Category:Virtual Reality

One reason for optimism about the environment is that technology gives us ways of understanding, communicating, predicting, and collaborating that have never before been available (not doing this is well documented in Jared Diamond's Collapse). Of course, the previous track record of technology has not been great in terms of the environment, but of course it mostly was based on fossil fuels and gave us the ability to extract ans move enormous quantities of resources. Even virtual reality could be a problem, as one of its pioneers Jaron Lanier worries, as it has given the oil companies ways of getting to oil, and may reduce the window we have to shift to something else. Lanier also sees incredible potential in how VR can allow people to create and share space, essentially giving us the ability to invite someone into our minds and to inhabit our ideas. This is beginning to happen in Second Life (see Blogs and Social Networks).