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On Avatars and Us
Posted by
valkyrie_ice
,
04 March 2009
·
2,028 views
Chapter Two: Avatars R Us
If you’ve ever read William Gibson’s Cyberpunk novels, or watched Shirow Masamune’s Ghost in the Shell, you’ve seen a very possible look at where we may be heading in the near future. While like all cyberpunk, it tends to dramatize the darkest sides of human nature, in both we see a world where mankind has embraced technology to the extent that most all of society has at least some cybertechnology embedded within them, even if it’s only to the extent of having a communications system embedded in their ear. It’s a world where organic and inorganic are almost completely interchangeable, and the question of man or machine becomes blurred.
These are valid views, and make us look at the hard realities of what we want our future to be, but almost invariably they utterly fail to deal with the very probable likelihood that not every person is going to chose to look like a standard human, or if they touch on the issue at all, it’s in a very limited way, such as gangster Cyborgs who rebuilt themselves into killing machines for the mob. In most cases such changes are always shown in a bad light, the bad guy makes himself look monstrous while the good guy is always as human as possible.
Indeed, when he wrote Engines of Creation, K. Eric Drexler, the founder of the science of Nanotechnology, went out of his way to avoid any possible mention that people may chose to use such technologies to alter their appearance. Nor is he alone. It seems almost a universal agreement among both science fiction writers and scientists themselves to avoid any mention of human alteration. If it is used in a plot, it is always done for evil purposes, or is an utter failure that drives people insane or kills them off in gruesome ways. You can’t pick up a Michael Crichton novel without science “trespassing” on either god or nature’s turf, or read many other science fiction stories, manga, or graphic novels without running into the same view of “changing humanity is evil.” Indeed the only exception to this I have read in recent years has been Adam Warren’s version of the Dirty Pair, where human “genetic upgrades” make up 90% of the population and come in just about any form you can think of.
Yet when you look at Second Life, and its population base, while it is nowhere near that sort of human/nonhuman balance, you do find a very high number of people who do not chose to look like a “vanilla” human. Be it from something as simple as adding cat ears and a tail to full body remakes into a giant dragon, or from simple cybernetic implants to full robotic form, you will find customization is the name of the game. It’s not just making a distinct look for oneself, or expressing individuality, so much as it is about being yourself. Even among people like myself, who collect and change avatars on a daily basis, we generally have a “main form” which they will most commonly wear. Many people on SL don’t even go that far, but simply have a single avatar they always wear and never change once they have satisfied themselves on its appearance.
So, if in a world made almost completely by the populace non-humans are so very very common, why is the possibility of such modifications taking place in the real world such a seeming taboo?
The answer is simple: Fear.
Before you dismiss that as an overly simplistic answer, let’s look at some of the various issues raised in various media. First is a fear of loss of identity. Will you still be you if you can suddenly change everything about how you look? If an ugly person suddenly becomes beautiful, will they suddenly suffer a radical personality shift? What if they replace most of their body with cybernetics? Will they even think like a human anymore?
From a government standpoint, there is more fear over identity, but in their case it is more about keeping track of people than fear of personality changes and personal identity. How can a criminal be apprehended if he can change bodies, fingerprints, retina scans, etc? For a corporation, how can you be sure that person with access to your company secrets is really who it’s supposed to be?
And what about gender swapping? If changing genders is as easy as going to a store and getting a makeover what will happen to the traditional roles of male and female? Of mother and father or son and daughter? If a child wants to have a choice of gender, can we force them to chose? And what about racial characteristics? When black can be white or Hispanic or even Asian? And what about those like my furry friends who chose animalistic forms?
At the base of all these questions and fears is the root fear xenophobia. Looking at a future so radically different as to include humans who chose to be other than human is outside of our experience, and difficult to conceive. Even when sci fi tries to deal with non-humans seriously, you tend to end up with something like Star Wars, where even the aliens tend to think and act just like humans regardless of how they look.
So why, really, is the idea of non-human humans such a hard concept to visualize? I would think it would be rather easy compared to the work of early sci fi writers who tried so very hard to create truly alien aliens. We know how humans think, so what really might be different?
The answer is surprisingly little if you look at the world of Second Life.
That’s right. Most people on SL probably don’t even think about the issues just brought up because they are fears, and the reality has shown that they are little more than tissues and cobwebs.
I have dozens of shapes, and I switch them at a whim, but regardless of what form I wear, my personality is the same. The person I am inside my head is who everyone meets, and the exterior is little more than a convenience. I couldn’t even tell you on a practical basis who is male or female outside of SL. Many, like me, stick solely to a single gender, while others switch on a whim, and still others are both simultaneously. There’s even hermaphroditic specific gender pronouns such as Hir. And one thing I have never ever been asked in SL is what sex I am outside SL. Considering the number of times I have been asked that in other MMORPGs, it’s odd when you consider the hyper-realism of SL. You would think that more people would want to know if that naked dancer on a pole that they are trying to talk into a private room for cybersex is the gender that they appear. Yet never in several years of playing has the question ever been asked.
