Busted For Virtually Nothing

We are three-bald-psychics- floating-in-skim-milk away from becoming the society in The Minority Report. Do you realize that?

Here in the U.S. a few years back, a teenager in Kentucky was arrested for writing a story about zombies taking over his school. He was charged with terrorism. But, see, the interesting part is that zombies don't really exist, no matter what Rider thinks, and the kid who wrote it didn't will them into existence to do his bidding...so no harm no foul, right?

But in the last two days there have been reports about folks being sentenced for crimes they didn't actually commit. It's getting ridiculous.

Two Amsterdam teens were sentenced by a Dutch court to hundreds of hours of community service for stealing virtual objects ("virtual" here meaning: not existing in the real world but only in digital form). They were playing an online game called RuneScape and "coerced" a 13-year-old to transfer "a virtual amulet and a virtual mask to their game accounts."

Doy!

In essence, an eighth-grader was talked into giving up nothing to nobody, and now two real kids are picking up real trash along a real highway (where, ironically, they could be struck by a scary-real semi truck skidding out of control).

Then there's the lady in Japan whose Second Life avatar was virtually married to a virtual dude, but when he "divorced" her she killed his avatar...and went to real prison. Can you imagine being so upset by an imaginary break-up that you delete your ex's character and wind up behind bars?

By this logic, when Johnny Baer ripped up my "Princess Unicorn" story back in third grade, I could've pressed charges because he committed genocide against an entire race of beautiful, pink mythological animals who answered to me and my magic rainbow staff that sprayed floating hearts. I'd like to see him hanged for that atrocity! Butter Gallop ran like the wind and I miss her dearly!

This just the beginning. Courts are going to have to decide where reality and digital worlds meet up, and law books will be rewritten. Judges will have to sentence the guilty for all sorts of criminal nonsense.

Avatars of parents will have to be created to answer for the shenanigans of their virtual kids. They'll appear on YouTube saying, "But we weren't logged in when UltraBobby was destroying MileyFan88's Spore civilization! How could we have known?"

Digital penitentiaries will house criminals with insect wings and giant heads and swords for arms, while their human creators sit blankly in front of monitors showing a jail cell with four walls and a cot...just moving their mouse back and forth as they pace impatiently, waiting for their turn in the exercise yard under the twin moons.

Real people held accountable for fake crimes. Nice.

Note: I'm in a virtual prison myself, as we have a substitute here in computer lab who's taking forever to check the class' work on our bouncing cube project. Jeez.