This may sound funny to you but I just love being alone and with no one around me and when I want to talk to someone then all that I have to do is to get on line and do what I am doing now.

After thinking about it for a few seconds I decided that that problably will be what the future will be like, everyone living in their own little world that will give them what they need or want without any need of going anywhere.

A interactive wall pannel will make you feel like if you are right there in what you are viewing in your super monitor, you will be able to put on a body jumper with special gloves that will let you interact with the person that you are looking at and the same that person with you.

You could be looking at a forest and feel the wind and smell the pines trees and yet you are right in your private space, if you are an inventor you can choose right there in your monitor all the pieces that you would need in order to crate something new and then test it right away.

Even a person with no education could be the giggest scientist in the world just by asking "what would happen if" or "what would make it smaller" and so on......everything that man knows would be right there at your fingertips, as is now but at a higher level.

And then my spelling and my English would be always correct with no mistakes......we can only drean and by dreaming make it into realytie.

Many times I am asked if I am ever lonly....I might be alone but never lonly..... you see, I am always with my best friend....me.

I well understand what you mean, and I agree with you. I have to have a large, powerful daquirie in my hand in order to survive Christmas Shopping because of the number of people around me.

Don't you know that you can go blind???

Isn't that the point.

Actually, I can envisage a day when we slip on the visor, fire up the virtual network,and take a virtual hike through the virtual forest hunting for the virtual deer. Then the pop-up will alert us to incoming traffic from our virtual manager telling us that our virtual report is virtually due, and we need to get back to our virtual work.

Somehow, I don't see a whole lot of virtue in this scenario, do you?

Ponce, count me among the misanthropes also.

But your vision of the future gives me the shivers.

I think a lot of the social pathology we see today stems from our disconnectedness from nature and our nature.

When I see a teenager frantically text-messaging while walking, I do not see a fufilled human, I see someone frantically trying to fill a social hunger with empty social calories, and not succeeding.

Where is Lao Tzu when ya need him?

You must remember that the only real world that there is is the one in your own mind, the reason for this is that each of us interpret what we see or hear in a different way.

My problem is that I can also feel people and what is going on and I don't like it......here in the forest I have more fun sitting in my back yard and looking at the trees than sitting infront of my 50" monitor but.....I am still human.

You must find the right place to fit in in order to be happy and in my case is here.....away from people and in a forest.

Many people asked me if I am "rich" in many way I am rich and the reason for that is not in what I have but in what I don't have and that's BILLSSSSSSSS, every thing that I own I do own in full (or maybe I should say me and the tax man?)and also because I don't need a lot to live on.....it cost me nothing to take a walk in the woods (I am always on vacation) and people are paying hundreds of dollars to come here on vacation every year......

I think a bunch of you need to go see the Doctor

Hahahahahaahah Big Al, before you can live or relate with others you first have to do it with yourself...... I have dealt with people in high government and people in the streets and I still like being by myself best.

Ponce:

Sounds good to me as I also prefer to live alone, but I don't think I want the interactive wall panels etc. that you have described. Have you read the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury? In this book he describes the very wall panels you mention along with another frightening reality of the future. If you have not read it there is an on-line synopsis here http://www.bookrags.com/notes/451/. I am not saying this is what you are recommending, but I can't help wonder if this isn't where we are heading with a certain amount of "canned social networking." A good friend of mine is a college professor and he speaks of todays college kids as having laptops, cellphones, PDA's iPODS then pursue an altogether different agenda and cannot even pass his class. Then they have the nerve to mention this to Mom and Dad, or whomever and they protest the grade and make my friend feel like it is his fault and not theirs. Where is the responsibility in this, I ask? Again, I am not saying you are wrong, but I hope our society never comes to any of this reality, or future.

On another note, it is amazing how many people pay big $$$ to have an "outdoor" experience, but somehow their fun sounds hollow to me. As for me, I am happy to be alone and go about life alone because I am always the skeptic, but with some Luddite thrown in for good measure. After this I will go for a walk in the canyon.

Take care,
Stargazer

Stargazer...... maybe that's where the Idea came to me because I did read that book years ago, it was probably lying in wait in my subconsious or superconsious waiting to wake up.

I just came back from my nighly walk in the forest and it was great, it was cool but not cold with the birds singing and a gentle breeze blowing the branches of the trees. This is the life that I always wanted and it is now the one that I have.

Where it takes someone many years of hard work to be where I am at at it only took me six years.....back in 92 I came up with "The Squeezable" (someone called it the Pet Rock of the 90's) that's a balloon with powder rubber inside (from recycled tires) which is then tied in a knot and the end cut off and is nothing more than a hand stress ball, I was the first one to come out with it and I gave myself 10-12 years to make X ammount of money......I made it in six and retired.

Now even if I have everything that I always wanted, or need, for what is to come to me all this is only a loan and not really mine. "To become attached to what you have is to become a slave of the same".....Ponce.

You're gonna miss that virtual venison jerky...

I too like to live quite a solitary life. I lived for a while in a remote part of Wales, and found I could go for about 3 months before I started wanting human company.

I'm not convinced virtual realities will ever be so good you couldn't tell the difference, at least not by using visual wall panels, wind machines and the like. The reasons are more economics than science. In the same way that CDs aren't the same as listening to live music.

Ponce, your fantasy reminds me of a love doll forum I once visited. One guy paid $ 6,000 ( yep, six thousand greens ) for a human-shaped piece of silicon. When asked about the unbelieveable price, he said that a recent divorce has cost him more then 20K ! And he was happy with this "partner" that never fights or argue or demands anything.

hmmm.

Only if she has a blond wig hahahahahahaha.