Elon University
The prediction, in brief:

Military virtual reality is not a toy or a joke. There is a lot of vaporware in “virtual reality,” but this technology definitely will help people kill each other. Virtual reality happens to be very fashionable at the moment, with some ritzy pop-cultural overtones, but that is accidental.

Predictor: Sterling, Bruce

Prediction, in context:

In a 1993 article for Wired magazine, Bruce Sterling looks at the future of digital warfare, including paying a visit to the U.S. Army’s National Training Center to see the work of the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), the Defense Mapping Agency and the Army’s Topographic Engineering Center. Sterling writes: ”Military virtual reality is not a toy or a joke. There is a lot of vaporware in ‘virtual reality,’ but this technology definitely will help people kill each other. Virtual reality happens to be very fashionable at the moment, with some ritzy pop-cultural overtones, but that is accidental.”

Biography:

Bruce Sterling, a writer, consultant and science fiction enthusiast, wrote or co-wrote “Schismatrix,” “The Hacker Crackdown” and “The Difference Engine” and edited “Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology.” In the 1990s, he wrote tech articles for Fortune, Harper’s, Details, Whole Earth Review and Wired, where he was a contributing writer from its founding. He published the nonfiction book “Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next Fifty Years” in 2002. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)

Date of prediction: January 1, 1993

Topic of prediction: Global Relationships/Politics

Subtopic: Peacekeeping/Warfare

Name of publication: Wired

Title, headline, chapter name: War is Virtual Hell: Bruce Sterling Reports Back from the Electronic Battlefield

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.01/virthell_pr.html

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney