My next blog post will be concerning race, and how differing races interact in a virtual world such as second life. Like i mentioned in my post about sexuality, people have the choice to make their avatar differing races, but does simply appearing to be a certain race mean that during interactions with others they view you as a member of that culture? one must understand that there is a certain type of knowledge gap between differing races simply because we are not familiar and have not been emerged with their culture. It is a fact that one may never know the true characteristics of a culture unless he or she fully emerges and lives that culture. Knowing this coud lead to the conclusion that acting like a member of a different race may not actually allow the person to get the experience of being in a different culture. this then leads us to ask the question, can the different characteristics of cultures that races live in be reflected in a virtual world as to be able to allow another person to become a member of that culture? My opinion is no. There is no possible way that an unregulated computer world can reflect the many different cultures and races in a true manner. First, to do so people would need to start off being true to their own culture, which means we would have to assume that when making avatars people visually and linguisticly reflect their own race and culture. And second we would have to assume that if a culture was able to be reflected accurately, there would be no way to keep people from straying from that consistency. To better explain myself. People are really really stupid, weird, odd, and unpredictable. In a fantasy world, where people play for the reason of living out different fantasies, and doing things that real life dose not permit, it does not make sense to believe that enough people would have the ability to not only create an area that reflects their culture, but also, at the same time keep up a consistent and regulated way of interacting. Virtual worlds allow us to explore the idea of being a member of a different race, however this should not allow us to assume that we can also develop an idea or opinion about that race because in the end it is just a fantasy world were our choices of ways to act things to do has no direct consequence on our real lives. it is in a way, a form of freedom that is completely impossible to reflect in any real world.