MMORPG's Power

As I was watching the documentary, Second Skin, I was amazed to see how central MMORPG were to these gamers.  I have been made aware that these games can be a large part of some people's lives, as seen in Julian Dibbell's Play Money, but some gamers have come to the point where they have found a soul mate.  In other situations, people have moved in with fellow gamers.  It seems so ludicrous, yet this is a reality for many people working dead-end jobs.  It is a way for them to escape and be someone else.

While these virtual online game worlds might be a nice escape from reality, but it can become so addicting that people spend 170 days played per year.  It is hard for me to imagine that an MMORPG could be so immersive that gamers ruin relationships, lose their jobs and fall into a depressed state, fearing that they will lose their internet connection and electricity due to the fact that they have no money to pay bills.  The statistics presented in this documentary were upsetting to me.  However, I also learned about the happiness that some people gain from MMORPGs such as friends and relationships.  It is great that these games can bring people together, but I found it amusing that these people take it so seriously.

The fact that these games drive some gamers into online gamers anonymous, which is a type of self-help rehab for gamers.  They are usually coming away from gaming with nothing and the online gamers anonymous provides effective methods to help rebuild real lives for these people.  Although it seems crazy to me, this is a necessity for many people.  MMORPGs have the ability to consume a person's life and leave them with absolutely nothing.    

These games have the power to connect people from all around the world and these gamers have the ability to build a relationships.  However, at the same time, these games also have the frightening power to destroy a gamers life.  The fact that they are so addicting is a harsh and ominous reality to me and this documentary scares me out of having any desire to ever try these games.
 

Are They Games or Careers?

As I started to read Play Money, I was extremely happy to be reading a book that was not dark and complex.  The reading was easy to follow and Dibbell was keeping me interested with his explanation of his gaming experiences.  I was never big on online roleplaying games.  I did not have my own computer at home to spend a lot of time gaming and my school blocked most gaming websites.  However, when I was in middle school, my friends and I discovered a website that was not blocked called Miniclip.  One of the games that we played was Club Penguin.  My whole grade, about thirty-six girls, became obsessed with this interactive game. 

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/social-networking/networks/club-penguin.htm/printable

On Club Penguin, each gamer has a penguin avatar that they can dress up, play games for coins, which you could use at the Club Penguin shops, interact with other penguin avatars and live in your own personal igloo.  This virtual world that my grade discovered was an escape from school, where we could interact.  Although it started as a joke, we all came to love playing on Club Penguin, and for a large portion of the year, we spent countless hours interacting with other penguin avatars.  It is not as advanced as other interactive gaming websites, but it was a fun way to communicate and be whoever I wanted to be. 

After a while, the Club Penguin phase died out.  I personally stopped playing because I preferred playing sports and interacting face-to-face as opposed to through avatars.  I did not for the connections with other gamers like Julian Dibbell did in his gaming experiences.  I would not be able to game for a living the way the Dibbell managed to because it does not appeal to me (plus I don't think someone could make their living off of a game such as Club Penguin).  I prefer human interaction and physical activity to video games because it is more real and personal.  Some people game so often that it becomes their life.  There is a difference between gaming for fun and gaming for a living.  I can understand gaming for fun, but gaming for a living scares me because it reminds me how close we are to a world similar to the one described in William Gibson's Neuromancer.  Although technology is advancing towards more immersive 3-D worlds, I am content with face-to-face interaction and games that involve physical activity.  

