Virtual reality -> societal collapse

Can't beat the real thing? Of course you can. It would feel exactly the same, only you could lead a much happier life there. Reality is a set of sensory data processed by your brain, nothing more.

1. I am skeptical about how easy it would be to simulate something like that to perfection.

2. The real thing IS the real thing. People are going to start to miss the "real experience", even if it feels almost exactly the same.

Having said that, I do forsee some problems once virtual reality becomes close enough to reality. I don't think we'll have any sort of collapse, but we'll see a definite paradigm shift. (ooh, I said paradigm shift)
 
It occurs to me that you have a large majority of people keyed in to virtual reality and relatively helpless in normal reality counterbalanced by a small minority of people who detest the virtual reality world, and are very competent in the real world. This does not sound like a good combination.

Matrix. :eek:
 
Ya it probably would. A shame really... people forget how good it feels to actually do physical things that are hard, hurt, and may result in your death. Even the pain and effort of physical fitness would be a farce. The fact that it is real is what is so cool. Commanding your body to slowly adapt to certain stimuli based on the situations you expect to be in.

The human body is friggen awesome.
 
Precisely!

Consider how unreal the present-day games are, yet they attract hundreds of millions of people, with hundreds of thousands spending most of their free time playing them.

Now imagine a fantasy RPG game, that would feel totally real - I guess many people would leave their virtual world only to get the absolute necessities - some money to pay for subscription, something to eat and drink once in a while.

Considering how much I play WoW, were such an invention to ever become reality, I would never be seen from again.
 
What your talking about sounds more like Total Recall vs Matrix. Since Total Recall you'd pay to have the memories of enjoyable experiences whereas the Matrix wasn't really a choice by a system designed to give the appearance of reality.
 
Underpowered, aching, mortal... meh.

The aches feel good! That is how you know its working.

Perhaps if you could exchange your mortal body for a virtual one at age 55 things would be better. In fact, that is brilliant! Clear the elderly and obsolete out of the best jobs in the workforce (to have for ourselves) and then care for them in cheap, mass produced VR vats.

Bahahaha... oh wait. I might be elderly by this time.
 
Ya it probably would. A shame really... people forget how good it feels to actually do physical things that are hard, hurt, and may result in your death. Even the pain and effort of physical fitness would be a farce. The fact that it is real is what is so cool. Commanding your body to slowly adapt to certain stimuli based on the situations you expect to be in.

The human body is friggen awesome.
I want to create planets. I want to have a royal harem with my bride Cleopatra. I want to hear bacteria's gossip. I want to see a candle from the other side of the universe. I want to want things that no one has ever wanted before; I want to eat hunger and drink thirst! I can do all this, and more - things we haven't the brains to imagine yet. First our neurons would be made 1000x in number... Then the connections between them grown a hundred-fold. Then we would be hooked up, and truly it would give a new meaning to the saying, "fire and forget". :goodjob: :nuke: :king:
(You could also program pain, and even make yourself forget that it's unreal for a while.)

If I have to choose between that, and... Jogging and sweating real sweat, I know very well which I would choose. In fact I imagine real would become a byword for 'inferior' pretty soon... You could easily make a clichéd blockbuster movie about this situation; I wonder if such a film has already been made?

Edit: I mean about the positive sides; The Matrix is just a common dystopia-film, really. Although when you really think about it, the humans were still better off in the Matrix than outside it. Hmm...
 
I want to create planets. I want to have a royal harem with my bride Cleopatra. I want to hear bacteria's gossip. I want to see a candle from the other side of the universe. I want to want things that no one has ever wanted before; I want to eat hunger and drink thirst! I can do all this, and more - things we haven't the brains to imagine yet. First our neurons would be made 1000x in number... Then the connections between them grown a hundred-fold. Then we would be hooked up, and truly it would give a new meaning to the saying, "fire and forget". :goodjob: :nuke: :king:
(You could also program pain, and even make yourself forget that it's unreal for a while.)

If I have to choose between that, and... Jogging and sweating real sweat, I know very well which I would choose. In fact I imagine real would become a byword for 'inferior' pretty soon... You could easily make a clichéd blockbuster movie about this situation; I wonder if such a film has already been made?

Edit: I mean about the positive sides; The Matrix is just a common dystopia-film, really. Although when you really think about it, the humans were better off in the Matrix than outside it. Hmm...

First thing is first. You don't need a fancy VR for all of that... just some good old-fashioned LSD.

Second, real jogging and sweat is awesome. You just have to get used to it. The hard, real part of it is what is fun (man, I sound like a gay masochist). And I understand you can program the sim so you don't know you are in it... but why do that when you can do the real thing and be alive!

Besides, when you are the only awake person and you unplug the whole system, everyone else will be decrepit in comparison. The adaptability of the human body is awesome whereas overly technical things are a house of cards.
 
