Communities and MMOGs: Nations and States

A new article by Nicholas Gervassis of University of Edinburgh School of Law, from the Journal of Information Law and Technology.

Comments

[ren]

1.

While I find the notion of MMOs as nation states wholly unconvincing I’m glad that there is someone else out there that things we should look at avatars in terms of the bundle of rights and duties that should be associated with online persona as a type of extension of off line persona.

For me the older and bigger MMOs get and the more pressure there is, at least in the UK, on Identity Cards and staving off identity theft the stronger these arguments get.

However one issue that I concede is that pseudonymous identity does not necessarily perform the function of an online version of ones own base identity. This piece says:

“In these artificial worlds users define their EP as straightforward reflections of themselves.”

Which is Turklesque I think, but I’m not sure it goes that far as many online identities are far from “straightforward reflections” which is think is the issues with trying to bring in a one size fits all law to cover these things, I favour a sui generis approach to these things rather than bending either IP law or Human Rights, but still, it's tough.

[bruce boston]

2.

"...I find the notion of MMOs as nation states wholly unconvincing..."

I have to agree.

Personally, I think much of that talk about MMOs qualifying for 'nationhood' or 'statehood' is 'pre-mature' at best. Allegorically, sure. After all, RP is core to MMORPGs, and if we wanna call Tauren a 'race', why not be allowed to call Azeroth a 'nation'.

That said, if 'The South' (see US civil war) didn't qualify for nationhood, and communities from the 'Catholic Church' to 'Libertarians" to the ‘Disney timeshare owners' don't qualify for independent statehood, than I think we are going to have a hard time coming up for reasons why MMOs qualify for either.

On the other hand, I don’t think that this type of discussion is without merit. Like most other things that can be simulated in virtual worlds, certainly 'nationhood' of statehood' can be simulated to some degree.

Additionally, in the 100-200 year range, I think humanity will continue to form nations and independent states, and it is conceivable that one could be conceived via a virtual world. But, again, I think that it’s also conceivable that nations could be conceived from a large number of other sources based on the culturally, geographically, religiously, politically or economically like-mindedness of very large groups of people. While not an impossible source, fantasy based communities are probably a less probable a source when compared to some of these other sources.

Back to the article, I did have some problems swallowing some of the assertions made.

For example:

"Regarding gaming as a leading recreational trend across electronically educated populations, exit and not-entrance are, therefore, not always optional."

This is like saying that people are forced to eat fast food because it’s becoming increasingly popular. Or that popularity of a product elevates it to public necessity. If this were true, why wouldn’t this principle apply to the auto industry? What about the telecommunications industry? What about the travel industry? What about a dozen other industries that have 'trends' of their own? Are the actions of consumers there all to be considered 'non-optional'?

"However, whether their absolute rule goes unchallenged and consequently valid is thoroughly analysed in the following paragraphs."

Not exactly sure what game company has claimed the right to "absolute rule". In most cases, the TOS/EULA clearly states that it is subject to a number of laws that supercede the player/game company contract (COPA, trademark, copyright, state laws, federal laws, export laws, etc, etc).

Not only do I think that developers fully understand that they are subject to laws that supercede contract law, I also think that players know this as well, as the current practice seems to be that they appeal to local authorities for any redress.

In any case, going back to the questions of nationhood or statehood, again, I think much of that talk about MMORPGs qualifying is probably 100-200 years 'pre-mature'.

-bruce

[F. Randall Farmer]

3.

I will quote my presentation at SoPII:

"Are we really building ‘nations’?

Our collective conceit knows no bounds. Let’s be careful that we aren’t making our own lives more difficult than they need to be."

The pointers to my presntation are here.

[Matt Mihaly]

4.

Randall Farmer wrote:

Our collective conceit knows no bounds. Let’s be careful that we aren’t making our own lives more difficult than they need to be.

