Klonor
05-01-2005, 04:30
Greetings, I am the Grand Duke Solomon Klonor, founder of the Galactic Alliance and the Inter-Stellar Alliance Organization. First Member of the Extra-Solar Union of Systems and the StarCon Space Treaty Alliance. Wait, that is not right. Sorry, I’m still in ‘internet mode’. In real life I am a High School Senior who is trying to find a job while still having enough time to watch TV and play video games. But who needs to know that?
On the internet the restrictions of life are cast aside, you can be whoever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want. In fact, you do not even need a past for your new existence, you just sign on and real life is left behind. Sadly, more and more people are doing just this. The online game NationStates lets you create and run your own country, you can pick its name, location, and decide what it’s like down to the tiniest detail. You can even interact with other nations, acting out international wars, diplomatic summits, trade embargos, and everything else that real life governments do. However, it is not real life.
More and more often people are supplementing the internet for their real lives. Instead of playing a game of football with their friends, people play Madden online with some person they’ve never met and probably never will. Instead of working to start their own business and succeed in life, people take some unambitious job and start their own corporation online that sells laser weapons and spaceships. Instead of running for office to make the country a better place, people sit around and complain about the office holders and start their own country online to prove that they can do a better job. Essentially, the internet is robbing people of real life.
As this trend progresses, it will lead to an even greater extreme. Eventually, the internet will become real life. As can already be seen in many isolated cases, people are capable of satisfying all the essential human needs through the internet alone. They can order food online, communicate with people online, buy new furniture online, even perform their respective jobs online. Human contact, even contact with any part of the outside world, will become unnecessary, a mere luxury that people dabble in for fun, as the internet once was.
Don’t believe me? Just look at the man who didn’t leave his house for a whole year. Not because he was forced to stay home, either due to injury or ailment, but by choice. Sponsored by numerous internet corporations and many real life corporations, this man was able to supply himself with everything he needed just by using the internet. His food, his bills, his toilet paper, everything he needed to purchase or do was done online. The only time he ever left his house, and he never left his property, was to walk his dog in the backyard. Most people could probably survive doing this, there is the financial and social benefit, but few would actually enjoy it. This man said his only regret was that he’d need to sell his new car, He was not unhappy with the lack of human contact, he was not depressed from always seeing the exact same surroundings, he was not bored from walking up and down the same stairs every day, he was content. This man is merely one of thousands of people who find it easier and more pleasurable to surf the information super highway, people who find the virtual world better than the real one.
I am a High School Senior who lives with his parents and, in his spare time, pretends to be the ruler of an internet country. In 10 years I may very well be a ruler of an internet country, pretending, in my spare time, to be a 27 years old minimum wage worker who still lives with his parents. The way things are going, who will argue?
On the internet the restrictions of life are cast aside, you can be whoever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want. In fact, you do not even need a past for your new existence, you just sign on and real life is left behind. Sadly, more and more people are doing just this. The online game NationStates lets you create and run your own country, you can pick its name, location, and decide what it’s like down to the tiniest detail. You can even interact with other nations, acting out international wars, diplomatic summits, trade embargos, and everything else that real life governments do. However, it is not real life.
More and more often people are supplementing the internet for their real lives. Instead of playing a game of football with their friends, people play Madden online with some person they’ve never met and probably never will. Instead of working to start their own business and succeed in life, people take some unambitious job and start their own corporation online that sells laser weapons and spaceships. Instead of running for office to make the country a better place, people sit around and complain about the office holders and start their own country online to prove that they can do a better job. Essentially, the internet is robbing people of real life.
As this trend progresses, it will lead to an even greater extreme. Eventually, the internet will become real life. As can already be seen in many isolated cases, people are capable of satisfying all the essential human needs through the internet alone. They can order food online, communicate with people online, buy new furniture online, even perform their respective jobs online. Human contact, even contact with any part of the outside world, will become unnecessary, a mere luxury that people dabble in for fun, as the internet once was.
Don’t believe me? Just look at the man who didn’t leave his house for a whole year. Not because he was forced to stay home, either due to injury or ailment, but by choice. Sponsored by numerous internet corporations and many real life corporations, this man was able to supply himself with everything he needed just by using the internet. His food, his bills, his toilet paper, everything he needed to purchase or do was done online. The only time he ever left his house, and he never left his property, was to walk his dog in the backyard. Most people could probably survive doing this, there is the financial and social benefit, but few would actually enjoy it. This man said his only regret was that he’d need to sell his new car, He was not unhappy with the lack of human contact, he was not depressed from always seeing the exact same surroundings, he was not bored from walking up and down the same stairs every day, he was content. This man is merely one of thousands of people who find it easier and more pleasurable to surf the information super highway, people who find the virtual world better than the real one.
I am a High School Senior who lives with his parents and, in his spare time, pretends to be the ruler of an internet country. In 10 years I may very well be a ruler of an internet country, pretending, in my spare time, to be a 27 years old minimum wage worker who still lives with his parents. The way things are going, who will argue?