Act Vs. Speech
For an intriguing discussion of the distinction between "act" and "speech" in a virtual environment, see Jennifer L. Mnookin, "Virtual(ly) Law: The Emergence of Law in LambdaMOO." Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Volume 2, Number 1 (June 1996), especially the section titled "Speech Rights and Harassment." (Available at http://jcmc.huji.ac.il/vol2/issue1/lambda.html.) Mnookin's discussion underscores my point about the fundamentally intellectual nature of the prevailing Western sense of self. In this case, "acts" are defined in intellectual rather than physical terms.