Real Children on SL?

Please show me a legally binding copy of this contract. Also I will need to see my signature and when it was notarized.

I have nothing against voluntary actions by individuals, even if they decided to act as a group, but any action which is mandatory is morally wrong. Jig and Peggy want a nanny state, something we do not need. The "teenager" is a modern creation and a pretty piss poor one if you ask me.

Praise you.

I can only say how I experienced this, Chris. Teenagers, call them what you will, seem to me to be "born". Sometimes they come a bit early, when they are 12 maybe, and others may arrive a little late. However at about age 13, a teenager is born.

One night they go to bed with a Blue Peter Annual and a mug of cocoa and overnight a strange metamorphosis takes place under the duvet - and they wake up in the morning with 3 ear rings and a bad attitude.

Daddy, who up to now has been Mr Wonderful to his litttle girl, is in for a horrid shock, as no matter what he does, he can now do nothing right. This transformation is _very_ sudden - and I recommend all parents of pre-teens to see themselves as expecting a teenager - and get themselves mentally prepared.

1 T.V. Show for you to watch:

- World's Strictest Parents: You will see the best behaved kids ever (the kids of the strict parents that is )

Yes - the attraction for pre-school aged kids is obvious. In fact, I did have one person IM me to say how much his little girl had laughed at his avatar doing my ballet animations. I could not see anything wrong here because the child was parentally supervised and my ballet animations are about as PG as anything in SL.

Think of a situation where maybe a family has a private island - access restricted only to them. If they are paying for this island, why shouldn't the kids be allowed to play?

A client that prevented the kids form TPing off, but allowed the adults to move TP could be used.

You are quite right that what you call the "nanny state" -- and what I call a civilized, just, and caring society -- represents the imposition of a power structure that does indeed mandate contributions from you as an individual.

But the idea that a sort of laissez-faire culture is more "free" is simply wrong: it merely replaces one power structure with another, this one based upon wealth and egoism. The one is outward-looking and, in conception at least, compassionate; the other is inward-looking, solipsistic, and ultimately about personal power. I know which I prefer.

The problem here is that children, even the snotty obnoxious ones, are ALWAYS the victims. It is not THEIR fault if they are born into poverty, or a racist/sexist culture. It is not their fault, even, if they have parents so blinded by modern acquisitiveness and consumerism that they are more interested in their own lives than in those of their children.

A culture that simply accepts the victimization of a large proportion of the population is not merely an unjust one: it is an unstable one. You want a system in which everyone is first and foremost looking out for themselves: well, watch what happens when the victims of your culture start doing just that. The results are, at first, crime, but ultimately it will lead to violent social upheaval. After all, why should THEY care about you or your kids? Their only responsibility is to themselves.

We've been this route, Chris, several times over the last three centuries, and it didn't end very happily.


Absolutely it's a modern social construct. So too is "childhood." And there are all SORTS of problems with the way in which they are constructed, top of the list being the notably successful attempts by corporations to turn both into new and very lucrative niche markets for consumerism. Both children and teens are "defined" today by mass marketers and their fellow travelers, the mass media.

However, as the social constructs that existed BEFORE the modern ones had teens entering arranged marriages at 13, or children working 12 hour days under horrendous conditions at age 8, then maybe the "invention" of childhood and teenhood is not such a bad thing in some ways.

/me tosses Chris an additional copy of Little Dorrit, and adds Oliver Twist and Gaskell's Mary Barton, just for good measure.

Damn, I did?

/me cranes her neck to peer back up the thread . . .

I don't suppose someone could say it again, so that I can be properly outraged?

And when the opposite happens, and the State takes control of every aspect of our lives, from where we live, where we work, what we own, who associate with, where we go?

We've been down that route too. It didn't end any better.

It may just be possible that certain nations see themselves as being "Nanny" to the rest of us.

We are not talking about a state or government. We are talking about a private company.

I know you are smarter than that Brenda.

Well . . . agreed, really. But who is calling for the "State" to take "control of every aspect of our lives"? I certainly am not, and I'm not sure how this follows from the notion that we, as a society, have an ethical obligation, and a practical need, to assist the most disadvantaged.

As I think I've said before, I'm no advocate of "big" or "stupid" government. I don't think social justice is well served by either.

You're standing in a strange valley, pointing down the left hand path and the right hand path and saying both ways lies death and madness... all the while never seeing the middle road that leads to safety, avoiding both extremes, never mind that's where most people are already headed.

I don't know what "the rest of the Internet" is, but mobile phones are not about randomly connecting you to anonymous strangers, so doesn't seem relevant. The question about the rules on other MMOs is very interesting though, since they have Chat/IM/Groups and somehow they have Voice. Maybe the Voice is just Skype, so the MMO providers are not involved at all though. I've not been on any other MMOs (in the last decades, that is) so am not familiar with their rules.

