Re: cypherpunks meeting in Mt. View last weekend.

[Arthur Chandler <arthurc@crl.com>]

  Greetings all! It's an unsettling feeling, seeing your own words come 
back to you in a form whose outline you recognize, but whose substance 
has so changed that you can only wonder how they came to be so transformed.
I can only infer that it must have been my suit and tie that so dazzled 
some of the audience.   :<)
  Anyway, here's what I thought I said:
  For starters, I said nothing about the demise of BayMOO or any other
place.  We run on a crl machine; but the owner has said nothing about
booting us off.  He seems to regard us as a good thing, and continues to
support our efforts. MOOs and MUDs have come and go in the past, of
course; but right now, we are in a definite growth phase.
  I'm a humanist and NOT a social scientist. I'm not "studying" social
interactions in MOOspace: I'm involved with creating the environments and
getting into both serious and lighthearted interactions with folks there. 
I think that MOOs have the capability of supporting serious discussions 
about such issues as: 
-- the conflation of word and act on the NET in general, and in MOOs in 
particular
-- anonymity versus responsibility
-- the transformation of text into something approaching the
incantations of magic (like what Vernor Vinge was driving at in "True
Names")
-- Can you love someone you've known only on the NET?
-- Can MOOs support commercial transactions, including new modes such as 
digital banking?

  In MOOs you can build fun stuff; but there can be serious issues
addressed too.  I drew on several implementations of special rooms at
BayMOO to illustrate this point. I cited the modeling of the spiritual
wold of the Ohlones (SF Bay Area Native Americans) in a series of virtual
rooms dedicated to Coyote, Eagle, Hummingbird and Gismen (the sun).
Language morphing rooms offer yet another unique way to explore the
transformations of text in virtual words. 
  We talked about the feudal and democratic aspects of MOOs -- and a 
lively proto-discussion took place (proto = to be continued) about 
whether the NET is destined to remain, or to become even more, dominated 
and driven by current social and economic forms.  I invoked *Snow Crash*, 
and got a good deal of righteous debate on whether or not the  vr world 
was headed down that path.
  Finally, I gave a couple of instances as to what I thought were the 
emerging moral customs of MOO life:
-- If need, then help.
-- There is no such thing as a dumb question.
  And finally, a maxim, of which MOOs serve as one significant illustration:
    "You can tell that a technology has truly arrived when the new 
problems it gives rise to approach in magnitude the problems it was 
designed to solve."
               ***********************************
   I enjoyed the meeting a lot, and thank all the folks here for the 
chance to follow up the virtual meeting with a RL one one related topics.