What about the poor people with TOO MUCH talent?

Made ya look. Ha!

SO? Lol, well those ppl (like me) can't find ppl who want to buy their stuffses!

Yeh, what about people who have tallent but can't be bothered to make anything to sell?

Well, geez, Meatwad, don't complain, I bought your stuff!

And it was while trying to figure out all the scripting on this invention idea I had, which Meatwad ended up doing some of, that I realized something about this "what about the ppl who are too talented" problem which exists in SL.

Here are the types of people I have encountered in this category:

"*Yawns haughtily*. I can't be bothered to make something and sell it to you because I have such a fabulous RL life where I am paid out the wazoo and I am richer than God, so no, I won't grace you with my talent, not for love nor money, because I just don't need to sell anything and I'm above it all."

"*Rolls eyes*. Yeah, I could make that. Yeah...but I don't feel like it. Because I do programming in RL for which I am paid handsomely so when I come on SL I just want to kick back and relax and trade land or something, so no, I won't make you anything."

"*Stares into the far distance*. You know, I get paid a royal sum in RL, and have a rich and diverse RL so I only log on to SL occasionally just to collect my royalties or talk to my cool inner feted friends. So I give away my *very special* items for free. I hate all this commercialization of SL. I hate it that people actually SELL stuff. I don't sell stuff. Well, I sell it just for $1, but that's just because um....I need to keep track of it. No, you can't modify it, and no, I won't sell it for more than $1."

"*Growls angrily*. Hey, I made this in beta and I am inner and feted and I gave it away free everywhere in little cubes available on every sim and I can't believe someone is going to make something similar, or use this as part of their idea, because I made it for free and nobody should be capitalizing on it now."

See the problem? Of course you do, Buster, you're smart. This class of people constitute a tremendous break on progress. In the real world, you can buy a patent, or pay someone for the use of their patent, or give them a commission or something. They patent their items precisely so that someone can buy the item in some form. By giving away talent for free, these creators have hobbled and crippled SL terribly. They have ensured that no one can ever sell all or part of their idea -- including themselves. They have arrogantly fettered SL with their tekkie wiki notions in perpetuity. Either you make SL into a tekkie wiki along with them, with everyone carrying the log in Lenin's collective, or you do nothing. It can't grow. It dies.

The reason why people sell things in real life is to keep the economy alive and growing and moving. This static wiki subsidized economy is death. It spreads out from the White Cubes of Death and keeps going until the entire thing falls off the server.

Everything thinks it is just so kewl that all these groovy feted tekkies made all this free stuff in the beginning. But some of this is just vanity, they want you to worship them forever and grovel and be grateful that they are cool and give out free stuff. And some of it is just unconsciously problematic, that is, they may not realize that they hobbled the economy in this way, ensuring that no one can innovate upon their idea ever, because they cannot buy and sell it in any form. They have to endlessly give it away for free, pouring into the empty from the void.

I know it goes terribly against the grain to declare all the free stuff as a problem, but it is, when you think of it, because no one can innovate on it, add to it, package it, put it into new settings, or do anything else with it except continue to give it away for free exactly as it appeared, unmodifiable, in world. That is death. People think giving away free ideas is life, and ensures everything just endlessly continues in a creative fest forever. But it doesn't. It dies because it is no longer as subsidized as it was, old players get bored and log off because they are just never feted *enough*.

Yes, Buster, in opening this thread, you have put your finger on the OTHER big problem of SL. The first is "what about the poor people who aren't talented" and the seond is "what about the people who are TOO talented" -- so talented that they aren't even for sale.

Holy crap, he even comes up with a term paper response to a one sentence topic.

without public domain, we are nothing, which is why i give away anything useful i make.. i jus charge for toys

Could you explain what you mean by "without public domain"?

If you charged for what you make, even it is is "useful" in your humble opinion, we move the economy. You make money, I spend it. I can also resell your useful thing, or trade it. And I can also offer you some kind of fee or commission for your useful thing if I think of some way to package, distribute, modify it, etc.

This is how real economies in the RL world work. And there isn't really anything that special about virtual economies, except that the people in them feel they are very special, but they aren't, really. It's actually a Leninst theme park.

All three of these things are stupid and pernicious, and I reject them, utterly.

Prok, what are you *talking* about? I can't tell if you are being completely sarcastic or trying to make sense here. I err on the side that you are being sarcastic...but if not, my thoughts are:

People don't sell stuff in RL to move the economy. That is a side effect. They sell stuff in RL to put purchase necessities, and when that task is done, to purchase things that improve their life or make them feel good.

