Are Virtual Worlds the new place to discrminate in?

Straw men everywhere and never a match when you need one.

Maybe it's all dependant on context after all, and maybe the problem with SL is it supports far more "contexts" than RL and thus more varied standards of interaction.

As an example, I have no genitalia in SL. Is this a reflection on my RL inadequacies? Possibly..as my old gran used to tell me, it's not the size of the wand.. but then my first girlfriend pointed and said "it looks like a penis, only smaller!"...

Anyway, I digress..

If I'm role playing in NoR and some devil spawn attacks me, and rips my pants off with the intention of fulfilling some depraved visceral hunger for phallus munchies, then his subsequent disappointment and mockery of my avatar's manhood is all in the game and I can always throw in my cards and leave .

If on the other hand I arrange a RL corporate meeting in-world, my RL female boss proceeds to rip my pants off and instruct my work colleagues to point and scream "WEENER!" in unison.. that's discrimination against the phallically challenged.

So you see.. it all depends.. sick fantasy, or unbearable social discrimination.. very much like potato, er..potato. It makes no difference at all when you no one can hear you scream.

Thanks for listening.

I had someone complain to me the other day about explaining that the Irish were the Welsh that could swim . . .

Pep (She was well-balanced - a chip on both shoulders)

In SL I'm not short, but I did have two women on separate occasions tell me that there was something wrong with me for not being over six feet.

They meant "wrong" as f**ked up in the head.

Which I find funny, although they were just idiots passing by, not sim owners denying me entrance. (You must be at least this tall to enter the sim!)

I find it funny in retrospect. At the time it was quite irritating.

This was from another thread, and it certainly bears repeating:



I once met a woman with a beautiful avatar, nice clothes, nice hair, nice rack (if I can say that!), and, um... I happened to see her naked, and she had the man-thing between her legs. She told me she was a man in real life. And so I asked...



Well... that shut me up. (oh, and that's the end of the story)

I suppose Cardiff is the Biblical Garden of Eden...

Which usually leads to the "What do you call 100 Welshmen at the bottom of the Irish Sea?' joke.

A good start?

Pep (I tell that one about lawyers)

And we know what is East Of Eden . . .

Pep (Milton Keynes!)

Read this
http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/Health/story?id=1806125&page=1

So the way to fight intolerance is to also become intolerant???

This is the root of RL societies discrimination problems.

Everyone feels jusified in excluding other tribes, whether they be the white tribe, the black tribe, the religous tribe, the athiest tribe, the gay tribe or the straight tribe. Tribal verses tribal intolerance is still intolerance and it does not rectify the issue of people hating people over their differences.

Tolerance is what should be sought. These tribes need to find commonalities with the other tribes via dialog. Tolerance is the only way to break the cycle of intolerance.

But the intolerant people found in these and every other tribe would rather exclude those they disagree with (intolerance), than reach out to them and attempt to understand or educate them (tolerance).

And thus intolerance continues to spread, despite the lip service being made in support of tolerance.

I am intolerant of the intolerance that is disguised as a method to further tolerance.

Tolerance means that all sides tolerate the other side. It does not mean you can bash people over the head by labeling them intolerance to support your own intolerance. That's just the same old tribal verses tribal prejudism that man has been engaged in since the dawn of time.

And we are much less free because of it. If the right of free association does not include the right to NOT associate, it is worthless. What you advocate is the use of force against private property owners to force them to behave and think as you wish. That use of force is much more evil than any discrimination or intolerance committed by a private entity.

They are not allowed to discriminate against things that are illegal to discriminate against in real life. You can AR them for it.

They ARE allowed to exclude non RL things like furries, dragons etc. I wouldn't go there if they did, but they are allowed.

They ARE allowed to exclude those that may appear to be a child compared to the average avatar.

A themed place can dissallow 20th century items like wheel chairs if they dont fit the theme, and require you to use something more fitting to the theme.
For example in a fururistic sim this may be bionic legs or hover platforms
For example in a gritty medieval sim this may be crutches.

