Utopia has been a much-strived state of existence discussed thoroughly by many literature minds. After all, if there is a world where everything is perfect, why wouldn’t you go there? Well, that’s probably what’s inside the minds of people entering in virtual worlds. Imagine how you can just forget everything and create your own persona inside these communities.
You’re your own rock star so to speak.
But Murphy’s Law always finds a way to rear its ugly head. If anything will go wrong – even in virtual worlds – then it probably will. So apart from the typical fears of cyber-crimes and similar fraud and harassments, there are certain aspects of both commercial and free online virtual worlds which just doesn’t cut it much for its members.
If you are joining virtual worlds in order to replicate your real life experience – or as can be properly put, to complement your real life, then forget it. There’s still no substitute for the real thing. And virtual worlds can become a matter of bandwidth. This was properly exhibited by the science fiction novel of Rudy Rucker entitled Postsingular where the virtual environment entitled Vearth was created. Even with its online nature, it became more of a reflection of real life but a suckier version. It had economies, social status and the likes – but it was an inferior version.
Okay but here is a better quote from the novel Calculating God which describes virtual worlds in the context of real life:
“Virtual reality was nothing but air guitar writ large. You could go on a simulated dig, and even discover fossils there — but they’d only be there because you wanted them to be there, and they wouldn’t advance our understanding of evolution or the universe at all.”
Woah, air guitar! Might as well play Rock Band or Guitar Hero. At least in these video games, the purpose is clear entertainment and not trying to play God.
Virtual worlds just can’t save the world, by and large. It may happen in a tightly-knit community, compared to the Stone Age and in small moderated forums, but no way, in large communities. Large gatherings of people (the goal of commercial and free virtual worlds for maximum earning potential) just have too much variety in them to be turned into a monotonous group of obedient people.
Nope, not going to cut it.
Let’s take a sweeping look at the problems of the world. We have poverty (bringing rise to third-world children being adopted by A-List celebrities such as Angelina Jolie and Madonna). We also have social injustice and inequality. War is there, of course, as well as pandemics. So we have all these global problems – which when you come to think of it has not much effect on a person compared to personal problems such as love life, social acceptance and the likes. Joining virtual worlds will not solve problems – global or personal – it is just an escape.
Moreover, only the rich and middle class can access these virtual communities in the first place. So let’s just accept this feature for what it is: an interactive tool mostly used in entertainment and which can also transcend to education and business. But I think turning this alternative lifestyle into the primary lifestyle is still quite a far-fetched idea. It can be pretty escapist and that’s never a good thing for any person or society whatsoever. No problem – big or small – can be solved by trying to forget it altogether. Virtual worlds will be much better if not used for this purpose, so don’t stop logging in just yet.
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