We are entering a world where there won't be one but two realities, just like we have two eyes or hear bass and treble tones, just like we now have stereoscopy and stereophony: there will be two realities: the actual, and the virtual. Thus there is no simulation, but substitution. Reality has become symmetrical. The splitting of reality in two parts is a considerable event which goes far beyond simulation.
Paul VirilioThe cinema was certainly an art, but television can't be, because it is the museum of accidents. In other words, its art is to be the site where all accidents happen. But that's its only art.
Paul VirilioCyberspace is acting like God and deals with the idea of God who is, sees and hears everything.
Paul VirilioLook at the US, look at Russia. Both of these countries are immense geographical territories. But, nowadays, immense territories amount to nothing!
Paul VirilioThe globally constituted accident can be compared to what people who work at the stock exchange call 'systemic risk'.
Paul VirilioThere are three bombs. The first one is the atomic bomb, which disintegrates reality, the second one is the digital or computer bomb, which destroys the principle of reality itself - not the actual object - and rebuilds it, and finally the third bomb is the demographic one. Some experts have found out that in five thousand years from now, the weight of the population will be heavier than the weight of the planet. That means that humanity will constitute a planet of its own!
Paul Virilio