Originally posted by diablo
Just out of curiosity, how would they support this habit if they chose to live in a virtual world? Virtual money?
Absolutely! You could set up Virtual Money as a new, truly global currency, with it's own excahnge rate etc.
People could then get virtual jobs: the transition would be easy, since many jobs are already office jobs, where the onus is on organising data, organising people. People could still log off and go back to real life and convert their hard earned money to $ or £ according to the exchange rate.
People would want jobs tranferred to virtual reality because the conditions could be so much better: the comfiest chair, the most inspiring view, a golden pen, no commute, all for Bob the middle manager. He could still organise his workforce, because they will all be in the same luxurious virtual office.
This virtual world be allowed to start and flourish simply because "money is an idea". People would want to spend time inside, because materials are free, distances are reduced to zero, and most importantly- the limitless pleasures and possiblities.
I'm not saying all people will live there all the time, just some of the people some of the time.
Not all jobs could be transferred: we need people to maintain energy production to fuel this world (e.g. oil pumping, power plant work), and maintain the computers that run the world. People will still need to plow the fields and raise cattle and make Doritos. But even they will go home at the end of the day and log in to watch TV and chat with their family. At his own will, this example worker would then instantly appear at the local bar, and chat with friends. That night, he will virtually f*ck his wife (or a virtual girl, if he's not yet a Don Juan, but either way, he's getting laid, whether there is a woman receiving his pleasure or not), sleep on a the most luxurious bed, and wake the next morning to log off, and go to work.
After a while, people could set up their own companies inside the virtual world. There would be no distinction on the stock market over virutal or real businesses, and people could buy and sell shares in the vitual world just as in the real world: a lot of stock market workings are done by computer already (correct me if I'm wrong).
What possible value could a virtual business have? A guitar manufacturer, a vinery, a retail outlet... all their value would be distilled and refined in the virtual world. Firstly reduced to it's ideas- the patents owned by the company. Buy a guitar in the virtual world, and you are buying the right to make one copy of the design. Buy a bottle of wine, and you are paying for the patented taste. (Come to think of it, I'm not sure patent is the right word for a taste, but I can't think of anything better).
The patent laws will have to change drastically. They will be extended to cover things like "the taste of a Merlot red wine produced at this location in California". The time limit on patents will have to be reconsidered: a taste patent might never expire, but maybe a car design would last for 100 years (We would keep cars in the virtual world, because they are fun). Idea protection will be important, since information and ideas are the only thing of value in this virtual world (that and the amount of money you have).
Physical jobs would have a small place in the virtual world: take the example of building a house.
The architect would specify the design and materials, and the computer could instantly create it. Bam! No need for raw materials. No need for builders.
So to summarize, the only jobs to partially transfer would be ones that a computer could not currently do, ones requiring a little or a lot of creativity: e.g. managers, CEOs, entertainers, engineers. Some of these professionals will still work in real life, because the real world still needs running, just at a reduced intensity.
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Think of the resources we could save if a lot of people decided to live a portion of their lives in virtual reality. Of course, it would have to be very, very advanced for people to want to go there often.
Suppose it is sufficiently advanced, we could help solve many of the problems currently facing mankind this century:
+less destroyed rainforests,
+less cars on the road, because people would not need to travel as much,
which means less fossil fuel burning.
The list goes on, with regard to saved resources.
+People will meet virtually, and not physically, so there's an exteremly reduced risk from epidemics. Things like the reportedly oncoming bird flu would never happen, simply because there's less of a global movement of the masses. If someone in China, for example, did contract the bird flu, his family might get it, his co-workers might get it (I'm assuming he works in a chicken farm here!), but that would be it. Contained infection, limited (but tragic) life lost, no more problem.
Of course, we would still need to generate electricity in the same old way, in order to fuel this massive network of virtual lives. It is debatable if this would require more energy, because less energy in the real world would be used up (people would not need artificial lighting as much, nor escalators, nor trains).
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What is required for this world to flourish is SECURITY. This is nothing new, we are already faced with computer security with online trading. We are already faced with the problems of people bugging other people- corporate espionage- that type of thing. But critically, we want to avoid people killing other people inside (see for reference, the Matrix). Any system that is wired to give stimulus to the brain could conceivably over stimulate to lethal levels.
We may need to iron out a few of the basic, mundane problems: a machine that takes your piss and shyt out of your body, so you don't have to log off every hour. This sounds very gross, but no more gross than a WC and sewage pipes, if you think about it.
i really get pissed off.