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Second Lives

Tim Guest

$22.99

Paperback

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English
Arrow
02 June 2008
Second Lives explores the culture of virtual lives - and those that inhabit them - the romantics, the traders, the dreamers, those who fantasise about world domination, the disabled, the military and the police.

We've always dreamed of perfect places- Eden, heaven, Oz - places over the rainbow, beyond death and loss.

Now, through computer technology, we can inhabit those worlds together. Each week, between 35 and 50 million people worldwide abandon reality for virtual worlds. In Boston, Massachusetts, a group of nine disabled men and women inhabit one virtual body, which frees them from their lifelong struggle to be seen and heard. The Pentagon has begun to develop virtual worlds to help in real-world battles. In Korea, where one particular game has 8 million residents, virtual violence has spread into the real world. Fortunes have been made, and mafia gangs have emerged to muscle in on the profits.

In these new computer-generated places, which at first glance seem free from trouble and sorrow, you can create a new self. With the click of a mouse you can select eye colour, face shape, height, even wings. You can build houses, make and sell works of art, earn real money, get married and divorced. On websites like eBay, people sell virtual clothes and rent virtual property for real cash - for a total of e400 million worth each year.

Tim Guest takes us on a revelatory journey through the electronic looking-glass, as he investigates one of the most bizarre phenomena of the 21st century.
By:  
Imprint:   Arrow
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 199mm,  Width: 130mm,  Spine: 23mm
Weight:   255g
ISBN:   9780099493778
ISBN 10:   0099493772
Pages:   368
Publication Date:  
Recommended Age:   From 0 years
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  General/trade ,  Undergraduate ,  Primary
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

In 1981 Tim Guest was taken by his mother to a Suffolk commune, modelled on the teachings of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Tim, or Yogesh as he was re-named, spent the rest of his childhood in communes in Oregon, Pune and Cologne. But after the Bhagwan's arrest in 1985, Tim started a new existence in North London, where he lives now.

Reviews for Second Lives

Excellent journalistic study of virtual realities...and a useful account of how these technologies are evolving from mere games to parts of a lifestyle Times Literary Supplement Inspiring, troubling and consistently thought-provoking -- Hot Books Observer Guest must be commended for investigating this topic. It is an area of digital culture ripe for further serious study as we continue to emerge from postmodernity into an era perhaps better described as the metamodern Observer Remarkably timely...an enthusiastic guide, who explains often complex ideas with a minimum of jargon, and tells some great stories Sunday Telegraph Guest maintains a sober head amid much Aquarian moonshine, and keeps his interviewees sympathetic, a fine achievement in a universe of geeks, fraudsters, and oddballs. Daily Telegraph


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