Virtual worlds and sustainable development

Do Virtual Worlds such as ‘Second Life’ have a contribution to make to sustainable development? I found myself asking this question when I came across a report on Sustainable Consumption and Production from the Sustainable Development Roundtable recently. The report is based around the need for a ‘one planet economy’. Putting it in its simplest terms, if everyone on the planet were to consume at the same level as we do in the developed West, we would need three planets’ worth of resources. Since we don’t have three planets, so the theory goes, we need to adjust our activities so that we live within our environmental means. Leaving aside the question of whether this analysis is accurate or not, it has captured the imagination of some politicians and could well form part of the political agenda for the future. What kind of lives would we be leading? And what would be the role of virtual worlds within them?

If Sustainable Consumption and Production ideas take hold we can say goodbye to cheap air travel and look forward to spending more of our holiday time taking local sustainable holidays. We’ll be eating more locally sourced and seasonal food and cutting back on imports of staple produce and exotics. We’ll be encouraged to reuse and recycle clothing and make do and mend rather than throwing away clothes because last year’s fashions no longer suit. It remains to be seen whether large numbers of consumers in the affluent West can be persuaded to buy into this kind of hair-shirt lifestyle given that consumerism has been the mantra for the latter half of the twentieth century. But, assuming that this is what the future looks like, is it possible that Virtual Worlds will provide some kind of escape?

I think we have to take it as a given that broadband takeup will continue and that a home computer and persistent internet connection will be the norm, even under the scenario outlined above. It will be possible for us to lead quite simple and restrained real lives, respecting the limits of the environment to sustain us, while leading rich, involved lives online. Clothing requires design, resources and people and places to sell the product in the real world; exotic creations can be produced in Photoshop, uploaded to Second Life and onto your avatar with no consumption of resources beyond the power consumption of the machines involved. One of my early ‘Wow!’ moments in Second Life came when I ran out of money. I realised that I could create a virtual home filled with all manner of entertainments for the price of few cups of coffee. I shelled out real money for Linden dollars and have never looked back. It’s clear that those of us who inhabit virtual worlds make large investments in our time there. We pay money for goods and services, we invest emotions in the relationships we develop with other players, and we invest time in crafting and customising our avatars and carving out a niche for ourselves. It is clear that these investments are worth a lot to many of us, mostly in small ways such as the L$1000 outfit you just have to have or your collection of classic cars, but also in the headline-grabbing examples such as the space station sold on Eve online for a significant sum, the level 20 WoW characters sold on eBay or the price of a private island in Second Life.

This conspicuous consumption is still sustainable because no real world resources are needed to produce and replicate millions of copies of the items we desire. Payment is the reward for the intellectual effort that has gone into producing these items and the time spent developing and refining the product. The price is simply what people are prepared to pay. And, as I’ve learned myself with my furniture business, once something has been designed and put up for sale it can go on being bought by residents for as long as there’s interest in the product. Pricing becomes quite interesting when you can look forward to months (or even years!) of regular micro-payments all of which add up over the long term.

But is it possible to live a simple and sustainable real life while living out fantasies that would make Donald Trump seem frugal in our Second Lives? Does the fantasy we indulge in reinforce consumerism (ooh, must have more new shiny!) or allow us to express it in a more sustainable fashion? My guess is that it is possible to live a rich and involved virtual life and enjoy it without feeling that similar material riches need to be had in real life.

One further interesting aspect of this phenomenon is that this emerging virtual world economy is one the developing world will be able to access on a level playing field once the technology is cheaper and more widespread. Now, before I get accused of being too pie-in-the-sky, let me say that ensuring people have safe water to drink is a much more pressing goal for the world than wiring up the Sahara with broadband and getting solar-powered laptops out there. But China is already well along this road and other developing nations are sure to follow. This means that designing goods for virtual worlds is a potential occupation for imaginative designers in developing countries, and a lucrative one at that. We are already seeing the outsourcing of content creation to developing nations such as China, an example would be Anshe Chung Studios. Virtual worlds provide a new avenue for wealth creation in developing countries, one not available to the countries which took the lead in industrialising in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Given the concern that industrialisation in the newly industrialising countries will be a messy and polluting affair, blowing any agreement to control carbon emissions out of the water, a pathway along the road to economic development that does not consume real world resources has to be one worth taking.

