I’m a mass murderer. I’ve killed too many sentient and semi-sentient creatures to count. I’ve sent numberless men and women to their deaths in wars on a thousand battlefields. But that was in video games. I try really hard not to confuse that with real life. I try to remember that everyone is a real person with flesh and blood, dreams and desires, good habits and bad.
And I still forget.
Lee Modesitt, Jr. recently posted about the dehumanization of the “other”:
Given all this, it seems apparent that, because humans actually have a tendency to cooperate, dehumanization has become a cultural tool for overriding the cooperative trait and for gaining personal power. We don’t necessarily think of it that way, but even I find myself doing it, for instance, by calling people “idiots” when they do something stupid or thoughtless. Admittedly, individuals can be idiots, as we all know, but idiocy is generally individual, not cultural, and there’s a very fine line between accurately assessing someone’s lack of ability on an individual basis and applying that “lack” to an entire group in order to dehumanize them, yet dehumanization persists,and it’s usually used in pursuit or maintenance of power.
I’m not so sure it’s even a conscious effort these days. Technology, ironically in the guise of bringing humanity together, is inserting an electronic distance between us all. Living, breathing people–even our friends–become vague concepts, sporadic collections of words and pictures rather than actual beings with feelings. Nothing is real. We’re living in the Matrix. Someone captures video of an abortion doctor selling fetal tissue and the world shrugs. It’s not real, and even if it were, it’s happening “out there somewhere.” It’s easily dismissable as a disinformation campaign by The Other Side. We don’t want to be bothered by it, and so we’re not.
Someone shoots a lion in Africa, baited off a preserve by a desperate farmer improverished by his own country’s destructive policies. Normally no one would notice. But the lion had a name, so suddenly it matters. Across the globe people press “Player One – Start” to help play a game of “Search and Destroy”, this time against a dentist from Minnesota. We can’t be certain law enforcement will find a way to punish him (what he did may have been completely legal, but who cares about that?), and even if they do it won’t be as much as we know he deserves, so we’ll make sure he doesn’t escape true justice. We’ll bombard him with death threats and force him into hiding. Famous people will reveal his address (and we can only hope they actually got it right, but even if they didn’t and innocents are impacted–oh well, it’s not really real. It’s not anyone we know). People who claim to be pacifists and anti-gun activists will nonetheless call for the man to be shot, stuffed, and mounted, apparently ignorant of the contradiction. But will they lift a finger to actually change the laws that make such things possible? Will they take time to think about their own daily habits, and what difference there is between hunting lions and eating cows?
And even if we find out later we screwed up and most of what we thought was true proves false? Plausible deniability. We were just one person–what can we really do? We can’t verify everything! Hey, we all make mistakes (except the person we’re attacking–that was so on purpose, the evil $&%*#). We move on, paying no penance for our rush to judgment, our participation in destroying someone’s life, and our willingness to be misled by a compelling narrative.
We live in Game World now. Everything is narrative. There is no true reality outside the small bubble of our physical existence. On our computers and devices everything is a game, and if real people get hurt, so what? We don’t have to see it. A child suicide bomber killed dozens in a busy African market? Who cares. If it didn’t show on our feed, it didn’t happen. Tell us more about the lion and how the Forces of Righteous Vengeance are making Game World a better place!
Will Mia Farrow feel the slightest remorse if her doxxing gets one of the dentist’s family killed? Maybe. But until that happens it won’t cross her mind that she’s jeopardizing the lives of real people, most of whom never even went to Africa. She’s only playing The Game, and that was a high-scoring kill-shot. Some would even award her bonus points if a cop dies trying to defend the dentist’s property. Cops are not real people, either, and all they do is kill innocent people, right?
Life has become the ultimate VR game on the world’s biggest screen. Our own life is the only reality. Everything else is Game World. And out there nothing has real consequences. Mess with people’s lives. Destroy people’s reputations. Do your part for your Game Clan. Only listen to those sources of information that conform to your view of Game World. Ignore anyone or anything that might suggest your actions could actually hurt a real person. They were the enemy. They disagreed with you, so they have it coming!
Sleep peacefully at night knowing that the Game World is a better place for your having helped rid if of undesirables. Neo and Trinity just wasted a lobby full of guards, but it’s all just the Matrix. Nothing is real, except for us. Welcome to War of Worldcraft. Please choose a name for your avatar.