N(LIFE) > or < IRL?

N(LIFE) > or < IRL?

Where N represents any real number greater than 1, and IRL means In Real Life.

Is 2nd life — or 3rd or 4th — or any other virtual life experience greater or less than real life?

Did everyone see NBC’s “The Office” last night?  In last night’s episode we find that Dwight Schrute, falling deeper and deeper into depression, has turned to Second Life to escape reality:

(From http://justjared.buzznet.com/gallery/photos.php?yr=2007&mon=10&evt=office-local-ad&pic=the-office-local-ad-02.jpg)

Seeking further detachment, Dwight goes on to 2nd Second Life.

While this seems comical, a disturbing trend that has been an underlying theme for virtual existences since their inception has been thrust into the spotlight on national tv: virtual existences are inherently fantasy.  And in this fantasy world, users are free to enact their deepest desires, usually free of consequence.  This phenomenon, coupled with the rapid growth of the virtual world, brings us to an age-old question-

Are humans inherently evil?

While this has been debated since humans first learned to debate, new avenues of expression such as virtual worlds are giving humans the freedom to express themselves in as raw a means as they feel obliged.  

In “A Rape in Cyberspace: How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database Into a Society”  , Julian Dibbel tells the tragic story of a digital rape. 

The article was published in 1993, and in the near 15 years since, virtual worlds have grown in usage and also in user freedoms exponentially.  With the means to act in any way one chooses, the virtual world has become a mirror image of the true nature of the human being.  The user interacts in the virtual environment free of other stimuli, such as laws or any other construct of ”IRL”.  This, along with the “fantasy” aspect – where users are delving into the virtual world to escape reality – has allowed the desires of humans to run rampant in the form of avatars.  While not all desires and fantasies are of an evil nature, any realm where the inner mind is allowed to see its every whim acted out in an existence guided by no laws or code of morals — no conscience — will most likely be a realm mimicking the darker side of humanity.

Users choose to exist in these virtual worlds because the freedoms inherent in them are greater than those IRL.  But does that leave us with N(LIFE) > IRL? 

Are the consequences, the effects, of a virtual action existing only in cyber-space?  Not according to the victims in Dibbel’s piece.  And with the astronomical increase in all aspects of virtual worlds since 1993, one can only wonder when any ill effects will begin to show within the population as a whole. 

While the math may soon change, the answer for the present is clearly IRL > N(LIFE)

Why am I so angry?

I’m not the technology queen. In fact, I am far from it. Most of the time, I’m screaming at my computer and I check my email and Instant message. I joined Facebook because my friend made me an account. Now, like the rest of the population, I am addicted.

Learning about such ideas like a controversy about a girl posting a vlog on YouTube as lonelygirl15

and how this “real” girl was scripted and hired to begin a new form of media, I was disgusted. I grew up on TV and Internet TV seems dissatisfying and wrong on a moral level. Why should I buy into something that is suppose to be from the heart? And of course the articles that I read and the more that I learned about Bree and her fake team I became angry.

So is this Bree conspiracy like a virtual rape? Was I raped after being gullible and believing this girl? Is it weird that I am cursing myself for believing this girl after what she did? Or do I have an obligation to accept this new culture?

What does this have to say about other cultures that are being formed on the Internet? I have no idea to react to how someone can actually be assaulted and raped in a MUD environment. The Internet is an arena for the transfer of information, but what happens when we are violating our basic human interest?

I have posed a lot of questions since I’m not sure of the answers. I am truly baffled and I am not sure how to understand. I had to call my friend–a Network Administrator–to ask him a dozen questions about MUDS and how everyday actions can play and how rapes can occur. “A Rape in Cyberspace: or How and Evil Clown, a Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database into a Society” by Julian Dibbell explains how a different dimension was changed by a single action.

In the end, I am angry about something I have no control over and something that I do not understand.