Our second big panel show features Anne Charnock, Laura Lam, Yvonne Battle-Felton and Antoine Wilson on a topic that is inspired by a short story by Ken Liu and a quote by Cory Doctorow from a recent interview with the CBC.

Technologists often want to tell us that immersive virtual reality technology with its potential to experience different embodiments and experiment with gender, age and ethnicity is superior to following the news, watching documentary films or even having conversations with those affected by specific issues when it comes to feeling true and deep, even long-lasting empathy with individuals from different “walks of life”.

But isn’t reading stories a form of embodiment? When a gifted storyteller can conjure up characters that have very different experiences than our own and we feel connected to them, feel through them and leave the time we spend with the story/book/narrative feeling as if we have truly grown, what is this other than a transformation into a different body , akin to switching from one Second Life avatar to another one and interacting with the world, virtual or physical?

Check this video from a while back about Virtual Ability Island in SL. The sentiment expressed fits neatly into our theme today:

We will discuss the promise and the peril of the very technology that we are using for bringing these wordsmiths together during the time of lockdown. We will celebrate stories and the people who tell them with the people who love them.

Join us at 10am Pacific Time in Second Life [we are at a new venue that seats 200 going forward] or watch the livestream on Facebook, YouTube or Twitter.

The reading list for this episode is at Bookshop.org

If you could not make it to the show you can watch the full playlist here: