Anonymity

Good simulations allow people to do whatever they want to do; good virtual worlds allow people to be whatever they want to be ¹.

Anonymity is itself a neutral concept: You can use it for good or for evil. In practice, someone has to know who you really are, so you can be called to account should you cause pandemonium. In virtual worlds, this will be the administrators; other players don’t get proof of who you are unless (through your behavior) you give it to them.

Reduced consequences for actions makes for the disinhibition that so characterizes virtual worlds. Anonymity is central to this, because only through anonymity do people have the freedom to change. If you make a mistake in the virtual world, you can restart; it’s okay to experiment, to take risks. However, if a real-world friend finds out about some virtual-world mistake, restarting will not erase it. Contact with reality collapses virtual identity like observation does a quantum wave.