Virtual worlds divide and connect us, create new realities, and alter our present realities. What, then, is your verdict? Are these new virtual worlds good or bad? Explore this through using examples from the video, or answer one of the following questions:
1. In World of Warcraft, Everquest, and Second Life, you can change your identity and live a completely different life. Or can you? Are these games helping to connect and expand ourselves, or assisting us in hiding or refusing to confront our own personal identities?
2. How is video conferencing, such as IBM's use of Second Life, changing our world? Is it different from meeting face-to-face? What is lost by this and how is it important? What about the use of Virtual Reality to either change our memories, such as in the whale test in children, or alter our perceptions of ourselves, such as altering height measurements in the Virtual World in order to assist in debates in the real world?
3. How is combat changing based on drones and fighting a remote war? Could this potentially change how we fight and the mentality with which we do so?
In World of Warcraft, Everquest, and Second Life, realities are altered. I think people do hide by using these games as an escape from reality because in the virtual world you can be a whole new person. You can change certain aspects about yourself and create a whole new world that you have always wanted. I believe that when people play these games that for that one moment they feel like they are something: they feel important in this virtual world. It’s an escape from reality, because if you’re a king in the virtual world, but a lonely, insignificant plumber in the real world wouldn't you want to an escape?
ReplyDeleteVirtual worlds do connect people, that I will admit. We could see this with the way people seemed to bond at conventions so quickly just because they've spent so much time with these other people. Even some got married after meeting in a virtual world. Ettiquette is different in these virtual worlds. People are more hastey in their words online than in person. The barriers that prevent people from saying what they really want to say in person are broken down in these virtual words. This could be good since you're really seeing others "in all their glory". However, with all of this we lose our sense of mystery, of learning something new about the other person by watching him or her interact with others or speak with us. There is no sense of spontaneous romance; it's all virtual; it's all online. Romance at its best is being sold out for virtual romance. Rather than going out or staying in with our significant others, we would rather go to a virtual restaurant and read messages of "ily" instead of hearing him or her say with all sincerity "I love you". How much emotion can really be portrayed virtually? Not much. One girl in the video thought that her partner saving her from a castle online was more romantic than anything else, but could she really see his determination and his persistence, the look in his eyes when he reached her? No. And that's the problem. We are selling ourselves short in romance with virtual worlds and online relationships.
ReplyDeleteOnline games such as World of Warcraft and Everquest are means for hiding from reality. This obvriously isn't the case for everyone, but if one is trying to escape from reality just to be something great online, then we have a problem. These games encourage people to leave behind their undesirable lives to become something else. It sounds intriguing, however, how is this at all helping the individual? One will eventually neglect any responsibility in his or her real life and give anything just to be in this "other world", to be someone else. One woman even quit her job just to be online all day. Is that healthy? No. Is that a good way of coping with the undesirable parts of life? No. It is too easy for people to get engulfed in these games, and instead of trying to further their real lives, they neglect their real lives in order to further their virtual lives.
ReplyDeleteWorld of Warcraft, Everquest, and Second Life are just fictional games. If you have to live your life through a game, then you just hiding from reality. The games to me just make you dream of the things you sometimes cant get. Some people see that as a comfort tool for the material things they lack. I think its sad to see that the new thing in corporate America is video conferencing “like a game.” When you meet someone face to face, it gives you a different aspect then as if it was on a virtual video game. People rely to much on games and technology to run their lives.
ReplyDeleteWorld of Warcraft, Everquest, and Second Life you do have the opportunity to live a different lifestyle. You have the chance to live a alternative lifestyle to the one you actually live. I do not believe they are helping to connect our lives but actually impairing us to meeting people face to face and allowing people to get to know us for the people we are. we are hiding from our own identites using avatars.
ReplyDeleteWorld of Warcraft, Everquest, and the Second Life do provide people with an escape to a different world. I'm not nescessarily saying that these are bad things. It provides an escape from real life and takes you into a world where you can be whoever you want to be. With the way the economy is going right now an escape like this could be that one thing that keeps you from going crazy. What I believe is the key to the whole thing is making sure that you do not blur the lines between real and fantasy. It needs to be veiwed as what it is, a game. They still need to be intune with the things of the real world. Like being able to hold a converstaion with someone in person, make eye contact, and still be relatable. Hiding behind a computer and building up this fake version of yourself is just going to make it harder when you realize that it isn't real and that there is a whole real world outside of the virtual one that you've been living in.
