Entry tags:

digital people, ideas

Immersionists are Luddites??
Okay, now I'm just annoyed. I went to comment on a post that was cited in the Second Life Insider yesterday, and apparently not only do you have to *donate to the organization* to comment on their posts, the form to do so doesn't load!

And these people call themselves "futurists!"

Giulio Prisco of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies wrote:

I believe those who say NO to voice and “Real Life 2.0”, most of them first-generation residents interested in Second Life as an “alternate reality”, are simply stuck with a preconceived notion of Second Life as _only_ a role playing game for immersionists and are unable (or unwilling) to adapt to this quite radical “change of the nature of the game”. They conceive their (and others’) Second Life only within the narrow area defined by their early role playing experiences, and resist change - even if nothing is going to change for them personally if they don’t want to.

He goes on to basically call us Luddites and the last of a dying species:

This will be a _very_ radical change of the nature of the game, and of course there will be those who will prefer to stay in the old comfortable game instead of embracing change and moving on. They will conceive their (and others’) life only within the narrow area defined by the experiences of earlier generations, and resist change - even if nothing is going to change for them personally if they don’t want to. I am sure that nobody will force them to upgrade to Life 3.0, and there will be “immersionist” communities for persons who choose to remain immersed in human biology and its limitations.

Here's what I wanted to post in reply (showing that, yes, despite your expectations, I actually *can* control my temper sometimes!):

I think you missed the implications of your own argument from transhumanism.

Your analogy between "old-time" immersionist residents and opponents of transhumanism is precisely reversed (in addition to being a miscategorization in the first instance: I was rezzed in April 2007, and am one of a great many immersionists rezzed this year).

Augmentationists who see SL as, essentially, a telephone - another communications medium for business as usual - are viewing this technology as if it were a "horseless carriage" - just like something old and familiar, rather than an "automobile" - a new thing in itself. They insist on the literal equating of the unaugmented human into the new space: gender=gender, age=age, species=species.

Immersionists *are* transhumanists. We reject the view that a person is its body. We are furries, gynoids, merfolk, dragons. We view personality and identity as the constructs of will, not the legacy of genetics.

We are your allies, not the ignorant bigots who demand to know "A/S/L" - age, sex, location - in the atomic world immediately on meeting someone in the digital world.

We are out here already *being* transhumanist. Augmentationists, especially the ones you've been listening to, with their spurious statistics on genderbending - which reveal their own deep fear of transhumanist category shattering - are the reactionary rear guard of a dying way of life.

Come to my blog. Go to my profile, and from there look at the blogs of my Immersionist friends. Take an honest and objective look at what you see there, and decide for yourself if we're old fuddy-duddies, or if we are in fact living just the life you advocate.

Of course, Guilio will never read this, never see that he's been misled by corporate interests and cultural reactionaries.  And the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies?  Has a very interesting take on participating in public discourse, don't they?

ETA:  I found that Giulio cross-posted to his own blog, which *does* allow comments. I dropped a short comment inviting him here.  Let's see what happens...