...Schneider

TECFA, School of Psychology and Educational Sciences University of Geneva, ;SPMlt;schneide@divsun.unige.ch;SPMgt;

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...Drozdowski,

Arizona State University, Phoenix (aka xymox).

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...Glusman

Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel, ;SPMlt;Gustavo@bioinfo.weizmann.ac.il;SPMgt;

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...Godard

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ;SPMlt;rgodard@di.epfl.ch;SPMgt;

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...K.Block

Computer Consultant, Los Angeles

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...Tennison

Psychology Department, University of Nottingham

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...Habitat

``Lucasfilm's Habitat project was arguably one of the first attempts to create a very large scale commercial multi-user virtual environment. A far cry from many laboratory research efforts based on sophisticated interface hardware and tens of thousands of dollars per user of dedicated compute power, Habitat is built on top of an ordinary commercial online service and uses an inexpensive & some would say toy & home computer to support user interaction. In spite of these somewhat plebeian underpinnings, Habitat is ambitious in its scope. The system we developed can support a population of thousands of users in a single shared cyberspace. Habitat presents its users with a real-time animated view into an online simulated world in which users can communicate, play games, go on adventures, fall in love, get married, get divorced, start businesses, found religions, wage wars, protest against them, and experiment with self- government.'' ([Morningstar et Farmer, 1990]). Note that the front end home computers used were Commodore C64 models.

``Habitat is a graphical many-user virtual online environment, a make-believe world that people enter using home computers connected via telephones and packet nets to a centralized host running on a commercial online information service. It was originally available under the name Club Caribe through the Commodore 64-only QuantumLink service. It is currently thriving in Japan as Fujitsu Habitat on the NIFtyServe service. Efforts are underway to port the Fujitsu version of Habitat to America on PCs and Macs for Christmas of 1994.'' ([Farmer et al., 1994, lines 141ff.,])

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...communication

Note however, that non-verbal communication can be simulated quite efficiently in a MOO

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...``wizard''.

He spontaneously agreed participating in an informal international exploratory project. This spontaneous enthusiasm for cooperation is also characteristic of many other persons in the ``MOO'' space. Without his initial help, our project maybe would never have ``gotten of the ground'' in the first place.

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...``non-constructivist''

``The class of problems which interests me here relates to how we think about the nature of the electronic community itself. Two schools of thought contend for dominance in this area.

The first maintains that computer networks are simply extensions of existing institutions (e.g., the press) and therefor subject to the same constitutional protections and moral and ethical principles that govern traditional media. I believe this is the position taken, for example, by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Oddly, this position can accurately be called both liberal and conservative. It is liberal in the sense that the principles that its proponents wish to apply in the electronic realm are liberal principles. It is conservative in the sense that it draws on tradition for its sense of direction and denies that new technology invalidates fundamental ethical standards. However, both labels already carry so many emotional and ideological associations in most people's minds that I hesitate to use either of them.

The second school of thought maintains that these new technologies are different in kind from anything that has come before and therefor that the old rules do not apply. Instead, they maintain, a new set of rules must be drafted, based on the unique characteristics of the electronic medium. Notable support for this school comes from two groups that in most other respects are antithetical to each other. The first group consists of the utopians and revolutionaries who wish to create in the electronic realm a new (and presumably better) world, entirely free of the mistakes and problems of the present one. I met a number of these people last year at the First International Conference on Cyberspace. The second group includes certain authoritarian establishment members who view existing constraints on their powers (e.g., constitutional limitations on state authority) as annoying restrictions that merely hinder them in attaining what they believe to be worthy goals. The latter group would like to see these constraints confined to as limited a sphere as possible; consequently, they readily adopt the position that electronic media are "different" and therefor not subject to existing protections. One might include in the latter group a number of the law enforcement officials whose actions last year incited the formation of the EFF. Both of these groups really subscribe to the same belief, namely that the electronic realm represents an opportunity to fashion an order whose form they can design and control. Adopting a term from F. A. Hayek, I will refer to this position as "constructivism", the belief that one can construct a society according to a definite plan. I suppose then that I can call the first position I outlined, the both- liberal-and-conservative-position-with-no-good-label, "non-constructivist." '' [Morningstar, 1991, lines: 117ff.,]

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