Philosophy in the New Metaverse ~ Where do you stand?

Over the past few years, we have seen a new sort of politics specific to our online lives shape up ~ rather fiercely in fact.

It's truly something new.

* * * * *

Consider how "Left" and "Right" formed.

Sure, it was easy to tell the Royalists from the Montagnards in late 18th century France; it's not hard to guess what a Royalist is about. But what their opposition thought about any particular subject was difficult to predict ~ at first. Nowadays in US politics at least, one can have a modest guess as to what a Democrat thinks on a number of issues, as compared to a Republican.

Or skip over the channel and consider contemporaneous Burke, he of the "all evil requires is for good men to do nothing" quote. Burke, the heart and soul of what eventually became known as modern conservatism. Oddly enough, some positions he held dearly would mark him as staunchly left~leaning today.

This begs the question: Where are all of us headed, philosophically?

* * * * *

The following are musings of mine, and while any particular one of them may be 'wrong' ~ perhaps there is something to the whole of it.


1) Open source.

Love it or hate it, it's a fact of our world to some varying degree. In moderation, it isn't very polarising ~ but in its utter absence, or overwhelming dominance it takes on political dimension.

To me, radical closedsource~ism seems to be a province of the new right, whereas radical opensource~ism seems to be the territory of the new left.



2) Powers of Governance.

Traditionally, socialism, communism and anarchy form the left, and monarchy, nationalism and fascism form the right, with various "reasonable" degrees inbetween.

"If you don't like the situation here, use some other software" ~ to me, this sort of statement is very right~leaning. Drawing closer to our world, private parcels are *very* right~leaning (absolute power to eject in the hands of the owner). And private estates tend to be right~leaning also. True, the citizenship of any given estate can vote with their feet, but the choice between Land Baron A and his aristocratic, business~centric friends Land Baron B, C, D, and E can be a bit... choiceless, really. I say this as a land baron myself.

On the left, one might zoom out a little bit from the myriad micro~kingdoms on the Mainland, and see a vast sea of anarchy. True, there are some distant, mostly 'hands off' powers far above, but nothing comes of that unless there is an egregious issue. As such, I see the Mainland as left~leaning and anarchic in character; each little king there still subject to greater trends far beyond his control.



3) Intellectual Property.

Intellectual Property matters most to those who have it, and it is here that we see some of the strongest stratification in society, period.

At one end of the spectrum are the content creators ~ the merchant barons, the artisans who not only create, but Create for Money. While that darling young lady may seem an effusive and ultraliberal dressmaker, watch her ultraconservative fangs and claws come out when someone rips her new dress textures. Rarely can a more conservative bunch be found anywhere, when it comes to IP rights and theft.

At the other end are the freebie collecting consumers, the the artisans who refuse any money and give away their entire output for the joy of it, and yes, the pirates too. Arrr! That be yer content we be rippin' matey!

The real situation is not quite so clear cut; for instance I do not think that Creative Commons makes you a communist; it is entirely possible to be largely conservative and hold a spectrum of opinions about IP rights.

Do real world matters, such as real world incomes factor in? Not really. It's possible to be a multimillionaire and still be a freetard online. In fact, to *stay* a multimillionaire you probably have some strong tendencies that way to begin with. What matters here, are your actions.



4) Identity, anonymity, "verification" and so forth.

This ties into IP rights a bit, too. I see strong ties to identity as right~leaning, whereas utter anonymity verges to the left.

Consider: if someone 'does you wrong', the State could track down all their alts and bring an issue straight to their very real residence, with strong ties to identity. But that's not what we have ~ we have a world of anonymity, a world of second chances... second chances in which one can get a fresh start. To do good, or do evil.

A side twist to Anonymity ~ in this view, all those who age verified, or had payment info on file for Zindra... are right leaning. The hard left never verified, and simply went underground or left altogether.



5) Rights.

The internet at large is a strange place. Both brains~falling~out liberal and ridiculously iron~fisted at the same time. It is built on killfiles and bans, even while allowing shocking amounts of freedom in other social dimensions.

All of this amplifies in our world. There are very few places that are true public commons. Rights derive directly from property, from ownership ~ as we are used to having in the 'real' world. But unlike the real world, property distribution is strongly skewed. 99.9% of the time one has little more rights than those granted by the local landed gentry, and it's quite easy to find oneself on the wrong end of a very blunt ban stick.

