Virtual Predictions

Love. What people will do to prove their love to others. We give jewelry, we travel to exotic places, we built monuments. All this to prove that our love is real, to give it a tangible presentation, in order to leave no doubt. These acts of love, often has a large cost. Weddings may be the best known, as they often set people back financially for decades, aquiring large sums in debt. But we still do it.

When we transfer most of our communication to the virtual three-dimensional world, what happens to love? In the virtual world we are only limited by memory, which is already close to unlimited. When we're all rich enough and capable to create the most incredible of dreams for our significant others, will our definition of love change again? Will the currency (LOVE) lose value or become even stronger? Already we have seen this. Proposals built into video games, love declarations on websites, videos and images. What will be the virtual version of Taj Mahal and who will build it?

As love is transferred into the virtual world, so must everything else, as it's counterpart, hate. What people will do to others in the name of hatred. Hatred has been a part of the virtual world since the internet became available to us consumers. It's original use was to communicate during the cold war, that almost brought us into another age of hatred towards another. Today we find virtual hatred in the forms of trolls, hacking, racism, bullying. But until the last ten years it has not been taken so seriously. People today are jailed over tweets, tortured over websites, killed for their opinions. Some examples even today are more extreme than others, where differences and conflicts that originates more than a thousand years ago has found their way into the virtual medium, that actually involves war and death of civilians.

Now, as the virtual world is becoming more real and tangible, it's impact and immersiveness are stronger than anything we've ever seen, what will be the consequences when the virtual medium is used as a megaphone for messages of hatred. What will happen when someone makes a game or demo for the oculus rift, which is offensive to a large group of poeple? The impact of anything in the Oculus Rift is said to be ten times stronger than anything else out there.

Though, I can imagine nothing more terrifying than a set of Oculus Rift in the hands of a religion, using it to spread their message. I hope it stays in the hands of gamers, artists and scientists.