I'm 100% Pro Holodeck, however...

Look, I know technology and invention doesn't work this way, but still, sometimes it feels like instead of a fancy treadmill for VR we could devote our innovative skills, as a species to something like, I don't know, clean energy? Or maybe curing diseases?

"The money's in the treatment, not the cure so...no?"

-The American Healthcare Industry

Sorry for all the gifs, but it's just
easier to show you what I mean.

To be clear, I am one-hundred percent pro-holodeck and this weird treadmill thing the excellently named Lanny Smoot, a Disney Research Fellow (whatever that is) is demonstrating is pretty neat. It's made up of these tile-things which allow a person, or several people, to talk around in different directions without actually moving. Sure, I can go nowhere by just standing still, but combined with say a virtual reality helmet or those giant LED wall displays they film Star Wars in front of, it's basically a real-life holodeck. 

Above: canon. Filthy, filthy canon.

A what? Sorry, I forget that growing up, some of you might have gone outside from time to time. The Holodeck is that room on the Enterprise that can simulate any environment and let you interact with holograms of anyone, living or dead, real or fictional from anywhere and any when. It's a technology that Commander Riker uses, without shame, for holo-sex. Like, in the episode "The Perfect Mate" a sexually frustrated Riker actually calls the bridge to tell him where he'll be. I didn't catch this watching as a kid, but decades later, there it is: canon.

As long as you're swimming around in the money
bin, and not playing out Mrs. Beakley/Duckworth
slashfic, I guess it's ok...Riker, looking at you...

Ok, time to walk this back a bit. It is a step--pun purely unintended and vigorously denied--in the right directions. And that's super, but this technology is not a holodeck. You can't conjure up a sentient, hard light hologram of Professor Moriarity or anything. Not yet, but the often terrifyingly power of the incentive of capitalism means that Disney will be throwing money at Smoot's project until that's exactly what you have, with all the implications that carries with it. Implications like everyone locking themselves up in their DisneyDecks™ and avoiding real life.

Well, I take that back. A little. It would be, and I say this as a grown-ass adult who plays video games, a less sedentary form of entertainment. One of the first applications of something like this is probably going to be a really fancy Peloton that lets you stroll through famous or fictional landscapes. But it's also true that we could, you know, go for a walk and Disney could plant some trees or something. I mean, they are based in Florida. 

And as much as I'd love to see Ron DeSantis have to airboat his way to
work every morning, one: he'd probably enjoy it and he deserves no happiness
in life and two: the flooding will ruin a lot of decent people's lives too.