God is not in the machine: playerkilling as indigenized cultural form

Abstract

This paper seeks to add to our understanding of how the global is made local even in online spaces. This work further challenges theorists of virtual worlds to critically examine their own assumptions about the value of the virtual and its relationship to the actual world. The 'this-world' perspective of classical Chinese philosophy offers a new way to conceptualize the virtual and the actual--not a virtual that simulates the real, not overlapping social worlds, not an interconnection of two worlds, but one continuous experience.