Are We Prepared for Virtual Reality?

Probably not.

One day there will be another pandemic. Possibly deadlier than Covid-19. We don’t know. What we do know is the next quarantine won’t be the same experience. Why? Because next time, there’ll be virtual reality.

Most rational people would like to avoid a dystopian Black Mirror scenario. Well, you know how we guarantee dystopia? By failing to talk about the ethical ramifications of future technology. Especially technology like VR.

Just to be clear, I’m just a guy. Which is the only real qualification needed to call yourself a futurist anyways. Yeah I know its not exactly living in the moment but discussing our species’s fate can’t be the worst idea.

Virtual reality is poised to be the defining medium of the next 20 to 30 years. Sooner or later, advanced virtual reality simulations will arrive. Matrix level shit. Possibly indistinguishable from reality. We need to be prepared.

At this moment in time, a healthy percentage of our daily lives is spent online. Way more than 20 years ago. Way less than 20 years from now.

As the Internet has advanced, so has humanity’s retreat into our personalized digital cocoons. Covid has only accelerated this trend. Don’t worry, I won’t ask what your Weekly Screen Time Report is nowadays.

Our phones only become more attuned, more seductive, more addictive. We fill our days by feeding the Internet’s insatiable hunger for information. In the background, the boundary separating digital and physical reality is rapidly disintegrating. One day, most of your existence will be intermediated digitally.

Human beings can’t resist the sweet nectar of online connectivity. You see it in every generation, a fascination with the digital entity. Children, entranced by iPads which conveniently shut them up. The elderly obsess over Facebook more than a college student in 2006. Resistance is futile.

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