Avatars and Simulated Culture

• People basically interact in the template of MMORPG in the sense of Second Life or Little Big Planet in every day life and like World of Warcraft in entertainment.
• The avatars that people pick are subject to the same kinds of critical scrutiny that real peoples are so people are constantly adjusting themselves to the types that they choose.
• People choose a sub-culture to identify with and it forms a type of tribalism.
• On an individual level people appear to each other as they want them to - much like a Facebook profile.
• The interconnectivity coupled with the technical integration of the people with their chips allow people access into each other's minds.
• People can eavesdrop on someone's experiences, not just their conversations.
• e.g. professional athletes, characters in movies (a completely first person perspective), porns stars (the most popular activity for many).
• This aspect of the reality can be emphasized through the voice of the narrator who shifts between 3rd and 1st person to the degree that he feels integrated.
• Begins mainly in the third person when he's occupying different people's heads. Graduates into first person as he can't distinguish himself from the collective mentality.
• Possibly the narrative as a whole can begin totally in third person and progress to the point where everything is first person (including all of humanity).
• Those who aren't integrated are almost like a virus(/terrorists) (especially those who want to destroy the system)
• When the hive mind decides that it can't tolerate the old humanity, it turns against it and treats it as a disease
• In China nobody has a choice, join the hive or die.
• In the rest of the world we see the rest of the spectrum between complete rejection and partial integration.
• For some the integration into certain subcultures enhances the power that cults like Scientology have. Techno-cults become the new religions.
• The Judeo-Christian religions become integrated and experience a resurgence. However they become entirely new religions that retain some of the previous facets, (like how Christianity adapted pagan rituals to its own litany) but are entirely new stages in the evolution of religion/collective consciousness.
• Parallel between religion and collective conciousness - even though integration and religion seem to be directly at odds with each other, they are essentially aiming to be the same.
• Religion is just threatened that technology could do it better than G-d.