Ready Player One reveals a major downside of Virtual Reality
I just finished Ready Player One and really enjoyed it. The theme I found most interesting in the book was how Cline explored the downside of VR. The general population — by escaping into virtual worlds — spent less time and energy improving their situations in the physical world, which had major personal and societal downsides.
In Ready Player One, the OASIS provides an escape for people, but it’s taken too far. The real world is crumbling while the OASIS is thriving. This ‘virtual escape’ creates an inherently unsustainable situation because, until we merge into some sort of human-robot hybrid, we still need food, shelter, and exercise in the “analog” world to survive.
The picture Cline paints is a world where overconsumption of energy has led to environmental damage and a “Global Energy Crisis.” We’re dropped into Oklahoma City in 2045 where there’s rampant poverty and crime. The people, partly because they spend so much time in virtual worlds, have taken their eye off the ball. Politicians and corporations have expanded their power to fill the void and take advantage of the world’s new uncertainty. One massive corporation in particular, IIC, is enslaving a portion of the people and exploiting others.
Cline has taken the impact of technology on our daily life and extrapolated it out to an extreme. Consider this real-world timeline:
- 1455 — First major book printed in Europe.
- 1920 — First radio news program.
- 1928 — First TV station begins broadcasting.
- 1990 — First website.
- 1997 — First video sharing website.
- 2007 — First iPhone launches.
- 2016 — First Oculus Rift releases.
We start with radio, which puts sound waves into our ears and can be consumed as background noise, and we end with VR, which immerses our full visual field and gives us a sense of presence in another world. A true escape.
If it weren’t clear enough that this were a blocking off of, and total escape from, reality, look at today’s VR headsets: black boxes that completely cover the eyes and separate you from the physical world.
Throughout the book, Cline adds in brief mentions of the downsides of OASIS, which I found interesting. He seems torn between being fascinated by the technology and it’s possibilities, and being dismayed by the extreme amount of time people in his fictional world spend on it, crowding out richer experiences. This is how I — and many others — feel about technological progress.
Ogden Morrow, the co-founder of Gregarious Simulation Systems (GSS), who built the OASIS, eventually leaves the company because his virtual platform has “evolved into something horrible.” In the book Ogden says:
“It had become a self-imposed prison for humanity. A pleasant place for the world to hide from its problems while human civilization slowly collapses, primarily due to neglect.”
This doesn’t need to be specific to VR. The world is already escaping into TV, Netflix, sports, and other distractions while ignoring real-world issues and forgoing real-world experiences.
[SPOILER ALERT] Cline ends the book with the main character, Wade Watts (“Parzival”), finally meeting his long-time OASIS crush, Samantha Cook (“Art3mis”), and having an epiphany:
Some time later, she leaned over and kissed me. It felt just like all those songs and poems had promised it would. It felt wonderful. Like being struck by lightning.
It occurred to me then that for the first time in as long as I could remember, I had absolutely no desire to log back into the OASIS.
It was a perfect ending. I had to deal with conflicting emotions head on: excitement about the technology’s potential contrasted with a fear of it’s massive downside, which can suck away time and crowd out the more beautiful, fulfilling experiences in life.
