I wonder...

...about the behaviour of humans. They live their lifes, go to work to earn money so they can make their living. They work to live. Now you give them a new place, where they can do whatever they want. And what happens? Of course, humans do what they're used to do. They start earning money to make a living and find a sense in their life.
Now, for many of you, this may be all fine. Because you're successful, you've got your own ideas implementet in a great way or you're just having fun doing the things you do to make your living. And you earn money. For some of you, making money is all the thing for what they come to SL, what predicts their actions.
And that's where i begin to wonder. Are you all so happy about that shiny capitalistic world of yours? Have you nothing learned about the sideeffects of an economic totaly based on money? Don't you see where it inevitable leads to? And how it will ruin the chance to make something really great out of SL? I don't want to talk about RL-politics as it is not the place for it. But I just want to realize you, what future we are facing, in RL as in SL, when we still focus to keep our selfmade dependancy upon money.
As I can imagine, SL has the potential to be anything we make it to. So I ask you:
Do you want just another matrix inside the matrix?
Or are we just responsible and mature (and here "mature" does not relay to sex ) enough, to take the chance and form a community, that's not about the money, and not controlled by the people with the most money. A community which is aimed to progress the quality of life for everyone, not only those temporarily earning the big money till the system collapses.
As you surely think by now, this all sounds quite utopic. And there is no already existing masterplan to achieve this. But if there is a place this could be done, it's SL. We could make an example, a proof of concept for a better world. Or instead, we let everything happen how it's always happening, stay true to capitalism and watch just another opportunity go by.

But I was just wondering...

We have community and capitalism, it's a good combination I think. You can't build all day and you can't dance all day....

It's not about building all day or dancing all day.

moved to land and economy

You are Jeska Lindens alt and I claim my prize.

I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not. Anyway, what prize? *g*

Sounds like you and Neal Nomad have overlapping views on how SL could evolve into a more advanced concept of community. I watch this line of enquiry with interest, because it seems pointed in the direction of some as-yet-undefined creative opportunity on a large scale.

Right now many of us are enjoying the creative freedom we have in SL, but focus on the technical limitations of the platform as the real hindrance to our art. We can craft wonderful environments right now, but KILLER LAG ruins the enjoyment of these environments by even modest parties of avatars. Imagine the immersive experiences we could craft if the platform delivered performance comparable to a state of the art MMO game such as Guild Wars.

You're talking about community versus money, and certainly money/economics does dominate SL. That's because tier is very expensive for residents, and providing service is costly for LL. I look carefully at resident undertakings aimed at making money or at least breaking even in order to pay the tier on enough land to support large scale projects. Most land-based enterprises are financial drains for the owner. Prime examples are the game project sims (I liked Numbakulla) and those 'popular places list' sims that give away money to lure visitors. There must be a better way!

If the SL platform's technology evolves quickly enough to catch up with the performance and stability of typical MMO games, then resident dev teams might be able to offer something those games can't: a huge world which is not only persistent but also full of design-your-own opportunities. Any asset that affects gameplay, such as combat units, structures and terrain, is an opportunity for design-your-own fun. I suspect that the creative people who would be attracted to those design-your-own opportunities would be a good bet for an evolutionary design-your-own community initiative.

The idea is NOT to try and change people. Not to try talking existing residents into changing their priorities, but rather to attract new people who are bored with same-old, and looking to design something better.