In Edward Castronova’s text Synthetic Worlds he discusses how “play only serves its purposes when it is play, and therefore not serious, we have an entirely natural predisposition not to care”. This immediately drew me into the article and forced me to be attentive. It reminded me of last week’s lesson on Gold Farmers. It’s supposed to just be a game, but that game becomes someone’s obsession and thus someone else’s career. The games then become a society based on our structure of social, economic, and political institutions. They meet our online needs and therefore create many opportunities for us such as training or teaching tactics. However, there are MANY risks to putting our faith in the hands of other people who control this technology. Castranova mentions the idea that if someone decided to pull the plug what would happen to the millions that were investing into the game? It’s like a stock crashing. Video games, Second Life, World of Warcraft; it’s all risky to become invested in.
When people devote so much of their real life to the synthetic world they allow themselves to be vulnerable.
I’ve learned throughout the semester that technology may open up many opportunities and has the ability to allow the world to communicate beyond what we ever have before. I haven’t agreed with much of what we’ve learned since I truly believe that the internet is unreliable and that technology is unpredictable. I prefer face-to-face and Castronova solidified my beliefs in this article.
The future of technology is exciting and lively BUT our whole lives appear to be absorbed in synthetic worlds in the near future. We’d be living in the matrix and I’m not okay with that. I want to walk around this real world as long as I possibly can. Our bodies were not created as cells. Avatars are the cells and should be treated as such. They live spontaneously for us and play games that we would not play in the real world. It’s a game. It should stay a game.
Castronova says that it depends who the providers of these synthetic world services are that predicts what could possibly come from this but I’m scared of who will get a hold of it.
This class has given me a crazy insight on who has the ability to influence the internet, the communities, the games, and the people who inhibit these synthetic worlds.
