SL: Globalism or Nationalism?

Wouldn't that be, um, a major concept of zoned sims? Escaping those ugly views you are always rallying against, the undesirable clubs and malls and tringo parlors in favor of nice homogonized gated living?

I guess prok I don't think of this as the high ideals of utopianism. Rather I think there is a fundamental dignity to mebership in the community that needs to be respected. Some of the causes of the divisiveness are issues that should be addressed to the whole community. If someone want to lock themselves on an island with a concealing mist and a red security fence to block the view and keep out the masses, that is their right based on their payment of tier.

It is possible that some people fitting this description do have genuine concerns for SL and the diversity of the commuity. After all what I want in my home is not always the same as what I want in a community. In a truly diverse community we take the good and the bad, all of us.

I think this is right:

"Indeed, what tolerance would mean to me is never reaching for the net-nanny, hysterical tattle-tale Abuse-Report button to blow in someone's post. Reaching for that button is a profound, profound de-facto recognition that either you don't believe there is a community that includes that person you are tattling on OR you believe there is a community which you run and can decide who "violates its rules" (rather than the more impersonal and less tempermental moderators). Each time you reach for the AR button, you perform an act that illustrates you don't believe you are in a community with someone OR you believe that "community is coercion". That's why it saddens me to join this pernicious practice in self-defense. I think it's a form of defeat."
-Prokofy Neva

By the same token wemust also tolerate the opinion of the neo isolationist content baron who sitis in his mist shrouded tower and communes with his highly creative freinds (or hers are the case may be). Issues of content, economics and business models, as well as advertising all need to be explored without attacking the value or relative worth of the messenger. debate the message.

community isn't the right to say anything you want without consequence.

it's not simply let people do whatever they want. nor is it just stifle all dissenters.

this exclusion of the middle ground is a problem.

I think anyone who uses the word "you" or "your" or "you're" should be automatically banned by the forum software.

Why thank you I do sincerely aplogize for derailing that thread as it was an interesting discussion, and whether you start it or someone else does (in that case it was me), whenever you enter a thread it has a tendency to end up being a thread about you. I'm hoping that won't be the case here.

You do, however, more than anyone else I can think of, represent the opposite end of the spectrum from my point of view. I'll try and take your points one by one, and I'm really not interested in doing anything but discussing worldviews here so try not to take it as any sort of attack as that is truly not my intent.



Not that it's relevant but holding hands and singing khumbaya is very old cliche, so no, you didn't invent it, hehe. But hey, I'm not above using cliches either



What I meant was that in a world where creativity and self expression are stressed and there's no built in necessity to limit that expression to real world paradigms, that (to me) would seem to lend itself to tolerance... because the diversity we see here goes so far beyond real world ideology. If we focus on differences in all the ways it's possible to be different in SL then we'd probably all end up a community of one person. If you're not a fan of purple dragons or robots, is that any reason to consider those who are as a different class of people?



I'm for diversity of every kind. I'm also all for debate and discussion with people with differing views. What I fail to see the usefulness of is characterizing SL's different styles, tastes, and goals by inventing narrowly defined stereotypes and then pigeonholing everyone into one or another of them. It's like taking a palette of a a few thousand colors and reducing it to half a dozen, and then making anyone who wishes to engage in the discussion pick one of them. To further that analogy, when you take an image or a painting and filter it so you only see a dozen different shades, something that started out intricate and beautiful becomes blocky and ugly. All subtlety is lost. That pigeonholing has a way of becoming a self fulfilling prophecy as people are forced into a worldview (in the context of the conversation) with so few choices and then they DO circle the wagons... not because they were doing that already but because the limited palette forces them to band together in one of those few choices, one of which they'll undoubtedly feel more affinity for than the others.

What I've never understood is why you choose to see the world in so few colors? Why focus on the difference rather than the commonalities?



