Living digitally very inexpensive

[Forskaren]

I been toying with an idea.

Many activities cost quite a lot of money in real life. Travel, driving racing cars, shooting with guns, concerts and eating out can all be quite expensive. I think traveling to the world of Pandora (In the game Borderlands), can be just as fun as traveling to Paris.

Digital living:
-Income from capital and other passive sources
-Live in a very small apartment in a cheap area with good Internet
-Get some of your exercise when you do your grocery shopping by walking
-Spend about $100 on average each month on equipment and digital services (internet not included, but hardware included)
-Own cheap smart phone, since seldom away for long

For example if you own an Xbox one, you get a total of four games each month with Xbox gold, when you get the two Xbox 360 games by using a web browser. The free xbox 360 games will run on xbox one, once activated at the free period in the browser. Cost for gold can be less than $60 per year depending on what deals you get.

You could be rotating between Netflix and other subscription services for movies and series. You communicate using Skype, Facebook etc.

[Ego]

It depends what you include as expenses in the calculation.

http://www.biosciencetechnology.com/art ... rons-light

[Forskaren]

Difference between WR and real life seem to be most when your head is fixated, which is not so common at least yet. I guess that 12 hour of screen time per day could have consequences, but on the other hand many working people got 12 hours of screentime.

[BRUTE]

I think traveling to the world of Pandora (In the game Borderlands), can be just as fun as traveling to Paris.

brute, having made the mistake of playing Borderlands, most certainly disagrees. while video games can be great, brute doesn't think that the main advantages of "travel" can be had by playing them.

[Spartan_Warrior]

It works for some...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDSPxt4a6jI

[jacob]

In his 2052 Global Forecast, this is more or less the future Jorgen Randers (one of the original Limits to Growth authors) forecasts. He ran the model again a few years ago and there would be a flight to the city (everybody would mostly be living in cities); nature would mainly be experienced in the form of parks; and travel would be too expensive for mass consumption (so most people would get their kicks online).

Hence, the future in the OP is likely the most realistic outcome for most people 30 years from now.

[BRUTE]

brute wants to point out that what one sees when traveling to Paris is most likely not nature. already most of the kicks most humans get are "online", if including TV, radio, and any web entertainment. the percentage of kicks gotten by humans out of their computational devices will probably rise further over time.

but if Forskaren is considering replacing certain experiences through video games, brute would like to point out that in his experience, the "kicks" attained by travel, racing, shooting in real life vs. in video games are simply very different, and not at all substitutable. brute loves exploration games, racing games, and FPS. but they're just completely different experiences compared to doing these things outside of a game. this might less be a factor of "real" vs "video" or how detailed the games are, and more a factor of them being "games".

[Toska2]

Flow : The study of Optimal Experience states that difficulty and learning adds to the experience. Learning how to carve stone, walking to Machu Picchu and breathing thin air are richer experiences than seeing it thru a 21" screen.

Now if you want to compare sitting peacefully at sun rise at Machu Picchu then sun set at Angor Wat at sun set in the comforts of VR. I'm sorry, life isn't stricly visual. Thers's something about learning and being in the present ( that's not a monitor).

[steveo73]

I think I do this now. I try and get most of my recreational activities online and for free - so TV shows, movies, games (I don't play much) and interacting with people ala this forum.

I go to work and get out of the house and I go to the gym. We also go out regularly as a family excluding the 2 older kids but mostly that is done on bike and we don't spend money. We don't go on holidays overseas or elsewhere.

You can't though do physical stuff like grappling on-line.

[Jean]

Playing video.games all day is not pleasant in the long run because you end up controlling everything.

[enigmaT120]

Hence, the future in the OP is likely the most realistic outcome for most people 30 years from now.

Cool. I'll get some peace and quiet out here in the woods.

