Virtual Reality - Pt 1: The Digital Age

It seems that our lives are becoming increasingly more virtual. Not in the all-encompassing way of films like The Matrix or Lawnmower Man (although its no great stretch of the imagination to envisage a world like that in the future), rather a virtual reality that we have a detachment from that keeps us in the real world. Digital technology has replaced the need for physical items in many aspects of our lives, most prominently entertainment. For many of us our computer has become central, integral even, to our daily business. As consumers, many of our favourite "possessions" exist on our hard drives, likewise a great proportion of our social lives are spent online.

If we look at music, the days of having physical collections of CDs or records taking pride of place in their rack, shelf or strewn about the place possibly not in their correct sleeves are gone, instead replaced by some sort of organised system found in the My Documents folder on your computer. The only physical space required for an extensive music collection is the hard drive itself, which we measure in terms of Gigabytes rather than metres (or feet). The way we acquire music has changed similarly, virtual stores like iTunes or Beatport have replace the traditional record shop providing convenience (instant downloads, pick the tunes you want, no disappointment of finding out the record you want is out of stock) at the cost of the record shop experience (the excitement of looking through the artwork on the way home, the personal touch of talking to the staff and receiving recommendations).

For movie lovers, downloading the latest Hollywood titles, and watching them on your PC connected to a TV or decent monitor, is often better than renting movies from the likes of Blockbuster or LoveFilm, only to find that when its finally in stock the disc is scratched and ends up skipping at the best bit. Again, the convenience of instant downloads comes at the cost of the personal touch of dealing with the film-lovers working at your local rental store. Although the sheer size of movie downloads can also take the "instant" out of the download process.

Keeping up to date with the latest news is even easier now with the multitude of websites that provide breaking stories almost immediately. The need to sit down and flick through pages of crap and adverts in newspapers that tell you what happened yesterday is effectively gone.

MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and the millions of forums and other social websites provide ways of communicating with each other that were practically impossible only a few years ago. We can talk with people all over the world at any time with costs and timezones practically irrelevant.

These are just a few examples of the sort of virtual reality that exists in our lives. Of course, we still exist in physical reality, we still need physical goods, we all need to eat, we all need a roof over our head, our computers, TVs and stereos need manufacturing and the electricity required to power them has to come from somewhere. Watching a film at home is not as good as going to the cinema, listening to music at home is a completely different experience to going to a concert or club event, reading a newspaper on the train to work is often more practical and convenient than surfing the net on a laptop. And of course, social networking sites are no substitute for real socialising and spending time in the company of your friends and loved ones.

Not everyone in the world has access to the technology that we do, while the internet is not exclusively for the rich, it is nevertheless a luxury only available to those who can afford it. For much of the world, this kind of virtual reality is the stuff of fantasy.

The subject of piracy is the root of many debates, with a great deal of differing opinions. The virtual world, not being bound by scarcity in the same way that physical items are, leads many to change the way in which they value the virtual items they "own" (in many cases we own nothing now, instead we merely purchase a license to use). In the virtual world money is not necessary, or at least not in the way it is now. Infact it is only the needs of the physical world that require any sort of financial costs to be applied to digital products. While virtual money exists, and has the same value as its paper companion, the vast amount of legitimate free music, information and software shows that the monetary system as we know it is rapidly becoming outdated.

These last points i will expand on and investigate further in my next post. For now though, i think we can see that while our relationship with the virtual world is more detached than that of the "virtual reality" concept, it is certainly true that the need for physical items has largely been removed in many aspects of our lives, instead replaced by a digital universe (webiverse even) through which we can not only satisfy many of our needs but also achieve so much more than we ever could in the real world alone.

The Utopian Dream

I'd always thought it was some sort of fantasy, a world of peace without religion or money. Take away the two greatest evils of our society and there would be no poverty, war, greed or any of the other crap that dominates the world. The idea itself seems too good to be true. Surely the greatest Utopia imaginable.

Last night i watched Zeitgeist: Addendum, the sequel to the excellent documentary Zeitgeist: The Movie, both can be viewed here. While the first installment is a compelling film based largely around conspiracy theories, the new one shows how messed up the monetary system is and how a world without money is not only preferable but actually possible.

