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VIRTUAL_TRAP

                                          October 5, 2001
                                     Rev: July   12, 2012


       The Toadkeeper used to refer to
       "traps of virtual solipsism",               TOADKEEPER
       e.g. in Gibson's "Count Zero".

       The original first line of
       UNINTENDED referred to that:                UNINTENDED

          Traps of virtual
          solipsism exist
          even in the non-
          virtual world.                We had a somewhat confused
                                        conversation about this where
                                        he was trying to explain why
                                        he liked "masturbation" as
                                        a metaphor for "virtual
                                        reality" traps, rather than
                                        "drugs" (the metaphor I favor).

                                            (He was having trouble saying
                                            "masturbation" while a teenage
                                            daughter kept walking in-and-out
                                            of the room.)

  But there's also the
  point that virtual is
  not exactly a synonym
  for the unreal.

     Gibson's cyberspace is
     an alternative way of
     interacting with the           Though given such a technology,
     real, not necessarily a        there would always be that
     retreat from it.               threat of distraction, of the
                                    masses retreating into a
                                    "holodeck"/videogame life.

     And relating to the
     world solely as a
     mass of abstractions
     is not the exclusive
     province of the
     computer user.           Which is what
                              I was getting at
                              originally

                                        UNINTENDED


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