The Question of Land Cutting

I am amazed at how few people understand how a market works. Time and time again, writers on this blog express God-like opinions about what something should cost. Have such people never been to a supermarket? Do they weep and gnash their teeth in outrage as they are FORCED to buy YSL perfume at $100 a bottle? Oh, if only they ruled the world, they'd get rid of all that nasty 'libertarian' bullshit pricing. Yes, sir, we'd clean that mess up right away!

Wait for it...

I'm amazed at how many people fail to understand the fact that the market doesn't always work.

But, of course, the Gordon-Argent centralized price-setting mechanism would work perfectly. Whew, problem solved.

That's a blatant wakalix. I haven't proposed a price-setting mechanism. The original post by Pete Linden did, and my counterproposal is one that would avoid putting Linden Labs into the business of setting prices.

Fair enough. My comments were aimed at those who publish pages and pages of comments about how THEY know best what's good for other people. I would mind it less if they read the blog and provided cogent arguments, but it is infuriating when ignorant people take on a high moral tone. There is too much of that in RL and I'll be damned if they get their way in SL.

By all means.

This will leave 'strawman' for its proper meaning: claiming that SOME INDIVIDUAL has said X, when that individual never did say X.

You seem to think the distinction is over Said Versus Implied. But, no: to have committed Strawman, the Strawman-Committer must have attributed statement X to some person who never said X.

Identifying two general positions that people posting in a thread have gravitated around, is nothing whatsoever to do with Strawman--even if you don't agree with the identifications that have been made. You can correctly say 'I don't agree with the way you've described this position.' But you cannot correctly say 'because I don't agree with the way you've described this position, you have therefore committed Strawman.'

And the reason you cannot correctly say that, is that it's not Strawman UNLESS I've said "_____ said-or-implied X, and X is obviously a stupid argument", when _____ never actually said-or-implied X.

You claimed that I said-or-implied that parcels (or small parcels) could only be sold via IM. I never said-or-implied any such thing. You claimed that other people said-or-implied they were driven to a fury by parcel boundary lines, and that they were kept awake fretting about it.

Now you're backpedalling.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ponsonby Low
How likely is it that they'd abandon their libertarianish views, just because some people fret over empty land that shows as a checkerboard with Property Lines turned on?




I think that's a misreading of the situation. A willingness to stop profiteering over microparcels doesn't necessarily imply an abandonment of the libertarianish founding philosphy of SL.

But time will tell.

"That word, you keep using that word, I don't think it means what you think it means" -- Inigo Montoya, "The Princess Bride".

You make some excellent points, not least of which is the fact--a fact not heretofore acknowledged as widely as it should be---that some people in this thread have motives that they're not being open about.

Is it even a word?

Rats, I thought it was a coinage!

Quite frankly I think you are being either disingenuous or are demonstrating a short memory.

To remedy either ill: search "STRAWMAN" to see the numerous time you've misused it in this thread.



In any case, do you agree that we've officially reached the stage of Squabbling? (We're only arguing about what each of us has said, at this point.)

I think I've made a good argument in favor of you finding some other Single Word In Caps With Exclamation Point (than STRAWMAN!!!) to post in response to my posts. You, in your turn, have made clear your position that no one in the thread has fretted about parcel boundary lines.

Shall we move on?

Very good point--and a position I wish they'd recognize.





Hear, hear.

100% agree with you!

I have used the term in two incidents, one in which you referred to an analogy I was making as a straw man and I responded by pointing out that the comment my analogy referred to contained a straw man. On the second incident I pointed out that two statements you made were straw men.

Regardless, to get back to the topic:

I have not proposed that anyone be restricted to using instant messages for selling land. In fact at the point that claim was made I had already suggested ways the process could be automated.

The analogy that I was making was to point out that many products more expensive than even extortionately-priced parcels were sold in SL using automated mechanisms... that is, despite the fact that you can't right-click on a random sex bed you find in-world and immediately buy a copy from the original creator, people are still able to locate products without resorting to using IMs to negotiate a personal meeting to make the purchase.

That is a perfectly valid response to the complaint that if Linden Labs does not serve as the "bagman" for sales of small parcels the only possible remaining mechanism for doing so would be fruitless IM requests in the forlorn hope of arranging a personal meeting.

As for your claim that people have led you to believe they were fuming at the glimpse of a checkerboard or staying awake fretting over it, the less said the better.

Man, you suuuurre have a way to creatively interpret what is said to mean WHATEVER you want.

Last I checked, the word "reported" doesn't have an automatic connotation to Linden Lab. *checks dictionary* Nope, sure doesn't.

What's next? Redefining the word "is"?



Informal usage allows for paraphrasing using quotes, when the source is attributed or inferred.