Do most kids think that, or is it just a meme on sitcoms?

Not by my choice, I would let the rest of you rot. No aid to any other nation for any reason. All of our troops home, now. If you want to trade with us fine, if not go take a flying XXXX at a flaming donut.

My way or the highway, huh Chris.

You can do what ever you want, I object to the use of force to achieve those ends. You support the use of force to get what you want. Period. So your cliche might work better for you. That is the difference between me and most of the people on this board, I object to the initiation of force. That includes by governments or majority vote. I believe the peaceful individual is the most important player on any stage.

If you, Peggy, don't like what is going on in Sudan, I have no problem with you raising a company, arming and training it at your expense, then going in YOUR name to solve the problem. The same goes for any other hellhole in the world. Hurricane in Bumfuzzle Asia, fine, Jig can raise the money and ship the aid there. All voluntary, all charity and no force used.

I leave you alone, you leave me alone and we are both happy. But it doesn't work that way. I leave you alone, but you and your kind are not happy unless you are telling me how to live, who I should give money to, what I should eat, how I should raise my child and any number of a million other things.

And it is ethical to use force to take the money to achieve those goals? It is ethical to make me your slave to achieve those goals?

You are quite wrong in your assessment of what I want or don't want. What I want is pretty much what others who see children on SL as a danger. Cooperation of all the users of the platform in finding a solution. Whenever anyone throws out "it's not my problem and I refuse to help" they are harming any advancement of a workable solution.......and you, Chirs, are doing just that. I see next to no effort to come up with a reasonable solution to the problem (and, yes, it is a problem).........only resistance. Quite obscene analogies of imperialistic take over of "your rights". People like you are probably the biggest reason that when the "solution" is finally brought into place it will not be to almost anyone's liking. It will very likely be heavy handed and dictated in a forceful way that will rub many wrong (including myself). You can help by a simple understanding that something has to be done........and work in that direction instead of resisting any suggestion of finding a workable way to help out. Instead you choose to attack me and others..........misreading what we are saying, painting us as something we are not.

Grow up, Chris.........join the real world. That 10 foot privacy wall with razor wire and gun turrets you have around your little house only "solves your problems" for your very small world. It ain't the world against you.......it's you against the world.

This seems a trifle dramatic, Chris. How much of your money do you think actually goes towards supporting the needy in the US, yet alone foreign aid? Not much . . .

I'm certainly in sympathy with parts of your programme: eliminating much of the US military, and a foreign policy that often verges on adventurism or mere exploitation sure has my vote.

But I should point out as well that the US would not be anything LIKE as wealthy as it is without all those foreign nations to exploit. The fact of the matter is that the US . . . and the rest of the West for that matter . . . has achieved its wealth by mercilessly plundering the rest of the globe. But NOW, you want to leave them to rot?

Or are you ok with continuing to exploit them, paying poverty-level wages for onerous work, but not, on the other hand, reciprocating a bit by helping to alleviate the misery that WE have helped create? Capitalism, after all, says ANYONE can be rich: it certainly doesn't say that EVERYONE can be. On the contrary, the whole system is predicated and relies upon the divide between "haves" and "have-nots." Where would the cheap labour come from, otherwise?

Do you really think you can maintain your standard of living with an isolationist America? Do you not think that if the rest of the world goes to hell in handbasket, the US will continue to roll along unaffected, even if it is isolationist?

Do you really believe that America will continue to prosper with its OWN poor living in increasingly desperate poverty?

And yes, on balance, I think it is more important to be ethical in helping others less fortunate, than it is to avoid being "unethical" by "forcing" you to share a little of the wealth that you and the rest of us have produced off the exploitation of the poor in the first place.

I'm sorry you find it onerous to pay the pittance you do for these things, but if you think THAT is outrageous slavery, you should try working for Union Carbide in Bhopal. Ask THEM about the effects of unregulated capitalism.

/me smiles inwardly at the thought of the trauma that Chris is going to suffer down the line when his little girl turns into a teenager . . .

Pep ( . . . preferring schadenfreude to sympathy for those who deny reality.)

Actually what you're saying sounds a lot like the Roman Empire

Interesting story if anyone ever says "Kids dont know any better":

When I was around 21, a friend of mine dated this girl who's 16yr old brother robbed a bank. He did his time in a Juvenille Facility. His room mate was a 14yr old in for murderering his parents.

Both got released at 21. Not sure whatever happened to the 14yr old.

Can't really use the "But kids lack an adults judgement" on that one. Adults do the same thing. I think its generally accepted that everyone knows that bank robbing & murder is illegal.