<story><title>How can we develop transformative tools for thought? (2019) [pdf]</title><url>https://numinous.productions/ttft/print/TTFT.pdf</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jamessb</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not sure why this currently links to the PDF of the article [0], rather than the webpage, which includes an embedded animation of an interaction, and embedded YouTube videos: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;numinous.productions&amp;#x2F;ttft&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;numinous.productions&amp;#x2F;ttft&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[0]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;numinous.productions&amp;#x2F;ttft&amp;#x2F;print&amp;#x2F;TTFT.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;numinous.productions&amp;#x2F;ttft&amp;#x2F;print&amp;#x2F;TTFT.pdf&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>How can we develop transformative tools for thought? (2019) [pdf]</title><url>https://numinous.productions/ttft/print/TTFT.pdf</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>georgewsinger</author><text>&amp;gt; Novel hardware devices (e.g., for VR, or the Wii remote, or for new musical instruments) can be used as the basis for new tools for thought. While hardware can be duplicated, it’s often much more expensive than duplicating software. And, in any case, the advantage for such companies is often in distribution, marketing, and relationships with vendors who make products for the platform.&lt;p&gt;SimulaVR was heavily influenced by the early visions for computing devices as &amp;quot;Tools for Thought&amp;quot;.[1]&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Computing as an intelligence augmenter&amp;quot; seemed to be a really popular viewpoint through the 70s and 80s (even in corporate advertisements for computing devices). Then it somehow got co-opted by &amp;quot;computing as a medium for passive entertainment and video games&amp;quot;, and then eventually as &amp;quot;a medium for social networking&amp;quot;. I&amp;#x27;m certainly not against these things in all contexts, but to me the exciting thing about VR&amp;#x2F;AR is that it creates a completely open field to make new advancements in the way human beings interact with machines to get stuff done immersively &amp;amp; with greater creativity.&lt;p&gt;Despite this, the entire VR ecosystem seems to be focused almost exclusively on gaming&amp;#x2F;entertainment + social networking (facebook &amp;quot;Metaverse&amp;quot;). I personally find it really exciting to think about how the extra dimension could help us create more interactive tools in line with Alan Kay (&amp;amp; co&amp;#x27;s) early visions. Before that&amp;#x27;s possible, we first need to get the basic hardware good enough to replace PCs &amp;amp; Laptops (for everyday 2-dimensional applications). After that, we can these devices as platforms to build better thinking tools on.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;simulavr.com&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;simulavr.com&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>