Virtual Reality and The Philosophy Of Obito Uchiha

“You have seen reality, so you ought to know: Not one wish ever gets granted in this miserable world” – Obito Uchiha

The world has already split in two.

We already live in two realities. The “real” world, and the world we see on our screens.

Smartphones come with a “beauty filter” set as default on the camera. The filter smoothens our skin and hides our imperfections. For many, the selfies on their smartphone (and the way they view themselves) are more perfect than reality.

This is just the beginning. Eventually, using VR technology, we will create a perfect second world.

In this perfect second world, we will look exactly how we want to look. The ugly will become beautiful. The fat will become thin. Bald men will have hair again. Women with small breasts will have big ones. Men who can’t grow beards will have them. And the disabled will be able to walk again.

The poor will become rich. Losers will become popular. Men who are useless with women will suddenly have the most beautiful women they can imagine. Men who are too lazy to get a 6-pack will have one. Out-of-shape women will have the bodies of porn stars. And the old will be young again.

This is the perfect second world that will one day be available to us, thanks to VR technology (assuming no catastrophic event stops the forward march of technology).

As this perfect second world emerges, I predict that an entirely new philosophy will emerge.

And this future philosophy is encapsulated perfectly in the fictional character of Obito Uchiha.

The fictional story of Obito Uchiha shows us how many will start to think once a second, fantasy reality is available to us through the use of VR technology.

The Philosophy Of Obito Uchiha

The story of Obito Uchiha is the story of a tragedy.

As a teenager, Obito was clumsy, awkward, untalented and always late. However, he had a kind heart and frequently did good deeds like helping old ladies cross the road.

He fell in love with a girl called Rin and he obsessed over her constantly. Rin, however, preferred the cooler, more talented and more handsome Kakashi.

One day, Rin was captured by a pair of bandits who tied her up inside a cave. Obito and Kakashi heroically fought the bandits and saved her.

Upon escaping the cave, Obito was crushed by a boulder.

After saying their heartfelt goodbyes, Rin and Kakashi left him to die.

Miraculously, Obito survived the incident, using a new power to slip into a cave below. His body was half-broken, but after months of effort, he trained himself back to health. He swore to himself that he would make it back to his friend Kakashi, and the love of his life Rin.

(Read the following panels from right to left)

Yet after getting outside and finally finding Kakashi and Rin once again, to his sheer horror, he found that girl of his dreams had been murdered.

Obito then concludes that the world he lives in, reality itself, is actually hell.

Having concluded that reality is actually hell, a nihilistic philosophy begins to form inside Obito’s head.

He then vows to use his powers to create an alternate, fantasy reality where Rin is alive once again, where there is no war and where there are only winners and no losers.

He subsequently abandons all hope for reality in the pursuit of his alternative, perfect world.

Is this the ramblings of an insane, fictional character? Or does Obito Uchiha (or the manga artist who created him) have a point?

Let’s take a look at reality itself, and see how it weighs up against what will be possible inside virtual reality in the future.

Death: Reality vs Virtual reality

\”To me, Rin is someone not meant to die. So the dead Rin is an imposter. Rin is only Rin, alive\” – Obito Uchiha

Death in Reality

When you remove all romantic lenses and look at our reality with a cold rational mindset, things get dark very quickly indeed.

Just think. One day, you’re going to die. You might die at 95 years old having lived a fulfilled and interesting life. You might die in 5 years. Or next year. Or today. And you have very little control over when it will happen.

On top of that, every single person that you know today will also die. Your grandparents. Your parents. Your friends. The love of your life. Your children. Everybody you care about will die.

All of the people you see walking around every day; they’re all going to die. The young children playing in the playground — they too will die someday. And if you become famous, having achieved great things; those who remember you after you die will also soon die themselves. The history books with your name inside will eventually decay and deteriorate.

Over time, your body will age and deteriorate. Your skin will wrinkle. Your hair will turn grey. You will become unattractive to the opposite sex. You will get weaker and slower. Your back will begin to ache. The lubricant inside your joints will dry up making them stiff. Your eyesight will gradually get worse.

Your brain will become slow and dull. Your creative abilities will decline. And you’re unlucky enough to get alzheimer’s disease, you may even begin to forget the faces of those you love.

You might one day be diagnosed with cancer, and cancerous cells will multiply inside your body until you die.

The world can be a very cruel place indeed. But how would we experience death inside virtual reality?