The above paragraph is a good case in point, because your views on business and land are the area where we have the most in common. I may not like the way you choose to frame the debate most of the time, but I agree with some of your premises in that area... but you've already made the assumption that I belong to some narrowly defined group and so those commonalities become irrelevant in that context and are discarded. What could be a common ground instead becomes a minefield seperating two warring camps.



I'm actually mostly in agreement with the above. I've been participating in online forums and discussion groups for 15 years now. I have a plenty thick skin, and it might interest you to know that I've never reported a post. That said, "defeat" is an interesting word choice because are discussions about differing viewpoints a war that has to be won? We both know that's never possible, so it seems to me a more mature and useful way to look at it (and this applies to differences of taste, style, and goals in world as well) is as an opportunity to find common ground and reach a deeper understanding of (and perhaps even empathy for) a differeng mindset.



I'm fine with niches, cliques, and people gathering into sub-communites based on likemindedness or common interest. I'm fine with people who don't share my views on much of anything. What I strongly oppose is the notion that someone else who doesn't share those commonalities with me is somehow a different class of person worthy of a stereotype or derrogatory label. Framing things in those narrow stereotypes is hugely limiting and virtually guarantees that no common ground will be discovered, let alone celebrated, because the very premise of the argument already discards any common ground. It's truly a mindset and worldview I don't understand because it is so obviously counterproductive and limiting. It focuses everything on the differences and nothing on the common bonds.

Well that was mighty succinct of you and probably sums up everything I'm about to say.

Unfortunately I was not born with the gift of brevity...

I think I agree with much of the sentiment here, about us all getting along and so on. But I've noticed that most of the posts have as a subtext the notion that we should either all be the same, or at least act as though we are the same, suppressing to every extent possible, nationality race, sexual and religious preferences and so on. I tend to think that differences are good. There is a need for all of us (or most of us anyway) to do better about accepting differences in others. But there is also a need to acknowledge that in some areas those differences are fundamental, permanent, and in some cases don't lend themselves to casual coexistence. I've tried to think of a real world example that I could illustrate what I'm talking about, but most of my REAL real-world examples would probably stir up some new off-topic controversy here... so instead I've come up with a little parable:

So, back to the real world... I'm sure that every time I go to the grocery store I am sharing the building with gay people and straight, atheists and religious fundamentalists, ethnic minorities and racists. I can share this grocery facility with a large diverse group of people because the activity we are engaging in is the same for all of us. Our differences simply do not come into play. Other difference in the real world are ameliorated by geography. People who want to live in the big city live in New York and people who want to live where crowds are nonexistent live in Montana. If there is going to be an argument about that it will be over the phone or the Internet, if there is going to be a fist fight over it, someone will have to hop on an airplane. (pssst, it's a good thing). I just wish that in the real world our laws did more to recognize geographical and regional differences, or should I say I wish we were allowed to have more robust local governments rather than having to do everything on a nationwide level, but as the Federal government grows, this is more and more an impossibility. That government entity which collects most of the money, in the end will have the most to say about what you as an individual are allowed to do. (pssst, it's a bad thing).

Our record for getting along in SL is far from spotless. But remember it is driven by different parameters. Nobody can punch you in the nose. On the other hand flying from one side of the grid to the other shouting racial slurs can and has been done. If there were such a thing as a grocery store in SL chances are that you could not JUST go there and buy groceries without hearing racial slurs, anti-religious talk, anti-gay talk as well as a lot of sexual discussions that you might not be looking for.

What SL lacks in the sense of being able to to physical harm to others it also lacks in the common sense social decorum that prevails in the real world (I suspect the two things are related). That often means that people who feel repressed in the real world are not only liberated in SL, but feel the need to reverse the tables to some extent. Remember how quickly we drove that guy "out of town" when he wanted to build a church? I was ashamed of SL for that, still am.

What can be done about all of this? First of all, accept that some of it is not only just "human nature" but actually GOOD. Freedom to associate with like minded people is good in the real world, and both good and easy to do in SL. But I wish the social decorum that derives from that punch-in-the-nose threat of the real world would carry over into SL. Respect for the person standing in front of us does not seem to come naturally to us all. And the artificial restrains places on us by the Lindens don't have the same effect as the possibility in the real world of saying the "wrong" thing in the presence of someone who has had a really bad day.

