MAIN > SPOTLIGHT ARCHIVE > Douglas_Thomas (Jan 27)

Sunday 27th January 2008 3:14 pm

Douglas Thomas: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. For Avatars?

The Director of USC’s Institute for Network Culture previews Monday’s discussion in Second Life by asking what it means to consider human and civil rights in virtual worlds. 

When we step into virtual worlds we bring certain things with us and we leave other things behind. Our event “Philanthropy and Virtual Worlds: Considering Civil Liberties” is an effort to understand what it means to seriously consider human and civil rights in virtual worlds, to understand what rights we bring with us when we enter the virtual and to consider what we may (intentionally or unintentionally) leave behind.

While a fair amount of discussion has focused on issues such as intellectual property and user created content, relatively little attention has been paid to broader issues of rights, liberty, and due process. To understand what reasonable expectations a player should have for their avatars in virtual worlds. This conversation is designed to engage those issues by asking what does it mean to think about rights in virtual worlds? In world of complete representation, what is the line between expression and action? How do we resolve questions of jurisdiction in a truly global medium? To what degree do we let the laws, norms, and rules of the physical world dictate what rights we have as avatars in our virtual worlds?

Most of these questions are as old as legal and political philosophy itself, but we believe the affordances and opportunities that virtual worlds offer may allow us to rethink these issues in new and different ways. Perhaps as important, by reflecting on the nature of our virtual selves, we may discover something new about human and civil rights in the physical world as well.

Editor’s Note: For details on the event, including how to attend, view MacArthur’s event overview.

Category: Unexpected

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