Virtual Reality as a Problem of the Electronic Economy

Two concepts of virtual reality are competing in the cyber world, virtual reality as total adaptability and virtual reality as the simulation of possible worlds. Virtuality as adaptability in industrial production leads to a closer consideration of individual con-sumer demand and to de-massified production. It implies a stronger reference of pro-duction to the reality of consumer needs. The aesthetic concept of virtual reality as pos-sible words and fictional realities can imply a loss of reality. Both concepts of virtuality interact, however. Adaptive production needs the experimentation of imagined and simulated possible worlds. Virtual reality leads to a disembodiment of experience and to the danger of the loss of the validation of perception by experience. The concept of the virtual is originally a concept of theological origin, signifying invisible but real potenti-ality or a reality that is real only as potentiality. One of the most important innovations of the virtual reality of the internet has taken place in financial markets in online trading and online brokerage. The virtual reality of the internet financial markets enables large strata of the population to participate in stock market speculation, leading to a kind of people’s capitalism. Problems caused by the virtual character of the transactions in online trading are the churning of traders and the over-trading of shares by investors.