>> So you did get a life? What? Second Life? LOL.
O, but what can i say? It is the modern world that is becoming. It's
called the cybernet, virtual reality, cybersex, phone sex.
Modern society made us. It made me. I'm just helplessly addicted to my
emails, computer screen, refreshing google group every minute. And,
one day, i'll dive into the machine, the net, a digital becoming, and
merge together with information as one.
Further readings:
Futuristic Calamity
http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/20030909calamity.html
Population Under The Firmament
http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/20030911_populous.html
Industrial Society and its Future
http://xahlee.org/p/um/um.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(computer_security)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
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PS you are quite right abou Second Life. Despite its technology
aspect, it is a place where a lot people use it to escape reality.
I've been slaving in Second Life for the past year daily. I have
observed, a abnormal percentage of people who spend half a day or more
there daily, are unhappy in life, or in some depressed state, had
physical or mental trauma, or otherwise filled with life's problems
(many are fat n lonely housewives). Many have cancer or other illness,
and there are quite a few (real life) deaths i've known.
(In Second Life, by its 3D nature with humanoid characters in humanoid
environments, and real-time voice chat, the conversation are often
about real life things, from dish washing to movie watching to
relationship, sex, programing to politics — anything human converses,
much like any conversation you might hear or talk in bars, coffee
shops, shopping malls, dance clubs, parks. There are also profile
photo for real life info, and users can easily get to email exchange,
phone chat, and in fact a lot couples met in RL thru SL. It is very
conductive to get to know the real person behind the avatar.
But in newsgroups and irc, due to the text-only nature of the medium
and tech nature of group charter, it's hard to guess who is behind the
email addresses. This i have wondered in the past. I picture a high
percentage of them to be disgruntled programers, unemployeed, or no-
girlfriend college nerds. Fat, ugly, sad, loners. I bet the average
happiness index of tech newsgroup or irc users are in fact lower than
Second Life users.)
Of course, this doesn't apply to all, and escapism is just one
negative view of online media. For example, Second Life users have a
healthy life physical or mental, and is in Second Life for the fun,
entertainment, learning experiences, technological exploration, and
even making (real) money.
Perhaps Second Lifers has high percentage of escapism, but let's look
at real life for a moment. There are bars, alcholics, cig addiction,
drug users, unhappy infirms, family abuse problems, ... If you look at
the human animal broadly, let's say just in settings familiar to you
of North America or Europe (let's ignore Asia, Africa, South America
for the moment), there's all sort of people and life styles. I would,
rather, be a loner and play with fantastic characters in a tech
created virtual world, than, say, become “normal” and “happy” and
watch TV everyday, go to church to chant every week, or go to bars to
drink, or be a white trash or red neck life-style and mentalities in
some Bible belt states. There's Britney Spears and Michael Jackson and
too many other celebrities who are illustrative of this point. Such
private live amuses me.
PS perhaps this is worth mentioning, that tech geekers perhaps think
Second Life users is mostly kids or game players that are small in
number. Actually, the active users of Second Life is perhaps 10 or 100
times than the active users newsgroup. (what can i say? the tech
geeking morons are inbued with the most bizzare unreal views of the
world)
Ok, the above is a brief write up on life-style, happiness, and state
of some online media users. I gtg to sl now. Don't touch the dial! The
next episode of Xah's Edu Corner is coming up!
Xah
∑
http://xahlee.org/
☄
