"Spiritual Expression in a Single-Shard Virtual World" is a new essay of mine for the development blog of Seed, the hugely ambitious MMO where players will rebuild society from the ground up. (Lawrence Lessig is helping craft a political system for it.) I relate instances of happening in pioneer virtual worlds like Eve Online, and also, of course, Second Life:
A single-sharded virtual world will inevitably wind up with recognizable groups which are identifiable by their real life nationality, ethnicity, or culture. And because many of these groups place a prime value on religious belief, they are likely to bring symbols of their spirituality to this new world. But religious divides can also follow users into the virtual space. One high-minded Second Life group founded its own interfaith metaverse religion called The Avatars of Change, announcing, “We are an ecumenical religious and cultural order, united by the Avatarian Way.” However, when disagreements over the members’ real life doctrines emerged, this new religious group quickly fell into chaos.
Read the rest here. I originally wrote about The Avatars of Change here on New World Notes here. If you missed it last Summer, Seed teaser below:
See also: "The Hidden Biases of World-Building".
From your piece 'a colony and home for earth’s descendants' so I like it already sight unseen. I welcome our new roach overlords. Interesting point on the early days of SL but sky-beardy groups still exist - and not a bad source for the odd little earner as still gullible. The main one of course being the cult of Rosedale.
Posted by: sirhc deSantis | Saturday, October 20, 2018 at 03:32 AM
Hello,
I also liked your post "The Hidden Biases of World-Building". As for creative generation of the new world: hopefully, we do have a handful of smart and brained people who can and will moderate and manage the cases. I mean not only the culture, but also the ideas, the tech advancement and tech dangers.
Is the world ready for the third world war? Perhaps, yes, but will it survive it?
Posted by: Steve Seidel | Wednesday, October 24, 2018 at 11:03 PM