In Virilio’s open sky part three he begins to look into the ways in which technology will take control of the things that make us human such as senses and sexuality. He talks about how we will become visually challenged due to implications of what we perceive as reality. He believes that the bombardment of virtual images will remove us as eyewitnesses.
I think that this argument by Virilio is a valid one. If we as beings spend too much time viewing a virtual reality then we are simply removing ourselves from the terrestrial reality. This could very well indeed lead to a disconnect of us being tangible witnesses to events. Imagine the difference of being at the recent Boston Marathon Bombing, virtually and terrestrially, if we hadn’t had people that were tangibly there at the scene then we would have never been able to identify the suspects of the crime. This is just one example of how eyewitness reports are a necessity for our society and an argument against the push to go virtual.
He then goes into discussions of sexuality. He claims that technology is impairing the relationships between men and women. Virilio thinks that technology is driving men and women apart, and will eventually replace the need for relationships between the two sexes.
While this is an interesting perspective I don’t think that it will happen in my lifetime. I think that as human beings the need to carry on relationships, especially those with the opposite sex, is imperative for our survival and because of this it is instinctive. Once we lose our primordial instincts then the machines will have won.
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