Virtual Worlds and Morality

Hugsy, I hope there no streakers that decide to visit you that day or griefers
who decide to shoot flying phallus your way that day.

LOL, me too. I know my solution isn't going to be perfect and hinges on the SFW areas being either monitored or having high priority for ARs. But, if nothing else, it gives me the excuse that "this should not be happening here" and then I can move on.

--Hugsy

It's already been done. The virtual world is named Wall Street and the event was called "Sub-Prime Lending".

Pep (so popular it expanded globally)

Complete lack of regulation has a certain primal allure on the surface, but I think people cling to "the rules of the game" a lot more than they realize. For example, it just wouldn't be a very fun "game" if I had to keep thinking about who was going to steal the L$ balance straight from my account, or whether all my land would be turned into a PN sandbox overnight. And we expect some RL protections, such as controlling the line between SL and RL, and the privacy of other information on our computers. We might even like the idea that content creators have some IP rights, just as an economic incentive for creating the stuff.

Our deeply ingrained notions of "property rights" are really demands for rules preventing us from tearing down our neighbors' content. And we expect those rules to apply without spending 24x7 patrolling the perimeter with a popgun.

Seems to be a wide range of opinions on this, but I'm on the side of freedom. If that means anarchy, then so be it, We are talking about a VIRTUAL World for heavens sake.
If people want to gamble their life savings away in SL or anywhere else, why is it LL's duty to stop them.
OK. I don't like the idea of kids playing sex games here, but it is their parents responsibility to control their internet access. It is not LL or any other private company's.

Alas, there is a US government, and LL is a US company.

OH NO - A teenage boy saw a naked doll on his computer screen. His whole life is ruined. He will never be able to look a real girl in the eyes again.

True, but they don't have to come. There are already things I find offensive in SL; I just don't visit those sims. I don't want to ban them.

LONG LIVE FREEDOM !

Uhm...You ever heard of the word term "THE LAW"?

It is "THE LAW" that allows you to have the 'freedom' you have to day. It is "THE LAW" which requires such silly rules and protections to be instituted in the first place.

Yea, and a 15 year old seeing a naked female form is not a big deal, but when his parents come into the room and see the naked female doll and a name, and see their son choking his chicken at the keyboard while staring at that doll, then maybe that doll is the name they use when they start claiming a sexual predator on the interwebz gamez was making their little innocent and virginal Jerry-Poo whack off.

Yes, Anarchy may sound nice and all to you for some reason, but the reality is that we had that once in SL and it did not work too well at all.

Till they move next to your parcel?
And if we are going to have anarchy lets do it properly and allow theft and killing of other avatars for their stuff.
WHERE IS OUR FREEDOM TO KILL & STEAL?

One sure way to cure an anarchist is to set a bunch of anarchists to work on him.

This is the best solution, allowing personal freedom of choice about the kind of content you would see in SL, but I've wonder very sincerely why it is that having sims clearly marked as "Mature" or "PG" never actually achieved this goal.

one big catch is many people don't consider the ramifications of what they do as being in relation to other people... so they don't see anything wrong with acting in a manner that they wouldn't do face to face.

Morality is a tricky thing.

One person's vice is another person's virtue

To some people a bare breast is taboo, to others it's just a bare breast and nothing to worry about.

The question arises as to whose morality will be enforced... Ancient Rome's, Southern Baptist, Buddhism, Shinto, Hindu, Scientology, etc... Which one out of all of them do you enforce?

The only real answer is the legal one of the place the company operates out of, due to the fact they can suffer penalties if they do not.

Why Australian - their servers are in Cali?

Anarchy does not mean chaos. Spontaneous order is real and governs most of our lives.

Anarchy gets a bad image because the name "anarchist" has been taken over by a bunch of rich kids who wish they were living in the 1930's Soviet Union. Smashing shop windows is not anarchy, it is chaos.

Think about it, how many of you stop and consider "Are the actions I am taking against the LAW?" I know I damn well never do. I do what is best for me and my family. I have a moral code that prevents me from using force other than in defense of persons and property.
If you don't have that moral code, then I will deal with you the same way I deal with a rabid dog.


Sling, turn your "chaosists" loose on me, I doubt I will even have to reload once before they decide to behave.

Freedom is great if no one is interfering with one's own freedom to enjoy
whatever one enjoys...
but does that also include freedom to do whatever even if its disruptive, creepy,mean, nasty, selfish, hurtful to others even when it ruins the fun, enjoyment of others then?
Morality is up to the individual, I personally only know what works for me yet
their are governments that base their laws on their morals that I don't always agree with but I don't have say over these things.
If you do have away to change those things, then do something about it but you're going to have change things in first life to make things change here.

You should take a look at Goya's paintings, Bacon's portraits and Diane Arbus' photographs. Is there a line that we can draw in this debate? What one person believes is essential to maintain our freedom and our dignity as such, could be considered high immoral and disgusting by another. I think the Lindens do their best on this tightrope. Actually, speaking as someone involved in teh arts, they don't do too badly at all. And the arts is a barometer of a society's health and welfare.

Well...

I admit I applauded when LL banned sexual ageplay.

I wasn't in favor of the gambling ban, but I didn't argue about it either, since I don't gamble myself.

I cheered when LL banned the con artists calling themselves "banks".

And I danced when the adfarmers got knackered.

All of those things were bad things (IMO, of course) I was glad to see them go. I still am.

