Less "Virtual" - More "Real"

I think most people in some part of their own personal stories or thoughts if they felt comfortable sharing them have something interesting to hear.
In US there lot of demand for reality TV where people get to see the Hollywood version of the average life of it's Residents.
Of course they select what would be interesting to watch on television but their are lot of stories out their that are just as interesting if told.
Personally for myself when I share things here in SL or RL about myself I am not expecting something I am doing it purely as way of sharing this what is going on, these are my struggles, thoughts and hopes. I realize the majority won't, can't or just plain doesn't care.
I am actually amazed that majority even bothers reading any profile or personal link.
Of course their are some People out there in real world and even SL I don't want to participate in any of their "Drama" its not that I don't care, its just I have my own plate full and trying to figure out how to be happy myself.
Drama on some level is unavoidable, be it dealing with people be it real, roleplay or within a group, World Politics or dealing with Linden Lab's Server Issues or just all the things we do on daily basis to either pay for or get the enough disposable funds to fund our stay here..

Is this going to be th first great division in SL, between the Rellists (people who bring RL into Second Life) and the Embeddists (those who recognise the rights of avatars to be individuals in their own right)? Could this lead to civil war on the grid?

I was once talking to a guy who claimed he was in SL as himself and used the grid as a place to publicise his RL activity. When I fended off increasingly personal questions about my RL he said he couldn't stand bullshitters and walked away.

I see SL in more simple terms. It is like a piece of paper.

You can do many different things with a piece of paper.

I wanna know if SL is going to just be A 3D EBAY/PAYPAL/GOOGLE/YOUTUBE/PORNO/CRAIGSLIST/AMWAY/CYBERCRIME/MYSPACE nightmare of gigantic proportions, making the flat internet look like a civilized cesspool--- The Spam and Griefer Capitol of the world in 3 Dimensions. I really would like to save myself the trouble of seeing that take form.

Are people walking around, saying, "I always wanted to look at my spam in 3D" ? or "I want SL to be just like RL." or "I LIKE THE GRIEFING" "lets steal as many objects as we can and retire to Bora Bora." "Lets set up a virtual Boiler room" "We can set up secret Cabals and Cadres and plan world conquest." ?
I think that if it is tied to real world, then it will just mutate, from just being a wild west to a virtual Jungle of black market scams and there will be no privacy or security in Second Life and anything created will be stolen and personal information will be traded like baseball cards, while prying eyes create there own databases of profiles. There will be millions of bots standing around, cleaning the sidewalk along with other nefarious tasks.

Was he the same guy who posted that those who don't put their personal details out for all to see were "Morally Reprehensible"? Interesting answers, they all show that motivations and uses for SL are as varied as the people who use it. For me, I never ask personal information. If I have any kind of sustainabke relationship, those things will come out in time. I do get annoyed when it is asked of me right off the bat, and oddly it always seem it's by men. But no matter what you do, some of you will be evident. I don't know what I am. I have only one Avatar, she is me. I socialize with her, I RP with her, she takes everyone she meets as they are and doesn't worry about it. Call me an Ambivalist. But I do generally view SL as a self contained entity.

The avatar is still relatively new. But I reckon that 5 years from now we will all be grown up and our virtual Barbie and Kens will be in the trash. I think it just takes time to realize the importance of being open and true to yourself.

I've seen several people in SL that were in the pro anonymous camp finally open up and fill in their 1st life profile.

Time will tell...

Of course people are free to use technology for whatever purposes advance their objectives. Although personally Immersionist, I hope the Augmentationists have a good time here and astonish us all with how they advance the human condition with new tools for interaction and experience.

But I think Augmentation is ultimately limited in two ways. First, technologically: Dennett has a pretty compelling argument somewhere about the massive intractability of anything approaching veridical tactile representation in any possible virtual reality, so that's one sense that will never be fully satisfied here. And second, even if all of RL could be satisfactorily represented, Augmentation would still be limited to the RL referent it's supposed to represent. And that would be a failure of imagination, and a quite silly self-imposed constraint on creativity.

Electronic music makes an interesting analogy. It's possible now to create sounds by purely electronic means that are indistinguishable from the sounds of acoustic instruments; Maybe 20 years ago, this was only a dream. But even though now we could, we don't limit ourselves to reproducing acoustic instruments. It would be a weirdly retro Luddite who'd argue we should forget all the sounds we heard from Moog synthesizers, etc.

I suspect that as long as newcomers arrive with a mostly "unplugged" history, they'll start out Augmentationists. It's up to the Immersionists to give them reason to step outside their self-imposed constraints.

I think you're making some false assumptions there, Qie. You assume that simply because some people don't seperate their real life from their second life it means they don't "play" or create outside the bounds of real world representation. I don't believe that's the case. Perhaps some people only feel free to engage it fantasy or child-like playfulness if they carve out a separate reality that's completely disconnected from their real world adult selves while others are able to combine the two more easily? I think the immersionist/augmentationist labels create a false divide between attitudes that can and do overlap extensively depending on the individual. It's not like a roleplayer isn't aware that the people they're roleplaying with have real world identities. They just may not know what they are.

