Difference between revisions of "Virtuality Universe"

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In theory, once you're in a setting that is entirely software, you could live however you want; physical appearance would be (it's often assumed) irrelevant, as would all the physical trappings of how we live today, such as houses, streets, clothing, furniture, etc. which makes it really difficult to imagine how people will live (if indeed "people" means anything anymore), much less tell a story about it.
In theory, once you're in a setting that is entirely software, you could live however you want; physical appearance would be (it's often assumed) irrelevant, as would all the physical trappings of how we live today, such as houses, streets, clothing, furniture, etc. which makes it really difficult to imagine how people will live (if indeed "people" means anything anymore), much less tell a story about it.


However, I propose (for this story-setting) that most people live in Cyberspace pretty much the way they do in "reality", with a few significant changes. (And I don't think this is just a crutch to make storytelling possible, either; it seems like a reasonable possibility.)
However, I propose (for this story-setting) that most people live in Cyberspace pretty much the way they do in "reality", with a few significant changes. (And I don't think this is just a crutch to make storytelling possible, either; it seems quite possible or even likely.)
==Background Articles==
==Background Articles==
* [[Virtuality Universe: General Flavor|General flavor]]
* [[/General Flavor]]
* [[Virtuality Universe: Technical details|Technical details]]
* [[/Technical details]]
==Background Reasoning==
* [[/What People Will Need]]: explains a lot of the background reasoning
We will still need a lot of the things we have now:
===Related Stuff===
* individuality -- different approaches help keep from getting stuck in a rut; if everyone thinks the same thoughts, it's difficult to be original. I would also argue that no single consciousness (that we know of -- maybe it's *possible*, but it's not something we would know how to do right away, at any rate) can keep track of all the details that are managed by the various people in any working group -- whether that's a family, a company, or whatever; tasks need attention focused on them, and if you're doing everything all at once, how can you focus?
* [[Living in a computer for fun and profit]]
* ways of interacting that are of the same quality as face-to-face interactions are now: When you talk to someone FtF, there's a lot more than just the words; there's intonation, facial expression, body language, and of course the physical context you're in ("Look at that over there! <points>") -- it's an interface which has evolved over thousands of years, and I doubt we'd be able to come up with anything better right away, so there's every reason to think that it will persist for awhile even when we have the option to try something different. So we'll probably have faces, and bodies, and houses, and nice places to sit and talk... except we'll have complete control over how all those things look and act (software bugs aside).
* [[Cyberlife]]: currently just a link collection
* ways of pacing ourselves -- it seems entirely likely, for example, that "sleep" is not just a physical function to rest the body; the mind becomes distracted and easily confused when deprived of sleep. This is probably a necessary by-product of the sort of intensive data-processing we do as beings with large brains; even corporate databases have functions they can only do at night, when nobody is using them (backup, repair errors, run analyses...) So even as software, we will probably need sleep, or something like it -- so why not continue to have night, and beds, and fluffy pillows?
* [[Virtual habitability]]: estimates of when computing power will be adequate to accomodate human-level intelligence


Some things, though, will change:
==How people earn a living==
Just as agriculture largely gave way to factory jobs and then factory jobs largely gave way to service jobs, most jobs in Virtuality will center around the processing of information.
 
Stating it that way, however, overlooks a significant change in the basic structure of day-to-day life which can be summarized thusly: People won't have to work so hard to survive, because virtual life doesn't use up as many resources as does bio-life (see Cost of Living in [[Virtuality Universe: Technical details|technical details]]).
 
Virtual people will be in demand for work that would be hazardous or uncomfortable for bio-humans (see Hostile Environments in [[Virtuality Universe: Technical details|technical details]]).


In Reality, we need a few basic things: food, shelter, clothing, entertainment, and companionship seems like a good starting list.
===Keeping Up===
They will, however, have to work just as hard (or harder, depending on how you look at it) in order to keep up. "Keeping up" will not be a requirement for survival, but it will be essential for those wanting to be involved in the most interesting work. Keeping up with the pace of human development will be like riding a wave -- and getting behind can be seen as "wiping out", and having to look for the next wave in order not to get stuck in one place. This will be like our current society's obsession with career, only worse... and virtual humans won't have the physical limits of their bodies to stop them from working 24/7, or even duplicating themselves and working more hours than that. If they can afford the cycles for it, however, they can make a "clone" specifically for enjoying the leisure time bought by the labor of their working selves, so this may not be much of a sacrifice as it sounds to us.


