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The Reality of Virtual Reality · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: one never told you Protectually I heart radio, And today
0:19
Speaker 1: we are continuing our streak of looking into technologies and
0:23
Speaker 1: women and non binary folks, and we're continuing it with
0:28
Speaker 1: virtual reality are Yes or VR, which I know UM
0:35
Speaker 1: might have some of you rolling your eyes, especially with
0:37
Speaker 1: a lot of the news that's going around right now.
0:40
Speaker 1: We're not specifically going to be talking about the metaverse
0:42
Speaker 1: today that we should, UM, because they recently saw a
0:46
Speaker 1: headline I believe they lost seven hundred billion dollars investing
0:51
Speaker 1: into the metaverse and they fired a lot of their
0:53
Speaker 1: staff to invest in this, which is something we're seeing
0:56
Speaker 1: with Twitter, which is also something we're gonna come back
0:58
Speaker 1: and talk about. So, yeah, that is the thing. We know,
1:02
Speaker 1: it's a thing that we need to talk about. We're
1:04
Speaker 1: gonna come back and talk about it. But today we're
1:07
Speaker 1: more focusing on kind of the general landscape of women
1:11
Speaker 1: and non binary folks in the VR world. And actually
1:14
Speaker 1: this could have been like a multipart because there's a
1:17
Speaker 1: really fascinating history of women innovating in this space. Uh
1:23
Speaker 1: and and the history of that and how it came
1:25
Speaker 1: to be what it is today is really cool, But
1:28
Speaker 1: we're going to touch on some of that. We're not
1:29
Speaker 1: going to focus on it though, And I do have
1:31
Speaker 1: to say, doing this research, I feel like we're seeing
1:33
Speaker 1: several threads emerge again and again when it comes to
1:37
Speaker 1: how these platforms are not supporting women. Um, which is
1:41
Speaker 1: not surprising, also not great. Obviously, I hope all the
1:46
Speaker 1: problems we talked about with Reddit, with Twitch are not
1:49
Speaker 1: limited to those platforms, and we're going to talk about
1:52
Speaker 1: how they manifest in VR two. But part of why
1:56
Speaker 1: we wanted to talk about this was we're quest of
2:00
Speaker 1: a listener saying that in their experience b R wasn't
2:04
Speaker 1: as sexist as other platforms. And this was over a
2:08
Speaker 1: year ago at least, but I got really curious about it. Uh,
2:12
Speaker 1: And so here we are. We are right. I remember
2:14
Speaker 1: that because they suggest some great games that I never played,
2:18
Speaker 1: that you played them? No, And actually I want to
2:20
Speaker 1: talk about this for a second, because you and I
2:22
Speaker 1: have I would say similar experiences with bruvolve this fallowing.
2:29
Speaker 1: So if you're talking about yes only one time for me,
2:33
Speaker 1: excuse how do you but it was a pretty big
2:38
Speaker 1: ball of us. Yes, yes, so you you actually were
2:45
Speaker 1: the one who introduced me to b R. I had
2:48
Speaker 1: used it previously in like high school, a very bad graphic,
2:55
Speaker 1: like those really old sets you would use, and it
2:59
Speaker 1: was like a fighting game. And one of my friends
3:02
Speaker 1: had it and I used it, and it was one
3:03
Speaker 1: of those things where you could like barely tell what
3:05
Speaker 1: was going on, had fun, but it was also such
3:10
Speaker 1: a difficult You couldn't tell what was going on right,
3:13
Speaker 1: so it was very difficult. And then you during the
3:16
Speaker 1: pandemic kind of introduced me to it um in its
3:22
Speaker 1: newer iteration where the graphics are much better, there's a
3:25
Speaker 1: lot more games available, and I it was one of
3:29
Speaker 1: those things where I waffled on it for a long time,
3:31
Speaker 1: but eventually I bought my own kind of on a whim.
3:34
Speaker 1: But I had been thinking about it. It was one
3:36
Speaker 1: of those surprise purchases for you. It was because it
3:40
Speaker 1: and then showed up, and then it showed up and
3:42
Speaker 1: then it showed up. But I have been thinking like
3:44
Speaker 1: it was one of those things where it was going
3:45
Speaker 1: to inevitably happen, and I kept kind of being like no, no,
3:48
Speaker 1: no no, and then eventually it was like, oh, yeah,
3:50
Speaker 1: I'll get it, and then I totally forgot and then
3:52
Speaker 1: it showed up. I was like, yeah, but related to
3:56
Speaker 1: all of this, I have a lot of games I
3:59
Speaker 1: want to play and I have not played. My apartment
4:02
Speaker 1: is not the best for playing VR, to be honest,
4:04
Speaker 1: it's not right the most spacious, and I don't generally
4:08
Speaker 1: get nauseated, which we are going to talk about, but
4:11
Speaker 1: I sometimes do. So it's kind of like a commitment
4:15
Speaker 1: or I have to like move like my table all
4:17
Speaker 1: the way. It sounds so like easily done, but it
4:20
Speaker 1: is like I have to do this and I have
4:22
Speaker 1: to do this play. Um, but yeah, what about you?
4:27
Speaker 1: What about your experience with that? Well? Yeah, so honestly,
4:30
Speaker 1: I was introduced and the VR set that is in
4:33
Speaker 1: my house is my partners. Um. He loves the VR
4:37
Speaker 1: set to the point that we still play with it.
4:39
Speaker 1: He does it more than I do. Um. He even
4:42
Speaker 1: talked another person who was actually a boomer, like we'll
4:46
Speaker 1: talk and got him into it as well, like to
4:49
Speaker 1: the point that he showed him an example, let him
4:51
Speaker 1: play with it for a second, and then he immediately
4:53
Speaker 1: bought it because it was everything he wanted. Like he
4:56
Speaker 1: talked about how he wanted to be a pilot and
4:58
Speaker 1: wanted to test flow. This was an amazing stimulation to it,
5:02
Speaker 1: and it is. It's it's definitely upgraded since the time
5:04
Speaker 1: that you were talking about. I know there's a lot
5:07
Speaker 1: more of like VR bars popping up in the sensation
5:10
Speaker 1: of this, and now more games that you can play
5:12
Speaker 1: together online. Again, my partner uses it to play their
5:19
Speaker 1: version video is I don't even know what it's called.
5:21
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie, which is like a version of
5:24
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons, but VR brand, I don't know that,
5:28
Speaker 1: a verse brand maybe I don't know. But he plays
5:31
Speaker 1: with his siblings and they play Katon on it, and
5:35
Speaker 1: it looks like they're right there talking to each other.
