Hey folks--

I came across a trailer for a new movie based on the graphic novel Surrogates. LINK

Plot: The year is 2054, and life is reduced to a data feed. The fusing of virtual reality and cybernetics has ushered in the era of the personal surrogate, android substitutes that let users interact with the world without ever leaving their homes. It's a perfect world, and it's up to Detectives Harvey Greer and Pete Ford of the Metro Police Department to keep it that way. But to do so they’ll need to stop a techno-terrorist bent on returning society to a time when people lived their lives instead of merely experiencing them.

Thoughts on its application to SR, the use of VR, hot sim, and drones to separate the humanity of the world. There have been a few threads about rigging drones and using AIs in drones recently that may feed into the debate.

Kinda brings to mind the Proteus board of directors don't it?

Sounds like fun on your extreme sports vacation, but a hellish way to "live" your life.

Mechanically it can be done within the system for most jobs. I agree that living that way would be unfulfilling, though with the sim upgrades, you may not be able to tell the difference. What about when 'running? The dangers faced on a normal misison are probably commensurate to extreme sports.

What do people think of the social implications--showing up to a meet for example? In a cost-sum analysis, is it worth it?

If survival is your main concern, yes. But, off of the amount a typical runner makes, survival would have to be your only real concern, i.e. a rich runner who runs for fun, or who has reason to have a bunch of extra bodies laying around for some reason, a crippled rigger or some such. Which, I think, would change the dynamic in the shadows if it happened all the time. Of course, if the corps knew they'd be even less likely to come after you, It'd be that much harder to actually get you.

A similar thing was central to a book I just read called Black Glass. The main antagonist corp has developed "semblants," which are effectively perfect copies of your mind and personality that you send to do virtual business in your stead. Decent book. Not earth shattering, but fun.

BTLs give you the artificial scripted high. Now with drone bodies you can do everything including getting killed. The only problem is that a full cyborg body still costs more than a luxury sedan, so unless the price comes way down they are not disposable teens.

All teens are disposable, weither they're meat or metal makes no difference.

I've read part of the graphic novel and own it. I actually put it down because it was a little dry. They play with gender identity and things of that nature as it's not presumed that if your surrogate is out with a female surrogate that her controller is actually female.