My Consensual Reality is Better Than Yours?

MMORPGS and Reality.

Published on November 7, 2005 By greywar In Gaming

I would like you to meet two friends of mine : Thomas and Dane. Different guys living in different parts of the country. Let me tell you about Thomas first ok?

Thomas started from almost nothing and worked his ass off to get where he is today. Homeless and alone he struggled as an orphan in a hostile and uncaring place. The only thing that saved him was perserverance. He knew that if he worked long and hard he could make it and slowly he did.

He managed to sell a few things he found in the streets or had managed to make on his own eventually parleying this into his own business.

Along the way he has helped countless people move along in their own lives even giving them money, clothes, shelter, and his own possessions that he had worked so hard for.

Thomas is respected in the community and recognized as a man who will help those who are struggling and down on their luck. He has a lovely wife (Kendra) and two children (Ty and Gaius) who adore him. He spends all of his available time with his wife and children continuing his good works.

Pretty successful and decent guy wouldn’t you say? The American dream in a nutshell right there.

Now lets talk about Dane:

Dane had a middle class upbringing and good parents who loved him. An only child Dane struggled socially but managed to keep his grades up enough to go to college and get his B.S. in management. Dane now works for a fortune 500 company as a middle manager.

While he will never rise to any leadership role due to his innate shyness and somewhat homely face he makes good money, donates heavily to charity, and lives in nice home in Burbank. He and wife Kathy have a quiet life with 2 kids (Bob and Janet).

Hey Dane is a pretty decent fellow too right? Which one of them has led the best life? Tough call really. Who can say which is better? Both are hard working, humanitarian, family men right?

Now what if I told you that Thomas’s life story took place entirely within the confines of an online game? All the people he helped along were other players, his wife is another player and they have never met face-to-face, and the kids are younger players who they help along in the rough and tumble MMORPG community.

In our reality Thomas is a janitor who only works to support rent, food, and his MMORPG bills. He lives alone and has no kids. In fact Thomas has never even dated.

Is Thomas’s life now invalid somehow? Is Dane the more successful one?

Thomas has simply opted out of our consensual reality and opted into a different one. His footprint in our world is limited to his job as a janitor and the money he spends in our economy.

You might say that this scenario is farfetched but I based Thomas off of a real-life acquaintance (not really a friend since he doesn’t socialize in our reality). The man has a great online life and loves it. His online marriage is good, his online kids are great and he fills a necessary job in our reality to pay for it. Is he to be scorned because his kids don’t take up space on the overcrowded dirtball? Not by me. He has simply decided to excel in a different plane of existence.

Dane helps people in his plane of existence while Thomas helps those who like him choose to live in another. Are both helping people?

Dane and Thomas? Both successes in my mind.

This is the paradigm shift that looms in the ever closer future, I think it bears debate.

Comments (Page 1)

xtine

on Nov 07, 2005

I have to disagree with you on this one. Thomas has TWO lives while Dane only has one. Everyone can look at Dane and see the same thing. Thomas is playing to two different audiences.

There's some psychobabble out there about how you see yourself and how everyone else sees you and the goal is to reconcile those two perspectives. I would say that Thomas has failed miserably at this.

Also, from a biological standpoint, Thomas's kids aren't genetically his, so there's been no real contribution to the human race that way either.

Thomas is maybe a success at his MMPORG, but the American Dream? No way.

Wolfgang76

on Nov 07, 2005

Unfortunalty I know this person well. I have a freind who's life is a wrek, marraige potentially abusive and no real sense of self.

I met her on a NWN player server and we hit it off as friends as she seemed like a normal person to me but after a while I discovered she lived two lives. One she was calm, collected and in total control, while the other was spinning out of control. To me the game was just a game but my real life isnt all that bad so reality is easy for me to accept. For her, reality sucked so the game made up for it and that was her reality.

Many people use MMOG's as a escape from thier lives and I think this tred will probably contiue. I know when VR was first kicked around people worried about freinds logging on and disconnecting from reality. In some senses that is begining to finally happen which says alot about our society in general.

Glavius

on Nov 07, 2005

Woah woah waoh when you adopt (Like i have) there not YOURE kids but you have an influence on them and you shape them so you have contributed to the human race. even from an online perspective you DO influence people in MMO's. I know because i've been playing online since 14 or so. I started off as one of those annoying kids online who drive you up the walls and have since become a much better person. I've learned real things from playing games.

