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The Elevator Effect In Second Life
There is an good video on NPR about how real human reactions translate to the virtual world. It's interesting in view of the question posted here about rape in Second Life. The video covers a little experiment in SL where a reporter gets together with a psychologist to see if some unspoken human rules apply in the virtual world — such as staring or standing too close to someone. Perhaps surprisingly, in this world where you can be or do just about anything, you can't break these unspoken rules with impunity.
SL is not really unique or different to any other aspect of the online world. People in forums giving others volley after volley of abuse for very little reason. If it was in the real world and you had to look someone in the eye you react very differently to the online world where I am sitting at a desk typing on a computer which nobody else knows about. Second life isn't showing some unique symptom here, it is simply a 3D and graphical representation of the same type of behaviour that has been occurring since the online world began back in the BB days.
Ok, Second Life may or may not be pretty cool, but why is there one Slashdot article about it every two or three days? World of Warcraft is at least ten times as popular but does not get anywhere near the same coverage as Second Life does. It smells fishy.
:)
For example, there was this article about a woman offering sex for 5000 World of Warcraft gold. It did not reach Slashdot. That ten times as funny and definitely more "interesting" than some kind of psychological experiment.
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Maybe you should get a first life?
I'm sick of people whinging about people whinging about slashdot on slashdot on Slashdot. If you don't like it, don't use it.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Breaking them seems to have the same consequence as in real life, people get annoyed.
If you would go and stare at some stranger in real life, it's not like he's gonna call he cops or knock you down or something (at least not with regular alcohol-levels).
I find it entertaining as these reporters are acting like it;s a new thing. It's not. Ever cince the days of Doom this has been observed and documented. Camping, while being a viable attack vector in the real world (called a sniper) is frowned upon so much in game that most all combatants will band together to punish the camper.
There was a paper published about it back in the 90's. I wonder if anyone can find it out there on the internet. I believe it was "social manifestations in online gaming" or something similar where they already looked at this and even in a game where you are supposed to go around killing each other, certain social rules are still followed or suffer getting punished.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Second Life is like cyberpunk hell. Want to know what Second Life looks like? Read Snowcrash, then take out anything at all cool about that world. It is one big unending strip mall comprised mostly of casinos, sex shops, and brothels.
Second Life is in no danger of becoming anything bigger. It is messy, awkward to use, and has little interesting going on in it. Something more interesting might grow from the original idea (which in truth, is not all that original), but it has a long way to go before it even begins to touch the sort of mass media acceptance of games like World of Warcraft.
You're equating "non-physical" to "non-consequential". Think about that for a minute and you'll realize how silly that conclusion is.
In *real* war, the sniper is also the most hated enemy soldier. And like in Doom or whatever game you're playing, your best bet for survival is to gang up on the sniper to eliminate him/her.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
I still do it. I hope to meet you one day.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.