Should Second Life Be Illegal?

I've always believed that the criminalization of drugs and drug use is driven by the fear that their easy pleasures may become preferable to grinding out daily life.

For many who use drugs that does in fact happen; far more people continue to partake and yet go about their daily business with much, little or no interference from their (legally proscribed) recreational activities.

Certainly an enormous industry of intertwined law enforcement, crime and punishment is fueled by the current prohibition of controlled substances.

A look back at alcohol prohibition and its associated circus is instructive.

Regardless of your position on drug legalization, there's no question that keeping them illegal does in fact keep many people from using them.

All this is a prelude to a question that's been intriguing me for years, but only just now is making its way into a fully-formed thought: how can the advance of computers and increasingly realistic and more engrossing virtual worlds do anything but lead to the ultimate abandonment of the "real" world by more and more people whose everyday existence is mundane and pleasureless?

What occasioned this post was my introduction to Second Life in a superb "Travel Guide" which appears in the new (October 2006) issue of Wired magazine.

I was utterly fascinated by the explanation of all that lies within there — so much so that I signed up immediately upon finishing it.

How is it that such a place is legal?

It's certainly as absorbing as drugs — and as capable of causing people to abandon their "First Life" in favor of the computer world.

Wait and see if people don't completely vanish into future versions as the compelling hyperrealism screenside becomes irresistible.