Science is getting scary…
Between all the LHC buzz and this article on Wired.com today I am beginning to get a little nervous about these scientific advances. At this rate we might just manage to invent new life forms just in time to throw then into a catastrophic black hole.
Imagine what we could get done if this kind of effort was put into developing video games. The whole ‘future of gaming’ subject is a common topic around my colleagues and freinds. Where will we be in 50 years? Jacked into battlenet playing World of Starcraft 3?
What happens when it gets to the point that the immersion is almost real? When we live and breath and feel our characters? I severly doubt running around blowing/chopping heads off will be acceptable then. It seems almost inevitable that we will end up at best with massively censored and filtered gameplay, or at worst all titles being neutered and completely violence/sex free.
Tad Williams touches on this issue in his series of novels, Otherland. Parts of the story depict teenagers whos life is now more in-game than out. It destroys their morals and allows them to perform barbaric feats. I don’t see our society ever allowing this to happen, and for some reason I struggle to think that is entirely a good thing.
Possibly I just don’t want my great grandchildren to be doomed to a future of Hello Kitty Online. Not that I have any grandchildren. Yet. That I know of.
Filed under: Personal | 1 Comment
Tags: Fiction, Hello Kitty Online, Otherland, Science
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