No Science in this forum ...

Why does this Forum have the word "Science" in its title?

Yes, I know that in RL that word has been misappropriated by hand wavers from the discipline of Political Handwaving. Richard Feynman has been spinning in his grave from it for decades.

But this is SL we're discussing here, not RL, and the forum name specifically contains the phrase "In-world" to highlight that we're not talking about RL. In fact, the stickied forum description highlights even more strongly that this is unrelated to RL.

So it's time for a new start, an honest one. Don't use the word "Science" unless you're going to use the Scientific Method to test and validate or otherwise your hypotheses. Which RL's P.S. doesn't, and which I bet no-one here is inclined to do either.

After the criticism, some suggested alternative names:

SL In-World Politics
SL In-World Government
SL In-World Governance
SL In-World Planning
SL In-World Community
SL In-World Community Planning
SL In-World Community Management
SL In-World Communities and Government
SL In-World Communities and Governance
SL In World Planning the Future
SL In-World Freedom and Community
SL In-World Politics, Management, and Community

Maybe I'm just having a bad day fielding irrational distortions of logic from people who should know better. But still, there's nothing wrong with honesty. Drop the "Science" tag.

*shrug*

After Phillips little announcement about World Wide governments maybe the list should be reevaluated to not include any global controls.
Why? because most government that will exist in SL for now will be "Group" or "Sub Community" oriented.
Those we can discuss and actually come to some headway for those groups or organizations to develope the means to rule within the confines of their own establishments.


Shadow

I'd agree with that.

How about In-World Community Governance for the title? That would perhaps keep discussions to particular communities.

The word "governance" refers to the processes and systems by which an organization or society operates. This is insufficiently narrow to cover all the content that already exists in this forum.

Political Science is described by Wikipedia as:


I think that covers just about everything I'd like to see in this forum.

~Ulrika~

A new title should point out that the discussion is about governing your own particular community, and not about governing the world.

Wikipedia is an immense resource of immeasureable value, but the terms it defines are merely those which have gained hold in First Life.

Except for those people who wish SL to become no more than an online image of RL, such definitions have little relevance to us.

My point about honesty in terminology still stands.

I agree with Shadey.

While I agree with you on this point.
I do disagree on the list you have provided previously.
The reason why is it still contains aspects which point to world wide governmental processes that have been throughly debunked by Phillip.
On this Im not really arguing with you as much as I am pointing out perception.

Shadow

Shadey as a point to satisfy the tail chasers and I dont mean men or women chasing each other.
Maybe it should be In-World Community/Group/Organizational Political Discussions.
While it narrows the topic to only being about individual organizations.
It still keeps the discussions open for a wider discussion of implimentation amonst those organizations.

Or Call it IWCGO

Shadow

There is absolutely nothing about "SL In-World Political Science" that implies a world-wide mandatory government.

The "SL In-World" portion was placed there to keep RL discussions of Political Science out. The "Political Science" portion encompasses not just "Community/Group/Organizational" but also government, politics, political movements, power struggles, and so on. This is not a forum to discuss communities and their methods of organization, this is a forum for discussing all aspects of Political Science in SL.

For instance, do you notice in the forums how group pressure is used to control single outspoken posters like Prokofy?

That statement is one that has nothing to do with a formal community/group/organization/government but instead discusses the spontaneous polarization of individuals for and against a single individual in the forum. That's political science and it's what I hope to discuss in this forum.

Since the definition above wasn't persuading enough, I'm more than happy to keep posting concrete examples to show the narrowing of the title would be a disservice to those who really want to discuss PoliSci. (Next time I'll show how an attempt to control the name of the forum is in fact a political act in itself, along the lines of "no child left behind".

~Ulrika~

i post arguments against Prok because I disagree vehemently most of the time. There are no group tactics or strategies used. The fact that Prok is in the vast minority either says we're all idiots, Prok is missing something, or the topic at hand is completely subjective and both sides are entitled to their opinion. Since when is prok "controlled" anyway. That is an amusing statement.

At my university, we called the major "politics" not poli-sci (well, they still call it that, I was just there a while ago), so there are respectable institutions that don't disagree. I think that "science" is a bit of a silly term that academics from another generation applied to their field to try to gain more respectibility/credibility.

That said, while I agree, I really don't care what the forum is called lol. We know what it is about.

Logical positivist!

*blows whistle*

Hold the line! Do not run for cover! Eliminate logical positivists from our midst!

That about do it?

I took a seminar from Richard Feynman and philosopher Nick Rausch a few years before Feynman died. The seminar covered the philosophy and history of science. Feynman shocked us all when he claimed that the best philosophers, historians, and political scientists were far more intelligent than the best physicists, biologists, and chemists. He pointed out that physicists and other scientists lived in a world where everything was safely anchored to truisms that could be measured and established. Philosophers and political scientists, on the other hand, had to survive and prosper in a far more lethal world where nothing was known, everything was open to question, and few methods seemed to yield satisfactorily replicable results. It was, Feynman said, like living safely in the suburbs versus surviving and succeeding in the jungle. Which created the harder, more capable resident?

