Ulrika Zugzwang Officially Declared a Cyber-Terrorist
by matthiaszander on 11/04/06 at 5:49 pm
"That was a short trip from Thomas Jefferson to Osama Bin Laden let metell you. So when the history books are written will I be waving a flagor burning a flag?" These were the words of Ulrika Zugzwang on Tuesday afternoon after learning that she had officially been declared a cyber-terrorist and had been banned from the societal sim of Neualtenburg, which she was a co-founder of long ago. This came while Ulrika has been on a hiatus from SecondLife since late January, but re-emerged on the forums on Monday to protest a constitutional amendment currently being proposed in Neualtenburg. Aliasi Stonebender was the Neualtenburg official who banned Ulrika from entering the sim, which was closely followed by Sudane Erato, who is also an official in the Neualtenburg government, declaring that Ulrika was not simply threatening terrorism, but was committing virtual terrorism. Congratulations, Ulrika, on joining the elite league of cyber-terrorists!
Marsellus Wallace
Apr 11th, 2006
Maybe I missed this somewhere, but what the fuck is Neualtenburg and how can it have a constitution/government? Is this some experimental Sim? Perhaps some more information in the story is required for those who do not already know.
Marsellus Wallace
Boss, The Sim Mafia
http://www.thesimmafia.com
Bob the Tomato
Apr 11th, 2006
It’s a self governing roleplay sim, info at http://history.secondserver.net/index.php/Democratic_Republic_of_Neualtenburg – not my kinda thing but a fascinating project.
Bob
Prokofy Neva
Apr 11th, 2006
What’s the constitutional amendment, Matt?
Normally in a story there are five Ws. So we need the WHAT here. We got WHO, WHERE, even kinda sorta WHY (“because I said so!” says Sudane).
Wow, and people think that I’m over the top in saying that new social tools are evil lol. It’s kind of inconceivable to me that someone could be banned from a world/realm/sim that they spent so much time making, putting their labour, heart, soul into it.
Ulrika of course is a loathsome creature. I wouldn’t elect her as dog-catcher, let alone as head of my socialist theme park. Still, it’s indicative of how socialism always breeds these closed societies that get brittle and can’t cope with dissent.
Matthias
Apr 11th, 2006
Prokofy, the amendment is extremely Neualtenburg-specific as it relates to a change in the balance of power in the government or something like that. For those interested, it and the (so far) 4 pages of discussion of it can be found at:
http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=98524&page=1&pp=15
Prokofy Neva
Apr 11th, 2006
OK, I can’t read everything there but I’m getting the gist of their issue now. They’ve got something called the Scientific Council which Ulrika fancies as the real power of their city, and which she misportrays as “like” the judicial branch of the US. Of course, it’s nothing of the sort, and one of the reasons is that these “three branches of power” they have in the Bavarian Creampuff consist of Party Secretary, Central Committee, and Party lol — they aren’t really separate in other words. Well, it’s the usual socialist theme park. God, I couldn’t bear having to play this as a *game* it’s bad enough in RL!
The issue is that previously, evidently under Ulrika’s reign, they wanted referenda changing constitutional amendments to be subject to another level of clearance by this SC, which is an elite body whose merits aren’t self-evident, like most socialist elite stuff — they aren’t even the tekkie-wikinistas, as those T-Ws are put in another thing that is a kind of “workers’ class” of those who “build and script, as content is king in SL”. I’ll say!
But anyone who has studied, I dunno, Belarus, would tell you that you can never have such politically sensitive and difficult matters as a constitutional amendment affecting the *very system of governance itself* subject to a plebiscite ANYWAY (in that the whole damn bunch of them are off base), which in fact will be manipulated by authoritarians like Ulrika (or Gwyn or Kendra or others, I might add) or become subject to mob rule and popularity contests.
There should be a constitutional court that rules on the constitutionality of the proposed amendments. I guess they don’t have that in Nberg. I’d go study it more, but it would be two hours of my life I could never get back!
Popular referendums can be successfully held on important social issues — but not issues that go to the very heart of the system itself. In RL, a successful recognized referendum in Europe, where these gals are getting all their socialist ideas anyway, would be, say, one they had in Hungary like: “should our country enter the European Union?”. An unsuccessful one like they had in the Soviet Union would be: “Should we be for a reformed renewed Soviet Union?” etc.
