BubbaNub : Poster

Currently we have studied numerous aspects in class of what postmodernism is defined by, and yet, oddly enough we have not yet looked at the progress of technology and communication. Perhaps one of the most interesting things in Poster's article "Postmodern Virtualities" is his examination of technology written in 1995. When I think back to 1995, I hear the distinct rumbling and electronic whining of a dial up modem...something that is almost entirely extinct today. The predictions he makes within the article seem obvious because all of them have come true. We now have the capability to communicate seamlessly over the Internet, we have phones that can transmit videos that they have shot, and copper wires have been replaced by fiber optics. As we studied in CMC 200, there are great risks in this. We are becoming more detached with not only the real world but with each other. This advent in communication can actually be considered more of a break down in communication. The majority of Lebanon discusses political and social matters over blogs, that often become heated because we have increasing degrees of separation between us (making us more likely to say things that we would not say in person). Now, the big question to this would be does this separation allow for a more truthful "realer" society to come out or does it give rise to ignorance and bigotry?

Poster also talks about the future of virtual reality devices, being able to diverge into simulated communities from our home computers. If we think about the game "Second Life" this has already begun to happen. Now we have the ability to imagine our own worlds and virtual space, constructing an assortment of verisimilitude that Lyotard warns us about. Just why is this so successful? It is successful because people have begun to hate the real world. They want nothing more than to drift into an environment that they can control and manipulate into something they view as an "improvement on the real". Why stay locked away in your single room apartment working a minimum wage job, when you can easily fly around a virtual world as an artist or superhero who sells virtual commodities. As Zizek puts it, is "America getting what it fantasized about?"