{"id":779,"date":"2007-04-22T00:12:49","date_gmt":"2007-04-22T06:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/wp\/?p=779"},"modified":"2007-04-22T00:12:49","modified_gmt":"2007-04-22T06:12:49","slug":"dont_bogart_tha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/?p=779","title":{"rendered":"Go ask Alice’s avatar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Red Light Center, an avatarian sex site, expanded the bounds of virtual reality on Friday by introducing virtual dope. Members of the community can now, reports<\/a> Simson Garfinkel of Technology Review, “enter a virtual rave and take virtual ecstasy, smoke a virtual joint, and even munch on some virtual mushrooms.”<\/p>\n

Far out.<\/p>\n

According to Brian Shuster, chief executive of Utherverse, the company that runs Red Light Center, the site is introducing the simulated abuseable substances as a kind of public service. Getting wasted virtually, he explains, will decrease people’s desire to get wasted in real life:<\/p>\n

\n

In a virtual environment, [peer] pressure shifts from trying actual drugs to experimenting with virtual drugs. Thus, users have a safe platform to explore the social aspects of drug use, without having to risk doing the actual drugs. By separating the social pressure from the real-world application, users have a totally revolutionary mechanism to deal with peer pressure, and actually to give in to peer pressure, without the negative consequences.<\/p>\n

Moreover, users of virtual drugs have reported the effects of these virtual drugs to be surprisingly realistic and lifelike. To the extent that users can enjoy both the social benefits of virtual drugs as well as the entertainment associated with drug use, all with no actual drug consumption, the value of taking actual drugs is diminished.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hmm. I bet if you were really, really high, that might actually make sense.<\/p>\n

There’s a certain symmetry to the idea of virtual drugs. When the concept of virtual, or artificial, reality first emerged at the end of the sixties, it was tightly connected to the drug culture. The consciousness-expanding hallucinations that might be conjured up by computers weren’t so different from those that emanated from a tab of acid (or so it seemed at the time). Now that it’s possible to get stoned in cyberspace, we’ve kind of come full circle. I mean, think about it: When avatars hallucinate, they must see the real world.<\/p>\n

Whoa. I’m freaking myself out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Red Light Center, an avatarian sex site, expanded the bounds of virtual reality on Friday by introducing virtual dope. Members of the community can now, reports Simson Garfinkel of Technology Review, “enter a virtual rave and take virtual ecstasy, smoke a virtual joint, and even munch on some virtual mushrooms.” Far out. According to Brian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.roughtype.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}