M Linden's SLB5 Speech: Any Apologies / Clarifications coming?

Sorry I did not know where else to post. I do not see any clarification, apology, correction posts appearing on the LL blog about the unfortunately phrased few sentences of Mitch Kapor.

Is he planning on clarifying his meaning or shall we give up and add more logs to the bonfire that's going on at SLU and other forum sites right now?

The offending sentences are:


Timing is of essence.... Fix this now before you regret it later.

PS. Sorry about the thread title. It was a late afternoon and I was tired. I screwed up. I meant Mitch Kapor and M Linden came out. Dunno why. Maybe because I am marginalized and felt neglected.

You're funny.

Isn't there always a clarification post -- but isn't always more confusing?

Heh true but I am no misfit and nor are many of my friends.

I am a programmer for a major university and an admin for my RL technical team.

Many of us are software gurus, lawyers, real estate brokers, avid readers, graphic artists, 3d modeling gurus, stay at home moms turned entrepreneurs business owners, students, well read people.

We MADE SL what it is. Yeah we're a little loudmouth sometimes but a little respect is warranted for all we did.

This World did not make itself, and LL surely did not make anything content-wise that's worthwhile.

Visit two places I built, you will see I contributed more content to SL than all of LL employees combined. And I am a smaller-scale content creator -- so that tells you where we're coming from.

The wording was unfortunate and it was unfortunate that we were the only crowd that was singled out and name-called using some very specifically chosen negative connotation bearing words.

/me must be slow today.

What are we offended at?

Psst, it was Mitch Kapor who said that, not M Linden.

The SLB5 keynote speaker said some rather derogatory things about the current SL populace.

FIXED. I dont know what possessed me.

It still says M Linden in the post.

Where's Dan Linden when you need him?

I think he may have confused the meaning of 'misfit' with that of 'deviant'.

FIXED FIXED FIXED....

omg... what a mess.... heh

Oh.

I hope the people being offended aren't the same people who are always complaining that SL is largely populated by griefers & idiots..

Oh, that was quite the polite way of putting it. Creating an analogy between the first Second Life residents and the first pioneers of the U.S. Wild West. Wow, that sounds almost sexy.

Here would be the accurate and insulting way to put it:

"Second Life was built by the marginal and dispossessed. Throughout history, the marginal and dispossessed have been great sources of slave labor. Thanks for letting us profit from your slave labor, and by the way, you don't get to share in the rewards. Have a nice life."

LOL yes I suppose you can ALWAYS be more rude.... you've proven that point very well. Thank you.

No, actually we are complaining that LL is largely populated by griefers and idiots...

Some people will take offense at anything.

Kapor called you "marginal". Meaning, "on the fringe, an outlier, a rogue"
"dispossessed", meaning "someone who got cheated out of what was rightfully theirs". These are not disparaging terms.

For pity's sake, all he said was that the early adopters, the pioneers, of SL (and other frontiers) were people who weren't satisfied with things as they were, and willing to take a chance on something new and maybe better.

He's right, too. The ones satisfied with the status quo stay home and "work within the system". It's the mavericks and dreamers and misfits who say to hell with the crummy system and go off to make or find a better one.

Good question. 10 years ago or so, TBWA put the same stuff into the "Think Different" campaign they made for Apple, and people fell over each other in a rush to praise them for it.

Arguably, the clarification post came with the announcement of the OpenSim teleport.

If you take the harsh view, Mitch was telling us, ""Look, all you hackers and weirdos, it was fun watching the freakshow while we built this technology, but would you kindly go away now so the *real* users - you know, the ones with a *life* - can *do* something with it".
And then came the announcement of the teleport to an OpenSim. "-Could you please vacate yourself and go "pioneering" over there."

Wording aside, I actually do think that's what it's all about. Second Life as a *virtual world* (with the closed economy) is holding back the wide adoption of the Grid technology as an *information technology*. I think Mitch's point is that the two need to separate, and it's quite clear which he throws his support in for.
The question is whether they need to tear down the virtual world for that to happen, or if the Second Life we know can co-exist with this "telepresence" technology, quite possibly adopting the technology as it becomes available to create a new world of possibilities, on the new edge of what the mainstream thinks it should be used for.

Maybe if the Providers would start speaking plain English instead of the Dreamy, Techno Babble Doubletalk they routinely spew in their blogs, announcements and speeches, people wouldn't take offense where none is intended.

How else are they supposed to impress each other?

*chortles* I couldn't be offended, because Mitch lost me at the word, "pioneer."

*reads a bit of the transcript and sighs* Hmm... apparently, the feel people are getting is that the 'pioneers' are going to be pushed out in favor of whatever agenda LL is selling?

I don't know. Seems like the usual amount of babble and wind that seems to happen on corporate levels to me. People will insult the little people while talking about the 'big picture.'

You and I obviously picked up on the same underlying meaning of what Mitch said.

I don't blame Mitch though. From what I've read of him, I believe that he truly does care, in his heart of hearts, about social justice.

However, I suspect that Mitch suffers the same problem that many other, otherwise well-meaning elites have. He lacks context because he's never been on the wrong end of social injustice. That impedes his translation of what he feels in his heart into a plan of action.

Mitch's heart is in the right place. He just doesn't understand the difference between empowering the disenfranchised, and using the disenfranchised. It may be a hard point to understand if one has never been disenfranchised.

If I had access to Mitch, I wouldn't criticize him about the statement, just point out the implications of it that he missed.

So... did you miss this part?



Meaning - a LOT of people are the "marginal and the dispossessed", BUT NOT ALL. Sheesh. Keep looking for those insults, I'm sure you'll find them if you look hard enough.

Personally, I fall into the category of marginal and dispossessed, and so do a great number of the people I know in SL. By their own admission.

Yes we all missed it:

http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/13710-mitch-kapor-describes-second-lifes.html



Thanks I feel better now.