From: mike@highlite.uucp (Mike Wiik)
Subject: Re: new thread: what will the world look like?
Keywords: your views of the future
Organization: Gotham Communications Research, Laurel, MD
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 17:29:49 GMT

In article <3293@equinox.unr.edu> lemon@unssun.UUCP (Captain Caveman!!) writes:
>In article <0LVkiB2w164w@tradent.wimsey.bc.ca> jason@tradent.wimsey.bc.ca (Jason Rasku) writes:
>>cascio@garnet.berkeley.edu () writes:
>>> Okay, folks. We've all read the books; many of us have played
>>> the games. Now I want to know what we _really_ think the
>>> world will look like in the near future (for sake of 
>>> argument, let's say one generation-- about 30 years-- making 
>>> it about 2020-2025).
>>>  [.....] 
>>Well I personaly don't specialise in anything.  Well not officialy.  I seem 
>>to specialize in reading messages on the net though.  I think that VR will 
>>be a reality in aproximatly 30 years.  Now nation wide VR situations?
>
>I would like to point out that while I believe technology _might_ be able
>to support a national interactive VR situation, I believe that it will be
>other extenuating circumstances that will inhibit it's widespread use and/or
>growth.

The extenuating circumstances might also include required skills. For
fictional examples: in Lisa Masons *Arachne* & Pat Cadigans *MindPlayers*,
the main characters needed extensive training and a certain ingrained
pattern of thought to make effective use of, uh, *cyberspace*, yuk.
(Ms Mason calls it "telespace"). Personally, I was somewhat dizzy
after my first VR experience (the Virtuality pterodactyl game) (though
I've played it several times since without such dizziness). It might be
the difference between playing with it (90's analogue: 900 phone sex lines)
and working effectively with it.

> For instance, if we indeed are able to create a nationally accessible
>common VR cyberspace type network, what we will have accomplished is quite
>simply, _The creation of a new and different society_.  This will in and
>of itself give rise to all sorts of problems.  Should we just open up the
>new cyberspace to the masses, these societal problems may be compounded by
>certain members of society (Real) that will undoubtedly view VR as "evil"
>or "too fake" or "etc..." 

I don't think we have to worry about massive invasions into telespace
by religious fanatics or other perverts. One would hope the VR equivalent
of a kill-file exists, so you simply wouldn't *experience* any such
invasions if they did exist.

In any case anti-VR types will probably NOT be the ones managing
the corporations large&small where the "real" work will be going on.

>Something that I was thinking about the other
>day was:  On those fateful days when the mass-media sensationalists 
>flooded the boob-toob (and it still happens...) with news about "wacked
>out D&D enthusiasts killing each other" whole portions of society claimed
>that *D&D* was the *source* of the problem (ie noone blamed the _people
>involved, they blamed the game).

No doubt there's already storys of kids becomming psychotic after playing
Virtuality for several hours at a stretch. I doubt the folks at TSR said
"oh-oh, people are dying because of this, let's stop making D&D and 
shift to making rope-sandals", they probably discussed things like spin
control. Besides, people have talked about the negative effects of
videogames for years, and they're still selling billions...

> Now, I wonder, the moment that something
>happens in cyberspace has a direct, long-lasting, and detrimental effect
>on a human being (ie the effect continues in RL after VR exit) will this
>created the same sort of vehement outcry from the masses that occurred
>with the D&D thangs?  Just asking questions....

Imho, any experience, especially a new and real different experience
like VR has a direct, long-lasting influence on the brain. It can be
negative or positive.

Imho, VR has the possibility of mind-changing as much as LSD ever did,
with the added benefit of much more control over your "set and setting".
Some people will get a kick out of scaring themselves shitless: we'll
have lots of VR walking wounded trudging the streets.  (In Greg Bear's
_Queen of Angels_ they had a neat pseudo-VR machine called a *hellcrown*
that would reach deep into your mind for your most fearful nightmares
and play 'em back to you. (In the book, it had a definite long-lasting
(like a lifetime) effect on your brain). One might imagine church
congregations in a mutual VR horrors of hell experience... (leave 'em
there, gagging & convulsing, yuk yuk:)

Obviously we need a law where no one can put you into their VR without
your consent.

>>advance we will be thinking that a 486/50 is a TOY only.  We would probably 
>>have that kind of power in our WATCHES that far in the future.  
>I agree, but in a watch....?  Why?  Actually, why not? *grin*

They won't be "watches" but everyone who can afford it will have a AI
on their wrist to help them get thru the day (supplying pep talks when
required)).

>Overall, I'm personally amazed about how when you question the "man on the
>street" most of them have a negative outlook on the future.  Everyone seems
>to think that some catastrophe will occur in the near future and destroy
>life as we know it.  Who started this ugly rumor?

The Christians. They need to make heaven look good so they make Earth
into Hell (flames to alt.jihad).  Actually, life has been brutish
and short for most of mankind's existence. It's been getting a lot
better for a good part of the population for quite a while. USA
citizens may be mostly mindless drones enforcing corporate fascism
but there's a good number who aren't, and this country is heaven on
earth to a good many of the world's most desperate poverty-stricken
people.

	-Mike

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