towards a stronger sl community

Yes, Morgaine, apply to this to yourself LOL. You are not "above it all".

Wrong. My stance is not coercive, I do not try to apply laws that reflect my preferences to others. You do.

The whole point of the "rule of law" is that it is the sum greater than parts, that reflects higher values or at the very least, the consensus of a community willing to limit some facets of their freedom for the greater good of providing more freedom for everyone.

When I sign up for the vision of you and your grouplet, I have absolutely no protection against your own ruthless persona -- and such ruthless personas get to be a real big pain in the ass on the Internet.

I'm going to take the time to answer you in detail because now I see I have to be your worst nightmare: a person who cares about freedom on the Internet.

You're the one with a coercive ideology borrowing pages from all the totalitarian ideologies of the recent centuries.

Your ideology would first and foremost remove the TOS. You're open source and "free for you free for me" landscape will be deprived of any protection from griefing or worse.

Yes, and that's why I'm showing up to taunt you and your dinosaurs drawing sustenance from age-old ideologies that many people shed in the last 50 years.

Now, let's have you go through a little test.

Do you acknowledge the TOS in SL and agree to abide by the TOS?

Or is your signature upon entry of this game worthless because it is "bollocks"?

Do you plan to abolish the institution of TOS when you "take over" the "open source project" everywhere? (because that's going to be a neat system, isn't it, getting all that enthusiastic, idealistic free labour everywhere, with yourself as the guiding light)

So in your open grid, there are no TOS whatever because that would be "too restrictive"? It's going to be "anything goes"? What's your plan for dealing with griefing?

Nothing you said in the two posts above is worth responding to, Prokofy, because you keep on raising the straw man of me taking something over, and then you want to fight that fiction which you yourself have introduced.

I don't think you understand the concept of non-coercion. There is nothing for you to fight or rail against, because a non-coercive community does not force you to submit to it.

So your above points are totally irrelevant.

Please read Robin's statements in the Hotline to Linden link I gave earlier.

Let me draw your attention specifically to the phrases
andIn other words, mechanisms to support general freedom of the individual, and very specifically not mechanisms to support imposition of the law of the majority on the rest.

I don't know what you're screaming about here, Morgaine, because I've read Robin's post, and I couldn't agree more:



I've started some of these neighbourhood associations, or I've joined those started by others. I haven't yet seen a situation where there were some "holdouts" who "refused to join" due to sectarian ideologies such as your own.

Most people get it that these vehicles are voluntary, and non-coercive. They are just simply tools of communication, announcement-sharing, and voting. They aren't vehicles for somebody forcing everybody to do something on a sim. How could they be? They are voluntary. And they have no enforcement powers over individual landowners. For example, if the community association agreed that pink boxes shedding light should be removed, they can ask the pink-box shedder to comply with the majority rule, but of course that pink-box shedder on land he owns isn't required to do a goddamn thing.

What happens more often than not, however, is that the community association is an important dispute resolver. Instead of one person making one other mad and making their life miserable, he can open up the dispute to some other more impartial eyes.

Let's say one person makes a store on their lot and another feels that if the sim is voluntary residential, that owner shouldn't do it. Let's say the issue is put to the community, and the outraged party finds that most people don't care if there is a store there if it isn't lagging the sim, if it is a small business and not a mall. Then the issue becomes "is it an ugly build?" and then people are going to be hard-put to defend their aesthetic notions against diametrically opposed aesthetic notions. We're about to test this in various ways, but honestly, your idea of "one person taking over" is completely hysterical and unreasonable.

"One person" can't take over in a sim of full-fledged property owners where each person owns their own property and does what they wish within the TOS on their property.

Is your signature on the TOS "bollocks" or not?

I'd like to know a thing like that before I join in the general sophisticated intelligentsia bowing and scraping to you and your "ideas".

Is your signature on the TOS a worthless scrip?

Answer. Yes or No.

Morgaine, my sincere apologies for being snippy with you the other day. You certainly get two massive thumbs up from me for that post. Very very well said! Cheers.

Morgaine, I'm your worst nightmare. I'm an American who cares about freedom on the Internet. You're not going to be shaking me loose, hon. I haven't seen anything as troublesome to come along in SL in a long time as you and your ideas, and I plan to be right there exposing them as the fake freedom they are everywhere you appear.



Yeah, achieve with ridicule what you can't achieve with rhetoric?



Yes, actually Pooh, when he is being a little bit more forthright than usual, says FUCKING bollocks. What, can't muster it?

Respond to my theses, or don't, but don't hide behind your paucity of rhetoric.



Let's start with a simple premise. Do you abide by the TOS, or not? Does your signature on the TOS have meaning, or is it a worthless scrip?

