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I think maybe the virtual world metaphor has been taken too literally. The real point of "jacking in", to me, would be a vastly superior interface compared to t

I think maybe the virtual world metaphor has been taken too literally. The real point of "jacking in", to me, would be a vastly superior interface compared to the screen-and-keyboard systems we have now. Ideally, it'd be more like a subsystem for your brain, an extension of the way we think, but in fiction it's easier to depict that as a virtual space. Letting people use their devices without looking at or touching them would be a huge improvement over what we have now. Input especially is terrible, I'm typing this on a phone and a part of me hates every second of it. Someone, anyone, fix this crap!

throwanem 9y ago
> in fiction it's easier to depict that as a virtual space Not really! Watts does something a lot closer to what you describe with "ConSensus" in Blindsight, and handles it deftly enough. I think it's more just that the idea of VR as virtual space was the dominant metaphor of its time, and contemporary fiction reflects that time every bit as much as Watts's ConSensus - thought-controlled wireless information access, rendering to the optic nerves - reflects its own. I think the persistence of the older style has to do partly with the fact that we can't yet implement the newer one no matter how much more useful it would actually be, and partly with the fact that VR metaverses look really cool in demos.