SL Government

As promised, this is the abstract of last weeks Early Thinkers discussion on SL Government by SL players. Names of participants have been withheld to protect the guilty

A basic question was: what could a SL Government DO, this had several answers:
- give more guidelines and act more directly against griefing
(we did not really try to define griefing though)
- letting the lindens know about stuff that's really bugging people
- propose what the next version should look like
- generally make the game more enjoyable

There was also a counter-current of people proclaiming that there would not be anything for a government to do.

Moving on, we recognized some basic problems that a SL governement would have to face:
1. there is always a risk that any power that the government has will be abused by members, even if checks and balances are properly thought out and installed
2. a government that's too heavy-handed could drive SL players away

As a solution to 1. software was mentioned as fair and undiscriminating, but mostly by those who were opposed to the whole idea of government. (Hmm: I think this will be a good starting point for a new discussion coming Wednesday: can s/w be a judge or a government replacement)

As a solution to 2. the government could only have dominion over a part of the sims, or there could be more than one government (i.e. SL countries) competing to attract SL players not drive them away

Finally, voting systems were somewhat broadly discussed:
1 one avatar one vote
2 a number of votes per avatar based on land ownership

As it was clear that number 2 would favor the Land Barons to a large extent, the traditional solution of a House of Commons (voting method 1) and a House of Lords (voting method 2) seemed appropiate

I assume that others already said this, and I'm a two-week newbie here, but:

Anarchy is the ideal form of government, because it gives the greatest amount of freedom to every person.

However, in the real world, and in any virtual world, it won't work, because of dickheads. It is the goal to be worked towards, but will never be realised unless humans become, on the whole, much nicer people.

SL already has a government, though, in the form of LL. They're a benevolent dictatorship, one that errs on the side of non-intervention, and I think that's pretty close to ideal. The tools that landowners have to combat griefers seem to be adequate.

Unnecessary government is evil, because it takes away freedom and gives nothing in return.

I think "Dick Heads" is the nicest way I've heard them described. But the world is full of them.

Anarchy with traffic lights, or without traffic lights?

I agree wholeheartedly with Peredur.

I also vote for traffic lights .

I'm going to start a thread on 'utopias' since it's come up a few times in the meetings and people seem to be interested in discussing ideals...