Edit: I mean about the positive sides; The Matrix is just a common dystopia-film, really. Although when you really think about it, the humans were still better off in the Matrix than outside it. Hmm...
OMG, you're right! Neo is responsible for bereaving humankind from their fancy playground which he replaced with his proposed alternative, which was a crappy dump, hundreds of miles beneath the ground!
 
Yes. See How it all ends for more on this. It's one suggested solution to the Fermi Paradox: all the aliens retreated into holodecks once they developed the technology, which was shortly after they developed interstellar communications. Another relevant article is Superstimuli and the Collapse of Western Civilization.

"I suggest a different, even darker solution to Fermi's Paradox. Basically, I think the aliens don't blow themselves up; they just get addicted to computer games. They forget to send radio signals or colonize space because they're too busy with runaway consumerism and virtual-reality narcissism. They don't need Sentinels to enslave them in a Matrix; they do it to themselves, just as we are doing today."

I picture one of the greys hunched over a computer, fat, drinking Jolt and screaming some weird clicky pitch that the RNG screwed him.
 
Yes. See How it all ends for more on this. It's one suggested solution to the Fermi Paradox: all the aliens retreated into holodecks once they developed the technology, which was shortly after they developed interstellar communications. Another relevant article is Superstimuli and the Collapse of Western Civilization.

The "How it all ends" one basically summed up my feelings on most things, although some of the stuff about contraception and "family values" was National Post nonsense. As if carefully planning your family to maximize the survivability of your offspring is some how less pragmatic and "real world" than firing them out at age 18 and going on about some ethereal heaven. The whole religious right is based on the promise of an eternal, ultra-pleasure VR system. They just need to avoid wearing a rubber to get it, and throw some rice before they bang their too-young-to-be-a-mother wife.

The environmental extremists are the ones who have it right.

EDIT: Which reminds me! How would such reward-based hedonistic religion even survive VR? 72 virgins? I already have that program loaded on, I got it through Pirate Bay. Playing croquet with Jesus for an infinite number of levels? It came in my super sport pack on the Wii Power Extreme Awesome IV
 
The whole religious right is based on the promise of an eternal, ultra-pleasure VR system. They just need to avoid wearing a rubber to get it, and throw some rice before they bang their too-young-to-be-a-mother wife.

The environmental extremists are the ones who have it right.

EDIT: Which reminds me! How would such reward-based hedonistic religion even survive VR? 72 virgins? I already have that program loaded on, I got it through Pirate Bay. Playing croquet with Jesus for an infinite number of levels? It came in my super sport pack on the Wii Power Extreme Awesome IV
You may think it acts similarly to that, but if you really think the religious right thinks like that, you're going to be in for a nasty shock when your model meets reality.
 
Why is 'real' reality better than a virtual one? Is it based on feelings alone? I too feel that way - that it would be 'wrong' to retreat into the virtual world - but cannot really think of a reason why. We won't go extinct if we play this correctly. If we have the technology to make this sort of virtual reality, then artificial reproduction would be a walk in the park basically.

Also, @ Sobieski II: You cannot take LSD every day without some serious consequences. And if you could, you'd still have bad trips, unlike with the virtual world (unless ofc you wanted it :crazyeye:).

We could already be living in a simulation (as per that other thread), and would have no way of knowing it, so I really can't see any inherent value to the 'real' world. We could meet aliens in the worlds we created.
 
Why is 'real' reality better than a virtual one? Is it based on feelings alone? I too feel that way - that it would be 'wrong' to retreat into the virtual world - but cannot really think of a reason why. We won't go extinct if we play this correctly. If we have the technology to make this sort of virtual reality, then artificial reproduction would be a walk in the park basically.

Also, @ Sobieski II: You cannot take LSD every day without some serious consequences. And if you could, you'd still have bad trips, unlike with the virtual world (unless ofc you wanted it :crazyeye:).

We could already be living in a simulation (as per that other thread), and would have no way of knowing it, so I really can't see any inherent value to the 'real' world. We could meet aliens in the worlds we created.

Of course the perception is important, and once you are in, it would be too late. But if someone presented me the option while I was still in the real state, I would say "no". I prefer the mundane.
 
This sounds like an excellent form of population control. The world population (at least in advanced countries) will shrink dramatically within a few generations. People who spend most of their lives in the matrix won't have the social skills to operate properly in the real world. Parents will neglect children or they simply won't have children all-together. After all, parenting is extremely expensive and time consuming.

This will definitely give developing nations a chance to thrive.
 
can i engage in homosexual activities with fish in this virtual reality?
 
Of course the perception is important, and once you are in, it would be too late. But if someone presented me the option while I was still in the real state, I would say "no". I prefer the mundane.
That is admirable and stupid at the same time (no offense). Very human, I'd say. :D
I'd like to think I too might look at the machine, say "Screw it!" and go jogging with you. But why, that I still do not know. Maybe it's an evolutionary survival instinct.

Edit: @ general_kill: We'd have anonymous 'donations' and robot nannies. ;)
 
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