5:37
Speaker 1: So it's really interesting to see like all of that. Yes,
5:41
Speaker 1: the graphics have gotten better. I am one of those
5:44
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about it in a bit. Who gets
5:46
Speaker 1: very sick very quickly with these games because of the
5:49
Speaker 1: generous the quick motion, the rapid eye movement that I
5:53
Speaker 1: cannot keep up with. I also have really bad stigmatism,
5:57
Speaker 1: so I have my contacts which if it's not set correctly,
6:01
Speaker 1: everything's ghost blurry no matter what. And my contacts are
6:04
Speaker 1: not wonderful and I can't play with my glasses because
6:06
Speaker 1: it's too thick and big. I just have all kinds
6:09
Speaker 1: of nerd problems. Um. But yeah, but I really did
6:12
Speaker 1: enjoy the ones that I really liked. It was really nicely.
6:16
Speaker 1: The scenery is beautiful. There's coloring one that I love.
6:18
Speaker 1: There's a fishing game that I'm like, I don't even
6:20
Speaker 1: like fishing, but this is really fun. Um there is
6:23
Speaker 1: I love beat Saber. I love that when I can
6:26
Speaker 1: get into it, I can get into it. And y'all
6:27
Speaker 1: have worked up a sweat with that game. I mentioned
6:30
Speaker 1: a shooter game where it was like a piloting game
6:33
Speaker 1: and it was fairly new, to the point that one
6:35
Speaker 1: of our listeners knew one of the creators and gave
6:38
Speaker 1: them a shout out. Was like, hey stuff mom. They
6:41
Speaker 1: were told you just talking about your game, and I
6:42
Speaker 1: was like, what, that's awesome. So I love seeing all
6:46
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, and I think I'm kind of really
6:48
Speaker 1: weary because I want to know, and we're gonna talk
6:51
Speaker 1: about I know, like how many developers are getting there?
6:54
Speaker 1: Do who are in from the marginalized communities? Because this
6:57
Speaker 1: is a new technology that can be really big. That's
7:00
Speaker 1: kind of big. Maybe haven't gone about it the right way. Yeah,
7:06
Speaker 1: it could be big, yeah, yeah, And it has a
7:09
Speaker 1: lot of applications that I don't think people realize and
7:12
Speaker 1: if you, if you haven't, I don't know, used a
7:17
Speaker 1: VR set recently, Like like Samantha was saying, there's so
7:21
Speaker 1: many different types of games and some of them are
7:23
Speaker 1: so beautiful and relaxing and peaceful, Like there's a lot
7:27
Speaker 1: to offer in this VR world. And I bought it,
7:31
Speaker 1: I think the first summer of the pandemic. I I
7:36
Speaker 1: bought it to the beach with my friends and I
7:40
Speaker 1: would just catch them like hanging out and I don't know,
7:43
Speaker 1: like coloring or just sitting in space or whatever it was,
7:46
Speaker 1: and it was kind of something that helped them calm
7:50
Speaker 1: or relax, which is not something I would have thought
7:53
Speaker 1: of until I had seen it. I will say that
7:56
Speaker 1: one of the things that I am kind of way
7:58
Speaker 1: of and I've only done once or twice because my
8:02
Speaker 1: partner he gets when he gets caught up, he gets
8:05
Speaker 1: caught up. And like all immersive and one of the
8:09
Speaker 1: big features is having like rooms where you can visit
8:13
Speaker 1: different people and talk to different people, you can watch
8:15
Speaker 1: movies together. They're like you there's a certain amount of room,
8:19
Speaker 1: you can do a fireside chat, like all of these things.
8:22
Speaker 1: You can create your own universe as in fact, like
8:24
Speaker 1: he took me to one, which was super cool. This
8:27
Speaker 1: creator made his own universe, and then like he has
8:31
Speaker 1: special things where you could do a Patreon for him
8:34
Speaker 1: to pay him. Outside of that, the entire setup was free.
8:37
Speaker 1: So it's interesting to see all that. But as a
8:40
Speaker 1: woman going in, it felt really odd. And the minute
8:44
Speaker 1: they figure out you are what gender you are, or
8:46
Speaker 1: they think they know what gender you are, it kind
8:48
Speaker 1: of flips. The conversation flips, and uh, it's it seems
8:53
Speaker 1: more predatory. There doesn't seem to be. I don't know,
8:57
Speaker 1: because each each person can have their own room, the
9:00
Speaker 1: person who have creates that room, moderates that room. So
9:03
Speaker 1: I think it's too generalize for me to say that
9:06
Speaker 1: it's unsafe for marginal's communities, but I can see how
9:09
Speaker 1: quickly it what could be very unsafe for marginalized communities. Um,
9:14
Speaker 1: it's interesting though. I think it's definitely something we have
9:16
Speaker 1: to look into because who knows how what if this
9:19
Speaker 1: becomes the new chat room with Twitter quickly dying, or
9:22
Speaker 1: if this becomes the new social media in the future,
9:25
Speaker 1: as we know, as the Justice have told us, everything
9:29
Speaker 1: will be something to that level. Right, That's all I
9:32
Speaker 1: have to get my market about communication now is virtual reality?
9:35
Speaker 1: Oh god, no, no, no, no, well yeah, And any
9:39
Speaker 1: listeners who are listening to this, I would say, Samantha
9:42
Speaker 1: and I are kind of like VR light. We've done
9:44
Speaker 1: it UM very light, very light though, and uh, I
9:49
Speaker 1: haven't really had much experience with the social aspect of it.
9:54
Speaker 1: So listeners, if you're listening and you're like, oh, I
9:56
Speaker 1: have experiences or stories to tell you, please right in. Yes,
10:01
Speaker 1: So we're gonna do a quick rundown of history and
10:04
Speaker 1: some of the issues in the VR world right now.
10:07
Speaker 1: Which yes, again we're not talking about metaverse, but they
10:10
Speaker 1: are definitely pushing it as like a workplace. So who
10:16
Speaker 1: knows what the history the future would be. UM. So, yes,
10:22
Speaker 1: this is a very quick rundown um of the history
10:25
Speaker 1: of VR. But most people trace that to nineteen sixty five,
10:29
Speaker 1: which is earlier than I thought it would be. UM,
10:33
Speaker 1: And most of the founders were men, and those would
10:36
Speaker 1: be the founders that we know of anyway, because we
10:38
Speaker 1: know a lot of people marginalized people get erased from
10:41
Speaker 1: the story, but women have been involved in the industry
10:44
Speaker 1: for decades. You can take Beth Marcus, the inventor and
10:48
Speaker 1: founding CEO of Exos, and the person in part behind
10:52
Speaker 1: the Dextrous Handmaster, which was a foundational and sophisticated input
10:57
Speaker 1: device for VR. So I recommend looking up all of
11:00
Speaker 1: this stuff. It's really cool. It wasn't necessarily designed for VR,
11:05
Speaker 1: at least in the way we're talking about it, which
11:06
Speaker 1: is kind of primarily a gaming system, but very very
11:10
Speaker 1: neat um data suit, a full body suit used to
11:14
Speaker 1: capture motion, was designed by an Alaska Harville. Jan Nick
11:19
Speaker 1: Roland did substantial research on how the human visual system
11:23
Speaker 1: interacts with VR. So that's another instance where maybe you
11:27
Speaker 1: wouldn't think of that when you're thinking of all of
11:29
Speaker 1: the pieces it took to make VR, but of course
11:32
Speaker 1: that makes sense, like you would need an understanding of
11:34
Speaker 1: how the human eye works and the visual system works.
