Advances in Equal Opportunity: Where We Are Now

Wtf? What are you talking about? Did you raed her post? She responded to my comment with a very dripping commentary on both Prok and the people who posted about the blog here. That includes you. You're issue is not with me, I didn't describe the behavior using the terms she used. All i pointed out was that you are calling attention to ideas you disagree with by posting comments here.

I do wish all the history could just be set aside and that we could move forward - but threads like this, couched in "congratulating Linden Lab for their improvements" does little to help because it incites the exact same animosities all over again. Ultimately, individuals have to work out their differences if it is not going to be an endless circle of animosity. It is not easy, believe me - but I think that if Catherine Cotton and I can find common ground and make peace, just about anyone can. Granted, it may all go to hell again someday, but I am hoping it doesn't. Cocoanut and I are a bit more tenuous with each other, but I don't dislike her at all. I just wish honestly she would let the past go and move forward without bringing it along for the ride. Hell, maybe we all need to do more of that.

You are right about one thing. My issue is not with you, yet you had no right to call me a rat based on something someone else said.

Cris, Cienna called your behavior unhealthy and akin to rats eating cocaine till it kills them.

One more time: I think you are calling more attention to views you disagree with by bringing them into this forum. The responses to this statement seem over reactionary and emotional.

I know Cienna said the statement, reiterated by you. Cienna is nothing if not harsh in her delivery, and I disgree with her assessment of it. As far as your statement, the same views I disagree with are fully on display in this thread - it's all part and parcel of the same issue. You are absolutely right that I am emotional about it - it is definitely a touchy subject with me. Giving negative attention to views I disagree with is calling attention to them in the right context - as in "look at this ridiculous bullshit". Again, reader beware.

I was pointing out that in the statement you quoted me on, I was criticizing the terms Cienna was using and therefore disassociating my question with her condescending judgement.

Please reread, you are way too ready to fight with me. Did I say anything mean, nasty or judgemental? All I'm getting here is that this issue is way to emotional laden to post about without wearing kid gloves.

Well, actually you replied to part of it a few pages back.


Coming from you, I find this pretty ironic.

There sure is, and when folks step into a back and forth months after it began, and refuse to review the whole picture objectively, only behaving as some sort of "reporter of what I see now", who's ragging who can be easily misinterpreted or misconstrued.

No, I don't think you do recognize it. When you insinuate as you did above that Coco is being ragged, you don't recognize that what you are seeing is a response to the continuance of the crusade that Prokofy was (and still is through folks like Coco) heading up, before he was banned. Coco is pushing the same agenda, albeit more carefully.

Here, since you're seem to be so fond of play by play:

"Woman who stood in her yard throwing rocks at her neighbors for months, hit by rocks."

It's such a shock really isn't it, this thing we call human nature.

It's really quite simple. If one wishes to not have themselves picked apart, then they need to stop picking others apart. It's the way human kind works, that's why the words "offense" and "defense" exist. It is why the court systems of the world (in most countries) try to determine who is the instigator in "he said, she said" cases, and then said instigator is generally subjected to the stiffer penalty. We see that this has played out here on these very forums, by virtue of the fact that there is one voice missing. The voice of someone who instigated on a daily basis. Was the response said instigator got pretty? Nope, but if someone keeps poking people with a stick for months on end, it shouldn't be a surprise when those people pick up sticks of their own...

It's really easy to say "rise above" from outside the ring. It's a whole other thing to actually do it (as you yourself have shown us), especially when one is being goaded for months on end.

I am sorry if I came across angry to you - I am not upset at all with you. You are right, it remains a very explosive topic and one generally not wise to interject yourself into the middle of if not necessary.

I disagree. It's been proven over and again that this is not true. I am not going to belabor this point, because I know what I have seen with my own eyes in over 2.5 years in SL. Suffice it to say, many of the people posting in this thread are examples of successful "latecomers". Ironically, even many of those who make the sort of claims you have above enjoy success.

Umm Margaret was replying to Weedy if Im not mistaken. Unless you are Weedy!

