Surrogates, whether virtual or robotic will do one thing. Drive research into cosmetics, cybernetics, and biotech.
Sure some people will settle for a "remote" vicarious existence, but I would be willing to bet the overwhelming majority would not desire to only experience the world through a set of VR lenses for their entire life. That disconnect when they had to take off the lenses and stop being their "perfect self" to go eat or use the bathroom would annoy and depress too many. Given a taste, they are going to want the whole cake. Once they can actually be everything they have ever wanted to be, they are going to demand the ability to be it ALL the time. From perfect 10s to he-men, from anime cat girls to aliens, once we've reached the stage where we can live part of our lives as our dreamselves, there won't be any going back.
Sure, there may be those decrying the whole thing as "denying the truth" or "profaning what god made us" but the simple fact remains, most people would make themselves look better given the chance, if it was painless, cheap, and easy. As technology advances, it will be.
I'm thinking some sort of intravenous matter|nutrient supply(feeding tubes just bring bad images, as some animals have shown the digestive track can be engineered to remain inactive indefinitely and still be easy to reactivate upon feeding... we can avoid such and use intravenous instead.), some technology to self-clean the outside of the body, and obviously modifications to stop muscle-wasting and increased mortality risks from indefinitely staying in-one-position|sedentary. That way people could stay all the time in vr with no negative repercussions. Some sort of direct-neural-link would likely be used. Ideally biological immortality would also be possible(with such in place, the higher IQ individuals will definitely choose to remain most if not all of the time in vr.).
The thing about vr is, that unless the laws of physics as we know them can be done away with, it is simply impossible to accomplish the same things in the real world with a physical body. You can easily change appearance|size|properties instantly, furthermore you can change them beyond what seems to be physically possible in the real world(e.g. able to resist the heat of a virtual sun, the force of virtual nuclear blast, strength to move vr planets, ability to escape a virtual black hole. Capability to survive any accident unscathed, ridiculous acceleration|deceleration, ridiculously fast regeneration, etc).
Furthermore you could generate any food an unlimited amount of time, and with some modest neuro-tech be hungry|full whenever you felt like it. There's also the ability to experience any environment whenever you pleased, going from a nice beach to a trip to the moon all in a matter of seconds. Safety can also be much much higher, probability of death being decreased practically to zero, even while swimming in a 'vr' volcano.
The only complaints I've heard is that it's
"just not real" even if it is indistinguishable from real. But I don't think that will hold much ground, especially amongst a future younger generation that get to grow with such technology available. In the virtual world the poorest individuals can have thousands of cars, mansions, private beaches, even planets and moons of their own(even physically impossible structures, doorways,etc.)... they can experience the most extreme of activities|sports with zero risk, taste the finest wines and foods for free as many times as they like. Change appearance|voice|size instantly to whatever they like whenever they like. There is no risk of disease, stds, pregnancy-scares. There is no need to cook, clean, fix anything unless that is what is desired. You also don't have to worry about the sharpness of blades|utensils|etc, or wear|tear|dirt on anything. There is no need to buy gasoline, change oil, worry about car accidents, traffic jams would also be a thing of the past(countless hours, presently wasted, saved each and every day.). A 60ft flat screen, in a vr living room, is immune to anything your kids can throw at it(not even a bazooka), nor will it loose image quality with time(it can also easily be less than a nanometer thick while providing 3d-holographic display with no need for glasses. You could even get smells|temperature|tastes and even pause and enter the movies and feel the different things inside the movie provided it was designed that way.).
Virtually any comic book power can be easily represented, energy blasts, teleportation, wingless|rocket-free flight, invulnerability, invisibility, high speed regeneration, ability to increase or decrease in size rapidly. Basically a godlike existence is possible, with the wave of a hand moving mountains, creating or destroying bodies of water, creating food out of thin air while having maintenance-free physical perfection with perfect shape-shifting abilities. That is without mentioning the possibility of inhabiting worlds with new laws of physics and the possibility of experiencing the worlds through new senses.
Clearly with high levels of automation work can be abolished, and while it is conceivable that one could give each individual a planet of their own to inhabit in the real world, having such low density population and such huge distances between individuals, would, besides being incredibly wasteful, create problems without FTL communication|travel which may or may not be possible. Through the magic of vr having private 'vr' planets is possible for billions without having to leave the comfort of earth(which provides high speed communication and transportation to the rest of society.), unlimited wealth so that the poor may live, not like kings, but like gods.
Edited by Cameron, 24 January 2010 - 04:23 AM.
