Power, Madness, & Immortality: The Future of Virtual Reality

Power, Madness, & Immortality; the future of virtual reality

Mychilo Cline

There has been increasing interest in the potential social impact of new technologies, such as virtual reality (as may be seen in utopian literature, within the social sciences, and in popular culture). Mychilo S. Cline, in his book, Power, Madness, and Immortality: The Future of Virtual Reality, argues that virtual reality will lead to a number of important changes in human life and activity. He argues that:

* Virtual reality will be integrated into daily life and activity and will be used in various human ways.

* Techniques will be developed to influence human behavior, interpersonal communication, and cognition (i.e., virtual genetics).

* As we spend more and more time in virtual space, there will be a gradual “migration to virtual space,” resulting in important changes in economics, worldview, and culture.

* The design of virtual environments may be used to extend basic human rights into virtual space, to promote human freedom and well-being, and to promote social stability as we move from one stage in socio-political development to the next.

In Power, Madness and Immortality, Mychilo Cline argues that Virtual Reality will be the defining technology of the next century, if not the next millennium, and with it will come significant social and economic change.

Power, Madness and Immortality is mandatory reading for anyone interested in the social and philosophical impact of virtual reality, the design of virtual worlds, or in the future of humankind.

Oculus Rift hands-on

"...It’s not inconceivable that the future could be a Matrix-type scenario in which the “reality” people experience is just a veneer behind which lurks a much uglier world. Or it could be one where people become addicted to self-gratification – everything from virtual sex, engaging all five senses, to virtual dates in which partners living on opposite sides of the world meet in medieval China or 1920s Paris.

The Oculus team may be excited to be riding the crest of this new technological wave, but it also clearly understands this potential dark side. One of the worlds created for the demonstration was a dystopian future city in which the tallest skyscraper was a skinny tower with the Oculus name and eye logo at the top – reminiscent of nothing so much as the sinister, all-seeing tower of Isengard from The Lord of the Rings.

The reference was of course meant as a joke, but it was only so funny."

Learn more about Virtual Reality