Stay Tuned for Philipcast

by Alphaville Herald on 29/03/06 at 11:39 pm

Torrid Midnight, Lordfly Digeridoo, Maxx Monde, SNOOPYBrown Zamboni, Cristiano Midnight, Johnny Ming and I are, at this very moment, podcasting with the virtual hairlord himself, Philip Linden, for an upcoming SecondCast show. Ooooooh, exciting! The show should be up in a few days. (If you’ve missed any recent episodes, download them here.)

I just asked Philip the “vision” question. Based on his quote about creating a country, not a game, I wanted to know where he sees it going in the next ten years. Answer below:

“Because Second Life remakes the physical world . . . because the physical rules of Second Life are different from real life, the law and culture that emerges within Second Life are neccesarily going to be different. So when we as Second Life users think of it as a country, there’s great meaning to that. . . . However, I think that if you go forward say ten years, it’s much more likely that Second Life will be a kind of place with a lot of different countries within it, in the same way the Web has a kind of identity but is mostly a big set of differing communties. So I think that affinity will clump people together in Second Life, and there will probably be greater differences in the groups of people that are in Second Life. Those differences will perhaps be greater than the basic similarities that characterize the technologically driven nature of Second Life itself.”

In the end, Philip seemed to line up with the view that Second Life will eventually become a kind of open development platform and new mode of connectivity, though without letting go of the idea that it might remain LL’s own little fiefdom: “People will probably see it more like the World Wide Web. We will be driven, if we’re to be successful, to open it up faster and more, and therefore its character and its law will be driven more by the groups that are in it than anything we as the creator of the country could do.”

More when the SecondCast hits Teh IntarWeb.

3 Responses to “Stay Tuned for Philipcast”

  1. Prokofy Neva

    Mar 30th, 2006

    its character and its law will be driven more by the groups that are in it than anything we as the creator of the country could do.”

    Yeah, this is what has always worried me. He’s absolutely right. Whatever weak federalist universality he’s able to put over this thing, it is so rapidly Balkanizing and atomizing that it leaves people behind, and it means more and more gaps, digital divides, resentments, anger, exclusion.

    It’s precisely because Philip — and the groups themselves! — imagine themselves as being able to lord it over everybody on the servers by “driving the character and the law” that I take the most vehemently dissenting position I can possibly muster. I wish I had more company.

  2. One Song

    Mar 30th, 2006

    Just a random thought, I remember in the past Lindens mentioning that they aren’t allowed to get involved in any resident’s projects. Forgive me if I am wrong “hitorically” I know I’m not wrong, but isn’t Philip taking part of this podcast going agaisnt his own shitty rules once again?
    Another thing I remember was me posting comment a few months back on the SLH talking about how the “bad” administration is 100% intentional and that LL is a big evil piece of machinery. Believe me when I say this once again, they know exactly what they are doing every step of the way, if their malicious tactics will bring them closer to their ultimate goals or further is hard ot tell. One thing that is certain the longer you suckers keep eating their shit, the fatter their wallets will get.
    I don’t even know why I bother posting here, its not like any of you have the balls to stand up for your selves anyways. And you wanna know why? Hitorical question once again;
    you don’t stand up for yourselves, for 1 reason only, its because your weak. If you can’t beat the system, don’t fucking join it when there is a safe alternative. Answer is don’t play to begin with, don’t put out with the bullshit. I know this negative comments will get at least some feedback. Well let’s hear what you have to say people.

  3. One Song

    Mar 30th, 2006

    *rhetorical even, my spelling sucks.

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