V V w V V V V V V _W _w- _W -W _W -w- -w- -W _W -W - 5. . - . 0 ..- So WRITE FOR THE STATEMENT E-mail us at TheStatement@umich.edu or come visit us at 420 Maynard St. Office Hours j Professor's column I Harvest time Wedesdy, ctoe.. , 007 h i .ia3Diye ANSWERS The cyberjournalist Peter Ludlow has uncovered a lot of scandals most journalists could only dream of: thieves preying on innocents, demonstrable governmental indifference and even a teenage prostitution ring. But because Ludlow was reporting on events in an Internet community The Sims Online, he wasn't given a Pulitzer, he was kicked out of the world entirely and his online persona, Urizenus, was deleted by Electronic Arts, the game's owner, a response Ludlow said was clearly censorship. That was a few years ago, when Ludlow was a professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan. The resulting debate over the laws of cyberspace landed Ludlow on the front page of The New York Times, and though his tenure in The Sims Online ended, he began to study Second Life, a similar virtual world, where he contributes to the online newspaper, the Second Life Herald. Today, Ludlow teaches at the University of Toronto and has written several books about what online communities can tell us about the real world. They're as close as we're going to get to examining the timeless philosopher's question of how government forms out of a state of nature, he writes. And while prostitution there may only involve racy online chat in exchange for virtual currency, it's still only dubiously legal. Ludlow's most recent book of many, "The Second Life Herald: The Virtual Tabloid that Witnessed the Dawn of the Metaverse," came out last month. Here's what he had to say in an e-mail conversation about the University of Michigan's presence in Second Life, Internet fashionistas and the future of virtual communities. Free coffee Free bagels Free newspapers Free WI-Fl How's that for starters? The AAUM is rolling out the welcome mat for you at Welcome Wednesdays! Feed your caffeine addiction with Starbucks coffee, grab a bagel and the paper, and check your email. All for free at the Alumni Center. You can also learn about the programs we offer, like career mentors, inCircle (the U-M social networking site) and free business cards. Or pick up a free blue book for your next exam. To celebrate Welcome Wednesdays, we'll have free AAUM metal travel coffee mugs (while supplies last). ts harvest time in Michigan. Pumpkins for sale crowd the lawns of farmhouses on a few rural roads. The combines are har- vesting'truckloads ofscorn. The farmers' market offers a dozen varieties of crisp apples. In my gar- den, a riot of morning glories still covers the gate. The last tomatoes are ripening and the chard grows exuberantly in the cool weather. Last spring, it was hard to imag- ine that the empty beds and piles of compost would eventually yield such bounty. Now all the weeding, mulching and coaxing of seedlings has given me enough onions,pota- toes, squash, tomatoes and beans to last through the winter. Food encompasses sub- lime tastes and hidden cruelties, personal health and environmen- tal quality, individual choices and global trade policies. The food we eat today represents choices made by our ancestors over thousands of years about taste, texture, color and hardiness. In turn, the choices that we make about which foods to purchase affect the foods of future generations, In choosing the foods we eat, we're participating in political and ecological processes across the globe. I learned many of these con- nections after my husband and I moved to a small farm 15 years ago. We were neophytes to farm- ing. Since our livelihoods didn't depend upon farming - both of us are professors at the University - we could afford to experiment with subsistence farming. We farm organically, partly because we're committed to that philosophy and partly to understand what the challenges are. It's a way to learn about soils, plants, animals and weather on a daily basis. We've received valuable information and assistance from neighboring farm- ers,both organic and conventional. We've found friendship and mutu- al support in our neighborhood - such as a pint of fresh raspber- ries in our mailbox and a neighbor plowing our driveway early on a snowy winter morning. In a large vegetable, herb and flower garden, I grow about half of our vegetables for the year. From early April, when the rhubarb and asparagus poke up, to November, when I harvest the last carrots and leeks, we are treated to a suc- cession of flavors. The garden has been the source of many lessons about food. I've tried many vari- eties of vegetables and different methods of weed control. I've had unexpected successes and total failures. I've learned about com- In the bigger picture, organic food might be cheaper. panion planting, cover crops and composting. Some of the most valuable les- sons are about the bigger picture of food. For example, I realize how much time and effort it takes to grow food. Much of the work goes to preparing the soil, weed- ing, watering and harvesting at the right moment. For me, it's part education, part relaxation and part recreation; I don't calculate a cost- benefit ratio. But for our farmer neighbors, the work is relentless and the pay is low. This pattern occurs throughout the United States and is part of the economic crisis that has caused many small farms to collapse, many rural communities to vanish and most remaining farms to become larger and more mechanized. Contradictory ideas prevail about the cost and value of food. We live in a society