Thus fails the Utopia of playing lots of really cool video games forever.
Not convinced. Based on my experience of what people are like; from the moment where games are immersive enough, and we have the technology to plug in for good, the problem of ‘no lasting consequences’ will vanish for people who want it to. There are already plenty of people willing to plug into WoW for arbitrary amounts of time if they are able. Small increases in immersiveness and catheter technology will lead to large increases in uptime.
phane touches on something interesting just above. One shouldn’t talk about video games or even VR as a special case; one should talk about non-magical-boundary sensory input and our reactions. I’m fully in agreement that you should YANK OUT THE WIRES, but I’m having trouble generalizing exactly why. Something to do with ‘the more real your achievements the better’? Doesn’t feel right. If this has come up implicitly in the Fun Theory series, apologies for not having spotted it.
Also, seconding Peter dB. Saying ‘that reminds me of an episode where...’ doesn’t deserve a ticking-off, particularly following such posts as ‘Use the try harder, Luke’. In fact, it can actually be useful to ground things when thinking anstractly, as long as you take care not to follow the fictional logic.
Thus fails the Utopia of playing lots of really cool video games forever.
Not convinced. Based on my experience of what people are like; from the moment where games are immersive enough, and we have the technology to plug in for good, the problem of ‘no lasting consequences’ will vanish for people who want it to. There are already plenty of people willing to plug into WoW for arbitrary amounts of time if they are able. Small increases in immersiveness and catheter technology will lead to large increases in uptime.
phane touches on something interesting just above. One shouldn’t talk about video games or even VR as a special case; one should talk about non-magical-boundary sensory input and our reactions. I’m fully in agreement that you should YANK OUT THE WIRES, but I’m having trouble generalizing exactly why. Something to do with ‘the more real your achievements the better’? Doesn’t feel right. If this has come up implicitly in the Fun Theory series, apologies for not having spotted it.
Also, seconding Peter dB. Saying ‘that reminds me of an episode where...’ doesn’t deserve a ticking-off, particularly following such posts as ‘Use the try harder, Luke’. In fact, it can actually be useful to ground things when thinking anstractly, as long as you take care not to follow the fictional logic.