Now before you think SL is all about sex, remember that I work as a stripper in a club. It’s not the sole basis of SL, but it is an interesting place to watch the interactions of people. There’s surprisingly little concern over gender roles.
Nor is there as much concern over species as you’d suspect. There was in the early days, but the number of people with prejudices causing problems has dropped enormously over relatively few years SL has existed. In my early days, I can recall numerous “greifer” attacks made against the club where I worked, yet in the two years since then, they’ve all but become rumors heard about happening elsewhere. I get harassed by the Horde more in World of Warcraft than I ever get hassled about my appearance in SL, even if I am the sole non-human in a mainstream club. Indeed, surprising numbers of “humans” have a furry AV tucked away in their inventory for costume parties, which is by and far the most popular way to draw a crowd to a club. I make most of my SL income from costume contests and tips dancing.
So what does this tell me? That a lot of the fears of changing humanities appearance are based on erroneous assumptions. The exploration of those fears makes for excellent stories, but bears little resemblance to reality.
Given that a similar ability is granted to humanity at large outside of cyberspace, be it by Nanotech, Biotech, Cybertech, or whatever, what does Second Life seem to indicate is likely to occur?
Following the initial introduction of such technology, it’s likely we’re going to see an enormous number of copies. As a recent article I read put it, “the world will be filled with 8 foot tall Brad Pitt Clones with Arnold Swartzenegger bodies, and endless copies of Nicole Kidman.
It’s quite likely to be true, to start. It’s a universal desire to be beautiful, strong, and attractive. We look to our media stars to define these things for us. We’re undoubtedly going to see a million Angelina Jolies, Brad Pitts, Marilyn Monroes, Tom Cruses, and every other media icon from the entire history of film. It will likely be the rage at the beginning.
But if it can be done once, what’s to stop it from being done a hundred thousand times? Why assume that people will be happy with everyone looking like the latest media icon?
There will be the start, when a few start, and there might be some controversy, but it will likely be controversy of the sort generated by tabloids. “So and So used a controversial new plastic surgery technique to make themselves look like X!”
And like face lifts and who got a boob job, we’ll shrug and go, so what? We’re already familiar with current methods of plastic surgery, and what real controversy is there anymore? So a new technique of plastic surgery exists, it’s pretty meaningless.
Then we’ll start to see more and more, “New technique can make anyone look however they want!” “New Techniques can make man into female!” “New techniques can make Man look like Cat!”
Oh, wait… haven’t we already seen those headlines?
From there, we’re likely to see the beginning of a gradual increase of people who have changed themselves to look different, first from those who are already inclined to do so. Transexual surgery is almost commonplace today, but regulated because if it’s irreversibility. If a technique were in place that worked equally well in both directions, psychologists will likely begin prescribing it, knowing that if their patients find it to be the incorrect choice for them that they would be able to reverse it.
From there, it’s a short step to prescribing it for other cases, such a minim improvements for the unattractive who have developed extreme psychological issues because of it, to gradually becoming a treatment for general insecurity and lack of self esteem.
At the same time, it will become more and more common as a treatment in Hollywood, or among those who are the idle rich, or in the public eye, gradually becoming common enough that it’s likely to found everywhere, as just another plastic surgery office.
At the same time, as computers become more and more miniaturized, portable, and internetworked, we’re going to become more and more used to seeing each other not only as our physical forms, but as our online Avatars as well. With the advent of OpenSim systems, and the likelihood that a lot of new MMORPG’s will begin interfacing with these Virtual spaces, and allow you to use your personal Avatar in the game world, people will become more and more used to associating your AV with the physical you.
Indeed, if Virtual overlays become commonplace, and as video contact lenses are already in development, it’s probably inevitable, we will probably become used to seeing your AV IN PLACE of your physical body.
At which point, the ability to change your physical body will start to seem a more and more attractive idea to a larger and larger proportion of the population. When you’re used to interacting with Valkyrie Ice, the 7 foot Amazon succubus, your brain is going to have a harder time accepting her as a big brawny guy than it will accepting her as a 7 foot tall white haired demoness.
So, as I see it, a majority of these fears we currently have are going to be sidestepped, because the technology for radical body alteration will have already been anticipated by Virtuality, and it all started in Second Life.
And all those Brad Pitt clones? A few will always exist, but the vast majority will get bored of looking like every one else, and like so many people in Second Life, will likely begin to look either like an idealized version of themselves, or something completely, radically different, once they realize that there’s no limits, and that they can change their mind whenever they feel like it.
