Abstract
Manipulating society has traditionally been the preserve of politicians and the gods. Does the current boom in virtual worlds give social scientists and economists an opportunity to join them? Jim Giles investigates. Economics and social science tend not to rely on experiment. It's not a practical way of comparing the merits of ruthless dictatorship and popular democracy, and in the real world there are so many inconvenient variables. But the popularity of virtual worlds such as Second Life, a three-dimensional virtual world with nearly 2 million 'inhabitants', could provide a test for social theories without bringing (real) governments down.
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