After reading the article "A Rape in Cyberspace," a quote from the author stuck in my head. Dr. Bombay stated that "Since rape can occur without any physical pain or damage........ then it must be classed as a crime against the mind---more intimately and deepfully hurtfull to be sure than cross burning, wolf whistles, and virtual rape, but undeniably located on the same conceptual continuum." This statement prompted me to do some more research into exactly what is rape. I found many different websites that dealt with rape prevention, rape counseling, etc. but none defined exactly what rape was. At questia.com, I was able to read limited passages (for free) from a book titled Defining Rape by Linda Bourque. In her preface she stated that "Scholars, clinicians, community members, jurors and legislators disagree on what constitutes a rape and what may be the line between assertive persuasion and impermissible force or assault." When I read this I immediately thought "Women who have been raped don't have trouble defining it." Then I came across some amazing statistics. According to a government sponsored rape prevention website (www.rapeprevention.us) an estimated 1,000,000 (one million) sexual assaults occur in the US every year but only 1/3 (300,000) actually get reported. This lead me to believe that even for the victim, there is some difficulty in knowing exactly when you are raped.

I can imagine that it is easy to know that you are raped when you are attacked by and unknown, armed assaillant as you walk through the park one night, but it is a little harder to determine when the assaillant is your husband or the guy you were so eager to get to know. Can a woman actually be raped by her husband? According to many websites, yes. The rape prevention website went on to further say that "Rape and 'having sex' are not the same. Rape is an act of hostility, power, control, degredation and violence." This means that rape is not just the act of intercourse, it is the mental power that one asserts over another during the act of violence. It is a "crime against the mind."

This is why rape recovery is so difficult for many women. It is not just that someone had sex with them when they didn't want too. Many women have laid in bed and had sex when they didn't want to, hence the proverbial joke of the faked orgasm. However, the real problem comes when the victim is made to feel as though they are worthless, pieces of flesh to be taken and used at will. They feel helpless, out of control and violated. There is no physical way to prove this. There are no visible bruises, not cuts or blackened eyes but the scars rest in the mind and hearts of the victims for the rest of their lives.

For spelling accuracy, I decided to look up the word victim, what I found amazed me. I found that among the definitions one stood out more than the other, it stated that a victim is "a living creature which is slain and offered as a sacrifice." Why is this definition relevant, it is relevant because the victim of rape is made to be a sacrifice giving tribute to desires of the perpetrator. All that the victim imagines his or herself to be is destroyed for the sake of the animalistic urges of the perpetrator. Rape is not just an act of sex because in the United States and other places, sex is available everywhere you turn. There are people who have sex as a profession and others who just give it away. Rapist are not interested in just "getting their rocks off", they are after the control, and degredation of the victim.

Understanding rape in this way helps me to better understand how someone who is sexually assaulted in VR can experience the same feelings as someone who is raped if RL.

"Immersion"

I decided to deal with the concept of immersion only after I had spent hours (almost a whole afternoon) entrenched in the computer game Collapse. As I forced myself to turn the game off and do some work, I began to deal with what it will truly mean to be immersed into a game world. Can you imagine a game more intriguing than the ones we already have available? A game where not only is your mind fully engaged but all five of your senses. The thought reminds me of a Calgon commercial where a woman stressed and irritated with her current life shouts "Calgon, take me away" and she's whisked off into a tropical oasis. What would someone like me be like if the games I played allowed me to totally escape reality and participate in my own personal fantasy. Wow! It's kind of sick to think about how pleasurable the experience would be. However, in light of the fact that I can spend an afternoon sitting at a computer bombing colored bricks for no reason at all, I don't think a game like that would be healthy for me. I can see myself ignoring my responsibilities and procrastinating more than I am already inclined to do. I can hear me saying, " Just give me a few more minutes, I am almost at the next level." or "I promise I'll do it as soon as I get through this scene."

