In the near future, and for those that keen on it right now. You can dream your way out of hell. "Virtual Reality" tech is making way these days. I foresee "VR" addiction soon...real fucking soon.
This as reality becomes even more of a grim hell. Used to be it was just Black people, and Trailer trash that was consigned to the American hell. Now 2/3rds of us are headed there. The hell where you can see luxury riches everywhere, but none for you. You can look,...TV Movies the 'Net. however 'no' you can never have.
Many Tens of Millions are witness to the world's richest banquet, but can't have a crumb. This breeds madness.
Oh but here comes "VR", and all that will follow it to save us. Soon it'll not just be cute nature scenes, but bootleg Combat Snuff Rape Disembowelments. Whatever your fantasy. It's not just 2-D porn, but actual walk-in fantasies of your most secret desires. All this for the cost of a heroin hit.
Here's a 'cardboard' unit for $8.
Just steal an IPhone connect it up, and you're in "Snuff" Dreamland.There won't be crime...much. This since all the addicts will be in their hovels shelters alleys or subway stations medicated in their personal heaven's. These which they can experienced over, and over again. As long as the batteries last or they can get an ac boost somewhere.
In fact that's what cops will bust, and beat the shit out of them for...theft of city current. As opposed to knocking over old ladies for their welfare checks.
The above or something rather like it would be my "VR" world. For the cost of a rig, and a phone I'd never come out. Not even to eat. Just to be young at peace in nature, and magic. The world has already gone to hell so I'd stay there or someplace like it.
In science fiction stories which of course foresaw all this decades ago. In those they said that such addiction carried it's own cure since the addicted so often died of dehydration, and starvation. So happy were they in their private heavens that they'd rather die than leave.
8 comments:
VR addiction soon? It's here now! Just look at the blank-faced phone zombies perambulating the streets, oblivious to their surroundings.
I don't know how things are infrastructure-wise at your end of the continent, but in these parts the roads are in a pathetic state of repair. Huge potholes are everywhere; roads lined with million dollar houses are riven with networks of deep cracks, lamely patched by beads of tar. Even the freeways have potholes - big ones!
Yet everyone wanders around with their phones to their noses, seeming not to notice the decay of their physical environment. The news media rhapsodize about the imminence of driverless cars; they don't mention the dirt roads they'll be driving on.
NYC's pretty important to the ruling class; they'll probably keep it spiffy as long as Wall Street's functional, or at least the rich parts. But California is *fucked.* Once the tech bubble bursts, it'll soon be worse than Detroit. This place is screwed!
I've gotta get outta here.
Z
Hmmm... Rereading your last couple of paragraphs, I'm reminded of a book about the Donner party. Apparently some members preferred to lie down in a snow bank and quietly drift away, letting consciousness slip away forever... I can see the appeal. But I'm going to try to get out. By no means are all places as fucked as this one is.
Z
Actually I never saw the appeal of California. It's mostly desert, and always on fire...Get Out of There!!!!
As for NYC it's like a kind of Singapore. A fucked up version to be sure, but stuff mostly works, and the roads seem for now fine. Granted literally HALF now including me of the population lives in one kind of poverty or other. It still manages to look pretty okay...don't know how we do it.
Anyway as most true bred in the bones New Yorkers I'm never leaving. Not even when we start to go under the waves. As we halfway did with Sandy. that was a dress rehearsal for the real thing coming anywhere in this decade or the next for sure. I live on top of one of the Brooklyn mountains. I think we could hold out here fine.
However if you have a place to go get the fuck out of there! Please!
You know, I'm going to. I've heard upstate New York is pretty good, but at my time of life I don't think I could adjust climate-wise; I'd probably get bronchitis and croak from pneumonia, like Descartes when he moved to Sweden. So I'm learning Spanish.
As for CA, the north coast is nice, real nice. The mountains are great and to tell you the truth I kinda like the desert; I like the weird spiky plants. But the economy's going to go to shit and the people are crazy and getting worse. I wouldn't be surprised if we wind up with mass violence here. So I'm fixing to go.
Anyway, in the fullness if time the whole southwest might become part of Mexico again.
Z
Oh yeah - that drought thing will be back, too. People are fools to think that a couple of El Niño winters are going to be their long-term salvation.
Z
The El Niño winters deprived us back here of actual cold weather or snow for some years. Though I'm glad we had it since it gave you folks at there a chance to fill your reservoirs. However I read that's mostly over, and our cold winters, and your Great drought are again on the horizon.
No matter how you look at it long term we're fucked.
Wish I could say something up,...but...well.
Try to look on the bright side. David Rockefeller died. May the jaws of hell welcome him warmly!
Z
See it's getting better already!
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