Essay #2 Outline: 'Real Life' vs. the Virtual World
Introduction:
Clincher: “I can’t believe their gang is now after me! I just killed one of them to steal a helicopter. Geez!” I’ve heard this kind of a lament time and time again, by friends and people I ‘follow’ on the Internet, who are generally law-abiding, school-attending, job-holding young adults.
Thesis: The distinction between virtual and real-life experiences is, ultimately, a true one. Real-world interactions are indisputably physical and carry consequences while those in cyberspace do not.
Body:
I. Reality-oriented people - those who do not spend most, if any, of their time online - actively acknowledge the consequences in real life that do not apply online.
a.) Successful people with steady, white-collar jobs post nude photos online that get them fired. Obviously, one would not walk around naked/ be drunk around co-workers and employees, because they recognize the danger. Online, these limits are blurred. (“Virtual Popularity Isn’t Cool, It’s Pathetic”)
b.) There are clearly different sets of rules online – something that might make one ‘Internet famous’ would get the same person fired or expelled from/not accepted into a school.
II. Those who spend most of their time online, do recognize that they will have to face consequences in their real life, if too much time is spent online. They also realize that the Internet is not, in fact, ‘The Real World’.
a.) ‘Gamers’, those people heavily invested in video games have momentary lapses or ‘blurring’ where they believe that the video game extends into reality. However, after a moment, they realize that this was only a perceptive error and trying to control reality like a videogame would not work. (“Video Games, Avatars, and Identity”)
b.) Killing people in video games, like Grand Theft Auto, can be a positive, or even necessary, move in the game. Killing people in real life has real life consequences – escape, prison, or even the death penalty.
III. Those that are in between reality and fantasy, or ignorance and enlightenment, recognize what reality is and, that, fantastical thinking can have a consequential impact on reality.
a.) In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip Dick, Rick Deckard who constantly travels between the fantastical world of androids and the real world of humans, sees a very defined boundary – and knows that androids can have a negative impact on human life itself.
b.) In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, Plato explains how the enlightened mind can see the truth, but accept that others do not – and knows how this fantasy keeps them ‘slaves’.
Conclusion:
The virtual world can have negative impacts when brought into ‘real life’, which proves that it is not consistent with reality. Those who indulge in the virtual world, reality, or those that go between the two all acknowledge these consequences.
Clincher: “I can’t believe their gang is now after me! I just killed one of them to steal a helicopter. Geez!” I’ve heard this kind of a lament time and time again, by friends and people I ‘follow’ on the Internet, who are generally law-abiding, school-attending, job-holding young adults.
Thesis: The distinction between virtual and real-life experiences is, ultimately, a true one. Real-world interactions are indisputably physical and carry consequences while those in cyberspace do not.
Body:
I. Reality-oriented people - those who do not spend most, if any, of their time online - actively acknowledge the consequences in real life that do not apply online.
a.) Successful people with steady, white-collar jobs post nude photos online that get them fired. Obviously, one would not walk around naked/ be drunk around co-workers and employees, because they recognize the danger. Online, these limits are blurred. (“Virtual Popularity Isn’t Cool, It’s Pathetic”)
b.) There are clearly different sets of rules online – something that might make one ‘Internet famous’ would get the same person fired or expelled from/not accepted into a school.
II. Those who spend most of their time online, do recognize that they will have to face consequences in their real life, if too much time is spent online. They also realize that the Internet is not, in fact, ‘The Real World’.
a.) ‘Gamers’, those people heavily invested in video games have momentary lapses or ‘blurring’ where they believe that the video game extends into reality. However, after a moment, they realize that this was only a perceptive error and trying to control reality like a videogame would not work. (“Video Games, Avatars, and Identity”)
b.) Killing people in video games, like Grand Theft Auto, can be a positive, or even necessary, move in the game. Killing people in real life has real life consequences – escape, prison, or even the death penalty.
III. Those that are in between reality and fantasy, or ignorance and enlightenment, recognize what reality is and, that, fantastical thinking can have a consequential impact on reality.
a.) In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip Dick, Rick Deckard who constantly travels between the fantastical world of androids and the real world of humans, sees a very defined boundary – and knows that androids can have a negative impact on human life itself.
b.) In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, Plato explains how the enlightened mind can see the truth, but accept that others do not – and knows how this fantasy keeps them ‘slaves’.
Conclusion:
The virtual world can have negative impacts when brought into ‘real life’, which proves that it is not consistent with reality. Those who indulge in the virtual world, reality, or those that go between the two all acknowledge these consequences.