Sound Off: What do you Hate about RL Government?

yep, and now we have the oil pipeline in Afghanistan we could care less about it, fuck the warlords, oppression and massive drug production, mission accomplished.

This last post by das Groshomme in response to a post by Jamie Bergman is purely and simple a discussion of real world politics and violates a restriction stated in the forum descripton and should be reported to the forum moderator in hopes that they will attempt to steer it in the direction of it's stated purpose.

the post by Invect Hasp shows what a douchbag he/she/it is.

I hate how one shrill busybody spoilsport can take the fun out of things by squeeling to the authorities that someone is breaking the rules, like little old ladies who think certain entertainment is immoral and the government tries to appease them at the expense of the silent majority.

It might be advantageous to go back to Jeska's original restriction limiting this forum to commentary on SL politics only. Debate on SL government and related topics needs to be a discussion between open-minded participants analysing a problem, discovering new data and forming new conclusions.

But bringing in RL politics can lead to endless unproductive partisan battles between entrenched sides intent on remaining entrenched. I remember the period leading up to the last presidential election. Tempers flared in SL as people became agitated over RL politics, and the debate turned ugly. I was at Ahern when the debate turned into negrating. That made no sense at all.

Usually I stay away from discussions of RL politics because each participant appears to have accepted a complete package of political beliefs from some source. Often the package has a recognisible label. Sometimes it is possible to predict what the person will say on an issue just by listening to their 'party line' on a few other issues. I reject packages of thought, and that makes RL politcs an annoying chore, having to sift through the biased information to figure out what position on any given issue makes the most sense.

Let's stay focussed on SL here, and let's have a productive debate.

Jeska did note that comparisons are of course permissible, as long as they are related to SL.

Obviously, we're not going to be talking about RL reasons for politics, like food, water, oil shortages or contentious issues like abortion or prayer in schools.

But the analogies are shortages in SL that are important to people, like land or telehub space or prim space, and issues like free expression on religious topics or whether bounce scripts constitutes the use of a weapon.

The same RL issues that spawn RL politics, like inviolability of the person, the right to swing my arm ending where your nose begins, the need to limit government, etc. all pertain to SL.

It's true that people think in clusters or packages even containing inherent contradictions, i.e. if they're against abortion they're probably for the death penalty, and it can be hard to tease apart those clusters. In SL, you would think people would be freer to open their minds and be less clingy to their positions, but in fact, I find they are often more fiercely devoted to whatever utopian ideology they've brought with them in SL.

The call to have no government, to be open-minded, to have minimal restraints, etc. is itself a form of ideology and has been said, is a no-government-that-is-a-government. So let's not have any illusions about that. People who "don't want any government" can take control over others by power plays just as much as those who are striving diligently to make a government.

In fact, to look at the side of those in favor of government, they offer some structures of restraint that might prevent that kind of essential coup-d'etat by a few people who say "we're the intelligent ones and we are surrounded by idiots and we know what's best for you."

First and foremost, governments, governance, or any kind of player activity about the TOS should be about accountability.

Ulrika's heading, in bold print, makes no mention of SL at all.
"Sound Off: What do you Hate about RL Government?"

The answers from Huns Valen, "the department of motor vehicles", makes no mention of SL

Stoneself Karun'a answer "the people
if there were no people there'd be no need for government. unless the cockroaches were feeling feisty, i suppose." makes no mention of SL.

Jamie Bergman's "Yeah, the US does spend a LOT on its military. But we can kick anybody's a**. " makes no mention of SL.

Paolo Portocarrero's "--Inevitable corruption from the bottom up
--Egregiously inefficient bureaucracies
--Disproportionately dominated by special interests with the biggest wallets" does not mention SL

Juro Kothari's "Quote:
Originally Posted by Jamie Bergman
Yeah, the US does spend a LOT on its military.

But we can kick anybody's a**.

Ya... we did real well taking out that guy.... oh, what's his name... oh ya: Osama. Yep, we sure can kick anyone's ass.
does not make any comparison with SL.

Torley Torgeson's "-one thing I don't get... loads of $$$ spent on questionable scientific studies -- you've heard of plenty, already, I'm sure (and I do believe in legit sci research but some of this stuff sounds so obvious and unhelpful)

-government "fat cat" abuse like big-toed politicians getting loads of dough for personal expenses like luxury vacations at the cost of the taxpayers

-a generalization, but a pet peeve of mine is the lack of comprehension of technology on the part of certain politicians who introduce and ratify tech-based bills and whatever, even if they don't know how to use email that's just blind judgment! Ewww!

