Comments on Crash Two

Hats off to Hamlet. You, sir, are an excellent journalist To take such a nothing event and create such a brouhaha by giving it that special spin - great job. hehe

By 'nothing event' I mean, I'm sure it was 'something' to the people that got tower peices littered on their land, but I didn't see any of this 9/11 uproar going on before Hamlet wrote about it. Tell me who hasn't done exactly this kind of thing while they were learning how physics works? Oh someone made a tower and it fell down, no big thing I think. Doesn't take much effort. They did it again last night over the span of about 3 minutes. The article and this thread are giving it far more fame than it deserves. But that's a credit to Hamlet's journalism.

Actually Grim, I do get it. The only distinction is that I can seperate reality and a game. Sure, some people take this as more than a game, but if you really look, it's just a game. Games have been played for a long time, and they have been used for many things, such as entertainment, education, etc. etc. etc. One thing they do well is allow people to release tensions and enact things that they normally couldn't do. And everyone experiences things differently, but all in all, this is still just a game. No matter how much you or others want to believe, this is still just a bunch of 0's and 1's placed in an order to create an altered reality.

But trust me, I do love this game. Otherwise, i still wouldn't be here. I believe the Lindens did a great thing by allowing us, the players, to create the world, good and bad. The Lindens are simply here to police, and to enjoy what they created. We create what we want, and we suffer the consequences. If what we create is something that others don't like, as long as it fits in with the terms of service, the Lindens let us handle the situation. This whole re-enactment thing (if that's what you wanna call it, even though that wasn't the original intention), has really shed some light on things happening in the world. Sure, Hamlet could have gone about a different direction on writing it, but he made a jounarlistic choice. That's his choice. And sure, this could have been avoided if the people who built them had simply took them down when someone said they look like the twin towers, but again, this is just a game.

And I do admit, because this is also a community based game, where the players, whether it is through interaction, builds, etc. that how we act affects the community as a whole, there is ways to avoid seeing things like this, stay away from these things. Don't read Hamlet's articles, if you see something you don't like, don't go around that area. Unless it breaks the terms of service, the Lindens can't do anything about it. Maybe go and talk to the person who did it, rather than bashing on the forums, where, flame wars seem to be abundent nowadays. Makes me not want to come back to the forums.

In my Linden Apprication Project, I had 2 forum goers say they didn't like the project, they thought it was too religious etc. but i bet that neither of them took the time to actually see what I did before posting. And I wonder if they took the time, after reading my post, to see it either.

All in all, I repeat myself, This is just a game.

Moving 'slightly' off-topic, I'd like to address the two points quoted above.

Being relatively new to the Americana membership, I don't know whether such a memorial has ever been proposed - or how well such a proposal might have been received - but we do have a section specifically reserved for monument-type structures and personally, I feel a WTC memorial - low-key and tastefully done, of course - would not be out of place there. It's certainly worthy of discussion. If the balance of the Americana group is in agreement, I'd be willing to explore this project.

As far as the Americana leadership - and I'll include membership here - is concerned, I'm hoping that Americana as a group will continue to let our actions going forward speak for themselves, and our reputations thus forged deservedly. Of late, we have had some very productive group discussions regarding content and other subjects, and changes arising from those discussions have been and are ongoing.

One point of personal opinion - the Americana content that precedes my involvement is some of the most impressive in SL, ranking with the Venice-Bonifacio area in terms of immersiveness and quality, and was a major factor in my inclination to partner with this group. In-world or out, results are what counts, and they've managed to deliver.

=SV

ps - we haven't had confusion about what day it is in at least 12 hours...

You should have seen our first few meetings after losing George....

It was horrendous...


Glad to hear its better.

JV

My apologies Hamlet,

When I saw part one of your story, I thought "Oh, great, more sensationalism using 9/11" but subsequent articles have done a great job of comparing real life to Second Life, and the fun to be had using physics here.

Thanks! Believe me, I really did visit Ground Zero three
weeks after the attack, and it was so devastating and life-
altering even to me as a witness, the last thing I'd want
to do is sensationalize it.

These articles were already "sent to press" last week
and were locked in them, so I was particularly glad to
see the conversation in here naturally turn to the idea
of building a memorial, even before "Mike Mason"
mentions that idea in the entry. Like I say there, I do
think it'd be awesome to see something on that order,
in SL.

I showed the photos to a friend of mine... we came to the consensus that this was basically a couple of giant Jenga towers. In a sense this is very much like numerology or astrology. If you fixate hard enough on something, you'll see it everywhere you look. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

I would suggest that Americana consider NOT memorializing the Twin Towers, because some s***-stirrers will find some excuse to start enormous drama about how you're "trivializing the event by putting it in a game" or whatever. That's off the top of my head, imagine what some drama addict might come up with given enough free time.

He's right. I see nothing but nails.

Off the beaten topic: I once co-started a MUD-like social game that was the stage of an experiment: if we gave people unrestrained free speech and action -- in other words, the ability to be as horrible as they liked in word and deed without moderation -- would they exploit it?

To add a wrinkle, we decided to arbitrarily choose one thing to outlaw, and let everything else be in-game kosher.

We outlawed cannibalism. No discussion of cannibalism, no enactments of cannibalism. No eating people, ever. So our only rule became: "The Management is of the opinion that devouring creatures from your own race is abhorrant. Cannibals will be prosecuted."

For the next 6 months, the administrators had to wage a non-stop war against hordes and hordes of player cannibals. I rarely got complaints about anything else; just the players kissing up by reporting secret cannibal meetings, and the players who couldn't resist breaking The Only Rule. Such was the lure.

Had we banned clowns, we would've been swimming in Bozos.

That's people for you. Tasty, tasty people.

Soylent Green is People!

You shouldn't have banned anything. That way their imaginations would have been free to invent endless sadism. THAT would have been a cool experiment. Does the community fall upon itself like a bunch of animals, or does it become somewhat egalitarian in general with roaming brigands on the side?

Three pages on this huh?

Not meaning any disrespect to the two sides (A. There's nothing wrong with this, B. There is too) which are so diametrically opposed to one another while at the same time are unknowingly creating one another, but I have a question.

When does Third Life come out so we can escape our Second one?

hahaha, amen