11:38
Speaker 1: Timiko Thiel, Sear Davies, Nicole Stinger, they all had parts
11:43
Speaker 1: to play in this. I found a really good list
11:46
Speaker 1: of women involved in the dr movement. Unfortunately, it was
11:48
Speaker 1: hard to find like more than like they did this
11:51
Speaker 1: thing the end of story. But um, but I think
11:56
Speaker 1: they could all make really interesting episodes. And these are
11:59
Speaker 1: just a hand of names and we will have more
12:03
Speaker 1: names later, especially people currently UM working in the field.
12:07
Speaker 1: But the point is women have provided huge developments in
12:11
Speaker 1: the technology and content of YR, not to mention creating
12:14
Speaker 1: works to bring awareness to important social issues. So, like
12:17
Speaker 1: we said, a lot of people you might think of,
12:19
Speaker 1: like I don't know, shooting games when it comes to VR,
12:22
Speaker 1: but there's so many other things that can be done
12:25
Speaker 1: in that space that have been done, and some that
12:27
Speaker 1: we have talked about before, which we're going to discuss
12:29
Speaker 1: in a minute. Many have expressed the importance of having
12:32
Speaker 1: women leading in this field. Um they're more aware of
12:35
Speaker 1: women's safety concerns or could have raised their hand about
12:38
Speaker 1: the design of the headset, which we're going to talk
12:40
Speaker 1: about in a minute. Interestingly, at seventeen survey out of
12:44
Speaker 1: the US found that sixty of leadership positions in VR
12:49
Speaker 1: we're held by women, though those numbers can get Q
12:52
Speaker 1: quite low and other countries and counting in other factors.
12:55
Speaker 1: So it was one of those things like depending on
12:57
Speaker 1: how you define it and what you include, that number
13:01
Speaker 1: can change drassicly. One woman we have to talk about
13:07
Speaker 1: in this industry is Nonni Da la Pinia, sometimes called
13:10
Speaker 1: the Godmother of VR, who founded Imblematic, a virtual, augmented
13:14
Speaker 1: and mixed reality company early on day. La Pinia recognized
13:18
Speaker 1: the potential of VR for all sorts of applications, and
13:22
Speaker 1: she was really vocal about we need to get um
13:26
Speaker 1: women and other marginalized folks on the ground of this,
13:28
Speaker 1: because that's what we've talked about with podcasting. When there's
13:30
Speaker 1: like a newer technology or platform being developed, then ideally
13:35
Speaker 1: we have a room to correct past issues we see
13:39
Speaker 1: on other platforms. So this is one of those where
13:41
Speaker 1: they're like, this is a newer thing, can we please
13:43
Speaker 1: learn from all these other issues on these other you
13:49
Speaker 1: can talk about history or things to come, like, hey,
13:52
Speaker 1: this is a good time to learn from the past.
13:55
Speaker 1: I do wonder what I see titles like godmother mother
13:58
Speaker 1: of Like what how did it change? Wait? Was who
14:00
Speaker 1: have made these titles? And why is it godmother? Like
14:03
Speaker 1: did you not have a hand in it? Was it?
14:04
Speaker 1: Just like I encourage you go for anyway, it's just
14:09
Speaker 1: a random moment when random thought. So while technology has
14:13
Speaker 1: advanced and become more affordable, especially from about twenty onward, uh,
14:18
Speaker 1: and they're used for all kinds of things outside of gaming,
14:21
Speaker 1: like work and education and virtual travel. Only one in
14:24
Speaker 1: five Americans have given a VR set a try, and
14:27
Speaker 1: it is there's a lot of like it seems so
14:30
Speaker 1: odd when you originally think about the VR sets and
14:34
Speaker 1: then you're like, yeah, it's silly, it's just hockey. You're
14:36
Speaker 1: looking at a cartoon closer up, and then you realize, oh, no,
14:39
Speaker 1: they've really done some things. And as every addition is released,
14:43
Speaker 1: because we're I think what the version five of the
14:47
Speaker 1: metaverse vs. VR set, it gets increasingly intricate. It is
14:52
Speaker 1: quite a nerving almost. But even with those numbers, the
14:57
Speaker 1: numbers for women are lower. In the UK and in
15:00
Speaker 1: the US only women had used to be are compared
15:03
Speaker 1: to about men um and I wonder why. I wonder
15:06
Speaker 1: if it's just they're not asking women. Women are like, no,
15:09
Speaker 1: I'm good. It could be it could be a little
15:13
Speaker 1: bit of a little bit of me. We are going
15:15
Speaker 1: to break some of that down. I do think there's
15:17
Speaker 1: a lot of leftover for for older folks like you
15:22
Speaker 1: would me, who do remember those really? Hey, I'm including me,
15:27
Speaker 1: who do you remember those kind of crappy like mall
15:31
Speaker 1: VR sets or whatever. I think there's a lot of leftover, Like, no,
15:35
Speaker 1: I don't like that. I don't want that kind of
15:37
Speaker 1: reminds me of the little slides. Yeah, almost along those levels,
15:41
Speaker 1: like that's what we thought of. Not really, but you
15:43
Speaker 1: know that that's that oh so close and so beautiful scenery.
15:46
Speaker 1: But it's just little steels. Things are changing. But yes, yes, yes, yes,
16:06
Speaker 1: uh and yeah. There's also a lack of diversity in
16:09
Speaker 1: what gets funded in the VR sector, though there have
16:12
Speaker 1: been some really notable films made by Wind of Color
16:15
Speaker 1: that utilized VR, including when we talked about Called Crow
16:19
Speaker 1: the Legend by Sarah Eaglehart that was really beautiful. Um,
16:23
Speaker 1: and they're they're actually quite a handful of them that
16:25
Speaker 1: are are very very good. And while there are some
16:30
Speaker 1: great women protagonists characters in the games themselves and br
16:34
Speaker 1: that's still an area that needs a lot of improvement.
16:37
Speaker 1: As of VR was expected to be a one hundred
16:40
Speaker 1: and fifty billion dollar industry, and some of our fellow
16:45
Speaker 1: podcast have had shows in the VR world, which is
16:51
Speaker 1: something smith that I am struggling to wrap our heads around.
