How many kids deaths are you responsible for today?

Admittedly, The Register absolutely hates SL - if you want to read a back catalogue of their 'news' 'articles' on SL, you need only search their archives for occurences of 'Sadville', their pet name for it.

But anyway, todays regular poke at SLers, Second Life escapists told to wake up, starts:

"An anti-poverty campaign has reminded the inhabitants of Second Life that while they fanny about wasting time and money hiding from their own trivial worries there are people are dying unnecessarily in the real world.

The World Development Movement (WDM) has loaded a digital counter into Linden Labs' virtual world which tallies the number of preventable child deaths since it was first opened in 2003. A child's life is lost every three seconds."

It then goes on to quote a WDM rep: "The WDM's Peter Taylor said: "Millions of people are now spending more and more of their time in Second Life or similar virtual environments. We are here to remind them that they can't escape the problems of the real world.""

Don't you find this to be one of the most crass, insulting, blameful pieces of shit ever? I mean seriously? It COULD have been pitched so much more positively as a fund and awareness raising effort. But no, it seems we're selfish time wasting saddos with too much money and trivial little worries 'fannying about' in virtuality, trying to escape reality while people die all around us. It seems that it's not just a journalistic slant from the direct quote, either.

The only reaction it provokes in me is to ensure I boycott WDM and their efforts forever. Am I overreacting? What are your thoughts? And while you're taking the time to write them here, maybe you should consider sharing them with the moron who wrote this article and the WDM!

What galls ME about it is the fact that they've completely overlooked the generosity of SL residents when it comes to real life issues. Numerous cases could be cited, I suppose, but the two that spring to mind are the Relay for Life events that occur annually in SL, and the current (and ongoing) effort to raise funds for Save Tiffany to assist a woman--who is NOT an SL resident--in financing her cancer treatments. Since I'm involved in the former effort, I can say with absolute certainity that you do NOT raise the amount of money we've raised so far (over 1 million Lindens) from a group of people trying to avoid real life issues.

This article isn't journalism, it's flaming--pure and simple. The Register should be ashamed of themselves.

Kam

The Register? That place is full of bitter and twisted bloggers (they seem to think they are "reporters" tho) hateful of all the companies that have made it big. Just take a look at all the bile they spew towards Google and Yahoo. They never made it rich and so all they do is stomp about like children throwing the odd tantrum. </rant>

Back on topic, I'm sure lots of charities would love us to donate $10 a month to them instead of SL or WoW or other escapism pursuit (e.g. getting blind drunk every friday night) but the realities are people will still want some escapism in their lives and will budget accordingly. I think it's great they are trying to get people to think about the issues though, I would love to see more charities in SL, I don't have much money to give but I'd be happy to build things for them to sell and donate them instead. Rather than fight SL they should embrace it. It's just a shame they can't do something similar in WoW, now there's some serious monies to tap into Maybe they could get people to give them gold and then sell it on ebay....

Gosh, the article even includes a "chilling survey." They must mean business for sure.

I do wonder though, how many children could have been saved had the register spent less time writing all those articles bashing SL?

Millions ... and of course, they're all wrong! LOL

I wonder what the circulation number for The Registrar is .... bet it hasn't doubled in the last few months! And while it continues to grow mebbe they will realise it's their RL c**p we're trying to get away from!

I may have overeacted slighty but I posted a comment to the author

"This is about your latest article on the Register about so called "Sadville".

Erm... you seem to have a very opinionated view of the world for someone who seems to be trying to give the impression they are a journalist.

Second, you make no reference to the many charity campains in SL, for example the race for life campain and the save tiffany campain. this should bring you shame as your comments and the WDM's comments make me less likely to support their efforts in the future.

If the point of your article was to make the people of "Sadville" more and more unlikely to give to the WDM then you probably succeded, Well done - how many children have you killed today??"

Abigail

Bah, the world is having a rampant problem of overpopulation anyway.

If only peoples would stop fornicating unprotected

It's a horrible, horrible article.

And it misses the point, too. Charities do not spend money to campaign in places which won't earn them donations. By advertising and calling for donations in SL, they're showing trust to the residents of the virtual world, not distrust. And I will comment that being in SL for a long term can change someone's perception of the value of money and labour.

Well done on reaching a new personal best. That comment is about as low as the article itself.

The truth hurts, I guess.

Where do you think all you hairless monkeys come from, anyway?

Seriously...

I use to like reading The Register.. their spin on IT was often cold and biting, but the companies they bit into often deserved every bit of it. I actually didn't know they were so vitrioloic against SL itself, which is a shame.

Now, these WDM wastes of protoplasm need a serious wakeup call. Beyond the obvious fact that there is NOTHING that can be done to prevent the escalating poverty-stricken child death rate (you feed one kid, they have two more), outside of mass sterilization. Also consider that aid meant for kids and impoverished people often gets diverted because they live in places where there are territorial conflicts, and aid resources (and aid personnel themselves) often get hijacked by warlords bent on extermination of their enemies (and each other).

Famine, pestilence, and competition/conflict are nothing more than Nature's own methods of population control. Nature is a cruel mother, indeed, and there's no getting out of her game.

I may not be as heartless as Kyrah Abattoir, but if these were "preventable" deaths of children, who has more responsibility and ability to prevent the preventable, the parents, townspeople, and/or local and state governments, or people thousands of miles away? I would lay odds that the root cause are bad "-isms", e.g., tribalism, communism, socialism, fascism, religious fanaticism, etc. Giving money to the perpetuators of bad "-isms" is only going to line their pockets and perpetuate the "-isms", not help the people get themselves out of their predicament.