I like to know that before I debate somebody about the future of the game or "freedom on the Internet" because I usuallly find that even minimal laws are important to preserve everybody's freedoms in general, rather than the extremist and sectarian anarchist/Marxist viewpoint that everything is relative, there is no authority, and any appeals to authority are suspect.

If the TOS is no authority for you because it is a dinosaur, a pointless decoration, obsolete, like Prok's stupid calls to a higher law, well...could we get just a tiny inkling what WILL rule our world? Will it be Morgaine Dinova's Arrogant Condescending Tekkie Bullshit Fascism?



Well if you were really going to be a student of your extremist political grandfathers, you would have completely thrown out "natural law" as some kind of bourgeois invention. So if you are going to concede the existence of a higher natural law, who gets to be blessed with its interpretation? Just Morgaine Dinova. *Shudders*

In a global, multicultural context like SL, it sure does help to state the obvious and "natural" and "inherent" because not everybody is educated.

That's why they have a TOS to sign when you enter the world.



Well, it does, if it is going to lead inexorably to Morgaine Dinova's Bullshit Fascism, which is where it *does* lead if I and others cannot have any protection from your ruthless subjectivity.

For me, the value judgements of a company that gets together time, talent, and treasure and makes something like SL are to be greatly respected. They make a TOS. They have a private club pretty much open to anybody who will follow their club's rules. I pay $9.95 and abide by their rules. I think some of their rules are silly (swearing in PG zone), some of their rules are just artifacts of mor-peg culture they need to shed if they becomes a real world and not a gaming/entertainment company, but I sign up, and I suck it up if I get punished. It's their world, their servers, their labour, and my stake in it is minimal.

By the same token, on my sim which I've purchased with my own money, then resold to others who want a residential sim, our judgements, taken as a collective, can become a higher value for all of us. We need not obsess like Chomskian hyenas about whether we've included every minority and let every minority hijack our legitimate deliberations (the usual bane of sectarian leftist movements, and the usual reason that they can never get beyond a Howard Dean or a Ralph Nader and get a real candidate going that could really defeat the other side which is busy eroding all their freedoms while they sit in endless meetings trying to decide this or that sectarian platform and matters of party discipline).

If we have a bounce-scripter in our midst, for example, we can protest, try to persuade, maybe get compliance, but if we don't, we'll make do. However we might then muster ARs, negrates, forum discussions, etc. to try to get somebody off their high horse of using the bounce script.



Um, I think the situations of, I dunno, Russia, China, Sudan, illustrate it a whole lot admirably I'm beginning to see the contours of your anti-American worldview and what animates it.

What is great about an open society is that it recognizes that while absolutes may exist, nobody has a franchise on the truth. In your rigid fascistic world, you have a franchise on the truth. I'm willing to debate you and take you seriously because I believe in this debate we might find the truth and learn something in the process and perhaps persuade each other or the others watching. I see that as the logical activity of an open mind in an open society.

What you're doing is seeking, through ridicule, arrogant dismissal, etc. is simply to avoid the open debate in an open society -- and you who are Mr. Open Source.

By pointing out the flaws of democracy -- the worst system except for all the others -- you never persuade me to junk liberal democracy in favor of and endless chain of closed sectarian societies populated by you and your friends who took over the "open sourced grid". No thanks!

If you don't have a system for creating and preserving freedom of others as you chase your own freedom, you don't have an argument or a system anyone will sign up for.

Currently you have a recipe to make a million sects which, if human history is any example, will create a million warring principalities. All this yahoo rhetoric you spout about rule of law being meaningless because of wars in RL, in order to rally the masses who fear war, will only lead to MORE war.



Well, few people endorse your cynical and extremist view. It's just the typical extremist ideology of a young mind or a memed mind or a mind unexposed to a variety of ideologies. All you have to do to understand you are wrong is to look at this highly-flawed voting device on this webpage. I think it's filled with so many problems as to be worthless, but I'm willing to concede that it has served as a means of making some community wishes known that were not accessible before. I don't see any big personalities dominating these voting boards, even in the formation and flogging of propositions. That's actually quite interesting.

I've seen many even hopeless-case totalitarian and authoritarian systems change in RL and "pan leaders" appear even in very hopeless situations, so I simply cannot agree with you. I don't think that even the viciously self-reinforcing circle of the FIC can ever prevail. The FIC is only as strong as their ability to push through things like their latest bid to have Linden cards put on their own land instead of Governor land -- and since I helped put the kabosh on that self-serving pandering, the powerlessness of FIC-dom has been exposed.