I agree with the fundamentally "false divide" here, in fact, and the false assumptions kinda come with those labels. The most abstract of avatars will still represent some sort of identity, and the most "inspired" builds will still relate to the fundamentally architectural purpose of dividing space; to be comprehensible at all, there is necessarily some RL referent--else it would be the equivalent of electronic music only dogs can hear. So Immersionism has a reductio ad absurdum at its extreme. And the extreme of Augmentationism is telecommunications--conceptually uninteresting, however intriguing the participants or content may be.

As for the ability to create with more or less constraint imposed by RL, I accept that point, too. It's rather like the aesthetics of "stylist" vs "innovator" or creating within a genre vs improvising a new genre. Artistic expression is no less valid with either approach--and in fact the approaches are interdependent. (As Mies said, "It's not necessary to invent a new Architecture every Monday morning."

I'm also thinking that there are two almost orthogonal things here: the intention to represent reality *realistically*, vs the intention to be *truthful* about it. One could easily create a hyper-realistic Profile for some real person who isn't oneself, and portray that person well enough to pass my Turing test, anyway. By my formulation, that would be just as "augmentationist" as a truthful profile. (By instinct, I believe both of those equally--that is, not at all--so if the Profile tells me instead that the avatar is in RL a golden insect from the Sardar mountains, that's just as good by me.)

I agree, a fascinating discussion. I see no need for either immersionists or augmentationists to turn out to be "right". I myself swing between these two poles on different days; in fact, altho I initially tried to keep it clear for myself by dedicating certain avatars to types of immersionist activity, the lines have blurred for my dear other "me"s as well.

LL (or some other VR supplier) will build a platform capable of being cloned to create many grids; and I hope that the original SL grid will persist as an immersionist, frontier space -- while a multiplicity of realistic "augmentation" grids will proliferate.

My! this is an interesting distinction. There was a thread a bit ago asking if "realistic" fictional first life profiles were lying, and I have to say that is where I draw a line and do think that these are prompted by an intention to deceive, rather than play. However, in reading profiles, my attitude is closer to yours, Qie - I take the entire profile, including the 1st life page, as part of the game. I trust as true things that friends whom I trust tell me -- the rest, to me, is fun to know but not gospel.

it's just a game. but when participating, be courteous and helpful, just like RL.

Pretty true. No matter what type of lofty title you want to give your reasons and motivations to be here, just treat everyone you meet with a modicum of respect and courtesy and everything will work out.

I don't think there is a divide at all....., augmentationalists, realismistismistismists, fantasists, .... whoever, everyone is welcome in SL and there is plenty of space.

SL certainly has room for augmentationalists (I understand this, from the thread, to be people who add SL as a real extension to their real lives - took me a while to get that because I thought augmentationalists were those that altered their avatar body shape to enhance breast shape and size....)..

As others have pointed out - any avatar's profile can be deceitful (or virtual), whether that is intentional or not. There is probably a fair proportion of SL users who have no idea who they are in real life, let alone SL, and even if you had a RL face to face discussion with them, you cannot be 100 per cent sure that the representation of themselves that they offer is true, even if the other person appears to believe it.

I agree. To me SL is simply a tool. We can be curious and ask 'why' some use this tool the way they do - by asking, we may learn a new way to enjoy SL - as long as we respect each other's choices. The problem only arises when people look down on those who use SL differently than themselves. Whether you choose to live in a 'real' house or in a mushroom or a shoe - whether you choose to use SL to create, perform or only to communicate, what difference does it make? The way we all use this ONE tool differently is exactly why I love SL.

/me raises a glass of mulled wine to Isabeau. Well said!

Aint no cheese in this maze... not biting Jig

imogen

Others did Imogen, others did - and it was a good discussion. It opened up the right mazes - it is good to question but answers are not always forthcoming.

Interesting Brenda - but tell me, how do you know they are MEN? Maybe they are ultra-virtualists- convincing us they are not what they truly are?
Ultra-virtualists - Hmmm, I like that ...

Hmmmmm......I should have said Male Avatars. Good point.

People are virtually human, almost.

I think we should replace the default typing animation for male avatars. Instead of making those typing gestures in the thin air, male avis should scratch their butts.

Very true

Ah I see ... hmm I enjoy both groups, guess I have become accustomed to them,
no Chicken Little moments, everyone/thing is within tolerances and a teleport away.

Ok, I see. I did use the terms wrong, it's true. But I'm a little bit confused about where exactly you're making the distinction.

By that what I mean is... if in real life, I'm Janet Smith the programmer and in Second Life I want to be Phaedra Silverlight the scripter.. am I an immersionist, because I want my SL identity to be different from my RL one? Or am I an augmentationist because I want to bring my RL skill into SL? When you talk about "immersion" in Second Life as a place in its own right, is that a "country" by its definition IRL or not? Are immersionists people who would want to make visiting Second Life comparable with visiting (for example) France? If so, I think the role-players could easily be an entirely separate group, because although France is a beautiful place, you won't be able to become a cyberpunk or a fairy princess there (as far as I know, anyway )



For universal human fulfilment I think it is. In the absence of omnipresence, "people's attention" is a scarce resource, and since most of us require interaction with other humans to feel any kind of fulfillment, that will act as a top limit otherwise.