I agree with Kris Ritter that if they were a truly altruistic and legitimate charity, they would have used a positive approach, to appeal for help. With their negative approach, they just p*ss people off. They're probably so full of themselves and so indignant and have such an inflated view of their importance that they won't/can't step back and wonder why they aren't getting any contributions. Of course, they'll just use that to attack SLers for being "selfish".

That's just silly. Someone should tell them they're being silly.



Hi Kris. I've truly missed your snark over the past few months.

I shall email them and tell them they're silly

I just did, but somehow I dont think "silly" was my choice of wording

But nobody reads The Register do they? Aren't folks all too busy donating to charity to be wasting time in cyberspace, surfing the web?

Even full-time activists need to take a break or face burnout.

Interesting. I suppose the $350 (plus) million we in the US just spent kicking an avaricious and morally bankrupt GOP to the curb while millions go hungry isn't worth noting. Nor, I guess, are the hundreds of millions spent on ONE football game every January.. . And let's see; WoW with 7 million subscribers at $14.99 monthly..that rings in at $105 million A MONTH.

But we club hopping, blingy, hoochie hair, weapon-wielding, sex-ball-polishing, RL-lacking SLers are teh EBIL. You just can't make this stuff up.

I didn't find the article nearly as insulting as some people. Being reminded that RL is out there really isn't such a bad message. Don't be insulted simply because you do not agree with their message or their cause.


As far as the group themselves and the work they do, I know little about them. As for me personally and what I do to make the world a better place, I prefer to take care of my own backyard first, meaning local charities, etc, places I can see actual results from my help.

The average American spends four hours per day watching television. The average Brit almost as much. That means there is a lot of time being spent not worrying about children dying, and it's not SL's fault.

Money? Compared to your typical SUV payment most people spend a trivial amount of money on SL.

Perhaps the Register should take its hosting money and give it to charity. Perhaps its authors and its readers should go vounteer.

Fact is, we all waste money and time somewhere.

What a bunch of crap! There are many people in Second Life who do care for real world problems and dedicate their time and money to the causes. Just to name a few: there are Relay for Life and Toys for Tods fund raiser events, there was fund raising going for many many weeks all over the map for Kathrina victims last year. There's U2 in SL and various live artists with awareness and charity concerts, there's people like Josh who pull off charity sales. There are groups that support ONE.org, MakePovertyHistory.org, AfricanWellFund.org, various health and other support groups and whatever not. And I'm pretty sure there are many more people out there in SL who did and do something on a regular basis to support all kinds of causes because their real life is affected by "the problems of the real world".

Mr Taylor obviously didn't do alot of research and exploring, before putting down his fancy gadgets. They are here to remind us? I for sure don't need an arrogant announcement to remind me of problems in the real world and to remind me to get off my ass, even in a virtual world.

It's true that I try to escape real world for some time when I log into SL. I do it to relax, to forget my worries, to have some fun, some peace of mind. It's the same as reading a book or watching a movie or going for a skydive or having dinner with friends. By doing stuff like that I am NOT trying to ESCAPE the problems of the real world...no no, I am trying to FORGET them for a little while, just a little while, to prevent me from going insane. And when I'm done forgetting them in SL, I still stay logged in and work on some stuff to support projects in SL, projects like those mentioned above. And I'm damn sure so do many others.

Mr Taylor seems to be an oblivious clown. May he take his counters, shove them and get the hell outta SL and go back to saving the world in real world. Leave the SL stuff to the real world escapees, who at least have their "metaversial act" together and do their things, even without counters.

I've found 'The Register' treats everybody with equal contempt. It seems to encompass all the worse aspects of the media all thrown together into one little package. I generally ignore it.

SL itself has therapeutic value for some people, and is damaging to others.

I propose the following experiment... if you want proof, you'll find it in the history books.

Take a bunch of tribal minded people and dump them in a barely habitable desert. They'll band together in small groups and fight each other for resources until they reach a balanced state with each other and with Nature, after a certain amount of killing. They will still be tribal people.

Take a bunch of poor, desperate, but literate and mostly modern people, originally from a democratic culture, and put them in the barely habitable desert. They'll appoint the most intelligent and charismatic members to be leaders and build a basic, but very livable modern frontier society. They will try as hard as they can to keep most of their members alive, at some cost to nature, but don't generally trash the place.

Take a bunch of religious fanatics and chase them into the desert, and you'll have a theocracy with a dictator in charge until the military from the neighboring democracy decides it's had enough and marches on them.

So... I was thinking of 19th century examples on all of these, but the common principle is that people do what they value, and what they value depends very much on the knowledge level the society has managed to achieve. The bitter pill is how slow progress goes in uneducated societies, where tradition and self-interest throw the brakes on any kind of change. So, when confronted by changing conditions, they tend to die off in horrifying numbers.

Education, and locally evolved values that place human life above privilege and tradition, will be the real solution.

47.

Just for that, I'm going to fanny about telling dead baby jokes all day.

I art more pious than thou.

...because I care... Today is World AIDS Day....
http://www.worldaidsday.org/default.asp

Yes I know, this forum is not meant for postings like this, but it still fits in the thread IMO. ResMod, bite me!