In order to have access to a game with such power, a person would have to exercise extreme discipline or either the game must be created in a manner in which the user could only spend a certain amount of time using it before the game automatically shut off. That would probably make some people mad. Imagine playing the role of a fierce knight, you've fought your way through all kinds of obstacles just to come face to face with the dragon. He is the one who holds the key to your adventure (or maybe even the princess), just as you're about to deliver the blow that will render him helpless, the computers interrupts with a polite voice saying, "Sorry but your time in this module has expired. Please exit this holodek." (!!@##@@##@!@#$%%)

On a more positive side though, games that are able to create this type of atmosphere can introduce you to worlds you might never experience otherwise. This brings to mind the movie "Total Recall" where with just the swallow of a pill, participants are taken on the vacation of their dreams for "a fraction of the cost" of an actual visit. The absence of real danger might lead us to challenge our fears and take adventures that we would never do in real life. For example, I know that I would be more likely to go mountain climbing if I knew that I really won't die if I fall off a cliff or something.

As for now, we don't know what these things would be like, but if somehow a "holodek with time restrictions" could be invented, it might actually be very interesting.

The idea of multiform stories introduced to us in chapter 2 of the Hamlet on Holodek is a very interesting concept to me. I have always felt the importance of a single decision and the effects that can come as a result of that decision. Murray looks at several interesting scenes from different movies that explore the importance on one single mistake or decision. These movies that she listed tended to fantasize the possibilities of what might happen as a result of decisions but there are many decisions that we make everyday that change our paths in lives tremendously.

As a woman, I recognize this more that I think males would. As I pondered my career path and options in life, I have had to make decisions (sacrifices) to try and control what my future might look like. Deciding to quit working and go back to school full-time is always a clencher. I often wonder what life would be like had I decided to continue working and go to school part-time. I know I wouldn't be as broke as I am now but other than that who knows. One thing that is more specific to being female is the choice to have children. (Uh Oh, I'm showing just how pro-choice I am.) I made the decision only 1 year ago to never have another child. My decision was made for medical reasons and a surgery accompanied but, I had already consciously decided that a career was more important for me. I am fortunate enough to have one child and as much as I love him, I knew I didn't want to have another. However, for many women, the decision to say that I don't want to raise 3, 4 or even 5 children but instead I want a career is very troubling. Many women have been accused of being selfish, self-centered and even heartless for the paths that they have chosen. They are constantly plagued with the what if's. I can imagine that in their minds a reel of different scenarios constantly play just as a multiform story.

One of the multiform stories that wasn't mentioned in this essay was the movie "The Family Man." This is one of my favorite movies. However, I'm not sure that I would have chosen the life he chose. To go from being a rich, powerful, sought after man to the family guy is a very difficult decision to make but he actually got the opportunity to see both sides. The downfall to real life is that we will never know what our lives would be like if we had chosen other options. However, maybe it's for the best.

Over the past couple weeks, I have been extremely stressed out. I've been trying to keep up with the pace of my current life along with the many hurdles that are inadvertently thrown at me at the absolute worse time. I've learned to accept the fact that hurdles will come and that sometimes they will trip me up but my biggest problem comes as a result of the pace that our new computer generated lives has created.

Most of my classes this semester integrate the computer with the regular scheduled class period and other materials. This means for me that along with attending classes, reading necessary materials, I also have to consistently check the computer. Emails, discussion groups, posting, etc. are all about to drive me up the wall. I have so many places to check for class that it seems that I spend a large percentage of time sitting in front of a monitor. I hate it!! I always spoke out against the ideas of our social lives or how we relate to each other being limited to mear interactions between CPU's. Yet, I find myself more and more in the solitude of my room, sitting at my desk and hacking things away at the computer.

I must admit though, that there is a level of convenience to doing things this way. I can access needed information at anytime, assignments are no longer due during the class period; now, as long as they are postmarked by the computer for the specified date, they are considered to be on time. : ) The downfall to all this is that I probably spend more time on my classes than I have in my whole entire college career and I'm a senior. I've heard of a theory that suggest that the rate of information produced is growing at exponential rates. This means more websites to visit, more emails to be read and sent and more discussion groups to join. How will we keep up with things at this pace. Will the hurdles that come into the lives of each and every one of us knock us completely out of the game? How will we catch up?

Do we have a soul? What is consciousness and is it eternal? Is the brain the control center of our thoughts, emotions, etc. If so, once the brain begins to decompose, is it possible to still function? These are the questions I ask myself as we deal with the issue of cyborgs. If it becomes possible to download me, (my consciousness) into superhuman machine will I still be me? I always felt that what made me who I am is not just the way that I think but how I look, and walk or style my hair. The twinkle in my eyes and the smile on my face and even the color of my skin are all a part of who I am. Who will I be if I am given another body to live in? These questions are mind-boggling to me. Even more so when I consider my grandmother.

