The easy way to say "No"

"have you stopped beating your wife?"

you'd know the answer to you question if you honestly thought about it.

I am failing in understanding the correlation between my question and spousal abuse. If you feel that my question is an accusation in and of itself, you have misread it. I am not accusing anyone of anything, simply asking what the possible consequences of living my own SL the way I personally choose to do so might actually be.
I have thought about the answer to my question, and that answer is the same as Lianne's. If I refuse to participate, ignoring representatives of varied political fractions when they come calling on me in world in much the same way I would any traveling snakeoil salesman (as in "make you pitch then move along", NOTHING will happen to me. I will still be able to play, inhabit and build on my own land at my own discretion, within the TOS I agreed to. And so will you.

There is no SL-wide government, so no politicians will come by. If you're talking about, whether or not opt-in governments will affect you then the answer is, only if you opt in.

~Ulrika~

That was honestly exactly what I wanted to know.

The pro-[something] people act all nice while they're trying to get their system in place? I thought that was called 'diplomacy'.

Gene it is "diplomacy" but just make sure you have some KY in the end as you know whats coming next.

Shadow

I don't know you that well yet, so I wasn't sure if you were kidding. Gotta stop these late-night posts!


Gydeon.

My fault. I should've used the emoticon.

Just so you know, I'm always like that. I'm half analytical and half goofy. I like to randomly switch between the two depending on my current mood, the state of the discussion, and the phase of the moon.

~Ulrika~

Hello,

I am new in SL and even newer to the forums but have just read this entire thread from begining to end. <whew!>

I would like to say (with hopefully no offense and in all seriousness) that from a newbie, or "outside" perspective, you all look kind of silly to me with the exception of Pie and Ulrika.

I find Pies comments more than welcome, and totally on topic for this forum. She also seems to be one of the few making an intelligent and consistent argument (IMO). Ulrika also makes good points and is also consistent. Whether you agree with either of them or not, they seems to be always on topic, intelligent and polite. The rest of you (and one individual in particular), ...

not so much.

I particularly dont understand why anyone is questioning the relevance or correctness of Pies original comments. From my perspective it reads more like an "anit-Pie" vendetta than anything else. Without naming the particular individual doing it, I find *some* of the comments made against Pie to be purposely inflamatory and (again) just plain silly.

*Those* are the posts that are off topic.

Reads like this to me:

1) Pie makes a point or comment
2) People respond with off-topic mis-interpretations or re-iterations of what she said.
3) Pie replies with clear argument exactly as before, (with no backtacking or change in argument)
4) Another mis-interpretation or leading remark is made...etc

... and so on.

that is my 2 cents anyway.
hopefully I havent offended anyone,

I just wanted to comment because I spent a half an hour (!) reading all this stuff when I could have used the time elsewhere.

You could insert anyones name in the above quote and you would therein have the basis of Forum culture. I hesitated for perhaps 15 mins before hitting the "post" button on that first post there, realizing, that in part, Spring was causing the desire to lock horns in heated debate rise up uncontrolably in me, and yet I dont regret having posted this thread, as I have found it enourmously educational.

Also, you can pick up your $L100 in world now Dianne

That's life in the forums. I like to think of it as a signal-to-noise ratio. There is a small minority trying to carry on a structured conversation (the signal) that must compete against the off-topic posts, personal attacks, and irrationality (the noise) of the majority.

What's interesting is that this is a newly created forum for a very controversial topic. Before it's existence, a thread such as this in the General forum would have been impossible due to an even lower signal-to-noise ratio.

I believe, as time goes on, this forum will continue to improve.


Edited to add:

I just reread the thread and I have to say that there were several great contributors to the thread, Pol Tabla comes to mind although there were many more. When reading Pie's posts they had a bit of a rant to them and a reluctance to admit points made by others. I'm going to have to ask you to rethink your position Dianne.

~Ulrika~

Yes, not many in SL are "into politics" by their own words, but since many are into some kind of rabid Capitalist enterprise, to me this is disengenuous at best.

If you are the same person I think you are, I have seen your website and I can say we are of the same mind on many of these issues. I just happen to know Pie (a bit), and she has always seemed intelligent and rather straightforward to me.

I like to defend the few thinkers on the forum if I can, but mostly it is a waste of time as I am sure you know. Like as not, when the early "enthusiastic" period fails me, I like most, will not post at all.

My apologies for forgetting other contributors, I had also read (in it's entirety!) the long (old) silly thread about the "upskirt museum."

My eyes were pretty tired by that point.

I agree with you. Thanks for the positive and thoughtful posts!

~Ulrika~

Yaa... Actually... I think you may be describing ME In BOTH cases!


That said, I'm going to join the love fest and say I like Ulrika too. I appreciate the passion the she pours into SL, PLUS she makes me laugh.

As I understand it... She is basically presenting a concern over the possibility some player-run government forming a monopoly on the lands in SL. Such that, if you don't submit, you don't get land and/or don't get to go anywhere other than the commons. With enough organization, on the part of like-minded players, this could be easily accomplished now without Linden intervention. I think it's certainly a real concern, considering that. The ground-work for such a government is already here. It could be implemented easily, if all the land-owners agreed to it. Eject scripts could keep out people who don't own land, for instance.

Her goal is to remain politically naive, and mine is too. The reason we must post here is to fight for our right to party. If that were not a concern, I'd be posting somewhere else or, better yet, enjoying the world itself.

She and I posted here because we want to remain able to ignore the player-run governments. As it is now, we can. We don't want that to change.

Opinion voiced...

And please correct me if I didn't interpret you correctly, Pie!

Pie, your answer to that question was eloquently outlined by Phillip Linden last night in the town hall.

They can do nothing to you as LL will not impose a single governmental rule that encompasses all players thus Nothing they can ever do unless you violate a TOS or CS Rule.

Shadow.

Holy Bologna, so there really WAS an easy way to say "no"... wow, who'd a-thunk??

I'd like to thank everyone involved in this thread for educating and reminding me of the reasons why I dont typically bother to post to these forums in the first place. This was fun tho, in its own sort of ghastly little way.

Peace, everyone.