There and the Pentagon are considering a virtual reality simulation of the world. The Semantic Earth meets Baudrillard's Borgesian dream of a 1:1 map -
the cartographers of an imaginary Empire "draw up a map so detailed that it ends up covering exactly covering the territory" so that the real territory underneath the map is obscured. The people of this Empire come to relate more closely to this map than they do to the original territory underneath (they live, work, and play on it, etc.) When, eventually, the map becomes tattered and frayed, and ultimately disintegrates, the people become nostalgic for it, feeling that they have lost something. The real territory which is now revealed to them seems alien, unfamiliar.
I anticipate an augmented reality iteration.
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