In Virtuality, things are a bit different.
Some of the more interesting stories, however, may still be taking place in very concrete, 20th-century style work settings... like tending the solar power farms. Another setting where the pace of life will be forced to slow down to something we non-virtual humans can grasp would be deep space exploration, where small groups or individuals are largely cut off from "the grid".
===Obsolete needs===
* '''Food''' as we know it now will not be ''strictly'' necessary. I imagine people will still eat in order to have the social experience of sharing a meal; also, depending on how rigorously we simulate metabolism within our simulated bodies, we may actually need the stuff to keep our simulated brains alive. However, virtual food itself will be for all practical purposes free; rich folks will probably pay extra to have food custom designed or custom-grown instead of being identical copies of a dish created earlier. Food templates will be copyrightable; this will be one of the many ways in which creative output and intellectual property will be even more of a major economic activity than they are now. (Imagine a food-oriented [http://deviantart.com/ DeviantArt] or [http://digitalblasphemy.com Digital Blasphemy].)
* '''Clothing''', much like food, can be replicated at will. Some people will pay a premium to have clothing custom-designed or custom-fitted to their simulated bodies, but this will be considerably easier as anyone will be able to send the designer an exact model of their shape -- no tedious fitting sessions. (Those wishing to save money while having the most choice from off-the-shelf clothing will alter their bodies into one of the more common prototypes.)
* '''Shelter''' takes on a different meaning. I imagine we will have simulated houses, but they will not be serving the function of providing shelter; people will still have a real need for shelter, and it will have more to do with things like anti-virus filters, spam filters, firewalls, and backup software.
* Current forms of '''entertainment''' will probably persist more or less unaltered into Virtuality; new forms of entertainment will be added, however, and some of the old forms may eventually fade into irrelevance... but entertainment in early Virtuality will seem largely unchanged from what it is in 2006. (There will probably be changes having to do with the present debate over intellectual property rights, which is shaping up to turn into a war of some kind at some point; perhaps a plot could begin with that idea.)
* Things will be very different in the area of '''companionship''', but not *completely* different. I'm going to make some assumptions for the sake of world-building. (The reasoning gets a bit technical, so I'll put it [[Virtuality Universe: Technical details|here]].) Near the beginning of Virtuality, people will be living at the same speed (or maybe slightly slower) than Reality people, so communications delays will be about the same as they are now:
** people living in the same computer system will be effectively "in the same room"
** people living in different computers connected by a LAN may notice some lag time for high-bandwidth communication (such as a [[shared surrounding (Virtuality)|shared surrounding]])
** people living in computers connected by the Internet will be reduced to lower-bandwidth senses such as 2-D vision, voice, or even text
** people living on computers located at substantial distances from each other (in different parts of the solar system) will have to use email and other delay-buffered communication methods (some of which do not exist today).
===New needs===
Virtuality people may not need food and shelter as we know them today, but they ''will'' still need to "feed" their computer-homes with electricity, backup media, and replacement parts. More critically, they will also need to protect their systems from software attack (one particularly bad virus could "kill" an entire family, who would then have to be restored from backup -- much like rebuilding a household after a fire) and protect the physical computer from damage. This last will be especially important for Virtuality processor-homes located in space.


Most people and communities living in Virtuality will also need to maintain their communications links to the greater Earth and Solar System networks; I'm thinking that the tech for this will be cheap enough that most connections will be free (a sort of ad-hoc peer-to-peer network), but those living in especially remote locations (for whatever reason) will need to pay extra for access to high-powered receivers closer to civilization.
==Timeline==
Some sketchy ideas of the VU Future History; subject to revision...
* '''2008'''
** The Bay Area Plague, blamed on terrorists, exacerbated by poor response from gutted FEMA and CDC
** Neocons "win" US presidency again; GOP begins transformation into Righteous Party
* '''2009''' DRM (also anti-virus and firewalls) mandatory on all publicly-connected computer operating systems for "security" reasons; approved DRM schemes are all proprietary, requiring paid licenses; open source forced underground; practitioners of open-source development are called "pirates" due to their lack of DRM usage
* '''2010''' "underground" house-to-house wireless networking becomes popular among "pirates" as a way to bypass the DRM requirement while still having some form of access
* '''2015''' [[Revolt of the Creators (Virtuality Universe)|Revolt of the Creators]]
* '''2020''' first "plug-in", i.e. more or less complete sensory connection to a computer
* '''2030''' first "upload", followed shortly by the first comm-kazi (combination upload and (physical) "suicide")


We will also need CPU cycles and other computing resources -- this will be the bread-and-butter of Virtuality. Someone who can afford twice the computing power can think twice as fast, or think about twice as many things. In a world where intellectual property is the larger part of people's productive output, processing time will be crucial to success. More computing resources also means you could have room for more people, or a nicer living-space/house (more simulation detail, or more rooms, or...).
''needs to be revised so as to be more in line with the estimates in [[Cyberlife]]''