       

Future Fate

Both The Master Switch by Tim Wu and Neuromancer by William Gibson present an idea of our future in terms of technology and cyberspace.  On the one hand, William Gibson depicts a bleak cyberspace filled with simstims, which give people the ability to experience another person’s feelings and interaction, and the ability to jack in to cyberspace world that was an escape of one’s self, filled with console cowboys and gentleman losers holding power.  On the other hand, Tim Wu sees computer technology as a “general purpose machine that might augment human intelligence and help humans negotiate life’s complexities” (Wu 171). Wu’s take on these matters seem far more realistic than Gibson’s because of Wu's ability to prove his ideas of the future with examples from history and The Cycle.  The Cycle is Wu’s terminology for the process in which each new revolution in information technology, whether it is the telephone, movie, radio, or television, became major threats to the previous controlling industries monopolies.  Over time the old powers or mega corporations dominated these new technologies.  Throughout the years, technology has evolved and is constantly advancing because of the many hard working inventors and moguls of this information empire.  Wu takes readers through the many changes that technology has experienced and explains The Cycle that will continue to help these advances flourish and end in the hands of mega corporations.  However, Gibson’s novel takes readers on a journey into cyberspace that seems far from reality.  While it is understood that his story is purely fiction and serves  as a warning for the future of technology, it still seems far fetched.

In Neuromancer, Gibson discusses a number of unlikely occurrences.  The one that strikes as most unrealistic is the simstim because it is not possible to experience another person’s emotions.  People cannot see things through other people’s eyes unless they were in some way linked to the other’s nervous system.  Due to the fact that this is not physically possible, it makes Gibson’s imagined realm of cyberspace less likely to become our fate.       

Another unlikely occurrence that is mentioned in Gibson’s novel is the idea that artificial intelligence could take over.  Gibson discusses this fear and has Molly and Case trying to prevent it from becoming true.  In reality, artificial intelligence is hardly close to taking over human beings.  The Turing Test, invented by Alan Turing, tests technologies to see if they are smart enough to be considered artificially intelligent.  If a human being communicates with a machine for a certain number of moments and cannot tell that they are communicating with a machine, then the machine has passed the test.  However, few machines are even able to pass the test, so it is doubtful that these machines will be able to take over.   

http://thesop.org/story/technology/2008/07/22/core-of-af-role-in-cyberspace.php

In Gibson’s vision of cyber space, people can jack in to it and it becomes immersive; people become so “in the zone” that they forget that they are not in the real world.  Although cyberspace has the possibility of becoming this type of immersive technology, it is not presently something that people can jack into and lose all sense of being, time and space.  Humans do tend to lose track of time very easily on the Internet, but they are aware that they are still in the real world, not immersed in another world of cyberspace or The Matrix.  If the future were to come to this, would there be any need for human interaction in the real world?  If this idea were to ever become real, human beings would lose the intimacy of human interaction, lack social skills and if they fail to interact physically with the obvious exception of basic necessities. 

Gibson’s Neuromancer follows Case and Molly as they jack into and travel through cyberspace.  There is no emotional connection that readers can latch onto because there is no expression of true feelings that intrigues readers.  The way the Gibson describes their lives and personalities makes them seem inhumane and detached.  Humans have a necessity for human interaction and emotional connections.  It seems highly unrealistic that human beings could do away with such an important necessity.  A probable reason as to why we are so far from technologies in which we can simply jack in to cyberspace may be because human beings do not want to leave their human senses behind in return for an artificial stimulation.  If it became immersive enough, would people be so absorbed that they would become less human?  It is frightening to think that it is a possibility to become less human, but if we were so connected to avatars in cyberspace we would become disconnected from the real world and our human nature.  

In The Master Switch, Tim Wu expresses far more realistic concerns for our future of technology and cyberspace.  Wu presents his idea of The Cycle as a repetitive problem if it is not broken because we would never have the ability to experience freedom of information that is not controlled and dominated by large businesses and corporations.  Tim Wu’s fear of The Cycle applying to the Internet is realistic because he has proven The Cycle to be a real problem for other information technologies.  This holds true because one company will always want to be the best and will strive to eliminate all competition.  Mega corporations are so successful with this and continue to grow because they have the power to take over smaller companies.  This means that there is hardly any room for a digression from The Cycle.     