ReplyDeleteI personally thought the segment on virtual conferencing was ridiculous and not a realistic business tool. While I'm not fond of business meetings at all, I can't imagine wasting time changing my avatar's clothes or "flying" to a coffee shop to meet my constituents for any sort of serious conversation. There is no benefit to playing with computer characters over using video conferencing to do the same thing with the real people, especially since there are so many options for video "chat" today. Additionally, using a game to conduct business seems puerile, unprofessional, and comedic and would not hold the proper tone for any serious negotiations. I do not think that idea will go much futher in the real world.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do think it can be fun as a passtime, especially for those who crave human connection but have poor social skills themselves. Being able to express themselves in a social setting with the ability to "leave" if things get too uncomfortable could help some come out of their shells and gain a sense of confidence that they otherwise would not have achieved. On the other hand, with "cyber bullying" hot in the news lately, it is clear that this can sometimes have the opposite affect. This is another example of technology that is neither good nor bad, but can be either based on the individual user.
World of Warcraft, Everquest and Second Life are absolutely ridiculous. They are fake games that can eventually lead you away from the real world. In this confrontation people can be whoever they want to be; some people choose to be themselves and others choose to be a completely different person. This is taking away identity and confidence. When most people speak over the phone or through emails they are a completely different person. I am guilty of that. It might be intimidation or nervousness when meeting face to face but when meeting face to face people know the real you. With these "games" coming into the world is giving those intimidated people a way around learning to be confident and being yourself. Being able to hide your identity on a job site has the potential to move out of the office and into the real world. With this happening we will lose all real connection with people and getting to know who they really are.
ReplyDeleteTechnology can be good or bad but in some ways it seems that it is corrupting people and their thoughts on actual reality. What IBM is doing with their employees is nice from the aspect that they are communicating with more people from all over the world. But technology can really hide who a person really is and there are actually people out there that can work the system and break into networks. So you could think you are talking to someone giving them all this information but really it could be that its not the person you think it is. SO when only talking to someone through a virtual reality world, the connection of business-style communication is lost. Another thing I believe is a big issue with the virtual world and programs being used is kids are starting to belive that real things are happening that really are NOT. That defeats the true experience of for example swimming with the whales, really doing something of the sort is something that should be unforgettable not just something your brain was forced to believe. Technology, yes has had its faults, like anything, but I will say it has also become something that is very beneficial in many aspects also.
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ReplyDeleteFictional games are great if you simply just want to play a game, but to use them in real life is pretty ridiculous. I think that by using virtual worlds like IBM does, you're just hiding behind a facade. The way you act in the real world versus the virtual world are completely different. What emotions can you really portray though Second Life? I think that having business meetings online diminishes our real socialization skills. How can our skills grow when all you do is hide behind an avatar? At one point in the film I remember someone saying, "why don't we go sit at this table to have our meeting?" That's entirely ridiculous. I think that the lines are pretty blurred when it comes down to the level of professionalism of these games. To succeed in a business I think it's necessary to hold real meetings, greet other coworkers and sustain a real conversation. Some things just can't be replaced.
ReplyDeleteI think its pretty surreal when you can fight a war with just a remote. In the film when asked whether the person thought if he actually has hurt a civilian or not gave a pretty vague response. I don't think the mentalitiy that people have fighting behind the scenes with a remote versus real combat are the same. The sense of guilt doesn't play as strong as a reaction if you were to be out in the real field. How can you feel any guilt when it wasn't technically you, but the drones that did the work? Technnology is pretty benefical to treat those with PTSD but to lure younger people to free game sessions to recruit is pretty askew. It's necessary that these recruitments make sure that these kids don't blur the lines between reality.
ReplyDeleteIn response to the first question, I believe that these virtual worlds are assisting in hiding and refusing to let certain players confront their own personal identities. I do not think these games affect everyone the same way, but for the people who play them hour after hour, I think they have severe impacts. By playing these games people can escape reality and join a world they feel they fit in to. While I think using virtual worlds as a release from pressures in everyday life is perfectly acceptable, many of these gamers spend most of their time playing in these worlds. The line between real-life and these virtual games gets blurred. Instead of communicating with people face-to-face, they use the computer to have contact with people. I believe this type of communication is flawed. They lose social interactions all because they are not comfortable with who they are. People try to change who they are all for a fantasy game.
ReplyDelete3. How is combat changing based on drones and fighting a remote war? Could this potentially change how we fight and the mentality with which we do so?
