A Putsch in Neualtenburg?
by Alphaville Herald on 02/02/06 at 11:06 am
Ulrika’s Office, as she left it.
This news is a bit old, but well worth pondering. Ulrika Zugzwang, the driving force behind Second Life’s virtual socialist micro-state, Neualtenburg, has left the project and Second Life. Ulrika claims personal reaons, but coming on the heels of a revolt in the Party that spilled into the forums, one has to wonder if the personal reasons didn’t also include a sense of betrayal. Still, all in all, a virtual backstabbing in the forums beats an ice axe in the head, which is what Trotsky got.
Prokofy Neva
Feb 2nd, 2006
Yes, old news, but like Soviet “news,” the continual unearthing of secrets and explanations is “news” even decades later. Ulrika is no Trotsky; she didn’t believe in “socialism in one sim” and had all kinds of grid-wide ambitions. She’s no Bukharin, either…well, we’re still thinking what the equivalent is…ermmm…Stalin maybe?
Where the plot REALLY thickens is when you think Keltrien Baker is a paid staff person of anshechung.com doing events and such. I never did figure out what this cheerful midwestern American boy was doing in the Bavarian Commie Creampuff anyway. Very odd. But he by no means brought about the coup, at least as far as the naked eye can tell…
Well we need more “tell all” stories on this, that’s for sure…
Prokofy Neva
Feb 2nd, 2006
Wait a minute…wait JUST a minute there…Uri, that’s from the Trotsky Museum! That’s isn’t Ulrika’s office as she left it! That’s…that’s…Lev Davidovich’s office as he left it! And why…why..that’s a bust of…hmmm…ok, guess who : )
Za Lvom Davydychym!
joe public
Feb 3rd, 2006
Prok wets her best pair of aimee’s golden panties after seeing a real photo alluding to her constant soviet political machine conspiracy theory.
whatever
Feb 3rd, 2006
Eh, good riddance I say. Ulrika (and her alts) was nothing more than a 2-faced condescending shit stirrer. The forums are a much nicer place without her and her high and mighty attitude. How most of those people couldn’t see through her fakeness was beyond me.
Aliasi Stonebender
Feb 5th, 2006
As tempting as it is to make up all kinds of bullshit parallels, the story is quite simple. Ulrika had been posting many things that even her friends and cohorts were dismayed by, and finally she attacked Kendra’s work. This being a bit like watching Lassie sink her teeth into Timmy(considering they were long-time friends), many other people stated their disappointment, and Ulrika decided to leave Neualtenburg and SL voluntarily. There was no “back stabbing”, nor was she impeached – nobody even hinted that she should leave or even thought about it; it simply seems Ulrika’s ideas of where the project should go were very much different from everyone else’s.
Gwyneth Llewelyn
Feb 5th, 2006
If you dig deep enough, you’ll find commies and conspiracy theories anywhere
Neualtenburg was actually *designed* to be a long-lasting project, independently on its “founders” or “leaders”. From the original 40 or 50 people who started this project, only about two remain (if my memory doesn’t fail me). But that’s what Neualtenburg is *supposed* to be: a concept that outlasts their original founders, has no sucession problems, and goes on, adapting to time, circunstances, and a different group of people, without any problems: it simply goes smoothly on, by electing new people to serve for office…
It’s strange how in this age and time this concept is called “communism”. In 1789, according to my history books, it was called “democracy”… but I see that the times *really* have changed!
Prokofy Neva
Feb 5th, 2006
Gwyn, yes, if you dig hard enough at a person criticising your socialism, you can make them seem like a tinfoil hat nutter and believer in conspiracies : ) — why, even get others to view them as a “McCarthyite” blah blah.
One of the chief hallmarks of socialism and communism is that they are always pretending to be something they clearly are not, once you get to live under their system. Old Europeans are particularly adept at remaining blind to these ideological truths, having stood by for decades while their fellow Europeans to the East were massacred in droves and forced to live in controlled economies.
