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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.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday March 22 2017, @09:44PM (3 children)
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)
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
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
Are you sure? They expect the end of the world, after all!