too tired.

*bumps* the thread into Tad's leg.

Oh?  Did that startle you?  :)

BTW, I also just finished MS&T.  So I don't clog anywhere else up with it, I'll just say that I immensely enjoyed it, especially the last 150 pages of TGAT.  *salutes the Dogly One*

Ender