After all, it’s only an Avatar.
If you’ve ever read William Gibson’s Cyberpunk novels, or watched Shirow Masamune’s Ghost in the Shell, you’ve seen a very possible look at where we may be heading in the near future. While like all cyberpunk, it tends to dramatize the darkest sides of human nature, in both we see a world where mankind has embraced technology to the extent that most all of society has at least some cybertechnology embedded within them, even if it’s only to the extent of having a communications system embedded in their ear. It’s a world where organic and inorganic are almost completely interchangeable, and the question of man or machine becomes blurred.
These are valid views, and make us look at the hard realities of what we want our future to be, but almost invariably they utterly fail to deal with the very probable likelihood that not every person is going to chose to look like a standard human, or if they touch on the issue at all, it’s in a very limited way, such as gangster Cyborgs who rebuilt themselves into killing machines for the mob. In most cases such changes are always shown in a bad light, the bad guy makes himself look monstrous while the good guy is always as human as possible.
Indeed, when he wrote Engines of Creation, K. Eric Drexler, the founder of the science of Nanotechnology, went out of his way to avoid any possible mention that people may chose to use such technologies to alter their appearance. Nor is he alone. It seems almost a universal agreement among both science fiction writers and scientists themselves to avoid any mention of human alteration. If it is used in a plot, it is always done for evil purposes, or is an utter failure that drives people insane or kills them off in gruesome ways. You can’t pick up a Michael Crichton novel without science “trespassing” on either god or nature’s turf, or read many other science fiction stories, manga, or graphic novels without running into the same view of “changing humanity is evil.” Indeed the only exception to this I have read in recent years has been Adam Warren’s version of the Dirty Pair, where human “genetic upgrades” make up 90% of the population and come in just about any form you can think of.
Yet when you look at Second Life, and its population base, while it is nowhere near that sort of human/nonhuman balance, you do find a very high number of people who do not chose to look like a “vanilla” human. Be it from something as simple as adding cat ears and a tail to full body remakes into a giant dragon, or from simple cybernetic implants to full robotic form, you will find customization is the name of the game. It’s not just making a distinct look for oneself, or expressing individuality, so much as it is about being yourself. Even among people like myself, who collect and change avatars on a daily basis, we generally have a “main form” which they will most commonly wear. Many people on SL don’t even go that far, but simply have a single avatar they always wear and never change once they have satisfied themselves on its appearance.
So, if in a world made almost completely by the populace non-humans are so very very common, why is the possibility of such modifications taking place in the real world such a seeming taboo?
The answer is simple: Fear.
Before you dismiss that as an overly simplistic answer, let’s look at some of the various issues raised in various media. First is a fear of loss of identity. Will you still be you if you can suddenly change everything about how you look? If an ugly person suddenly becomes beautiful, will they suddenly suffer a radical personality shift? What if they replace most of their body with cybernetics? Will they even think like a human anymore?
From a government standpoint, there is more fear over identity, but in their case it is more about keeping track of people than fear of personality changes and personal identity. How can a criminal be apprehended if he can change bodies, fingerprints, retina scans, etc? For a corporation, how can you be sure that person with access to your company secrets is really who it’s supposed to be?
And what about gender swapping? If changing genders is as easy as going to a store and getting a makeover what will happen to the traditional roles of male and female? Of mother and father or son and daughter? If a child wants to have a choice of gender, can we force them to chose? And what about racial characteristics? When black can be white or Hispanic or even Asian? And what about those like my furry friends who chose animalistic forms?
At the base of all these questions and fears is the root fear xenophobia. Looking at a future so radically different as to include humans who chose to be other than human is outside of our experience, and difficult to conceive. Even when sci fi tries to deal with non-humans seriously, you tend to end up with something like Star Wars, where even the aliens tend to think and act just like humans regardless of how they look.
So why, really, is the idea of non-human humans such a hard concept to visualize? I would think it would be rather easy compared to the work of early sci fi writers who tried so very hard to create truly alien aliens. We know how humans think, so what really might be different?
The answer is surprisingly little if you look at the world of Second Life.
That’s right. Most people on SL probably don’t even think about the issues just brought up because they are fears, and the reality has shown that they are little more than tissues and cobwebs.
I have dozens of shapes, and I switch them at a whim, but regardless of what form I wear, my personality is the same. The person I am inside my head is who everyone meets, and the exterior is little more than a convenience. I couldn’t even tell you on a practical basis who is male or female outside of SL. Many, like me, stick solely to a single gender, while others switch on a whim, and still others are both simultaneously. There’s even hermaphroditic specific gender pronouns such as Hir. And one thing I have never ever been asked in SL is what sex I am outside SL. Considering the number of times I have been asked that in other MMORPGs, it’s odd when you consider the hyper-realism of SL. You would think that more people would want to know if that naked dancer on a pole that they are trying to talk into a private room for cybersex is the gender that they appear. Yet never in several years of playing has the question ever been asked.