ReplyDeleteAs modern warfare has progressed throughout time we are seeing a constant shift towards fighting at a distance verses that of close combat. We saw this transition from the wars of 1000’s of years ago where the sword was used, to when it was replaced with the black powered musket, which was then replaced by aerial combat and the sniper rifle, which is now being replaced by something much more extreme – the fighter drone. This last shift in technology enabled military style fighting is much more intense because we are no longer even remotely close to the battle scent – the sense of war is gone. This can pose a big threat for the human element of empathy of warfare. What is meant by this is that since the people that are fighting are able to simply press a button and obliterate whatever is in front of them. Due to the fact that these men and women are not taking any chance of hurting themselves when they do these acts they could be more likely to strike when they aren’t sure if they really have the enemy on target. The results of this can be devastating because this can cause more civilian casualties and more physical destruction of the place of battle.
I definitely think that games such as World of War craft, Everquest, and Second Life assists people in hiding or refusing to confront their own personal identities. It is obvious that this does not apply to EVERYONE who plays World of War craft or any of the other games mentioned, but for those who's gaming affects daily lives, this allows an escape from reality by completely altering aspects of one's looks and identities online. Games like these let people live lives completely different than the ones they are living, lives that they have always wanted for themselves but could never obtain. It can be said that such games allow connections and friendships to form between other people hooked on the virtual world as seen in the video, but overall, gaming to the extent of blocking out one's reality is severely unhealthy, and only helps people to bury their true identities, along with problems and unhappiness.
ReplyDelete1.) In World of Warcraft, you are allowed to create a new identity in which you live out a fantasy life. The only problem with this is that you do not actually live a fantasy life, the reality of the situation is that you waste huge amounts of time in front of a computer screen instead of actually benefiting your real self. You actually expand no part of yourself, unless you consider clicking and hot-keying buttons, an expansion of who you are and who you can be. Games like world of warcraft and everquest don’t actually bring us together or help us improve upon ourselves, it only allows people to hide from reality and communicate artificially.
ReplyDelete3.) Combat drones are changing the face of war as we know it. Combat drones allow pilots to fight and kill the enemy while doing so from American soil. Drones change warfare from being a deeply personal thing to being almost nothing more than a video game in which you do not have to see the results of what you have just done once you turn off the screen. It definitely changes the mentality of war, because the men and women who fly the drones can in a way detach themselves from the actions that they are actually doing. As the documentary said, you are flying a drone and dropping bombs in Iraq in the afternoon, and then you are at home eating dinner with your family in the evening. The mental damage that these drone pilots could go through from the quick shift from combat to non-combat roles can be quite likely to cause post traumatic stress disorder.
The possibility of fighting a remote war is and will be the way wars will be fought. The idea to where we can go to war and have some or possibly no casualties/deaths would be, in our eyes, preferential. We are already using drones to explore buildings, give aerial reconnaissance, and even take down hostile targets.
ReplyDeleteA show I watch outside of class called Future Weapons did a bit on an UAV(Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) which is small enough to fit in a soldiers backpack and can give live aerial footage of whatever it is flying over. The camera on the plane is linked with a monitor on the soldier's wristband, so as someone is flying the UAV, using a simple controller, the soldiers on the ground can see exactly what is happening without even having to break cover. This type of technology is expanding quickly, and soon enough we may be seeing wars where all the soldiers are sitting behind computer monitors controlling drones.
Related to the virtual realities of World of Warcraft, Everquest, and Second Life, people's identities are not changing literally, but only figuratively in their own minds. Just because someone is an accomplished gamer inside the World of Warcraft does not mean that they are an accomplished person in the real world.
ReplyDeleteBy creating an online world which connects millions of people, you are creating an intensely interactive game, where problem solving skills can be worked on as a group, or where people can become leaders. But the number of people that a player comes in contact with in-game is much higher compared to the number of those people he or she actually comes into contact with in real life. Thinking about interactions in this manner leads me to think that this game is harming rather than helping people branch out and become more social. They will be able to be social in topics relating to World of Warcraft, but other than that, they are only using the game as a vehicle to hide their personal identities.
I think that fighting combat via drones and robots dehumanizes the whole idea of war, which in turn makes it much easier to deal with. On the other hand, the army has been dehumanizing soldiers for years, refusing to admit that "the enemy" is a human being, just an enemy, someone that will kill you if you don't kill them. Personally I think it is a good thing to use robots and drones, because I would much rather have a person struggle with the duty of keeping himself interested in the war and realizing that he is killing real people than have troops come back home with PTSD and be traumatized for the rest of their lives.
ReplyDeleteFighting war using drones may very well b the most brilliant idea thought
ReplyDeleteof today when it comes to protecting our soldiers.... i mean by doing that there may b less human casualties, but instead of the entrance exam for the military's lowest grade being 31 to operate these drones they may raise that and to qualify for the military may b harder.... but it is worth it to me if it is considered....