I think probably most people didn’t want a situation where they’d hold the referendum on this or that issue, and then find that essentially Ulrika would undo it on her scientific council which was really the actual ruler-behind-the-scenes. Socialists usually set up this kind of shadow actual rule behind the trappings of their democratic socialist governance. Sounds like not everybody went for it.
But…banning her from the sim? That’s the part I don’t get. Banning her — not for replicating an object and crashing the sim, or flying around naked and sexually harassing the natives, but for *expressing an opinion about the constitution and system of governance*.
A system that could construe such an act as “terrorist” is itself going to be terrorist.
I think to be credible, these socialists need to figure out what their process and law is for dealing with those who disagree, and sticking to it. Sounds like they’re doing a lot of angry improvising here.
Aliasi Stonebender
Apr 12th, 2006
You are working off incorrect information. If I cannot remove my own bias, then perhaps at least you can mix the two biased accounts together and get something close to the truth.
At the time, Ulrika had not been removed from the list of moderators of the Neualtenburg forum, given that technically the forum was for the old Neualtenburg group and, as founder, she could not be removed even when she left the project.
When Sudane expressed her opinions – however right or wrong those opinions might have been – Ulrika wrongly abused this loophole to remove Sudane’s post. We have a policy that all citizens are allowed free speech; noncitizens are encouraged to leave comments and given great latitude but excessively inflammatory posts can be removed. Ulrika is no longer a citizen; she had no RIGHT to remove that post. Combine this with frequent threats of wrecking the project – by removing all objects in the sim she owns, or possibly everything, or blocking every single action of the other two branches of government – and while I would not call Ulrika a terrorist of any kind, she is a liar, a vandal, and holds herself above the laws of the very government she founded.
It may have been the wiser action to let her act so the world would know her for who she is, but I confess, Neualtenburg is home to me, and is it not prudent to lock the door when someone threatens to break into your home and destroy everything within?
Prokofy Neva
Apr 12th, 2006
Very interesting, Aliasi, and a hugely revelatory example of how social tools overtake their users and begin to commit evil on their own (if you’ve been following the discussion over at Terra Nova on collusion).
It sounds like there are really far too rigid rules on the Linden forums for who gets to have a group forum, and how it is run. These aren’t self-evident in any event and I really wish the Lindens would post a sticky somewhere that explains: how many people needed to make a group forum (no one ever knows it)and how they are moderated.
I realize this is set up now as mechanically as the group founders of groups in world, and the Lindens already have this creepy thing where if you as a founder want to get rid of an officer in your group you once invited, you can call up the 1-800 number and ask the Lindens to remove that person (as Anshe and Jauani did with me once from Metaverse Justice Watch which I co-founded). But it’s not clear why if a person leaves, or is expelled from a group, their powers as group forum mod live ever after like Lenin’s corpse on Red Square.
As for Ulrika, this part we see is true from forums and behaviour inworld and out: “she is a liar, a vandal, and holds herself above the laws of the very government she founded.”
That’s not a reason to prevent her expression, and frankly, from where I sit, while I recognize the need to prevent her from removing posts, I don’t think even if the group expels her they should bar her from posting even in the group forum. I think groups need a thread called “exiles” or “dissenters” of people summarily executed in this fashion where they can continue to give their feedback at least there.
Socialism often leads to this very problem of failure to abide by the rule of law, and creation of rule-by-laws, because godless socialists often lack even a worldly notion of a higher power. It sounds to me like you, even with some brand of socialism or liberalism, at least subscribe to the notion that the law itself, the law as people create it through law and due process, is something that is higher than any single ruler and citizen. Of course it can and must be changed now and then to adapt to modern realities, but the due process part cannot be so casually overturned.
Another fascinating thing you’re talking about here is creator-fascism. That means if I am a builder of say, the town hall, but then I had a quarrel with that village and was overthrown from some political council, I don’t have to abide by due process, but just because my name is on the object, I can come back and execute “kill copy”. I’m assuming that’s what you mean, unless you mean that she remains as not only creator but owner of objects that she placed herself in Nberg. Yikes! Well, that’s a good reason for any democratic and responsible city hall to turn over ownership of public buildings to some commonly held or trusted account. This poses a huge problem from the game perspective because the Lindens do everything in their power to discourage collaboration by making it a bannable offense to share a password on a common account. (This is because they shrink from their federal duty to dispense justice in cases such as where girlfriends steal their boyfriend’s land and money by loggingon to their accounts and sabatoging them after a lover’s quarrel.)
