Virtual Reality, Fishing, and Taters

Art imitates life, kids play house, and in Second Life, residents buy, sell, trade, and work. Why is it that when given the opportunity to escape reality, we always end up imitating it as best we can? In the virtual reality world of Second Life, the player is given the freedom to create any sort of world he desires and to make anything happen, but despite this ultimate freedom, the game's purpose evolved into the mundane real-world activities of making ordinary objects like clothes and selling or trading them, earning money (in Linden dollars), driving cars, owning land.

If I were to create a virtual reality game, I feel like I would want to create a whole new system of living that does not involve earning money or the business of real estate. But I can see a reason why a virtual imitation of reality would be such a draw: mainly because there are a lot of things in reality that can technically happen or exist, but do not because of lack of resources or talent or looks or personality or luck; which makes these things (that can technically happen or exist) unreal and invaluable. For example, it is mentioned in Wikipedia that artists use SL in order to exhibit their artwork in a Second Louvre. Getting one of your paintings exhibited in the Real Louvre is an event that could technically occur in reality, but for such an event to actually take place, a ton of skill and some luck, among other variables, are required. It is technically possible, but the chance of it actually occurring is so incredibly slim that it is what we call an "honor" for the lucky few, "tunneling" by quantum physicists, and a "flight of fancy" for the rest of us- in other words, it's a real, but not a realistic event. The virtual world allows players to live out their real-worldly dreams of being beautiful and winning car races and running naked in public. Which is testament to the fact that reality is pretty cool, often undervalued; we don't necessarily have to leave the realm of reality in order to experience amazing things. Fantastical events like flying without an apparatus only seem cooler because they cannot happen in reality. If we could fly, but we couldn't walk, walking would seem so much cooler just because it can't happen in reality. (Similarly, square watermelons, though not impossible to grow, seem cooler than round ones just because watermelons are naturally round.) But then again, isn't that like saying murderers only kill because their brains are wired a certain way that makes them more prone to murderous tendencies? Whatever led them to kill, unless it was due to insanity- having no moral judgment- it does not change the fact that they killed, so they should be punished for it. Similarly, the coolness factor of flying shouldn't be devalued just because it stems from the fact that flying lies outside the bounds of physical possibility. It is cool precisely because it is impossible and is a sensational experience.

Not only does SL allow real but not realistic things to "actually" occur, but there are actually some pretty cool non-real ideas explored through SL that stray away from the mundane activities of real life. Wikipedia mentions that artists have explored novel art forms that aren't physically possible in the real world. I guess what I realize is that fantastical re-imaginings of the world and systems of living don't just spring out of nowhere; they have a basis in reality and evolve gradually. We have to start with what we know, and innovations will come about until we look back and ooh and awe over what a spectacle we've created, how different the world seems compared to X numbers of years ago, and how fantastical the present appears to be compared to the past in terms of the kinds of jobs, clothes, buildings, technology, lifestyles, etc. that exist. And anyway, some people relish the game of real estate. Honestly, I am a huge fan of the saying that everything is interesting if looked at from a certain angle. However, there are some subjects whose interesting angle is hidden deeply in a crevice and once fished out, turns out not to be worth the amount of fishing line it took to get it out. Either that or it's never fished out because the angler falls asleep from boredom before it's ever found. Think about that the next time you run into a dozing fisherman. It's not the sun, it's the lack of biting angles!

Speaking of fishing, here's a T-shirt aphorism I spotted at a t-shirt store at Pike Place Market: Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day; teach him how to fish and he'll sit on a boat drinking beer all day.

I had never heard of Second Life before today, when Hyung boo (what I call my cousin's husband) asked if I knew about it. The three of us ended up spending all of dinner talking about it, it's relation to what he and his colleagues are trying to do with cyworld, and it's implications. An interesting point was when I wondered aloud whether our world could someday be taken over by a virtual world. Initially, I arbitrarily defined being "taken over" as spending more than half the day's hours in the virtual world. My cousin, Lira Unni, pointed out that that's pretty much already happened because we spend so much time on the internet. But she happened to think that a take-over was not a huge concern. For instance, when e-books first came out, people expressed concern over the possibility that e-books would eradicate paperbooks, but as is evident, paperbooks are still around and cherished because people naturally want to be able to hold and touch our books. But I pointed out that that desire comes from the generation that grew up with paperbooks- perhaps a few generations down the line, the ability to hold and touch a physical substance-representation of the written word will be of little or no importance. Then, Hyung boo made the really great point that today, 90% of money is not real, and how many people predicted that degree of virtual take-over? They are in the form of investments, something to do with options, stocks...Options was another thing I never heard of until today. "You mean like choices?" I asked naively. Nope, not quite. Good thing Lira Unni was there to translate Hyung boo's explanation of options. Food, I can talk about in Korean. Movies? Virtual reality even? Those too. Options- not so if it means anything other than choices.

The problem with SL seems to be that too many people get tired of it eventually. What would maintain and increase interest in a virtual world where there are really no rules or a point? A few gain a good chunk of profit from it, but the rest, they break even and just do it "for fun". But unlike a game, there is no winner or end, no collection of points. Cyworld people seem to be focused on the idea that a market is the way to go. As one reviewer put it, "Cyworld is money-driven and sickeningly commercial." Kinda harsh, but I think he may have a point: why is it that money is always the chosen incentive? Hyung boo told us that in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (which was the inspiration for SL), pizza delivery is the most sought-after job of young people (or something like that- might have misunderstood his mixture of Korean-English). This is a great example of alternative hierarchies, or alternative values. It alludes to the idea that in a game- even one with no winner or end- there could be other incentives besides monetary ones. Hard to believe in our capitalistic society, but with a wee bit of whimsical thinking, I think we could come up with an alternative. Like potatoes. You can boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew. Actually, they're not that great. And evidently, they're prone to mass wipeout. And anyway, potatoes would then just be another word for money.