Death in Virtual Reality

In the future, a simulated version of the dead will be brought back to life. Human image synthesis technologies like deepfakes, as well as audio generating software like Adobe Voco will be able to simulate the faces (along with their facial movements) and voices of our deceased loved ones.

Theoretically, just as deepfake AI scans hundreds of images of a person’s face to create a realistic synthetic human face, AI technologies will be able to analyse hundreds of video clips of a human being and create a relatively accurate representation of their personality and mannerisms.

AI will be able to create a shockingly life-like replica of our deceased loved ones inside virtual reality.

Let’s take an example. A 30-year-old man tragically loses his wife in a car accident. In shock, and not knowing how to deal with the sudden loss, he puts on his VR headset. In the virtual world, within a few hours, he downloads a virtual AI replica of his wife.

This AI replica will make direct eye contact with him. It will sound and look exactly as his wife as he remembers her. Her body language and mannerisms will seem to be exactly like her. And her personality, while different from his dead wife in subtle ways, will be eerily similar.

For many, this life-like replica may interrupt the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance), trapping many in the first stage of denial. The man in this scenario may begin to believe or rationalise, that the digitised version of his wife is just as real as his dead wife in the physical world.

After all, what is “real” in the first place? Who are we to tell this man what’s real and what isn’t? If the man is happy, we should leave him be; this will be the argument used by those who are “Pro Virtual Reality”. We will be told that we need to be “open-minded” and accept this man’s decision to live with his virtual wife inside of VR.

As for aging, we will be able to use digital filters (just as those you can already use on Snapchat, for example) to change our age. A 65-year-old woman will be able to look as though she’s 21 years old inside of VR if she so wishes. And various voice technologies will also give her the voice of a cute 21-year-old.

In the philosophy of the future, people will believe that reality itself is unjust and evil. They will see the passing of time and the aging of the human beings as a wrong that needs to be righted. They will believe that their loved ones inside of virtual reality are just as real as they are in our reality.

“Reality just keeps cruelly moving forward” – Obito Uchiha

Romance & Sex: Reality vs virtual reality

Romance & Sex In Reality:

As the black pill ideology already states, so much of our romantic and sex lives are brutally unfair.

Short men face a dating market that is brutally unfair. Due to genetic factors that are entirely out of their control, their dating lives are far more difficult than they are for taller men.

Some women are cursed with broad shoulders and a body that gains weight quickly and easily, while other women are blessed with a curvy body and metabolism that burns off all calories that touch their lips.

Some men have bodies that gain muscle excruciatingly slowly, while others build muscle after just a few weeks lifting weights. Some men start losing their hair in their early 20s, while others keep a beautiful head of hair into their 60s.

Facial symmetry is another hugely important marker of attraction. Through the genetic lottery, some people are gifted symmetrical faces with high cheekbones and strong jawlines, while others are given strange, ugly-looking faces. Everywhere they go, those with attractive faces are treated better. They’re more likely to pass job interviews, more likely to be invited to parties and others even build entire careers for themselves, making millions of dollars and becoming wealthy based on their looks alone.

Online dating apps amplify this natural unfairness even further, with a small percentage of highly attractive men receiving almost all of the attention from women, not because of their personality or their hard-earned achievements, but because of the facial bone structure and body type they were gifted through the genetic lottery.

Worse still, the genetically blessed are completely unaware of their attractiveness privilege, going through their entire lives believing all of their romantic and career successes were earned through nothing more than hard work and determination.

Those cursed with ugly features have the exact opposite experience, being discriminated against in every area of their lives due to something completely out of their control.

Anyone who makes an effort to look at the reality of romance and sex as it actually is rather than through a rose-tinted lens will quickly find that, no, beauty is not in the eye of the beholder and that some people are universally more attractive than others.

While there are all kinds of ways individuals can improve their romantic and sex lives, in many ways the world of dating is brutally unfair.

Romance & Sex In Virtual Reality:

Inside the virtual reality technologies of the future, you’ll be able to have sex with anybody you want at any time you please.

Deepfake technologies will allow you to digitally attach the face of your crush, your co-worker or a celebrity onto a body inside a pornographic scenario. It will become common knowledge for women that men will be having sex with them inside a digital world without their consent. As all of us post large numbers of images of our faces on social media, deepfake technology will be able to scan these images and create a visual model of your face.

After all, deepfake pornography of celebrities has already been available for some time now.