Without wanting to touch upon *any* recent examples, a meta~question might be: how far should property rights go? I feel that the current situation is heavily right~leaning. "I don't like your face" is sufficient to remove anyone from your land ~ but consider what happens if 100 landed people out of 100 do that. "Parcel rights" suddenly become the law of the entire land; a sort of inverse tragedy of the commons.

Of course, the *reason* why we have such draconian, blunt right wing land tools such as ban is obvious. It's the natural counterbalance to the ultra~left situation of instant, renewable anonymity.

* * * * *


Let's summarise that wall of text above a bit, for those without attention spans.



Left on the left, right on the right!

1) Opensource: radical opensource~ism on the new left, radical closedsource~ism on the new right.
2) Governance: mainland anarchy on the new left, private estates on the new right.
3) Intellectual Property: freetards and pirates on the new left, content creators on the new right.
4) Accountability: the anonymous on the new left, the disclosed on the new right.
5) Rights: the landless and the drifters on the new left, landed gentry with banhammers new right.


Looking at things this way, much of the friction in this world starts to make sense.

Who is driving policy, and why? Will some large fraction of us *always* disagree? Are some things always in inherent conflict, such as perhaps renewable anonymity and Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) filings?

We all make up the world, but it's a matter of 'protruding elbows' ~ if we design a high degree of asymmetric agony into the system, we can expect to fight over the same silly things for a long time.

And yeah, yeah I know: tl;dr. Go on, then

* * * * *

So where do you stand?

New Liberal freetard, or New Conservative holder of valuable IP rights? Somewhere inbetween? Somewhere that contradicts *all* of this?

I'm curious.

Des

Nice post, Des.

This fence is going to get awfully crowded for a while longer at least.

This is a serious thread that requires much thought and I may need several postings in it to gather my ideas. Briefly, I think we are swinging to the right (and rather rapidly). The metaverse is a dangerous place at the moment for radicals. This is fertile ground for fascist ideas and ideologies. All outrageous places attract fascism- look at Berlin 1928. And, for the most part, despite the demand for democracy we live in a fascist world in our realities. So it stands to reason sl will come to reflect that.

Computers are dictated by order - the randomness factor is really only order reshuffled and dealt out again. It was born from order and the numeracy of its designers.

I won't sit on a fence. They are uncomfortable and I might fall off. I am a leftist but I am more a radical feminist. I am not convinced there is a place for me here as time rolls along. But its gonna be interesting to watch ghettoization of the radicals and free-thinkers and the rolling tide of right-wing pap masking itself as a"new metaverse for today's global village" that so much of the internet is fast becoming.

It's time for me to read Orwell again and Golding's Lord of the Flies. Even Fahrenheit 432 by Bradbury (though I hate sci-fi). The world will probably end as PD James suggests in Children of Men (with a possible "new dawn" but a promise of history repeating).

Verification (I think payment may be more passive verification) is definitely rightist. It's a card carrying approval rating. I agree, Mr Shang.

/me feels as though she has died and gone to heaven . . .

Wow, there is an impressive amount and depth of analysis here. I want to comment on all of these things, but, for the time being, I'll just throw in a couple of thoughts.

1) The traditional dichotomy of left/right is breaking down in the RL, and I think it really in some ways applies to SL not at all. The left, which used to be "big government," is now increasingly about community-based governance, "acting locally" rather than through a big state machine. I think that is very much reflected in SL, and also, to a great degree, in your analysis.

2) One of the things that struck me most strongly about SL after my first few months here was the distinctively "American" flavour of the politics. Possibly this isn't so evident to those of you from the States, but I think that for many of us from elsewhere (Canada, New Zealand, and Europe esp.) it is reallly striking. I am referring not to a Republican / Democrat divide, but rather to the astonishing prevalence of (right-wing) libertarian thought here. In some ways, SL is an Adam Smith wet dream: "state" regulation of the economy is minimal, and power here is ALL about property and money. Coming from a country with a fairly strong tradition of social democracy, I have felt, at times, very alienated by the power structures here: SL sometimes seems like a free market economy gone nuts. The economic libertarianism is, of course, paralleled by and to some degree responsible for the social libertarianism as well, in particular, the prevalence of different kinds and degrees of sexual freedom enjoyed here.

