The sites mentioned above are only the first steps, and they are already tremendously addictive. There are games that are shared online by tens of thousands of players, called massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG) where people are so involved in their online worlds that they frequently forget about their real world.

Let’s take this to the extreme. A time will come when technology will enable us to plunge headlong into the virtual world literally. We will be able to forget what is happening around us and experience the virtual world as if it were the real one. Like The Matrix, some probe will be pushed into us, and we will be able to live in worlds of our own creation.

Just imagine being able to be in a world where you are God. Artificial intelligence that will pass the Turing Test will already be so advanced that you will be able to have a family in the virtual world and raise them in the same way the real world allows you to. If you have any fantasies, then this is the place for you. You could indulge in whatever you want without any thought of repercussions; you can have the perfect body and could have an entire harem of beauties at your beck and call.

Image Credit: signalstation

Indeed, who will want to come out of this perfect world? It will be the ultimate addiction. Humans will be quite content to live inside them, keeping their real world bodies alive by being fed by tubes on the outside. I’m not being facetious. I’m dead serious. That’s what will happen if everything is unimpeded.

Real world relationships will dwindle and then become almost extinct. Who wants an imperfect or unsatisfying relationship when you can have the best, most handsome or beautiful and sweetest spouse (or many spouses!) in your own world where you are God?

The economic system as we know it will collapse utterly. People will not want anything else other than the ability to spend time online in their worlds. It will be available as a utility bill like the Internet. People will spend all their money buying online time (with a little for being fed by drip), and manufacture of all goods and services will drop to zero. Housing is perhaps the only industry that will remain, but not as we know it. All that will be needed will be dormitories where our bodies can lie, and thousands of such bodies can fit into one house.

Of course, any company that controls online access will flourish, and the industry will be responsible for 95% of the economy, if not more. It’s a scary thought, but one that we currently find repulsive only because we haven’t gotten accustomed to it. Once in that situation, it will be the most natural thing in the world.

The question now remains as to what work will people do to earn their money to buy online time. If the demand for all products is zero, then what possible work will be left? Perhaps online time will then be a free service, which no one can possibly gain by earning money.

I’m sorry if all this sounds a bit Orweilian. But this is where I see the future heading, and what can be done to stop it?

For those of you who thought that surgery by robots was something out of a futuristic science fiction novel, that day has already come for Urologic surgeons. The da Vinci robot created by the company Intuitive Surgical is an expensive but top selling robot that is a must for any health center that claims to be cutting edge. Many of you might already have heard of Intuitive Surgical as their company stock has been a top performer in the device industry for several years. I do not own stock in the company or get anything from mentioning them, but they are the pioneer for Urologic robotics.

At any rate, the da Vinci robot is an actual robot that is controlled by a surgeon who is sitting at a computerized console in the corner of the room. The actual robot is a different machine that can move above the patient and has several “arms” that contain instruments on the end. The surgeon controls the arms and moves the “wrists” at the end of the arms. Sophisticated software now allows the robot to learn the movement patterns of the surgeon. The robot can filter abrupt movements of the surgeon and smooth out the movements to minimize any trauma to the patient.

When robotic surgery first came out, it was met with resistance. Common complaints included the high cost of the machine and the sterilized add-on components, the lack of “tactile feedback” from the instruments, and the steep learning curve. Older surgeons have been hesitant to retrain and obviously are not as facile with the machine as the younger generation who trained with robotics. On the whole, Urologists who use this machine regularly for prostate cancer surgery have excellent outcomes and are able to incise, cut, sew, and handle tissues delicately with the machine. Outcomes continue to improve and there have even been reports of surgeons remotely operating the machine on patients.

Thus, for the surgical field of Urology, robotics is here to stay.