Wu’s fear of The Cycle affecting the Internet was almost diminished when AOL and Time Warner failed to merge effectively.  Wu states that in order for this merger to be successful, “the firm would have needed to overturn the net neutrality principles at the core of the Internet’s design” (267).  After The Cycle failed in this situation the Internet was unrestricted for a brief period of time.  Predictably, The Cycle came into action again, as Apple became increasingly popular.

http://www.reviewsofelectronics.com/apples-steve-jobs-urges-team-to-stay-on-target-for-new-2011-apple-products/225528/

Steve Wozniak helped lead Apple to become a strong company.  Under his control, Apple gave people multiple resources to change how they accessed information, something that had previously been restricted.  Unfortunately, Steve Jobs took control of Apple from Wozniak by forcing him out of power.    Jobs strongly believed that Apple would be superior if it offered service through closed industries.  For example, when the iPhone was first released, it was only available on AT&T’s network.  Jobs forced the continuation of closed industry, thus encouraging The Cycle.  Wu fears Jobs because Jobs wants to obtain as much power as he can have.  Although his ideas are appealing to many, proven by Apple’s numerous successful products, the desire of power can be dangerous. 

While it would be nice to find a balance between an open and a closed society, it is not likely while The Cycle is still in effect.  However, Tim Wu discusses his idea of net neutrality.  Net neutrality advocates no restrictions on the Internet for paid users.  This means that while people are paying a company to receive Internet access, they are able to obtain any information they want from the Internet.  The service providers, however, can manipulate the tubes that make up the Internet.  This would mean that some websites take less time to load because the service provider made the tube bigger, therefore easier for the information to travel to the viewer.   Other websites have smaller tubes to travel through which means that it takes the information longer to reach the person.  In a similar scenario, Apple has placed restrictions on things such as applications that can be downloaded to an iPhone.  It has led to a large number of people jailbreaking their iPhones to get around such restrictions.  Steve Jobs has also acknowledged that Adobe Flash is not supported on Apple products.  These restrictions have come to upset many people, because just like paying Internet users, Apple users do not want restrictions on something for which they have paid. 

 Since there has yet to be a median between open and closed society, it is likely that our future will more closely resemble Wu’s ideas.  He has proven that The Cycle is hard to break and that the Internet is headed towards becoming a closed technology run by mega corporations, just as the other information technologies have.  Internet service providers will resemble the mega corporations that will control Internet access, creating a closed technology.  Thus, The Cycle will again prevail causing humans to be restricted on the Internet.  A future imagined in terms of Wu’s ideas, is preferred to the bleak cyberspace of Neuromancer, in which human interaction would die down and people would become immersed so heavily in technology that they become less human.  The University of Richmond has already violated the idea of net neutrality.  The Internet is free to people on campus, but it is meant for educational purposes.  Therefore, websites that seem non-educational take longer to load.  In doing this, the university has partially closed the Internet, just as a mega corporation would do in terms of The Cycle.


Sources

Gibson, William. Neuromancer. New York: Ace, 1984. Print.
Wu, Tim. The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires. New 

York: Knopf, 2010. Print.    

i NEED my cell phone

“I need my cell phone” is a phrase that is true for many people.  Cell phones are a great way to stay in touch with people, and smart phones have many other helpful resources.  But I literally need my cell phone.  I observed how much I use my phone for a few days and realized that I use it at least once every hour.  It is my alarm clock every morning, receives my spiderbytes, allows me to text, email and BlackBerry Message (BBM) my friends and family, and so much more.  It is the first thing I reach for when I wake up and the last thing I use before going to bed. 

I call my parents frequently to check in and have an email chain with my family to share funny stories or coordinate a family dinner whenever I’m home for the holidays.  I text my friends from home, who attend different schools, and people on campus.  I check my Facebook and the weather.  I play games, listen to music and use the calendar to remind me about things that I have to do.  It is almost frightening how much I rely on my smart phone for communication as well as entertainment. 

I noticed throughout the past few days that in terms of phone call, I contact my mom most out of anyone.  I text and email her to discuss random things in my life occasionally, but I call her every day just to check in.  When I was in high school I had a good relationship with her despite the occasional argument that was always short lived.  However, now I call her to ask for advice or help.  Although I am a nineteen year old who has learned how to take care of myself, I still like to talk to my mom and get her input or hear how things are at home.  While I would love to see my mom every day and have face-to-face conversations, that is not physically possible and I do enjoy the independence I have gained since coming to college. 