Sometimes I toy with the idea of something like SL that had a spring-loaded boxing glove mounted just over your monitor. Play nice or you might get an unexpected surprise. Unfortunately almost everybody would hardly be able to wait for the chance to activate it "just this once". We'd all have bloody noses and no doubt talk would turn to the nuclear option.

No, we all just need to LEARN to get along in SL, without the physical threats, and that is a two way street. Bite your tongue when someone says something that makes you uncomfortable, and after you have done that a few times you might start to think more carefully about what you say in the midst of strangers in SL. There are times when it is OK to talk about sex, politics, religion or racial issues, some of us even enjoy a good argument from time to time. But there are more times in SL when such things should IMHO be CULTURALLY off-limits, not because we are afraid of being ejected by the Linden police force, but because we have matured, and learned to get along in cyberspace. The Internet has given us a whole new terminology for interacting with one another, "flaming", "trolling", "bashing", but it takes a new type of maturity than in the real world to learn to avoid such things.

Maybe there are adjustments to the program that can help. I'm glad that LL keeps trying. But as with my parable, experimenting alone can drive people away. I hope that as time goes on the adjustments will come less frequently and be less disruptive. But I'm pretty sure the balance isn't right yet, and maybe its WAY off in some way that simply doesn't effect me very much. As I've said since the Beta days, those of us who see the potential of SL (or something like it) have to be patient with these changes and give them a full chance to either succeed or fail.

As to the newbies... well... screw-em.

wow, sometimes being an antisocial hermit is so much easier.

That was a really outstanding post Mac! Thank you. You framed that all incredibly well (and your parable was very apt). It's interesting that you brought up the church guy, and I agree that's very relevant to the discussion. It definitely wasn't one of SL's proudest moments. I don't think the issue was really about him expressing his religion though. It was more about proseletyzing, which depending on your point of view many people worried would be itself somewhat intolerant. There's no doubt that everyone overreacted and I think we actually learned something from that whole episode because to my knowledge it hasn't been repeated. Growing pains aren't all bad as long as we take away some lessons from them.
I think you really nailed what I'm trying to get at in a more succinct way than I did... is there any way to foster a sense of community that celebrates diversity, and that doesn't try to hide it for the sake of avoiding conflict. It's that very diversity that makes SL so compelling, especially when people are more willing to interact with people they probably wouldn't even meet in real life because there are so many avenues to find common interests.

I respond to customers who themselves wish to escape ugly views. It's a pretty commonly understandable thing. They don't want W-Hat in their doorway or whatever. People have a much better grasp of this than the forums would lead you to believe.

I don't concieve of my communities as "gated" because they are open to anyone. They aren't complicated to join. You right click on the box, walla, you rent and join the open group.

Clubs and malls and tringo are all fine in their place where they don't impact residential areas. I coexist with them. I try to make mixed residential and small business areas as an antidote to the clutter and lag of telehub areas.

There's no "homogeny" in my communities as they represent wildly different styles. There actually isn't a single picket fence in the hundreds of lots that make up the many communities lol. Sorry to disappoint. People actually aren't those horribly suburban stuffy types you imagine but quite a few just want to build their own nice house by their own lights. I let them.

I couldn't agree more. Starting right here on the forums.

I don't want to hijack too badly, as there's some really good stuff here, but if I remember correctly, from reading his and others' posts at the time, what I believe happened started when a staunchly anti-business resident saw a donation box with no church attached, assumed it was part of an effort to collect L$ for a real-world church, and sent the church owner a vague nastygram.

He read it, took it to be referring to the actual church he'd built at another location in SL, believed the writer to be expressing disgust at the fact that someone would have the gall to build a church in SL and assumed it was indicitive of a widespread, vehemently anti-Christian presence within SL. By the time anyone pointed out the misunderstanding, he'd already left, thinking he'd been rushed out by militant athiests.

