Would civilisation just crumble as people spent their whole time in their own private sexatoria*?
Would you be into using a machine like that?
Is holodeck addiction the next great epidemic??!
I think that they would be fairly expensive at the beginning, and a certain portion of people would overindulge in sex, but affter a while it would get pretty boring - I could really see them limiting it to non sexual stuff in the public access ones - sort of like that film noir world, or world of warcraft/doom/whatever egoshooter you happen to like. I think the highly expensive privately owned ones would have pretty much whatever you want to have programmed in.
I see a huge training/simulator potential here. As aruvqan pointed out, they’d be expensive as all hell, but the airlines (or NASA, or ESA) would sink the money into it for giant simulators. I mean, simulators try to replicate everyting as best they can–sound, motion, visuals, smells, etc. What better way than in a holodeck?
Tripler
Yeah, you can tell what grad-level class I just finished, can’t you?
Holo-brothels.
The sex industry would go nuts over this since technically it would not be prostitution. There would be at least one in every major city, possibly more depending on the population. Prostitution would drop to almost nothing as there would now be a safe, legal way for men to get their jollies.
Hmm, 50% of posters in this thread so far think that it’s only men who would be interested in realistic, simulated sex with willing, desirable partners.
I’ve got news for you. Women want that, too.
Yo, I got yo holodeck…RIGHT HERE!!!
It’s just you, me, and $240 worth of puddin’. AAwwww yeaaaahhh.
Once they became ubiquitous, “real” civilization would crumble. Not just because of holo-whores, but because of the kinds of preferences that could be accommodated. Why be a 21st century tax accountant when you could be an 18th century king, or a Civil War general, or a super star basketball player? Or a starship captain.
That’s not to say that human interaction wouldn’t happen. I could see people still craving the company of real people, but there’d be no reason for that interaction to take place in a “realistic” setting. People could just flit from one gigantic MMORPG to another at whim – you could arrange to meet some friends at a wild west saloon, then meet up with some more acquaintances to beat the Red Sox in Game 7 of the 1986 World Series. Then you could top off the evening by going “home” and having a sex romp with Mata Hari and the Olsen twins (circa 2003).
Why would you ever leave?
Not only that, but every sexual perversion imaginable would be possible. That would lead to some very interesting court cases over obscenity laws.
I agree to a certain extent.
I think that access to do and be whatever you wanted to do and be, whenever you wanted it would lead to addiction like society has never known. I think that the novelty of using it for sex would wear off pretty quickly, but for the kinds of things that VarlosZ mentions, I think that there would be a lot of people “drowning their sorrows” in that sort of world.
A lot of Milton Milquetoasts would be Ahnold, or Axel Rose, or the POTUS as often as they could. A lot of wallflowers would be Catherine Zeta-Jones and you get the picture. A lot of people would have “glory days” holo-programs from when they were the prom queen or star quarterback (because for a lot of us, that’s the last time we get to be The Star).
A lot of outwardly successful people would use this as well. Not that I wouldn’t like to see something like this come about, I could use a trip back in time to some of my happier days via a holo-program myself.
I think if they were widespread enough to the point of actually threatening real human life, there would definitely be rebel groups of people who opposed the holodecks and sought to destroy them. And I’d be part of it. I think the idea of it is fucked up.
Birth rate would drop to zero . . . except for 3rd world populations and the Amish, who would repopulate the planet.
How so?
You wouldn’t be breaking any laws cuz it aint for real whatever you do to that sheep or goat
What would happen next?
It would involve Seven of Nine and the phrase “Resistance is futile”.
That is all.
Assuming it didn’t take stupidly large amounts of power to run, it could be a revolution in housing - you can have as big a house as you like, situated on as much land as you like (your own planet, even) - all inside the holodeck.
The tiny little problem is that it just isn’t possible - ST never adequately explained how the holodeck can simulate spaces much, much larger than itself - they offered handwavey fudge explanations a few times, but never anything really satisfying.
I’m in my 20 metre square holodeck with my friend - we’re in a simulation of a wide open space such as a sandy beach. We brought a long spool of kite string with us. My friend takes the end of the string and I take the spool - we walk in opposite directions from each other. What happens next?
(ETA)
I mean, I can think of a solution to the above, but it’s crap.
Star Trek style Holodecks might be crap, but they were based on creating holograms, which is crap. Jacking into someone’s brain and directly inputing sensory information based off of a computer simulation would be (theoretically) entirely possible.
Personally, regardless of how good the AI might ever be, I think people would rather play with other people, so you’d have networked holodecks. Once you have that, there’s really not a big difference between the holodeck network and Second Life.
Agreed. I think such a thing would divide society - there would be people who were happy to embrace it, and others who would shun it in favour of gritty reality.
What would happen next?
Obviously the damned thing would malfunction, safety parameters would be accidently erased and we will have to find a way to invent an independantly sentient android who is immune to holographic projections to save us.
On the non-smartassed side, I would think that if the average Jeremy Noone could spend a little time being fawned over by swimsuit models or solving crisis’ as the POTUS then the boost to the ego, as well as social and problem solving skills, would be invaluable. However there are those who are not egotistically challenged for whom a little artificial humility would be advantagious.
All in all not a bad thing.
Oh yes, and the world would be taken over by Professor Moriarty… 
Assuming holodeck technology is perfected to the extent it was in Star Trek, would anyone ever want to interact with another human? In Deep Space Nine and Voyager, you had characters like the Doctor and Vic Fontaine (and even “Moriarty” in Geordi’s Holmes simulation) who were even self-aware of their existence as holograms and probably could qualify as sentient beings on their own. People interacted with them as if they were real, despite knowing the difference. They were treated almost as Data the android was, as fully independent beings, instead of artificial constructs. You could have the computer create an endless number of “friends” for you, each one as individual and lifelike as any organic being.
Just think of it…twin Scarlett Johanssons…and all yours
Rowrrrr