With current technology it can't replace the real thing. But: - people make better technology all the time; VR of today is at a quality and immersion level tha

With current technology it can't replace the real thing. But: - people make better technology all the time; VR of today is at a quality and immersion level that was unimaginable 200 years ago - a lot of people in the world live in pretty poor conditions (relative to the lifestyles of rich programmers on HN); at the margin there will be people willing to trade a loss of fidelity for an increase in quality of life, and the amount of people making that trade will only increase as the immersion level improves