Virtual Worlds and Morality

Actually, one of my direct ancestors in the real world was hanged as a Witch in the early 1600s in UK. True!
But she was a healer in her village and had matriarchal authority in her immediate area. A dangerous power in a dangerous time.

No, Brenda I dont stalk you, I come to support you

*Sighs* Why am I not surprised?

Oh, Thank You.

Uhm, pay no attention to that swarthy looking guy in the dark suit following you then.

*Goes to make a call*

Do you really believe if AOL had opensourced Stratus (the platform it inherited from QuantumLink), that it would have done anything for the internet? Making more AOLs with Open Source?

Sorry, but I don't. Part of what makes the internet what it is, is its decentralised structure.

SL sims *do not scale*. They *do not scale* 40 people in a sim is NOT good enough. I want to see places where THOUSANDS can gather at one time.

When we get to a point where we can have HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of people in a space, where you can actually look at office buildings each with rooms and people and stuff, when you can host events that can reach a massive amount of people - that's going to be the next generation of virtual worlds.

It's not gonna happen on your CPU alone. It's going to take CPU + GPU, as well on the servers, and SL just doesn't do this. It is limited by its architecture.

Now I really smiled at that. Very sweet. Thanks. Sometimes, a person's realness comes through.

I think you are drawing the analogy too fine. If nothing else, OpenSim isn't an open-sourced version of SL, it's a reverse-engineered reimplementation.

So, no, not even if DEC had OpenSourced TOPS as well. But it doesn't matter, we're talking about two completely different things. You're talking about technology, I'm talking about policy.
Thousands of people don't "gather" on today's websites. On a website, today, we are each of us "alone on a sim" taking turns to visit and write on the wall... and real-time interactive systems ... like web based chat ... don't scale up all that well either.

But more to the point, back when Apache was being developed a webserver was doing well to respond to 10 dynamic HTTP web requests a second. The technology being used did not scale. If you'd tried to scale it up with CGI it wouldn't work. They needed to embed scripting in the server, and build little specialized servers, and build load balancers, and it took a lot of work. If you'd looked at it back then and said "one day we'll have google" people would have looked at you funny.

Well, after you explained what google was. Before then they'd have just rolled their eyes because you were talking gibberish.

THe point I'm getting at is that the policy SL is following is that of Compuserve. The policy that OpenSim is following is that of the Internet. YOu cold replace all the software and that wouldn't make a difference to that comparison.

you know, I do date back that far too I worked at AOL, I was a Compuserve member way back when also a forum sysop. Lots of friends who worked there too.

I KNOW how these places worked.

One major problem with SL is that it cannot leverage other computers over its network, something I can do even with my happy go lucky *proprietary* 3d software. Each sim is fixed on its particular server, it can't leverage the CPUs of other servers on the network. There are NO GPUs of note - and GPUs are more powerful than CPUs by now. Not only that, you can stuff more of them in a box.

Quite simply, you are not going to get there until your silicon is able to do the job. Virtual worlds need a HARDWARE as well as a software solution. It will be integrated. And if LL doesnt do it, someone else is going to.

I also don't think that Opensim has the kind of budget to be able to develop this kind of thing. It's going to be someone who makes SILICON. And if I was to put my bet on someone, I would put it on one of the graphics chip makers, or maybe Intel or IBM. It's not going anywhere without the help of some company who makes the silicon.

Also, I wouldn't automatically diss Compuserve. Something I really liked about Compuserve that I have yet to see web solutions do (and AOL missed out on as well) was the combination of chat + forums. When you were in the forums, you were also in the chat. This created a very dynamic community environment. Much more dynamic than we have here. The graphics sucked but the communities rocked. I met the guy I have spent the last 13 years of my life with there.

Now, this was also a distinction of Club Caribe when on the old Quantum Link. Can you imagine, if you were in here and inworld at the same freaking time? Yeah, that was GREAT. Guess what... SL can't do even THAT, and that little feature is way old.

Not only that, Compuserve had a really nifty way of dealing with events on the service, where they could really control the floor, so that people could speak in turn, put questions for speakers in a queue, close the floor to open chat during an event, etc.

I don't mean to diss opensource, but it's not the answer. It has uses to fix bugs by crowdsourcing, sure. But it is not a solution for creating the social architectures necessary for fostering *community* and I dare say, the internet has not really been a huge advance in this department. If anything, I'd say there's been quite a bit of setback in many ways, if we want to talk about the social aspects of the Internet.

Now there's a blast from the past. I'd love to see a web-based, open source version of VaxNotes.

actually, SLUniverse does it. They have a chat feature in their forums. It's something I really like there.

Now, I want to see:

THOUSANDS able to be in a shared space. Events are useless if they can't scale to that size. This is a *hard* problem which is going to need a *hard* solution.

*hard* meaning network infrastructure and hardware. We have to start thinking more like bittorrent and less like FTP. We have to think about the best ways to push this information over the network. We have to think about compression.

Internet Video can actually support this many people. We have to think more like video solutions, because well, we are a kind of video, just an interactive one.

Communications that are stable and integrated - im + group chat + groupware (forums + calender + mail) IN the world environment.

SL fails on this stuff, and a copy of SL, even though its open source, is still going to be an epic fail, IMO.

I didn't dis Compuserve. I REALLY think you're misinterpreting what I wrote, but I don't think I can explain better if I haven't managed by now. I'm sorry for the confusion, and if I manage to come up with a better way of explaining what I meant I may try again... but if not, I apologize for my poor communication skills.

