Abstract
Intensely ideological, but also rather fun, Tabula Rasa was a glorious failure. Its demise warns that the real human future may fail as well. The name refers to the “clean slate” with which many early psychologists believed an infant enters the real world, and with which an avatar enters this outer space gameworld. Step by step, the avatar adds fundamental concepts to a tabula or tablet, which confer ever greater powers through gradual enlightenment. Tabula Rasa therefore offers fresh thinking about the future and in a sense requires a person to abandon preconceptions and strongly held values. Perhaps that is why it failed: Most people avoid any challenge to the basis on which they live their lives, and few game players are emotionally or intellectually prepared to clean their slates. Tabula Rasa advocated nothing less than escaping the world we currently inhabit.
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Bainbridge, W.S. (2011). Tabula Rasa. In: The Virtual Future. Springer Series in Immersive Environments. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-904-8_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-904-8_3
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