The dangerous fantasy of cybernetic cops

This article was originally featured on MIT Press Reader. This article is adapted from Marcus Carter and Ben Egliston's book "Fantasies of Virtual Reality." The political and cultural theorist Paul Virilio famously wrote that we live in a state of permanent (or "pure") war. By this, he meant that there is an increasing "perversion" of any clear-cut distinction between civilian and military institutions and, by extension, civilian and military life. According to Virilio, after the Second World War, Western economies and societies were permanently reorganized to support military power.