The Value of your Ethics on the grid...

^^^ That

I voted for the closest thing that meant what I believe, though.

The most shameful thing I can think of would be in the ilk being paid to dob (AR) people in for relatively harmless things in the ToS. Or gaining financially by an AR somehow, like their land or customers. Basically profiting off someone by cheating them. Also pimping, I don't know how people can spend that money.

Maybe, but that wasn't the question.

The question was whether you would do something, as Desmond put it, "shameful, hated", something that would ruin your "avatar's reputation".

In that sense, not everyone would sell out, and working isn't "shameful" or "hated" for the majority of people and is, thus, not "selling out", for the purposes of this thread.

How is it selling out if you work? You only get to have ethics if you live on welfare?

I work at a job I enjoy! I am doing what I wanted to do, so how am I selling out?

"Selling out" refers to the compromising of one's integrity, morality and principles in exchange for money, 'success' (however defined) or other personal gain. It is commonly associated with attempts to increase mass appeal or acceptability to mainstream society. A person who does this, as opposed to continuing along his or her original path, is labelled a sellout and typically regarded with disgust and immediate loss of respect. Selling out is often seen as gaining success at the cost of credibility.

That is completely different than selling your time/experience/ability.

Please, learn how to use Google, and a dictionary.

Can't say it better than this

Inc

Must be a Congressman in RL.

um it said reputation not most shameful thing, no fair changing it

Wow.

I wouldn't even know where to begin to address that.

Except that it's very, very wrong.....and very, very sad.

I hope that at some point in your life....you learn to understand that.

something evil comes this way !!!!!!!

When it is "within reasonable limits" then one shouldn't have to sell out to be virtually wealthy.

Seriously folks...

In any world - virtual or real - if making money means the hardship or misfortune of others, then it's not what I want to be a part of. This includes working for a company which stands on ethics (not trods over it). That's why I left the Blaxxun Communities years ago (a VRML based collection of 3D sites). Their societies are all based around the Mall and the Flea Market, and the primary practice was people buying limited editions at the mall as soon as products were placed so they could reprice them and resell them at the Flea for phenomenal rates. The only goal of these people were who they could rip off and take money from. They were often poor in real life, but the concepts of charity and giving in a place where money wasn't real and others with similar financial hardships came to escape just totally never occurred to them.

On one site I joined a group of world builders (we were called that in VRML because all files from the smallest objects to our avs to an entire environment were the same file type, a world file or .wrl) dedicated to creating high quality objects and products at reasonable prices and restrictions on resale pricing. The Mall Crafers Guild. Had to audition for it, but I wanted indentified as being part of this group who gave folks what they'd enjoy or could use in their homes and not encounter hardships to have them. Seeing them happy or smiling was the best payment in those places. So I guess I've seen selling out as a virulent and accepted practice and I've held onto my principles in the midst of it.

I like the song "Capitalism" by Oingo Boingo. It ultimately says that there's nothing wrong with being successful while the loudest bleeding hearts forget everyone around them while they whine over a long distant cause. The song just comes to mind here.

i could never get rid of my avatar i don't think..not this one anyways..
i have too many good memories and friends and friends that may come back into sl..

money is not really a big motivation for me..
i don't really want to be rich and if i wanted to get rich it wouldn't be by cheating my way to it..
it feels too good to earn something..there is nothing more satisfying than achieving a goal you set for yourself..
my avatar is an extension of me and there are lots of goals left in sl to reach
so i'm gonna say for me i'm priceless..
SL will pretty much have to die for me to get rid of her..it won't be by my hand that i lose my avatar..
some things money just can't buy..

You just put into words the feelings I have about my avatar

She is me, I am her, the two are intertwined.

$L 100,000, yep I'd sell out all my avatars, even my absolute favorite for this much a month. Then again, I have a price in RL too, it's just a hell of a lot higher LOL

I agree....and if you work for a company, quite a lot of times your beliefs and ethics are being compromised. I have on many an occasion disagreed or not shared the same opinions in what i felt were dodgy or marginal work practices. As a salaried employee, i have 2 choices.....either comply or leave the company!

