Virtual world: rogue state?

 

There are quirkier items on the agenda than stock market sturm und drang and terrorism at the 38th annual World Economic Forum in Davos. On Saturday, one of the presentations, ‘Virtual Worlds – Fiction or Reality’, muses on the impact of virtual worlds on different generations, and asks how this world of immediate access, limitless social skills and unrestrained behaviour influence our moral framework.

Video-time: Brainwave power frees disabled people into a virtual world

Thanks to ITN

Castranova’s Exodus to the Virtual World

 

I just finished my advance copy of Edward Castronova’s Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun is Changing Reality (2007, Palgrave McMillan.) As anyone familiar with Costronova should expect, the book is provocative and entertaining. Castronova’s central premise is simple: as more and more people spend a larger percentage of their waking hours in virtual worlds, these synthetic environments are going to radically impact how we design our real world societies. He predicts that massively multiplayer online games and virtual worlds are going to affect how government policies are crafted, how businesses are run, and how classes are taught.