Giving away things for free does not hinder anything. It is just another factor in a competitive environment, where people push to improve the goods and services that are out there. Giving something away for free is not haughty, although giving away something for free and calling someone who decides not to *is* haughty.

Example: Open source software is a wonderful thing. It has fostered efficient, accessible software, new standards, and innovation. However, those people that feel that ALL software should be open source/free are foolish -- they simply have not paid enough attention to human psychology and do not understand the ramifications of their demands.

SL is a diverse primordial stew of creativity. We feed off of each other, building on top of each other's ideas. Yes some people lay claim to basic ideas -- "I did it first" -- but the shouts just echo in an empty cavern. Yet in SL we also have IP control mechanisms (albeit still a bit buggy) so that creators can prevent easy theft of their ideas, and this has fostered really cool things that a socialist environment could never provide (not at scale).

why are all your examples pejorative? why does someone who makes money in RL and wants to come into SL to relax and socialize a jerk?

life is too short, my man... but then again, maybe i misunderstand the thrust of your post.

Ehm, I only said the one thing. The other two are in my signature, and that you bothered to quote them as part of my statement against you is pretty stupid and pernicious in itself.

And what I said wasn't stupid and pernicious, it was an observation on your lack of brevity.

[edit] and if you choose to be offended by what I have in my signature, then maybe you should try to understand irony and satire.

SL mirrors RL. It's amazing.

Should all software be free? Should free software be outlawed? You can easily find people who cling to either axiom. Gnu-boosters and Gnu-phobes. The reasoning becomes hyperbolic at both ends of the spectrum.

I've never lost any sleep over the fact that I don't make my own clothes, or that I can't paint as well as whoever painted the stuff on my walls, that I didn't design the car that I drive to work, or that I own a guitar but I really suck at playing it so I only play it when I am alone. I sing in the shower and my cat hides under the bed. I can't read my own handwriting. My voice mail greeting is embarrassing. What, me worry?

Everybody is good at something. A lot of people are really good at things that they themselves think they are not so good at. (Its called humility, a rare and very precious commodity.)

I don't think there is any such thing as "too much talent". But there is such a thing as "too high an opinion of ones own talent". No shortage of THAT.

Buster

Now that's just silly. True, some people don't contribute as much as they could. Some people are not helpful, even though they could be. Some people even give bad advice.

Brake on progress? Naw. Progress is a sum of plusses and minuses. Always has been.

It is written: as it is in RL, so shall it be in SL

Buster

People with too much talent? I think they get sent to Seacliff

What about those of us who have a crapload of stuff that might even sell but still can't be bothered to rez it somewhere and set it for sale?
And no, Prokofy, I don't have a shitload of money IRL

Buster, try to imagine if the little light sensitive thingie in those globes you made were a free script that you were barred on pain of death from distributing for sale. Try to imagine making inventions, but then stumbling ever time you come up with a better idea by the fact that someone has distributed part or all of this idea for free under pain of public opprobrium and even harassment if you resell it. Then you'll see.



That *is* moving the economy. They aren't doing this as an abstraction. They want to keep things going so that they have them available for themselves.



People who give things away in this game, in my experience, often have this very, very vaunted notion of themselves as helping humanity, doing something for the newbie, and generally just being a good guy. They want to be noted for their good works. And it's about vanity much of the time. It's especially annoying that they become really pesky police about others selling this thing that they gave away for free. It hobbles the game. You can't even take their free thing and put it in a better prim package of some sort and sell it even for $1 without them complaining. It does indeed hinder things as anyone who has pondered how they can invent something new, improve on what is there, and make a buck themselves will tell you. You cannot get a business going in some areas because people were who among the feted and oldbies gave away stuff for free. This is a serious economic problem, if you would only but see it.


Um, yeah, whatever, I know that's the received tekkie wisdom about such things, but I really don't buy it. I see that Cute-FTP, invented by a Russian, kinda knocked around the Internet in various crappy versions when it was free and being run off servers in Vladivostok, but when it was finally for sale, it just got a lot more user-friendly, accessible, and its packaging got prettier to look at -- not to mention the customer-server. I don't fete and fetishize free software. I know the entire geeky Internet culture is based on the funny combination of offering all kinds of stuff for free so one can show off and be geeky with it, and also charging an arm and a leg just to clean a virus off my hard-drive -- and that same combination of free arrogance and overpriced oligarchy is EXACTLY what makes up the culture of SL, and I, for one, fight back against this phenomena. It's death.



Yep. Glad you aren't an all-or-nothing kinda guy on your POV.



