Hello blog!
I’ve been thinking about Poster’s ideas about virtual reality, and how humans tend to like it better because we can create our perfect utopia. It comes from the quote, “Virtual reality is better than real” (Poster).
This idea scares me and it made me think about Lois Lowry’s acclaimed novel, The Giver. The Giver, and the books that follow in the series, describe two different “utopias” that the citizens are a part of. Every family is only allowed a certain number of children, and every person is assigned a job at the age of 12. Everything is supposed to work itself out "perfectly". In the final book, the characters finally escape the utopias and decide to live in an imperfect society. I’d like to think of Lowry’s work as a word of warning. The original novel, The Giver, shows us how easy it is to manipulate others with technology. It also shows us how there can never be a truly perfect society, for their seemingly perfect “utopia” is actually riddled with control, genocide, and eugenics.
It is terrifying to think about how this piece was written in the 90s. Technology has progressed so much more since then, as well as Posters “communication super highway.” We have AI, well-developed virtual reality, and algorithms all at our disposal in the blink of an eye. While all of this technology and connectivity is great, what happens when it gets into the wrong hands?
And even algorithms offer such an easy way to control others. Look at Amazon, Google, Facebook and other tech giants that collect information due to lack of privacy laws. It is scary how much of an influence they hold over others.
I hope we can come up with some form of privacy laws soon so that we can control some of the damage caused by this.
Signing off for now,
Avesyourfavblogger
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