What Is The Single Biggest Thing You Have Learned From Your Time In Second Life?

PMSL at ya !

1. they never call
2. one night stands are still hot
3. you don't have to rent every home or shop you see
4. watermelon launchers are awesome
5. all women have great legs

/me blocks the door so Blenda can't leave.

Patience!

I have patience

"Pixel life, real life, the people are all real, and are what makes both lives worth living."

or not..

i think.. is that really how one finds and defines SL? . Is it often determined by the moment?. i was, today banned from an SL site.. because i had sworn? because i had degraded or mal administered in some way? not as far as i am aware.. it was a personal decision by someone that could do it... i had no say.. no recourse, no truth, no lie.. no evidence.. A real life similarity might be not being let into a nightclub for no apparent reason , -" you cant come in"

Real or not? Truth or Lies? does such a situation make life really worth living?

Given that one is alive, one has only one other choice.. and that is also possible in SL, maybe one doesnt want to "come in" its not worth it...

Experience, is the single biggest thing ive learned from my time in SL, and integral to that, personal choice.

I do it because I want to.... and yet i think its not worth it... i want the experience.

I may be mistaken, but I assumed that Jax meant to never trust that an SL girl is an RL girl if 'she' refuses to be heard on voice (I think that's how it was taken). And I also assumed, rightly or wrongly, that he meant when anything of a romantic nature is on the cards. Remember that it is what HE learned for himself, It's not something that he is trying to persuade others to adopt.

If he meant those things, then I agree with him. SL may be a virtual world, but it is populated by real people, who have real physical 'emotions' when being romantic. Because RL is massively involved in those activities, there is no way in the world that I would accept being 'romantic' with a guy on the other end, regardless of his av looking like a female. Voice is a good method knowing one way or the other.

For anything romantic, I need to feel confident that a female av is female in RL, and if a female av won't make me feel confident, then nothing will happen of a romantic nature. If romance isn't part of it, then it doesn't matter, and nobody has to prove anything. It's only when 'romance' is involved that it matters.

Nobody can find fault with that, because I apply it to me, and I don't argue that other people should apply it to themselves, but I imagine it is just the same for most guys - i.e. I imagine that most guys *really* don't want to be sexually involved with another guy, believing him to be an RL girl/woman/female.

First, learn to spell their names correctly. It's only adding to your OF (offensiveness quotient) when you don't.

Second, where do I draw the line? That's an easy one to answer:

I draw the line at the "presumed guilty until proven innocent" kind of mindset. And because of your being an ass with your responses, you are seriously making me reconsider my "never put anyone on my Ignore List" policy.

So now we know who the "pie" guy's Alt is.















----------
Edit: I am not referring to Pie P. for those not awake yet.

It was the problem with introducing voice to begin with -- it was clear that it would become a means of verifying identities in real life (gender, nationality, etc.).

Interestingly, voice verification seems to be much more important to men than it is to women. That is, although in the lesbian community where I tend to spend much of my SL time we are well aware that a number of the "women" avatars that show up in our venues are projections of male typists, the number of us who seek to verify this through use of voice chat is very small, in my experience -- it strikes me that our revulsion of dealing with someone who may be driven by a person of a different gender than their avatar is far less than is the case for men. I think that this is because male homophobia is a much stronger force, in general, than any kind of "heterophobia" that lesbian women may feel towards men who are playing SL as women.

In any case, it's completely laughable for men to assume that a female avatar who does not use voice communication is a man in RL -- even though it was clear from the introduction of voice that the tool would encourage this kind of flawed reasoning. I never voice, and my reasons have to do with privacy and maintaining a separation between RL and SL -- a hard barrier that is crossed, frankly, when RL voices come into play. I am a private person and I do not want to have your voice (male or female) invading my space in RL (where I generally play with SL's sound turned off so that children, eg, in my RL are not exposed to the sounds of what may be happening in SL), I do not want to wear headphones to play SL (I need to remain very connected to my RL, due to the same family issues), I do not want to be speaking into a microphone in RL (again for the same privacy and family-related reasons) and I do not care if that leads you to think I am a male in RL. But, I do find the flawed reasoning deliciously funny.

I don't think anyone suggested or meant that. I can only speak for me but, unless I *know* differently, I always assume female avs to be RL females. It is only if I get to the point of romantic activity, which necessarily includes the RL body, that I need to feel confident about it. I think that's very reasonable.

There is a difference in you wanting voice in those situations and what Jax is doing in this thread.

And Its certainly not the first time he has played this game.

It's reasonable if you are not maintaining a distinction between Sl and RL, I suppose.

For me, for example, if a female AV is not a female typist, I don't care as long as that typist is good at projecting a convincing female persona into SL. I don't want to get involved with the typist in RL, and it doesn't both me if I get hot and bothered in RL relating to antics that are taking place in SL again if the antics are convincingly what they seem to be in SL -- I don't think about the gender of the RL typist at all in terms of my RL arousal, if any.

I've learned that I'm actually a gay man trapped in a lesbians body and am grateful for SL allowing me to wander thru the possibilities that truth presents.



edited to include: I've learned that the variations on the possible configurations of "pie" jokes is infinite.

We all have our own ways of seeing SL, I suppose. I've never role-played - it's always been the RL me. It's always the RL me who is in some sexual activity and, in those particular circumstances, it matter a lot to me that it's not a guy at the other end. Voice is very useful for that purpose. Female avs don't need to prove themselves to be female RL people for me, but I *do* need to feel confident they are RL females IF I am to be 'romantic' with them. There's so much RL going into those episodes, and I'd hate myself in the morning if I woke up next to guy

Yes, as I said, I can understand it if it is mostly about extending RL, or you are not as heavily distinguishing between RL and SL. I do not roleplay in SL either, but I do keep my life in SL separate from my life in RL for numerous reasons -- however, I realize that others do not do this, and in that context voice makes sense. The issue with what Jax was writing here was that he was pretty much making blanket statements that don't take into consideration the different ways that people (intentionally) experience SL.

This is a both a bit of history and a consideration for those of you afraid to break out of the confines of your sexuality:

http://secondlife.blogs.com/nwn/2005/01/man_and_man_on_.html

With Torley's recent wedding, it's a fair assumption that his foray into alternate thinking of his own sexuality didn't make him 'catch gay'. Maybe it wouldn't for you either, Phil.

It isn't about being afraid to break out of anything. For me, the idea of being sexual with a man is utterly revolting. Men playing women is very understandable though. In general, men like to see women being sexual with women, and being a female allows a guy to be involved in it. I don't think women in general like to see men being sexual with men, and that's probably why it's usually female avs that are brought into question rather than male avs.

But this is getting off the thread's topic, so...

I think the biggest single thing that I've learned for being in SL is that good RL money can be made from it. Apart from marvelling that such an environment as SL is even possible, that's the thing that most amazed me.

This is true but you need to realize too much goes on and people have trust issues which you can't blame them for doing so.

Fighting again and with someone else?

I've learned those splits in the inner thighs of the avatars are not the fault of the skin or shape maker.

I have learnt that you buy ANYTHING your heart desires, and if not, you can create it and sell to others

proof that when they go to redo the avatars they should hire an artist trained in anatomy and not some 14 year old with an etch-a-sketch.

oh, logins must be down...

some great answers.

SL reinforced something I thought RL had taught me but I had more to learn:

"attitude is everything"