Second Life content creators need to be on their toes; Chinese and Indian competitors might just be about to do everything better and more cheaply than you!


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Does Second Life need a government?

The question of government in virtual worlds is a controversial one. The Second Life forums have occasionally burned brightly with the flame wars initiated by discussion of player-run democracy. Why do some people living and working in Second Life feel the need for a government? What would it do? And who should it govern?

I was struck by one potential need for government (in the real world and in virtual worlds) the other day. On my way to an appointment I noticed that the traffic lights at a busy intersection were down. Crossing this road is tricky at the best of times but very scary with no traffic signals to say when pedestrians are safe to cross the road. Luckily I wasn’t in a hurry so I could take my time and observe what was taking place. Pedestrians didn’t get stand much of a chance! Cars, lorries and buses pushed ahead trying to keep the flow of their lane going and preventing the cross stream from cutting in. There wasn’t a great deal of turn-taking or polite behaviour in evidence, just a Hobbesian war of ‘all against all’.

It occurred to me that this form of regulation is one of the legitimate functions of government. Most motorists and pedestrians accept that traffic lights are useful to them. They allow traffic to flow safely, prevent accidents and they balance the power of the strong (lorries, cars) against the rights of more vulnerable parties (cyclists, pedestrians). That, for me, is one of the indispensable functions that government could fulfil in a virtual world too; acting as ringleader between competing interests, providing necessary regulation to allow avatars to fulfil their ambitions and balancing the power of the stronger (wealthy land barons, established residents) against the rights of those with less power in the Second Life economy and society (newbies, basic members, consumers).

In the real world government fulfils a number of other functions as well as regulating the flow of traffic. Core functions, common to all states are defence of the nation and policing to guard public safety. In addition, most wealthy modern democracies have some form of welfare state which provides a safety net for citizens in times of unemployment or ill health. Many democracies, especially in Europe, have systems of socialised healthcare in addition to the private provision of health services. In these democracies the state provides a minimum standard of publicly-funded education and access to higher education. Slightly more controversially, many states see their role as sponsoring certain industries. Even more controversially, and extending into potential ‘nanny state’ territory, many also argue that government also has a role as ‘choice editor’, saving us from our worst instincts in the face of environmental pressures, failure to save for our old age and the pervasive availability of junk food. Government in this view sets the ‘default’ options in favour of positive outcomes for individuals and for public policy.

In Second Life there is a strong bias against player-run government. There are a number of reasons for this, one of the most obvious factors being the type, and nationality, of people who have been attracted to Second Life. The vast majority, 80% or so, of SL citizens are from the United States and the US has a strong intellectual tradition that is mistrustful of government. The establishment of a democratic republic in response to monarchist tyranny and abuse of power is the generally accepted founding story that America likes to relate to itself. The notion that government can be a force for good and play a positive role in society gains much less favour in America compared to Europe for example. In addition Second Life’s demographic to date has been heavily weighted towards internet early adopters and content creators with a liberal (and libertarian) outlook. The dispute over the need for government in a virtual world is but one of many battles that have taken place over, for example, the role of commercial activity in Second Life and whether it is a game, a platform, a country, the metaverse or something else entirely.

