Eudoxa031106
From Translook
Stockholm 2006-10-24
Seminar about the new virtual frontier
See also
- "Public policy seminar at Uvvy Island" on the Eudoxa website.
- Smålandsposten article on Second life - Virtuell värld med över en miljon invånare
- Kristianstadsbladet article on En ny värld ger en ny marknad
- Hallands Nyheter article on Välkommen till den nya virtuella världen!
- Norrbottens-Kuriren article on Nu börjar det andra livet
- Corren.se article on Låtsaslivet frodas på nätet
The Eudoxa think tank of Stockholm held the first public policy institute seminar in Second Life. The seminar was held on Uvvy Island in Second Life on Friday November 3rd. Eudoxa Director Waldemar Ingdahl discussed how virtual worlds impact on economics, on entertainment and politics and how they open up for a host of new opportunities for interaction. How can public policy groups and activists use virtual world? Can virtual worlds improve local democracy?
About 25 avatars attended the presentation (see below for a summary), which was followed by a lively Q/A session. This was one of the first (perhaps the first) public seminar by a European policy think tank in Second Life.
The audio was delivered via a SHOUTcast streaming audio server. Used with Winamp and the SHOUTcast Source DSP plugin for Winamp, the SHOUTcast server permits piping voice to an audio stream that can be set as media URL and listened to by all participants. The performance of the streaming audio server and the quality of the audio stream were quite good, though the annoying lag of about one minute introduced some synchronization problems.
The Eudoxa think tank of Stockholm holds the first public policy institute seminar in the virtual world Second Life.
The virtual worlds are entering the public’s mind and affecting how business and society are conducted.
Eudoxa, a think tank dedicated to describing the effects of emerging technologies and their societal impact is therefore organizing a seminar on public policy issues. Director Waldemar Ingdahl will discuss how virtual worlds impact on economics, on entertainment and politics and how they open up for a host of new opportunities for interaction.
How can public policy groups and activists use virtual world? Can virtual worlds improve local democracy?
The seminar will be held on Uvvy Island in the virtual world Second Life (please read more on its webpage at http://uvvy.com/index.php/Uvvy_island_in_SL) on Friday November 3rd at 19h00 Central European Time (13h00 EST, 10h00 PST).
The Eudoxa think tank is based in Stockholm, Sweden. Their focus is on discussing the societal effects scientific progress on society with classical free-market ideas and dynamist thoughts on experimentation. Eudoxa has published books and reports in Swedish, Danish and English.
For further information please contact Eudoxa director Waldemar Ingdahl telephone +46 8 83 87 73 e-mail info@eudoxa.se and Giulio Prisco +34 610 536 144 e-mail gp@uvvy.com.
Interesting and thoughtful article on "The New Virtual Frontier", by Waldemar Ingdahl: We are quite far from the predictions of the 1960’s, that the media society would be a "vast wasteland," turning people into passive, hypnotized zombies thanks to the creativity, sociability and interactivity of the virtual worlds... The parallel existences many will take for granted in the virtual worlds, will change our views of society. A very important underpinning in today’s ethics and political philosophy, namely that the individual is strongly knit to a geographic political constituency. There he finds his peers whose destiny he must share, and from which obligations, rights and duties stem. But as people increasingly live important segments of their lives in online communities, they could well start to identify themselves more with their online groups, with members spread apart by physical distances but held together by mutual interest. After all, we value our communities and relationships if we are able to associate freely with those we identify with... Such a rapid development aught to be discussed more in order to understand the direction society, business and politics is heading to.
