> Did you read that article? Nobody here
>practices the kind of marriage it described,
>where the two people never meet, never plan to
>meet, and never even see pictures of each other.
>
> There is no way two (sane) people are going to
>make lifelong commitments and have a relationship
>even approaching all that marriage typically
>entails without even *hoping*, let alone
>planning, to meet someday. Besides being a
>vaguely insane commitment to make, it's
>impossible to carry out without radically
>redefining what marriage is.

I think you're the one missing the point of the article. The article is assuming that at some point the "metaverse" will become as convincing and "real" as the real universe while you're "jacked in". A person could work a minimum wage data entry job from his small apartment for 8 hours a day, and spend the rest of the time living like a king in the VR metaverse. To that person, the "real world" would be nothing more than a stopover on his way to the metaverse, and his apartment would be nothing more than a place to store some food and a place to get rid of bodily waste.

I'm not saying this would be a healthy thing, or a desireable thing, but it certainly is within the realm of possibility. And given that it happens, how much of a jump would it really be at that point to get married to someone's virtual alter-ego and never actually meet (or "meat" as the page jokes) the other person in the flesh? I can totally see it happening. It may not ever become commonplace, but hell, if the VR metaverse was just as convincing as the "real world", I'm pretty sure I'd much rather live in a huge wizard's tower than my crapshack townhouse.

I know that arrangement wouldn't fit your definition of marriage, because to you "marriage" isn't just a legal construct used to tie two people together for things like inheritence issues, power of attorney, and taxation, but is a sacrament of your religion. But for people who don't define marriage the way you do, how could a virtual marriage in which both partners spend most of their time together in the virtual world being virtual husband and virtual wife be much different than a real marriage? You'd spend your 8 hours at work away from your spouse just like you do now, and then you'd "come home" to the metaverse to be with your wife or husband, and do all the things wives and husbands do, including having convincing sex. Having kids would certainly be problematic, but there are plenty of meatspace couples unable for some reason to have kids, and they're still married.

You can certainly take issue with the basic assumption that VR will ever be that convincing, but given the fact that a VR metaverse could one day be pretty much Matrix-like for its inhabitants, it's not that hard to concieve of many people (perhaps never "most" or even a majority, but certainly a non-trivial number of non-insane individuals) essentially abandoning the meatverse and moving their "real life" entirely into the metaverse.

On the other hand, I have no idea what Ciaran was talking about when he said the article defends the thinking that lead to the killing of someone over in-game issues. I'm actually fairly sure the article, and the entire site for that matter, is meant to be a joke. Perhaps a poignant, "this is funny but still might happen!" kind of joke, but a joke none-the-less.

-- Dave