The globally constituted accident can be compared to what people who work at the stock exchange call 'systemic risk'.
Paul VirilioIn a way, technologies have negated the transcendental God in order to invent the machine-God. However, these two gods raise similar questions.
Paul VirilioWorld War Two was a world war in space. It spread from Europe to Japan, to the Soviet Union, etc. World War Two was quite different from World War One which was geographically limited to Europe. But in the case of the Gulf War, we are dealing with a war which is extremely local in space, but global in time, since it is the first 'live' war.
Paul VirilioThese new technologies try to make virtual reality more powerful than actual reality, which is the true accident. The day when virtual reality becomes more powerful than reality will be the day of the big accident. Mankind never experienced such an extraordinary accident.
Paul VirilioMany people question their religious identity today, not necessarily by thinking of converting to Judaism or to Islam: it's just that technologies seriously challenge the status of the human being. All technologies converge toward the same spot, they all lead to a Deus ex Machina, a machine-God.
Paul Virilio