 |
|
 |
 |
| ~ ~ ~ Notes from Paper Lane: a GNE weblog | |
|
|
|
|
| ~ ~ ~ Notes from Paper Lane: a GNE weblog | |
 |
“You join a MUD and spend months building a character in that community. At the end of this time, you have probably become well-known in that community - you have well-developed social capital. That social capital - the set of experiences and understandings that individuals in that space have of you - is built through time and repeated interactions.
“In cyberspace no assets are transferable. You can move from one community to another, but with each move you must start over again. You do not enter a MUD with money or social status. You enter as a character whom you must then construct.
“Paradoxically, then, we might say that it is harder to change communities in cyberspace than it is in real space. It is harder because you must give up everything in a move from one cyber-community to another, whereas in real space you can bring much of it with you. Communities in cyberspace, then, may in the short run have more power over their citizens than real-space communities do.”
- Lawrence Lessig, from “Code”
Except for the last sentence, I like that observation. The last sentence is absurd, of course; it would be true only if abstract social capital were the only thing that could give a community “power over citizens”. Abstract social capital and five bucks will buy you lunch. *8)
Real-space communities have other kinds of power over their citizens, even in the short term, having to do with the fact that they’re situated in real space (etc).
On deeper reflection, I would disagree that one always enters a new virtual community with nothing. Unless everyone else in that community is a complete stranger, you will in fact have established social standing with at least some of them. The fact that it’s a new virtual universe and you’re a new virtual character doesn’t mean that you’re an entirely newborn person.
The idea that “real space” stuff (like previous experiences with some of the same real people in other virtual worlds) doesn’t carry over into virtual activities is something that people like Lessig (and for that matter like me) tend to forget, or at least minimize.
Of course it’s easy to criticize out of context; I really should read that book some day.
In fact, communities in cyberspace have ZERO power over their citizens, if power is defined in the canonical way, as force times velocity. Since force is mass times accelleration and the cybercitizens have zero mass, power must therefore be equal to zero.