Earth Fires Destabilize Virtual Governments

Thanks to Terra Nova for their article pointing out that Sony Online's virtual worlds are missing their customer service, "...due to the wild fires raging throughout San Diego and the proximity of those fires to the SOE offices. Normal operations will resume once this local emergency is over." Edward Castronova comments: "In other words, a firestorm has knocked out the government that rules over 750,000 accounts", and suggests: "We tend to think of synthetic worlds as decentralized because the users are spread over the globe. They are still highly centralized on the production side, however, a state of affairs with clear implications for the relationship of synthetic worlds not only to Earth's weather, but to its politics as well."