Zoning? In a Virtual World?

The past two posts have sketched out the cases for and against regulation. On one hand we need regulation in virtual worlds to provide the orderly and predictable environments in which commerce and education can be pursued. On the other hand, regulation seriously inhibits the potential of virtual worlds as a medium of self expression and exploration. Can these two conflicting potentials of virtual worlds both be achieved? Or will one have to give way to the other?

I think they can both be achieved via virtual world segmentation or in more common terms zoning. Zoning can be achieved fairly easily. Each simulator or virtual location should have a set of attributes associated with it indicating its regulations. For example, it may require visitors to be over a certain age and may require user authentication. Another simulator may allow anonymity but require visitors to adhere to role playing rules. Anonymity may require some refinement. For example it is one thing to be anonymous to the land owner and another thing to be anonymous to the other visitors.

It may take some time to get a standard set of attributes that simulations will set, but careful zoning takes careful planning. Further, if the zoning attributes are selected carefully it will be possible to group simulators into parallel virtual worlds. These parallel worlds might emphasize commerce, education, tourism, art, socializing, self expression, or any other thematic attributes.

In addition, each avatar would have similar attributes. These may include age, anonymity, credit worthiness, and social or moral restrictions. Again, these attributes would have to be carefully thought out. And just like today where vendors target certain market segments, virtual world developers would target a specific segment of the visitor population.

This attribution would allow a wide range of opportunities for sef expression while preventing someone from inadvertently landing up in an undesirable neighborhood. At the same time it would allow land owners to restrict undesirable visitors. If this all sounds a little too confining, don't forget that you can always have multiple avatars, some well documented and some anonymous. So, it seems to me, that it solves the problem of reguation. Hey, maybe we should start doing this in RL as well.

The Argument Against Regulation

By far the most impressive feature of Second Life in particular and virtual world technology in general is the capabilities that it provides its users to express their creativity and imagination in a globally accessible public forum. This includes creating a new environment and creating new persona. If you can imagine it, you can create it and experience it. See

http://doctorcosmos.blogspot.com/2009/01/creating-your-second-life-part-2.html

for more details on this idea.

So, if we see virtual worlds as a technological extension of our imaginative capabilities, then regulating virtual worlds would be like regulating your imagination. It would be like saying - no, there are certain things that your are not allowed to imagine. This sounds an awful lot like the thought police of 1984. I should mention that I am referring to the book 1984 by George Orwell. In this world of web pages and short memories, readers might think that I am referring to the year 1984 when the world was ruled by dinosaurs and Roman Legions.

But, if the negative implications of the thought police are not sufficient justification for limiting regulation in virtual worlds, or if 1984 was so long ago that it has no bearing on what we are discussing today, then consider what we might loose in the future by regulating virtual worlds.

We believe in freedom of expression as one of the basic tenets of our modern world. If anyone were to suggest regulating the content of web pages, there would be an out cry of self righteous indignation that could not be contained. Even if a web site says offensive things we believe that free expression benefits society far more than the offensive expression hurt it.

The things people do in a virtual world are no less expression than words on a web page. And while society benefits from a diversity of idea, both society and individuals benefit from the ability to freely explore their imaginations and creativity. You can try things in a virtual world that you cannot easily try in the real world. And you can try these things in an environment where potential damage is minimal. If we regulate virtual worlds we are saying, not only that there are ideas you cannot think, but there are new ideas that you cannot try. This in turn suggests that we already know the answers to all our questions about everything and we know the answers to any future questions that might arise. This is silly on the face of it. And, in turn, regulating virtual worlds is silly on the face of it.

But, in order to make this argument more compelling, we should ask - what are some of those things that we need to explore in virtual worlds that justifies this lack of regulation? And that will be the topic of the next post.

The Argument for Regulation

In this post and the next I plan to make the arguments for and against regulation of virtual worlds. The argument for regulation is the easiest and the least compelling so I will address it first. The argument for regulation of virtual worlds is basically the same as the argument for regulation in any sphere. People need a predictable environment in which to conduct their businesses and social affairs. Without some sort of regulatory structure short term gains by opportunists will lead to long term losses in the system as a whole. This is not to say that there is anything inherently wrong with short term opportunists. In fact, there is much to be said in favor of them. Them make the system more efficient. But the line between efficient and predatory is often very finely drawn. And a predatory environment cannot flourish over the long term.

To put this into more pragmatic terms, if I cannot trust an environment in which I am operating, I am unlikely to take risks in that environment. If the environment needs people to take risks in order for the environment to flourish, then the people must be able to trust the environment and the environment much meet the expectations of those risk takers.

To put this into even more concrete terms, if I do not trust a virtual world environment I will be unlikely to start a business, sell a product, offer a service, teach a class, hold a meeting, or any of the other activities that the virtual world needs me to do in order to reach its full potential. So, regulation is necessary if a virtual world is going to become a place of commerce, education or socializing.

