[ExI] Real & virtual worlds (was Re: Bodies)

Tom Nowell nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk
Sun Mar 21 15:34:40 UTC 2010


I've been trying to write a post on the "Bodies" thread all weekend, but I've too many things to address so in order to keep my posts manageable, I'm splitting my thoughts down.

It has been mentioned that people see virtual worlds as places full of escapism and games. I think there is a fundamental difference between the way people visualise their place in the physical world and the virtual world.

In the physical world, we have physical needs of food, shelter, warmth, transport to shift our bodies around and healthcare for the failings in our bodies. In the virtual world, we just need electricity, processing power, communication and someplace to meet up.

In the physical world, we are accustomed to toil to support ourselves, and people have difficulty visualising ways of living without toil. Suggestions of Basic Income or Negative Income Tax, concepts of over 50% structural unemployment due to increasing automation - people find these hard to accept. There is a widespread belief that we have to toil to support ourselves, and whatever jobs disappear, someone will invent an equally crappy way of spending 40 hours a week just so we can have some consumer goodies.

In the virtual world, we visit the pretty parts in our spare time. (The dull part of business emails and B2B websites are much less visually appealing than leisure sites.) People who go into virtual worlds are frequently there to play games. In a world where a fixed monthly subscription for your broadband and a subscription fee to the virtual world of your choice gets you what you need, people find it easy to believe in living there with minimal needs.

It seems that it is easier to envision a truly ludic/leisure based society in a virtual world than in the physical one. Maybe the ludic revolution in our physical societies can only occur once an uploaded society has blazed a trail.

Tom


      




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