Furthermore, you didn’t even respond to my Airsoft comment because it disproves your entire idea. AirSoft is the closest you can be to actually shooting people and you don’t lose touch with reality because of it. It doesn’t cause people to pick up a real 9mm and shoot people in the street. If we can abstract an almost perfect simulation of shooting another human, we can handle VR. You’re worried about simulations of reality when we do absolute fine with doing these things IN reality.

I don't talk about your airsoft idea because I find it laughable how you ignore the environment around airsoft as if most of the people involved in airsoft aren't playing war games fulfilling jingoist fantasies of the imperial nation that they've been raised in. But if you'd like me to address it; feel free to put an airsoft gun to your head, pull the trigger, and then get back to me if the feeling of the pellet bouncing off your skull encourages you to do it again the way people are whining about not being able to do it in VR anymore since that's what this conversation spawned from in the first place.

Then why haven’t we seen psychosis in people who read books or listen to stories? If this was something to worry about, we all would have turned into Don Quixote in our literature class. You’re acting as if humans haven’t been doing this for literally 6000+ years now.

What makes you think we haven't? As if there aren't fucking massive fandoms of people cosplaying and getting way too into their favorite characters. Entire industries built on fulfilling those fantasies. A book, television, or movie is such a small portion of our lives, of our sensory inputs, and yet it fully takes over some peoples' lives.