It wasn't just sad that it happened, it was sad that it happened over a miscommunication. Let this be a lesson to us all. When flaming, be specific!

Chip, I just don't think it's interesting to most people here anymore to keep having a discussion about the FIC, and your persistent feeling of being slighted by my invention and use of that term, and your circling the wagons around it. Take it to my blog. I'll be writing a more definitive essay on my understanding of it there, and you can take a slug at it there.



Jake, yes, and in fact, we don't even get the chance to practice our toleration because what happens in that the neoisolationist content baron in his mist-shrouded tower already reigns supreme on his sims lol. Most of what he does is secret from ordinary mortals like you and me. Have you not seen how many of the 600 sims have "no entry" on them lol? some with lots of green dots lol?

My effort at describing and opposing that bit about the neo isolationist is more to prevent them from seizing control and replicating their ways across the grid. That's what bothers me. That they will set up that way of life as the norm.

Wow, that is SUCH a classic SL story. I'm boggled. Every bit of it. Happens all the time! Wow!

Now, let me announce that I sponsored a church building to be built in Grace. It's non-denominational, open to anybody. It didn't occur to me to put out a donation pot there. But come to think of it, I really should do that! Given all the loads of land I had to buy to support its prims and its town square and to support its view line LOL. Thanks for the idea!

I'm going to take it that neither me, the builder, or any tenants and owners nearby will be run out of town?

It happens all the time? Interesting. Care to cite specific examples? That would at least be on topic.

But, but, but.. I thought "most people" didn't want to talk about this anymore?

You need to practice what you preach if you want to be taken seriously:

Same shit, different terminolgy. How clever.

In fairness I think the concern that isolationism could become the norm is valid, though I really don't see any compelling evidence that it's happening... and I have not the faintest clue what it has to do with content creators.

People are run out of town on a rail all the time -- from the forums, for starters.

In world, the thing that Catherine explained happens all the time, not in the sense that it ends with someone being forced from the game, but in that distorted echo chamber of he-said, she-said, they-all-said that so often happens in emails and the Internet in general, and which happens with thunderous reverberation here.

Examples:

1. An owner on a sim I developed sees something that blocks her view in the water. She worries that it is a sign of worse to come and feels her investment is at risk. She asks if she can get her money back or what to do. I ask that person who blocked her view in the adjacent sim's water if a) they could sell it or b) if they were going to have bigger stuff. This incident blows up way out of proportion on the forums. Appropriate terms for the behaviour in this and related incidents are invented and deployed and live on.

2. A tenant puts a bigger boat than originally intended in the water. I IM a neighbour with a business to ask if he minds. He says that it seems big but that after all I can do what I want on my land. I express the desire to work to rid the area of the big boat but ask for a few days until the tenant moves. At least 3 of his customers IM me, some in anst, one with nasty comments. Nothing I do for the next 24 hours can get them to understand that the situation is temporary and that I and the business manager are already cooperating to make sure the entire area can remain enjoyable for everyone. People can sometimes never take "yes" for an answer LOL. The boat long ago left. The nasty commenter is still keeping up the vitriol.

3. A tenant makes a house that seems kinda white and boxy to a neighbour. She decides to take it to the forums instead of saying anything to that tenant or a community association. It goes on in the forums for days. Today, the build is a different color and modified and the complainer has moved.

4. A person is hired to make an object for a project. They say sure, sure, sure I'll get it done but then miss several deadlines. Another person who has offered to make a loan suddenly calls it back and bitches that the first person is "shorting" the second person and "not paying them for their work" -- but...they didn't finish the work and didn't show any sign of completing it. This is a typical incident of someone starting out with a long-festering prejudice they may have held in check but then unleashing it the moment they have a chance. It festers for months. A simple question like "Are you going to pay X? Because it seems to me if I loaned you Y you might not have the money to pay X and therefore I'm concerned about you pushing her to finish the object" to which the person could say "No, you shouldn't worry because your loan which you suggested yourself is irrelevant to the ability to pay X -- but she's got to finish her work."

