4 ms·

As for the worry over 'addiction' and escapism, just let us go. The moment it becomes physically possible to get the hell out of this reality and take my chance

by benched 13y ago

As for the worry over 'addiction' and escapism, just let us go. The moment it becomes physically possible to get the hell out of this reality and take my chances in another one, I'm gone. Just stick an IV in me, store me in a coffin-sized apartment, and start the show.

higherpurpose 13y ago
I wonder if this will have an effect on the airplane travel industry and tourism in general. Why go through the trouble of paying hundreds if not thousands of dollars visiting a place on the other side of the planet, when you can experience 90 percent of it in VR? Why even dream about going to Mars? For one, it's probably not going to happen to us in our lifetime anyway, and second, we could do it much faster and cheaper, by using some remote-controlled robot and experiencing it through VR, Avatar-style.
- hershel 13y ago
  I believe that VR is less strong environment for social encounters. Once somebody cracks this , VR will not only disrupt tourism but also areas of the economy which sell experiences which is a large part of our economy.
- oliwary 13y ago
  Exactly! It's incredible how much money and resources are spent of moving slabs of meat around.
mikepurvis 13y ago
I always thought this would be a much more interesting backstory for the Matrix than "the robots went to war with us." I even kind of hoped that in the sequels, Neo would uncover that as the truth, and that Morpheus would be the one struggling to accept that his prior existence was a lie.
- vinceguidry 13y ago
  Not saying your story wouldn't be interesting, but it wouldn't really be workable without serious surgery to the whole concept. If you remember the machines had several prototype worlds fail before the 'current' one. Humans didn't like utopia, so they gave them a world at the peak of their civilization. If humans really just got fed up with the general awfulness of life, and made their own Matrix, surely they'd have come up with a better one.
  - ssdfsdf 13y ago
    Not necessarily. Imagine being alive for a million years, you might just be bored enough to create this kind of simulation, where you believed it all to be real. Complete with twisted robot overlords, last ditch battles, and awesome fight sequences...
    - vinceguidry 13y ago
      Ahh, I get it now. Pretty clever.
Vermeulen 13y ago
On the same blog I actually wrote a short story with this same idea: http://www.3delement.com/?p=177 http://www.3delement.com/?p=177
Wintamute 13y ago
I wonder how many other civilisations in the universe turned their gaze inwards into nested self-created realities rather than try the difficult job of voyaging outwards into "real" space. It could be a well trodden path ...
- Karunamon 13y ago
  SMBC did a comic on this. Kind of makes you think.. http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20131122.png http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20131122.png
  - vinceguidry 13y ago
    Neat concept for a strip. One nitpick though, harnessing solar energy would make energy cheap and abundant enough to keep everyone in VR forever. As soon as the tech exists, you wouldn't need an exchange economy for energy anymore, any more than one exists for air. What wouldn't be possible is slowing the perception of time down so much as to create immortality. The sheer amount of processing necessary would put a theoretical limit on how slow you can make time, while still providing a fine-grained enough experience to be seamless.
    - Karunamon 13y ago
      It does make me wonder what happens once we gain the ability to do two things: 1) VR by direct neural input, instead of by enveloping the senses (think more Johnny Mnemonic than the Star Trek holodeck) 2) Manipulating perception of time, which we already know is pretty mutable.
- akiselev 13y ago
  First I would wonder how a civilization could develop to such a technologically advanced point without having enough variability in their population to have at least one group of people voyage out.
  - vinceguidry 13y ago
programd 13y ago
Speaking of VR escapism I think a cautionary read about the implications of truly advanced VR would be Iain Banks' Culture novel "Surface Detail". An IV, a coffin-sized apartment and... a virtual hell? Who decides when you wake up? If you wake up?
User8712 13y ago
At first I thought people trying to escape reality would be a negative, then a few moments after, I had a similar reaction to you... why not? I mean, if someone isn't enjoying their real-life, and they can spend all their free time living their dreams, going on VR adventures exploring vast landscapes and caves, sky diving, looking like adonis, being a superstar singing infront of millions of VR fans, racing through the streets of italy, etc, then why shouldn't they? http://t.wallpaperweb.org/wallpaper/3d_landscape/1440x900/fantasy_art_scenery_wallpaper_sarel_theron_03_1440x900.jpg http://t.wallpaperweb.org/wallpaper/3d_landscape/1440x900/fa... Wouldn't it be interesting to just jump into VR and spend your evenings exploring alien worlds like the above, with a handful of friends online? You might even bond closer than your friends in real-life, because you're experiencing a lot of new things together. Also, as you grow older, this could be a great way to improve your quality of life. If you're 70, you can jump in the VR world, and you look 20 again, and your VR double can run and jump like an Olympian. Meanwhile, you might be in a wheelchair, but you get a sense of youth and adventure. Only downside, how do you motivate people to return to the real world? They need to make money, they need to pay the bills, they need to form real relationships with their spouse and children. I think a lot of people would see it like a drug, they just want to get their next fix of VR. Don't interrupt Grandma, she's at the VR home now, and doesn't want to come back to reality. I think it has the potential to make life much more entertaining, but I think it also has the ability to destroy people. Like the poster above me, if people just want to be born, have an IV and live in VR, what do they contribute to the world? Or is that the future, 1% of people work and balance life, 99% live and breathe VR? Anyway, big business, exciting as hell, and coming soon. I'm all for pushing technology, let's see where this goes, good or bad.

