Cyberspace vs. Reality
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines cyberspace as “the online world of computer networks and the internet”. However, I believe that to be too simple of a definition of what cyberspace has become. By the same dictionary, cyber is defined as “of, relating to, or involving computers or computer networks” and space is defined as “the amount of an area, room, surface, etc., that is empty or available for use”. So cyberspace is a virtual world made up of the amount of space computers and computer networks create, which is essentially an infinite amount of space. Cyberspace is a place that is not a place. It exists everywhere but nowhere, and in that nothingness we can do whatever we want to do. Once we enter the realm of cyberspace we can become whoever or whatever we want to become and do whatever we want to do.
In “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” John Perry Barlow describes cyberspace as the “the new home of the mind”. He says there is and will be no government to impose rules and laws on cyberspace. Even if there was a way to establish a government to rule cyberspace they would not “have any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear”. They cannot stop the virtual world, yet. In the future there might be ways to exclusively monitor everything that goes on in cyberspace but that would take some serious AI work. Barlow suggests that when there are wrongdoings in cyberspace, they will be addressed and dealt with by the means of others inhabiting the virtual world. He is telling us that the virtual world will be ruled by vigilante justice. And who doesn’t like a good vigilante justice story?
In “A Rape in Cyberspace” Julian Dibbel describes what she says is a brutal experience in a text based virtual reality game (MOO) called LambdaMOO. Once players entered the game, a text would pop up describing what room they were in, what it looked like, where the entrances an exits were, etc. One night in this game, a player who called their self “Mr. Bungle” entered the virtual world of LambdaMOO. Along with his avatar, he brought with him what has been described as a virtual voodoo doll. The voodoo doll was a sub-program that caused player’s avatars to do things that the players themselves were not typing commands in to do. Mr. Bungle committed virtual rape on many of the player’s avatars that night. While it was something that happened in the virtual world, many people were extremely upset about this and even discussed if they should try to prosecute him in the real world.
Sometimes, the real world effects the virtual world, but we will get into that later. As Barlow suggested, the wrongdoing of the rape in cyberspace was addressed and dealt with by the other players of LambdaMOO. A high ranking player of the game deleted Mr. Bungle’s player account and the makers of LambdaMOO created a system where users could vote to punish other users who did things like Mr. Bungle did. For the moment, justice had been served and peace had returned to LambdaMOO. However, the user that created Mr. Bungle came back later as a new player. While he still exhibited themes of brutality, he did not act on them as he had before. In a sense, his account being deleted had somewhat “rehabilitated” him.
What is described in “A Rape in Cyberspace” effected the victims and Mr. Bungle in cyberspace as well as in the real world. The victims were mortified at what had happened, and when Mr. Bungle brought a new character in the world, he did not type in the commands to commit atrocities as he had done before. So at what level does the virtual world of cyberspace effect the real world?
The short film Uncanny Valley is a perfect example of how the virtual world might effect the real world in the distant future. It’s only about 9 minutes long and very much worth the watch. In this short film, virtual reality has become completely immersive and many of the players have become dependent on it and live their lives as literal game junkies. About halfway through the film, the main character discovers that he is playing the game through a robot drone that is fighting a war someone around the globe. There are drones flying around scanning the environment and the enemies so when the players enter the virtual world they see a gaming environment instead of the real world that the drones are seeing while in reality they are fighting an actual war.
While the lines between reality and virtual reality are very defined in Uncanny Valley,as when the players kill the virtual characters they are actually killing real people, for some situations the lines can be very blurred. In “Is This Man Cheating on His Wife?” Alexandra Alter tells us the story of man who plays the game Second Life about 6 hours a night. He has a wife in reality, and a wife in Second Life. He claims he is just playing a game, but he has spent money in the game on his “second wife”, and goes on virtual motorcycle rides through the virtual mountains of the Second Life world. His wife feels neglected and his virtual life has very much affected their real relationship.
Until we enter a world where everything is done virtually, we have to decide how much we can let cyberspace affect our real world. There are many positive and negative aspects of cyberspace. For the sake of “bad news first”, we’ll start with the negative.
Cyberspace allows communities of pedophiles to share child pornography with one another. Through things like VPNs and encryption, people can share whatever virtual content they want, anonymously through the “deep web”, and they are very hard to track down. There is no physical evidence to convict them unless their computers are seized and files on the computer can be found, which does happen, but not nearly as enough as it should. Another negative aspect is things like the Silk Road. Despite the the sharing of child pornography mentioned earlier, the Silk Road is basically a black market Ebay where you can get child pornography, any type of drug you want, weapons, and even hire assassins.
Despite these surprisingly negative aspects of cyberspace, they are only a smaller minority in a much larger “cyber world” of positive aspects. Cyberspace allows people from all over the world to come together as a community and collaborate, play games with each other, and just communicate. It is a way to bring the whole world together in a way that used to only be dreamed of. Even movies can be made entirely in cyberspace.
Roosterteeth pioneered this notion. Their show Red vs Blue was filmed entirely in the video game “Halo”. They used a glitch in the game to get first person shooter view to be blank. The gun, health bar, and mini-map were all invisible so one person would act as the camera and other people would control the players and move their weapons up and down to give the illusion that they were talking while the sound was synced up later. The creators of “Halo”, Bungie Industries, liked their idea and put a feature in “Halo 2” that allowed players to lower their guns when pulling the left trigger on the controller if they did not have any grenades. This way, the creators of Red vs. Blue could make their cyberspace film seem more realistic without having the characters constantly pointing their guns at one another. This show became very popular amongst fans of the Halo series. In the future, more films might be made entirely in Cyberspace. We already have films that are entirely CGI, but imagine an environment where people could enter a virtual world and act out scenes to create a full length motion picture.
There are many aspects of cyberspace, and it is not even being used to its full potential yet. As computers get faster and smarter, we will see cyberspace integrated more and more into our lives. With VR goggles coming out like the Oculus Rift, we will begin to accept cyberspace and virtual reality more and more as a new reality.
Bonus: virtual reality painting is here!
