Recent Comments:
Augmentation vs Immersion: The debate that never was
Massively
May 16th 2008 1:22PM I think Jacek above has the right of it. In a year of discussing this issue, I've never head anyone take the position that you correctly label "escapist."
I have seen that position repeatedly used as a straw man, and attributed to those of us whose personal situation matches Jacek's.
For myself, I see myself as a separate entity from the person active in the physical world, with whom I share a mind. There's nothing prescriptive in that; it's a simple description of my circumstances.
While there are quite a number of us, we also have vocal critics, people who disrespect our nature. They tend to label us "escapist," claiming that we want some wall between RL and SL, implying that we do so because our RL lives are somehow failed or unpleasant.
Rarely has a stereotype so missed its mark: the only people I've encountered who might qualify as "escapist" are RL-disabled, and not a one of them is an immersionist as Jacek and I, and most commentators, use the term. They're among the most agumentationist, I've found, quick to talk about their physical circumstances and the benefits they find in SL. And still, not a one of them advocates some sort of moat around SL.
Jacek sees the continuum as running between "RL-based personality using their avatar as a screen name" and "SL-based personality fully inhabiting their avatar." The latter might argue for seeing SL as an equal space with RL, but not a separate one.
This only matters because several commentators have chosen to use the "escapist" straw man to remove this issue from the realm of friendly discussion.
Unless and until someone actually stands up and claims the mantle of an escapist, I believe it's a term best discarded.
Odissea the Musical
Massively
May 8th 2008 4:04PM This really had me until I realized I'd need to free a group slot to attend. That's quite a lot to ask for a single event...
Avatar rights: A person chooses, a tool obeys
Massively
Jan 18th 2008 12:19AM Prokofy, at no point did I mention - in this post or in any writing of mine, collectivism.
What I said was that, 200 years ago many societies did not recognize women or slaves as "persons" - not "beings" but "beings with civil rights." This is undeniably the case.
I then said that within 200 years the categories of "beings with civil rights" may expand to include artificial intelligences or intelligences of other species. One could legitimately argue that nonhuman intelligence is impossible, of course.
Avatar rights: A person chooses, a tool obeys
Massively
Jan 17th 2008 3:54PM Well said - I agree with you completely.
Avatar rights: A person chooses, a tool obeys
Massively
Jan 17th 2008 3:52PM I disagree with you across the board: http://sophrosyne-sl.livejournal.com/52892.html
In short:
1. Tools *do* have rights of their own: see the 400 year history of the corporation.
2. There's a good claim (though there are arguments on the other side) that a person should not lose core rights when they act in a digital, as opposed to an atomic, space. Thus, persons should have similar rights when acting through avatars as when they act through physical bodies.
3. The concept of "one body, one person" is peculiar to this particular moment in moral/political history. Two hundred years ago few people would have drawn the circle of personhood so broadly; two hundred years from now, no one will draw it so narrowly. Equating one person - one body - one avatar is unwise and perhaps immoral.
Blue Mars sneak preview
Massively
Nov 28th 2007 5:29PM Without user-created content, they'll have a retention rate that'll make Second Life's look amazing.
After I've come in and looked around, why come back? To talk to people who're happy in a place that *prevents* their creativity?
This isn't science fiction, it's ancient history. Push content went out with three TV stations. Blue Mars looks to be as dried up, dead and fossilized as the Red one....
Relaxing Old Paradigms Via SL
Second Life Insider
Sep 24th 2007 12:26PM @Kyzaadro - you *do* put your best face on for your customers, yes - which means dressing and acting in a way appropriate to the local culture, not the home office.
Companies have been doing multicultural business forever too - which means blue suit in Manhattan, slacks and boots in Austin, t-shirts in San Jose, short sleeve shirts in Panama City.
SL isn't Manhattan, and it's not Hollywood. Business people should dress accordingly - which means, bring your imagination.
Businesses had to go through an adaption phase to teach employees that "casual Fridays" didn't mean pajamas. They'll just have to do the same thing for SL.
But if anyone wanted me to take their SL business presence seriously? They wouldn't come to a meeting with me in a tie and a Rolex - I'd take that as a clear signal of either their ignorance or disrespect of the culture they were trying to work in.
Perfect Card to Create SL Debit Cards
Second Life Insider
Aug 22nd 2007 12:10PM That article really didn't give much in the way of detail.
I'd love a prepaid debit card in my name, so that when I make purchases on SLExchange, or pay tier on my property, I could do it in *my* name, rather than using the credit card of the atomic person I share space with.
I think it'd be a huge step forward in avatar rights: as long as my money's good, why shouldn't it be in my name?
Immersionists vs. Augmentationists 2: The Voicening
Second Life Insider
Aug 15th 2007 2:31PM There are dozens of good reasons for not wanting to use or hear voice, that have been set out all over the community. Personally, I've yet to *encounter* voice - it seems I only travel in Immersionist circles!
I think the article you cite has it all backwards too - Immersionists *are* transhumanists, and militant augmentationists (militant ones, not people who are just using SL as a tool for their First Lives) are often cultural reactionaries, lashing out against our transformation beyond the limitations of the atomic world.
I think what voice is showing is that we've already segregated ourselves....
Visual metaphors - the user interface isn't what you think it is
Second Life Insider
Aug 15th 2007 12:07AM And, yet, at some level some of us still look at the metaphor of virtual land, and think that we can treat it the same way as real land. Is the metaphor so convincing? Or others look at it and see.. nothing. Smoke and fog. They're missing the metaphor - but why?
I think you've gotten it entirely backwards. What you call "real land" is a metaphor - or set of metaphors - to exactly the same degree that virtual land is, and there's no coherent basis for privileging one over the other.
"Real land" is, first, a cloud of subatomic particles that's mostly empty space. Next it's a collection of laws, regulations, contracts, customs, expectations. It's a legacy of conquest in many parts of the world, and of indigenous oppression. It is what the courts and legislatures and cops say it is, and they say different things to different people at different times.
There's no sense in which your mortgaged house is more "real" than your SL beachfront: they're both bundles of rights and expectations, and of electrons and photons. And they're both *entirely* artificial constructs.
Both are as real, or as fictional, as we agree they are today....
