Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds

      This sounds as creepy as it is.  I happen to have been alive for the release of the film "The Lawnmower Man", and I remember thinking that it was not so far away.  Just like "Blade Runner", where present day Japanese ethnocentrism(racism to the rest of the world) drives robot production in the caregiving world, "Second Life" provides a detached and sanitized version of life much like that of "The Lawnmower Man".  We've created a second life already through the television media in order to avoid social reaction to things like war.  There is no more reporting on wars, just graphics that show K.I.A.'s and I.M.D.'s and W.M.D. sites etc.  If I'm getting too close to a nerve, good, someone should be touching your nerves at some point in your life, because we live in an increasingly numb world devoid of values and compassionate responses(no you can't tweet those).  I would be really excited to know that people spent as much time on developing their actual character, rather than "developing a character".  In the NY Times article about seeing a band at Cake Shop, the author explains how watching the band from home on with a virtual version of the club's atmosphere is now her preferred method for seeing live music and interacting with the club scene.  That's terrifying.  when I was coming up, the Lower East Side was to be braved and those that braved it were invited to a dark gritty rendering of life in an urban setting that exposed the truth about Manhattan and New York, the social disparities and the lives being lived, abused, taken, and re-used.  I am ecstatic to know that Dick Manitoba can recognize the dissolution of a neighborhood that once thrived in making some minor impact on the social order of a city that was driven purely by greed, racial tension, and abuses of power.  “The Second Avenue Deli’s a bank, the Fillmore East is a bank, and you’ve got to pass by 12 restaurants and coffee shops just to get to the couple of places that still have character.”.  All good things must pass, but don't give a pass to commercializing every New York scene like an episode of "Friends".  This city used to be about neighborhoods, and now it's a sprawling mass of texting, Facebooking, Tweeting, bourgeoisie who don't care about anyone or anything in their path.
      With all that said, I think that Second Life is a godsend to people with developmental and physical disabilities who cannot participate in the same experiences that so deeply enrich our lives.  It would be great to see the technology used to its fullest and not just be exploited towards further laziness.  If I don't like something about my appearance, my station in life, or my surroundings, there are actual tools in an actual world that I can use to change those circumstances rather than relying on living inside my new television.