>From: "phil osborn" <philosborn@hotmail.com>
>Already, I and I'm sure everyone reading this is getting these continuous
>ads for services disguised as personal messages. Imagine a world that
>continuously configured itself to maximize your attention. Those people
>who
>secretly or subconsciously wanted to escape from reality could find
>themselves like professor Moriarity on TNG, permanently ensconced in a box
>with no further relevance to anything outside itself. Mack Reynolds
>actually wrote a novel on that theme sometime in the '50's or perhaps
>'60's,
>as I recall.
>Of course, it could be argued that religion performs that service today.
>Will we have wars in the future based on what reality you want?
As the prices of digital storage, computation and bandwidth continue to
close in on "free" I don't see any form of war being necessary to secure
your own personal version of reality. As virtual reality gets less and less
virtual, and more and more realistic, all you need do is login, tune out and
turn on.
As Yatima, in Greg Egan's _Diaspora_ found, isolation (even eternally so) in
a sufficiently compelling virtual environment, just might be a very
satisfying way to live.
-Zero
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