-HIDING BEHIND POLICY... BOOOOOO!" does not mention SL.

Siggy Romulus's" what do I hate? hmmm I'd have to say the way they boil it down to 2 utter f*cktards and say 'ok - now choose!' by which point the most rational choice I can make is to take to my scrotum with an anglegrinder while shoving knitting needles into my eyes.

Yep... that about sums up what I hate most.

Siggy. "what do I hate? hmmm I'd have to say the way they boil it down to 2 utter f*cktards and say 'ok - now choose!' by which point the most rational choice I can make is to take to my scrotum with an anglegrinder while shoving knitting needles into my eyes.

Yep... that about sums up what I hate most.

Siggy." although thought provoking, does not make any comparison with SL.

daz Groshomme's"what do I hate about RL government?

well, have you seen the cheesy american 1980's mini-series, now on dvd, called "V", well, if you have you can see the similarities between the evil lizardmen who wore human skins and took over the world but secretly ate human flesh and the current governments..." makes no mention of SL.

Jamie Bergman's "what do I hate about RL government?"
well, have you seen the cheesy american 1980's mini-series, now on dvd, called "V", well, if you have you can see the similarities between the evil lizardmen who wore human skins and took over the world but secretly ate human flesh and the current governments..." contains no comparison with anthing in SL.

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The original header deserved modification by the moderator, it was obvious that question phrased as it was would produce responses with no bearing on SL.
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The moderator's decision to allow the thread to continue was misguided. People ignored the original requirement not to discuss RL politics, what reason would anyone have to think the restriction to include a comparison would followed? None. And it wasn't.
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The criticism of America's alleged high percentage of military spend compared to other countries has no bearing because the pseudo governments that are the supposed topics of the forum will have no militarys. So the relative rates spent by different countries cannot be related to SL politcs at all because all sSL pseudo-governments with have defense spending rates of zero.

But no one can dispute the truth of statement about American spending being because any arguing about the proper amount would clearly have no bearing . So the original cleims stay, whether they are true or not,and no once can quesition it because to do so would be unaccepabel, unless they tied in with a cat toy or something.

Hi Invect. Several of the examples you listed, like Paolo's, Torley's and Siggy's, although not specifically mentioning SL, are clearly relevant and can have parallels within Second Life.

I'm not sure about your zero military budget claim. Security forces are the same as military forces in a sense. Many sim-owners, club-owners, event organizers and hosts spend a great deal of money on security scripts, objects and personnel. Whether it's warranted or not is another question - and one that mirrors the one we ask in RL - but regardless, the spending does occur.

You've also got intelligence budgets - something that already occurs and may or may not take off in the future, I don't know. It's not difficult to imagine self-governing sims with internal intel bureaus and/or hiring intelligence or detective services to conduct research on the opposition/competitors.

-- Neal Stewart

Maybe cuz real life is, well, real life and SL is a flaky frickin 3d chatroom with some building tools? It doesnt need a government. It needs people to stop trying to pretend it's more than it is.

As to what's wrong with real life governments, prolly the fact that 99.9% of all politicians for any party are lying cheating motherf*cking scum c*nts is what turns me off. I have no doubt that should there ever be a player run SL wide government, it would also be populated by people fitting this description.

The posts should not be reported. If anything, the entire thread should be shut down as it was titled "Sound Off: What do you Hate about RL Government?".

Too hyped?? You're kidding, right? The single person whose actions initiated our entry into not just one war, but two and who orchestrated the single most devastating terrorist attack on U.S. soil, killed 3000+ civilians, caused billions of dollars in collateral damage.

You call that 'too hyped'?

My point was to show that no, we can't "..kick anybody's a**" as you said. If we could, we would have had him in custody years ago.

Don't get me wrong.. I love military spending as a lot of the technology ends up in our hands. But, I'm not going to sugar-coat a loss when I see it.

What do I hate about government? The tyranny of the majority. The manipulation of the weak-minded by fear-mongering demogogues. Vilification of educated, reasoning people as "elitist". Short attention spans, tunnel vision, inflexibility, testosteron-induced posturing, putting out for campaign contributions.

And a discouraging amount of that nonsense carries over into VR. The only advantage in the virtual world is that you can say, "enough of this stupidity", drop out of the group and play however the hell you want.

This thread has already been warned once to stay on-topic, but has veered into mostly RL issues, as such it is being closed. I think the comparison of SL to RL governments is very relevant and belongs here in the PolySci Forum, so feel free to start a new one - just make sure to keep it on-topic!