From: bew@brahms.udel.edu (Ben Williams)
Subject: Re: PHIL: Escape into the artificial world (Was Re: SOC: Social
Originator: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 22:40:34 GMT



Well, first I want to thank everyone for responding to my little rant
there.  I must admit to sometimes giving in to the thrill of being able to
lay my opinion before 100s (1000s?  Ah, would you believe 7?:-) of people
just to see what kind of responses it elicits.

I apologize for the sexist, racist and culturalist (?) language.  All I can
say is I belong to every one of those groups, and have been railing against
having been born into a cultural-mindset that is bent on self-destruction
for practically all of my adult life.  But hasn't the WEST been at the
fore-front of turning the world into one big Disneyland.  Haven't we
always had this thing about the natural world being an enemy to be
conquered and overcome, to be put under our control.  Just as we had to
conquer and bring under control the 'savages' that inhabited this continent
before we came along.  And haven't MEN been the prime movers of this
policy.  Maybe I am out of line here, but I think woman have always had a
stronger connection to the earth and obviously a more maternal outlook.
And I think much less inclined to go along with this usurpation of nature
that we men have been a party to.  I do regret including the 'White', but
it is such a fitting color to give to a people who have such a lack of real
humanity...

But of course I shouldn't be generalizing, it is a very bad habit with me.
And as my friend once said, 'all generalizations are false'.  But the
astute among you should have recognized immediately what is going on.  When
I say:

  Virtual Reality is the latest attempt of Western White man to turn away
  from the natural world into an artificial one, since he can't hack it
  with the former.  HE has lost it and he is totally lost...

what I really mean is:

  Virtual Reality is my latest attempt to turn away from the natural world
  into an artificial one, since I can't hack it with the former.  I have
  lost it and I am totally lost...

I am merely projecting my own feeling onto everyone else which I really
have no right to do.

Edward Wolpert suggests that by posting to the net, I am somehow taking
part in a virtual environment.  I couldn't agree more.  Am I committing the
acts I condemn?  You bet!  I am a product of western culture (or whatever I
should call it - how about a distraction-based-addictive-compulsive-limited-
attention-span-lifestyle?) as much as anyone.

I would like to say that I don't really condemn Virtual Reality as a new
tool.  I can see the potential and I am sure I would be as excited by what
I could personally do/experience with it as anyone else.  For example, I
have always been interested in invention, and I can see how this could be a
fantastic way to try out ideas for anything before making a product
(assuming it will ever be to such an advanced stage).  The ease of trying
out different design ideas in this way is mindboggling.  And of course its
medical uses.  And loads of other uses I haven't even thought of.

What I am objecting to is this use of VR as another 'reality' for living.
And really I probably have nothing to worry about.  I suspect VR will
finally peter out into some dumb little appliance or something the way
every new "great idea" we have turns out to do nothing but add more
complexity to life and help screw up the natural environment in the
process.  Remember how the industrial revolution was gonna solve all our
problems (well I have to admit it wasn't a totally bad thing :-)?  Remember
how computers would solve everything?  What has me bothered is this almost
religious view that I am seeing coming out of the VR crowd.  I am saying
this is just another extension of our drive to get away from it all.  It (I
am talking about this one aspect of VR) is just another ESCAPE.  Yes, like
painting or driving or watching movies or working or writing on the net.
But what I would like to do, and I think other people should be doing, is
instead of developing neat and keeno new ways to escape, they should be
asking themselves: "Why do I find it necessary to escape?  What am I trying
to escape?"

