Play the Game

This article talks about the game Grand Theft Auto. First off, it is extremely violent. To win you must kill anyone and everyone around you. And the story line barely even justifies the killing. It seems like the game is teaching people how to be criminals. it has no social qualities, has missions that involve killings, tell you the best times to perform a bulgary, and how to earn respect through crime. And unfortunately, these overly violent games are super popular bringing in loads of money and flying off the shelves. The game allows boys and young men to live out unfullfilled dreams and desires. Why do people enjoy these games so much? it could be because we are all like animals with the desire to kill and  have sex, but since society says such acts are punishable and such thoughts should be suppressed, GTA creates an outlet for these desires. But some people worry that those playing could forget the line between reality and virtual reality and become a danger to society. Every player becomes the character CJ. CJ is a poor young black man. You can change his hair cut, give him a tatoo, make him fat or muscular, but they only thing you can’t change is his skin color. Does the game then suggest that its creators believe all criminals or gangbangers are young poor black men? Do people find that to be a bit racist? The creators simply suggest that it is like stepping into your favorite rap song. But it could be more then that- the article suggests that we all want to be a rebel with an attitude. But is crime and mayhem really a progressive way of fighting the authority. However, GTA allows a player to “walk in another’s shoes” thereby making it so that we can embrace each other’s differences. What sticks with a player the most is the setting of the game. The virtual world is huge and the freedom within it is great. It is this freedom to explore a whole new world and not just play the game that makes GTA so successful. GTA can teach us that not all fun has to be politically correct- we can play violent games and not be violent people. How do you feel about this- do such video games make us more violent or are they an outlet for our suppressed desires?

Is this man cheating on his wife?

A man spends hours and hours on SecondLife, a program that allows the user to create a very unique character and basically live a whole other life. The character has a job, pays bills, and has virtual relationships. This particular man is recently married, but now he is recently married again to a virtual wife. Most people would hate the idea of having a whole other set of responsibilities, but for some reason SecondLife is extremely popular. Users say that their virtual life is better than their real life. Though they never see their virtual friends in person, they find their emotional connections with these people to be very strong. And why shouldn’t people like the program? A person can create any version of themselves-make a better, younger, more enhanced version of themselves. They can have any job they want and do whatever they want. And best of all, they never get old and gray. Academics are surprised at how well virtual worlds mirror the real world. People feel bad when something bad happens to their avatar, and they feel quite good when something good happens.” Some say that players can’t mentally distinguish between the real world and the virtual world. The man in the article was having a hard time and Second life provided him with a distraction. Then he met Tenaj and they were soon virtually married. They have no plans to meet and they know little about each other besides what they talk about through instant messaging. The man’s real wife is starting to lose patience. She feels she barely knows the person she married anymore. He claims that it is just a game, but spending hours and hours a day on this program is not just a game. It seems to be an obsession. Real marriage divorces due to virtual infedelity. Some people say that the hours spent on SecondLife is nothing to worry about, that it is equivalent to the average hours spent watching tv. Do you use SecondLife? Do you feel that this virtual socializing world is taking away from actual life socializing and experiences?

Cyborg Ancestry

The firs cyborg was a poor little rat with a tiny osmotic pump implanted in his body. The word cyborg is used to describe the vision of an “augmented man,” better adapted than ordinary humans to the rigors of space travel.dy. He was half animal half machine. Being able to create a cyborg was like giving a person super powers, making it so that they could escape the limitations of the human body. And the idea grew from fantasy to reality. People were given artifical limbs and organs and soon augmented humans  were a popoular tv hit with the BIonic Woman and the Six Million Dollar Man. But today’s cyborgs are information machines. Cybernetics is a science that explains the world as a set of feedback systems, allowing rational control of bodies, machines, factories, communities, and just about anything else. It promised to reduce the problems of society. It is the cyborg makers that want to turn this idea into something real. They see the human body as information processing machine of flesh. They believed that if you wanted a better body, simply improve the feedback system or add an artifical organ. Cybernetics has faded away but it has left behind two important impacts. One is how we now see the world as a series of networks and the other is the idea that there isn’t as much separating man from machine as we would like to believe. If you were given an artifical organ or limb, would you feel that it made you less human, or that it made you part machine?

Boot Camp Cure for Internet Addiction

So cyberspace is becoming a very bad addiction for people. And if your in desperate need of a cure, you can go to Korea and join the Jump Up Internet Rescue School. It’s possibly the only place of its kinds in the world that you can go to for major help. South Korea knows the internet like no other country. They have fulled embraced it, and as a consequence, fully become obsessed with it. People can’t tear themselves away and it’s becoming a problem. There have been people who have literally dropped dead from exhaustion after days on end spent in front of a computer. Most young people are at serious risk of the internet becoming an unhealthy habit. The camp was designed for the most aggressive of obsessors. Participants are denied access to a computer and are only allowed one hour of cell phone use a day. The get lots of exercise and do a lot of group activities meant to strengthen their connections to the real world and weaken their connection to the virtual one. The participants are under constant supervision, because many try to sneak away to use the computer, They must constantly be kept busy. Do you ever wonder if you may have in internet addiction or are becoming overly obsessed with the internet?