So will you support the use of armed force to enforce your tolerance? Will you pick up the gun yourself or will you just hire others to do it for you?

I am a 'smallish' avatar too, in comparison. I am also an avatar of color. (I am black in rl, also, was just natural to bring that over with me.) I'm also deaf in rl. I do manage a sim that caters to Deaf and Disabled. But all are welcome, we just have special services and such geared to those people. We have wheelchair ramps and elevators. For many disabled, it's a matter of principle, symbolic, to be accomodated even though yeah you can fly and don't 'need' a wheelchair. YOu can also fly in the wheelchair. However, they see so much rl discrimination that it becomes an 'issue' to be accomodated, even symbolically, on SL. When you have someone typing with their feet, or with a stylus in their teeth, they have to find ways to do things that others wouldn't think twice about. My sim tries to fill this need, as much as we can. I am not aware of this sim that was mentioned that only allows avatars of color and bans all others, and I thought I knew all of the African American sims. Would love to chat with that sim owner and find out the whys.

My coffee must have been weak this morning.

WHAT??

Will I shoot people dead to enforce tolerance? Wouldn't that be fascism? And isn't fascism what many of these groups are practicing in the name of their intolerance/tolerance?

I would pick up a gun and defend myself against those fascists who would force their intolerance upon me.

I'd always pay someone else to do the jobs I'd rather not.

My tolerance is so evolved that it even extends to tolerance of other people's mercenary tendencies ..

Judge not lest ye be judged.

Now *that* is what I call a reasonable attitude and action initiative!

Pep (I still want to know if you provide disabled toilets )

I'm going to agree with this post, but ONLY because I used the exact same argument in the last thread of this sort that we had.

The way your avatar looks, simply because it is so customizable, IS synonymous with your RL clothing rather than your RL body. The bar down the street might not care if I come in with my dirty work clothes on after a long day at the garage, but Middle Class Restaurant a couple of blocks further down might want me to be wearing some clean, nicer clothes, and High Class Restaurant yet a few blocks further might want at least a jacket. Do the High Class Restaurant and the Middle Class Restaurant "discriminate" against the ol' working stiff? No, because Mr. Working Stiff can go home, change, come back, and be welcomed just fine. The proprietors have an atmosphere they wish to maintain, and the patrons already present likely enjoy said atmosphere (because they wouldn't be there if they didn't).

SL is like this. On the SS Galaxy, one of the dancing venues is the Zodiac Ballroom (it's in the AFT sim). Unlike all the other places on the ship, the Zodiac is formal dress required, and this is stated in all the notecards and a sign at the entrance. Does this ship discriminate? Well no, the ship actually pointedly does NOT otherwise care about avatars or clothing - even one of the staff, the sushi chef, is an odd one-eyed floating cephalapod of some kind - but in the Zodiac, there's a dress code. There's even boxes with freebie tuxedos and gowns in them, in case you don't have any (in my experience, MOST formal-dress venues in SL provide free formal wear, which is cool).

I don't like the insinuation when someone does not allow black-skinned avatars into his club, and perhaps it's worthy of the same type of contempt as when someone disallows black patrons from a place of business in RL; but I can't say someone who chooses to wear a black skin (regardless of RL status) is deserving of the same legal protection when it comes to discrimination. It wouldn't surprise me, even, if some RL African-Americans (or whatever race, etc) would consider a fight for "black avatar rights" to be a kind of mockery of serious RL civil issues.

Speaking as a kid avatar who will leave promptly when informed that a place doesn't allow kid avatars, I'm the kinda person who doesn't want to impose anyway. Fighting for my "right" to be at an "open to the public" club if I know the owner and the other patrons are sitting there hating me and feeling uncomfortable and just generally not having a good time because of my presence would NOT make me feel righteous or vindicated or "equal", tolerated, or respected. It would make me feel like the in-world equivalent of a forum troll - a dweeb, in simpler terms.