We have in place now a very rudimentary form of VR, and its called TV
(another thing I'm bothered about VR is the way its proponents have a
tendency to view everything through its own terminology, a definite
indication of a religion).  Am I the only one who is bothered by the fact
the kids today spend (I don't know the figures) anywhere around 7 hours per
day in front of a TV?  When I was little we used to play in the woods and
down by the creek.  I had SOME relationship with nature.  As my brother
said, you don't seem to see kids doing this anymore. They are sitting in
front of the BOOB tube, soaking in them CATHODE rays.  Or maybe their
taking drugs (same thing, really).  Or maybe they're into the drugs of the
90's, the personal computer.  Can you imagine the seductiveness of VR if it
gets to the stage that people are projecting?  Don't you find this a little
scary?  Do you for a moment believe that our commercial world will not take
advantage of this new way to reach (and shape) its customers.  As someone
said, wouldn't I rather have Western White people down in the basement
plugged into their VR machines than out in the real world screwing with the
ecosystem  -  well, if you put it that way, yea maybe I would.  But just
imagine, if VR really goes to the limits it is capable of, we can all live
in our own DisneyWorld right in our living rooms (or basements).  We can
have beautiful lanscapes and vistas with all kinds of beautiful trees and
flowers and things we never even imagined.  It will make the real world
look like a dim boring old B&W photograph by comparison.  Now lets say the
kids really take to this new fantasyland.  Don't you think they are gonna
have a little trouble understanding why anyone would care if the last
redwoods in the Pacific Northwest have been chopped down?  I mean after
all, the trees in their VR fantasyland are much prettier and much more
available to view than those other dirty trees.  But oh, you say, if we
live in a VR world there will be no more need to cut down the trees.  Umm,
well maybe, but the point is we will have much less interest in what
happens to trees or other species that might be on the edge of extinction,
or just the REAL world in general. Ok, you are saying, VR is not capable of
competing with the natural world.  Well, TV is already doing pretty well,
and its resolution ain't too good and it doesn't move with your body.

The more we 'move' into these artificial worlds, the less we care about the
rest of the world.  Does anyone doubt this?  Today, if you want to go into
the city, you still have to see poor people, the homeless, the decay.  We
have some connection to it.  But we continue to remove ourselves from it
and it continues to decay.

Does anyone think that television is something good and beneficial for
society in general?  Well I sure don't.  I agree with the people who are
saying "Kill Your Television."  I managed to finally break away from this
one addiction anyway after becoming so sickened by last year's Gulf War
propaganda and the U.S. Government approved snuff films.

Am I the only one who when he sees something as seductive as VR could
become thinks, hey wait a minute.  Isn't this almost satanic?  Yes, yes,
all those important new inventions (steam engine, cars, radio, TV) had
their detractors who called them 'works of the devil'.  Well, were they
that far off?  If someone from 100 years ago could see how we live today,
what do you think they would think about it?  Life is certainly more
convenient, but have we not lost our moral underpinnings?  (Suicide is one
of the leading causes of death among young people today.  Why do you
suppose all these people are killing themselves?  Did you ever think it
might be somehow connected to the fact that so many of them got to grow up
suckling a vacuum tube spewing out reams of banal commercial garbage into
their developing minds.  Thank god for the forerunners of VR for giving us
these great distractions as we grew up, so we might not worry about more
fundamental needs we may have been missing...)  These inventions have all
helped us in our attainment of progress.  But what kind of progress?  Just
where are we progressing towards?  I know its crazy for me to be
criticizing a world I grew up in and is in my very being and probably
couldn't live without.  But hey, that's what I do... hehe...

As we used to discuss years ago, if I told you I could take your brain and
hook it up to a machine that would put you in eternal bliss, would you do
it?  Could there perhaps be a down side to this?  Nahhhhh...   As the woman
said at the beginning of The Lawnmower Man, "Hmmm, floating, flying, or
falling.  What's next?  Fucking?"  I think she has a good point here.

Mike Moore states:  "Virtual reality has at its roots, the ability to
provide humanity with a new form of entertainment, and entertainment in its
broadest sense is the foundation of everything that we as human beings do."
I think this is kindof the thing I am objecting to.  Do you really think
the reason we were put on this earth was to be entertained?  I hereby
submit the above quote to future archaeologists digging through the rubble
of the Earth trying to figure out where we went wrong...

As I said, as a tool, I think VR is great.  But does anyone doubt that here
in these United States that VR will not be used for other ends.  That's the
way things work here.  If there exists a means of doing something, and
there is no law against doing this thing, someone will use that means.

But I do like what Jim Lai says:  "But, hey, some people say you can find
enlightenment anywhere."  I hope those people are right...


Ben.


Ben Williams
bew@brahms.udel.edu

               What we got here is a failure to communicate...