Blog: Dan Power

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Snowcrash, Simulacron-3 and MWAIS

Flying back and forth to San Francisco for Oracle OpenWorld I read Neal Stephenson's 1992 novel "Snow Crash". Stephenson is credited with defining and popularizing major terms associated with virtual worlds. Terms like avatar and Metaverse are integral to Stephenson's fictional future earth. Stephenson paints a bleak, anarchic view of first life in Los Angeles, overpopulated, drugs, confusion, corruption and franchises for everything. Also, he decribed the rich guarded suburbs and the storage container slums.

But, Stephenson paints a version of the Metaverse that is very similar to Linden Lab's Second Life (http://secondlife.com). The similarities are striking, but happily Stephenson's Metaverse doesn't have the capacity constraints and some other limits of Second Life. For example, the amphitheater in Metaverse can hold a quarter million cheering hackers. Also, if desired, avatars can look more like the "real life" person complete with realistic facial expressions that can be controlled. Finally, a big plus, the hero of "Snow Crash" named "Hiro Protagonist" has the same name in both the real universe and the Metaverse. This is a fun story and quick read even though we want to avoid the real world future that is described.

The other major virtual world classic is Daniel F. Galouye's 1964 novel "Simulacron-3". Galouye's novel is the basis for Joseph Rusnal's 1969 movie "The Thirteenth Floor". Galouye imagined a simulectronic world much like Second Life and the Metaverse.

Yesterday Midwest Association for information Systems (MWAIS) held a workshop in Second Life titled "Beyond first life: e-Learning in Second Life". I was supposed to moderate the panel, but I confused my time zones, ran late with my MBA MIS class I was teaching, and then couldn't log on probably because of capacity constraints at our venue. I finally got on Second Life and attended the last 20 minutes of the event. Simha Magal the organizer kept things going in my absence. I'm sure the voice comments of panelists Blake Ives, Brian Mennecke, Benn Konsynski and Tony Adams were interesting. I don't think we had a recording. e-Learning using Second Life still has problems, but there are advantages as well.

The Metaverse, the simulacra is here. Now our challenge is to figure out how to use this and other information technologies to shape a positive future for our planet Earth and for all of our people.

If you are on Second Life, IM me aka Leinad Meriman and/or join the Decision Support group.

References

Galouye, D. F., Simulacron-3, New York: Bantam Books, July 1964.

Power, D., "Can multi-user visual simulations provide real world decision support?" DSS News, Vol. 8, No. 13, July 1, 2007, URL http://dssresources.com/newsletters/193.php

Stephenson, N. Snow Crash, New York: Bantam Books, 1992.

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