A big thought for the morning: the purpose of virtual worlds (like second life) is to map out what can happen in the future, modeling near future alternatives, visioning long term goals.
From H+ magazine, Surfdaddy Orca says,
“Metanomics is an emerging – even edgy – field of academic study that deals with the economic, legal, and regulatory issues of of virtual worlds.”
He shows how the bank collapse in the real world was preceded by a bank collapse in Second Life, a year before.
But think about it. Forget the porn and the wasted hours spent by folks looking for a “second” life. It’s like these are very sophisticated tools that end up getting used for the wrong things.
The military uses virtual environments to prep for missions. Government and Real Estate use GIS for looking at alternatives. So are there ways to package this for use in people’s personal lives?
See Motionbased’s Distance Splits, Routes and Dot Player. Then think scenarios.
