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

OK I like what you're saying. Thanks for putting it so well. I agree with this.

What, fringe elements on the grid?

I'm shocked, I tell you - shocked!

Next I'll be hearing there are people who like to be tied up, goreans, transhumanists, ageplayers and (gasp!)... furries.

Who would have ever thought?

I was firm in my opinion that all of you are well-adjusted accountants, insurance agents and schoolmarms. Maybe a dentist or two also? With minivans, tract homes and retirement plans.

Why, I could have sworn the Cleavers moved in next door on the mainland... that leash was for the dog, right?

* * * * *

Rather than feel insulted, I can appreciate plain talk. I *am* a dispossessed, marginal person.

That's what drove me to creating my own startup company in RL, and succeeding well enough at it that I can sit here in my own office yapping at everyone here now, whilst doing okay *again* on the grid.

So color me in as one of those offbeat types. I was dispossessed all right, but I guess all of my friends here on the grid repo'd me regardless if I wanted to be or not

I thought they sat around and showed each other how big theirs was..........? Computers, I mean. I'm actually surprised Mitch didn't post his PC specs at the end of his speech.

Ditto.

No way are we mainstream.
I didn't feel in the least insulted by the words or what I understood their meaning to be.
It's the way of the world.

OP - Get over it.

Right.

Marginal and dispossessed with nothing left to lose.

Yup. Nothing offensive about any of that.

Goes along with Philip saying the typical SL resident was a victim of oppressive regimes, poor economies, and . . . er, bad weather.

Now let's all stop whining and get out of the way, so they can welcome the real people: corporations and educational and charitable institutions.

Corporations and institutions. Not quite people, of course, but perhaps because of that, infinitely preferable.

coco

I dunno, I always felt pretty mainstream, Pragmatic even.

Just keep telling yourself that.

Lawyers and dentists... looking for babyfurs to...
*shudders*
I dare not even think the thought.

I dunno, I always felt pretty mainstream, Pragmatic even.

QFT, and WB!

You are a unique individual

... just like everybody else.


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I get the strong impression from some of the negative reaction here and elsewhere that some people interpreted Kapor as implying that we were 'those words' in a material sense.

What I clearly understood him to mean was that most early adopters in SL were not representative of the mainstream masses that would eventually dominate the 3D virtual universe by their sheer numbers.
That's an entirely reasonable thing to say.

A 3D universe for 10s or 100s of millions will be mostly a mundane affair - more like RL.
All of what goes on currently in SL can still go on, but it will be marginal.

They may not have been the best choice of words but I can't help feeling that any outrage over this is ridiculous, IMHO.

--Hugsy

"You are not your job.
You are not how much you have in the bank.
You are not the contents of your wallet.
You are not your f*cking Khakis.
You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.
You are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of
the world."
- Tyler Durdan, "Fight Club"

Everybody please rise and join me in reciting the Non Conformist's Oath

"I promise to be different.............."

"I promise to be unique.............."

"I promise to never repeat things other people say........."

All he said ,I believe,if I may use gross British vernacular is:-

We've had your money now piss off.

I think that if you were offended by anything Mitch said, you're way too sensitive or you don't have the capability of understanding what he was talking about.

And if you're offended by what I just said, I'm glad.

There was nothing but positive stuff in his speech.

P2

He spoke clinically, which sounded quite cavalier, about the changing nature of the population from the crazy thing that is is now with a uniquely open mindset and a disproportionate amount of creative people to something else that is far more pedestrian and mundane. So long, and hanks for all the fish.

Hmmmmmmm.

Catch 22

He spoke of the early adopters and their approaches becoming outnumbered.
Anyone who didn't realise that that was going to happen was living in a fantasy world.

It will always be open to people to have a section of the world that is as creative and wacky as a lot of SL is today.
Maybe what upsets some people is the thought that they won't be top of the heap in a vastly expanded world.
Egos are hurt.

I'm sorry, but when I tell someone they are marginal, I don't mean they are "on the fringe, an outlier, a rogue", I mean they are marginal - a footnote, an asterisk, an aside, if little consequence. In fact, should I look up marginal in the dictionary -

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/marginal

- I certainly don't see any edgy, trench-coat-and-sunglasses terminology relating how cool we are. I see "the fringe of consciousness", "the lower limit of qualification, acceptability, or function", and "a function of a random variable".

This is supposed to be complimentary? Who is his speech writer, George W. Bush?

I fit Mitch's description to a T and proud of it. I am a major misfit. Had I been able to succeed in the corporate world, I doubt I would be selling virtual teddy bears for 75 cents apiece. I got the smarts and the creativity, but the disfunction of the corporate world was toxic for me. I had to find another way to create an income from my computer skills and here I am.

Mitch said nothing about getting RID of the early adopters, only said that the ADDITION of pragmatists residents was going to change the SL world. I think he's right.

Truth and the pinnacle of irony at the same time.
(...said the cat)

Most of the world isn't comprised of stuffy suits attending the quarterly meeting. You're in the majority. Let your freak flag fly!

Yes I promise to be, create, do whatever I wish as uniquely as possible regardless
if it's what others are doing or selling, and always be freaky just for the fun of it too.