==How people earn a living==
{{editing}}
{{editing}}
==Links==
* '''2010-06-07''' [http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627631.100-immortal-avatars-back-up-your-brain-never-die.html?full=true Immortal avatars: Back up your brain, never die]: shows that people are thinking seriously about this, but there's still a long way to go technically
* '''2006-02-23''' [http://www.kurzweilai.net/news/frame.html?main=news_single.html?id%3D5333 enzyme computer]
* '''2006-02-18''' [http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-02/ssoe-cid021306.php Computer interface design starts with respecting the real world]
* '''2006-02-14''' [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/13/AR2006021302437.html Virtual Reality Prepares Soldiers for Real War]: simulation is already a useful test-tube for reality
* '''2006-02-13''' [http://www.technologyreview.com/BioTech-Devices/wtr_16325,306,p1.html Big Brain Thinking]: "Stanford neuroscientist Bill Newsome wants to implant an electrode in his brain to better understand human consciousness." &ndash; an experiment I'd volunteer for after only ''slight'' hesitation...
* '''2006-02-12''' [http://blogs.zdnet.com/Hinchcliffe/?p=8 Online Ajax "desktops" try to change the rules of the game]: this will probably have a great deal to do with how people manage information in the future

Latest revision as of 20:57, 8 June 2010

This is the background for a SF universe which could be a good setting for a lot of stories. It is closely related to the factual possibilities (eventually to be) discussed in the Cyberlife article.

Introduction

Some fairly small number of decades from now, as seems reasonably likely (or at least possible), people will be able to "upload" themselves into computers, and live there.

Life in virtual reality / cyberspace has been done before, but it's never very... practical, from my limited experience. It tends to be either punk, or superhero-ish, or else it's assumed that we'll all be at war against the machines, or we'll become soulless, or something else horrible. Stories set in cyberspace don't have just regular people.

In theory, once you're in a setting that is entirely software, you could live however you want; physical appearance would be (it's often assumed) irrelevant, as would all the physical trappings of how we live today, such as houses, streets, clothing, furniture, etc. which makes it really difficult to imagine how people will live (if indeed "people" means anything anymore), much less tell a story about it.

However, I propose (for this story-setting) that most people live in Cyberspace pretty much the way they do in "reality", with a few significant changes. (And I don't think this is just a crutch to make storytelling possible, either; it seems quite possible or even likely.)

Background Articles

Related Stuff

How people earn a living

Just as agriculture largely gave way to factory jobs and then factory jobs largely gave way to service jobs, most jobs in Virtuality will center around the processing of information.

Stating it that way, however, overlooks a significant change in the basic structure of day-to-day life which can be summarized thusly: People won't have to work so hard to survive, because virtual life doesn't use up as many resources as does bio-life (see Cost of Living in technical details).

Virtual people will be in demand for work that would be hazardous or uncomfortable for bio-humans (see Hostile Environments in technical details).

Keeping Up

They will, however, have to work just as hard (or harder, depending on how you look at it) in order to keep up. "Keeping up" will not be a requirement for survival, but it will be essential for those wanting to be involved in the most interesting work. Keeping up with the pace of human development will be like riding a wave -- and getting behind can be seen as "wiping out", and having to look for the next wave in order not to get stuck in one place. This will be like our current society's obsession with career, only worse... and virtual humans won't have the physical limits of their bodies to stop them from working 24/7, or even duplicating themselves and working more hours than that. If they can afford the cycles for it, however, they can make a "clone" specifically for enjoying the leisure time bought by the labor of their working selves, so this may not be much of a sacrifice as it sounds to us.

Some of the more interesting stories, however, may still be taking place in very concrete, 20th-century style work settings... like tending the solar power farms. Another setting where the pace of life will be forced to slow down to something we non-virtual humans can grasp would be deep space exploration, where small groups or individuals are largely cut off from "the grid".

Timeline

Some sketchy ideas of the VU Future History; subject to revision...

  • 2008
    • The Bay Area Plague, blamed on terrorists, exacerbated by poor response from gutted FEMA and CDC
    • Neocons "win" US presidency again; GOP begins transformation into Righteous Party
  • 2009 DRM (also anti-virus and firewalls) mandatory on all publicly-connected computer operating systems for "security" reasons; approved DRM schemes are all proprietary, requiring paid licenses; open source forced underground; practitioners of open-source development are called "pirates" due to their lack of DRM usage
  • 2010 "underground" house-to-house wireless networking becomes popular among "pirates" as a way to bypass the DRM requirement while still having some form of access
  • 2015 Revolt of the Creators
  • 2020 first "plug-in", i.e. more or less complete sensory connection to a computer
  • 2030 first "upload", followed shortly by the first comm-kazi (combination upload and (physical) "suicide")

needs to be revised so as to be more in line with the estimates in Cyberlife

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Links

wiki file: https://hypertwins.org/mw/index.php?title=Virtuality_Universe&oldid=13566