Technology rules our world, technology can be anything created by mankind to make our lives easier, whether that be a humble bicycle or a jet plane, a pen and paper or a computer, a catapult or an atom bomb. As technology advances, the need for humans in the workplace diminishes, the corporations always eager for increased profits can make more money by cutting staff and replacing them with machines. But it stands to reason that as jobs are cut there will be less workers earning money to spend on the things that these machines are now making.

So how could a money free society actually work? Well, i cant even begin to explain it anywhere near as well as the film does so i would suggest watching it, but to put it simply, in a world without money people would no longer be slaves to the financial system. People would not have to do crap jobs because the machines could do it, no-one would be losing out because there would be nothing to lose.

Given the freedom to live our lives as we choose, would we not all want to work together to make our world better, to improve our societies and our collective knowledge. Remember that in our capitalist society, we are forced to look out for ourselves first, after work we have little time or effort to worry about the community or those less fortunate than ourselves. The fact that the only way to help in our world is by donating our time or our money makes the proposition seem quite unappealing, but if money was no issue and our time was not wasted trying to just make ends meet then surely many of us would want to help.

Putting it like this it still seems like a fantasy, every aspect of our capitalist society is based around greed, power and corruption, that anything else seems impossible. Maybe it is, the power of money (and religion) is so huge that its hard to even imagine how a Utopia like i have just described could come to exist.

The Venus Project could be the answer, it could be the great hope for world peace and a better way of life. Of course, it needs support, ironically much of that support is financial but that is the way of the world right now, and it needs time but surely its worth it.

If you haven't already, please check out both Zeitgeist movies and try to think about the world differently to the way we have become accustomed to thinking. Then ask yourself "what can i do?".

The Quest For Perfection

What is perfect? Is it something that can be easily defined? A series of checkboxes that once ticked will attain the ideal status of perfection.

Nobody's life is entirely perfect, it could be that someone is stuck in a dead-end job struggling to pay bills, perhaps they are alone and unhappy, or their health is far from ideal, or they simply just don't like the way they look (and while we are at it, lets not forget the billions of people in this world that live and suffer in poverty). There are so many ideas of perfection that persist in our society, all of which exclude the vast majority, and when combined exclude everyone.

In some respects, the pursuit of perfection can be a good thing. Like an artist spending his or her life trying to create that masterpiece, or the idealist dedicating his or her life to achieving a world of equality. But at what price does perfection come?

Pedigree dog breeders spend much of their lives trying to breed the perfect dog, according to a set of rules that define perfection explicitly. Whether it be the practically non-existent nose of a pug, the stumpy little legs of a dachshund or the frankly offensively named furnishings (loose wrinkly skin) of a bassett hound or many other similar breeds. In their quest for the perfect dog, breeders have brought about all sorts of health issues for these animals, unsurprisingly including breathing problems and mobility problems alongside hundreds of other common canine ailments. Yet, in the world of dog shows perfection is defined purely cosmetically, the way the animal looks when compared against this ideal is the only significant factor, whether that be to the detriment of its health or not. It is a sad fact that many perfectly healthy dogs are put to sleep (killed!!) simply because they do not look "right".

The idea of perfection as a rulebook prevails in many other places. The perfect pop song will feature a verse-chorus-verse structure, a common predictable chord progression and lyrics about joy and love. The perfect movie will have action, special effects, a love interest and an able-bodied good looking male hero. While these perfect songs and films will often be successful and top charts most would agree that they are, ultimately, shallow and forgettable. While the true classics are those that dare to be different.

This brings us back to our own perceptions of ourselves and our world. While we continue to judge each other and ourselves in relation to that which we believe to be perfect we can never be completely satisfied. Instead we should marvel at the wealth of diversity that exists in the world around us, we should see that it is these imperfections that ultimately make us who we are and we should learn to redifine what it is that we consider to be perfect.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to improve, but we need to understand the true costs. We need to realise that true happiness does not come from changing ourselves to fit with some mythical construct of perfection, but instead from changing the way we perceive ourselves and each other. There is no such thing as "perfect", none of us will ever be "perfect". We can only be the best that we can be. Surely thats good enough.