Of course, Feynman had immersed himself in Aristotle, Bacon, Hume, Kant, Comte, Popper, Wittgenstein, Godel, Jurgens, Levi-Strauss, and others who had trod the familiar road before him. And he had participated in the "science wars" for years. So, like many of his generation, he was a physicist who knew enough about science and non-science to realize that the difference between political science and physics is often swiss-cheese thin. (That was something else he told us.)

What's going on here isn't really "political science". If it was, we'd be writing papers filled with questionable charts and tables based on regression analysis, rather than flinging rhetoric at each other. (Well, we'd be doing some of that, too.) This is the virtual equivalent of prerevolutionary conventioneering, like the early debates in the Continental Congress in 1775, or the arguments among the bourgeoise in the French National Assembly, before signing the Tennis Court Oath in 1789.

So far, the Loyalist and Monarchist nay-sayers have the upper hand, and God Himself (whose initials are "P.L." has stepped down from on high to throw His support their way. (Apparently, government in the City of Heaven is "federal." We'll see how the patriots and the bourgeoise respond....

Call this forum the SL Political Convention.

Seth,

I knew I could count on you dude.

Now you're the second poster in 2 days to mention Karl Popper. The other is me (in arguments with Morgaine elsewhere).

And I'll bet we're the only two in the history of SL.

....precisely because -- my poll doesn't lie! The other people's polls don't lie!

...most of the people on here -- the raw majority -- are computer/IT types, and they have, therefore, limited liberal arts capacity.




Exactly. No one has a monopoly on the truth. We keep reaching to verify it. Yet we can posit a truth to which we will have various subjective ways. Morgaine, however, wants to have everything so fractured and so relativized that it becomes meaningless except for..."his freedom". Him and his grouplet's freedom.

I really fear for these worlds with these kinds of minds running around in them. They are terribly closed, and spawn terribly closed societies, all in the name of a licentiousness which isn't really freedom. It bothers me terribly. I can't tell you.

It has to be documented, exposed, and fought. I'm thinking it's an education problem. But it's also a political battle with sects. The question is whether you can keep from becoming a rank sectarian yourself as you take on all these warmed-over Marxian threadbare memes...

We always come back to this, Morgaine. Who created the universe? It wasn't you...or your friends. And you're going to junk thousands of years of human institutions...for...what? An open grid with a shut case on it? No wonderment? No mystery? No curiosity about what lies around the next bend? But why?

What I have to try to understand...is where people acquire the hubris...the arrogance...to posit logical positivism all over again these days...and to inflict it on our chance at a second world!

I have to give you at least one quote from Heinz Pagels, a scientist who had some inkling of something grander than himself:

I often dream about falling.
Such dreams are commonplace to the ambitious
or those who climb mountains.
I dreamed I was clutching at the face of a rock
but it did not hold. Gravel gave way.
I grasped for a shrub, but it pulled loose,
and in cold terror I fell into the abyss.
Suddenly I realized that my fall was relative;
there was no bottom and no end.
A feeling of pleasure overcame me.
I realized that what I embody, the principle of life,
cannot be destroyed.
It is written into the cosmic code,
the order of the universe.
As I continued to fall in the dark void,
embraced by the vault of the heavens,
I sang to the beauty of the stars
and made my peace with the darkness.

(From The Cosmic Code by Heinz Pagels)

(Heinz fell to death in July 198

After a well-written piece like that, who am I to disagree? Color me convinced and keep your brilliant posts coming.

~Ulrika~

i always loved the phrase, "when you make an assumption, you make an ass out of you, and umption"

Home early from school today? Hope Mom put out the Double Creme Oreos with the milk!

Morgaine Dinova:


My personal preference is for the last suggestion on your list. This forum is necessarily an open-ended discussion area for posters at cross purposes. It looks disorganized because it's the aggregate of disparate voices not all using the same terminology or definitions. There is no formal specification of the problem, no way to determine if a proposed solution is both sound and complete, etc, etc, you know the drill.

One good example is the discussion in today's Thinkers meeting. We were examining a notion that the Feature Voting code could be repurposed to support the gathering of residents' opinions on how the new continent should be developed. This topic would not have been chosen except that forum watchers have noticed hints that LL might be open to resident proposals on this subject. The major idea floated in a letter to those who recently won at least one auction indicates some interest in getting a new rapport with residents who might be considering new continent land for major projects. Our Thinkers meeting focussed on the voting system as a mechanism to allow all stakeholders to potentially influence Linden Labs. Improvements to the current Feature voting system were discussed as well as its possible repurposing. Most of us felt that we were in a data-gathering stage, and felt that LL is likely to do what they want, so the voting actually means offer LL data about your preferences on this issue.

You never really say why those three terms (politics, management, and community) seem to capture the content in this forum and why they are not already subsets of Political Science (which they are).

You do mention a Thinker's meeting but that doesn't include content in the forums. I think before one recommends a narrowing of the scope of the forum, they should have a good reason. For instance, "General" was split into "General" and "Off-Topic" to give RL issues a place to be discussed (in the Off-Topic forum).

~Ulrika~