How does spending a lot of time in virtual worlds affect people psychologically?
As an avatar it is more likely that you’ll do something unusual that you might have thought about but not wanted to try in the real world. So you’re more likely to change your real-world life in a positive or aspirational way. You have spoken about virtual worlds as being the next incarnation of the internet, or web 3.0. What do you mean? The web today does not optimise for human behaviour. When we use it we are usually alone and it is not live. In a Second Life store you can see other people, sit with and talk to them. I envisage we will move a lot of what we are doing on the internet today into these more lifelike, 3D spaces. Do we need virtual police and courts to deal with the growth of virtual crime? Formalised virtual courts will emerge as a result of common law and collective behaviour. I think big groups will band together and set up their own courts to decide whether to let people enter their property. Being restricted by the judgement of one’s peers will have material, social