16:54
Speaker 1: But they have done it so true, we don't quite
16:57
Speaker 1: understand it. Hey, we don't know what that would look like,
17:00
Speaker 1: as well as the fact that our parent company may
17:03
Speaker 1: have been a part of the big buye of that
17:04
Speaker 1: billion dollar investment. There's a lot of things things, so
17:10
Speaker 1: we're trying to hear out. But you know, as I
17:13
Speaker 1: was talking about earlier in UM, in these little chat rooms,
17:17
Speaker 1: I like I said, I am wondering about the harassment.
17:20
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, while there are many positives about the VR,
17:25
Speaker 1: it is not without the same problems as we've discussed
17:28
Speaker 1: in previous tech episodes UM, and the same things we
17:31
Speaker 1: see offline too, Yes, obviously right now, and one of
17:34
Speaker 1: them is harassment, which, as I had a question, which
17:38
Speaker 1: disproportionately impacts women and people of color. Yes, so a
17:45
Speaker 1: lot of you probably heard this story. It made a
17:47
Speaker 1: lot of headlines UM. Recently, a woman Beta tester reported
17:51
Speaker 1: being groped while interacting in a metaverse platform UM. Meta
17:55
Speaker 1: concluded that she should have used the quote safe zone
17:59
Speaker 1: security features. So this is like the personal boundary, UM.
18:04
Speaker 1: If you've played v R, it's kind of this circle
18:07
Speaker 1: that you can see UM. It's about four ft or
18:11
Speaker 1: one point two meters according to Meta, and if an
18:14
Speaker 1: avatar tries to enter it the boundary should stop them.
18:18
Speaker 1: This is not a new or isolated incident, though. In
18:22
Speaker 1: a woman shared her story of how another VR user
18:24
Speaker 1: groped her breast and crotch, ignoring her when she told
18:28
Speaker 1: them to stop, and chasing her around. Um. She wrote
18:30
Speaker 1: an open letter about it, and here's a quote from that.
18:34
Speaker 1: A users disembodied helmet, faced me dead on. His floating
18:38
Speaker 1: hand approached my body and he started to virtually rub
18:40
Speaker 1: my chest. Stop. I cried. This goaded him on, and
18:43
Speaker 1: even when I turned away from him, he chased me around,
18:46
Speaker 1: making grabbing and pinching motions near my chest. Emboldened, he
18:50
Speaker 1: even shoved his hand towards my virtual crotch and again
18:53
Speaker 1: rubbing there. I was being virtually groped in a snowy
18:56
Speaker 1: fortress with my brother in law and husband watching. Yeah,
19:01
Speaker 1: it's pretty upsetting. Open letter read the whole thing. I
19:05
Speaker 1: will say, even though they're supposed to be age limits,
19:09
Speaker 1: you know you really can't stop that in the amount
19:12
Speaker 1: of young kids that are on here is alarming. UM.
19:16
Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong, I absolutely believe this could be
19:19
Speaker 1: an adult doing this, but I know, like a lot
19:21
Speaker 1: of this is like, uh, both of those incidences or
19:25
Speaker 1: issues in the conversations and about like, hey, this is
19:28
Speaker 1: teaching some things that are really really off putting. And
19:31
Speaker 1: then even though this is not reality, the fact that
19:36
Speaker 1: this is happening in a setting that's supposed to be
19:38
Speaker 1: even safer because you're supposed to have safeguards and able
19:41
Speaker 1: to block people, that's really concerning, right. And it's one
19:46
Speaker 1: of those things, um, which I think we're going to
19:49
Speaker 1: talk about it in a minute, but where you might
19:53
Speaker 1: not know that the safeguard feature was not it's not
19:58
Speaker 1: automatically activated, or it wasn't at time. I think it
20:00
Speaker 1: is now, so you would have to know I have
20:03
Speaker 1: to go in where to find that right on? Um,
20:08
Speaker 1: which you might you just you know, I'm going into VR.
20:12
Speaker 1: I might not be thinking, oh, somebody might grope me
20:16
Speaker 1: in VR, and I need to go find this setting
20:19
Speaker 1: and turn it on. Right, I will say, uh, I
20:23
Speaker 1: was watching again my partner in VR, and and there's
20:26
Speaker 1: a setting that you can cast that onto TVs or
20:29
Speaker 1: your phone or whatever and whatnot. Um, And he was
20:32
Speaker 1: a hot dog. He's trying to show me how these
20:35
Speaker 1: little worlds work and what it looks like. And other
20:37
Speaker 1: people can come in, especially if it's open. And this
20:40
Speaker 1: one kid just followed him, and it was a kid
20:41
Speaker 1: because you could hear him scream like he has had
20:44
Speaker 1: his podio on, and he would scream, this is kind
20:47
Speaker 1: of funny. Hey hot dog, hot dog, come here, hot dog,
20:51
Speaker 1: let me let me see. Lane would chase Joe aroun
20:53
Speaker 1: until Joe knew that like a way to block him,
20:56
Speaker 1: so he blocked him. But I would have not never
20:58
Speaker 1: known that. I was like, what what is happening? Why
21:00
Speaker 1: is he not leaving you alone? Because Joe would just
21:02
Speaker 1: mind his own business to walk through this world and
21:06
Speaker 1: this kid was following him around for a good I
21:09
Speaker 1: think ten minutes, and Joe really thought he had lost
21:12
Speaker 1: the several times, and the kid would just pop up like,
21:13
Speaker 1: hey hot dog. Again, it's not funny, but at that moment,
21:18
Speaker 1: Joe being a hot dog as his avatar was quite funny,
21:22
Speaker 1: right right. Well, And that's kind of the thing, is
21:27
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, is like that moment of panic,
21:29
Speaker 1: Like that was a pretty annoying but benign experience ultimately,
21:35
Speaker 1: but it's not that a lot of times, and and
21:37
Speaker 1: many women have reported just not feeling safe or comfortable.
21:41
Speaker 1: Just kind of what you were talking about Samantha, like
21:43
Speaker 1: you could feel how this could turn and be a
21:46
Speaker 1: space of harassment very quickly. When when you're in this
21:49
Speaker 1: VR space, there's a lot of creepy staring. People have
21:52
Speaker 1: reported UM interactions like taking pictures without your consent, running
21:58
Speaker 1: up to talk to you give you the sensation that
22:01
Speaker 1: they're talking in your ear. Because of how the headset works,
22:04
Speaker 1: it sounds like they're right in your right next to you.
22:07
Speaker 1: Is a nerving and one woman described an experience where
22:12
Speaker 1: male avatar surrounded her and subjected her to an onslought
22:16
Speaker 1: of sexual innuendow, and she compared the experience to sexual assault. UM.