I'm not the one calling "liar" over stuff that one cannot come to terms with. I'm not the one threatening "libel" lawsuits over forum posts (how's that coming, btw? my lawyer is anxiously awaiting some more billable time).

Seems to me that you "doth protest too much" about the whole thing.

Fact of the matter is, you cut corners off of rectangular plots of land. You claim you did it for a good reason. Maybe so. However, harping on formality of communication in a FORUM tends to be interpreted as a distraction.



Did you or did you not say:



You proceed to ask in this context:



Indicating you dispute the core of the original query, that you indeed DID cut 16sqm corners out of plots.

It wasn't until your SECOND "response" that you 'clarified' what you took issue with.



Irrelevant. The point is the entirety of the queried action that you denied in the first place. When the information was revealed, you shifted your focus to irrelevant semantics in a futile attempt to discredit the nature of the query.



No, I said that cutting a corner out of a larger plot is "corner cutting". I didn't say it was actionable "corner cutting" under any rule or was necessarily bad. Do you even understand English?



If you had no good reason to do it, sure. It was a demonstration about intent. It was a demonstration of why fixed, highly-specific rules WILL NOT work. If you hadn't turned this into a Clinton-esque farce, I would have simply made that point and been done with it.



Yes, I imagine why you'd think that, given your apparent personal experience with that precise situation. The world is much larger than the little microcosm in which you live. It would scare anybody, so it's OK, really.



No more proof can be found of that truism than your own words.

Well, no, actually, you don't accept what "strawman" actually refers to, and you're going to go on misunderstanding its proper usage.

*chuckles*

I'm going to use that.

This doesn't even pan out in the EXAMPLES given in your link, or in other links on the subject. There's few situations where the "Strawman-Committer" (that's a direct quote, btw) attributed the statement to some person.

I think you have issues with the notion that "opponent" doesn't have to necessarily be a literal "single individual". You can 'strawman' the statements/views/expressions of a group just as easily as you can an individual, even an unnamed, IMPLIED group, which makes it even more silly.

And she's such a "Darling" about it too

Sorry, couldn't help myself on that one. People on two extremes no matter what those extremes may be will always have different views however the rational people on either extreme will always become closer but not entirely centrists for the common good. People who choose to stay on the extreme like our Darling friend out on the JIRA or the landcutter extremists here who choose not to adapt will be left out in the cold.

Conceptually it does work well. I admitted that in practice it could be made to work but it would be complex and cumbersome to maintain and to keep accurate and that would be necessary since inaccuracy could either let people freely game the system and exploit it or hamper legitimate sales, neither of which is desireable.

Of course in theory Communism works.... in theory.

I don't quite see what this policy would change. Parcels that are cut already will remain so because only cutting will be illegal. However, the business idea of these small roadside parcels is to sell them for obscene amounts of money and that should be targetted in the first place.

My suggestions:

Allow sales of these parcels at a price that is 10% or more below the average SIM land price. This will destroy the road border land business most effectively.

16x16 roadside parcels that are abandoned will be available to owners of adjacent parcels only (not 4-m stripes along the road of course). This should slowly fix the current patchwork and it will encourage people to abandon land for the sake of reducing their tiers because they don't need to fear feeding the rats.

A clear policy what pricing and selling styles are considered offensive would also help a lot. Additinoally, display the current average price per sqm in the land info.

and here my replies to the questions from the blog:

Do you agree in principle that land cutting needs to be a violation?
I consider Land cutting itself a perfectly legal action. The trouble is the purpose of selling it for more money.

Are there any legitimate reasons for land cutting (excluding profit) that we should consider when setting policy?
Each parcel can hold one media url and one streaming url. I could imagine various szenarios where this could be useful, exhibitions for example.

With land that is already cut up, but still mostly owned by the resident that cut it, should we ask that the land be joined back together?
As said, I don't see a reason to force people having their land in one piece unless they are about to sell it in small chunks for maximum profit and with the possible consequences already discussed in this thread.

I understand the idea of having automatic control over excessive "land profiting" but it seems that this will have a large impact on land owning in general but quite a small effect on solving the original problem.

Perhaps she considers YOU an extremist. It's too easy to label someone an extremist if he disagrees with you. Moreover, the idea that there is some mystical center where all the angels live is utopian in its own way.

The angles in the mystical center normally add up to 360 degrees, except in the vicinity of a large massive object.

Your ridiculous..Im stating a fact. Your gripe like many is basically I want that damn plot of land sitting in the middle of my sim surrounded by neighbors. I may be one of few who is putting it out there whether you like it or not. Clueless? Not hardly. And you never did state you would be in here complaining if you were sold a 4096 for $1L. Waits for your response.