My sense is that SL was a kind of experimental playground for economic libertarians and Smithites for its first years, a development that was I think encouraged by Philip Rosedale, who seems somewhat inclined that way himself. I also suspect that those days are coming to an end, as the corporate machine exerts its presence more forcibly, and becomes increasingly, in effect, "big government" here. A great deal of the resistance to, and resentment of, the new AC regulations and Zindra derive, I suspect, from the feeling that some libertarians have that the cultural ethos in SL is shifting away from them.

3) The challenge in SL, as I see it, is to resist the corporate takeover of SL culture, not by clinging to an increasingly unviable libertarianism, but rather by putting into place our own systems of governance that operate collectively, consensual, and at the micro level. I think that we have to start anticipating where LL is going, and respond to it by producing our own governance systems that work around, or render ineffective, the top-down authority that I think we will see increasingly imposed here. It will be difficult to accomplish this, I suspect, because the technology in SL itself works against it. But it is only by finding workarounds for the limits that are imposed on us by that technology, and by LL itself, that we can hope NOT to find ourselves working in SL under what will be, essentially, an increasingly heavy-handed but putatively benevolent dictatorship.

Interesting Desnond, well thought out. And I don't disagree with any of it.

The question of land ownership vs. being a virtual peon doesn't seem to correlate exactly between rl and SL.

In SL it is possible to own a private island that the "public" is completely unaffected by and do things others are unaware of. This is increasingly difficult in rl. It takes more rl resources than the average 21st century human has to isolate oneself in rl or in sl.

On the other hand only people who in rl can afford computers and internet connections can even be in SL. But once in SL it's much easier to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness without owning much or spending much money than it is in real life.

As an SL shop keeper, selling things I made, who considers myself to be pretty pro-open source and far left in rl politics I'm probably a bit of an exception.

Because in rl there are so many of us sharing diminishing resources I don't think the life of the rugged individualist is practical for those of us who don't have our own private water supply, sewage disposal system, security guards, food, and medical facilities and staff. I believe that the only hope for most of us in real life is to band together and form a government to help us organize and pool our energies to take care of everyone. (A true democracy I mean, not a totalitarian system dictated from the top.)

In SL however, where the problems of physical safety, sanitation, food distribution, and health care are not issues, pure anarchy seems like a viable way for many to go.

And if like minded people want to get together to buy their own sims I guess they can conduct whatever social experiments they want.

I sometimes think it's important that we continue to polarize and fight over the same silly things, because the alternative is the sort of bland mediocrity that is to my mind what we are really headed toward of late. Finding a balance between Left and Right would be a fatal mistake, in my mind; what is needed is a balance between Order and Chaos.

A decidedly simplistic and un-timely example that comes to mind: for all I don't miss the simple and annoying types of self-replicating object attacks that have been curtailed in the last couple of years, I really honestly do miss that they used to happen by accident sometimes to people trying to script something entirely different. I also miss the fun of semi-consensual orbiting although I understand the reasoning behind it's demise. My point being that the ongoing conflict between orbiters and gray-goo-makers, and those for whom such beasties are just too much inconvenience to be allowed, well it was more fun. And I suspect good (or at least different) things came from this conflict from time to time.

/random and incomplete thoughts before bed

Totally agree except for "sexual freedom enjoyed here" - guilt-ridden lasciviousness is enjoyed here but it's not sexual freedom. America does not have the sexual freedom of Canada, UK, Europe et al. I think it can be stifling here. And when the Christian right catch wind of all this, we are doomed.

Actually, I will tentatively agree with you, although I am ill-equipped, in some ways, to judge, not being an American myself.

An index of the sexual guilt in SL is the degree to which I think many people strongly identify with their mode of sexual expression here. In places where sexuality is more liberal, it is also not really such a big thing, in the sense that it is taken somewhat for granted. Thus, ironically, one of the effects of liberal attitudes towards homosexuality, legalizing same-sex unions, etc., is that it effectively begins to erase the distinctiveness of gay culture. Gays can get married, and have children, and live in the suburbs (or a condo downtown) just like everyone else. They are effectively absorbed into mainstream culture.

