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As one surveys the amount of outside influence synthetic worlds have - significantly changing the real-world institutions that some 10 million people or more are involved in - it becomes evident that this is quite a powerful toolbox. Think of it. Here is a form of practical art, a design skill, that can build places whose effects radiate outward into the daily lives of millions of people. Those who are hungry for connection go there to find groups to join. Those hungry for a sense of mission go to accomplish things. Those who feel trapped go there to explore. Those who feel dominated by their environment go there to make a difference. A breathtakingly complex system of game mechanics and AI programs provides the user with experiences not available elsewhere. It does this by forming the community of users into a society that does things our Earth society does not. It also provides users with content and AI-based relationships that are hard to find on Earth. In all these ways, synthetic worlds provide users with emotions that can be both good and bad, much like art or any other form of constructed experience. Unlike these other forms, however, synthetic worlds powerfully validate these emotions, by creating them in a community of like-feeling humans.

Given their emotional purchase, it should be no surprise that the social environments within synthetic worlds have begun to meld into the social environment of the Earth. No frontier is truly separate from its homeland; one dramatically affects the other. The rules of the game in synthetic worlds serve only to create a certain kind of society. When that society interacts with the society of Earth, which operates under its own set of rules, the rule sets of both systems begin to change and adapt, as institutional theorists would predict. How the rules evolve will determine what role synthetic worlds will play in the daily lives of people.