5. One player blocks another players land with a gigantic build. It is a skilled build housing skilled thingies, but nevertheless, it blocks land, and makes it completely unsellable, and completely unusable. It sits smack on the water blocking waterfront property -- one of those pernicious built-in problems of SL that start on the Linden land auction and keep festering in world (separating water, that can be bought by one person who blocks the view of the other person, who bought the mainland). A close friend and fellow group officer of the person whose land is blocked fails to understand any of this or to see how the talented person, while talented, it lagging a sim, and preventing use and/or sale of land because it's "high creativity uber alles" once again. Repeated explanations by one player and another player to this officer fall on deaf ears. Another neighbour suggests blocking the beligerent talented one's land with a huge sign that will at least block out the view of what he feels is an ugly view. Players join in first with a series of negotiations offering money, land, swaps, whatever, and then when the talented one beligerently refuses to budge, the negrates fly and the signs go up. The talented one finally buys the land he has blocked in a big huff. That still leaves one player with land that later gets blocked, he ends up doing a protest action in frustration because Lindens do nothing about the sim being lagged to 37 by weapons of the talented one, and then he is banned. Ah well, such is SL! Meanwhile, the group officer goes to ride around and compare notes with the talented one as to how the player whose land was blocked and who negrated the talented one is an "ass". The land-blocked player tells the group officer that he, too, will be negrated if he keeps celebrating with sim-laggers and land-blockers at the expense of others. In anger, the officer deletes all the buildings on 2 sims shared in the group.

Do you need more examples? I could give you a million. And not from my experience only -- if you'd like to style me as part of the mentally ill set, etc. From many, many people's experiences.

There is no way to get complex thoughts across in an environemt where lots of stuff scrolls by, you can only talk in half sentences in a tiny box, and you can't see facial expressions.

People become very angry when matters involve land they've paid RL money for.

I can think of a dozen other reasons why communications break down and communities don't stay together or don't form.

The common denominator in each of these stories? I can only describe it as fuck-you hedonism at work -- a belief that "me and my enjoyment of the game supercedes everything else".

None of those things have anything to do with religious intolerance (which is what I thought you were referring to), and they're all examples of disputes between individuals that have nothing to do with the community at large. Their only possible relevance was to Catherine's comment about miscommunication, so I really don't think they relate to the topic at hand at all.

I do agree that neighbors need to be respectful of each other, but that's a two way street. Part of respecting your neighbor is accepting that you don't have any inherant right to impose your subjective tastes or will on them. Blocking access is a TOS violation and can be handled that way. That's really all outside the scope of this thread though.

I know this is off topic, but since its come up here. I'd be really grateful if someone knowledgeable on the precedents could please give a brief definition of what sort of "blocking" is in practice treated as a TOS violation ?

The descriptions above seem to describe "blocking the view". Surely that doesn't violate the TOS ? Obviously if you can only get to your land by descending a 200m "shaft" down the centre of someones sky-scraper complex, that would count. What else does ? Do we have any indication of where the dividing lines lie ?

You're correct Ellie Blocking someone's view is not a TOS violation (nor should it be). The only way to secure your view is to buy all the land. Blocking physical access to someone's land can be a TOS violation, like if you owned all the land surrounding someone's parcel and had your land set to not allow the surrounded landowner to pass through.

Such is the nature of the beast.

It's not "your view" if the land that you consider "your view" is owned by someone else.

My favorite pub in RL has a open air pub on the roof, complete with English lawn bowling. It had a marvelous view of the downtown skyline. Well, Target Corporation built a large building across the street which obliterated that view. Was I happy? No. But since Target owned that land there's not a lot of good to be done by protesting it. They were fully within their rights.

I believe it was Selador, correct me if I am wrong, who stated that this type of thing is quite common in England.

As long as people's buildings don't step on the ToS, it's their right to build it. Just as in RL, as long as one abides by the RL "ToS", i.e., zoning laws, building codes, local ordinances, etc., they have the right to build it, even if it obscures "your view".