Darn right. Virtual worlds will never be states because they lack the ability to use physical force, upon which the existence of all states ultimately rests.
--matt

[Cenn]

5.

Ha!

Virtual worlds have something that is often lacking in the "real" world - technical know how.

Can you imagine the citizens of a virtual world threatening a real world state? - sure - threaten to hack into databases and change data - such as credit records, IDs, etc etc.

its not physical, but could be just as devastating...

[ren]

6.

Matt
> Darn right. Virtual worlds will never be states because they lack the ability to use physical force, upon which the existence of all states ultimately rests.

Cenn
> Virtual worlds have something that is often lacking in the "real" world - technical know how.
>Can you imagine the citizens of a virtual world threatening a real world state? - sure - threaten to hack into databases and change data - such as credit records, IDs, etc etc.
>its not physical, but could be just as devastating...

I take it that Matt is alluding to Weber’s definition of the state from Politics as a Vocation: “Ultimately one can define the modern state sociologically only in terms of the specific means peculiar to it, as to every political association, namely the use of political force” or "a relation of men dominating men, a relation supported by means of legitimate (i.e. considered to be legitimate) violence"

Nozick's is similar in his Anarchy, State and Utopia where he looks at the minimal and ultra-minimal sate both of which he derives from a dominant protective agency emerging from a state of nature.

The key point here are not that force is used against other nations aggressively but that force can be used ‘legitimate’ against its own citizens – (1) to maintain the rule of law, and (2) against other nations to protect citizens. The moral arguments for the legitimisation of force against its own citizens has a bunch of roots such as social contract, argument from fairness etc but these are too long to go into here – I’ve tried in an forthcoming paper to apply them all to VWs and they don’t stick very well, though there is an argument for duty that one can derive from the fairness argument.

The second point is harder to sustain (and ethically it’s linked to the former so it quite important). That is, how can a Virtual World provide realistic protection to its users? There are in fact a few arguments here. One can argue that current states fail this test as not state can guarantee protection of the citizen form the action of other groups or states. Moreover one could posit a corporate state system where corporations do hire people to provide actual physical protection to people, but in this scenario it is difficult, though not impossible, to see how the virtual worldness would be the defining factor – at this point it time to dust of the original version of Rollerball which not only posits a corporate state but puts a game at its heart (the directors commentary is more interesting than you would think).

Lastly I’m not denying that right now VWs share characteristics with states nor that in a scenario such as a company town one, the might inherit certain duties. However just because cars should not hit people and I should not hit people does not mean that its useful to approximate me to a car unless one is comparing say physical objects with socialism or the square root of minus 1.

[Matt Mihaly]

7.

Ren wrote

I take it that Matt is alluding to Weber’s definition of the state from Politics as a Vocation: “Ultimately one can define the modern state sociologically only in terms of the specific means peculiar to it, as to every political association, namely the use of political force” or "a relation of men dominating men, a relation supported by means of legitimate (i.e. considered to be legitimate) violence"

Nozick's is similar in his Anarchy, State and Utopia where he looks at the minimal and ultra-minimal sate both of which he derives from a dominant protective agency emerging from a state of nature.

Thank you for a more coherent explanation of what I meant. Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Both those books are on my bookshelf.

--matt

[Nathan Combs]

8.

Matt>
Ren>
I take it that Matt is alluding to Weber’s definition of the state from Politics as a Vocation: “Ultimately one can define the modern state sociologically only in terms of the specific means peculiar to it, as to every political association, namely the use of political force” or "a relation of men dominating men, a relation supported by means of legitimate (i.e. considered to be legitimate) violence"

Overtones of Clausewitz (as in Karl von): "War is merely the continuation of policy by other means"

I think I agree with you both. But just to poke at this - consider this thought experiment:

What if the XX guild declared war on my guild. Suppose they burned the grass on my front lawn and threatened my cat. Or more less light-heartedly, what about the cases of where players are beat up or threatened in internet cafe's in Korea because of in-game actions. Suppose this became organized malice - one group vs. another? But in the latter case, where is the "state" - virtual or Real or in fact its not a state?