22:21
Speaker 1: Others have said the tech advances can make these assaults
22:25
Speaker 1: and harassments feel like they're they're I don't hesitate to
22:30
Speaker 1: say really happening, because they are really happening, but like
22:32
Speaker 1: happening to your physical body. Another woman recounted logging on
22:36
Speaker 1: into the metaverse and within a minute experiencing harassment and
22:40
Speaker 1: being virtually gang raped, and her words quote, three to
22:44
Speaker 1: four male avatars with male voices essentially but virtually gang
22:49
Speaker 1: raped my avatar and took photos. As I tried to
22:51
Speaker 1: get away, they yelled, don't pretend you didn't love it,
22:54
Speaker 1: and go rub yourself off to the photo. Um. And
22:59
Speaker 1: this person said that it happens so quickly she didn't
23:02
Speaker 1: have time to enact the safe zone feature. So many
23:07
Speaker 1: women who came forward with these experiences were essentially victim
23:11
Speaker 1: blamed and told it's just a virtual body, which it's
23:14
Speaker 1: not far off to what people are being told in
23:18
Speaker 1: the physical world. Um, it's a game, get over it.
23:21
Speaker 1: It wasn't actually sexual abuse, but experts have reiterated sexual
23:25
Speaker 1: harassment in the VR world is sexual harassment. In the
23:28
Speaker 1: words of Catherine Cross, a PhD student researcher of online
23:31
Speaker 1: harassment at the University of Washington, she said, at the
23:34
Speaker 1: end of the day, the nature of virtual reality spaces
23:37
Speaker 1: and such that if it is designed to trick the
23:40
Speaker 1: user into thinking they're physically in a certain space, that
23:43
Speaker 1: they're every bodily action is occurring in a three D environment.
23:48
Speaker 1: It's part of the reason why emotional reactions can be
23:50
Speaker 1: stronger in that space and why we are triggers the
23:54
Speaker 1: same internal nervous system and psychological responses. Which, yeah, that
23:58
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. And this is really because
24:01
Speaker 1: also there's so many things to this, because we know
24:05
Speaker 1: as people have permission to create their own worlds, that
24:08
Speaker 1: they can also create their own rules. So this is
24:10
Speaker 1: really unnerving about who would the ability, who knows how
24:14
Speaker 1: to code, who knows about VR, who knows it better
24:17
Speaker 1: than those who created it, which happens a lot, what
24:20
Speaker 1: they can do, and the violence they can incite on
24:22
Speaker 1: that that is so scary. Yeah, and going back to
24:26
Speaker 1: that other woman's point, she was in there less than
24:29
Speaker 1: a minute before she experienced this harassment. If if it's
24:31
Speaker 1: your first time and you're just like, oh, let me
24:35
Speaker 1: go check this out, and there are these players, these
24:39
Speaker 1: male avatars that just do that to just wait and
24:41
Speaker 1: they know what to do, Like that's terrific because you
24:44
Speaker 1: wouldn't have a chance to even orient yourself or figure
24:47
Speaker 1: things out. And Samantha were kind of joking about it
24:50
Speaker 1: at the beginning, but we did both fall when we
24:54
Speaker 1: were playing, because that's what we're talking about, Like, you,
24:56
Speaker 1: the sensation is really the sensation feels very real, and
25:00
Speaker 1: when you get like even a little disoriented, it can
25:05
Speaker 1: be like almost panic inducing, like oh my gosh, what
25:10
Speaker 1: is happening? So I totally believe, like right, all these
25:14
Speaker 1: accounts we're hearing from women that it feels so awful
25:19
Speaker 1: and dangerous and very very real. And I'm not going
25:23
Speaker 1: to talk about too much, but the fact that these
25:25
Speaker 1: rooms can be created, there are a lot of traps
25:28
Speaker 1: I don't know what how else to say, where they're
25:30
Speaker 1: trying to entice a certain group of people to come
25:32
Speaker 1: into their room. And if it takes a split second
25:35
Speaker 1: to make someone uncomfortable or to abuse somebody, that's all
25:39
Speaker 1: they really need. And a lot of them have to
25:41
Speaker 1: have permission. You might be in a waiting list and
25:43
Speaker 1: all of these and again, you know, especially for younger
25:46
Speaker 1: kids and younger people who just want to explore and
25:49
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, that's an interest that I have. Let's
25:51
Speaker 1: go see what this is about. And again I've hit
25:54
Speaker 1: some that I'm like, they're just talking about this, and
25:56
Speaker 1: they'll like, I wanted these spectator I do this and
25:59
Speaker 1: take out to I just want to see and move on.
26:01
Speaker 1: But they notice you won't get it coming in. They're like, hey,
26:04
Speaker 1: so and so, and I'm like, oh god, they see me,
26:07
Speaker 1: they don't see me, and I have a book. I
26:09
Speaker 1: gotta I gotta go. But that's that's the conversation, is
26:12
Speaker 1: that there's so much leeway to this. There's so many
26:16
Speaker 1: freedoms to this. There are so many unrestricted ways that
26:19
Speaker 1: this can go wrong UM that it can be scary,
26:22
Speaker 1: but also there's so many amazing things to this that
26:25
Speaker 1: could be almost therapeutic, allowed to be used correctly and
26:30
Speaker 1: monitored to a certain degree. So it's such a big,
26:33
Speaker 1: wide open space, and with VR so new, as the
26:36
Speaker 1: technology is really just skyrocketed the last five years. Yeah,
26:40
Speaker 1: And I feel like that's something we've said and all
26:43
Speaker 1: of these technology episodes we've done recently, is there's like
26:45
Speaker 1: these beautiful things to it. There are these beautiful aspects
26:48
Speaker 1: to it. There's this community building and ways to connect
26:51
Speaker 1: with people. I found a lot of articles about which
26:56
Speaker 1: I think we talked about with um twitch and read
27:00
Speaker 1: it maybe, but I've had a lot of articles from
27:02
Speaker 1: trans people who are like, this is one of the
27:04
Speaker 1: few times I felt like I could, you know, kind
27:06
Speaker 1: of be myself and come out and and make this
27:09
Speaker 1: avatar feel like how I feel inside UM And so
27:14
Speaker 1: there they are all these amazing things of it, and
27:16
Speaker 1: I I just hate that it's so many of the
27:20
Speaker 1: kind of things we see in our daily lives have
27:24
Speaker 1: transitioned into this platform because it's you know, it's all
27:28
Speaker 1: go into a room and in the real world that's
27:33
Speaker 1: not the word, like the outside the offline world UM,
27:36
Speaker 1: and I don't feel safe, like you know what I mean,
27:38
Speaker 1: Like it doesn't stop existing right in VR. And to
27:43
Speaker 1: be fair, I think we come from a generation when
27:45
Speaker 1: UM chat rooms were new, so we were there. I
27:49
Speaker 1: was just I was there at the beginning and they
27:52
Speaker 1: weren't all great. Some of them were UM and the
27:56
Speaker 1: online abuse and grooming and all of that that happened
27:59
Speaker 1: makes me wary of chat rooms in general. And take
28:03
Speaker 1: this amplipopia because you are talking in speech UM and
28:07
Speaker 1: then it's odd anyway. But like I'm very wherey like
28:12
Speaker 1: as a millennial elder millennial, I'll just put it that way,
28:16
Speaker 1: which I hate that term, but it makes me wary
28:19
Speaker 1: and wonder how bad this is going to go, which
28:22
Speaker 1: is sad because it should be new and fresh, but
28:25
Speaker 1: nothing really is. Yeah, I mean that's the unfortunate thing.
