@ibogost When the world is a burned-out husk & we can't leave our pods, virtual reality will be better than actual reality. That's my extremely depressing take on why Meta etc are betting on this.
@miniver If you said squire with anything other than a cockney accent people would think you were either mad or taking the piss.
There's a load of other regional terms that might do the job (pet, hen, duck, love), but without the right accent they fail too.
Best I can do is 'friend'.
@richard_littler Oh for the days when you could drop some acid, come up with a groovy idea & then a few days later you'd find out you'd pitched it to the BBC & they'd already commissioned, filmed & broadcast it.