VR has roots in thousands of years of technology, says author and visionary Shel Israel, some we don’t always recognize. He broke it down on our podcast: Everything VR & AR.

Beyond recent technologies germinating VR/AR, it goes back to Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, early-20th century Czech literature, and even ancient Greek philosophy.

“It was seen in science fiction but a lot of this goes back over a thousand years,” says Israel. “We are going where humans were always destined to go, but we just didn’t know it.”

The historical angle reflects what we discussed with Israel at the VRARA SF chapter launch. Meanwhile, innovation cycles are accelerating and the digital divide is widening.

Today, millennials are advantaged while older generations that adopt VR/AR will be be part of a personally-empowered future. But due to fear, habit or ideology, many will not he asserts.

Israel continued the discussion on these and many other VR/AR-related topics in the podcast. Stream it out here or subscribe on iTunes.

//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/4294271/height/360/width/940/theme/custom/autonext/no/thumbnail/yes/autoplay/no/preload/no/no_addthis/no/direction/backward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/099ff4/