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The Matrix had an affect on me that no other film ever did as I walked out of the cinema.  It gave me a brand new perspective on the entire world and made me question everything i’d ever known.  An entire world inside a machine where humans live out their lives – amazing but totally implausible………….right?

Wrong. 

This doesn’t mean machines are going to take over the world and we’ll all be submerged in jelly against our will and fed the mashed up contents of our elders.  Oh no, we’ll go voluntarily. 

Look at games such as Second Life and WoW (I don’t know why i’m plugging other games but hey ho.).  Some people spend more time in these virtual worlds than they do their own.  They have friends, jobs, missions, enemies, EVERYTHING all contained inside their very own virtual worlds.  People can take on a new identity and be whoever or whatever they want to be.  Escaping the boring, hum drum real world into one of riches, power and success of a virtual one can be very addicting. 

All this and its only 2006 and the 3D worlds are just developing.  Imagine the technological advances that make these online worlds more and more real, becoming more and more absorbing in the coming years.

Look at one person’s view of what a typical gamer will look like in 2030: 

  

An extreme view but are we really that far away from addicted players living out their real lives inside a game?  Will there be a time when people will get the choice to be shut up inside some kind of pod and left to their game of choice for their entire life? 

I can see these kinds of choices happening eventually if gaming and society continue as they are.  Games are becoming more in-depth and society is demanding everyone looks and dresses like the celebs you see on the covers of magazines.  Looking at the plastic world of Celebrity a virtual world isn’t exactly a million miles away!
 
Who cares about going to the moon for a holiday in 20 years time – you’ll be able to get in your own spaceship, command your 20,000 warriors to follow and launch an attack on Quadrant 7 in a bid to take over his planet and riches in your quest for Universe domination.  Of course you’ll never leave the comfort of your own bed/pod and you’ll have to keep up your subscription or risk being put on pause which could put a bit of a downer on things.  You don’t want to look like an amateur in front of your new friend LovePrincess6 in Galaxy 12 who you hope to be your future Queen now do you?  

So yeah, what is scary about a future Matrix is not that it might happen, as it already has in a limited form, it’s the fact that us human beings may voluntarily commit our lives to playing a game in a virtual world rather than live out our real one.  But then if these worlds are so real you can’t tell the difference, who is to say that the real world is any better or more fulfilling than the virtual worlds?  It’s a humans right to choose how they live and I’m pretty sure I’ll be alive to see the first person choose to live theirs in a machine.