[Forskaren]

@Brute
I think that if you are looking online for an exact duplication of a real experience, you will fail. I think the key is to be flexible and patient to get good value. Ok, a game is not like Paris, but you will not be seeing flying dragons in Paris (and you will not be eaten by them). If you are very specific about what you want to do, before comparing costs, you have an increased risk of getting poor value. Normally people start those things with I have to...

Not optimal:
-I have to visit Paris at the same time as many others want to visit
-I have to play that specific game at launch day
-I have to use Apple and no other brand
-I travel over half of the world to see a temple that is similar like the 30 I already seen
-I spend a lot of money on travel, but end up spending a lot of time in the hotel room using Ipad.

Optimal
-I can watch this four year old movie at no additional cost
-I get to visit this small town in Germany for free, since we have a work meeting
-I spend time in the apartment that I am already paying, and do day trips with bike
-I borrow free ebooks from my library web site
-I bought this game two years ago and only played it for 1 hour despite it being really good. Why not now play something you already own.

Digital stuff seem inexpensive compared to much other, thats got my attention.

[BRUTE]

what Forskaren describes sounds like the difference between a tourist and a flaneur in Nassim Taleb's writing - rigidly planning everything vs. putting one's self into a position to experience serendipity.

Forskaren is completely right that digital goods are extremely inexpensive. this is because there is no scarcity in the digital world. brute can copy Forskaren's mp3 song, and Forskaren will still have it. this is why the idea of "stealing music" online is absurd - it is just copied. for stealing to occur, something must be missing.

physical atoms can not be copied cheaply, especially when in complex configurations. for digital goods, copying is literally less effort than moving them, which would consist of copying and then deleting the source.

of course, a world without scarcity and ever increasing bandwidth enables anything on it to be distributed extremely cheaply. not all experiences can at this point be packaged digitally. some people would probably argue that some never will be. further, some people will argue that's a good thing. brute doesn't believe in "good", and so is relatively neutral, if skeptical.

[jacob]

this is why the idea of "stealing music" online is absurd - it is just copied. for stealing to occur, something must be missing.

So by the same logic, I could tap Brute's electricity since technically the wires are still there and thus I haven't really removed any atoms from Brute's home. Of course one could argue that one is stealing the effort of the power plant in the same way that one is stealing the effort of the musician but apparently that would be absurd

[Did]

If you are giving up the real world for a computer, you are already dead.

As for not respecting IP, well, that's just ignorance.

[Scrubby]

As for not respecting IP, well, that's just ignorance.

The kind of ignorance that brought us Shakespeare, though.

[steveo73]

If you are giving up the real world for a computer, you are already dead.

It's about living well on less. Not just sitting on a computer but using the computer and Internet to provide lot's of free or cheap entertainment.

As for not respecting IP, well, that's just ignorance.

Speak for yourself. I'm not ignorant at all. Ignorance to me is paying $15 for a movie or $10 for a book.

[Did]

@steveo Rip off people's work if you wish. It says more about your ethics than anything else.

[steveo73]

@steveo Rip off people's work if you wish. It says more about your ethics than anything else.

So be it. I can live with it.

[IlliniDave]

Hence, the future in the OP is likely the most realistic outcome for most people 30 years from now.

Cool. I'll get some peace and quiet out here in the woods.

That's already happening. As an example, the number of annual visitors entering the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness has declined by about 12% from 2010-2014, and had a similar decline in a 6 year period prior to that, 2003 -2010 (there's one year of overlap in the two periods). Anecdotally I've heard there was a 20% decline from the mid 1990s to the mid 2000s. The average age of a visitor was 26 in 1969 which rose to 46 by 2009, with something like 2/3's of all visitors being over 40, meaning the decline is likely to continue. Younger people just don't like to be disconnected from their electronics, I guess, and probably dislike the rigor and/or lack of structured activity. Quetico Provincial Park, which is adjacent to BWCA to the north in Ontario, has seen even larger declines in the number of visitors despite having a much stricter quota system (fewer visitors per day allowed) and much more desirable experience (if solitude and disconnectedness is your thing) because it's even more remote.