Today's dumbest headline: 'Are We Trapped in God's Video Game?'

Ted Alvarez on January 11, 2008 7:18 PM
Comments (1)

Lucky for us, Discover Magazine and be-dreadlocked VR-guru Jaron Lanier are happy to answer with a "probably not."

The column itself is actually a thoughtful dive into the parameters of virtual-reality research and the limits of human perception. The Matrix inevitably gets name-dropped, and there's some heady exploration into who might be at the hands of our impossibly complex simulation, if, in fact, life IS a complete VR-simulation.

But the knee-jerk, FOX-ish headline (which I'd love to see pop up in the moving ticker on FOX News) betrays all that. "Hey, Brandeen! Seems like the almighty Jesus might be playin' us, like Cousin Lester's Playerstashun!"

If I'm trapped in a VR Metaverse, I'm going to make damn sure Johnny Lee is at the helm.

Are We Trapped in God's Video Game? (Discover)

Comments

Aeolus says:

When virtual reality is (virtually) undistiguishable from reality and virtual people are (virtually) as intelligent as we are, will they consider us as some sort of Gods?
I'll give you the answer in 500 years or so :)

January 12, 2008 11:00 PM