Love people who think they "own" anything in SL. Do you think if LL decided tomorrow that they dont like you face and ban your avatar "owning" a sim or 100 sims will give you any extra "rights"?

News Flash ... Linden Labs owns the whole thing. It's thier playground. they are the *Only* one who decide what rights you have. at best you have a Lease/Rent situation.

If you actualy could "own" Second like would be covered in Sims with Sexual Ageplay, Gambling and Banks with Huge spinning for sale signs chopped up into 16m parcels.

The only Rights you have are the ones granted you by Linden Lab..... I mean if Linden Lab tommow says "we are chaging the code and no one is allowed to ban anyone anymore" what "right" would you have then?

Ourouboros?

Pep (comfortable with paradoxical ambiguity)

You advocate laws to force people to behave and think as you wish them to on their private property. Every law is based on the simple threat of "Do what I say or I will send men with guns to kill you." even the smallest traffic ticket. We aren't talking about gangs roaming the streets beating up people they don't like. That is wrong and should be stopped.
What we are talking about is you telling me that I have to allow someone on my property, I have to associate with someone, I have to enter into a contract with someone. You are in effect making me your slave. That is wrong and should be fought by anyone who values true freedom.

The right to stop paying all that money, for one.

No, only because I can't build and can't find one to buy. Want to build me one? Seriously if you want to see just how many sims/groups, etc like this exist, go over to the Dreams sim right now where there is a Community Fair going on. I am exhibiting there as well as my rl board, Virtual Ability, and many many others. Each one of those exhibits/booths represents a sim or group that caters specifically to some type of disability in SL. And none of them are acting or RP'ing.

One point I think some are missing is that what is being called "discrimination" and "intolerance" in SL isn't really intolerance and discrimination as it appears in the real world, so arguing like it IS the same doesn't carry the same weight as a RL complaint would. If I own a sim and make the rule that I dont want any [insert anything] AV's there, and someone gets prevented from entering because they have a [insert anything] AV on, it's not the same as if it were a real place in the real world actually "discriminating" against something like race, religion, gender, etc... The RL scenario is definately true discrimination, but the SL scenario is the RL equivelant of getting stopped at the door of a fine restaurant and asked to put a tie on.. nothing more.
"Not allowed" in RL usually carries damaging affects to the individual's self esteem because changing to meet the conditions is NOT an option and probably an insult to who they are as a human, and that's why there's laws to protect those people in most cases. In SL EVERYthing is just a click away, and although someone may not LIKE being asked to change appearances for a certain venue, it is NOT an outrageous or deplorable thing to ask them to because they very well CAN, just may not want to.
Everything, even ones gender is really no more complicated to change than a pair of socks. There's only a "perceived injustice" when people fail to realize that being omitted because of this AV or that AV isn't an attack on their person, and really only is akin to asking someone to put a tie on before entering the establishment. Who they are as a person isn't what's being prevented from entering and people need to remember that. Undoubtedly, some people really hate being asked to change even the littlest thing for something and completely bitch up a storm about it... but that really is their problem.

It's the one's who're not fully informed of the rules, or take a personal dislike or bias against someones AV that'll try getting them to change when in a Linden owned public area. Those are the ones who need to be reinformed of the details of the rules, or just told to F.O... simple as that.

The one time I really got mad at discrimination in SL was when a friend of mine was kicked from a build team because she is chinese in RL.. her avatar is not.

She has a 6'6" female AV with a Euro name and is blond and blue eyed. she is a very good builder and was invited to join a team to contruct a new sim for a Role Play build...

To make things easier the Owner wanted a Voice confrence to explain what he wanted. She joined the chat and things were going good untill she asked a question. (She has a rather thick chinese accent but speaks perfectly good english) .. within seconds she found herself removed from the group and kicked from the sim.

When she asked what happened in text all she recived from the owner was a string of racial slurs.

Only good thing was most of the other builders quit the project too in protest to her treatment when they heard what had happened to her.