[ren]

9.

Nathan > Suppose this became organized malice - one group vs. another? But in the latter case, where is the "state" - virtual or Real or in fact its not a state?

The state is all around you, the state is the authority that says that this is wrong and has legitimacy from the other people in the geographic region in which you happen to be physically at that time and will lock you away if they catch you.

Now there is no reason why a guild cannot become a state, after all what are modern states but the biggest gangs of thugs that happened to be around a few centuries ago, or in some parts of the world just happen to be the biggest gang right now.

To sketch the philosophical view: in the state of nature we have freedom but there is also danger there are no rules and no rule keepers thus we are in risk of limits to our life and liberty. It is only rational to give up this freedom to an external authority if we get a greater freedom in return. Thus a state only has legitimacy if it can provide actual protection from actual harm over a given territory for a given time – this is generally wrapped up in some form of procedural legitimacy and has to account for things like people that refuse the goods that the state provides and peoples that want to accede from its rule.

Under the kinds of theories that look like the above a VW or a Guild has to do a lot more than just have the ability to beat you up or beat other people up on your behalf, they have to be really good at this to the point that they have a monopoly.

Having said this, here's another thought experiment: in-game is the most powerful guild the state or is it the publisher?

[Peter Edelmann]

10.

Gervassis makes a distinction in the "abstract" of the article, which is never really developed in the body of the text, between nations and states which may give some insight into some of the problems raised by Ren. For the most part, guilds would seem to rely much more on the identity-based mechanisms of the nation than on the control-based mechanisms of the state. This evident not only in the control mechanisms within guilds (which tend to be based on persuasion and the ultimate penalty of banishment rather than physical coersion), but also in the ability of guilds and similar groups to move from one virtual world to another (witness Constance's recent move from Lineage to LineageII with her guild), and even to form diasporas (with a presence on multiple servers, for example). AFAIK, states have not shown this kind of mobility, nor an ability to maintain themselves in diasporic settings. In fact, I would be hard pressed to think of a state that does not have (or at least lay claim) to exclusive jurisdiction over its territory - guilds seem more than capable of thriving without such claims to exclusivity. I would propose the publishers would thus be closer to the state, a point supported by Richard's views about the need for the autonomy/sovereignty of designers...

[bruce boston]

11.

Matt: "Virtual worlds will never be states because they lack the ability to use physical force, upon which the existence of all states ultimately rests."

So I am not sure I would totally agree with this statement. I think we may have to better define what the different types of nations are before we are able to make huge blanket statements that include the word "all".

Randy: "Are we really building ‘nations’?
Our collective conceit knows no bounds. Let’s be careful that we aren’t making our own lives more difficult than they need to be."

I think I would have to agree that there is a fair lack of humility in the industry, market, on blogs, etc, etc, but that seems like a bigger issue, and not one I think I could really help with anyway.

As far as talking about nation building, I think there may be a difference between a developer thinking they can easily build a 'new nation' and someone thinking that the tools that are being developed in the virtual world industry might someday be used by a group of people wanting to build a new nation.

Again, I am not saying 'nations are being built in VWs', or 'nations will be built in VWs' or even 'nations can be built in VWs', I think what I am comfortable saying is that in the 100 to 200 years, that 'nations might be built in VWs'. Also, looking 100-200 years forward, I think I am also a bit uncomfortable saying 'nations will never be built in a VW'.

What am I basing this on? Actually just a few simple assumptions/observations including:

1) There are 6 billion people on the planet. The probability that a few of them are thinking about 'building a new nation' is pretty high.

2) If you look at all the nations that exist today, not all of them are founded by 'the biggest gangs of thugs'. Geography plays a role, ethnicity plays a role, economic opportunity played a role, government structure has played a role, etc, etc.