Now before you think SL is all about sex, remember that I work as a stripper in a club. It’s not the sole basis of SL, but it is an interesting place to watch the interactions of people. There’s surprisingly little concern over gender roles.
Nor is there as much concern over species as you’d suspect. There was in the early days, but the number of people with prejudices causing problems has dropped enormously over relatively few years SL has existed. In my early days, I can recall numerous “greifer” attacks made against the club where I worked, yet in the two years since then, they’ve all but become rumors heard about happening elsewhere. I get harassed by the Horde more in World of Warcraft than I ever get hassled about my appearance in SL, even if I am the sole non-human in a mainstream club. Indeed, surprising numbers of “humans” have a furry AV tucked away in their inventory for costume parties, which is by and far the most popular way to draw a crowd to a club. I make most of my SL income from costume contests and tips dancing.
So what does this tell me? That a lot of the fears of changing humanities appearance are based on erroneous assumptions. The exploration of those fears makes for excellent stories, but bears little resemblance to reality.
Given that a similar ability is granted to humanity at large outside of cyberspace, be it by Nanotech, Biotech, Cybertech, or whatever, what does Second Life seem to indicate is likely to occur?
Following the initial introduction of such technology, it’s likely we’re going to see an enormous number of copies. As a recent article I read put it, “the world will be filled with 8 foot tall Brad Pitt Clones with Arnold Swartzenegger bodies, and endless copies of Nicole Kidman.
It’s quite likely to be true, to start. It’s a universal desire to be beautiful, strong, and attractive. We look to our media stars to define these things for us. We’re undoubtedly going to see a million Angelina Jolies, Brad Pitts, Marilyn Monroes, Tom Cruses, and every other media icon from the entire history of film. It will likely be the rage at the beginning.
But if it can be done once, what’s to stop it from being done a hundred thousand times? Why assume that people will be happy with everyone looking like the latest media icon?
There will be the start, when a few start, and there might be some controversy, but it will likely be controversy of the sort generated by tabloids. “So and So used a controversial new plastic surgery technique to make themselves look like X!”
And like face lifts and who got a boob job, we’ll shrug and go, so what? We’re already familiar with current methods of plastic surgery, and what real controversy is there anymore? So a new technique of plastic surgery exists, it’s pretty meaningless.
Then we’ll start to see more and more, “New technique can make anyone look however they want!” “New Techniques can make man into female!” “New techniques can make Man look like Cat!”
Oh, wait… haven’t we already seen those headlines?
From there, we’re likely to see the beginning of a gradual increase of people who have changed themselves to look different, first from those who are already inclined to do so. Transexual surgery is almost commonplace today, but regulated because if it’s irreversibility. If a technique were in place that worked equally well in both directions, psychologists will likely begin prescribing it, knowing that if their patients find it to be the incorrect choice for them that they would be able to reverse it.
From there, it’s a short step to prescribing it for other cases, such a minim improvements for the unattractive who have developed extreme psychological issues because of it, to gradually becoming a treatment for general insecurity and lack of self esteem.
At the same time, it will become more and more common as a treatment in Hollywood, or among those who are the idle rich, or in the public eye, gradually becoming common enough that it’s likely to found everywhere, as just another plastic surgery office.
At the same time, as computers become more and more miniaturized, portable, and internetworked, we’re going to become more and more used to seeing each other not only as our physical forms, but as our online Avatars as well. With the advent of OpenSim systems, and the likelihood that a lot of new MMORPG’s will begin interfacing with these Virtual spaces, and allow you to use your personal Avatar in the game world, people will become more and more used to associating your AV with the physical you.
Indeed, if Virtual overlays become commonplace, and as video contact lenses are already in development, it’s probably inevitable, we will probably become used to seeing your AV IN PLACE of your physical body.
At which point, the ability to change your physical body will start to seem a more and more attractive idea to a larger and larger proportion of the population. When you’re used to interacting with Valkyrie Ice, the 7 foot Amazon succubus, your brain is going to have a harder time accepting her as a big brawny guy than it will accepting her as a 7 foot tall white haired demoness.
So, as I see it, a majority of these fears we currently have are going to be sidestepped, because the technology for radical body alteration will have already been anticipated by Virtuality, and it all started in Second Life.
And all those Brad Pitt clones? A few will always exist, but the vast majority will get bored of looking like every one else, and like so many people in Second Life, will likely begin to look either like an idealized version of themselves, or something completely, radically different, once they realize that there’s no limits, and that they can change their mind whenever they feel like it.
After all, it’s only an Avatar.