that expects and purchases cheap food. Con- sumers and Washington policy makers enforce this pattern each in their own way - consumers by purchasing food at stores that offer low prices and lawmakers by awarding subsidies to crops whose products permeate our food sys- tem. Growers and farmworkers are caught in the middle. In the United States, the average family spends a See FOODS, Page 8B . There's no end to the weirdness in Second Life. At the Second Life Herald, we recently ran a story on how Second Life fashionistas were all carry- ing cute baby unicorns. We discovered, however, that in order to get the baby unicorn they had to do it with an adult male unicorn statue. That story was picked up all over the world. " In that vein, we also ran a story about moms who were adopting virtual babies then leaving them at home when they went our clubbing at virtual clubs. A landlord we talked to complained that he had to return the crying babies to inven- tory because neighbors complained. But worse, some of the moms were banned from the game while out clubbing so the landlord had to delete the little innocents. . Online platforms like The Sims Online and Second Life can be laboratories for studying the emergence of governance structures, what hap- pens when governance structures collide and what kinds of governance structures are optimal for diverse and geographically scattered com- munities. They are like little Petri dishes; some- times the result is interesting and promising, and sometimes the result is toxic but no less interest- ing. . I don't have much time to go into Second Life these days - maybe an hour a week total. I tend to monitor it via blogs and discussion boards. I haven't been on The Sims Online for over a year. " On Second Life, my character name is Urize- nus Sklar. Urizenus comes William Blake's char- acter Urizen. I quote: "What are his nets & gins & traps. & how does he surround him With cold floods of abstraction, and with forests of solitude, To build him castles and high spires, where kings & priests may dwell." That seemed apt for a virtual world like Second Life, where we build virtual castles and high spires for virtual kings and priests. The last name Sklar was available from a preset list of names. I grabbed that one in honor of Larry Sklar, who teaches philosophy of science at the University of Michigan. 0 One of the most amazing things is the rise of the Gorean communities, which were several communities in "Second Life" that have adopted a subculture based on some really weak sci- ence fiction novels by John Norman, e.g. "Slave Girl of Gor." The basic premise is that there are sexual masters (mostly men) and sexual slaves (mostly women). They construct all sorts of laws and rituals around that, including an attempt at developing the Gorean Language, which is basi- cally Romance syntax with north Germanic pho- nology, as far as I can tell. They have libraries and archives where they keep slave ownership papers. Now you see this and your first thought is WTF! And then you think about if for a while and your reaction is still WTF! * To me, the most interesting dynamic always involves the conflicts between groups. For exam- ple, the groups that object to the commercializ- ing of cyberspace and want to keep it weird, and those that want to tame it and make it safe for IBM, Ben and Jerry's and the University of Michi- gan, which has a small presence there. . The sex ring I wrote about in The Sims Online definitely wasn't an isolated incident. Cyber- brothels were commonplace. There was a virtual BDSM community, which included many Gore- ans, with 100 homes at one point. I haven't been to The Sims Online in a long time so I don't know what the situation is like there now, but of course "erotic clubs" are the most popular destinations in Second Life and by some accounts they consti- tute 30 percent of the economic activity in that world. Perhaps the cybersex fans in The Sims Online moved to adult platforms like Second Life, which would be a good development for The Sims if true. * When asked about the future of online gaming communities, I'd say first that you need to strike the word "gaming" from that phrase, because virtual communities like Second Life aren't really games. The only thing they have to do with video games is that the physics engine is a Halo game engine and the visu- als render like those in a video game. They are really chat spaces with graphics - just a more robust version of AOL Instant Messen- ger. I've been tracking virtual communities for over 20 years now, and they definitely have their limitations, but on the other hand it's pos- sible to productively meet in these spaces for business and socializing. I guess I'd say. that as our work lives and social lives continue to move online, these online communities will become more and more impor- tant, and the way they are gov- erned will become more and more important. I do think it will be a slow and steady migration into these communities, however. - As told to Anne VanderMey Every Wednesday through November 14. 9 a.m. to noon. Open to all U-M students. The Alumni Center is located at 200 Fletcher St., at the corner of Fletcher and Washington, next to the Michigan League. What is the AAUM? The Alumni Association of the University of Michigan builds relationships with current and future Michigan alumni. We help build your connection to U-M by offering services and programs to enhance your experience and opportunities while at Michigan, and prepare you for success when you graduate! ALUMNIASSOCIATION UNIVERSITY eF MIcHIGAN www.umalumni.com/students