3) The bar for 'nationhood' isn't as high as many might think at first.

See: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/sh.html

Nation: Saint Helena
Location: founded on an island in the South Atlantic Ocean that was uninhabited until after 1502.
Total area: 402 Sq. KM
Population: 7,415 people (July 2004 est)
Currency: Saint Helenian pound (SHP)
Radio stations: 1 AM station
Purchasing power parity: $18 million (1998 est.)
Military: none

4) Things in the World are changing much faster today than they ever have. Generational gaps are actually getting wider, while people are living longer.

5) Geography has much less to do with anything than it ever has. It often no longer maps to economics, cultural, language, politics, etc, etc, etc.

6) It is much to early to say how the internet will change the way humanity 'groups' itself in the years to come.

Again, I think what I am comfortable saying is that in the 100 to 200 years, that 'nations might be built in VWs' and that I am also a bit uncomfortable saying 'nations will never be built in a VW'.

-bruce

[F. Randall Farmer]

12.

Bruce Boston offered Saint Helena as an example of a low barrier to entry for a nation-state.

But even the bar set that low, the standard met by this tiny nation is still way too high for VWs to meet:

1) Saint Helena is a physical place (in the physics/causality sense: It not in two places at the same time). It is not instanced in any way.

2) The island was not owned by, or constructed out of whole-cloth by, a corporation when 'nation building' began.

3) People are acutally physically present there (again in that annoying 'causality' sense.) If they die, the do not respawn.

4) Saint Helena and it's citizens will not vansish in a puff of smoke if some gaming company decides it is unprofitable/goes bankrupt/or happened chose a colo with a poor backup power system.

I could go on, but these are enough fodder for now.

I refuse to predict 100 years into the future in public. :-)

Randy

[Bruce Boston]

13.

Hi Randy,

"1) Saint Helena is a physical place (in the physics/causality sense: It not in two places at the same time). It is not instanced in any way."

So without splitting too many hairs, in most cases the term 'nation' refers to a group of people and not a territory. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation

Some examples of nations with out territories are "the Kurds, Assyrians, Gibraltarian and the native American nations"

"2) The island was not owned by, or constructed out of whole-cloth by, a corporation when 'nation building' began."

So quick question: Are all VWs are owned by corporations today? I'm guessing there are at least a few that are privatly or publicly operated? Even if there are none, no reason there couldn't be.

"3) People are actually physically present there (again in that annoying 'causality' sense.) If they die, the do not respawn. "

Actually, physical presence is often not a requirement for citizenship even in most nations today. The US government was plenty happy to grant citizenship to my son years before he lived in the US and the Japanese government was happy to do the same with my second son though he has never lived (at length) in Japan.

"4) Saint Helena and it's citizens will not vanish in a puff of smoke if some gaming company decides it is unprofitable/goes bankrupt/or happened chose a colo with a poor backup power system."

Again, nations are much more about a community of people "sharing some common identity" than they are about permanence. The fact that the US could take over Puerto Rico tomorrow carries less to weight than the fact that they share a common language, history, culture, etc, etc, etc when determining nationality.

"I refuse to predict 100 years into the future in public. :-)"

What could be safer?

-bruce

[Richard Bartle]

14.

I finally got around to reading this paper. It occurs to me that there's a paradox in all this somewhere.

Gervassis describes the situation basically as follows. Developers want to be able to throw players out for any reason whatsoever. However, if players so identify with their "electronic personae" that these personae themselves must be treated as if they were the players sitting behind them, the developers can't do that; if they could do it, it would deprive players of something beyond a mere account - it would deprive them of their virtual identity. Legal opinion could support the players here, and remove the right of developers to ban accounts. As a result of this, players would gain effective ownership of their personae. They could sell these on eBay or wherever if they wanted to.