Um, well, yeah...a lot of SL is just a cyber-dump. Yeah, sure, in sandboxes people feed off each other and build on each other's ideas and stuff, it's cool, yes, I'm in awe (does TSO worship interaction). I am well aware of people claiming to be the first in certain areas when it has all done there, been that. I'm glad creators can prevent easy theft of their ideas. I wish landowners in groups could also prevent such easy theft of their land LOL. When we have land property rights like we have geeky intelligentsia property rights, we will have freedom more like the real-life freedoms that many people died for.




No, I didn't say that. I said that what the arrogant type does who dangles in front of you his cool zippy whizzy invention often is perjorative of YOU for being someone who wants to work in SL instead of gabbing and doing sex anims in a box.

life is too short, my man... but then again, maybe i misunderstand the thrust of your post.

When I was in first grade, I made a clay ash tray for my father in school. The next year my little brother made one too. Boy was I pissed.

Yeah, sure, Buster, be cool with examples from RL that are supposed to show that to make my comments is childish or idiotic, like making a clay thingie.

This is different, SL. It's not a game for some. It's got RL-money hooked up to it. So they make something, they patent it, they sell it. But that climate they are in doing that is thwarted by two things, one by people who give things away for free and undermine the valuation in the marketplace, and two, by people who use oligarchic connections and powers to monopolize and charge a fortune for certain things. It's not a normal economy because it is lacking certain basic rights and liberties.

Making a clay ashtray in school is something you do for free, with free goods, and if your brother made one too, ok, so what? It's different when someone makes some simple widget-mover, and you get the idea that if you combine the widget-mover with another flying-doohickey, in a prettier package, you could be making some money. And you can't do that because the widget-mover has given the script away for free, and told you under pain of death you can't resell it even for $1, and the flying-doohickey maker has the only script in the game that does that and under pain of death won't let anyone copy it and charges a young fortune for it, and won't even give it to you on commissions.

I have no aspirations to become a creator of goods in this marketplace. I'm just pointing out the serious obstacles for those who try to do this.

If you are that stuck up and unwilling to contribute to this world, then buy L$ from me with your vast RL riches!

http://www.hankramos.com

$4.50 for L$1000? EEK

Ok, ok, skip the lecture about fees.

Speaking of people with too much talent, are you out there Anshe?

You, sir, are a scholar and a gentleman, and a judge of fine wines, and some day, small children will sing songs about you.

No, Hank, I disagree with your opin-- oh wait, you're just plugging your service ... AGAIN.

I just need to say LOL everytime i need a good laugh i just read the forums.

BTW, that's the same price you'd pay via GOM! And if you pay with foreign currency, even less! So my service is quite the deal! More convenient and accessible than anyone else!

You mistake me. I do not mean to make your comments seem childish or idiotic, instead I mean to demonstrate that it is the people that you condemn that are childish and idiotic. They know not what they do. Its hard to invent something without someone else believing they thought of it first. Sometimes they act out.

This is the bane of every creative person's life. Creative people crave originality. When you copy them, they are offended, becuase you take away their originality.

It takes many, many hours and is very, very hard to think of something genuinely new. It takes a fraction of that time and effort to materialize it. Thinking original is hard, copying is easy.

Trouble is, as soon as someone copies your idea, it ceases to be original. What a letdown. Worse, when the copycat actually has the nerve to take credit for your idea, man that really gets under the skin.

Sometimes the copycat isn't copying at all, but merely thought of the same thing at the same time you did. This really burns when the other original idea is better implemented. Unfortunately, creative people are often egocentric as well. Creative people crave attention and approval and occolades from others, and create for the purpose of getting attention by having others admire their works. (Not all creative people, just some. Some creative people just enjoy what they do. It takes all kinds.) So being egocentric, it doesn't occur to them that someone else may also have talent. (Hence, they have TOO MUCH talent. They have so much talent that nobody else could possibly equal them. In their minds, anyway.)

Sometimes you come across something that has a spark of brilliance, but suffers from an aura of incompetence. You can see the glimmer of genius, cloaked in stupidity. What to do? If you "build on" the spark of brilliance, minus the stupidity, plus your own improvements, are you "stealing" the original idea? Originator might think so.

You could contact them and say, "hey, I have an idea to make your idea better". Maybe they will say "let's form a team and make it all good! After you're done you'll toast marshmallows and sing songs around a fire! Then again maybe they will drop a particle bomb in your swimming pool. Them's the risks.

Prok, I think you ask too much if you want creative people to not be offended when other people borrow their ideas for the good of the community. Never happen. RL or SL, tsall the same.

Buster

Count'em, 4!

Of COURSE SL mirrors RL- It's the same goddamn people!