From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Wed Jun 12 2002 - 23:05:11 MDT
Mike Lorrey wrote:
> Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
>>Mike Lorrey wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Samantha Atkins wrote:
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Personally I have never found "virtual space" violence any more
>>>>palatable than the physical space variety. I abhor both. I
>>>>don't believe it is good for people psychological to spend their
>>>>time fragging other people virtually. At least it doesn't
>>>>actually kill people. But when/if we upload, then what? Where
>>>>does reality end and virtuality begin?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>But is it proper to produce policy based on personal neurosis? So
>>>
>>Is it proper to baldly claim my attitude is the result of
>>neurosis??
>>
>
> Once more into the breach... Samantha, the fact that you have
> palatability problems with merely *simulated* violence evinces signs of
> a psychological source. A non-neurotic individual would have no
> difficulty both delineating, differentiating, and reacting completely
> differently to simulated versus real violence. Someone who feels the
> pain of others, even those who are not really real (ergo the pain they
> feel is self created), does have issues to work out.
>
Did I say I react exactly to same to one as to the other? No.
Sometimes it feels as if you assume whatever you wish to make
the person you see as your "opponent" look as foolish as
possible. The focus of my dislike of the gore variety of video
games (esp. where that is the main attraction) is not in caring
for the a/v characters as in witnessing the psychological stance
and changes of the human being thus "entertained". At least
this side of real sentients in the virtual world, I expect that
will continue to be the primary source of my consternation at
such entertainment.
>
>>I did not say anything at all about policy. I do ask where the
>>virtuality ends and a different aspect of current or future
>>reality begins where such violence by really be as abhorrent as
>>in the "real" world today.
>>
>
> But for who? You do raise an interesting question here, though. As
> demonstrated in "The 13th Floor" there needs to be a dialog to develop
> an ethics of virtuality, especially if it turns out that we are already
> living in a simulation. Do our ethical systems not apply to the players
> from a higher level metaverse, and do the ethical systems of simulacra
> in our computers apply to us? Do they apply in reverse as well? If we
> run simulations specifically to test different ethical systems or
> problems on simulated beings, is this as wrong as experimenting on
> humans in this universe?
My take is that all sentient beings have some level of rights
and thus ethical constraints on how they may be treated by
virtue of being sentient beings. It does not matter on what
sort of strata they are implemented.
>
> Lets say, for example, that I develop a simulation game for people
> called Slavemaster(tm), where the player can live out a simulated life
> on the computer as the master of slaves on a plantation, in a factory or
> dungeon or mine, or bordello. The player can select the characteristics
> of their slaves, including skin color. Black players could make a world
> where whitey was enslaved, Chinese can have Japanese slaves, and Scots
> can have English serf maids to deflower as they wish.
>
> In no way do I, or any player actually wish to life that life in
> reality, and abor enslaving real people. Is this wrong? Why?
>
If your slaves are sentient, feeling entities then it is wrong
to enslave them just as in the strata we normal think of as real.
>
>>>violence makes you gag, and the fact that fictional violence produces
>>>the same result shows it's not a matter of actual people getting hurt,
>>>or actual pain being inflicted, it's just in your head. You also
>>>
>>It doesn't "make me gag". In the real world it is an incredible
>>waste of sentient beings and I deeply abhor it. In the virtual
>>world it sometimes appears to me (as I clarified elsewhere) to
>>be a relaxing of real space considerations in order to indulge
>>very primitive and potentially dangerous parts of ourselves.
>>The second also seems questionable and perhaps pernicious in at
>>least some circumstances.
>>
>
> But is bottling up those primitive and potentially dangerous parts of
> ourselves really healthy? The leftie pshrink world says that people
It is a popular myth that we must give an outlet to such in
order to stay healthy. There are studies that give evidence
that "safely" expressing anger and rage (as opposed to
therapeutically dealing with it) increase anger and rage
experienced rather than dissipating it like a safety valve. Not
expressing some of our primitive and dangerous parts does not
have to make us unhealthy either. With training these impulses
can be overcome and/or their energy channeled in ways more in
our interest.
> should act out their emotions, play out their fantasies, no matter how
> immoral such acts may be under primtive patriarchal ethical systems. How
Those who say this are sadly mistaken.
> are first person shooter games any different from you and I swatting at
> each other with foam bats, or couples playing out bondage scenarios?
>
Bondage scenarios have many aspects, most of them not
particularly violent in any really negative way. Now, I have
known a little about that scene in my checkered past. There are
things learned there. There are also a lot of people who get
addicted to the endorphin high. There are situations where some
such actions actually do lead to learning new ways of dealing
with the raw energies and may uncover things deeper behind the
rage and energy. It is not a complete either or. But it is one
thing to do such working out in a therapeutic setting and
another, I believe, to go fragging away just to get your jollies
or probably worse still, because you feel powerless about some
real world situations. The point of exercises with the bats is
not enjoyment of the rush of battling.
- samantha
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