I suspect, then, that the more threatened one feels that one's sexuality is, the more militantly one identifies with it. One of the things that REALLY surprised me in SL was the degree to which people STRONGLY identified with their particular flavour of sexuality. It isn't just a question of what particular kind of porn one likes to masturbate with: it's all about self-definition. And I've come to believe that that IS because of a sense of residual guilt.

I agree. And I think this applies to all self-identifications, not just those related to sexuality.

For example, we all know how vehement those who identify as BDSM can be when discussions of potential Linden Lab restrictions on those activities are discussed. But discussions of non-sexual 'freedoms' threatened by changes in Linden policy have been scarcely less forceful and rancorous (I'm thinking of a number of hostility-laden threads on For Sale signs, 'land-cutting', and copy-botting, to name three).

There's a strong sense of assertion of identity, even in these non-sexual contexts: 'this is who I AM, I'm the one who cares about a beautiful environment' or 'this is who I AM, I'm the one who takes 44,048m parcels and makes them usable for the majority of Residents' or 'this is who I AM, I'm the creator, don't give me that 'Creative Commons' crap.'

But I think that your point about 'the more threatened one feels' is spot-on.

An identification I'd admit to: I am very fond of wine. Yet when discussions of restricting the availability of alcohol arise, I'm mellow, not agitated.

And that's because a repeat of the Prohibition experiment my country engaged in, ninety years ago, is unlikely. No matter how hard some might campaign for it to be re-enacted, the prevailing view here is that it didn't work.

So I can hear people discuss whether it's a good idea without emotion. It's even possible to join in and play devil's advocate on the side of prohibition, because I don't feel personally threatened with the loss of something I care about.

Not so with the people in SL discussing restrictions on making small parcels or on putting a For Sale sign on their land or making Permissions restrictive as a default, to protect their work; LL can and has made policy that keeps them from doing things that are part of their identities.


(this is kind of a minor point in relation to Desmond's topic, but it's something I'd thought about before so I figured I'd write it out.)

Really interesting post. I hope this discussion is still going in a couple of days when I have time to read people's responses (MUST stop visiting this forum and do some work).

Just for now, though, I'd like to throw Immersionism V's Augmentationism into the mix - lots of things you mention have been talked about in terms of these labels. I wonder how or if they relate to left or right leanings. My perception is that whereas Philip Linden is an Immersionist, M Linden is an Augmentationist and that this has big implications for the direction our world is heading.

Me personally - I have strong immersionist leanings and am a bit of an anarchist, a bit of a feminist and a bit of a lefty.

How would that work? On my islands, people operate under a pretty consensual system of governance (do what you want so long as you don't upset me or any of the other tenants), but this only works because I'm very choosy about to whom I'll rent. And, I think, it's helped by the fact, in my capacity as landowner, I'm a very benevolent, pragmatic and diplomatic dictator who tries to resolve our rare disputes by negotiating a deal everyone can live with but who's known to have an utterly ruthless streak when necessary.

And none of that's worth a great deal anyway, should Linden Labs decide to embark on some harebrained scheme for making the user experience more enjoyable or predictable or whatever ... nothing I could do about Adult Content and so on, other than find out what I needed to do to minimise the new rules' impact on how we choose to spend our time in SL.

Second Life is a dictatorship; we none of us have any rights we can enforce, other than, as customers, though the US courts (or possibly our local ones?), should we have the time, money and inclination so to do. You can set up more or less private communities and have them run as the residents want, subject to the fiat of the owner, but that's all subject to Linden Labs allowing you to and to someone paying the bills whether your community is Gor or Virtual Walden.

In RL I am a hardcore left-winger, except that I do believe since we are already playing this "money" and "property rights" game, it should be played fairly (RL & SL). I also have no real issue with tying my avatar to myself as long as I can have reasonable anonymity when I want it (an alt should always be an option). I try to curb my tendencies to look longingly at tinfoil hats. But sometimes the governments make that a challenge

I am sorta on the same page with you here, Scylla. But I would add that the lack of freedom to "be absorbed into mainstream culture" or not is the real reason for militantly identifying with one's sexuality. It becomes a cause because of that, not for each individual, but for those who are brave enough.