By the same token, why did you post the link other than to say "haha see I was right, this person is still a jerk. Read it, but don't pay any attention to it because it's all incorrect."

Of course she wrote about it in her blog... this was a rather large post of Coco's and as far as I know they are still friends. I'm just trying to figure out why people who disagree with her so much give her arguments a semblance of validity by pointing them out to everyone.

Let's assume this is true. What is your proposal for fixing it? Random factors are by their very definition uncontrollable, so I am really having trouble grokking your point here.

I am reminded of another newbie who bought something pretty simplistic and decorative. Simplistic, but the newbie really, really liked it. Liked it enough to try and make her own version. She succeeded.

This terrified her. Her brief experience convinced her that anyone could knock off anything in Second Life with minimal effort and time and that this reality would spell an economic catastrophe for everyone in business in SL.

She then proceeded to conceive of the most bizarre contrivances to counter this. The requirement of "liquid prim" being mined and gathered to create an artificial scarcity being the most inane idea that I can recall.

The reason for this is lack of context, experience and familiarity with the world of SL. While conceptually, yes, it is more than possible for anyone to reproduce anything else, a great many products have sufficient sophistication that their reproduction would take considerable time and skill. Anyone with access to such time and skill would be better served selling their own unique ideas, anyway -- and in most cases, I am sure, they do.

It's amusing to me that such anecdotes become lodged in newbie consciousness so very firmly as to establish such a dogged world view, but there it is. Given enough time and experience, they'll correct their views as required by the obvious facts. Until then, we'll just have to forgive their being inexperienced.

Liquid prims would rock. Or any new prims for that matter.

Did you not notice the part where I quoted myself stating exactly how riduclous the blog entry would be, and that I predicted it verbatim? That was the entire intro to it, thus setting up as being something I found predictably stupid. Anyway, just out of curiousity, when was the last time you saw me post a link to Prokofy's blog and point out anything from Prokofy? Again, in this thread, it was in context, thus I pointed it out. As I said to Margaret, reader beware.

I've heard that prim, in liquid form, is more addictive than crack.

please refrain from personal attacks in this thread As there is also useful discussion going on, I will leave it open for now.

Well, I can't speak to what you feel to read it, but I take enjoyment in knowing that I'm calling a spade a spade.

I'm glad you get such pleasure out of it, whatever words you choose.

Cruel to be kind, Cris. Seriously, the only reason this manner of tripe lives and thrives is the attention given it. Giving ANY attention to the behavior is to enable it, to empower it, and to insure it continues.

I keep seeing people (including you) say they're tired of it and wish it would stop... but at every opportunity, they are there to throw their own kerosene on the fire.

It's like the Israelis and the Arabs. It no longer matters who started it, neither are willing to end it. Actually, that's probably a damn sight more accurate than I knew when it tripped off my fingertips.

You want to see it end? Stop feeding it. Stop empowering it. Stop enabling it.

True in many ways, but you can't let shit stand either. When someone is deliberately trying to corrupt the minds of new residents with old or percieved issues, it needs to be refuted.

Not really. Bullshit has its own smell built in... think about it, and realise that all this continued feeling of 'required rebuttal' does is lend it all much more credibility than it ever had on its own.

Perhaps, but I would rather rebut and observe a forum train wreck than see new residents corrupted by a couple of malcontents.

I don't know about others, but I developed the feeling of "success depending on luck / early birds got all the worms" as a result of playing SL, before reading anything on the forums.

So yes, it needs to be rebutted if newbies think it (and if it's false of course ). Now, people posting it over and over again is another matter...

That blog and the assumption of so-called equality serve little other purpose other than to bring grief and on a daily basis. There is absolutely nothing constuctive said there, other than to perpetuate disdain towards other residents, by causing grief at a personal level.

If I ignore the weeds in my garden, they don't go away by themselves. I don't purport to have the cure for weeds either, but I can tear them out by the roots and let them rot on the heap. Next season, I will see the benefit of it, by using it as compost.

Long term effect.