The funny thing, i had those situations arise on several occasions whilst working
for Organic Ltd....yes the same company as our beloved LL CEO! The problem was that SF head office had very little understanding of working practices in the UK in general.
Even repatrioting profits from the London office back to U.S was contrived through inflated Managment charges which were not really justified. The UK Inland Revenue has closed that tax loophole in recent years...as it was a means of reducing UK Corporation tax liabilites through unsubstantiated Management charges. Of course the final formula for our cross-management charges were grossly made up....worst thing was that our external Accounting firm signed it off!

I put a million, I'm pretty cheap.

On the other hand it's hard for me to imagine anything that my avatar could do that I'd be ashamed of. I don't really associate Elanthius with "me" in any way. He's just a tool to get a job done.

I suppose if the shame was to follow me out into the real world I'd have to put some thought into it. Since the money only keeps coming in as long as SL exists it would probably take maybe billion (US$3.8 million), or perhaps more for me to ruin my reputation in the real world (assuming I'd lose my job and so on).

there is survival and there is greed..
selling out is greed not survival
if you were going to lose a job that would in turn maybe end up losing your house and putting your family on the street .that's not selling out...
ethics can be mistaken for pride sometimes as well..

if you are told do this or you lose your job..thats survival..
if you are told to do something or someone else may lose their job..that is saving someone from losing their job..
if you are told..screw this guy over and their is a raise in it for you..thats selling out someone..

Well many a time during my RL working career i have not been comfortable with some of the practices employed by a variety of companies I worked for. I really struggled with it.....in the end i always did turn the other cheek for exactly the reasons you stated......but i didn't feel great about it.


I suppose what i felt and did was quite normal, otherwise most Banks would not have any employees left ...as an example.

I'm already shameless although I wouldn't want to be responsible for ad farming, fullbright objects or anything that has more than the minutest fraction of glow.

Oh and crap clothing ...

And laggy, badly scripted products ...

And bad animations ...

And products that just rehash existing products, whether they're licensed or not ...

And bad builds where the textures are all out of pro ...

And businesses where the owners act like they're running a branch of Bloomingdales, Walmart or Emporio Armani ...

And businesses, full stop, come to think of it.

I guess I'm never going to make a red cent out of this.

Considering I have worn the same name - other than the Talon LL so graciously provided - for nigh on 20 years- it is hardly a throaway.

If I can look in the mirror at the end of the day I am content with myself. And no I can't see tossing that lightly.

The original premise was about making money, not saving lives or surviving - it was about greed pure and simple- and I cannot see tossing what to me is ME, in the sewer, for mere money.

Regarding being strictly ethical.....well i'm sure plenty of the same such people end up buying from unethical companies. You only have to view how many fashion houses who use child labour in Asian countries. There are enough Tv documentaries of some of these unscrupltous practices used by many companies. So unless you're squeaky clean and pay attention to whom you're buying products from...i find this whole topic a bit hypocritical to be honest.

it's not a perfect world and we are all human..none of us are going to be put on a cross for being pure thats for sure lol
they probably wouldn't let me get close to the tree they were gonna make the cross out of lol

I left. I'll admit it took me a few weeks just to decide it was the right decision, and maybe a couple of months to find a new job before quitting, but leave I did. This was over things that were questionable, not over things that were unambiguously unethical.

I'm not going to generalize broadly and assert that people always have available choices. Furthermore, there's an implicit, but incorrect assumption in the discussion so far that the ethical decision is one-sided. Doing something that would cause harm to your family is also unethical, so you can't simply say that staying with a job when there are ethical violations is necessarily the unethical decision. Things are rarely that black and white.

Is it hypocritical if you try, without always succeeding? I avoid buying clothing from some specific countries, but I don't always have choices for other items. And sometimes I'm in a rush and don't always check the label.

I don't believe it's correct to say that the only legitimate choices are to either do it 100% of the time or 0% of the time.

I worked hard to get a reputation of a passionate builder for quite some time now. Spending hours and hours to improve my skills and builds, pricing things more than reasonable. So far it only brought me marginal sales and a lot of praising words, but am still in red numbers and don't think that will change any time soon.

I don't have the option to battle the botfarmed competition, or run my own bots to boost traffic and actually be found in search, my pc simply won't handle it.

For long I carefully guarded my reputation and I won't give that up easely, but red numbers aren't cool either, reputation and quality, without the means to fight the ones that game the system, brings you nothing really.

So I opted for 10m. A year ago I'd probably would've said 'cannot be bought' but I sure understand the difference between SL and RL better now.

Although that would mean first deleting my RL info in my profile

So... when do we get payed???