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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday March 22 2017, @08:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the believe-it-when-I-see-it dept.

As the world ends, will you lock arms and sing "Kumbayah" or embark on a path of law-breaking, anti-social behavior?

A new study, based upon the virtual actions of more than 80,000 players of the role-playing video game ArcheAge, suggests you'll be singing.

The study, conducted by a University at Buffalo-led team of computer scientists, will be presented next month at the International World Wide Web Conference in Australia. It found that despite some violent acts, most players tended toward behavior that was helpful to others as their virtual world came to an end.

Researchers acknowledge that the results have limitations -- namely that they are based upon a video game, not real life. Nevertheless, researchers argue that the study offers a realistic view into the behavior of people in an end-times scenario that is useful to both the game industry and other research communities.

"We realize that, because this is a video game, the true consequences of the world ending are purely virtual. That being said, our dataset represents about as close as we can get to an actual end-of-the-world scenario," says Ahreum Kang, postdoctoral researcher at UB's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and the study's lead author.

What would happen if the world was ending? As with most questions in life, Nicolas Cage has already supplied us with the answer.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:33PM (4 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:33PM (#482956)

    our dataset represents about as close as we can get to an actual end-of-the-world scenario

    They need to think outside the box a little more. We have tons of data on individuals and groups who think the world is ending. Just because component 2452657 of their brains are scrambled doesn't necessarily mean the rest is, so that's probably how non-crazy people would act if the world were actually ending.

    Mostly they seem to end up dead, mostly self inflicted-ish. Heavens Gate 20 years ago. The Kool Aide drinkers 40 years ago. Yet, if the leaders aren't nuts often nothing too bad happens to the followers.

    My gut level guess is this implies what passed for an "end of the world" government that still feels optimistic for a last second save would likely keep a VERY close eye on leaders and liquidate the squirrely ones.

    Depending on the time line I imagine a lot of people wouldn't make it to the end. Say an asteroid is arriving in five years. The credit markets will collapse leading to total economic collapse leading to no petrochemicals and no food and no electricity for five years, no electricity means no clean fresh water and no sewage treatment, so almost all people will be dead almost five years early, mostly of like cholera and exposure and dehydration. No electricity and no people mean all the nukes and storage pools melt down, its quite a mess. It would be a shame if better orbital measurements three years later would have indicated a near miss hitting the moon or some darn thing due to something in the decimal places that was missed.

    Its interesting to model what happens as the threshold is pushed out. Say its gonna hit in 3017. "eh". 2517. "eh". 2117 "OK get that star trek stuff booted up". 2067 "Um... get that star trek stuff booted up NOW" 2047 "BAU... for awhile." 2027 "For all intents and purposes it hit today WRT societal collapse"

    Another interesting concept. It gonna hit the X hemisphere in 10 years. Guess who's coming to visit from the Y hemisphere? In fact there's an interesting alt hist steampunk ish story... "Peshawar Lancers" from 2003, isn't that the plot? I mean its going to suck in hemisphere Y but its going to suck less...

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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:44PM (3 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:44PM (#482964)

    Mostly they seem to end up dead, mostly self inflicted-ish. Heavens Gate 20 years ago. The Kool Aide drinkers 40 years ago. Yet, if the leaders aren't nuts often nothing too bad happens to the followers.

    The problem with this analysis is that you're only looking at extremist religious kooks, people crazy enough to join a doomsday religious cult. Intelligent, sane people don't join such things.

    However, your analysis of economic impacts is very good. No one with a brain is going to invest in credit markets when a planet-killer asteroid is coming in 5 years, even if we aren't 100% sure it's going to hit us, and that'll cause massive repercussions. It really would be funny, in a dark way, if our civilization was completely destroyed not by an asteroid impact, but an asteroid near-miss because it was predicted to be an impact.

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:53PM (2 children)

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:53PM (#482966)

      Intelligent, sane people don't join such things.

      Intelligent folk do, sure.

      Sane, well, they're sane outside judgment issues. I mean theres a lot of insanity and they don't necessarily have a mood disorder or irrational fear or hear voices. Just really, really bad judgment about the future.

      Think about a global warming catastrophist. We all gonna die horribly real soon now when the seas rise 50000 meters and all species die! I'm sure of it! They're not idiots or crazy in the hearing voices sense, just hopped up on a bit of nonsense.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by Grishnakh on Thursday March 23 2017, @02:35AM

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday March 23 2017, @02:35AM (#483051)

        I guess you aren't either intelligent or sane then, with that moronic screed about global warming. No one said the seas would rise 50km, just a few. It doesn't take much to turn coastal cities like NYC into places like Venice, with all the streets underwater and massive flooding. Given how much scientific data supports this conclusion, you have to be an idiotic religious loon to disbelieve it, thinking you "know better" somehow.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:17PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 23 2017, @01:17PM (#483195)

        I mean theres a lot of insanity and they don't necessarily have […] irrational fear […]

        Are you sure? They expect the end of the world, after all!