Welcome to Gaia! ::

Marshall McLuhan wrote about how technology is merely a means to extend our senses into various mediums. Cell phones, email, even telegraphy are examples of expanding our voices over great distances. Web sites like Wikipedia are augmentations to our rote knowledge, fact holding brain-regions. Video games have repeatedly demonstrated their ability to extend emotion onto the virtual plane.

The recent hit, "Portal," was a great example of this. In one level, you (the player-character) drop a cube into an incinerator. Normally, this would have very little impact on people - however, there were many additional factors in the scene which helped eleveate the 'weighted companion cube' to Martyr status on the Internet.

The first of these factors was a heart decal on the cube itself. This simple icon provided a passive message of peace to the player, giving the companion cube far more personality than the other unmarked cubes in the game. Personality is something that people link to intrinsic emotion. Combined with the psycho-heckling of an observing antagonist, many players were slightly distraught by having to destroy the object. Adding even more insult they were then told that they set a record for destroying the companion cube faster than any previous participant.

Note: It's even called a COMPANION cube.

So why is it that so many people are okay with putting virtual orphans up on a marketplace? These are virtual representations of children, which can stand next to a user's own virtual representative avatar. Therefore, they must surely have more personality than a weighted companion cube. Is it the lack of feedback that leaves players unmoved when placing their orphan up for auction? Would they feel bad, if they were somehow chided for making a profit on an orphan? What does that say about people, that they don't feel bad about doing something until it is brought to their attention?

Many people would argue that they would never auction an orphan in real life, so it's okay to be able to do it in a virtual world. Why, though, would they feel that way in real life? Were they educated about the moral implications of treating children as property? If that education was removed, I believe people would register Gaia as promiting the sale of people for profit. At the very least, Gaia would be viewed as impartial to it. This is the crux of the issue - society is relying on previous education of morals to validate their actions, instead of being proactive about it.

I'm curious, now, what most people would consider as 'over the line.' Clearly, ***** was scene as a topic that warrented action, on Gaia's part. Does that mean child merchandising is less 'wrong' than *****? Both submit the victim to psychological trauma...

I haven't looked too much into the issue, but it disturbs me as well. The only defense I can really think of for those that put orphans on the marketplace is that it makes the orphans available to those who have no Gaia Cash.

The Milgram Experiment showed that most people in the study will blindly follow an Authority Figure's orders, against their 'better' judgement or conscience.

Is a lack of negative feedback equivalent to an order of continuation?

To clarify - is the lack of Gaia's moral response equal to an insinuated suggestion that it's okay for Gaians to do as they please?

*begins to look through the ToS*

When you bought it in the cash shop, it was random which orphan you received.

And I agree, I don't think that's quite right, either. If I understand you right, at least. For some reason, my brain isn't able to process what it is you mean exactly for me to do...