All builders are creator-fascists at heart because any and all of them can delete their buildings on a whim and they make use of this power liberally in our world. The only way to end creator fascism in our world, I guess, is to make group-deeded objects really not be deletable or takeable by their creators.
But then…what if you do want to delete them even as a group? Right now even returning them by pressing “object return” deletes those not on transfer because the game system, being capitalist at heart, can’t understand what to do with a socialist object that has no owner but “the collective”, so it merely destroys it.
I could go off on a whole riff about how the game tools actually led to this political crisis in Nberg, but I think even without the game and its tools, the fact would remain that Ulrika is a vicious, sectarian loon. Factions are the oxygen of democracy. Foolish consistency is also the hobgoblin of tiny minds. Terror is terror — you’re right. If the terror involved involves deletion of posts and deletion of objects, then the state’s use of restraining methods like bans might be in order as a state of emergency, subject to law, under which it can derogate from its ordinary implementary of civil rights. Nberg needs state-of-emergency legislation and oversight of how leaders declare such martial law, its limitations, and the means by which it is ended.
whatever
Apr 13th, 2006
Ulrika has yet again managed to cause her usual Drama and upset people who have been more than happy to have seen her gone from SL. She is nothing but a pathetic excuse for a human being who loves to troll and stir up shit for her own attention whoring needs. She ruined her own project, which was probably her purpose in the first place, just to see how far it could go and how many people she could get to kiss her ass while being a condescending superbitch.
Everytime she comes into the forums she causes such a scene and disrupts anything good going on. Why some people continue to raise the “We Love Ulrika’ flag is beyond me. These are people who seem quite intelligent on other levels and it makes them look like fucking idiots to bow down in front of the Head Troll while dissing others who have a slight variance of opinion on other matters. Someday they will realize how she has been playing people like puppets and she doesn’t give a damn about anyone but herself and the rise she can get out of people.
She needs to get her trolling drama filled ass offline and back into rl fulltime so she can raise her children and hope to hell they don’t turn out like her.
zork
Apr 13th, 2006
hmmm, that sounds like a familiar description…Ulrika = Prokofy? I wonder…
Grypher
Apr 21st, 2006
Oh man you people have WAY to much time on your hands!
Oh, and Proctly, “shu up!”
unhygienix
Apr 28th, 2006
“…I’d go study it more, but it would be two hours of my life I could never get back!”
Just skip a single forum post or comment. Just one, and you’ll be back on schedule.
Ulrika Zugzwang
May 5th, 2006
If only the troubles in N’burg begin and ended with just the accusation of being a terrorist. In the past few weeks the difficulties have become manifold.
The list of transgressions are as follows:
- I was subject to an illegal trial that violated the constitution by denying the charged a right to trial by jury. From Article III, Section 6 of the Constitution, “Hearings and trials not involving government officials will be overseen by a single Professor and judgment will be decided by a jury of peers.”
- In response to the accusation that the trial was illegal, the SC stated that foreigners are not provided due process, which is in violation of the Bill of Rights Articles 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11.
- The sentence is extreme in that its duration is without limit and its discussion was not present in the transcripts.
- Two N’burg government officials have engaged in and supported the unauthorized reproduction and distribution (piracy) of the work of others. Detailed documentation with screenshots and quotes can be found at the link below.
- Three N’burg government officials, one of whom admits to not recognizing the government, violated law N 3-10 by reverse engineering and deleting historic city structures without RA approval.
All of this information is verifiable either in written documents, transcripts, and screen shots and self evident to those willing to spend the time to understand it. I’m currently working on a web page that details all these transgressions in detail.
Sadly, the best defense most in the city can muster is fallacious argumentum ad hominem, which involves replying to an argument or assertion by attacking the person presenting the argument instead of the argument itself. It’s the rhetorical version of sending in the goons to rough up the facts.
A post with links to quotes, images of pirated material, and transcripts can be found here:
http://forums.secondlife.com/showpost.php?p=1023311
~Ulrika~