Ready player cat: Internet regulation in the OASIS

Ready player cat: Internet regulation in the OASIS

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  H E RE B E S P O I L E R S A N D A P O L O G I E S
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  T H ES T O RY • James “Anorak” Halliday, head of Greagarious Simulation Systems (GSS), creates the OASIS, a massive VR environment (more on that later). • Upon his death in 2040, Halliday announces a big egg hunt. Whoever finds three Easter Eggs hidden inside the game will win control of the OASIS. • The story follows Parzival, Art3mis, Aech and other Gunters in their search for the final key, competing against the evil 101 Corp. • “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory meets The Matrix.”
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  I T ’S T H E 8 0 S B A B Y ! • The Police, Ultraman, Spaidaman, MegaGodzilla, Zork, WarGames, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Ladyhawke, Krull, Blade Runner, Journey, Back to the Future, Def Leppard, Excalibur… • Halliday was a teenager in the 80s, his tastes become cannon as a generation grows up studying his every obsession.
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  T H EO A S I S • The OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation) is a massive single-instance virtual reality interface, an “open source reality”. It’s also free. • “…the Oasis utilized a new kind of fault- tolerant server array that could draw additional processing power from every computer connected to it. At the time of its initial launch, the OASIS could handle up to five million simultaneous users, with no discernible latency and no chance of a system crash.”
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  O P EN S O U R C E ?
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  E R IC C L I N E “The OASIS quickly became the single most popular use for the Internet, so much so that the terms “OASIS'' and “Internet” gradually became synonymous.”
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  W H ATM O S T P E O P L E T H I N K “ C O O L ! A V R I N T E R N E T ! ”
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  W H ATA N I N T E R N E T R E G U L AT I O N N E R D T H I N K S “ T H E I N T E R N E T I S P R I VAT E ! ”
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  C A NT H E O A S I S R E A L LY E X I S T ? E N T I R E LY I M P L A U S I B L E H Y P O T H E T I C A L T I M E
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  G O VE R N A N C E • Completely decentralised system, yet all control concentrated in one person. [see Iñigo Montoya meme] • Shades of Tyrell, Musk, Jobs, Gates, the all-powerful white dude narrative. • GSS is nominally free (subscription costs one US quarter), it makes money from virtual land sales and transportation fees. • Second Life meets net neutrality.
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  I N TE L L E C T U A L P R O P E R T Y I S D E A D • Interestingly, the OASIS is an IP-free zone. Every movie ever made can be re- played in real time (Flicksync). • Avatars can be anything, and they gather powerful artefacts and ships from fiction. • No such thing as copyright, or GSS has powerful licensing agreements. • Open source and decentralised, but use trade mark and EULAs.
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  W H ATD O E S I T A L L M E A N ? • Hidden in the plot, Eric Cline has unwittingly described the great problem we currently face. • The only war that is worth thinking about is the decentralisation v centrality debate. • The confusion present in the OASIS is an unwitting reflection of the current state of debate. • Cyberlibertarian utopia or tyranny of the EULA? • Rebel Alliance or Evil Empire?
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  C O NC L U D I N G …
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  @ T EC H N O L L A M A First to the key! First to the egg! “ N O B L O C K C H A I N S W E R E H A R M E D I N T H E M A K I N G O F T H I S P R E S E N TAT I O N ”