In Paul Virilio's theory, "polar inertia" is a paradoxically immobile state that arises from the extreme speed of modern technology and telecommunications, where the instantaneous transmission of information replaces the need for physical movement and lived experience of space. 

Core Concepts of Polar Inertia

Immobility in a World of Speed: While everything around us accelerates due to technology, the human body and our immediate physical environment become increasingly passive and fixed. We go "nowhere fast," as events come to us instantaneously via screens, rather than us having to travel to the events.

• Replacement of Real Space by Real Time: The "real time" of action-at-a-distance (telecommunication) supplants the "real space" of immediate, physical action. This creates a condition where the sovereignty of physical territory is lost to an "instantaneous present".
• The "Sedentary" Body: The individual becomes sedentary, often fixed in front of screens, but is exposed to a hyper-mobile, global flow of information and images. This creates a state of perceptual and physical inertia, despite the surrounding informational velocity.
• Perceptual Blindness: This constant and instant exposure to events everywhere at once (ubiquity) leads to a form of blindness or the "accident" of perception, as there is no longer a critical interval for reflection, contemplation, or a meaningful physical response. The sheer volume and speed of information lead to saturation, not enhanced understanding.
• Howard Hughes as an Archetype: Virilio uses the figure of Howard Hughes in his final, isolated state as an archetype of polar inertia – a powerful individual completely isolated, controlling a vast global empire through technology without moving from his chair.
• The Defining Condition of Modernity: For Virilio, technology has made inertia, not movement, the defining condition of modernity. We are trapped in a static "here and now" while experiencing a global, de-territorialized "everywhere and instantly". 

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