Escape From Reality?

I am all for games. I play games all the time since I was a little kid. From the times of the NES to today’s Xbox 360, I have not missed a beat. Since that time frame, games have evolved considerably to the online arena where people from all over the world can play and interact with each other at anytime, as long as internet connection is provided. Traditional games have had limited room for emotional involvement. However, introducing people via online now lets people communicate and interact by text or voice has brought relationships into the discussion. Now these games, such as Second Life and The Sims, emulate real life, and to a certain degree, do so successfully. The only problem is that it seems that some people become more involved in these games than they do in their own real lives. Players convert real-life money to in-game money to buy things they wouldn’t or couldn’t in real life, such as certain types of cars, clothes, and a nice house. Some say that those who engage in such behaviors online are simply having fun. I agree, but do realize that there are some who like their virtual existence better than their real existence. If you fit this mold, then you’re more likely to look at this world with disdain, knowing that life isn’t as easy in the real world as it is in Second Life. Living this way is inefficient. No matter how many hours you log in these virtual worlds, the fact is, the real and the lives we lead must be given much more attention.

Scared of the Internet

Personally, I am scared to buy products over the internet because I feel as if my accounts will be hacked into. Not only do you hear about it through ads on the internet itself, but I hear about it on tv ads and people in the public. I do have my online banking through Bank of America, however most of the time I feel like someone is still hacking into the online banking and is able to distract and take funds. I know this is highly unlikely but millions of identities are stolen every year through means of the internet. Recently I just sold my laptop and two people trying to buy it were scammers. They would tell me they submitted money to my PayPal account, however they did not and still wanted me to pay for shipping to send it to them in a foreign country. It made me extremely uncomfortable, so I did not sell the computer to either one of the people. I am not very smart with computers overall and especially not with the abilities of the internet like most people know.

Another aspect about privacy on the internet is how people using the dating services have made up identities. There are a lot of mistaken facts about people and their features. Men make up height and weight features as well as women, and sometimes some sick minded people even get on the internet and completely lie about their gender. This to me is the most inhumane thing one could come across. I know if I were using one of the dating services provided somewhere on the internet I would be disgusted to find out I had been sharing feelings and trying to get close to woman that turned out to be a male. These are things that should be monitored, however I do not know how this could or will be protected, but should fall somewhere in the privacy category of the internet.

In and Out of Virtual World

Talking about the virtual world, especially games, I feel honored because I love games, but not to an extent of an addict. It is true that the virtual world Second Life leaves a lot of impact to the players, but that is just a glimpse of the real thing. There are a lot of similar simulations of the world, namely MMORPG (Massively Played Online Role Playing Game) where a human being creates an avatar to his or her liking and explore the animated world, either an almost real world like Second Life or fantasy world.

In these worlds, they are totally free to do whatever they want with their avatar. They are free to an extent where the games limit. Which means there is nobody that could say stop if they want to do a certain thing or talk about a certain topic unless it affects the game system. This worried some individuals and party as they have no whatsoever control over what they could do, especially about free speech. Yes, the virtual worlds, is limitless. Remember capitalism? Yes, they even exist in the virtual world.

World of Warcraft (WoW), that boasts an amazing 6 million registered users is a good example. Due to its popularity, a lot of people became "gold farmers", players that uses their avatars to collect as much as money as possible and sell it for real cash. This became a problem because it causes imbalance to the game system. in Second Life, real property owner used the limitless tool provided in it to advertise their products, selling virtual items, hoping that this new kind of advertisement could attract them to buy the real things in the world.

Blizzard, the creator and owner of World of Warcraft (WoW), also faced problem about the owner of the in game money, about the intellectual property of their game. The players claimed that the in game money they earned because they work for it but Blizzard claimed that its theirs as they own WoW, thus they own everything in it. At last, blizzard took the action of claiming that the items in WoW or not saleable for real money and banned all auctions in eBay, in the name of intellectual property.

The virtual world is not only confined to our actions and emotion but also it affects our future. There are a lot of thing happening in the virtual world, and we know very little of where it is heading. It is up to us to shape it.

