Castranova’s article on synthetic worlds brings up a lot of different ideas and possibilities that I myself have thought about before. The idea of synthetic worlds being “realms that will one day be preferred to Earth” is quite a terrifying idea. In fact, I have read a science fiction book before that addresses this issue in quite some detail.
The Pendragon Adventure is a series of books about a young man who travels to different realities and dimensions to save them from an evil villain. In Book Four: The Reality Bug, the protagonist travels to a world called Veelox that has multiple white pyramids all around the world. Within these pyramids, human beings are able to enter a coma-like state and create any virtual reality they wish. They can be married to whoever they wish, be as rich as they want to be, and have anything they want simply by entering a virtual reality. The issue here, however, is that the entire world’s population has become so engrossed in their fantasies that there is no one else left to do anything else. Even the workers that monitor the people in the pyramids take turns entering their own personal fantasies. The government disintegrates, relationships die, and basically everything outside of each individual’s personal fantasy no longer matters.
For me, the sudden dawn of synthetic worlds and their rising popularity has always reminded me of this sort of outcome. It is very possible that someday human beings can lose interest in real life if given something that can be better. However, this is not the only possible outcome. Castranova goes into detail about all the possible benefits of synthetic worlds becoming more and more popular.
Synthetic worlds hold quite a lot of potential, but as we progress through time the fear of losing touch with real life holds strong in the back of my mind. Even now, a huge reason many people play video games is to escape from reality for a little while. Why? Because a lot of the time, real life sucks. Who wouldn’t take the option of replacing real life with a world where disease isn’t real? A place where you can be whoever you want to be and have whatever you want to have? And I honestly wouldn’t put it past us to bring about our own species’ demise simply because we are selfish and lazy.
My only hope is that when the technology becomes advanced enough, we can be strong enough to resist the temptation of a “virtual heaven.”
