From: "Sean B. Ziegeler" Subject: Re: SOC: Virtual Reality and ethics Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 11:00:35 -0500 Message-ID: Organization: Mississippi State University On Thu, 18 Sep 1997, Evonne Cheung wrote: > I want to know what other people's opinions are on the topic of > Virtual Reality and its ethics. Is it really necessary to create this > 'virtual' world and who will look after it? Shouldn't we be more > concerned with the present reality than creating another 'reality' for > us to mind? Should there be censorship? > > I am not opposing the idea of having a virtual world, but there are > issues we have to look at before we actually get down and boogie with > it. > Well, I'm not sure it is necessary to "look after" a virtual world like you do the real world, since it is just binary computer information. At our current state of technology, we aren't creating other realities to live in or anything like that. We are just enhancing out abilities to communicate with one another. For example, making an architectural design in VR instead of a blueprint. What I do wonder about is the future. Eventually our technology will reach the level where the realism of VR could equal the real world. At that point, why would people want to live in the real world, when virtual worlds could be much more interesting. SEAN