Multimedia Collection
The Virtual Wasteland
(Information Technology and the Future: Visions of Heaven and Hell series)
VHS
52 minutes
1995
T58.5 .V58 1995 v.3
Is technology pulling us apart, creating a divided world of the information rich and the information poor? This program examines whether or not this new world offered by technology isn't in fact a virtual wasteland. "In many ways," observes virtual reality inventor Jaron Lanier, "the new technology is a panacea." He foresees a virtual world in which inequality, cruelty, and violence are likely to continue. The program explores the future where technological advances have produced a society divided and disconnected. Social trends forecaster Faith Popcorn offers an alarming vision of those who obsessively "go deeper and deeper into their computer." The program visits Singapore, which is the most advanced technical society in the world and where the future is embraced enthusiastically. But technology has not set its people free; on the contrary, it is one of the most oppressed and oppressive societies in the world, a "Disneyland with death penalties" observes William Gibson.
Distributed by Films for the Humanities & Sciences.
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