Yet the reason players get to "own" their characters is because they are a part of their own identity. If they then sell those characters, that means they don't regard them as enough of a part of their identity to retain them. Under the above scenario, could a developer therefore eliminate any characters that were sold, on the grounds that the new owner can't identify with them if they don't exist and the previous owner doesn't identify with them enough to merit its being protected?

It would be rather weird if players could dispose of characters through rights granted them on the basis that player and character are inseparable.

Richard

[Jim S.]

15.

Hah, good point Richard.

I think Bruce is right, but for some of the wrong reasons...

Bruce Boston wrote:

>>"1) Saint Helena is a physical place (in the physics/causality sense: It not in two places at the same time). It is not instanced in any way."

So without splitting too many hairs, in most cases the term 'nation' refers to a group of people and not a territory. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation

Some examples of nations with out territories are "the Kurds, Assyrians, Gibraltarian and the native American nations"

"2) The island was not owned by, or constructed out of whole-cloth by, a corporation when 'nation building' began."

So quick question: Are all VWs are owned by corporations today? I'm guessing there are at least a few that are privatly or publicly operated? Even if there are none, no reason there couldn't be.>>

Good so far.

>>"3) People are actually physically present there (again in that annoying 'causality' sense.) If they die, the do not respawn. "

Actually, physical presence is often not a requirement for citizenship even in most nations today. The US government was plenty happy to grant citizenship to my son years before he lived in the US and the Japanese government was happy to do the same with my second son though he has never lived (at length) in Japan.>>

However, *some* people are physically represented there, and in fact that is the rule and not the exception. Japan isn't primarily an island whose name people attach to themselves while living elsewhere. Without the denizens, there would be no Japan. Also, citizenship is a matter of state, not nation. Being a citizen of Japan doesn't make you Japanese.

>>"4) Saint Helena and it's citizens will not vanish in a puff of smoke if some gaming company decides it is unprofitable/goes bankrupt/or happened chose a colo with a poor backup power system."

Again, nations are much more about a community of people "sharing some common identity" than they are about permanence. The fact that the US could take over Puerto Rico tomorrow carries less to weight than the fact that they share a common language, history, culture, etc, etc, etc when determining nationality.>>

My argument here would be something like this. Nations can in fact cease to exist if a higher power decides to make it so. Regardless of whether you beleive in God, you certainly beleive in nuclear warheads and the possibility of annihilation that has fortunately passed us all for the present. "Real" nations face the possibility of extinction, and probably the majority of nations in the history of the world have done so (even if this is just being absorbed by larger ones).

Some kinds of permanence are important to nations, like existing. I can't think of a nation that ceased to exist and then somehow formed again. I think the permanence you meant was more of a nation-state kind of permanence, in which case you are very correct. Israel ceased to be a state, remained a nation, and is now a state again, proof that you are correct.

I would say that it would be possible, though nigh impossible, to have online nations.

As for states, yes, this is completely possible. The characteristic of the use of force that Matt and Ren mentioned above has always been true, but then states have always had a physical component before, haven't they?

There are actually two factors that form a state as we currently know it: force and politics. The force to maintain rule against internal and external forces is an obvious requirement. The politics of having a group recognized as a state, though, are just as important and far more complicated.

Try talking to a Chinese person about Taiwan... to most of us in the West, they are two countries. To Chinese, it's known as Taiwan *province*. If you study the history of the situation, you'll probably find that both sides have good claims about the legitimacy of the government of the other. They *both* claim to be the legitimate government of China, and to an extent, they're both right!

Wikipedia says:

>>A state is an organized political community occupying a definite territory, having an organized government, and possessing internal and external sovereignty.>>

So now all we have to do is define territory in terms of the digital world. Certainly the definition here is meaning physical territory, but I had to stir the pot a bit. :) Other than that bit, the main problem of online states is that people would have to have dual citizenship, since people of the future will likely still have physical bodies that need to exist somewhere physical. /sarcasm off. I can't imagine wanting to deal with two sets of tax laws or pay two income taxes every year.

