I just read an article entitled, “We All Live In a Virtual World,” by Maria Korolov, which goes into striking comparisons between ‘real and virtual worlds. It’s an absolutely amazing article and, as such, I wanted to share it. You can find it here: http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/korolov20100903 and I certainly recommend a read.

One quote in particular I want to share is: “You can have anything you want in a virtual world, as long as you either make it yourself, or have the virtual currency to buy it from someone else. It is not that different from real life today.

And real life and virtual life are getting more and more similar.”

The rest, yuo should go through and read.

But it did get me thinking about the striking similarities between Second Life and real life. Politics IS present even in our virtual world, with its citizens up in arms with the “leaders,” (Linden Lab) every time something happens that we do not like, with the “Leaders” punishing illegal (or anti ToS behaviour) by removing those people from the (virtual) society, either permanently or temporarily.

Our avatars have educational needs, just like real people. We have to learn the basic skills required to navigate out virtual world. Once you know the basics, how much more you learn is up to you. A little like the choice between leaving school as soon as you can or going into Higher Education. Do you just want the basics? Or do you want to be a builder? A scripter? Do you want advanced skills and, if you acquire them, can you put them to use in making a “virtual living?” Can you use your acquired skills to pay your tier?

The writer of that article draws some phenomenally interesting comparisons. One of my favourite reads of the week!

Categories: Second Life

This entry was posted on Friday, September 3rd, 2010 at 4:49 pm and is filed under Second Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.