About Me

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Australian philosopher, literary critic, legal scholar, and professional writer. Based in Newcastle, NSW. My latest books are THE TYRANNY OF OPINION: CONFORMITY AND THE FUTURE OF LIBERALISM (2019); AT THE DAWN OF A GREAT TRANSITION: THE QUESTION OF RADICAL ENHANCEMENT (2021); and HOW WE BECAME POST-LIBERAL: THE RISE AND FALL OF TOLERATION (2024).

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Evolution in action














I was looking at some pics I'd taken in Second Life over time. It's remarkable how my avatar has gradually become more realistic-looking by incremental progression since a few months ago.
Whether either of the SL pics bears any resemblance to the real me, in the middle for comparison with the old one underneath and the new one on top, is another question entirely. In that respect, I've cheerfully progressed from cruelly recognisable self-caricature to (perhaps less recognisable) super-optimistic idealisation.

5 comments:

Blake Stacey said...

Isn't this more an example of "Intelligent Design"? ;-)

Blake Stacey said...

More seriously, SL seems like a fascinating place for testing evolutionary computation. Release a thousand creatures into the virtual reality, allow them to reproduce and mutate, and let the virtuous survive! I'm sure this violates some SL Terms of Service, but it does sound like a great way to show people just what natural selection can do.

(It's certainly a lot cooler than flooding the system with grey goo.)

Blake Stacey said...

Ah, it's been done.

Anonymous said...

The new avatar looks great. I also like the shirt.

drjon said...

Apropos of, A two-minute explanation of Second Life.

Advisory: NOT WORK-SAFE!!! But bloody funny.