U.S. House of Representatives and Virtual Worlds

I figured with word energy commission it might have something to do with "energy" LOL
oh well.

and i was focused on the 'commerce' part... chuckles.. maybe we can have odds. Make this interesting.

I am all for simplifying existing laws to clear up any ambiguity.

Strike down the muddled law and replace it with a clear concise one.

Instead we add to a muddled law with another muddled law.

Is there a reason a whole section of forest needs to die for each bill submitted to congress?

Wouldn't a small tree do?

If they didn't do that they wouldn't be able to hide all the silly earmarks.

Link to the webcast for tomorrow:

http://energycommerce.house.gov/membios/schedule.shtml

I would guess most certainly regarding financial transactions and taxation.

"As well as the growing presence of educational institutions, non-profits and other real-world organizations in online virtual worlds.” Likely has to do with the activities of these organizations since their tax status has serious restrictions about what they can and cannot do (in RL) and how does anyone make sure that those same rules are being followed in virtual worlds.

It's the way of the furture,

It's the way of the furture,

It's the way of the furture,

It's the way of the furture,

It's the way of the furture,

It's the way of the furture,

lolol

It boils down to money and taxation. Congress is not forward-thinking at all, except in which ways they can make you pay for something. Truth is, they are already late to the party, and have already missed opportunities to tax income because these micro-economies were under the radar. Add in the burgeoning fraud/theft issues that are creeping up on copyright and trademark law, and it is something they now have to pay attention to.

I suspect some Representatives were just hanging out with Senator Ted Stevens one day discussing lost emails when the subject of virtual worlds came up. At this point, ol' Ted wondered out loud if "all them furries and pedophiles in SL were clogging up the Internets tubes". An unnamed Rep chimed in about how he uses Comet Cursor to speed up his connection "because its alot like Drano, cept' its digital". Moving the conversation back to SL, another Rep noted that SL was based "In The People's Republik of California". At this point, it was assumed by all parties present that SL could be a "Breeding Ground for radicals, libs and Defeatocrats", and should be monitored. Next, they concoct a plan to get Mr Rosedale to come to Washington to testify in committee about SL. The testimony transcripts will be forwarded to the Congressional spin teams and a select group of talk radio hosts for the express purpose of creating yet another smokescreen to keep us from thinking about everything else they have screwed up lately. Its really an ingenious plan, ain't it?

QFT

ROFL Desmond! You too Teeny

Didn't Bush and republican say no more new taxes?

LMAO!!

Sl is a great place for psy ops. Since we raised the interest of the bean counters ( when gambling was banned) and the population of sl, where the women are women and so are half the men, the increase of the MIB infiltrating, causing lag and wearing shody goverment issue clothes has been observed (look for the black shoes under the dresses).

The influx of Jewish names indicates our dossiers are being filled with embarrasing actions we do (when we think we can get away with it), to be used to blackmail us into submission simular to the hijacking of the US government.

SL water has been spiked with estrogens to further feminize the diminishing agressive male population and to the careful observer one can see more and more barriers to our free range of expression.

Our fog & clouds have been mixed with heavy metals to further stupify our community and once pristine environement. The CIA (cartoons in action) used Wilie Coyote and the roadrunner as propaganda tools to show how frivolous it would be to continue especially since acme was a government front.

Tavistock put the thunb screws to Phillup (name instituted by the oil magnates to subtly encourage the sale of gas) and forcing him out to institute a shill bent on toon domination and expect to be threatened with de-pixalation if your not using the new goose-stepping anim already in production.

Not to mention the forums are filled with agent provacutuers to disrupt the harmonious conduct between non-suspectiong avatars. There is no escape with no habitable orbiting planets in our system we are all doomed to a life of servitude while they slowly bleed us of our colors (copybots are on the rise).

The influx of surveys further enhance their position, data mining long known weapon of those who would control, just more evidence. Constant interuptions of service attempting to further de-stabalize all area's where toons can congregate.

Resistance is futile.

Only for the rich.

Really? That's interesting. Not that it makes any difference to me, but it's certainly interesting to know.

I saw this post and a post right below it titled 'Sex Cult' and I wondered to myself, "Why were there two posts about the House of Representitives?"

I did not realize that this committee is chaired by Senator Markey, who has spoken at a conference in SL. He has been instrumental in forming internet policy for a decade or so. He just put together some Net Neutrality legislation last month (in an ongoing wrestling match with the FCC).

So, this is a very friendly meeting, almost a sales presentation. Both presenters and questioners stated whether they had an avatar as a preface to their speaking. SL is being presented as the unbelievably dominant player in the Virtual Worlds, although Larry Johnson (MediaGrid) made reference to Project Wonderland. IBM did a presentation. Some fun facts from this so far:

> 10% of the grid is education sims, news to me. Mr. Johnson also stressed in his presentation that, in SL, he is exactly the same person he is in RL.

> Rosedale stated the well-known fact that 70% of SL's users are not from the US. This was used to springboard into a discussion of the %penetration of broadband in the U.S..

> Rosedale cited 50,000 people as the number of folks who make significant income in SL.

> When asked about age verification, Rosedale said that they do not ask for license number or SSN. He made no mention of the Aristotle/Integrity system.

> One Christian fundamentalist senator asked whether there could be proselytising in SL. Rosedale affirmed this.

and, of course, terrorism, think of the children ... blah blah ...
.

Thanks Nika .. though wow , I wonder whats up with some of those.



Sounds like Hype - Or a very liberal definition of "Education" Or just plain bad math.



50,000 sounds extremely high for "significant"

Whats significant income? 5$ US a month?

a lil' running commentary i just threaded...

/327/97/250277/1.html#post1930437

and early on in presentation, i believe he said 4,400 making a 'livable income' inworld; that's way up from the old 1k figure i think last cited last year. what is the 'livable income' benchmark though?

How many bots are there?

After watching the live feed, I'd agree with that 100%


.

Shhhhh! Some congressmen would probably try to make bots eligible to register, vote, and contribute to campaigns.

Then we'll hear partisan bickering about whether to outlaw camping or pay campers more.

Did anyone else find it amazing to what lengths they stretched in order to work the T word into the discussion? I really wish we could set up all of Washington DC to be like You Can't Do That On Television. Every time someone says "terrorism", a bucket of green slime should pour on their head.

"Virtual jihad." Gimme a break.

Also, I was pretty embarrassed at the insulting description of Europe by the "proud Republican" from Illinois. "I'm sick and tired of the US being compared to Europe. You can drive across Europe in 5 hours. I can't even drive across Illinois in 5 hours." Uh, so longer driving time means better place? Right. Gotcha. Well, in that case, the Long Island Expressway at rush hour must be nothing short of Heaven on Earth, right?

Other than that, it was a fairly interesting, and mostly positive, discussion.

Didn't they already do that in Florida a few years ago?

I can see it now, a minimum wage law for traffic and camp bots.