Proximity to the Oasis
Ready Player One is a 2018 science fiction movie based on the novel written by Ernest Cline. It portrays a virtual reality world called the Oasis. The Oasis of Ready Player One is the stuff of dreams. It is a world made up of a thousand worlds (reelrundown). A universe, as the movie trailer describes, where people visit for all the things they can do and stay because of all the things they can be (reelrundown). People can make and earn a living and still have time to experience anything or anywhere beyond their imagination.
The movie paints a world where overconsumption of energy has led to environmental damage and a “Global Energy Crisis.” (medium) The setting is in Oklahoma City in 2045 where there is rampant poverty and crime.
The people, partly because they spend so much time in virtual worlds, have taken their eyes off the real crisis. I want to use this paper to discuss some major questions that came to mind subsequently after watching this movie. Is the Oasis achievable in the real world? Will this level of VR lead to the kind of economic meltdown in the movie? What are the possible consequences of these dreams coming to a reality? Especially with a good amount of discussion in class, and in general, about possible meta verse creation in the works, we should all be thinking keenly about this future generation of computing advancement.
Is the Oasis achievable in the real world? I think we are a lot closer to this world than people could imagine. Virtual reality has had a great influence on the game industry and experience alone. Companies like Oculus and other mobile based technologies are already running impressive and detailed virtual reality experiences for an average consumer. Google and Lenovo also now sell daydream standalone headsets (variety). We have omnidirectional treadmills such as Virtuix’s Omni, and haptic wear such as the Tesla suit (reelrundown). VR is also being used in other fields. In the medical side, augmented reality is advancing their research. This kind of virtual reality combines what we see around us with overlaid computer-generated imagery. This has allowed for doctors to study inside a human body without cutting into one. This can result in fantastic implications in the medical world (inverse) and with haptic technology growth, this might be only a couple years in the future. One thing that I felt might not be fully accurate was the percentage of people who participated so willingly in virtual reality. The real world had collapsed but with human beings’ general reaction to technological advancement, it might not be as smooth a transition. I also do not think that all human beings will let their whole world continuously fall into chaos and choose escapism without any attempt to change. On the other hand, it is also possible that people had completely given up, after fighting for many years. A world like the Oasis might just be enough to pull people completely from real life.
That leads us to asking the next question. Will this level of VR lead to or assist the kind of economic meltdown in the movie? Firstly, I want to ask if you think the VR came before the collapse or after. It could also just be a chicken and egg situation. In this movie, there is an overconsumption of energy that has led to environmental damage and caused great levels of global energy crisis. Research shows that meta verse is meant to assist in reducing the amount of energy used and Co2 emissions. If you do not want to drive a real car, or bother buying a new iPhone when the virtual one is as good as the real one and no one will extract oil or make tons of plastics, because you don’t need any plastics anymore, these will all help to reduce emissions
but a lot of these expectations are only in theory. The computers that will be used in the future might take more power to generate an oasis with that level of detail. People might still like the feel of real materials. In class, we discussed a story about the possibilities of ubiquitous computing (invisible computing) and the main character still enjoys reading actual newspapers. There are so many possibilities in the future, we cannot be sure that this build will cause a direct reduction in energy waste. Additionally, we are already facing major environmental changes in our current world, but people still find a way to escape from making necessary changes. For example, social media, streaming sites, sports are all distractions from real-world issues and forgoing real-world experiences. The creation of these worlds might not directly cause the economic meltdown but just provide more ways for us to avoid issues we should face head on. Even if these creators were not perpetually coming up with new tech, people will feed their needs from another source.
What are the possible consequences of these dreams coming to a reality? In the original story, Parzival i.e., Wade Watts openly laments how he was overweight his entire life. He also attributes his weight problem to him spending too much time each day inside the Oasis(reelrundown). There have been some health concerns about the creation of a VR system that enables you to not have to leave your house again. 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 (medium). There was also the main issue that the plot covered. The power and access that an individual can acquire from winning the game. Politicians and powerful corporations will try to have control over and capitalize in the digital world as much as they do in the real world. Data collected from the users posed a security challenge for this system. If the movie did not have a happy ending, would the corporation with the newly owned system not have the decision to do whatever they wanted with the designing and modeling? They could possibly be able to dictate and restrict users and also not care about users’ information or experience as much as the creator. The metaverse blurs the gap between real and virtual worlds. This might seem like an advantage but can also become a drawback in the long run. An addiction, like we have seen, can lead to complete withdrawal from real-world experiences. After effects like detachment, difficulty focusing, and an untethered sadness are experienced by users after returning to the real world.
I think one of my favorite parts of the movie was when Parzival is running around grabbing digital objects. It highlighted an interesting trope regarding humans’ inclination towards digital objects more and more nowadays. We see real life examples like the “First virtual millionaire” who became a real-estate tycoon in the digitally simulated world known as Second Life. Her holdings in this make-believe world are legally convertible into genuine U.S. currency worth more than $1 million (fortune). The use of genuine currency to acquire digital property or land simulation is becoming a regular occurrence. The switch to metaverse is almost an inevitable future for us at this point. . Despite any issues that might come with it, it would still prove to be an amazing leap in computing generations.