In the early days of web technologies, people were reluctant to buy products that they could not touch and even more reluctant to give their credit card number to some unknown entity in cyberspace. Companies like Amazon.com offered excellent return policies and promised to protect their customers private information, such as credit card numbers. This was a form of self regulation and, in the case of the web, it was all the regulation that was necessary.

I don't think that this would be enough regulation for a virtual world. On a web site, you don't have people from some other web sites coming to where you are and harassing you. And if you find yourself on some undesirable website, you can merely close your browser. You don't have to worry about leaving your avatar there until you log in again. So, virtual worlds present difficulties that do not exist on web sites.

I would view a virtual world more like a shopping mall, maybe even a town. Even though the individuals in that mall or town may be behaving within the boundaries placed on them as individuals, a few more restrictions are probably necessary so that everyone can get along and prosper. So virtual worlds will require some level of regulation to thrive and the question is - how much? Too much regulation has its down sides as well. And we will get to that next.

Should Virtual Worlds Be Regulated?

Should virtual worlds be regulated? The simple answer is - yes, of course they should be. This is, as they say, a no brainer. Everything in civilized life is regulated. The important questions are how much and what kind of regulation are appropriate. And that is where it gets tricky. What we strive for in ethics is to find a balance between individual empowerment and social harmony. Virtual worlds provide amazing opportunities for individual empowerment and that should be encouraged. However, empowered individuals can be a major threat to social harmony and that needs to be curtailed.

One way to approach the idea of regulation in a virtual world is to ask which of these two desirable goals (individual empowerment and social harmony) is more fundamental. In the real world we usually take social harmony as more fundamental, allowing individuals to find ways to express their individuality as long as it does not seriously impact social harmony. So, should virtual worlds follow the same priority scheme and balance that we find in the real world? Perhaps, yes. Perhaps, no. And despite indications to the contrary, we are making progress.

If we see virtual worlds as an extension of the real world, then our priorities with regard to the real world should carry into virtual worlds. If we see virtual worlds as a thing apart from the real world then perhaps it may make sense to change the priorities. Let's consider two examples; one in which virtual worlds are an extension of the real world and one in which virtual worlds are a thing apart. Perhaps we can then extrapolate from those to cases and make some progress on this issue. And we will do that. But that will begin with the next entry.

Reflecting on Virtual Worlds

I got lazy over the holidays and did not post a blog entry last week. I apologize for that. I did, however, spend a fair amount of time reflecting on things as I am accustomed to doing over the winter holidays. One of the things I reflected on was the significance of virtual worlds. And, as the title of this blog is Ranting and Reflecting, I thought a little reflecting might be in order.

It was a little over two years ago that I stopped caring about the real world and started caring about virtual worlds. I know how bizarre this sounds but if you will bear with me over the next few paragraphs I think I can make some sense out of it.

I used to be obsessed with the real world; particularly in the areas of history, geography, literature, philosophy and technology. Over the past twenty or so years I have listened to hundreds and hundreds of recorded books. (I am a slow reader so listening is much easier for me.) I have listened to thousands of hours of recorded lectures. I was an obsessive viewer or documentary cable channels such as History and Discovery. And, in recent years, I had become a news junkie. But, just a little over two years ago, all that changed. I discovered virtual worlds. And now I study virtual worlds with the same passion that I used to apply to the real world. Am I crazy? Or, it there an important underlying logic to this shift in focus?

Galileo is credited with the observation that people studying the natural world should not waste their time with what is actually "out there". Instead, he suggested that we should study idealizations of things in the natural world. Anyone who has had an undergraduate physics class has heard of some of these elementary idealizations such as a frictionless inclined plane, free fall in a vacuum, or an ideal spring. These thing do not exist in the world. They are constructs abstracted from things that exist in the world for the purpose of study. Relativity theory would be largely unexplored if we actually had to observe real world object traveling at the speed of light.

Centuries later Max Weber made a similar suggestion for social science. He observed that things like bureaucracies do not actually exist even in the social world. And yet to study the social world we need "ideal types" - concepts abstracted from the real world for he purpose of study. The real world is a messy, unruly and uncooperative place for study. By abstracting the essense of some phenomenon and studying the essence, we can make much bigger strides in understanding what is out there.

It isn't just scientists that do this. Writers of fiction do something very similar. They abstract the essence of human experience and motivation and call it a plot. They study the plot in the abstract and see how it will unfold. You can learn a great deal about life by reading a good novel. In fact, you will learn a great deal more about life from a novel than you will ever learn by reflecting on your own experiences. It is this process of abstracting the essence and then studying the abstracted essence that gives us such profound intellectual purchase.

In much the same way, virtual worlds are an abstraction or an idealization of the real world. They allow us to abstract the essence of our experience in an idealized environment for the purpose of study. While all those tapes that I listened to on history, philosophy, literature, and science have given me insight into what has happened, the time I spend studying virtual worlds gives me insight into what "can" happen. And in a rapidly changing world there is value in knowing what is coming as well as what has come and gone.

