[extropy-chat] A Libertarian experiment?

R.Coyote etheric at comcast.net
Wed Dec 24 15:34:09 UTC 2003


This is not Libertarianism, Libertarianism requires laws not lawlesness

try again

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dirk Bruere" <dirk at neopax.com>
To: <wta-talk at transhumanism.org>; "ExI chat list"
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2003 5:27 AM
Subject: [extropy-chat] A Libertarian experiment?


> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3334923.stm
> The dark side of digital utopia
> Dot.life - Where tech meets life, every Monday
> By Mark Ward
> BBC News Online technology correspondent
>
> How would people act if they were freed from real life laws and social
> constraints? A new, interactive computer game offers just such a
scenario -
> with some disturbing results.
> Imagine you could move to a city where you could swap yourself for a
> younger, slimmer version that never ages and never gets tired.
>
> In this city you could choose which job to pursue, build your dream home
and
> do all the things you did not have the courage to do in your other life.
>
> It sounds great but soon after you arrive, the gloss begins to fade.
>
> One of the first people you meet is a kindly looking granny who greets you
> with a slap round the face and a barrage of abuse.
>
> Escaping to one of the "safe" homes you find a den of thieves who trick
you
> into handing over all your cash.
>
> The local newspapers are full of investigations into child prostitution,
> rampant crime, mafia-controlled neighbourhoods, shadowy self-declared
> governments struggling to maintain order and runaway inflation.
>
> Welcome to Alphaville.
>
> Dark history
>
> Alphaville is the biggest city in The Sims Online, a spin-off of the
highly
> successful Sims computer game. As its name implies, players can control
> virtual people in an online world.
>
> The Sims Online can be likened to a chatroom with moving pictures in which
> people are represented by an avatar rather than text.
>
> But to the chatting it adds a rich virtual world in which every player has
a
> home. There are places to socialise, to work and visit, shops and
services,
> even virtual pets.
>
> Alphaville and its sister cities in The Sims Online were supposed to be
> benign utopias that allowed people to discover who they could be when
freed
> from the economic and social restraints that shackle them in real life.
>
> But it has not turned out like that at all.
>
> The dark side of Alphaville has been documented by one of its former
> "residents", Peter Ludlow, who in real life is a philosophy professor at
the
> University of Michigan.
>
>
> Urizenus, one of the avatars controlled by Prof Ludlow, was chief reporter
> on a newspaper called The Alphaville Herald which featured interviews with
> Alphaville's child prostitutes, sadomasochists, Sims Mafioso, thieves and
> members of its shadow government.
> "The Alphaville Herald was not supposed to document dodgy things," he
says.
> "It was done to document the emergence of economic, social and political
> structures in the game."
>
> Like increasing numbers of academics Mr Ludlow is interested in virtual
game
> worlds like The Sims Online because they act as live, accelerated
> laboratories for studying the ways people interact, get on and fall out.
>
> But as the problems of The Sims Online mounted The Alphaville Herald -
which
> exists as a separate website - became a guidebook to the goings-on in this
> dystopia.
>
> Action and reaction
>
> Mr Ludlow thought the people behind the game should know what was going on
> inside Alphaville, not least because some things - child prostitution, for
> example - are morally and legally troubling.
>
>
> But when they found out, Maxis, the game's developers, and Electronic
Arts,
> the distributors, banned all in-game mention of The Alphaville Herald,
says
> Mr Ludlow.
> Then, says Mr Ludlow, he was thrown out of the game and his accounts
closed
> down, cutting him off from his Sims.
>
> EA and Maxis say they are aware of Prof Ludlow's comments, that they are
> dealing with customer queries collectively and cannot talk about
individual
> accounts.
>
> They will "continue to monitor external issues as appropriate". They
> declined to comment further. "
>
>
> Dirk
>
> The Consensus:-
> The political party for the new millennium
> http://www.theconsensus.org
>
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