[bruce boston]

16.

Hi Jim,

Just to belabor this topic again.

I wrote:
[Some examples of nations with out territories are "the Kurds, Assyrians, Gibraltarian and the native American nations"]

You wrote:
[However, *some* people are physically represented there, and in fact that is the rule and not the exception.]

So in the case of *most* nations they do have people 'present' in their territory, but again I think there are exceptions to that rule.

If we are going to say that a nation can exist without a territory, then I think we have to say that a nation can also exist without having anyone present in that nation’s territory, if for no other reason than that territory-less nations have no where for someone to be present in.

I think it could be argued that online 'nations' (if they were to ever exist) would follow the pattern of 'territory-less' nations and as such, they may not have the requirement to have people present in a physical territory.

You wrote:
[Nations can in fact cease to exist if a higher power decides to make it so.]

I think the reverse may also be true; i.e., 'a nation can begin to exist if a higher power decides to make it so'. Quite a number of nations are sub-groups of a bigger state; examples include nations from French Polynesian to Guam to Saint Helena.

If I were to speculate how the first online nation gains recognition, I think I would go with 'it gets a UN member-nation to recognize it as a unique political entity’, perhaps in return for taxes of some sort.

Again, at the rate that the World is changing, I am a bit reluctant to say what *can’t* happen in the next 100+ years. Remeber,we are talking politics here and stranger things have happened (see: Louisiana Purchase).

-bruce

[Jim S.]

17.

Bruce Boston wrote:

>>So in the case of *most* nations they do have people 'present' in their territory, but again I think there are exceptions to that rule.>>

However, I also wrote:

>>Also, citizenship is a matter of state, not nation. Being a citizen of Japan doesn't make you Japanese.>>

I think what is tripping us up here is that some nations and states are almost the same thing, like Japan and the Japanese.

>>If we are going to say that a nation can exist without a territory, then I think we have to say that a nation can also exist without having anyone present in that nation’s territory, if for no other reason than that territory-less nations have no where for someone to be present in.>>

I don't think this is the case... I think rather it's that a state requires territory, but a nation doesn't require a state. Territory-less nations would just be nations without a state of their own.

The question of territory on the internet is mind-boggling if you think about it. The distance between 99% of the points on the internet is virtually zero. Also, the digital world consists of information; information is a result of "real" things, but it doesn't have a "real" location itself, only places where it is expressed. What does that mean when we consider ourselves "located" somewhere in that body of information? It's like saying that we exist in a place that isn't a location. Very interesting.

>>You wrote:
[Nations can in fact cease to exist if a higher power decides to make it so.]

I think the reverse may also be true; i.e., 'a nation can begin to exist if a higher power decides to make it so'. Quite a number of nations are sub-groups of a bigger state; examples include nations from French Polynesian to Guam to Saint Helena.>>

Agreed. To embellish even further, a nation could begin or cease to exist without that intent on anyones part (ie. prison colonies becoming nation-states).

>>If I were to speculate how the first online nation gains recognition, I think I would go with 'it gets a UN member-nation to recognize it as a unique political entity’, perhaps in return for taxes of some sort.>>

Probably. This brings the question to mind: does the UN have representatives from nations without their own state? If not, doesn't this really make them the United States? That thought brought a laugh to me, thought I'd share it.

A "unique political entity" would be more of a characteristic of a state than a nation, though admittedly not necissarily. A nation's politics are typically subordinate to those of their state. That would mean that the first "virtual nation" would probably have fairly weak political power in and of itself.

>>Again, at the rate that the World is changing, I am a bit reluctant to say what *can’t* happen in the next 100+ years. Remeber,we are talking politics here and stranger things have happened (see: Louisiana Purchase).>>

Absolutely agreed. I haven't even been around that long, and I'm still amazed at how things are turning out. We're just changing that fast.