I predict that sites like Virtual Life are just one more step into the inevitable creation of a troglodyte-like race of humans who sit in baskets with their brains wired into a computer. You can be as beautiful and as fit as you want in fake reality.
Reuters is opening a news bureau in the simulation game Second Life this week, joining a race by corporate name brands to take part in the hottest virtual world on the Internet.
Starting on Wednesday, Reuters plans to begin publishing text, photo and video news from the outside world for Second Life members and news of Second Life for real world readers who visit a Reuters news site at: http://secondlife.reuters.com/
Created by Linden Lab in San Francisco, Second Life is the closest thing to a parallel universe existing on the Internet. Akin to the original city-building game SimCity, Second Life is a virtual, three-dimensional world where users create and dress up characters, buy property and interact with other players.
The fact that you can generate revenue from this is amazing, and the enabler for the transition to the troglodyte people. More and more people are generating their sole revenue from this, and combined with pizza delivery have no reason to leave their houses anymore.
Honestly, how many people are going to get their news off of a game site? What do these people do for a living?
#1: Well since you ask, I am an operations manager and executive director of a rather large company. I am also a Second Life resident.
I’m not going to advocate for SL but I’ll say one thing to you and the OP – plenty of troglodytes are formed from sitting in front of the TV consuming the predigested pap that is served up by the networks and cable companies and passed off as entertainment or ‘news’.
#2,
The TV was phase one of the Troglodyte evolution.
Thats a good defense. #2
“Hey, i sit around and play this game BUT look over there!! so do they so i am ok!”
look if you just say this is what i like and thats it fine. Why sit there and point out others just cuase you were pointed out?
if you are happy playing the game then that all you have to say.
I work on computers for a living and when i get home i work on them so more. I get crap all the time about it but its what i like.
I spend time with my wife and my kids and i work on my hobby.
same thing with you (I dont know if you have a relationship or not though)
enjoy what you do and no matter who says anything blow it off.
unlessit hits a nerve
The radio program “The Infinite Mind” had a show about Second Life featuring interviews with participants. It was very interesting, but even on the radio the dweebiness of these folks came through clearly.
I was going to start an online virtual world — it was going to be called “Second Class.”
Computer gaming combines my two favorite activities into one… Those activities are 1)Doing something, and 2)Doing nothing.
Alex, you are skating on thin ice here… You cover the consumer electronics world, they very industry whose survival is predicated on the consumer to troglodyte transformation. You know… You don’t really wanna complain about the health risks of cocain if you are a cocain dealer… But you get a free pass because unlike http://www.nothingmattersmorethanhometheater.com, you are interested in more than HD vs. BluRay or who offers enough pixels to choke God’s own throat. Still, something to consider…
This shall pass….
The Internet didn’t replace TV and TV didn’t replace radio and radio didn’t replace newspaper… Second Life won’t replace anything either… Nor will it ever be the main way people get news, and currently it isn’t the main way anybody gets news. Second Life has a finite lifespan. I can’t tell you what that is, years maybe… maybe a decade or two at most, probably not, but whatever, it is limited. Virtual Communities on the Internet, however, are here to stay. Second Life will have a successor, or three, or a dozen… It’s only gonna get bigger, and it is concievable that news delivery will be part of that…
But in the future, like today, the bulk of it will come from TV, print, and radio. It just makes sense to have a delivery mechanism without added layers of complexity.
Maybe this is really the first step toward the Matrix evolution instead of Troglodytism??? Just watch out for inhabitants with dark sunglasses and earpieces!
this isn’t anything new.. Second Live has had Quicktime support in-game for at least a year or two now, and it was to mainly watch porn and Hollywood motion pictures…. mostly porn.
News feed isn’t really anything spectacular. And as a regular of SL I actually can’t stand video feeds since it tends to make my system hiccup when the stream starts, and it frustrates the hell out of me. So I disable it.
Given Reuters recent troubles with doctored photos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adnan_Hajj), it seems like they are living in an alternate reality anyway.
Building The Matrix one block at a time. Combine Second Life with the 360-degree helmet at http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=7594 and you’re almost there. Except for annoying physical details like eating and elimination and procreation.
Phillip K. Dick would have had a thing or two to say about this.