There’s no open land market on Neualtenberg; there is no unrestricted capitalism. It’s a socialist model with a collective, with a bond system it incorrectly calls “shares,” with heavy restrictions on builds and economic activity, etc. If it *was* an actual capitalist open and free market, it wouldn’t exist any more in its present form, but would either look like the rest of SL, i.e. a mixture of camp chairs, casinos, and escort clubs, or it would have a very high-toned look of a Boardman or a Taber or something.
I think it has been aptly noted that the only people who manage to retain their themes and builds and economies are the socialists in Neualtenberg and the extremely conservative cultists in Gorean cities — they use authoritarian methods to do so.
Honestly, just because you’d like to accuse people of “conspiracy theories” doesn’t mean that Neualtenberg isn’t closed and secretive and isn’t in fact socialist — and heavily ambitious to spread itself virally through SL.
And it was Ulrika that gave particular luster to that notion by her constant aggressive posts on the forums, in which she advocated virulently socialist (communist) concepts, like “bulk discounts of tier are a gift to the rich on the backs of the poor” or “we need to get rid of the 10 percent tier bonus that feeds land barons” (a particularly hypocritical position given that five minutes before saying that, she and her cronies made use of that 10 percent bonus in their own land group in Nberg. And of course, there was the hilarious start of Nberg, like all socialist starts, with a free sim, a gift from Lindens, a feting if there ever was one, an uber feting, a single entry to a contest and therefore a “win” — a contest never repeated. The times that Ulrika and others tried to fight off that blatant reality and make it look like something else (“we won a contest” or “no one else applied” or “we have to pay tier”) only made them dig deeper into the illusion that others could quickly see through.
Gwyn, you may think that if you capture “Thinkers” like Traxx who likes any authoritarian model, or if you capture clearly biased “Analysts” like Frank Lardner who pompously promotes his “peer-reviewed studies” (hah!) as “work product” in the forums, that you’ve snowed us all. You have not.
It’s especially creepy to think that this viral meme — this…hardened spore — is able to survive individuals or groups who’d clearly provide the necessary live correctives you need to any open, participatory democratic system worthy of the name. What, it’s embalmed like Lenin in Red Square? Yuck.
The notion that you can create institutions that survive individual people or groups and their ideologies is an attractive one but also a utopian one when it isn’t rooted in some sort of system of thought that is itself promoting an open, liberal society. Socialism isn’t that model, it produces crime and death wherever it takes hold.
Aliasi, it’s funny to make images of Lassie and Timmy but the fact is, people were running from Ulrika in droves, talking to their friends, sometimes posting on the forums. She was a horror. It wasn’t just the Kendra story. She was a turn-off to many inside and outside the commie horror — and in fact there are others in the Nberg Nuisance that are also annoying and a turn-off with their socialist ideology, too.
If you’re going to have socialist ideology, utopian notions, and ambitions to create and spread grid-wide notions, and least be straight about it and declare that’s what you’re doing, instead of hiding behind words like “democratic” or “only on our sim” and then rallying your little wagons and declaring that critics are “conspiracy nutters”.
Nberg has systematically infiltrated Thinkers, the forums, many of the Lindens, etc. It is positioned to always get its way and retain its influence, which is first and foremost about the influence and power of those running it and paying the tier. And that’s fine — just don’t pretend it’s the Rock of Ages and Benefit to the Community.
Gwyn, now that you’ve assumed leadership of Nberg, or so it seems, we look forward to your demonstration of how Nberg isn’t socialist, i.e. with an open land market, etc. Or at least change the literature to explain frankly that it is a “social democracy” or “democratic socialism” so there is truth in labeling.
Aliasi Stonebender
Feb 5th, 2006
Wake me when you have something new to say.
Prokofy Neva
Feb 6th, 2006
Wake me when you stop being a bratty little girl, Aliasi, and P.S. if you think I take 50 words to say what could be said in 5, let’s see *your* blog, your articles, your pearls of wisdom, rather than little stupid cutting repartees that only reveal your brattiness.