Not a D&D fan. But I have spent a fair amount of time on MUDs. Have you?
I find your remark about "phone sex" rather reductive, but perhaps you just
meant that as conversational repartee, and you'd welcome the opportunity to
elaborate on the other social phenoms occurring on MUDs? For me, there is
a clear danger in assuming that a MUD is synonymous with the media's
representation of MUDs, VR, and the Internet. Wherein I define "danger"
according to an ethnographer's agenda.
> Also, you mis-read my notion of "getting lost", as some reference to
> getting lost on the Internet, when I was refering to the GPS and GIS
> systems with blanket our planet. And which now ironically have appeared
in
> our over-priced luxury sedans as a convience for navigation, so we don't
> miss that turn going on the way to Uncle Pete's (laughs):).
I don't see where you mentioned GPS and GIS systems in your original
posting. After all, satellite networks are used for many things, including
the "global village" and trans-oceanic Internet connections.
> And finally, I don't think are present day condition is in any way
> comparable to the 60's (huh)? In essence, you missed the point of my
entire
> posting.
Well I guess this is just grounds for more discussion. :-)
> A careful look at the addresses of this group will reveal no aol
> users here (as if that was some kind of insult), and so what if they
were?
> Do I detect an Internet snob in my uh un/presense?
You're missing one of my points: AOL is a centralized authoritative
experience, the Internet in general is not. Centralization of authority
keeps a lot of people from getting lost. In fact, most people would say
this is the primary service that AOL offers: "it's easier to navigate."
The tradeoff for that ease of navigation, is AOL's authority over its site.
Its usage policies, its discussion groups, its advertizing accounts, etc.
Cheers,
Brandon J. Van Every <vanevery@blarg.net> DEC Commodity Graphics
http://www.blarg.net/~vanevery Windows NT Alpha OpenGL
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