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Comment by gfodor | Hacker News Reader

Why does one assume the Internet is in its final form? I'm about 99% certain the phase we are in is a transitional phase. Upon the arrival of ubiquitous immersive computing, it will go through what may be its final phase shift, but right now it'll be looked back upon similar to the previous eras.

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Yes! What's interesting about Gibson's vision is that he assumed connectivity would be hard, but VR would be easy. It's a world of payphones, fax machines, and "simstim" where you can receive someone else's sensory input and ride along inside their head as they move through the world.

That's not where we are now, but we'll be a lot closer to it if and when we nail VR.

Simstim is - at least in part - being worked on by a company called Openwater[0]. Mary Lou Jepsen did a talk at the Long Now Foundation a while back that speaks to the ambition of thought/memory recording via an MRI-like device and the "insertion"/playback of the same in other people [1].

[0]www.openwater.cc [1]www.longnow.org/seminars/02018/oct/29/toward-practical-telepathy/

Yeah, I was at that talk. A little out there, but pretty awesome.

Have you seen Brainstorm from 1983?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085271/

No, just the clip that Lou showed at the talk.

I asked because the world of Brainstorm consisted of payphones too, and they did that 'telepathy' with headsets which could replay recorded experiences over that modem line.

Hard to classify that movie, at its time it was pure science-fiction, now it is a technothriller from the past. But very watchable, i think.

Its final form is an ultra-regulated space where you need to apply to the government in order to put up a website, etc, and your website-permit can be revoked if you violate the law (i.e. copyright strikes)

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