If you don't have 36 bits you're not playing with a full DEC.

*extracts myself from the Linden Blog chat posts finally*

*gives myself a good kitty licking to clean off all the goo*

*sleeps under the sun for a few hours to get dry*

*wakes up, stretches and is ready for the regular forum again*

mew.

I agree with Chris on the first page. But will expand to say that some regional tags would be really helpful.

i.e. PG, Hardcore BDSM, Furry Fun, etc.

I think as long as people have an inkling what kind of place they're about to visit, it's all good. Because honestly, if you don't like something, don't go there! OMG, what a concept. heeee.

I have to say that my preference would be to allow pretty much anything inworld. There should be some basic protections to keep anyone from being able to get to your RL info without your permission and to keep them from out and out stealing money out of your account -- this would not include protecting you when you are dense enough to let someone swindle you.

I would not ban any of the so-called morally reprehensible behaviors - they are not morally reprehensible to everyone, so who decides?

I always thought AOL and Compuserve was same company, same ownership
just different names.
Either way what I remember about their chat rooms and some of their services was it got old and annoying fast.
I still have email account with AOL but not for long, they seem to be
also downsizing every service they were giving away for free too.
Free service thing I guess isn't working for AOL.

We know it's not real but unfortunately a court may not agree wheen faced with sweet little 14yo vs 40yo who suduced them into cybering.

no... I think you aren't thinking socially... I'm trying to prod these thoughts.

You're comparing websites to a virtual world community, which is really comparing an apple to an orange. Websites aren't generally designed to be seen as events are seen. They're more or less documents. They are not *time dependent* like events are. When Apache was being developed, nobody was thinking about instant messaging or group chats. AIM, Yahoo, MSN... Jabber... do. IM protocols are designed to work in real time. Apache wasn't about real time. Jabber is about real time.

In fact, Google is a great company to bring up, as its my favourite target of derision. Google does GREAT at things that don't involve dealing with groups of people. Lively is a dud. Orkut tanked. Whereas Sketchup is brilliant, and the search engine is the best there is that I've seen. So far, anyway.

Google earth is wonderful, but it's not a community tool. It's a world... and a beautiful one. But its lonely. No life.

Second Life is full of *life*... and this word is in its name. I want to see worlds which continue to focus and facilitate the *lives* of people. This is why I think collaborative software is so vitally important. 3d worlds are the ultimate user interface for collaboration of all kinds. Open source solutions, especially open protocols and data standards, are vital in key parts of these solutions. No question, no argument from me. But often working by committee, one overlooks the important things that need to be considered - and that's how to facilitate individuals to work in collaboration. Open source is not enough. It's a philosophy of dedication to the individual, to enabling the freedom of communication and assembly, and to make it scale to allow for even more complexity of social structures to form *spontaneously* - this is vital.

Ultimately, we have to focus on individual people, to enable them.

Another huge obstacle are the graphics and sound. And quite simply, this is a terribly expensive field of research. This area is going to be dependent on companies that can provide what is a limited resource - the hardware capable of doing the processing. The software capable of delivering the techniques which can provide both high quality and compression to get over a limited resource - algorithms to conserve the bandwidth. This is very expensive.

And ultimately, I suspect the companies to be able to do all this, and to push it down to any computer, even your Eee and iPhone, will be those which may very well win this war. And ultimately I think this will be the combination of sound and graphics software and hardware companies, most especially graphics programmers in tandem with graphics chip makers, because they have an interest in pushing their software and hardware to everybody who can buy a computer. And most of these companies are driven by entertainment. Games, video, film, music, etc. Not areas dominated by open source at all, and for good reasons. Their development costs are high.

LL has not been interested in selling servers like a chip manufacturer is. They are not interested in graphics technology like programmers of graphics software are. Ultimately they are just an online service, as you say. One of many, if you think about the wider MMO market. The 3d internet has not yet really been born, and it won't really get there without the entertainment and content factions.

And I don't think we've seen anywhere near the end of this yet... and I don't think we've seen all the players arrive in this field yet. It's still young.

Brave words.

But empty. They are just chest-thumping and drum-beating.

You assume that you will be able to take out any number of opponents no matter how skilled they are. -- Even if you know that they are coming.
That's just plain delusional.

Is this like saying a Democrat is a Republican that has just been mugged?

Pep (I live in England so I don't really understand the context)

Yes

Pep (And coming from someone who tries to police the threads unofficially the rest of your post was risible)

Nonsense. Most people are too stupid to see the benefit of order. Remove communication and transport and you return to local community where your argument might prevail - but this is the 21st Century

Pep (Maybe not where you live . . . )

So anarchy is OK as long as intellectual property is respected?

Pep ("Legalise the CopyBot!"

Only by your *own* moral standards.

Pep (Don't presume to tell *me* what I think of you)

Would it be bragging to state that I am BigEndian?

Pep (Or even not PG?)

Agreed

Pep (But "get off my lawn" still applies?)

For some reason this reminds me of the movie scene where the senile, blind and immobile greatgrandma in her rocking chair shoots once wildly out the window at the attacking renegades and the recoil knocks her backwards out of the chair, and all you see of her for the rest of the scene is her bloomers as she kicks her legs in the air.

Pep (It's funny until her throat is cut)