Persona Attatchment

It is easy enough to say that people who experience life through their avatars really just need to get a real life. This kind of simplistic dismissive thinking is not unusual in complex ethical situations where people would rather avoid having to think about the complexity of the issue by dismissing it as silly. And, to be fair, there are probably a lot of people who experience life through their avatars who really do need to get a life. But, the extreme cases are easy and don't get us anywhere. At the other extreme, someone who does not have any kind of an alter ego, whatsoever, might be colorless and boring. We might say, about that person as well, that they really need to get a life. The hard part is that vast territory between the extremes. So, in order to make avatar attachment seem a little less bizarre, I am going to compare with another similar kind of attachment that we are all comfortable with. That is persona attachment.

Everybody has a persona. It is the version of yourself that you present to the world. You may even have different persona that you present in different situations. You may, for example, have one persona on dates while another persona at work. You may not think you have a persona, but when is the last time you got out of bed and went straight to work? When is the last time you farted, picked your nose, or belched loudly in front of other people? When is the last time you talked to a friend the same way you talk to your cat? Yes, like it not, you have a persona.

Your persona is not real. It is a construct you created through which you interact with the world.... not unlike an avatar. And if somebody injures your persona in some way, you probably take it very seriously. Some public figures have very highly developed persona. For example, celebrities and politicians often have a public presence that may be quite different from their private presence. You often see this dichotomy in behind the scenes stories that attempt to tell what a given person is really like. And if you damage someone's public persona they may be quite hurt or offended. In fact, you may even get sued.

We consider harm to the persona as seriously as we consider harm to the person. In fact, in many cases it is only the persona that is harmed and the person is not really harmed at all. In other cases causing harm to the persona causes harm to the person as well. So, we are comfortable with the idea of having a fantasy construct representing us in the world. And we are comfortable with the fact that, if you attack the construct, the person behind it may very well attack back.

My question is - how is this any different from an avatar? People say that an avatar is just pixels on a screen. And, as some level, that is true. However, pixels on a screen have a more real presence than the persona we present to the world. At lease you can point to or recognize an avatar. A persona has an entirely ethereal existence and yet we are comfortable being attached to a persona while we think avatar attachment is a little weird. Go figure. Maybe we are used to one so it doesn't seem bizarre, while we are not used to the other so it does.

Avatar Attachment

Yes, people actually do begin to experience life through their avatar. I think most people who have spent any amount of time in a virtual world would agree with this statement without question because it agrees with their own subjective experience. However, for people who have not spent an appreciable amount of time in a virtual world, its sounds bizarre. And yet, by examining a few analogous situations, it becomes much more plausible, if not entirely clear.

First consider compassion. Let's say that something bad happens to somebody you don't even know. You feel badly for this person. Nothing has happened to you. Your world has not changed. You don't even know the person to whom the tragedy occurred. And yet you still feel bad. You are experiencing woe by proxy. So, the idea of feeling 'for' or 'through' another person even when nothing actually happened to you is not an alien concept.

Next consider empathy. A close friend of your has a personal problem of some kind. They hate their boss or just broke up with a significant other. You feel, to some extent, what they feel even though nothing happened to you. You are, once again, feeling by proxy. Now lets say that this personal problem occurred to someone very close to you, say a relative or a child. The feelings can become quite intense. In fact, your empathic feelings may be more intense, in some cases, than if the thing had occurred to you. Just how intense can these feeling by proxy become? They can become quite intense as the next example will show.

I don't want to get too graphic here but a more shocking example is necessary to make a point. Let's say your cat runs out of the door while you are getting the morning paper. It runs into the street and it immediately obliterated by a passing car. You are in shock! The emotional impact on you is incredible. And yet, nothing actually happened to you. You mights say that you are feeling pain for the cat. But the fact is that it all happened so quickly that the poor cat probably did not feel anything. And yet your attachment to your pet causes you great emotional strife.

You may try to counter at this point by saying that a cat is a living being while your avatar is just pixels on the screen. This is true but it is only a temporary respite. Let's say that you just bought a new car. You saved up a long time and got exactly the car you want. It expresses your inner being like no other car could. And as you come out to get in your car one evening you notice that somebody left an ugly door bang on your driver's side door. You are in agony. Even though you can easily have it repaired and the car did not feel any damage, you feel as though you were scratched.

Because people attach to other people, pets, and even property we have endless ethical views on behaviors that affect others through these attachments. So, if people attach to their avatars shouldn't there be ethical positions on how avatars are treated? The answer is probably yes. But that doesn't get us very far. Should avatars be treated the same as the person behind the avatar? Or does the avatar provide a level of buffering that would reduce some of that obligation? Somehow answers to ethical questions just seem to lead to more questions.