I have seen this, but I always assume they are all locked away bumping pixels with people who are not their wives and partners, ingesting virtual champagne in a orgyy of pixellated hedonism! I only evern get invited to these parties cause Aimee knows I give a good foot massage, and the lindens know I am handy witha riding crop! lol.

But seriously, I think that the wold is like water, if you isolate yourself on your sim, it will flow around you. And while I appreciate the problems of inconsiderate builds, I also feel that it should be noted that when you move next to a build you know will bother you, youcannot seriously expect the person to take it down. Its like mving under and airport and complaining about the noise!

Hehehe. Believe it or not, that is exactly what has been happening here for several years in the Twin Cities with regard to homes that are near the international airport. People will move in and buy these 100 year old dumpy homes, renovate them, and then demand that something be done about the airport noise. It's ridiculous and made only more ridiculous by the fact that some homeowners have forced the Airport Commision into soundproofing their homes.

When do I get my soundproofing to protect the items that get rattled off the shelves in my home when a Harley or gigantic pick-up truck with LOUD pipes feels the need to slam the pedal down out on the county road behind where I live?

In real life there are local, state, and federal codes and laws that gaurantee access to property, common use of material advantages and preservation of value (you can't, for example, build a cement factory next to someone's beach house without a procedure and compensation), and a fair legal process for everyone. Not to say any of this works well, but it's there.

In SL, we have no processes, codes, or laws beyond which exists in the contract between Linden Lab and the user, and what is stated as general principle (not law! even if it may have some legal implications) in the ToS.

In fact, the church example is relevant to both attitudes of religious intolerance and the condition of neighboring properties. The codes and laws mentioned in the first paragraph apply to all motives and situations regarding property rights and privileges, including intolerance. The lack of codes and laws in SL means that there is no recourse to disagreement beyond what actually happens - the continual bitching, flaming, and general nastiness that happens inworld and on these forums, punctuated by occasional acts of selflessness, sacrifice, maturity, and good manners.

Since SL has no physical component - you can't shoot a person, but you can suffer emotional trauma, I suppose - conditions here are both better and worse. The death rate over these kinds of disputes is low , but since such extreme consequences are very unlikely, people tend to behave in the extreme. Calls for learning to "get along" are kind of cute in a bubbly-Pepsi sort of way, but without a compelling reason to do so, it won't happen. Emotional trauma is not a compelling reason, because so many people in SL are here for the fantasy drama/trauma.

The community and LL can stumble along and try to avoid the more severe consequences of chaos, as it has done in the past. Or some sort of order can be introduced. If I don't like the order, however, there's no compelling reason for me to stay, and I imagine everyone else feels the same way - another consequence of the lack of physical reality we don't encounter in real life. Ultimately SL is a service commodity shared by many, and not really a community. Because a community depends on the real life exercise of force and compulsion (law, obligation, and the necessities of survival), as much as it does the sense of belonging and the feeling of common achievement.

i have to disagree with this. culture depends on comformity to rules, but community does not have to be culture. it's a little finegrained, i know. but sl is not a single culture, but it is a single community - simply because it is in sl.

there isn't a single mindset in sl. there are many mindsets. thus there are many cultures. but people from these different cultures run into each other in sl all over the place, it is in the interaction of individuals and cultures that there is an sl community.

the community is simply the people in sl. everyone is included. the community doesn't require a singular culture or a singular mindset.

now for a community to function beyond a certain level, sure some conformity to an overarching culture is needed, but that overarching culture is not a requirement of community. nor is functionality, but that kinda makes community moot.

community can give rise to group action, economies of scale, such like, and if you look around sl, those things happen.

but to say community doesn't exist because it lacks some criterian like force and compulsion is kinda missing the point of what that foce and compulsion is for - force an compulsion are for stabilizing communities... not making community.

besides there is force and compulsions in various forms from the lindens on down to peer pressure among friends.