OK. So I just finished a philosophy class dealing with ethics a few months ago. This was one of the most interesting classes I ever took. Really had some neat discusssions because there are no right or wrong answers to anything; just point/ counter-point.
Anyway, the week we dealt with Social Contract Theory of Ethics vs the State of Nature, this was the discussion question:
Players in the popular World of Warcraft Internet game often form "guilds" or groups that join together in mutual defense and to attack other groups. One dedicated member of such a guild died (in real-life, not in the game), and the members of her guild decided to hold a memorial service for her within the game that she loved. They announced the planned memorial on a World of Warcraft open forum, and one of the members of her guild logged into her account, and placed the deceased woman's character at her favorite game site, a lake. Other game characters from her guild came by the game site to pay their respects and honor their deceased gaming friend.
Members of a rival guild, on learning of the planned memorial, organized a "bombing attack" on the memorial service, thus destroying many of their rivals and winning kill points. Those game players who had participated in the memorial service were outraged, and accused the rival guild of being underhanded and disrespectful. Was the attack on the memorial service unfair? Was it morally wrong? Was it a violation of the gaming social contract? Explain.
Mull this over and give your opinions. I thought this was a neat scenario considering how seriously some people take these games, and how rapidly online relationships and lives are beginning to overshadow real-world existence.
Edit: Yes, I realize the irony of making this statement on an online forum so spare the sarcasm...lol
A direct corollary of this is the confusion of young people who think and act as though online interaction with someone whom they have never met in person or spent face-to-face time with, is a “relationship”.
Confused, sad, pitiful.
They are confusing the dry, definitional meaning of “relationship” with the real-world, practical definition whose implications are the real and full content of the human experience.
All cherubim are seraphim but not all seraphim are cherubim.
“Relationships” are multi-dimensional ... and not the narrow reality of a merely abstract pen-pal-like interaction. The narrow content of electronic interaction is just one aspect of the whole of our reality ... but just one part ... and by comparison to the multi-dimensional, synergistic, profound nature of our real-world existences ... just one anemic, watery, narrow part.
Humans have hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, both physical and societal, which has been formed by the full reality of our physical, mental and emotional experiences, and all of the interrelated effects that each of those spheres has on the whole.
Since the scourge of commercially propagated gaming addiction and online and electronic communication; peoples’ increasing unwillingness to distinguish between the full spectrum of reality and the insular, narrow scope of “artificial reality” has spread rapidly like crack addiction ... and uses some of the same electric circuits in our heads.
It is both faddish infatuation with this new electronic whiz-bangery, and also the succumbing of our humanity (what makes us human - particularly in society) to artificial stimulus .
A type of stimulus-addiction that is analogous to someone being so addicted to masturbation that the rest of their lives suffer ... suffer both from the time it takes from their limited allotment of time that fate will give them (to be what by anthropologic standards, is "human"), and also the *health* that actually dealing with reality, provides.
Now ... with regard to your specific question ...
I am not surprised that the attackers did not, or would not, distinguish between reality (the tragedy of losing someone in the physical world) and the game they were playing.
Btw: It is completely notwithstanding that her interaction with everyone involved was through electronic gaming ... every single person knew that she existed as a real human being with the same needs and wants and loves ... and divinity ... that we all have.
If they reacted that way because they are jerky human arseholes ... then fine ... humans have acted abominably to each other since the dawn of civilization.
If they acted that way because their minds have been warped (a really good term for this) by their unnatural insular interaction with electronica, then that is the manifestation of an unfortunate pathology that we are likely to see more and more of as people struggle to remain human in the face of interacting electronically while
as a consequence their personal character slowly dissolves ... as it does in substance abuse.