8-8-95. NYPaper: "War of the Worlds: Cyberspace and the High-Tech Assault on Reality." [Book review] Ominous signs already exist, says the scholar Mark Slouka that virtual reality has begun to replace real life -- or "R.L.," as it is dismissively referred to by computer freaks. Even those poor benighted folks who have yet to enter the computer age appear to have started down "the road to unreality," says Mr. Slouka: PONA's (or "persons of no account," as they're known on line) can be found in front of their television sets, watching fictionalized accounts of real-life events, or at ballgames, listening to radio broadcasts of the very game being played before their eyes. As Mr. Slouka puts it, more and more of us "accept the copy as the original," a development that is sure to accelerate in coming years with lasting social, cultural and political effects. Mr. Slouka foresees a sinister new world in which telecommunications replaces physial contact and meaningless abstractions replace a sense of community and place: a solipsistic world turned in on itself and easily subject to manipulation by politicians. PTM_kin [Mark Slouka, John Perry Barlow, Kevin Kelly and Sven Birkerts beavis-butt and wayne-garth about cyber-duh in the August Harper's.]