Where does reality fit in in your vision of this future? It seems like an ultimate goal is never having to do anything real, just experience things as if they were. It’s very near-sighted optimistic matrix-y feeling, overlooking the fact that there is still a real world to experience. It’s like you’re building the Federal Highway System and don’t realize you’re paving the way for small town america along places like Route 66 to die off. Sure, that worked out, America shifted, but we can’t shift reality, can we? If we get all these empathy machines, what happens when all we experience is other people experiencing empathy machines? Memories of lost reality.

Your talk of space is problematic not really for the 2D interfaces, but the shared-experience interfaces you talk about—like inviting relatives, multiple relatives—because two objects can’t take the same physical space (at least for our perception), so how do they crowd around you when you’re blowing out the candles at your alone-together VR birthday party?

I absolutely don’t want to feel someone else’s emotions. Why isn’t it good enough to just have my own in response to a situation—particularly if I can already feel it as if it was real?

This article makes a lot of assumptions of the kool-aid kind.

Lastly, and this is just my opinion, I particularly disliked your Facebook/childhood bedroom analogy. I don’t buy it. We satsifice our online lives. No one is in the nooks and crannies of Facebook if you are referring to UI—even if you’re referring to just our normal landing page. If you are referring to the information we see on it, I still don’t buy it. It’s all too fleeting, while we experienced our childhood bedroom for years with multiple senses and in a stage of life with way more wonder and exploration. For me, that opening passage set the tone that you would be technological kool-aider. Which is fine, just don’t make that assumption about other people.