Out of Pod Experience

Right, because playing a submarine simulator with a starscape skybox is totally a good simulation for actual spaceflight, and that will totally happen in a timeframe where EVE is even remembered,

you should have stayed playing with bananas and trees...

EVE is just a game in the sense of loosing a ship is meaningless in the long run. Its not real, just pixels.
However, a persons experiences in EVE cause real emotions and can severely change your life or your thoughts around certain things.

Granted most of the things you hear about in EVE is the bad stuff... Someone stole something, someone got ganked, someone was trolled on the forums and so on and we laugh about it because its just how EVE is and most would not want it any differently (EVE would be very boring without these things).

But once in a while there is those good things...
People meet and become friends on a level that is deeper then "online gamers friends", people get married because they met in the game, people grief when corp members or friends die in real life. Real life death threats, harassment at the point where someone gets mentally wrecked, loyalty towards your corp banner and fellow members, respect and understanding for things you did now know about/consider before (mental illness is big here),broken hearts, friendships getting destroyed or simply learning to keep the friendship despite someones ingame actions, learning patience with things you normally cant stand... The list goes on!

All these things happens to people who play EVE (and other online games) on a regular basis, but we dont think about the significance these small (and big) actions have on either our self or someone else.

So... No EVE is not real, and even if its a nice thought i dont believe that at some point in the far future EVE will have a big/any impact on what we do. But it IS real in the sense that there are things that happens in EVE that affects us deeply in real life and helps shape us as a human being.

Of course flying an ares in EVE won't help you much in the future(maybe), but i'm sure 95% of EVE players are waiting to be with the stars in real life. So I agree.

EVE is real, also spacelootfairy.

obligatory Space Camp link.

Your knowledge of nullsec is a few years out of date.

How people imagine the future has, by looking at history, been wrong practically without exception. The 20th century "house of the future" had huge computers, robots, all glossy-white surfaces etc. What actually happened was computers got much smaller, not bigger. Take 2001, the size of Hal, for example. We certainly don't have AI, but we have much smaller computers.

So even our relatively short-term "predictions" of the future are pretty off. Now you're extrapolating not just decades, or centuries, but thousands of years into the future, and imaging somehow that this game (which would have to be venerated for just as many thousands of years to survive) will help real spaceflight. Not only is this wrong on gameplay level (there is no drag in space, you don't just burn your engines towards where you want to go, you manipulate your orbit and let gravity do the work, jump-gates are completely far-fetched), but you also assume the human race will still be alive in thousands of years.

tl;dr: Eve is just a game, don't kid yourself into thinking you're serving some grand purpose.

Were getting very close to having the tools we need to travel to, and colonise, alien planets. The level of research and development in the field of DNA and Genetic modification/engineering is advancing at an accelerating rate.
Why is Genetic engineering important for inhabiting foriegn planets you might ask? Well in order to be successfull in colonising an alien ecosystem we would need to make sure we are able to modify the human body to cope with, and thrive in, such an environment. Our diagnostic skills and understanding are advanced enough, already, to analyse a foriegn ecosystem and its chemistry, gravity physical constraints etc; all that remains is to advance our understanding of genetic engineering, to match, so that we can design the bodily make up of our 'interpid colonists' to match, and thrive in, any given alien planetary system.
Our Communications systems would have difficulty with long distance realtime communications infact at this stage i beleive this would be an impossibility. However, it seems that all we need to discover is a new signal carrier that can move thru space in real time. Perhaps the study of some newly discovered spacial property such as dark matter will provide this ? Perhaps dark matter displacal vibration would offer some kind of space age smoke signal; thus providing the early space faring humans with the real time communications they need ?
Propulsion would appear to be possible but exteremley slow even with the use of cryostasis so much time would pass on earth that by the time our colonists arrive at thier new home the Human race may well have ended on earth or moved into some new era completley alien to the world we know now? We alreay have the possibility to travel to stange new worlds but would this offer any type of advancement for the core of humanity if we are unable to recognise our alien brothers ? Some new form of space travel would need to be discovered if we would ever be able to build the kind of space community experienced in Eve online. At this stage that limitation would appear to be beyond us, but who knows tommorow is another day :)
We must not let the enthusiasm and positivity, for the future of the human race, generated by the 60's space exploration and moon landings, be lost. Humanitys curiosity of its self and its domain are ultimatley our greatest strengths and must constantly be excersised and rejuvenated; In short we must use it or loose it.

PEACE o/

Planetary Interaction? Screw that, i'm into that sweet moon goo. But i'm betting the Jovians alpha anyone who approaches Europa...