When I was younger and in middle school/High school i was quite often bullied and really got into a shell. My only social outlet was through online games, since then I've grown up and have very little trouble talking to people in the real world or online. I've gotten a much better perspective on myself and on the world I live in through playing online.

As for disconecting from reality I really see that trend as having hit its peak. Have you noticed the huge amount of voice chat? Have you noticed ALL the player meetups going on all the time? 5 years ago I would never of met anyone from an online game but now I find out more and more that I've met some of these people (I actually had 3 online freinds who actually were going to be going to the collage I would eventualy attend and graduate from *Virginia Tech*). You really have to understand meetups are happening between gamers more and more frequently then it's ever been.

Voice over net, Webcams, take youre pick theres ALOT of social activity online and the norm is that these realites are merging more and more (Not in the literal I cant tell the diffrence between a game/fantasy and a reality).

but hey thats my 2 cents and what do I know (Oh thats right I know EVERYTHING I have accsess to google)

xtine

on Nov 07, 2005

Woah woah waoh when you adopt (Like i have) there not YOURE kids but you have an influence on them and you shape them so you have contributed to the human race.

I wondered if anyone was going to point that out after I typed it in. I apologize for the mis-structuring of my statement. I'm not sure how to make it clearer, but I'm trying to say something along the lines of the comparision of Thomas & Dane. Thomas has no children, adopted or not, and the only influence he has over his "virtual" children is to teach other people how to live dual lives. And these children presumably have their own parents, guardians, etc and Thomas is only coming between them.

Texas Wahine

on Nov 07, 2005

Woah woah waoh when you adopt (Like i have) there not YOURE kids but you have an influence on them and you shape them so you have contributed to the human race

Yes, yes, you absolutely know what goes into raising a child because you play a dad in a game. Hilarious.

greywar: I think it comes down to this: do we have the right to judge the value of others' lives? Obviously, we think our choices and values are the best...that's why they're our choices and values. However, I don't think we can impose them on others or use them a standard to measure the value of the lives of others.

So long as we're not harming others, I think we should all be entitled to shape our own lives and make choices that we find fulfilling. That doesn't mean that others can't or won't scoff at our choices (hehe, as evidenced by my reply above) but I would never suggest that anyone isn't entitled to those choices that don't make sense to me. I think we are each responsible for assessing the value of our OWN lives.

just john

on Nov 07, 2005

I am not a fan of MMOG's. It's just not my thing. I don't do a lot of gaming anyway,

To me (and this comparison has been made on another thread), people addicted to MMOG's are not all that different from a drug user. There is only one thing that separates them and that is the legality of what drug they are choosing. Drugs are a way to escape the real world; to refuse their reality for my own.

Now smoking pot won’t improve your problem solving skills. Smoking crack won’t allow you to lead a normal life (usually) while doing it, but how many lives have been destroyed already by MMOG's?

I have a friend who was hooked on Ever Quest. A successful guy, he was/is just a little socially inept. In that world he could be a king among men. He has since given that up for a good dose of reality and I am happy for him.

There is nothing wrong with MMOG's as long as you treat them as you would any other addictable substance. Moderation is the key.

I wonder how many JU's out there sit at the PC all day hitting the refresh button waiting for the next installment of their accepted reality.

greywar

on Nov 07, 2005

The point here is that many people have decided to chuck socializing in our world for socializing and even "family" life in the online world. I am curious as to whether you guys think this sector of society will become smaller or larger as time goes on?

xtine

on Nov 07, 2005

I am curious as to whether you guys think this sector of society will become smaller or larger as time goes on?

I really don't know...I would hope smaller, but think in reality it'll probably increase as technology continues to improve in quality, decrease in price, and as the games themselves widen out to a broader audience.

stutefish

on Nov 07, 2005

I'll allow as how Thomas is a very successful janitor, and I'll congratulate him on his ability to find a job that pays for his hobbies. But beyond that... enh.

greywar

on Nov 07, 2005

I will point out that my personal choice between the to lives is to lead Dane's and not Thomas's but I in no way feel qualified to say that Thomas's life is not valid. Are his friends less than Dane's friends because Dane talks to his on his cell phone and Thomas talks to his online? Is his wife not a wife because they don't live together (that would certainly be a bold statement to make)? Are his kids not his kids because he shares no DNA with them? What if Thomas spens more time with the kids than their bio-parents do since they spend every waking moment playing the game?

xtine

on Nov 07, 2005

but I in no way feel qualified to say that Thomas's life is not valid.

