David Foster Wallace:
I'm not saying watching t.v. is bad, or a waste of your time anymore than - like - masturbation is bad or a waste of your time; it's pleasant little way to spend a few minutes - but if you're doing it 20 times day; if your primary sexual relationship is with your hand - something is wrong...
David Lipsky:
Yeah, except with masturbation at least some action is being performed, right; isn't it that, that's better?
David Foster Wallace:
Ok; you can make me look like a real dick if you print this...
David Lipsky:
[laughs]
No, I'm not going to - but if you can, speak into the mike...
David Foster Wallace:
Yes, you're performing muscular movements with your hand as you're jerking off. But what you're really doing, I think, is you're running a movie in your head. You're having a fantasy relationship with somebody who is not real... strictly to stimulate a neurological response. So as the Internet grows in the next 10, 15 years... and virtual reality pornography becomes a reality, we're gonna have to develop some real machinery inside our guts... to turn off pure, unalloyed pleasure. Or, I don't know about you, I'm gonna have to leave the planet. 'Cause the technology is just gonna get better and better. And it's gonna get easier and easier... and more and more convenient and more and more pleasurable... to sit alone with images on a screen... given to us by people who do not love us but want our money. And that's fine in low doses, but if it's the basic main staple of your diet, you're gonna die.
David Lipsky:
Well, come on.
David Foster Wallace:
In a meaningful way, you're going to die.
