[MUD-Dev] Teaching ethics in MUDs (was Re: "An essay on d00dism and the MMORPG")

[John Buehler]

Tess Lowe:

> This is a fascinating subject and one that I've been putting a lot
> of thought into lately, not least because my closest friend is
> writing her MA thesis on methods and motivations for ethical
> 'training', looking particularly at how ethical development can
> occur in online environments, communities and worlds.

And your reply was very thoughtful and eloquent.  I'm hesitant to
reply for fear that this topic will be declared off-list.

> I've also had a personal experience of my own ethical/spiritual
> growth while playing online games. For example, my experience of
> playing Dark Ages had a radical effect on my worldview. I learned
> the perils and deep frustrations of struggling to change everyone in
> the world, and I learned the pain associated with being judgemental
> and self-righteous. I underwent a value-shift as a result of
> playing. I consider this to have been a vitally important component
> of my personal development.

But you only learned that because of your existing set of values and
morals.  There are many people out in the world who will never learn
that lesson.  Part of that is because of the counter-lessons that they
were taught while growing up.  Self-righteous and judgemental parents
and so on.

> My conclusion from this is that online environments can in fact be a
> potent force for ethical development, without any particular
> value-system being pushed at (or forced on) the participants.

That would be a recipe for ethical development, but the ethics that
would develop would be an extrapolation of whatever ethics system the
player comes into the game with.  It's a case of looking for roses and
looking for weeds.  You'll find whatever you're looking for.  Not that
many people out there are introspective enough to challenge the
fundamentals of how they view the world.  That's a scary thought -
unless you disliked that world view in the first place.  In which case
that world view is happily shed.

> So I can well understand your desire, John, to protect children from
> that suffering, long enough so that they can develop some sort of
> psychological strength to cope with it. Is it possible to learn such
> wisdom without enduring the very pain we seek to be able to cope
> with?

It's a question of degree.  For a two year old, the pain of finding
out that they are not at the center of the universe is significant,
but it's the appropriate degree for a two year old child.  Do we take
13 year olds and place them in positions of power in an adult
community?  Do they learn the correct lessons by being saddled with
adult responsibilities at 13?  Some children will be able to rise to
the challenge and thrive.  Others will not.

> I feel that MUD social environments differ from their playground
> equivalents in some striking ways. Most importantly, there is a much
> wider range of emotional maturity present among MUD players. Bullies
> will often encounter people who are more than capable of turning the
> situation on its head, showing the bully that their way of relating
> doesn't always 'win' and can in fact lead to painful
> humiliation. And those who tend to be victims have mentors around
> who can experience the 'playground' with them, and teach better ways
> to deal with or avoid conflicts.

But the overall process is random.  You're assuming that the older
players are mature and interested in helping others to understand the
value of ethical behavior.  You're also assuming that the game world
is ensuring that unethical approaches to solving problems will not be
successful.  From what I read from Matt Mihaly, he likes systems that
let players follow a sort of social evolutionary process.  It's tough,
it's challenging, but it's fair in the end because it favors those
most capable of using effective strategies.  Genghis Khan used an
effective strategy, as did Hitler and Stalin.

As for encouraging and discouraging different behaviors, that's a
question of choosing ethics.  If stealing is not considered a viable
avenue for success in the game world and that is defined by the game
itself, then the game publishers are defining ethics for the players.
If it is left to the players to discourage other players from
stealing, then we have the player base at large defining the ethics of
the world.  Given the experiment of player killers in Ultima Online,
it would seem that simply letting players have at it isn't a
straightforward way to encourage ethical behavior.  It's a *game*
after all.  People aren't as inclined to step carefully because they
figure they should be able to cut loose in a game world.  Do things
that they wouldn't normally do.

The checks and balances that encourage children towards healthy
behavior in the real world are simply not present in game worlds.
Game worlds award power in the world according to unreal metrics.  A
10 year old can get an adult character who can work up physical
strength and then go bullying around town.  He sees adults on the
screen and he feels like he's bullying adults.  They may come along
and beat him up or kill him in response.  Is this the exchange we want
for children?

I've long said that we need to be able to know how old and what sex
the player behind the character is.  Particularly when the player is
under 21.

> I also tend to feel that the relative 'unreality' of the internet
> experience means that the pain people endure can be more easily left
> behind and forgotten than the experiences of 'real life'. The
> lessons one learns, however, stick around, and are as useful outside
> the virtual world as inside it.

The experience of being shot with an arrow?  Yes.  The experience of
being insulted by another player?  No.  The only reason that the
impact of that insult can be left behind is because the only place
that the player will be encountered is in the game world.  And the
impact returns when you next see that player character - just as when
an insult returns to you when you see a person in the real world.

> Like you, John, I find it distressing and heartbreaking that our
> real-life society forces children to be adults so quickly, focussing
> education on the skills needed to be a consumer and
> wage-slave. Where I differ from you is that I feel that in the
> absence of a wise, harmonious and compassionate world from which to
> learn powerful and empathic ways to deal with egotism, aggression
> and oppression, MUDs and other online worlds are actually not at all
> bad at helping people become more psychologically mature. We
> certainly dont need to use MUDs to *teach* ethics, because the very
> nature of an online world is that of a complex system which creates
> feedback loops to spontaneously develop and evolve itself. Wisdom
> self-organises. Eventually.

I don't get it.  You say that focusing children on the consumer and
wage-slave mentality is a rough treatment for children, but you think
that having to survive in the lethal environment of a medieval world
among a mix of adults and children is going to generally be
beneficial?  With supervision, I can see that, but left to its own
ends, that virtual environment is going to probably end up with some
nasty negatives.

JB

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