Digital Suicide
“Q: Do you think people will pass away and leave so much of their lives stored in digital form that their survivors will have to deal with a digital afterlife?
A: I remember that the first digital suicide was someone on the Well (a pioneering online community). I think it was about 1988 or 1989, and there was one person who, just before they committed suicide, went on the Well and used their status as a system administrator to delete everything about themselves. That's an indication there is something very profound here. But I would say digital technology probably doesn't have much impact on us so far. We've seen photographs of people from when they are alive. We see home movies. We have videotapes now and e-mails. When it's going to get interesting is in massively multiplayer online games where you have avatars (online personas). You could actually create an avatar that's semi-autonomous. It could do things for you while you get off the game to run the rest of your life. I think it is just a matter of time before we have literal ghosts in the machine so you can create an alter ego of yourself that learns from your social experiences and extends a life even if you're no longer in the game or you are no longer alive.”
read the full article at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/19/BUG86H9O6N1.DTL
Digital Suicide
I remember being disconnected off MSN for 3 days, and all my friends thought i was dead. But what would the effect be when you're an avatar on SL. Meaning, your SL is rich with your own persona, what would the impact be if you decided to quit logging on to SL? Imagine you've developed a strong history, culture, family, organization, business (which are just some aspects that make SL successful) and then just quit? would there be investigations of what happened to you? would your SL friends have to report to a SL police? what would happen to all your belongings/property?
Imagine this in 10 years from now when SL has 10 million people logged on and are constantly dieing, leaving behind Gigs of virtual data on the SL server. Would all your friends get all your SL friends get all your virtual belongings? or will it just be deleted forever to protect your rights as ownership. I think it's time we all look into scripting a digital will to know our digital SL children are well taken care of.
WONT ANYBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
-Brad
“Q: Do you think people will pass away and leave so much of their lives stored in digital form that their survivors will have to deal with a digital afterlife?
A: I remember that the first digital suicide was someone on the Well (a pioneering online community). I think it was about 1988 or 1989, and there was one person who, just before they committed suicide, went on the Well and used their status as a system administrator to delete everything about themselves. That's an indication there is something very profound here. But I would say digital technology probably doesn't have much impact on us so far. We've seen photographs of people from when they are alive. We see home movies. We have videotapes now and e-mails. When it's going to get interesting is in massively multiplayer online games where you have avatars (online personas). You could actually create an avatar that's semi-autonomous. It could do things for you while you get off the game to run the rest of your life. I think it is just a matter of time before we have literal ghosts in the machine so you can create an alter ego of yourself that learns from your social experiences and extends a life even if you're no longer in the game or you are no longer alive.”
read the full article at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/19/BUG86H9O6N1.DTL
Digital Suicide
I remember being disconnected off MSN for 3 days, and all my friends thought i was dead. But what would the effect be when you're an avatar on SL. Meaning, your SL is rich with your own persona, what would the impact be if you decided to quit logging on to SL? Imagine you've developed a strong history, culture, family, organization, business (which are just some aspects that make SL successful) and then just quit? would there be investigations of what happened to you? would your SL friends have to report to a SL police? what would happen to all your belongings/property?
Imagine this in 10 years from now when SL has 10 million people logged on and are constantly dieing, leaving behind Gigs of virtual data on the SL server. Would all your friends get all your SL friends get all your virtual belongings? or will it just be deleted forever to protect your rights as ownership. I think it's time we all look into scripting a digital will to know our digital SL children are well taken care of.
WONT ANYBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
-Brad
posted by bradmistry at 7:29 AM
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