11 September 2007
On 9 September 2007, The New York Times published Shira Boss' article, "Even in a Virtual World, 'Stuff' Matters". In her article, Boss explains the phenomena of an online world, Second Life:
"Second Life, a three-dimensional world built by hundreds of thousands of users over the Internet, [...] It's a wide world with a lot going on, in multiple languages, and it can be real-life enhancing for populations who are isolated for physical, mental, or geographic reasons. But as a petri dish for examining what makes many of us tick, Second Life reveals just how deep-seated the drive is to fit in, look good and get ahead in a material world."
Indeed, full of avatars, Linden-dollar fortunes, fashion, and riches in excess galore, Second Life proves to be a rather comfortable virtual sphere where game players realize their materialist 'American Dream' - at the expense of sacrificing their real aspirations. In effect, SL players live, thrive, and flourish in their fantasy game world only to quasi-exist in their real world. Rather grim and uneven exchange in the process.
After reading Boss' article, I feel a need for a point of clarification when I call for virtuality in my blog entries. The virtuality that I extol is a complement to reality. It empowers by enabling transcendence and accomplishment beyond limitations. Although SL enables a bit of transcending for isolated populations, as I quote above, it only does so for the game fantasy and not for the real. Virtuality as I envision, is an 'enabler' of all our creative potentiality to come to fruition. In SL, vituality in lieu of reality supplants it and extinguishes rather than empowers.
Even if fantasy virtuality is the desired end for gamers, indulged in as an art-form, and even if they do not see any sacrifice on their part, at least let their fantasy be of the extravagent grand caliber, in league with phantasmagoria in its true spectacle. I am talking about the all-out, full-on phantasmagoria of Wagner's day and the type incorporated in the performing arts that Benjamin and Adorno wrote about. If this is virtuality, then the phantasmagoria could be without any limitations and quite a great deal more remarkable than in Wagner's day.
Why stop short? In virtuality this SL does not extend to its full potential and in reality it only serves to bankrupt the senses.
Second Life should rather stand for Sacrificing Life and Superficial Life because it enables (dare say encourages) users to sacrifice the real in an instant-gratification virtual lifestyle of appearances, materials, and success of the superficial at the expense of one's future, presence, time and life in the real
The success of virtuality depends solely on how the individual makes use of it. S/he can reign and rule and become empowered in the arriving, or follow in subsistence a quasi-existence of abandoned aspirations and perpetual retro-striving.
Rather than escapism, SL is a forfeiture. The impact of SL is especially macabre in light of a segment aired on CBS:
On 9 September 2007, CBS aired "Get Me The Geeks!" in their 60 Minutes program. In that segment, Geek Squad Founder and Chief Inspector Robert Stephens, was profiled, with additional commentary from Northwestern University professor Donald Norman (an MIT engineer grad). The reporter, Steve Kroft, basically discussed consumer frustrations about the two-fold advent of man's increasing dependency on machines and an increasingly Geek-ruled society. With assembly and installation instructions of family entertainment centers and general electronics (a refrigerator plugged in online that can restock itself!) being so convoluted and overly-complex, Kroft made a point that not even Dr. Norman could decipher some of the instructions.
What really captured my attention is how Stephens ended the interview, stating:
"Geeks have no interest in power. The only power we're interested in is low power consumption and longer battery life and low prices so we can stay up later at night. Geeks have no desire - geeks may inherit the earth, but they have no desire to rule it."
I really must beg to differ because it is the "Geek" - I would prefer to say "electro-technologically advanced" - who is ruling today. Think about Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Larry Ellison. Pure desire, power, and dominance - Rule personified! Think about Hackers. Power fueled by desire to control - Rule! Even the Geek Squad - it's founding, success, and sustaining presence - is a great sign of dependency on the 'geek' and ocular proof that this segment truly has control over the maintenance of and execution over data and ideas. This control is power and a true form of rule.
Nietzsche once wrote of the will to truth as the will to power. Control over the restoration, maintenance, and dissemination of information, data, and ideas is the transcending truth (transcending because it exists in the virtual and the real) and this is the true will to power today.
And this is the true (Golden) rule - rule over invisibility.
Present-day phantasmagoria, perhaps?