In William Gibson’s Neuromancer, he discusses the idea of a three dimensional “consensual hallucination” and this virtual world in cyberspace in which people can jack into in order to interact with others.  Although I would love to be able to see my mother, I do not think that I would enjoy Gibson’s fictitious ideas becoming realities.  I am grateful that I have such an easy way to communicate with people, but I don't think I could handle Gibson's depiction of cyberspace.

     

A Bleak Future

When I began reading William Gibson's novel Neuromancer, I was confused as to what world I had entered.  As I continued to read, I found myself in cyberspace with Case as my tour guide.  I felt as though I was reading the story of virtual gamers out for some evil artificial intelligence.  As I learned all the lingo and frequently googled terms that seemed to be in another language, I found the book dark and ominous. 

Gibson uses harsh language to show the devastation that we can create and bring into our world.  One of the reasons it is so scary to me is because it could become real.  As far away as some of the concepts that Gibson presents may seem, with our advancing technology, they may not be so far fetched.  This book has become something that I fear and I am afraid to open at night.  The way it pulls me into this warped world of cyberspace is frightening mainly because I know that it could be our future. 

"But he also saw a certain sense in the notion that burgeoning technologies require outlaw zones, that Night City wasn't there for its inhabitants but as a deliberately unsupervised playground for technology itself" (11).  This quote, which I analyzed in class, troubled me in a way.  Gibson was describing Night City as a dangerous place with no supervision.  I drew a parallel to the Internet and cyberspace in general.  There are young people accessing the Internet and posting things in cyberspace without realizing that it is not a safe "playground".  This disturbs me because there are so many people who abuse the Internet and can cause harm to other people.

Gibson's book inspires fear in readers for what could become the future of our world.  Our world would be treacherous.  We could be replaced by technology.  We could accidentally build a form of artificial intelligence that would defeat us.  We could advance technology to the point where we would never have to leave our rooms because we could travel virtually through cyberspace.  We could lose all need for face to face interaction.  We could be facing a very gloomy future such as that in Neuromancer. 

Paying for Restrictions?

When I was in middle school my family shared one computer.  My mom held the main account on AOL and it did not take me long to figure out that she had set strict parental controls. Not only could she monitor all of my activity, she could also make certain websites unavailable to me. At my high school, each student was provided with a laptop for school use. Although they were usually old and not in the best condition, it was nice to have my own laptop. However, it was not hard to figure out that these computer's Internet access was restricted by the school. The school blocked all gaming websites as well as social networking sites such as Facebook and anything else that the school deemed inappropriate or non educational.  Upon arriving to the University of Richmond I learned that we are provided with free Internet access.  However, this Internet access comes with its own form of restrictions.  Although it does not ban us from accessing certain websites, it does slow down when accessing certain websites.

 In class we discussed the very important concept of net neutrality that Wu discusses in The Master Switch. Net neutrality advocates no restrictions on the Internet for paid users. This to me seems to be a good principle because if I pay for the Internet I want a good connection that is not based on the content of the site or the provider.  The tubes that make up the Internet, however, can be manipulated by the service providers. This would mean that some websites take less time to load because the service provider made the tube bigger. While other websites may have a smaller tube to travel through, meaning it will take longer to load. In a similar scenario, Apple has placed restrictions on things such as applications that can be downloaded to an iPhone.  It has led to a large number of people jailbreaking their iPhones to get around such restrictions. Steve Jobs has also acknowledged that Adobe Flash is not supported on Apple products. These restrictions have come to upset many people, because just like paying Internet users, Apple users do not want restrictions on something for which they have paid.  

I have come to respect parental controls such as the ones my mom used when I was younger. Although I hated my high school's restrictions at the time, I understand why the school created them. However, the idea that a service provider can slow down my connection based on my activity or based on the provider. I think that the Internet should be neutral and there should be no discrimination based on the content of a site or the provider's preference.  Who wants to pay to be restricted?