28:29
Speaker 1: I feel like where my my history professor used to say,
28:35
Speaker 1: we're slinky where it's like a it's cyclical, but we
28:38
Speaker 1: are moving ahead one cycle, but it's still cyclical. So
28:41
Speaker 1: it's like I do think we are making progress, but
28:43
Speaker 1: we're seeing the same issues over and over again. Right. Yeah.
28:49
Speaker 1: Something else we've talked about is there are hardly any
28:54
Speaker 1: avatars in the VR spaces. Um. So if you if
28:57
Speaker 1: you've never played, there's kind of like these general rooms
29:00
Speaker 1: of Samantha's been talking about mine. Mine looks like kind
29:03
Speaker 1: of the lodge but with stars everywhere. A lot of
29:06
Speaker 1: the avatars in those spaces are not uh women, are
29:10
Speaker 1: mostly men or maybe non gender. But yeah, trans people
29:14
Speaker 1: have written about how VR and VR avatars can be
29:16
Speaker 1: this really powerful way to present their true selves, um
29:20
Speaker 1: safely and perhaps for the first time. But it is
29:22
Speaker 1: a problem when people don't feel comfortable using women gendered
29:27
Speaker 1: avatars or if it is also just that uneven in population.
29:33
Speaker 1: And I've spoken before about like as early as I
29:36
Speaker 1: think twelve, I was like, I cannot have a woman avatar.
29:40
Speaker 1: I'll get her asked too much. Yea, that sounds like
29:45
Speaker 1: some kind of aspirational quote. Be hot dog, hot dog,
29:49
Speaker 1: just the hot dog. Um. There has been a lot
29:53
Speaker 1: of effort to provide a wide range of avatar options,
29:55
Speaker 1: but still work to be done in that arena as well.
29:58
Speaker 1: Women who work in the field have that that VR
30:00
Speaker 1: is difficult to moderate because it requires moderators to watch
30:04
Speaker 1: how avatars moved, for instance, like it basically it would
30:09
Speaker 1: require a moderator to be there all the time. One
30:12
Speaker 1: solution proposed involves a universal hand or arm signal to
30:18
Speaker 1: tell the moderators something is wrong, but that has its
30:21
Speaker 1: own limitations. But that was something. There's a letter you
30:23
Speaker 1: can find. Actually, I think it's in response to that
30:26
Speaker 1: open letter that we read a quote from earlier where
30:29
Speaker 1: the mail developer of the game said, like, I wish
30:35
Speaker 1: I had taken this more seriously, and I think we
30:38
Speaker 1: could have taken we could have changed the course of
30:41
Speaker 1: v R. But that was one of the things they
30:42
Speaker 1: instituted after that happened, was that you had this kind
30:46
Speaker 1: of hand gesture you would make to kind of tell
30:50
Speaker 1: the moderators like something is wrong here and and a
30:53
Speaker 1: review from the Digital Games Research Association about this whole
30:58
Speaker 1: incident included this quote. Many online responses to this incident
31:02
Speaker 1: were dismissive of bail mirrors um experience, and at times
31:05
Speaker 1: abusive and misogynistic. Readers from all perspectives grappled with understanding
31:10
Speaker 1: this act given the virtual and playful context that occurred
31:14
Speaker 1: in Yeah, a lot of dismissing, right, which is concerning
31:20
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of warning signs to be said
31:23
Speaker 1: that happens offline, that happens in the spaces. So I
31:27
Speaker 1: feel like to dismiss and say it's just a joke
31:29
Speaker 1: is really dangerous to begin with that rhetoric in general. Um. Yeah,
31:33
Speaker 1: And after researchers combed through eleven point five hours of chat,
31:38
Speaker 1: they found over one instances that could be violations and
31:41
Speaker 1: that on average, one of these took place every seven minutes,
31:46
Speaker 1: which is on par with Twitter. Yeah, I mean that's
31:50
Speaker 1: that's concerning too, every seven minutes of violation. And we've
31:55
Speaker 1: we've discussed a million times, like a lot of these
31:58
Speaker 1: platforms don't have the best if you're if it's a
32:01
Speaker 1: violation and something's really gone right. The idea of VR dating,
32:10
Speaker 1: which I want to return to, got more traction during
32:13
Speaker 1: the pandemic, and VR dating apps have also tackled with
32:15
Speaker 1: how to handle their the safety concerns of their users.
32:19
Speaker 1: Most of these uh of these concerns around women. On
32:23
Speaker 1: the other on the other side of it, some have
32:25
Speaker 1: suggested VR dates as a safety measure themselves as a
32:30
Speaker 1: way to safely have a first date and look for
32:32
Speaker 1: any red flags. It's been used as a tool for
32:34
Speaker 1: long distance relationships as well, so that's something I would
32:38
Speaker 1: love to come back and look into that more in depth.
32:40
Speaker 1: I would also love to come back to this. There
32:42
Speaker 1: are women working in VR porn, and I found like
32:45
Speaker 1: a bunch of articles about them, and I would love
32:48
Speaker 1: to come back and and dig into that more deeply. Yeah,
32:52
Speaker 1: I have a lot of questions and then I'm going
32:54
Speaker 1: to leave it be'. I'm assuming the VR porn would
32:57
Speaker 1: be a lot like only fans maybe except a little
33:00
Speaker 1: or direct as well, where it was not just chat
33:03
Speaker 1: or requests. Right. Well, the Star Wars holiday special predicted
33:07
Speaker 1: this in n Oh my goodness, you're fired. You're fired. Hey,
33:15
Speaker 1: I need to know. So are these again? We're gonna
33:17
Speaker 1: come back to it, but if anybody is actually done,
33:23
Speaker 1: because I need to understand the apps and the success
33:29
Speaker 1: because it sounds genius also scary, So I need I
33:33
Speaker 1: need to hear about this. Yes, yes, oh my gosh,
33:36
Speaker 1: please let us know. Um, but now this is something
33:40
Speaker 1: we're going to talk. I wasn't expecting this, but it
33:41
Speaker 1: made total sense when I read it. Um, so I
33:44
Speaker 1: was like googling women in VR, and one of the
33:47
Speaker 1: top things that came up that I wasn't expecting was cybersickness.
