Jim,
I don't believe that all of society will end up living within a VR program, but I know people who spend seemingly all of their waking hours playing in online games - see the following screenshots from Guild Wars to see how far these games have come - this game is immersive.
http://www.guildwars.com/gallery/gwscreenshots/gw060.html http://www.guildwars.com/gallery/gwscreenshots/gw059.html http://www.guildwars.com/gallery/gwscreenshots/gw032.html http://www.guildwars.com/gallery/gwscreenshots/gw075.html I have had the opportunity to explore this world a little and chat and adventure with other online players - it is an incredible experience and the world is beautiful and strangely hypnotic.
This is still exceptionally basic, and when you can actually plug into this, it will be highly addictive to many people.
But there will be other things to do, play at the Super-Bowl, go to war, be the president - complete with your very own America, be a god and create new worlds and of course...
?the big one - Become a Porn King - do whatever you want to any 'babe' in a consequence free environment, free of virtual HIV.
Maybe your thing is 'Super Torturer IV - get the Iraqi to spill his beans' or 'Power Rapist 2015' or 'Ethnic Cleanser version 1' or 'Homicide Hero - gain bonus points for the more inventive methods of murdering your co-workers'.
There will be an angle for almost everyone. For the house-bound, it will simply be the ability to spend time in a virtual community with others.
You will be able to buy virtual body upgrades and become more beautiful (it?s the Capitalists dream ? sell a million body upgrades and not actually use any raw materials, apart from the time you spent designing it).
You will have beautiful people in online communities that have all the appearance of models and playboys who will pull up next to you in the street and lean out of the window of their latest flying Ferrari, but being unable to escape their personalities, will still say things like 'The history and properties of concrete are more interesting than most people think - let me educate you....'
Jim, how will you resist its lure?
Regards,
Blacknad.
