Philosophy in the New Metaverse ~ Where do you stand?

True. Two days ago, one of my alts got an IM from a campaign for governor in my state. I was flabbergasted - none of my avatars belong to any groups specific to my geographic location. RL politics and marketing in general in SL are inevitable, but I don't have to like it. Plus, I think that if people doing it were to run the numbers, they would find that inworld lobbying/marketing is a colossal waste of energy, compared to equivalent RL efforts.

The only politics that I think make any sense in SL are related to SL issues, and these organizations would look as much like user groups as like political parties. A hypothetical:

The 'Imagine" Party. Created to promote the creative use of fantasy to enhance people's lives. Includes medievalists, fae, steampunk, etc.. Probably they don't include the sex/bondage crowd, who would have their own association that may affiliate on specific issues.

'Imagine' members need a plethora of wild content creators; they need freedom to RP as they wish; they need visibility (to attract new members); they need strong anti-griefing policies by LL. They strongly support IP rights, they oppose censorship by reality-minded folks, who often have a fear reaction to anonymous fantasy.

'Imagine' derives its clout from the fact that every member provides an estimate of two things:

-- How much land they rent/own;
-- How many non-tier $L they spend monthly

On the strength of the spending power of its members, 'Imagine' has a spot on every focus group LL runs, plus the yearly (or twice yearly?) meetings that LL has with "thought leaders" in SL. And yes, these meetings happen.

'Imagine' would skip the whole office hour/Pjira dance, and meet directly with LL representatives. LL may even find that 'Imagine' 's leadership has much more experience and real world clout than their own product managers.
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Putting aside your other excellent points for the moment---

---does this mean that LL is selling our contact information?

I mean, I can't think of any other explanation.

Don't think so. More likely, she touched an object in a sim with political connections ... she did visit a sim run by the mayor's office of the town I live in. Alternatively, she could have listened or watched media from someone who collected her (geography-specific) IP address up from the media server.
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I hope this is the case. I am adamantly against being marketed to by RL companies as a result of using SL, and if it turned out LL was selling our info to any, especially political groups, it would be game over for me.

Whoa. That sounds downright... likely.

Or has it kinda happened already?

This thread is starting to serious lack in the LOLz dept.

I'm not sure why you think the 'sex/bondage crowd' would require a seperate group. Are you saying we have no imagination? The basic principles of this group seem directly in line with what most seek that I know of in any case. What specific issue do you think the 'sex/bondage crowd' would push that the 'imagine crowd' would not?

The gay crowd were shunned for years as sexual deviants, now they have an over all respect here in Oz for their achievements as a community, our big Madi Gras and quick smart and efficient work dealing with HIV in the 80's (we have very low rates here with harm minimization) They are openly marketed to by advertising as a target group of people, and pretty much freely accepted as normal.

Dunno, I haven't heard of it if it has.
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First, individual residents would of course be free to join any user groups to which they felt an affiliation, including "Imagine", yes?

Shouldn't have said "sex/bondage", meant specifically BDSM as an example of a narrower user group that might want its own organization. The BDSM crowd in SL is already one of the better organized subcultures around. I think it is obvious that, if SL "user groups" exist, at least one would represent the special interests of the BDSM crowd, which would emphasize some issues that a broad group like "Imagine" might not rank as high priority.

Perhaps there would also be an "oversensitive" user group?

The idea is intriguing, but I doubt that we, as SL avatars, would be able to put our RL selves aside sufficiently to divorce our SL politics from our RL ones. It's a sort of gestalt thing, maybe: we seek familiar patterns in the unfamiliar, and would be bound to see RL ideologies in anything that we created here.

The only way around that, I suspect, would be to essentially RP our SL politics. And that would frankly defeat the entire purpose.

I totally agree with you on the expertise. I was just kinda being tongue in your cheek. I always assumed you were English, though.

not at all, I just don't understand what special interest the BDSM group is supposed to have that doesn't fall under the interests already listed. 'Opposing censorship' pretty much covers all. But thanks for your clarification.

I don't have the sense that BDSM would require separate representation; I suspect that the practices it represents could be equally at home within most ideologies.

The same could not, however, be said for Gor.

you aren't looking hard enough... I think people arguing seriously about political and philosophical differences in a web forum for a virtual world is infinitely giggle worthy. kinda like taking a porta potty on a camping trip to be environmentally friendly.

PS but thanks for warning us that you believe everyone is here to entertain you.

Nah. Amurican.



KID AVATARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!






[^_~..............just seeing if I could goose the thread back to life...this thread has some of the most interesting posts I've seen on the Forums.]

So, where do I sign up for Imagine?

I do think the hypothetical Imagine and a hypothetical Adult group (I find that more likely than a narrowly defined BDSM group) would likely end up as separate entities. There'd be a fairly large overlap between their members and a lot of issues on which they could work together and form a pretty powerful alliance. But organizationally, I think they'd have different top priorities -- the issues that empassion their leaders would be different. For instance, I find the roleplaying crowd on the whole much less concerned with attracting newbies than with filtering out the mundanes -- hence the barrage of notecards and application forms that many roleplaying sims give you. The very fact that "mundane" started as a disparaging term should tell you something. Adult content providers, on the other hand, are going to find a lot of their business coming from mundanes who just want to buy something then take it home; they don't want to be part of any "adult community". So on at least some issues, those two groups are going to have different priorities.

Sounds like the classic (well, new classic, anyway) Immersionist versus Augmentationist distinction.

(It really would make sense to include that as one axis of any hypothetical Compass for SL--no matter how many axes it turns out to have.)

Did somebody say Axis?

*Whips off her pants and waves them in salute.

You'll look for any excuse to do that, won't you?

Not only Axis...Axes, too!