Residential Government

Hi there
My question Is: is there a residential government system for input on how second life is ran and the decisions that affect us or is Linden labs the sole governing body of Second life

As far as I'm aware, they own it, they make the rules. Linden Lab, that is.

so They call us residents but we are residents of a dictatership

If you can get yourself involved with like minded people or buy yourself an island, you can have yourself your own governance....within the boundaries of the TOS.

More like residents on somebody elses private property.

LL owns the virtual world....we don't. Look at it this way, if it helps. Other than VAT, we're not paying LL any taxes. There is no representation without taxation. Also, why would a private company let it's customer dictate policy. No company I've ever worked for has done that.

We signed a lease. We just rent it, the land belongs to them.

I am trying to understand this thread...
I guess I will just keep trying...

Thank God there isn't a resident government. The last thing we need is a "democracy" or a central committee deciding how other residents should live.

I have played other MORPG that have player government systems and let players have input on new changes. Ultimately the admin. or LL in this case has the controll. but it tell everyone that you have input

"The Universe must have been created by a committee. One individual alone couldn't have made it so utterly convoluted."

Oh I'd keep your eye out for that one Chris, it has been mentioned.

So residents dont want democracy and no taxation? what do you call a land tier fee

Im just asking questions and i guess the other thought is that SL is multinational and if u did have something like this what style of government would you have, i guess some residnets wouldnt want democracy

80% of the grid is in private hands.

So, loosely, 4 out of 5 places you might go, there will be a layer of 'governance' that is resident controlled. Right now, already.

Sure, our service provider would step in for proscribed activities like gambling or whatnot. There are extreme limits.

But 99% of everything else is at the whim of the private estate owners. In some regions there are things like 'slavery' (by consent, I guess) - in others there are 'democracy' attempts and even in some cases, Avatar Rights attempts.

As far as things like bandwidth and prims go - that is 'governed' by the technology level of our times, and the Laws of Physics as laid down by... the Big Guy, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or YHWH or whatever. We can take up the issue of the Speed of Light being too slow with Him.

* * * * *

At the end of the day residents do control 100% of everything.

It's very simple. One dollar, one vote.

Sad, but that's life on both planet earth *and* the metaverse.



Edit: I forgot, on the mainland, most of that is in private hands too. So about 5 out of 5 places you might go... a resident can say what you can and can't do. Scary!

Tyranny is so much easier on us. We can weep and rail at the tyrant -- or be sycophantic -- or just be OK.

Under a democracy, where we are ruled by tyrants that we elect ...... we'd have to bitch at ourselves. It would never work

I can exist quite well without tier, if I so choose. But I would call it a fee for service. A service I can choose to use or not depending on my whim. Government forces me to use their inferior product against my will under the threat of death. Democracy ( mob rule by a pretty name) is one of the worst kinds of dictatorships. At least a tyrant might develop regret over his actions.

SL is mostly a feudal system.

Many private 'land lords', with complete control over their domain, governed by an all powerful king (LL), who owns his own large estate.
People pay 'taxes' to either king or lord for the permission to have their own little plot, but have no official say in the domain they live/dwell in.

Not trying to Godwin this thread, but Wendy McElroy said it best when she stated that she "would not have voted against Hitler, but she would have put a bullet in his head".

In Wendy's own words:

"I consider such a bullet to be an act of self-defense in a manner that a ballot could never be. The difference is that a bullet can be narrowly aimed at a deserving target; a ballot attacks innocent third parties who must endure the consequences of the politician I have assisted into a position of unjust power over their lives. Whoever puts a man into a position of unjust power – that is, a position of political power – must share responsibility for every right he violates thereafter. "

Just that...a land tier fee...

Like everyone keeps saying SL is not a democracy. LL is the sole owner (owners) of SL.

I would not like it at all if my customers kept telling me how to run my business...hey wait a minute, what ever happened to the old saying 'the customer is always right'?

I wouldn't describe it as a dictatorship, more of an oligarchy.

I only pay money to LL for bringing money in and out of world, nothing else - the rest is between residents, and LL takes no tax on that.

If you want to "own" land you pay a rental fee, regardless of what you choose to use it for, whether that is a private island or chunk of mainland.

LL asks for feedback regularly - both in JIRAs and through feedback on the Blog. How much notice they take of it is up for debate. Sometimes (like with the banking) it seems like they do, other times (like with voice) it seems like they don't. *shrug*

[EDIT to add:]
I don't want a resident government, thanks. LL don't want to really rule SL - they want to have a good platform for a virtual world, but they have been forced into doing it. Put a residential government in and you'll end up with a whole bunch of "politicians" trying to legislate stuff we don't want them to. I firmly believe that the best people to put in power are the people who don't want the power.

Though it often doesn't seem so, these forums do occasionally penetrate the Linden skulls. But feedback is not participatory government, so no, no resident government except as set up in private sims for those who want to play that way.

you just point-counterpointed yourself lol.



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i don't see it as a dictatorship, but rather a land business. We rent space from LL and pay for it. or not, totally our choice. They set the rules, we have a choice to either buy in and go with the flow or not.
*shrugs*
Land Fees and membership fees are completely optional, unlike Tax.

Venezuela, being run by a dictator, is the third happiest country in the world, preceded only by Nigeria and Mexico.

Just sayin...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3157570.stm

Most of the governance decisions LL makes are forced upon them from outside. Their only real principle beyond those is "you make the rules on your own land", which is pretty much identical to what most hosting companies will say.

The idea of resident governance is resisted for exactly that reason - if I buy land and build something on it, which is neither illegal nor grossly offensive (both of which would already violate the TOS), I don't really want any number of people to be able to vote that it shouldn't be there. Especially since it might be, hmm, a shop competing in a market where there are at least 2 other competitors

This comes back to the famous Ginsu Linden interview where he simply stated that any reference to SL as a "world" or a "society" is ultimately only a metaphor or marketing copy and from LL's point of view SL is just a product. (You can make of that what you wish!)