Honestly, Morgaine, you're going to really hate someone who loves fighting for freedom as much as you do, but wants real freedom in a liberal democracy with protections for the rule of law and minorities, and who doesn't want an "anything goes" freedom created by a sectlet on their land that they help replicate across the grid with their reputation for being "open source" promoters. No thanks.



Yes, it's often the case that wannabe demagogues such as yourself touting some Big Idea across the net can't face the music when someone calls them on their pernicious ideologies, and can only resort to name-calling.



You're notion of "coercive" is a neo-notion and an insidious one that overlooks the coercion you'd really instititute by letting bands of thugs roam around defiant of law.
Oh, you think you're going to be the intelligent ones and not criminals? But what is my protect against that?

I'm not coercive at heart. You are. You want to force endless subjectivity and your own whims, multiplied by a million other sects, on the majority, who would prefer the rule of law by consensus.

Did you accept to be bound by the TOS, or not, Morgaine? Answer the question. Or did Linden Labs perform an "unacceptable act of coercion" on you (*rolls eyes*) by refusing to indulge your silly little sectarian notion of howling because "laws were made that applied even to those who did not accept to be bound by them."

I'm willing to bet if LL created non-TOS land, a Badlands that they'd pay for, for you and your pals to roam around unchecked, that they'd find no one, not even 7-day trial griefers, would move into it.



Well, you ARE trying to coerve everybody into junking their common sense, their centuries of experience, their working RL analogies, and go with your anarcho-leftoid-whatsis viewpoint. Why?

I'm not for having a government, precisely because it would be forced to make all kinds of crazy rules and ordinances and edicts and temporary states of emergency and all kinds of other fool things that RL governments make when they haven't first obtained the really informed and democratic consent of the governed.

On your sim, with your other logical positivsts confreres, you can do your thing. I think it will definitely be short-lived for some lol.



Universality -- as opposed to some vague "universalism" that we can't figure out means "totalitarianism" or "Morgaine's whacko view of the universe" or WHAT -- is the way to go. Universality is embodied in the TOS, as flawed as they are. Universality is embodied in community associations, as flawed as they are, based on the notion that people can and do create a higher good than themselves, whether recognition of God or nature, or whether a manmade higher value, and they use common sense and good will to abide by it for the greater good of the community.

In your world, every arrogant subjectivity disintegrates the cooperative whole with a million special-interest pleading and disruption, so that the greater goal of keeping a liberal society never gets done.



As far as I can tell, you're the dinosaur by harkening back to these dusty old 19th century beliefs of Karl Marx and co. laboriously copied out in German libraries. Why should those dinosaurs rule my world?

You, indeed, DO think that the universe ends at the limits of your personal horizon. Indeed, through your messed-up notion of "universalism" as some kind of evil, you've just convinced me that you do not even believe there *is* a universe at your door. In fact, you think the universe is something you just make up as you go along.

I'm worried about a universe made up of people who not only don't recognize there is a universe, but insist on their maximalist freedoms in it, never giving one whit of concern to things like the rallying cry of Poland's Solidarity: For our freedom and yours!
It's when civic movements can appeal to both an individual's value of freedom through respect of his freedom, and fight for the collective's freedom, it can succeed.

But wait. I'm sure you're about to tell me that Poland's Solidarity is just a creation of "certain circles of Western secret services".

Bleah. You *are* boring if you are going to dish up that kind of tripe.

Just another Bolshevik "enemey of my enemy is my friend" kinda crap.

Chip, did you sign the TOS and do you abide by it? Is your signature a worthless scrip?
Answer the question.

Or, do you believe that: "If you wish to mold everyone to your own preferred image by creating manmade laws that apply even to those who did not accept to be bound by them, then you're coercive."

Yeah, I know. A demagogue like Morgaine who comes along to get community respect with fake open ideas can often appeal to your innate rabble-rouser by inciting you against non-existent "enemies of your freedom.

But...where are those enemies of your freedom, Chip? You're ultra-conservative on most issues, so...where is the reasoning for your subscription to this extremist leftwing maniac? (I think the answer lies in the ways in which some people go so far left as to emerge on the right).

He's saying the TOS is an impossible institution that we cannot allow to exist because it intolerable appplies, as a manmade law, "even to those who did not accept to be bound".

Oh, you DO think the TOS is ok and you DO abide?

Well, then, if I made a sim or a community association with a TOS, too, and place it for voluntary subscription or not in a notecard, what would be different?

Whereas if you are going to say you love Morgaine's ideas (because I debated him, only for that reason), then be prepared to face the music on their logical consequence:

they are criminal, and they are incitement to junk the TOS.

*whispers* Aliens....

He's not saying any of those things Prokofy, and if you'd pull your head out of your ass for ten seconds you'd probably have figured that out.