I am currently helping my mother care for my grandmother who currently has Alzheimer's disease. Her mind is no longer her own. She no longer functions as she used to. Most of her adult life, no longer exists to her. She has forgotten that her mother is no longer alive, she doesn't know that my mother, her daughter is not her sister who died over 30 years ago. She thinks she's 20 years old most of the time and believes that we are holding her hostage and she will get in trouble for not returning to her mother's house before dark. She's also tried to escape a time or two. She's even pulled a knife on my cousin because she thought she was a stranger who had managed to break in. I hate that my grandmother is like this. Every now and then, she seems to have a sense of who she is and what is going on. She then apologizes for her behavior and says things like "I guess I'm just crazy." Imagine if my grandmother had the ability at my age to chose to be recreated into a cyborg and live another 200 or 300 years. There would have been no forewarning that her mind would leave her at the age of 74 and because of her decision, she would spend a long life in a daze. Not understanding everything around her, fearing the people who are caring for her and being generally discontent. These type things must be considered when we discuss creating superhuman cyborgs. Is this a life worth living? One where your body never expires but the mind longs for sweet rest. I personally don't believe so.

The article entitled "Why the Future doesn't need us" is one that I found most interesting. Bill Joy did an excellent job of relating information about the needs for the future. It is amazing that as I read his articles, the comparisons that I made in my mind regarding these issues he also addressed. It was almost as if we were thinking along the same lines. In his article, he stated that in the future "people will let machines make more of their decisions for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better results than man-made one." This statement of how the future will be is a current reality in my opinion. For example, I recently had an argument with the business office at Macon State regarding my refund check. (Unfortunately for me, I live off the money left from scholarships and loan checks so it is of major importance since I'm not working.) The story went like this, the financial aid office made a mistake in the amount of award that I was getting so they had to have the business office void the check they cut on Tuesday and recut another check in a different amount. This should not have been a problem except, the computer did not reflect the changes. I wanted to double check to make sure my funds were mailed to me so I called the business office on Wednesday. The conversation went like this, "When was my check mailed". "The computer says it was mailed on Tuesday, if you don't receive it today, it should be there tomorrow." "Thank you." Thursday was a repeat of the conversation except that I informed them of the voided check issue and asked them if that was part of the problem. They again informed me that "The computer verifies it was mailed on Tuesday." On Friday, I paid a visit to the Business office because my check still had not arrived. I asked to see the carbons of the two checks. That's when they informed me that the computer was wrong. The second check had been cut that very day but the computer didn't reflect that. I was angry and frustrated because if the young lady who answered the phone had not been so dependant on the computer's accuracy, she might have investigated further and found the truth.

Why is all this important? Well it's important because, the more we become dependent on computer made decisions, the less we try to explore alternative explanations. When your phone bill, or electricity bill or mortgage payment is computerized and the computer makes a mistake (which unless you are meticulous with keeping up with previous bills and payments, you won't be able to prove.) you have very little hope of finding a customer service representative that will help to find the error because "the computer is always right." I see a lot of chaos and confusion in the future where the world depends on the decisions of the computer. It's not that I believe that computers are capable of giving inaccurate information but the humans creating the computers are capable of inputting inaccurate information, that's the problem.

After viewing the video last Monday and reading the materials, I recognized that I have a lot of fear when it comes to the future of humanity. Technology is moving so fast that it's hard for us to keep up with new developments. This fast pace also makes it hard to be informed of new developments and speak out against the ones we see as doing more harm than good. At this moment in time, we as a society are at the mercy of the government's decision making ability. Now, we must address such questions as "How much do we honestly trust the government?" and "Is the government going to look our for the best interest of the general population or side with the produces of these products?". I personally do not trust to government to do what is ethical in the face of what is profitable. I also recognize that my opinion is not everyones. Some people are willing to move forward without any concern other than how convenient will our life be as a result of these technological advances. In that way, I'm beginning to feel a lot old fashioned. I feel as though time and technology will pass me by and I will become out of date.

This is to test my blog and site.