In virtual reality, you won’t watch pornographic scenarios from a 3rd-person perspective, you’ll engage with them in the first person — making what feels like direct eye contact with your partner.

On top of that, sex technology such as robotic fleshlights and robotic dildos will stimulate the human body in-sync with the sexual act being performed inside of VR.

You’ll be able to live out all of your most taboo and absurd sexual fantasies whenever you please inside of VR. This, of course, will lead large numbers of people to prefer VR sex to real sex. Particularly for men, for whom emotional connection with their partner is less required for an enjoyable experience.

It’s also possible that an entirely new sexual preference will emerge — “Digisexual”: those whose preference is to have sex in a digital world rather than in reality. After all, digital sex will not carry the risks of pregnancy and STD’s, and will be far more accessible and effortless for both sexes.

When it comes to romance, both men and women will be able to date their crush inside of virtual reality. If a girl rejects a man in reality, he can simply date and have sex with this girl inside of virtual reality.

In virtual reality, everybody will be successful with the opposite sex, and nobody will be left alone; for many, this will be a fairer and more just world than reality. After all, how is it fair that so many of us end up completely alone, or with partners we don’t truly desire because of genetic factors that are largely out of our control?

Virtual reality will bring true equality to the dating market and pretty privilege will cease to exist. After all, everybody will be attractive inside of virtual reality (if they so choose to be).

A New Interchangeable Identity

“I’m no one. I don’t want to be anyone” – Obito Uchiha

In our world today, many of us want to be someone that we’re not. Many of us live vicariously through celebrities, influencers or actors. More recently, some want to change their own gender.

Inside of VR, there will be no fixed identity, you’ll be able to have a different identity every day of the week. One day, you’ll be able to live the lifestyle of a famous musician. The next day, you could be the president of a country. The next: a billionaire CEO.

All of these lifestyles could be simulated inside of VR. And as for our real identity? In reality? Who cares about that.

The Solution

When the perfect, second world is available to us, a new ideology will come along with it. They will believe that virtual reality is just as real as reality. They will believe that reality is hell and that virtual reality is heaven. They will believe that virtual reality is fair and just, while reality is cruel and unfair. And they will have lots of good arguments that will be difficult to counter.

But those inside a perfect virtual reality world will always have a problem — that nagging sense that what they’re experiencing isn’t “real”. That sense that all of their supposed “successes” they achieve inside of virtual reality without effort haven’t been earned.

They may be in a relationship with the woman of their dreams inside of virtual reality, but they will always have a nagging sense of inadequacy. A quiet knowing — that they could never date a woman like her in the real world. A constant feeling that, despite all of the incredible stimulus provided by VR, that they’re a fraud. That none of what they experience inside of VR was earned or achieved.

Therefore, we can conclude that the greatest forms of pleasure available to human beings are available only in reality, and not in virtual reality. For it is only in reality, when our successes are genuinely achieved through our own efforts, that we experience a deep feeling of pride and achievement.

It is only in reality that we know our romantic partner is attracted to our entire being, despite its flaws. It is only in reality, that we can have sex with someone who genuinely respects and adores us.

And these are feelings virtual reality simply can’t replicate.

(The only solution to this problem is, like in The Matrix, we are made to forget that we are inside of VR).

People continually rave about the amazing graphics of video games. “It looks so realistic!” or “Woah it looks so amazing in 4K!” they say.

When the perfect, second world is created, it will have stunning graphics; the sunsets, forests and lakes inside of virtual reality will initially blow our minds.

Despite all this, the digital graphics inside of virtual reality and video games are still nothing more than an imitation of reality.

You might be able to watch a movie in 4K graphics, but there is no higher resolution than reality itself. Look around you, everything is totally HD!

No virtual reality world could ever be as deeply complex and detailed as reality itself. Take an ordinary table and put it under a microscope, and look at how complex that table really is. Take a powerful telescope and point it into the night sky and look at the endless stars and galaxies in the universe. No virtual reality system could ever compare to reality itself.

One day in the future, a perfect, second world will be available to us inside of virtual reality. Eventually, each of us will have to make a choice: Reality or Virtual reality.

Many will argue that reality itself is hell and virtual reality is heaven; yet if too many of choose virtual reality, then reality will be neglected, and it will indeed become hell.

Despite how perfect and ideal a virtual reality world may appear, we should not sacrifice reality for an inferior imitation.

Even a perfect digital world could never be as satisfying as the imperfect one you were born into.