"Anarchy in Cyberspace"
Now, here's a story of how and why transhumanism isn't going to cure what ails the human condition: Second Life, which I had not even heard of until a correspondent wrote asking to interview me about it a short time ago, allows players to lead virtual lives. Say, you are a lawyer and always wanted to have a more adrenaline filled job. You could become a cop or a soldier. Or, you're a plumber and wanted a job where your hands don't get dirty. You could become a stock broker. As I understand it, the people playing the game have virtual lives, go through different experiences, date, marry (?), that is, have whole new second lives.
Well, trouble has come to paradise. From the story: "FRENCH elections are typically volatile affairs. But when Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front party (FN) set up a virtual campaign headquarters on Second Life, the internet site where over 2.9 million registered users live a double life, it caused a cyber-riot.
"The arrival of the xenophobic party in the 'geographical' area of Second Life known as Porcupine sparked protests by outraged virtual characters known as avatars. They protested, waving placards and banners decorated with an unflattering portrait of Mr Le Pen sporting a Hitler moustache.
"But the protests soon degenerated into riots, during which anti-Nazi protesters from a group named Second Life Left Unity engaged in running gun-battles with FN supporters and hurled exploding pigs--fortunately only of the virtual variety--at their political opponents."
There is a lesson here, it seems to me. People are people, wherever we find them--even in virtual reality which, of course, isn't real at all. The same will be true in Transhumanist Land. That is why it seems wiser to me to embrace our full humanity and work in the real world to overcome our baser sides than to pine for a utopian post-human future that would probably remain all too human. Our problem as a species isn't that we don't live long enough, it is that we don't love fully enough.
Strengthening our more noble natures doesn't require futuristic technology, drastic disfiguring surgeries, or electrode implants: It merely requires true introspection--the doing of which we are the only species capable--unplugging from music, videos and other entertainment to just think, ponder, contemplate, pray if that is one's wont, and, I think, finding the joy in serving others (including animals, if that is our desire).
And with that bit of "wisdom," I end my sermon and return to areas more within my pay grade.
Post Script: I am sure we can expect "Second Life: The Movie: any day now.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:43 AM
9 Comments
9 Comments:
Good news - there *won't* be a "Second Life: The Movie" in that sense because Second Life leaves all intellectual property to the players who make said property, so securing the rights to all the stuff folks make online (flying pigs, bi-planes, and the funky fountains I'm big on) would be impossible, since you'd have to get permission from every person across the globe who uses it.
And yes, I play Second Life. Play. It's a *game.* I've always been fond of LARPs (Live Action Role Playing games for you who don't know), and this is just a more wired version. There's a very distinct lack of connection between the people there that can't be overcome easily. Trust me, if that's what post-humanism is like, it's pretty lame.
Odd off-topic kind of thing - I find that I connect better to people I meet online that I talk to via text only medium (Instant Messenger, blogs, etc.) where I can express myself more fully without distraction. MMORPGs and Second Life and the like don't allow you to get as close, even though they do provide written communication. Isn't it weird how the more technologically advanced we become in our connectivity, the less we're able to relate to people as other people? I have an easier time talking to the automated robots in the games than I do to human- controlled avatars.
"Isn't it weird how the more technologically advanced we become in our connectivity, the less we're able to relate to people as other people?"
Smarter people then me are concerned about that pheonomenon. In a sense, we are atomizing. On the other end, the anonymity of e-mail makes people say things they never would to someone's face.
There is a useful term for the sillier goals of transhumanism: "nerdvana".
But as you point out, the more lifelike virtual reality gets, the more you are saddled with the same old human problems.
mtraven:
"There is a useful term for the sillier goals of transhumanism: "nerdvana"."
O.O
I humbly bow before your superior punning ability. I've been called a geek goddess before, but nerdvana was never part of my lexicon before this moment.
But it's an apt description. Too many people take cyberspace waaaaaay too seriously.
Wesley:
"Smarter people then me are concerned about that pheonomenon. In a sense, we are atomizing. On the other end, the anonymity of e-mail makes people say things they never would to someone's face."
It's very weird. I'm a technophile and nerd-girl first order, but I can still tell where the lines are and withdraw from the false front to join reality, but there are people who blow serious money on game components, practically live in character, and visit the real world only when the IRS forces them to re-evaluate their financial situations.
In Japan these folks are called "otaku" (it kind of means "house bound" and is an insult, but in America it's been modified into a badge of honor), but we don't have an adequate way of labeling folks who don't keep in touch with Planet Earth here in America.
Thanks Tabs, I can't claim originality for that term. In fact I think it appeared in a Dilbert strip some time ago.
On the other hand, I did coin the term "googlectual", and I have to admit it applies to some of my activity here.
mtraven:
Googlecture. May I borrow that some time? I'm just as guilty of it as anyone else here. I admit my opinions are sometimes not as rational as everyone else's, though. Still, hope it leads to entertaining reading.
Feel free! BTW the official (:-) definition of a googlectual is: "one who seems broadly knowledgeable but in reality is merely adept at loading up just-in-time knowledge from the Internet."
Hee, guilty as charged!
On the other hand, we do have to be fairly knowledgable to know *where* to look when Google brings up the information in question....
My only saving grace is that I really did read almost (!) all of the stuff that I post about *before* the topic of conversation comes up, although I must admit, in the case of Second Life, I only just started playing it last weekend.
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