We should be talking about torture in VR
versions.killscreen.com
versions.killscreen.com
Are we going to ban the drill? The hammer? Towels? Those can all be used for torture, but that's not the use case for 99.999% of all uses.
Now imagine if you could design a prison that mimicked the detainee's worst nightmares. You've probably seen stuff like A Nightmare on Elm Street or the Scarecrow from Batman, right? That could potentially become an actual thing if VR gets really advanced and its used for 'punishment' purposes. It might even be usable for actual brainwashing, if you design the environment so it deliberately destroys each and every one of a subject's political opinions or religious beliefs.
On the bright side, virtual torture could make for some pretty cool horror games in the future. There have already been tons of stories and creepypastas about horrifying games like this on the deep web.
2. The caption for the Guantanamo Bay picture is not accurate. The detainees are kneeling waiting to be processed. (the picture was taken in the first few days Guantanamo opened as a detainee prison): http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/03/16/gitmo-o.... Certainly bad treatment, but hardly sensory deprivation.
It was bigger than most of the cells he had been in. But he hardly noticed his surroundings. All he noticed was that there were two small tables straight in front of him, each covered with green baize. One was only a metre or two from him, the other was further away, near the door. He was strapped upright in a chair, so tightly that he could move nothing, not even his head. A sort of pad gripped his head from behind, forcing him to look straight in front of him.
For a moment he was alone, then the door opened and O'Brien came in.
'You asked me once,' said O'Brien, 'what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.'
The door opened again. A guard came in, carrying something made of wire, a box or basket of some kind. He set it down on the further table. Because of the position in which O'Brien was standing. Winston could not see what the thing was.
'The worst thing in the world,' said O'Brien, 'varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal.'
He had moved a little to one side, so that Winston had a better view of the thing on the table. It was an oblong wire cage with a handle on top for carrying it by. Fixed to the front of it was something that looked like a fencing mask, with the concave side outwards. Although it was three or four metres away from him, he could see that the cage was divided lengthways into two compartments, and that there was some kind of creature in each. They were rats.
'In your case,' said O'Brien, 'the worst thing in the world happens to be rats.'
A sort of premonitory tremor, a fear of he was not certain what, had passed through Winston as soon as he caught his first glimpse of the cage. But at this moment the meaning of the mask-like attachment in front of it suddenly sank into him. His bowels seemed to turn to water.
- George Orwell, 1984
You get old, the world changes, and you just can't hack it, so you turn to controlling others through violence and laws.
"Back in my day sonny..."
I suspect you don't have a phobia like this, and have not dealt with people who do when they are affected by it.
> your last example would give the same response headset or not.
Meaning you view it as effective or ineffective? I used to think things like that had no effect on me. Absolutely none. Then I had children. Now I cry when a movie hints at a child losing a parent or parent losing a child. It's an involuntary reaction to the empathy I have for the situation. I can't control it at all, and this is in fictional settings with fictional characters.