Do you and Morgaine Dinova abide by the TOS and is your signature on the TOS worthless scrip or not?

Answer the question.

If you say "yes" then you've just totally undermined your own stupid sectarian bullshit argument about how "manmade laws can never apply to everyone" and "laws are crap because they are just the products of politicians" and blah blah blah.

Either you think it is possible to create the rule of law, imperfect as it is, or not. Either you think a body of rules can be something higher than all of us based on our shared consensus, or you do not.

If the answer is "no," I hope LL will cancel your account.

When did this thread become about the TOS, Prokofy? As usual you're trying to warp the conversation to fit your own narrow agenda. Morgaine was responding to your assertions and hyperbole with logic and rationalism. Morgain and I disagree on many (perhaps even most) things, but his critique of your screed was spot on, especially this bit...



Trying to warp the conversation into a yes or no question about the TOS is a straw man.

Who is this Straw Man anyway?

Well folks, now you see it quite plainly.

He starts off with lovely rhetoric about embracing minorities and everyone else in his lovely open liberal communities ... and then does nothing but throw hatred at the first person who dares step out from under his proposed rule of law, with a lovely dash of "commie", "sectarian", "Bolshevik", "Fascist" insults thrown in.

It's kind of funny, in a sad way. So this is the kind of loving community he wants to build.

Rant away, Prokofy, there is no need for me to say anything at all at this point, you're doing fine.

Hehe..sorry..but I do believe that a sense of purpose, even a brief one, or a common cause, is a proven, and quick way, to bring a community together, and an Alien invasion would help in that regard.

The Straw Man is a friend of Prokofy's. His website is here, here, and here.

Ah, so you do admit that commies, sectarians, Bolsheviks, and Fascists are in the MINORITY!

Whew. Thank God. For a minute I thought you were another brainless wonder.

Could you get off the insult train for a second Morgaine and comment:

DO YOU OR DO YOU KNOW RECOGNIZE THE TOS AND IS YOUR SIGNATURE ON IT A WORTHLESS SCRIP????

HOW A HIGH INTELLECT ARRANGES A POST SUCH AS TO CONTAIN NO SWEEPING GENERALIZATIONS OR INSULTS OR SLANDERS

...

Oops, wait a sec...was that maybe not a good example?

You're just twisting in the wind now Prokofy.

Funnily enough, David, --- and this may be more on topic than the recent debacle here --- there's a MMOG that lends some virtual-world support to your light-hearted statement above.

The SciFi MMOG Anarchy Online brought out an expansion called Alien Invasion, which suddenly introduced an invasion of aliens into a previously closed world. That world had until then been populated by warring factions, a theme common to many MMOGs.

Since its earliest days, the planet of Rubi-Ka was shared by three sides (I'm going to be strictly even-handed in this): the greedy corporate lackies of the planetary Omni-Tek Corporation, the uncouth and anarchic Clans seeking to destroy everything that is Omni, and the untrustworthy Neutrals just out to make a quick buck in between the other two sides.

The game has an optional PvP side to it, and inevitably players from opposing sides end up hating each other more than is strictly necessary for pure roleplay. And of course, everyone hates the Neutrals, even they do themselves, haha, since some of them side with Omni and some with Clan, and they switch around. It's a microcosm of RL.

Anyway, you can guess where this is leading --- when the aliens landed, the warring sides suddenly found a common enemy, and old hatreds started to soften. (In reality it was more complex than this, because an earlier expansion called Shadowlands had introduced other common reasons for cooperation which support your point as well.)

Of course there's nothing new about the politician's much-favoured tactic of avoiding questions about his own competence and integrity by uniting the nation in defence against an external enemy, it's been happening for millennia. And that nasty enemy is always evil, and ruthless, and fundamentalist, and not like us nice people at all. And of course it's always "defence", even when it's our own side that does all the attacking. Such is the reality of politics in real life.

Which brings me back to virtual communities, and peace within them. Undoubtedly we'll see politicians in SL and in the future open metaverse stirring up group-based hatreds much as in RL --- indeed we've seen it in a small way in this thread already with those group-hate labels thrown at me. I wonder then, will the communities of SL get an alien invasion to unite us at some point, and who will the aliens be?

Individual freedom!!! ROFL.

Go ask the Russians about individual freedom
Go ask the Chinese
Go ask the Cambodians
Go ask the Koreans

I imagine Karl Marx spouted much the same twaddle as this when he started out too.In the 14,000000 times you've said a word ending in 'ist' in this thread your did actually forget one..................REALIST.

I detect the attack, Sox. I don't however detect which point is being made.

Care to make one?