Nice post, Des!

I generally see the virtual environment in terms of more basic terms, which you sorted out much more efficiently with your left/right analogy.

I think SL, in particular, has no choice but to lean more and more to the left. Like the story of a galaxy far far away and long long ago, the more the "right" tightens its grip with banlines, guarding of private property and moral values, the more rebels are going to slip through its fingers.
Given enough rebels, new ideas start to become mainstream.

Popular culture is becoming more and more permissive because more and more people simply flaunt convention, social rules and even the law. It's become easier to keep permitting these things than to try force people to adhere to established laws and morals.

Right or wrong, it is so in SL. Landowners who put up banlines are simply laughed at because one can simply cam into their bedroom or, frankly, go visit more interesting places.
It is not necessary to spend money to have fun in SL, so having money (RL or SL) is no sign of social status.

I've always regarded these things as a question of personality: Small minded, me-first, backward thinking, isolationists versus creative, generous, open-minded potsmokers. And everything in between.

So I guess, yeah - your analysis is very illuminating.

The Resdients of SL may want to lean toward a more free and open climate in SL, but unfortunately, LL is still in charge. They are pimping to the Corprorates, who are anything but. I see Private Estates being the realm of the edgy creativity that makes SL enjoyable, while the General LL realm becoming more and more bland and boring. Zindra is an example of this. The rub is that the Corporates probably won't come, thankfully, but will there be anything left of The Mainland after LL is done making it more predictable?

Personally, I think you left one out:

If it is ethically wrong, you shouldn't do it on the left, if it isn't clearly illegal it's fair game on the right.

Hopefully, the center will hold.

Or at least if it's illegal, immoral, and you have a good chance of getting away with it... on the far right. If it's illegal but ethical and fun, on the far left.

There are some great responses in this thread, as I knew there would be. Mr Antonelli's struck home with me (among a couple others).

Regardless of the environment, there will always be extremes and those somewhere in between. Too many on one side will eventually galvanize a reaction to its dominance. However, a utopian society is impossible and our history and fiction (how many starship captains said "screw the prime directive"?) are replete with this fact.

And to echo what others have said, SL is already comprised of the RL segment of the population with means. Not everyone has access nor can afford to be here. The population of SL is already skewed insofar as personal politics are concerned. Yes, there are those among us with more means than others, but this is where RL does seep in and an SL classist system DOES develop.

I think SL mimics RL very closely in many ways.

And we have to consider LL's role. If they had their druthers they would just toss out this playground and let us have at it. Well that didn't work, and the pendulum had to swing the other way. They are desperately, and at times poorly, trying to find this middle ground that allows freedoms but curtails truly destructive behaviour. We watch everything that they do and then depending on our interests and leanings, react accordingly every time they "interfere" with SL. But we must ever remember that it is their playground regardless of what they advertise.

This is an interesting experiment. Like it or not, we're all labrats here but hopefully a system of future virtual worlds will learn from all of this and find the middle ground that will allow true and continued growth of self, character and technology for us all. The extremes will hopefully continue to keep things fresh lest we all fall victim to mediocrity. And I think they will for this world and its denizens are far too varied and vast with unique and similar experiences. We can share, bond, and influence. That is life, whether it is RL or SL.

(pardon if that didn't make much sense, I'm fighting a migraine at present)

I'm not one to throw several unrelated matters on a variety of heaps and be told to pick one heap.
My opinion on each of the seperate matters may be extreme, but not found together on one heap. It's a reason why I'm glad I don't live in the USA, where there's a choice of only 2 political parties, and even here in the Netherlands, where we generally have over 20 active political parties, I often do not vote, since I flatout refuse to chose the "lesser evil", since they're all too thick and ignorant to come up with a "common good" which could be acceptable to me.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

W. B. Yeats "The Second Coming"

(a gyre is the column of air that a hawk or falcon "rides" as it soars and hunts.)

/me looks round nervously, wondering what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Uncategorisable.

Pep (Needs more dimensions.)

Scylla, hate to do this to you, but I agree almost totally. I know this will ruin your reputation.
I do disagree with your point 3, giving up freedom to "resident governments" will not save freedom in the end.