Sunday, October 25, 2009

A glimpse of the future?

I went to see a movie last night. In RL. I know I don't blog RL here and make a point of not doing, but the film is kinda appropriate so I will break my own rules this one time.

The movie was Surrogates. If you've not heard about it, it is set in the near future. Basically robotics and stuff have developed to the stage where almost everyone use a robot in every part of their everyday life. People are linked to their robots via "the grid". They stay at home in pretty much isolation, on their "stim chairs", and go and live their lives via a robot they are connected to. Their Surrogate. They can be young and attractive forever. They can do things they would not normally do. They can be who they want to be.

Do you begin to see why I might have thought this movie made me want to blog?

The story of the film is not really important. It's a decent murder/intrigue sorta of a thing but the key thing for me was the basic premise. The idea of surrogates. It all felt quite real, and not really too far from the lives we currently lead. The second lives, I mean. For surrogates read avatars.

We can be who we want to be, and we can do whatever we want to do. We can leap from tall buildings. We can fly. We can be perky blonde bimbos instead of fat blokes in Iowa.

The only difference is that at the moment most of us only use our surrogates when we have spare time. And the grid is still inworld, rather than outworld too, if you see what I mean. But it's not too big a leap, I don't think. How many of us prefer our second lives to our other mundane one? How many of us would leap at the chance of a surrogate?

As the film ended, some punk-kid stood up in front of me, turned to his mate and said "well, that will never happen". I think most of you, like me, would disagree. The future is not far away.

3 comments:

  1. I'm not sure if it will ever be like that ... but I definately wouldn't want to be part of it ... all fine to have an avatar, being able to be someone different, having tons of possibilities to be creative in a way that's mostly impossible in RL ... ok in SL or for a certain time ...
    but I still wanna be me, want to really feel, live a real life ... with all it's flaws ... and directly meet other real persons the way I do now ...
    maybe I'm old fashioned ... lol

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  2. i 'd like to go see that movie. Like 'the matrix', it's just another view on the possible future, and definitely inspired by SL. Some say also..that in 2050 we will be all hanging out at a beach 24/7 and working at the same time via speech controls to a microchip installed under our skin..but I'd find a way to play SL anyway!

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  3. Oh thankyou for blogging about this movie - it's one I'd definitely like to see.

    Mayala, I think, I hope, that many of us would like to experience lives ourselves however there are cases (my own included) where a person can't leave their home. I know if I could, I would.

    For me, SL provides me with the chance to interact with others and feel like part of a community. The concept of surrogates would be one I would explore if it were ever feasible :)

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