Archive for 'Philosophical Issues'
MMORPGs, company towns, and free speech
A few weeks ago we blogged Yale Professor Jack Balkin’s paper on free speech issues in the context of MMORPGs. Now attorney Peter Jenkins has contributed to the discussion on this topic with a paper in the Journal of Internet Law: “THE VIRTUAL WORLD AS A COMPANY TOWN: FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN MASSIVELY MULTIPLE ON-LINE [...]
Full StoryUri meets The Thinkers
A couple weeks ago Hamlet Linden organized a meeting between me and The Thinkers — a group of 100+ Second Lifers that like to cogitate/discourse/ruminate about deep things etc. It was a fun time, but it does raise questions about exactly how far one can get with discussions in an online setting (at least one [...]
Full Storyop/ed: RULES
–humdog rules seem easy enough for people to talk about — at first. everybody thinks they know what rules the rules are for a given game, and how they work. but rules are not that easy. the superficial simplicity of rules for gaming is a lie.
Full StoryEssay: On Online Artistic Expression
David Pierce recently posted the following essay on Stratics and invited us to repost it here. It’s q good read in prep for his upcoming in world production of Waiting for Godot (in tso).
Full StoryFundies as griefers?
Kudos to Betsy Book for breaking this story on Terra Nova. It appears that a Christian fundie is getting VERY zealous about advertising his faith in There. To quote Betsy: “a born-again Christian is ruffling feathers by using There as an advertising vehicle for his particular denomination. Specifically, he’s set up a large ?Sacred Place? [...]
Full StoryInterview with Second Life CEO, Philip Rosedale
When Philip Rosedale (aka Philip Linden) stopped by Uri’s pad for an interview, little did Uri expect that Phil would be in drag, carrying a rose and a Seburo Compact Exploder automatic weapon. Phil quickly slipped into his Cowboy Roy avatar and the discussion got serious, as the bad boy CEO and bad boy cyber-journalist [...]
Full StoryCreation vs. Craft, Ownership vs. Exploitation
In an interesting essay entitled “Living on the Edge: Digital Worlds which Embrace the Real World“, Cory Ondrejka (aka Cory Linden) offers some interesting observtions about (1) the distinction between games which allow users to craft vs those which allow creativity, and (2) the importance of extendending real world property rights in the latter case. [...]
Full StoryEditorial: Friendship Web or Snooper Web?
EA/Maxis picks its spots to champion the privacy of its users. If, as was the case, a user claims to have beaten his 8 year old sister and put her in the hospital, well that?s a case where EA/Maxis has said that they can?t notify the police because it would violate their privacy policy. But [...]
Full Storyi got them old cosmic blues again, mama
–humdog terra nova recently published an interesting article called “American Psychiatric Association Joins the Fray”. many of the comments both within and around the article talk about gaming and/or internet addiction.
Full StoryOpen Letter from Second Life CEO/Prophet, Phil Rosedale
Digital Worlds, Digital Lives, Digital Futures An Open Letter to Thereians and the Metaverse community Philip Rosedale, CEO and Founder, Second Life With the recent announcement that the There.com commercial service is to receive reduced support, I wanted to write a bit about how I (Philip Rosedale, AKA Philip Linden) and the Second Life team [...]
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