I was highly interested in how the Internet feels about realistic VR and how that changes the dating marketplace.
Here’s the best comments.
SIMON Q.
I expect that there will also be a movement to ban them, or at least slander the men who use them. I think this is just a natural step in the evolution of our modern dystopian society.
Currently, the problem is that there just isn’t enough female hotness in the world to satisfy all the male desire. Things like immigration and social media make this a global issue, e.g. by allowing thirsty guys from India to bombard girls all around the world via something as Instagram. Unlike most problems, this cannot be solved by throwing more money at the problem, because women don’t grow on trees or in factories.
If all men suddenly got their shit together and started producing more wealth, guess what? They’re still going to be competing for the same pool of women, many with inflated egos and waistbands. Women are not going to magically get hotter or thinner or more plentiful just through hard work and economic growth. It is only a matter of time before something happens to correct this imbalance, much as nature would correct an imbalance due to overpopulation or extinction.
VR sex robots are one such possible thing that arises to restore balance. We should be glad it is something so benign, as opposed to e.g. a war that wipes out a double-digit percentage of the global male population.
There’s strong reason for these to take over in the dating market. Not to defend these, advocate for these or defend men who rely on these things, but I can see why many would use them.
Dating apps have made dating hyper competitive, statistics show that only the top 20% of men are actually getting successful dates on dating apps, many just give up.
Dating can also be really difficult on both partners, lots of responsibilities to keep each other happy, lots of fights to navigate your way through. It’s very common for guys coming out of their first relationship to go through a long phase where they just rely on porn and streamers to meet sexual and emotional needs, and if unlucky they don’t come out of this phase. People who can say porn doesn’t replace relationships is a little naive.The problem has been around for a while in other countries, like Japan and Korea and has spread to the west, people being put under a lot of pressure, losing the will to date, becoming reclusive hikkikomori. Idol culture and parasocial relationships with camgirls or streamers where men get their emotional needs met.
It’s easy to joke on ‘simps’ but there’s just some saddening psychological factors at work that research just hasn’t properly figured out yet.It’s easy to joke on the guy that publicly and legally married Love Plus visual novel character, just the guy obviously had been through a lot where he could no longer trust people. It’s just a shame.
It sounds funny, but this is a serious problem and several organizations have declared worldwide declining birth rates as a crisis. And it’s not just men, it can happen to women too. It’s just that men for biological reasons are much more likely to fall into these psychological behaviors.
Things like vtubers that have blown up recently are the next step. I love vtubers, but the fact mainly female vtubers have blown up can mean it satisfies some kind of emotional need for many men. They no longer have a real identity attached to the persona, no drama, their real life issues are not attached to the character they play. Compared to a lot of Twitch streamers, vtubers are a lot less risky of an emotional investment.
Now that a human identity is taken out, imagine if the human behind the character could be taken out altogether and an AI takes its place? There’s only 40 years or so until the estimated AI singularity where AI can perfectly replicate a human being. Very likely the next generation that’s gonna grow up with this stuff. If VR and AI are successful in satisfying both sexual and emotional needs, it’s gonna take a huge chunk of people out of the dating market and make actual dating extremely rare. I don’t see it as funny like many people, just saddening because many people are gonna fall for it.
Written by Editorial Staff