Virtual Utopia

Brilliant analysis.  I think you might enjoy Nicholas Xenos’s analysis of fashion at the heart fo the transition to capitalism in his work Scarcity and Modernity.

When you talk about “already seek[ing] to reduce ourselves (enhance ourselves?) into a flow of routinely updated data,” I’m instantly reminded of all the “download your brain” proposals out there. 

I try to throw some cold water on that on p. 30-31 of the following

http://law.shu.edu/faculty/fulltime_faculty/pasquafa/pasquale_stem_cell.pdf

There’s also a good review at First THings called “our bodies, ourselves” on Kurzweil, et al.

and finally, Neal Stephenson seemed to couple the idea of the metaverse to an increasingly dangerous and unlivable real world.

Comment by FP from Jersey City — October 16, 2006 @ 10:50 am

Zizek has drawn attention to the fact that virtual worlds etc allow us most profoundly to follow the absolute symbolic edict “love thy neighbour” without actually having to account for the ‘Real’ desire of the other… SL has an option for ejecting and banning anyone from your land. You can love your neighbour when it is convenient and (literally) expel them from your particular metaverse when they are just annoying you and ‘love’ becomes an irritation. Likewise you can ‘mute’ people. There are also numerous ‘Police’ forces emerging, initiated and maintained by residents - virtual vigilantes.

Comment by Mike from london — October 25, 2006 @ 11:39 am