BUT: When they went, they took something with them. Some indefinable vigor, energy, liveliness...whatever you want to call it. By banning these bad things, we've also dealt a blow to our freedoms. We've limited our horizons and choices, and I think the grid as a whole feels it. There is less of that sense of limitless possibility that SL had only a year or two ago.

Is it just me? Am I just becoming a jaded and disillusioned oldbie, pining for the good ol' days of the cyber frontier? Or do the rest of you feel it too?

Church Of All Worlds, Incorporated.

Aequafraternally Yours.

What of the Discordians?

No, I think you are on to something there. I don't know if it is directly related to all that or not, but SL has been losing it's whimsey and fancifal qualities for about the past yearor so. It's becoming....dull, middle of the road....real life like. I'm not intersted in making stuff, playing house, or making money. I do that in RL. I want to do fun, off the wall stuff, have adventures, even things that make me say "Wow, that was wierd" I look at SL as a theme park, I want to come and be entertained, visit the cool places people make, and buy their stuff. SL has lost a lot of it's edginess, cheekiness and style at least for me. I guess that is the price of going mainstream.

The presumption here is that you've got a better gun, or at least an adequate gun, than others... and that there aren't any soft spots in your life or people you care about that could be attacked asymmetrically. And that you never sleep.

Looking back to ancient times, anarchy was simply the rule of the day... until agriculture became important. Agriculture was too soft a target for what you call "chaosists" - this is where anarchy broke down and people actually started to band together.

This took a number of forms. Warring villages in grassland/plainsland environments soon found a way to stabilise society beyond their own village a bit - they discovered that the practise of marrying daughters off to other villages greatly disincentivised the villages from attacking one another.

Another solution in another part of the world to stave off forces of chaos, as you describe it, was to put three farming families together, to make them strong enough to fend off attack. This group was called a 'triad'- with loyalty to your triad being your most important asset. This was so successful it echoed deeply into our modern world in ways that I am sure the original farmers never imagined.

Yet another was big government, Egyptian style - with daily management of water, and year to year management of grain for famine years becoming the difference between life and death for everyone once the population density reached a certain point.

Anarchy is an interesting scenario, and in fact it's playing out in a big way, in many parts of the world right now. Check out the horn of Africa, for instance. Alright, everyone has their choices... but I personally think that emulating anarchy is a collossal mistake.

The Principia Discordia was written several years after the introduction of the Church Of All Worlds, Incorporated.

a thousand times qft. Could not agree more.

Hmm, why is Legend City asking for my SL ID and password?

This is not acceptable behavior.. uninstall..

People don't think of 'the LAW', as you put it, because where it impacts our daily life, people have it ingrained and don't have to think about it. Go somewhere else - like driving in another state when right turn on red was not as ubiquitous in the U.S. as it is now, and suddenly you are very aware of the LAW and the fact you don't know what it is. So you sit at the light until someone honks. You don't drive through red lights in the U.S. because the LAW is ingrained into you. Since it is a legal convention controlling 2,000 plus pound vehicles it also impacts your personal well being, but it isn't because of some vague community standards.

When there is conflict, either the community would have to band together - easy enough when they all actually live in the area for real, 24 hours per day, like the old west, but not so easy in SL when you never see your neighbors and some may only visit SL once a week. So then if you have a problem with one neighbor, it's you versus them. War on one scale or another.

And I worry about some one who seems to think that following a moral code is somehow not a legalistic response. Very few people put into practice a moral code that they developed on their own. If they did, arguably it wouldn't agree with their neighbors beyond 'do not kill'. Most people incorporate the 'moral code' of their church and/or community, how ever broadly or narrowly defined. Those 'moral codes' have supported racism, homophobia and murder of those not of the group for centuries and clearly will into at least the near future. If that is what you are depending on, heaven help you. Yours may be fine, but keep your weapon loaded. And as someone that knows a bit about that from RL, well, heaven help you. This from a Religious Naturalist...

Because it's using a modified version of the SL client.

Did you follow the instructions for selecting the Legend City grid, so you could use the Legend City account and password you set up?

I am age verified (for all that means anything) and have payment info on file, yet I still get SL places that refuse to let me see their search page. No idea why (especially when they sell things - what, they don't like my profile? A bland barrier?). More gradients in that area worry me. Waiting for a graphics filter that blocks anyone that isn't wearing a tie and vest in their SL photo, preferably gray...

First of all, every employee of any business client already sees worse in their daily emails, unless they have a hell of a spam filter. People are so numb to the Internet lack of standards that I don't think SL will shock even the prudish. They're already home hiding under the covers. (Yeah, yeah, I know - doing what?)

I don't worry much about businesses that work in SL. I work with two, one a business and one a non-profit, and both do essentially simulcasts in SL and RL, often with new SL visitors. But compared to the expense associated with putting on these simulcasts (both have to support multiple presenting avatars of both sexes and you wouldn't believe the tap dancing and equipment handoffs it takes when coupled with one computer at the mike), buying an island and bringing all the newbies there (or having a crew of avs that have homes on the island for visitors to use) is cheap. So they can be pretty, well, insulated from SL if they must. It has to be a pretty small business if they don't have seed money of $ 10,000 to spend. That's less than many spend on one conference, if they put out a display. Once you choose to wander SL, I don't think they can be much responsible, any more than when you leave their web site on the Internet.