The plummeting cost of devices is likely to popularise VR use, both for recreational and serious uses. Tens of billions of funding 'recreational' VR have also enabled marvellous 'serious uses' we can discuss - in industrial design, education, commerce and human advancement. 'Virtuality' (representing things) goes far back in history: It includes gestures, speech & writing & diagrams, television and now VR. The more 'realistic' it became, the more powerfully, competitively, it enabled us to perceive and control the world. Some VR experiences will soon be almost indistinguishable from reality. What do we do with that?
Bruce Thomson has for years 'lived partly in' VR worlds (SecondLife, HighFidelity, and AltSpaceVR, etc). "The breathtaking freedoms in VR have irrevocably expanded my mind." Co-facilitator Richard Levi follows the good and bad social and philosophical issues of VR, such as identity, deception & coercion, gender freedom, mind control, mental health, etc.
Background Reading - Oil tanker at sea, collides with another ship (Dramatic use of VR for industrial training)
- Oklahoma parents so engulfed in Second Life they allegedly starved their real 3-year-old daughter: cops
- Pandemic Flu Patient Surge and Triage in a Virtual Hospital (Multi-use VR provides a billion dollar hospital at almost no cost to do preparedness drill)
- Real estate business - A billion dollar company operating entirely in VR
