Neualtenburg's First Birthday

well i certainly don't hate you guys, tho i do resent abit when people make claims that just aren't true... you'd honestly be suprised how many people can literally tell you to yer 'face' in world 'you are not two years old' and sit there and argue about it for an hour, when yer *DATE* is right there on yer profile o.o

thats got nothing to do with you guys at all... but sayin you have the first LL sponsored group charter like that.. or arguing semantics to justify firsts, does at least come off as a lil silly... i wish ya well... you've succeeded in alot guys, and thats cool

you don't need to be bigger'n ya are, yer doin fine already

You know what I'm disappointed by? In my text I point out that the Lindens are an undemocratic oligarchy, I make mention of land vampires, and I discuss Ginko as a pyramid scheme and no one takes offense. Not to mention that there are no antigovernment flames! *sigh*

All my radical issues from a year ago are now accepted as commonplace. Whatever will I do?

~Ulrika~

That is a point. Neualtenburg is very much about splitting the bills among a bunch of people. Private sims require payment to keep around, after all. Beyond the Bavarian theme, and even the self-government aspect... we pay the bills, all of us. The Neualtenburg co-op has a real-world legal existence even if Linden Labs only tags one person as "owning" a sim.

It's not a cult of personality - I don't agree with Ulrika or the SDF all that often, certainly, and the MPP holds the majority. True, Ulrika and Kendra head up our other two "branches" at the moment, but they're also of the handful of founding members from N-burg's main grid days, so I'd say that's more natural circumstance than a Grand Evil Conspiracy To Defraud Us All.

Anyway, despite all of this, I'm there, a member of the Guild, and generally a happy clam. If a contrarian libertarian minarchist can tolerate Neualtenburg, I think it speaks well for other people.

Well, they're commonplace coming from you, right?

I think of the Lindens as less an oligarchy and more benevolent tyrants for life, m'self.

and im dissapointed by people who think droppin the occasional big word or two into a conversation somehow makes up for a factually 'wanting' argument

thats usually known as the fallacy of distraction, aka style over substance

http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/style.htm

Ha ha! I'm saddened that you had to make this personal (by passive aggressive insinuation nonetheless). Yet filled with joy that I might have a good discussion with someone in the forum.

Please demonstrate precisely a part of a post that used large words (style) to conceal a fallacy (substance). Let's go one point at a time until resolution. I've never been above admitting I'm wrong in the face of a good argument.

~Ulrika~

*shoves ulrika into an ice cream cone and licks her to death*

basically the truth of the matter being the claims you made were not all entirely true, the distraction with large words i believe would be best paraphrased as

-- the Lindens are an undemocratic oligarchy

which is essentially a synonym for aristocracy, but far too many people know what aristocracy is, so its not as useful of a word

You mistake Ulrika's interest in precise terms. An oligarchy is not the same as an aristocracy, although an aristocracy can be defined as a type of oligarchy. (But then, the United States of America can also be defined as an oligarchy in fact, depending on who you listen to.)

Given her obvious interest in different forms of government, this isn't really surprising.

You guys crack me up.

let me quote Torley:


Happy Birthday!

Ooh! This is the easy one. I was afraid you were going to call me on the Ginko-being-a-pyramid-scheme one.


The Lindens are a corporatist oligarchy. From the Wikipedia page listing various forms of government, it can be seen that an oligarchy is a class of government which includes aristocracy, corporatism, gerontocracy, kleptocracy, meritocracy, plutocracy, and technocracy to name a few. The definition of oligarchy is simply a political regime where most political power effectively rests with a small segment of society. In this case, it's the Lindens.

They are of the corporatist variety for two reasons. First, elements of our virtual society (forums, events, etc.) are implemented by well-organzed branches of a corporation (LL). Secondly, the only way for non-Lindens to seek political gain is through special interest lobbying (MJW, RAC, and Ulrika).

Because the oligarchy is unelected and lobbying is not democratic, this means that the Lindens oligarchy is by definition undemocratic. Further, the Linden political system provides not a single binding democratic avenue through which non-Lindens can affect change. Note that the online feature voting system, despite passing votes based on majority, is nothing more than a lobbying tool. The winning proposals are not binding and thus the current political system remains undemocratic.

