C’mon WoW. Save our economy!

When even NPR’s Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me host, Peter Sagal, refers to the current economic situation as a “cluster bleep”, you know we’re in trouble. Part of the problem is that no one can be quite sure how to fix it because economics isn’t the sort of science that lends itself to rigorous experimentation. I mean, what are you supposed to do? Create two societies with real people and different economic structures, and watch and see what happens? Well…maybe.

My message to the President (seriously, I actually sent this a few minutes ago):

“Wouldn’t it benefit stimulus policy debates if economic theory could be tested? Economic theory is impossible to test on real people, but isn’t it possible to approximate an experiment in the virtual economies of mmorpgs (massively multi-player online role playing games)? Popular mmorpgs already have organic societies and economies that, with some alterations, could reflect economic realities. Current software designers and players could easily be called to serve in experiments. Think about it.”

Oh, how I hope that somehow gets to the right geek on his staff. At minimum, I want someone on government payroll to go, “Huh,” before deleting it.

I only had 500 characters to send an online message to the White House and I used 499 of them. Otherwise I might have explained a bit further. If you’re staring at your screen bewildered, here’s what my old standby Wikipedia says, condensed for your convenience:

A mmorpg is a computer game in which a large number of players interact with one another in a virtual world. Mmorpgs are distinguished from many other games by the number of players and by the persistent world, which continues to exist and evolve while the player is away from the game.

I don’t personally play any mmorpgs, but I know people who love them. As an anthropologist, I find the whole concept pretty fascinating, particularly the economic systems.

Awaiting the White House’s response,

Betty