Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Alter egos in a virtual world

The unplugged world is having to wrap its head around the notion of online avatars, and how they relate to the people playing them. Here is NPR's "huh, what?" piece on the phenomenon. (Thanks to Hiro Protagonist for the link.)

Oh, but look out! The online world is a big, scary place filled with crazy people, even terrorists! Better shut down all online games, just to make the world safe for our ruling elite, so they can play harmless games like "blow-up-the-WTC-to-scare-everyone-into-submission".

Fuck that noise.

These avatar-enabled explorations of identity are a sign that the real world has become deeply, inescapably un-free whether we consciously admit it or not. People have given up almost all their freedom, at this point. Why can't they be allowed this one last escape? Because it's the nature of tyranny to want more power, always more.

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