What this means, is that oligarchies can be friendly, despite being undemocratic. This is a challenging concept for the average US citizen, who is taught from birth that anything other than democracy is a "bad thing". I hope I provided sufficient substance.

(*Whew* I had two diaper changes during that one. I have to go to bed now but I'll be back in the morning.)

~Ulrika~

which has pretty much the sum of jack and squat to do with the validity of your original claims, hence my point

hmmm.. You just insulted everyone that is a part of Neualtenberg that is not named Ulrika. Including myself. (of course you are insulting Ulrika too)

Thanks for considering me a sheep Michi. I thought you knew me better.

Exactly the form of government, I'm developing for the future for Neualtenburg's first sister-city. Isenland! Home of the Time Traveling Vikings!

The Isenland government will be in effect a corporatist oligarchy modeled after medieval guilds. It's intent is to be a corporate trading venture engineered for the maximum profit of the worker class which will maintain the city as a business.

So one year from the birth of Neualtenburg --a new city begins to rise from the snow in Takalo (Right next to Anzere -the original birthplace of Neualtenburg). Be sure to visit, as we progress in our building and purchase some of the treasures we periodically liberate from a plethora of civilizations during our temporal raids.

The best part is --It will make me a star!!! (second best part we keep our dragon locked up in the catacombs below the city.)

Oh --and I have some good news --

I just saved a lot of money on my LInden exchanges by switching to Ginko.

Can I be the dragon ?? I have a nifty AV and even have a battle saddle that another av can ride !! OMGZWTF this will be a hoot ! Kendra you keep me rolling !

Didn't you know? That was my plan all along. Lock you up and keep you all fer m'self
You ex-military turn on my motors g-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r--r-r-r

"fallacy of distraction"? Your guilty of using big words! Clearly your trying to mask your argument.



Original claims here.

Which one don't you agree on? Is it the "first land coop" thing? Didn't you just agree that you had a collective not a cooperative?

I would argue if you want to get deep into semantics that everyone can be 'first' at everything they do.

the fact remains however that neualtenburg was not the first player made government in sl, it was not the first linden sanctioned resident created chartered land holding group, it was not even the first group to have a player created, linden accepted and authorized, set of conduct rules aka constitution...

it has by far been the most successful of them, and the most publically prolific... but the fact remains ulrika and others are portraying like they pioneered this 'vision' and its just not true. they perfected it if you will, sure.. even most fully realized it in SL, granted

but it takes away from alot of other deserving people to claim that they pioneered the whole concept of authorized self government.. which big words aside, is essentially what they are trying to 'revise' into sl history.

In the interest of full disclosure: I love Ulrika and I am a rabid supporter of her project.
Still, as the unofficially official SL historian, I have to disagree with eltee et al, in that I find Nburg to actually be the first serious and purposeful attempt at self-government.
The only thing that can compare to it are the old themed sims. But they were very loosely organized and limited in scope. Project management does not a government make.

But apparently it was the first well-mannered one.

see.. thats kind of what they call 'revisionist' history... obviously motorola not alexander gram bell invented the telephone, since today, everyone uses cell phones and thats 'really' what we mean

im just saying that doing it 'best' or 'loudest' is not, and should not be considered doing it first..

the wright brothers made a 'powered glider' not a passenger jet, yet they are granted the acknowledgement for inventing the aeroplane, since back *then* that is what an aeroplane was... the fact that 'popular' perception has since changed, or that later people did it 'better' does not somehow retro-actively lessen the achievement earned during those 12 seconds at kittyhawk NC

no, just the first one that considered being 'seen' and promoted, to be the most important aspects of the process

Governments exist in RL, and differ from a mere cooperative or land trust. In the midst of all the drama about adding "government" features to SL, Ulrika set out to create an experiment where a community would really be self-governed, with real political parties, taxes, etc.
The issue is not that you made a prototype that Ulrika improved, the issue is that Ulrika purposefully set out to make a clone of a real city with a real government, whereas you started with anarchy and merely felt the need to better organize yourselves over time.

Well now it's clear that your both vindictive and have no idea what your talking about.