Bias apart, many would argue that there really is no need for a government in a virtual world like Second Life. Our avatars do not require food, shelter or water, there is no need for defence against enemy nations (except where people are role-playing war games) and if you transact business without bearing in mind the maxim “Buyer beware” you only have yourself to blame, right? In Second Life there is no intrinsic need for the goods available; one can survive perfectly well without land, prims, currency, employment, new clothes or hoochie hair. If someone is harassing you through IM or stalking you using scanning and spying tools Linden Lab will step in and discipline them, right? Well that’s all true but only up to a point. For starters Linden Lab could be described as ‘the government of Second Life’ but only in the sense that a benign dictatorship exercises some of the responsibilities of government in a fairly capricious fashion. And, unlike a democratically-elected government, you can’t get rid of them except by defecting to another virtual world with the consequent loss of any virtual goods, commercial reputation or other forms of intangible capital that may have been accumulated.

This brings me to Neualtenburg, an experiment in representative democracy and collective decision-making. The Neualtenburg Projekt has been running for almost two years. Neualtenburg has a territory (the Neualtenburg sim), an elected legislature (the Representative Assembly) as well as a judiciary (the Scientific Council) and an artisan’s guild. Neualtenburg has its own Constitution and set of laws. Its citizens have opted to take collective decisions about zoning the sim into residential, commercial, mixed use and public spaces. By doing so they have agreed to abide by certain rules to preserve the unique character and appearance of the City. As the theme is largely modelled on a medieval Bavarian town there is, for example, no scope for building a floating spaceship in the residential quarter inside the city walls!

What is really interesting about Neualtenburg’s recent developments is that the City is beginning to offer goods and services that only a ‘government’ can provide including the registration and incorporation of companies and banking regulation. I think this makes Neualtenburg a potential model for others to follow, if they can get beyond an antipathy to ‘other players having power over me’ and the drama that occasionally flares up on Neualtenburg’s forums. The first barrier will be weakened by the influx of more people with more varied attitudes towards the role of government. The anarcho-libertarian hegemony in Second Life is likely to be diluted as more people, with more varied opinions and experiences, join. The drama of the forums is more of a double-edged sword. It certainly puts off a lot of people who would otherwise be attracted to Neualtenburg. My initial evaluation was that I couldn’t face spending hours in virtual meetings debating dry points of constitutional law or getting dragged into the inevitable flame wars. On the other hand it also draws in new people. I signed up after getting drawn into an interesting constitutional debate that covered the separation of powers, checks and balances between branches of government and how to balance minority rights with the democratic will of the majority. I am reliably informed that each of these forum spats has led to an increase in citizenship as people are drawn to the drama!

But most people, looking at Neualtenburg from outside, could be forgiven for concluding that the project has failed to live up to its promise. Two years on it is restricted to one sim while Anshe’s dominion covers a whole continent and even a recent land baron such as Desmond Shang can claim four sims. (Expansion to a second sim is imminent though and should be completed by the end of 2006). I think it would be a mistake to underestimate Neualtenburg’s potential though. In the real world, democracy is the most stable government formation human societies have developed so far, and is highly correlated with economic growth. If Neualtenburg’s political structures are strong enough, they should be able to outlast not only the current members of the government, but also the original founders of the project. Neualtenburg is going through a testing time at the moment after the departure of one of its founders, Ulrika Zugzwang, in January and her recent return to settle a number of disputes unresolved at the time of her departure. There are lessons to be learned here for other SL communities who want to explore democratic forms of sim management or who are engaged in collaborative work if they can see the issues underlying the drama. I am confident that Neualtenburg can get beyond its current difficulties and will emerge the stronger for it. I’ll be writing more about Neualtenburg, and the socio-political aspects of Second Life in the future.


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Finally, a reason to blog...

I’ve been a resident of Second Life, an online virtual world, for about seven months now. Second Life is unlike a number of other massively multiplayer online games in that it’s not really a game - at least not for many of us!

Second Life has no levels, there’s no goal and it’s pretty much what you make of it. You can create, chat with friends, customise your avatar, design works of art or useful items for the world, whatever turns you on.

It’s taken me this long to work out what my niche might be within this world. I think I’ve finally found where I fit in - the city of Neualtenburg, a democratic city-state owned and run by its citizens.

I’ll be writing more about Neualtenburg in future. It’s a fascinating place to be sure.


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