by benched 13y ago

higherpurpose 13y ago

I wonder if this will have an effect on the airplane travel industry and tourism in general. Why go through the trouble of paying hundreds if not thousands of dollars visiting a place on the other side of the planet, when you can experience 90 percent of it in VR? Why even dream about going to Mars? For one, it's probably not going to happen to us in our lifetime anyway, and second, we could do it much faster and cheaper, by using some remote-controlled robot and experiencing it through VR, Avatar-style.

hershel 13y ago
I believe that VR is less strong environment for social encounters. Once somebody cracks this , VR will not only disrupt tourism but also areas of the economy which sell experiences which is a large part of our economy.
oliwary 13y ago
Exactly! It's incredible how much money and resources are spent of moving slabs of meat around.

mikepurvis 13y ago

I always thought this would be a much more interesting backstory for the Matrix than "the robots went to war with us." I even kind of hoped that in the sequels, Neo would uncover that as the truth, and that Morpheus would be the one struggling to accept that his prior existence was a lie.

vinceguidry 13y ago
Not saying your story wouldn't be interesting, but it wouldn't really be workable without serious surgery to the whole concept. If you remember the machines had several prototype worlds fail before the 'current' one. Humans didn't like utopia, so they gave them a world at the peak of their civilization. If humans really just got fed up with the general awfulness of life, and made their own Matrix, surely they'd have come up with a better one.
- ssdfsdf 13y ago
  Not necessarily. Imagine being alive for a million years, you might just be bored enough to create this kind of simulation, where you believed it all to be real. Complete with twisted robot overlords, last ditch battles, and awesome fight sequences...
  - vinceguidry 13y ago
    Ahh, I get it now. Pretty clever.

Vermeulen 13y ago

On the same blog I actually wrote a short story with this same idea: http://www.3delement.com/?p=177 http://www.3delement.com/?p=177

Wintamute 13y ago

I wonder how many other civilisations in the universe turned their gaze inwards into nested self-created realities rather than try the difficult job of voyaging outwards into "real" space. It could be a well trodden path ...

Karunamon 13y ago
SMBC did a comic on this. Kind of makes you think.. http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20131122.png http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20131122.png
- vinceguidry 13y ago
  Neat concept for a strip. One nitpick though, harnessing solar energy would make energy cheap and abundant enough to keep everyone in VR forever. As soon as the tech exists, you wouldn't need an exchange economy for energy anymore, any more than one exists for air. What wouldn't be possible is slowing the perception of time down so much as to create immortality. The sheer amount of processing necessary would put a theoretical limit on how slow you can make time, while still providing a fine-grained enough experience to be seamless.
  - Karunamon 13y ago
    It does make me wonder what happens once we gain the ability to do two things: 1) VR by direct neural input, instead of by enveloping the senses (think more Johnny Mnemonic than the Star Trek holodeck) 2) Manipulating perception of time, which we already know is pretty mutable.
akiselev 13y ago
First I would wonder how a civilization could develop to such a technologically advanced point without having enough variability in their population to have at least one group of people voyage out.
- vinceguidry 13y ago

programd 13y ago

Speaking of VR escapism I think a cautionary read about the implications of truly advanced VR would be Iain Banks' Culture novel "Surface Detail". An IV, a coffin-sized apartment and... a virtual hell? Who decides when you wake up? If you wake up?

User8712 13y ago

At first I thought people trying to escape reality would be a negative, then a few moments after, I had a similar reaction to you... why not? I mean, if someone isn't enjoying their real-life, and they can spend all their free time living their dreams, going on VR adventures exploring vast landscapes and caves, sky diving, looking like adonis, being a superstar singing infront of millions of VR fans, racing through the streets of italy, etc, then why shouldn't they? http://t.wallpaperweb.org/wallpaper/3d_landscape/1440x900/fantasy_art_scenery_wallpaper_sarel_theron_03_1440x900.jpg http://t.wallpaperweb.org/wallpaper/3d_landscape/1440x900/fa... Wouldn't it be interesting to just jump into VR and spend your evenings exploring alien worlds like the above, with a handful of friends online? You might even bond closer than your friends in real-life, because you're experiencing a lot of new things together. Also, as you grow older, this could be a great way to improve your quality of life. If you're 70, you can jump in the VR world, and you look 20 again, and your VR double can run and jump like an Olympian. Meanwhile, you might be in a wheelchair, but you get a sense of youth and adventure. Only downside, how do you motivate people to return to the real world? They need to make money, they need to pay the bills, they need to form real relationships with their spouse and children. I think a lot of people would see it like a drug, they just want to get their next fix of VR. Don't interrupt Grandma, she's at the VR home now, and doesn't want to come back to reality. I think it has the potential to make life much more entertaining, but I think it also has the ability to destroy people. Like the poster above me, if people just want to be born, have an IV and live in VR, what do they contribute to the world? Or is that the future, 1% of people work and balance life, 99% live and breathe VR? Anyway, big business, exciting as hell, and coming soon. I'm all for pushing technology, let's see where this goes, good or bad.