33:51
Speaker 1: Something called cybersickness. Yes, yes, yes I I. When I
33:56
Speaker 1: read it, I was like, Oh, Samantha's gonna want to
33:58
Speaker 1: hear about this. Um. So side sickness is the study
34:00
Speaker 1: of motion sickness UM when it comes to technology and
34:05
Speaker 1: how that and so this whole idea that I found
34:10
Speaker 1: was basically asking the question like, do women experience more
34:15
Speaker 1: cybersickness when playing VR? If so, why, and if so,
34:20
Speaker 1: does that mean that it's essentially discrimination against women? So
34:25
Speaker 1: here is a great but brief explanation of motion sickness
34:28
Speaker 1: from Nevada Today. Motion sickness, of which VR sickness is
34:32
Speaker 1: a subset, is generally caused by a conflict between visual
34:35
Speaker 1: and vestibular systems, which normally are in sync with each other.
34:39
Speaker 1: For example, car sickness is caused when people feeling the
34:42
Speaker 1: car accelerate vestibular cues, but they aren't looking outside the
34:46
Speaker 1: window and they don't see the corresponding visual cues, causing conflict.
34:51
Speaker 1: VR sickness is the other way around. When navigating in VR,
34:54
Speaker 1: optical cues like objects passing through the user's periphery provide
34:59
Speaker 1: the user with the ilusion that they are moving, but
35:01
Speaker 1: as users sit or stand still, there are no vestibular cues,
35:05
Speaker 1: causing a visual vestibular conflict okay. An informal poll found
35:11
Speaker 1: that over twenty two of women reported experiencing motion sickness
35:15
Speaker 1: when using a VR headset, compared to only about seven
35:19
Speaker 1: percent of men, and a part of the problem has
35:21
Speaker 1: to do with interpupulary distance, or the distance between people's eyes.
35:27
Speaker 1: A lot of ear headsets don't allow users to adjust
35:31
Speaker 1: this distance, and researchers think that they were primarily designed
35:35
Speaker 1: after men's facial structures, not women's. The default I P
35:40
Speaker 1: d um or distance between people's eyes as it's called,
35:43
Speaker 1: is larger than the average population on these headsets. UM
35:47
Speaker 1: Hormonal differences might be at play as well. Women typically
35:51
Speaker 1: have a smaller inner ear, which means they're more sensitive
35:55
Speaker 1: to vestibular activity, which means more motion sickness. UM people
35:59
Speaker 1: do develop VR legs, as they're called basically what it
36:03
Speaker 1: sounds like, you get used to it, but women develop
36:06
Speaker 1: them at a lower rate, though that could be due
36:09
Speaker 1: to a variety of factors. But essentially, yeah, these headsets
36:12
Speaker 1: were designed around men. Doesn't match the kind of average
36:17
Speaker 1: in society. I am justified. I'm vilified, okay, um, yeah,
36:22
Speaker 1: because I definitely I can't do it for long periods
36:24
Speaker 1: of time and it makes me very, very sick. But
36:29
Speaker 1: here's a quote from a venture beat. A user's experience
36:32
Speaker 1: levels with flat screen gaming can predict VR sickness. A
36:36
Speaker 1: skill called mental rotation and the capability to work with
36:40
Speaker 1: and explore three D space in your head can't have
36:43
Speaker 1: an impact on how susceptible a user is to VR sickness.
36:47
Speaker 1: According to a report from Satista, men play more games
36:51
Speaker 1: from genres such as three D action games and first
36:54
Speaker 1: person shooters, which are both types of flat screen games
36:57
Speaker 1: that improve mental rotation. Genres that don't contribute, like puzzle
37:02
Speaker 1: games and family far stimulators, are the ones that women
37:05
Speaker 1: play more often than others, like first person shooter games.
37:09
Speaker 1: As me, I do play those puzzle games. Uh. This
37:13
Speaker 1: difference between female gamers and male gamers could explain why
37:16
Speaker 1: women still get sick more often. Oddly enough, I do
37:20
Speaker 1: get motion sickness in watching other people play first person
37:25
Speaker 1: shooter games or action games as well. That's why I
37:29
Speaker 1: was like this quote. I feel like it's like this
37:54
Speaker 1: is also something I found interesting. So the headset isn't
37:58
Speaker 1: the only design factor that those women were not in
38:02
Speaker 1: mind when these headsets and games were created. Women who
38:05
Speaker 1: played the VR version of Resident Evil four, which I
38:08
Speaker 1: desperately want to play, reported that the chest the chest
38:12
Speaker 1: level required on some moves essentially equated to a boob punch.
38:16
Speaker 1: So basically, I think what they were saying is like,
38:19
Speaker 1: you have to make this motion where you almost kind
38:21
Speaker 1: of hit your chest um to get into your item inventory,
38:26
Speaker 1: which you're gonna want to do very quickly in a
38:27
Speaker 1: game like Resionval four where zombies are coming to kill you, right,
38:30
Speaker 1: but they don't. They didn't take into account boobs, Like
38:34
Speaker 1: boobs might get in your way, and so you have
38:36
Speaker 1: to like do more and actually hit yourself to get
38:40
Speaker 1: this function to work. Some men have larger chests as well,
38:43
Speaker 1: so that can be good for them either. Yeah, well
38:46
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't think you're actually supposed to
38:48
Speaker 1: hit your chest. It's a basically you don't have boobs
38:52
Speaker 1: because you have to move in so much. Yeah, no, exactly,
38:55
Speaker 1: they exactly, But I think that's the kind of they
38:59
Speaker 1: won't even think about that, like, oh, surely, flat chested,
39:03
Speaker 1: traditional man, this won't be a problem. Other games have
39:06
Speaker 1: similar issues where the grabbing of an item motion did
39:10
Speaker 1: not take into account body types other than yes, kind
39:13
Speaker 1: of this basic you know, traditional man, we'll say um.
39:18
Speaker 1: A technical product manager at Oculus named Charmagne Hung reported
39:22
Speaker 1: early problems. Um. So, she was setting it out and
39:25
Speaker 1: she was like, oh, my hands are too small to
39:27
Speaker 1: reach grips on the controllers, mascara got no lenses, her
39:32
Speaker 1: hair was too smooth for the straps um and she
39:36
Speaker 1: was told essentially, that's probably just a youth thing. That's
39:39
Speaker 1: probably just a youth thing. Uh. So she asked for
39:42
Speaker 1: women volunteers to try in the headset, collected data, showed
39:47
Speaker 1: it to the male higher ups, and they changed their minds.
39:49
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, okay, yeah see, but it took her.
39:52
Speaker 1: That's why it's so important that we have people at
39:56
Speaker 1: the early stages, because they were like, ah, it's probably
39:58
Speaker 1: just you. It's fine, you're not shaped human. You can't pay.