What would it take to be qualified for anyone to say this? I don't feel like it's my place to judge anyone for their lifestyle. Thomas isn't harming anyone except himself, if even he's harming himself. I don't agree that he's chosen the best path, but **shrug** It's really not for me to say.

Are his friends less than Dane's friends because Dane talks to his on his cell phone and Thomas talks to his online?

I personally don't consider anyone I haven't met in real life as a friend. Before then they're just figments of my imagination.

So in that context, MY context, Thomas has no friends.

Is his wife not a wife because they don't live together (that would certainly be a bold statement to make)?

No, his wife is not his wife because they haven't met in real life, and haven't taken the steps to make it legally recognized in our governmental system, nor have they ever consummated it with actual can-you-feel-me-baby penetration which could perhaps be construed as a common-law marriage in some states.

Are his kids not his kids because he shares no DNA with them?

No, his "virtual" kids are not his kids because he doesn't nothing to provide for their basic needs in life - food, clothing, monetary sustenance, etc etc. There's much more to being a parent than just showing some kid the ropes in an MMPORG.

What if Thomas spens more time with the kids than their bio-parents do since they spend every waking moment playing the game?

That would be truly sad and would go back to what you said about unsupervised internet access. A bad thing. It would be a tragic commentary on the state of our society if something like this were ever to be considered acceptable.

greywar

on Nov 08, 2005

It would be a tragic commentary on the state of our society if something like this were ever to be considered acceptable.

I assure you that there are plenty of kids who spend more time their online community then they do with their parents.

So sex, paper, and physical presence are all required to be a husband and wife? So people seperated fromt heir wives or husbands for years at a time aren't living a marriage? What if he had gotten the marriage liscense and done the ceremony (you know you don't have to be present for that).

Talisein

on Nov 08, 2005

Face it Grey, the sheep don't want to realize they were suckers for buying into the whole Work-At-A-Job-You-Hate-And-Get-Lots-Of-Money plan when they could have a complete set of mirror armor.

xtine

on Nov 08, 2005

I assure you that there are plenty of kids who spend more time their online community then they do with their parents.

Is this acceptable? It is not to me. Something that occured to after my last post where I suggested that Thomas was not harming anyone but himself: he's really harming the children by encouraging them to become more emotionally invested in an online world as opposed to learning how to function in face-to-face situations. He is putting himself between them and their parents.

One could hypothesize and posture and what-if this one to death. I have to dig deeper into what marriage means to me, and recently I've come to consider marriage as only a religious convention, or in the legal sense a civil union. I will concede that two consenting adults can have a completely virtual relationship and call it whatever they want with no skin off my nose. How are you using the term "wife"? Their relationship certainly wouldn't be recognized by any religious or legal authority that I know of. Should the burden of recognition be placed on me as an individual? I don't care what Thomas does in his free time, as long as he's harming no one. I suppose this particular aspect of the scenario you set up for us is a non-issue for me.

SlothLuvChunk

on Nov 08, 2005

Any debate is anecdotal really. These two realities while very real, are not valued the same, at least not by me (and what else really matters in my reality?). Sure you can make the case that a virtual reality is equally valuable to the individual participating in it, but it is not equally valuable to the rest of society. The two realities are simply not on equal ground. In fact, the initial premise is flawed, as our reality is not consentual, it is obligatory. While Thomas chooses not to take part in consensual aspects of our reality (socialization, consumerism, etc.), he still exists in this reality, and has little choice in the matter.
While the subject matter used to value each reality is subjective, I would put forth that there are qualitative aspects that are not debatable. One of these would be that the existense of one reality is made possible solely by the other, and this truth does not work in both directions. Speaking logically, it is impossible to consider these two realities equal in some egalitarian sense. Thomas can exist in this reality, while not existing in the other; you can argue that without his virtual identity he would perish here as well, but scientifically speaking, it is physically possible. It is not possible however, for Thomas to exist in the virtual reality, while not existing in this reality. His primary concern is his life in this reality, as it affords him the luxury of the other. One is consentual, while the other is obligatory.
The two realities are in now way equal. Perhaps they are seemingly equal in value on the surface, from the end-user's perspective, but they are in now way qualitatively equal to society or the individual.
One may provide a reason for living, but the other provides life itself.

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