Finding perfection,,

Human beings are basically not perfect. Therefore, we always constantly find ways to perfection. Perfection is something that all human being would want to have. Therefore, there are many ways that people do in order to satisfy their desire to be perfect. Thanks to Second Life, a virtual reality avatar, people can easily be ‘perfect’.

People in the Second Life community are all trying to be what wanted to be that they cannot be in real life. All aspects of life, physically or emotionally or intellectually, there can be made perfect. So, the question is are they real? Well, basically they are not real but from my perspective, emotions can be real. For example, there is a guy that has a girlfriend and also has an avatar girlfriend but the guy spends most of his time online with his avatar girlfriend. When interviewed, he said that his avatar girlfriend is more understanding that his actual girlfriend. Somehow, they are emotionally attached as the avatar gives him all that his actual girlfriend lacking. For me, emotions are subjective and they are real if they exist.

The point is, it is good to find something that is lacking in real space in the virtual reality but they are just running away from their real life problem. Sometimes we just have to handle our real life problem because that is what life is all about. Learning what is lacking or wrong and try to mend it. This way our life will be more meaningful. For me, the virtual space is just a medium for people to escape from problems in reality.

when is it free and when is it obscene?
Censorship of information on the Internet has become a much publicized debate. There is a great controversy as to whether or not censorship is a necessity in order to maintain a particular moral standard. This question brings us back to the early weeks of class when we were discussing ethics. We never found a straight answer of “what is ethical and what is not?” I think many people would agree that there is no one moral standard. For example if someone posts a blog with explicit images, that blog is without a doubt violating someone’s moral standard. However if you tried to censor that blog, you would no doubt be violating another person’s moral standard. There has to be a middle ground, a compromise between censorship and free speech. This compromise however, would require some sort of regulation. Is this regulation even possible? Regulating the internet seems like an all or none situation. It does not seem possible to only regulate some things. The only way to keep all pornography off the internet would be to monitor all other websites, which would be an invasion of privacy for the innocent users.

Who is listening in?

The NSA warrantless surveillance controversy concerned the illegal surveillance of persons within the United States. Under this program, the NSA was authorized by to monitor, without phone calls, e-mails, Internet activity, and text messaging. There was no legal justification for this surveillance, and NSA supposedly was allowed to monitor anyone they believed to be outside the United States. The NSA was provided total, unsupervised access to communications going between some of the nation's major telecommunication companies. So, if a civilian in the United States was talking on the phone to a friend in England, they could have potentially been monitored by the NSA. As a person who has a friend in England, this thought makes me supremely uncomfortable, and I envision a faceless NSA agent listening to my most private secrets. The Bush administration justified this wiretappings by saying that they were preventing future terrorist attacks. And some Republicans support this by saying, “Wiretaps and Homeland Security as implemented by George Bush sure as Hell would have stopped 9/11.” But how do they know this? It seems to me that a group so intent on destroying the United States would not let random wiretapping stop them. They would probably speak in code, and not use the same phone every time. What are the chances that the NSA is listening in on a real terrorist group rather than someone wishing Grandma happy birthday? In this case, it seems that losing the trust and respect of the American people is less important than listening in on conversations without just cause.

How are you presenting yourself online?
It is frightening to me that anything I send or post on the internet can come back to haunt me in the years to come. What about this blog? Years from now, if I ever decide to run for public office, are my words as a 19 year old going to come to light and be held against me? Probably. And what about my facebook profile? I will without a doubt never be elected to public office if anyone sees my facebook pictures. I am not a particularly bad kid, but simply one picture out there of me holding a beer will secure a reputation as a “party girl”. But there is really nothing I could do about it besides removing all personal information from the internet. Emily Nussbaum is correct that young people have taken a nonchalant attitude about this lack of privacy. Living with the internet for a large majority of our lives, we have accepted that we cannot control what is being seen by others. We either forfeit our freedom of speech or accept that that freedom does not mean control. We can say or show what we want, but we cannot expect information to do nothing. Fortunately, I have no desire to run for public office. But I still worry about what future employers might see. Personally, if I was an employer I would not hire many of my classmates after seeing their facebooks. Despite the fact that personal life should have nothing to do with work life, people are judged by their internet persona. An internet persona that can unfortunately be googled by anyone whenever they like.