Was it Greed?

Throughout Tim Wu’s, The Master Switch, he presents the different technologies that have greatly impacted our society and the stories behind how each came to be known.  In some of these stories we have seen greedy and control hungry people looking to create or discover the next big technology in the information industry.  However Tim Wu states, “the motivations of information moguls can almost never be exhaustively described in terms of simple greed and vanity” (315).  He makes a valid claim that “the men and women that run the information empires of today and tomorrow will inevitably have enormous power over the extent of our free expression” (315). 

There are several ways in which Wu proves this to be true.  For example, when the television was first invented the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) suppressed it by banning its use.  Eleven years later, David Sarnoff re-invented the television and it became a technology that “shaped American popular culture and social norms in the twentieth century, to the point of virtually creating them” (139).  This further proves Wu’s point that information moguls, such as Sarnoff, come to have great power because of their inventions. It is doubtful that many people knew that it was not a fully original idea of David Sarnoff. He received all of the credit for the invention of the television because he waited to re-create it at a time that would give him a maximum amount of recognition and power.  Although it seems that Sarnoff’s motives were purely based on greed and the desire to be recognized as the inventor of the next, big thing, where would we be without it? Today, people use televisions to watch the news, see how the stock market is doing, for entertainment purposes as well as educational means.  If Sarnoff had not re-created the television how much longer would the FCC’s ban lasted?

In another example that Wu presents, Daniel Drawbaugh had come up with the invention of the telephone but had not done much with his findings.  Seven years later, Bell invented the telephone.  It did not matter that Drawbaugh had first invented it because he had not done anything to establish it nor to present it to the public.  Bell, however, formed alliances with Gardiner Hubbard, his primary investor, who came to support the idea of the telephone as an invention that could replace the telegraph.  The motives in this situation had changed from improving the telegraph, to making something better than the telegraph.  It did not matter who came up with the invention of the telephone first, all that mattered was who made it the next big thing, and Bell did just that.

Another technological advance that Wu discusses is the answering machine.  AT&T restrained the release of the answering machine due to a selfish fear that it would result in people abandoning the use of the telephone.  They suppressed Clarence Hickman’s discoveries in 1934 as well as any further research on the magnetic storage, which included the magnetic recording tape necessary to create the answering machine.  It was not until sixty years later that a historian named Mark Clark came across Hickman’s research.  Although it seems that AT&T was being selfish they believed that it was “safer to shut down a thrilling line of research than to risk the Bell system” (106).  They were trying to protect their company when in reality they were being paranoid and stifling a technology that is a commercially valuable discovery.  Where would we be today without the answering machine?  What if AT&T had completely covered all tracks of research?  How much longer would it have taken for someone else to invent it in the United States?

Today, we use technology so much that it is difficult to imagine what life would be like without it.  It is unfortunate that people battle over who will come out with the next big thing, but if they didn’t would we have been as quick to come out with all of the technology that we have today?  The competitive aspect is one thing that motivates people to work harder, and may be a huge factor in these situations that Wu presents.  This competition is often fueled by a desire for power and recognition, but there is something else to it.  The person who originally creates a device may have extreme creativity, but perhaps not the ingenuity and/or a sense of industry to market their invention.  Therefore, the person who took the next step gets credit for bringing the invention to the public.  The person who who draws the public's attention to the invention will get the fame and credit for the invention but it is due to the fact that they took the time and initiative to earn most of the credit, and the fact that their invention became available to others has helped to advance our society, so they deserve credit.  

The people who are driven to invent the new popular technologies are most likely going to succeed and gain an influential power over our free expression just as Wu claims, but it is because they not only invented it but they were also skilled in how to market the invention.  While it is up to each individual to decide if the people were right or wrong in taking credit for an invention, the fact is someone invented them and without these technologies, where would we be today?  These technologies have a true and lasting impact on our culture and society and their inventors are responsible for it, thus they have made a mark in society that has greatly contributed to, as Wu says, “the extent of our free expression” (315).