Second Life

Did you know there's an alternative world out there, enclosed within this digital realm, a parallel planet in which corporations and organizations buy plots of land and design them to their liking, and either have public or private gatherings where everyone can commute and communicate in their digital form?

I signed up for an account there, for some social media course a few years back, and it's pretty crazy how big this world has become. The first snapshot is just a small portion of a more densely populated part of the world, the second one a close-up on some random area. And that's just the terrain, zoom in more and you can see huge architectural complexes representing real-world counterparts, thousands of conference halls (if not tens or hundreds), vast landscapes that don't actually exist just so people can bridge distances and meet up online in as homely areas as possible.

When this thing first started out, it was a huge phenomena, but thanks to more fluent social communities and multi-user chat clients the need for a full-fledged alternative life seems to have decreased a bit. Or maybe it's just the MMORPGs taking over. I don't know about you, but I'd rather meet real people in the real world, not make the net as real a fraction of reality as possible. This is dreamland to me, a place where everything is possible, a dimension where people can transcend their human form and become whatever they want; do whatever they want; not even exist and still roll around the world on a sofa. Amazing place.