40:05
Speaker 1: And related to this, the headset was also not designed
40:08
Speaker 1: for black people's hair. Unfortunately, could not this was behind
40:11
Speaker 1: the paywall, so I couldn't read the whole article, but
40:15
Speaker 1: a woman, a black woman, did a bunch of research
40:17
Speaker 1: on this and is is or Halves already created a
40:21
Speaker 1: prototype that works for black people there, yeah, because the
40:27
Speaker 1: thing about monists of the settings, it has to fit
40:29
Speaker 1: tight yeah, to your head, which, by the way, I
40:32
Speaker 1: had difficulty the original oculus because my head is really
40:35
Speaker 1: small compared to my partners, and so to adjust that
40:39
Speaker 1: we had to add padding literally things that we're probably
40:44
Speaker 1: We got like towels and folded it up and put
40:47
Speaker 1: it underneath so I could fit it. Because they couldn't
40:49
Speaker 1: adjust easily. You had to take it apart to adjust it.
40:52
Speaker 1: So it definitely was not meant for people with and
40:54
Speaker 1: I don't think I have a tiny head, right, so,
40:58
Speaker 1: but it was smaller than his who has the big head?
41:03
Speaker 1: You did? You sure did. I had trouble with that too,
41:06
Speaker 1: And I definitely experienced the pulling of hair, which I
41:11
Speaker 1: think that a lot of a lot of men with
41:13
Speaker 1: shorter hair heavy. I don't know, maybe I'm just wearing
41:17
Speaker 1: it wrong, but it's heavy and talk about like causing
41:20
Speaker 1: aches and pains on your head. I'm like, I just
41:23
Speaker 1: committed just putting it on. I have a lot of ailments.
41:25
Speaker 1: Apparently that's what this episode is investigating. And yeah, there
41:32
Speaker 1: have been overall issues around accessibility and disability. As we
41:37
Speaker 1: said it could virtual reality could be a great tool
41:40
Speaker 1: in that area as well, UM, but there are just
41:43
Speaker 1: so many issues right now around that, around people being
41:45
Speaker 1: able to use it or not being able to use it.
41:47
Speaker 1: When we're talking about the future. There are some silver
41:53
Speaker 1: linings here and people working to make VR better for
41:55
Speaker 1: everybody in Maria Kralav founded Women in Full Reality, which
42:00
Speaker 1: is a really great resource UM and networking advocacy organization
42:04
Speaker 1: with the mission of quote increasing the visibility of women
42:07
Speaker 1: in the virtual reality, of women in virtual reality, and
42:11
Speaker 1: attracting more women to the field. And they have a
42:14
Speaker 1: list of goals that include things like training, identifying factors,
42:18
Speaker 1: keeping women from the field, and providing experts to the media.
42:22
Speaker 1: So there's a lot um I really recommended if you're
42:24
Speaker 1: interested in in any way. Jin Do Wong, who co
42:28
Speaker 1: founded Shift or Capital s h UM two Forward Slashes
42:33
Speaker 1: f T a organization pushing for future technologies to keep
42:36
Speaker 1: inclusion in mind UM and and they've been really outspoken
42:40
Speaker 1: about why this is important in VR and how we
42:42
Speaker 1: can go about it. There's an organization called Equal Reality
42:47
Speaker 1: and they use VR simulations to foster empathy and they
42:50
Speaker 1: host diversity inclusion training sessions. That's something else we could
42:54
Speaker 1: come back and do a whole episode on because there's
42:56
Speaker 1: a lot of argument about that. I wanted to include
42:59
Speaker 1: it because that's also, as we've said, there are so
43:02
Speaker 1: many ways that VR could be this really beneficial and
43:07
Speaker 1: good tool. But yeah, and there's a lot of stories
43:11
Speaker 1: UM And I know we didn't really hit onto it,
43:13
Speaker 1: but VR has been used for military training and UM,
43:17
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of conversation that needs to be
43:19
Speaker 1: had about weaponizing tech for power UM and why that
43:24
Speaker 1: it was geared towards men to begin with, and the
43:27
Speaker 1: kind of still is UM and taking it into it.
43:29
Speaker 1: Hey we can make money, let's go UM. But there's
43:32
Speaker 1: a lot of dark history behind VR that like we
43:37
Speaker 1: obviously wouldn't get into, but that needs to be considered
43:40
Speaker 1: as to the future of it. And I was also
43:43
Speaker 1: thinking we need to do a future episode on drones
43:46
Speaker 1: because the way it has taken off and then who
43:48
Speaker 1: is involved in what is what is being used for today?
43:51
Speaker 1: But I find it interesting that that is its history
43:54
Speaker 1: and trying to find out how is it shifting, is
43:57
Speaker 1: it shifting, is it actually becoming more equal lies? And
44:01
Speaker 1: what truly is the purpose? Yeah? Yeah, and I do think,
44:07
Speaker 1: like again, going back to that short documentary watched the
44:09
Speaker 1: crow Like Crow the Legend that was so good and
44:13
Speaker 1: it was so beautiful and it was such a like
44:15
Speaker 1: wonderful way to utilize VR. I think there are all
44:17
Speaker 1: these applications that are fantastic that we could do, but
44:22
Speaker 1: there is this dark side that we also have to
44:25
Speaker 1: talk about and keep in mind. And I think that's
44:28
Speaker 1: again that's been the thread through all of these technology episodes.
44:32
Speaker 1: So yeah, really really really would love to hear from
44:35
Speaker 1: listeners about your experience and v are um, either someone
44:41
Speaker 1: who's played it or a creator. That'd be fantastic. Uh.
44:44
Speaker 1: And yeah, we are working on a listener mail episodes,
44:47
Speaker 1: so please if you want us to read something, uh,
44:51
Speaker 1: please send it soon because it's going to come out
44:54
Speaker 1: in the next month or so. So and to those
44:57
Speaker 1: who have been uh sending messages through Twitter as long
45:00
Speaker 1: as it's going and um Instagram, especially by your experiences
45:04
Speaker 1: in things like Twitch and Redded, thank you keep sitting
45:06
Speaker 1: there because it's fascinating to read. We are reading them. Yes,
45:09
Speaker 1: it really, really really is and we've learned a lot,
45:11
Speaker 1: so I'm so excited to share all those. Yes, you
45:15
Speaker 1: can send those to our email, which is stefinitely your
45:18
Speaker 1: mom Stuff at ihart meia dot com. You can find
45:20
Speaker 1: us on Twitter, Mom Stuff Podcast or on Instagram as
45:23
Speaker 1: Stuff One Never Told You. Thanks as always to our
45:25
Speaker 1: super producer Christina. Thank you, Christina, and thanks to you
45:29
Speaker 1: for listening. Stuff I Never Told You, production of by
45:31
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more podcast for my heart Radio, you
45:33
Speaker 1: can check out the heart Radio app, Apple podcast wherever
45:35
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows