Op/Ed: Leaving Second Life
by Pixeleen Mistral on 15/05/07 at 11:24 pm
Living rich communities are a virtual world’s only exportable product
by Myrrh Massiel
[I met Myrrh Massiel a few years ago in the drama (and fun) drenched SL sailboat racing scene. While we have certainly had our differences of opinion, Myrrh has been one of the most committed people I know in staging events and dedication to the cause of Second Life. I was really surprised when Myrrh tracked me down saturday to say she was leaving SL. As she explained her reasoning, I begged for an Op/Ed piece as a parting gift to her friends and the metaverse at large. This piece is what arrived on the mojo wire yesterday - the Editrix]
Pixie, I’ve thought a lot about what you said – that I owe the public an explanation for my departure – and I suppose you’re correct, at the very least to all those people with whom I’ve worked over the past couple of years that I’ve devoted toward building sustainable living rich-content communities. I’m really one more for decisive action than grand political statements, certainly more comfortable leaving the verbose diatribes to those better-practiced than myself, so I offer up something short I recently wrote to a friend in-world, possibly to be taken in conjunction with sentiments from other people pushed to similar action.
I’m really sorry, but under recent Linden Lab management policies prohibiting victimless consensual pretend behavior, irrelevant of context, I can’t in good conscience contribute to the platform any longer – I’ve chosen to leave Second Life. Linden Lab’s policies have long been capricious and inconsistent, which I’ve been willing accept as long as they were all part of a long-term trend toward greater openness, but once the course begins steering in the other direction I’m just not comfortable rallying behind its momentum anymore, especially when there are far better-suited venues out there in every other regard.
The crux of what drew me to Second Life, and the whole reason I’ve gritted my teeth through the surfeit of technical and communal grievances, was its potential to develop into an open platform, an unbound common carrier polis bootstrapping itself not unlike the nascent World Wide Web. Sadly, the recent developments toward restricting our right to make-believe as we see fit are the antithesis of why I invested myself in developing Second Life’s communities, and without that core motivating freedom, there are other outlets a much better fit to my energies and ambitions.
I’ll do whatever I can to ensure that nobody’s left in the lurch by my departure, and of course I’m not leaving Second Life irrevocably, should Linden Lab’s policies change or third-party hosts usher in a true common carrier scenario, but for the near future it’s best not to plan upon my involvement in Second Life. Sorry to get so weighty on you, but this isn’t a decision I took lightly and I feel i owe you a cogent explanation.
In the end, living rich communities are a virtual world’s only exportable product, and they depend upon a world without boundaries in which to thrive. Thought police are the worst sort of intrusion upon that free intercourse of ideas, and one which I cannot idly abide.
Myrrh Massiel
Moody Loner (MoodyLoner Korobase)
May 16th, 2007
Oh, my God – I actually agreed with Prokofy.
At least ’till he started raggin’ on the Wiccans. Okay, the world is back to normal, and I can have my coffee
I’ll be doing this ’till I quit, and I don’t expect any of y’all to notice when I’m gone – unless I can get Second Life Herald to publish my Good Bye Cruel World post.
Jessica Holyoke
May 16th, 2007
Ryne, you are right. Slippery slope is used almost too frequently. Of course, even Justice Scalia has used a slippery slope analysis. (Lawrence v. Texas).
Of course, all of this arguing is assuming that the way the ageplayers were being treated by the Lindens is the reason why Myrrh is leaving as opposed to the shift of pioneer focus to corporate/institutional focus. It may be business evolution, but it is also marginalizing pioneers.
Additionally, more information on age verification is needed and that can be another marginalizer for older residents. As could the introduction of voice.
So lets return to the argument at hand. Is Sexualized ageplay between two consenting adults wrong? If you believe in near boundless freedom of speech, which is not the same as freedom of action, then sexualized ageplay has to be ok. Its a form of speech. (It might violate obscenity laws in certain places which is a jurisdictional issue. Some lawyers would look at Sl as being where the servers are. Other lawyers would look at your actions as being conducted where you are sitting. If two Americans were engaging in ageplay in Second Life, I would have a very easy time saying that they were not under German jurisdiction as Prokfy tried to assert earlier.)
And if community standards applied to ageplay, what about the Goreans, what about the furries? If enough media coverage or resident uproar is raised, then any sub-culture of Second Life could be banned.
Also, Ryne, you mention the Linden’s are offering virtual entertainment. That is not so. They offer the tools to create your own entertainment. How is this not the same as someone giving you a videocamera and then placing non-legal based restrictions on what you can record? (avoiding copyright issues, but also side-stepping obscenity) If the Linden’s can say one type of entertainment is wrong, then what’s stopping them from applying their own standards on any form of content creation? Casino’s can be wrong. Escorts may be wrong. If we, as users, are dependent on the Linden’s on defining our content, then its not really our content. Yes, this is a new platform and new freedoms and the Lindens and the resident’s have to deal with the growing pains of that together, but the promise is “Your World, Your Imagination” not , “Our World and part of your imagination.”
And, literally, if ageplayers and other sub-cultures of SL were in their own secluded area of Sl, then how is it bothering you? They were unable to advertise, the promotion was stopped using Linden’s tools. How is their existence bothering you? (And don’t try the promotion argument, unless you have proof that sexual ageplay or written child pornography does anything to promote the actual act. Pictures don’t count. Roleplay takes away the normalizing aspects of pictures.)
This is not to say that I support Child Abuse. I repeat, this is not in support of victimizing actual, living, breathing, existing children, as defined by your local laws. No one on this forum is arguing that child abuse is ok. But similarly, no rape role player is saying that rape should be allowed either. Its a fantasy that has power for certain people, both the adult and the ‘child’ in the ageplayer’s case. That doesn’t make it actionable in a legal standpoint.
Another point I haven’t seen made is that both ageplayer’s were banned. Would anyone argue that the ‘child’ ageplayer was engaging in pedophilia? In the real world, the child wouldn’t be in the wrong. To be applied in the rape example, if rape role play was banned in SL, should both the rapist and the victim be banned?
Turning to the 9th Circuit, the poster. No, we are not talking about people having sex with six year olds here. We are talking about consenting adults taking on a certain role. And we are talking about a company that wants to be akin to a public carrier saying that certain content, while legal (again sidestepping obscenity), is bannable.
Turning to an accusation of sympathy to pedophiles. I can take a position that looks at the treatment of pedophiles by the justice system and see many problems with it, without suggesting that the pedophile is in anyway good, or natural. When I see laws being introduced stating that pedophiles can’t have myspace pages or be part of social networking sites, I wonder how restrictive we as a society need to be. We are already seeing civil commitments and life long Megan’s law listing that aren’t connected to the degree of crime committed. And yes, Bill O’Reilly is right that there are also Judges that under-sentence offenders. But we, as an American society, are willing to do more to a pedophile than we are to a rapist or murderer. Put another way, if Steve were to cut off a a little girl’s arm, Steve would receive some jail time and be sued. If he were to touch the girl inappropriately, he could be subject to a lifetime of sanctions. How is that proportionally just?
And, legitimately, one concern is where does it stop? If its good enough for a pedophile, why isn’t it good enough for a murderer, a rapist, or a drug dealer? And that brings us back to the slippery slope.
Prokofy Neva
May 16th, 2007
>If jumping to conclusions is aerobic, you must be extremely fit, Prokofy.
No, I’ve followed these issues for many years and I’m pretty solid in my conclusions. And I think my conclusions aren’t wildly different from most mainstream liberals outside the hothouse of the extreme sectarians and modern cultists of the Internet.
>I have no objection to wicca being criticized, or particular wiccans. I am not a wiccan myself. It is as bereft of any evidence the existence of its god and goddess as any other religion is of its god or gods. You’re right; it’s a recent development that people try to paint as ancient.
I’m glad you can concede at least that much! It’s latest Internet-fueled incarnation is a kind of by=product of the feminist movement, I suppose, and not one of its most stellar by-products, to be sure.
>You assert, without citing evidence and contrary to what would seem to be the straightforward meaning of the text, that the “Wiccan Rede” promotes total hedonism and narcissism and lack of caring for others. That is contrary to what I observe of people who claim to be wiccans. I’ll trust my observations over your logorrhea, thanks.
No, I totally disagree. Any being that can construe itself as having powers to cast spells on other human beings and affect their behaviour and “fate” is profoundly hedonistic and narcissistic by definition. The notions of witches as “healers” or herbalists can’t offset that glaring problem. How do *they* get to decide who is free of pain inflicted by spells and who is left alone?!
Whether or not they actually have this power is of course debated, hopefully by secular humanists and not only religionists, but their *belief* in this power springs from a conception that man is supreme and that there is no one God and that they, by their own lights, can determine what is right “just because”. That’s where it differs markedly as a belief system from Christianity and the other major religions that place man in the universe as below a Supreme Being answerable to superior codes like the Ten Commandments.
Most of the hodge-podge garden variety of wiccan stuff you see from half-educated people on the Internet is precisely of this vain type, where a person believes they are accruing power over others and influencing them to do their bidding at a whim.
>I note that Wikipedia quotes a sermon of Saint Augustine: “Dilige, et quod vis fac,” translating it as “Love, and do what you will.” If it’s from a sermon, one would think that it represented his post-conversion opinion.)
Oh dear God, what preposterious junk. I happen to have written my senior thesis on St. Augustine. This is a completely devious and tendentious misinterpretation of his writing. Wikipedia is *hardly* a source on this subject — or most subjects. And you’re cobbling up these argumentations just by googling around to things like http://wicca.timerift.net/rede.shtml
The words in this oft misquoted sentence of Augustine’s all have special meanings not only within the context of his time, but in general within the context of the body of Christ’s teachings. The concept of will here doesn’t mean the hedonistic desires and whims of a weak and sinful human creature or a witch or pagan worshipping the devil or their own exalted desires, but will as it is aligned with God. The concept is that if you love God and follow him, your will would thus be aligned with the Good, not with some whim to go be an ageplayer or witch! My God, that’s ridiculous.
Thus, the meaning isn’t “as long as you are loving about it, do whatever you feel like doing”. Rather, the meaning is, “when you are guided by the Love of God, which is a higher power, you will be able to accomplish what you will to do, as your human will will be aligned with divine will”.
Augustine also writes about the pursuit of happiness and the concept of happiness is also construed to mean communion and alignment with God, not some trivial worldly notion of happiness as being a furry in Second Life.
The fact that even Wikipedia notes another classic translation of this sermon as “and what you will, do” also speaks to the concept of the difficulty of man to will or do, without some divine inspiration — otherwise his will is weak and captured merely by bodily desires and whims.
In any event, this is not a debate that is ever going to be productive, because you’re going to endlessly cut and paste chance Googlings of this or that half-baked thought to sustain your conviction that child pornography can be “redeemed” through virtuality and “sanctified” of its essential evil nature through pixelation, and I’m going to reject that belief at every turn.
>Those open to rational argument might wish to track down a copy of the late Peter McWilliams’s _Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do_, a book about so-called “consensual crimes.
We can begin swiftly to challenge anybody’s notion of “consensuality” who is themselves a victim of childhood abuse.
Pauleh Kamachi
May 16th, 2007
The best word to some this is up is ‘Sick’.
If anyone can provide facts to why its ok for adults to ageplay children to have sex with other adults or children, then please do.
Not facts on why its wrong for linden to get rid of it since this game is ment to have a degree of freedom.
Prokofy Neva
May 16th, 2007
Jessica, let me cut to the chase to dismiss every single once of your far-fetched and very stretched hypotheses.
Please find me another place on the Internet — any will do — where images *and interactivity with* *simulated* child pornography have been cleared, allowed, and even encouraged and no action has been taken against them in any country, ever, and has no age and/or identity verification process related to it. And I don’t mean cartoon-like hentai in Japan. I mean realistic human depictions.
Anon
May 16th, 2007
I wish Myrrh every luck in finding a place that she can “make believe” as she sees fit, but I fear there is no such place. She, and others, seems to believe that because something occurs on-line, it should be somehow a “world without boundaries”. Such an entity cannot exist, so long as the machinery and company operating the world are based within societies and territories with functioning codified laws; online metaverses will always be subject to local and national laws that circumscribe certain behaviours.
Second Life is a platform that allows a vast range of creativity for relatively little input beyond one’s own time, however there will always, always be a point at which this creativity has a limit – that determined by the laws under which the company (and therefore the grid) operate.
Her allusions to a “slippery slope” ending in thought police and that this will be solved by more private ownership of grids are frightfully naïve; it is not in the interests of the Lindens to clamp down on creativity (possibly make this more challenging by an erratic philosophy of management) and these private “utopias” will be subject to the same laws as the Linden’s grid. Each one will have to comply with local laws, possibly even trans-national ones, and will have to take actions to prevent illegal activity or risk being closed down.
Unfortunately, if Ms Myrrh believes her creativity and imagination are restricted by efforts to prevent illegal acts, or indeed, highly questionable ones that would arose criminal investigation, then she will not find a place to express them within the public sphere. There is no such thing as a world without boundaries; there are always boundaries – legal boundaries – to which one agrees to comply.
Tenshi Vielle
May 16th, 2007
Re: “WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?”
…fixing the grid.
Misty Harley
May 16th, 2007
An Harm None: Someone explain to me how two adults, with one pretending to be a child can be classified as HARMLESS to either person? If someone is spouting “but it doesn’t harm” in the name of ANY belief..they need to do some serious soul searching.
There are *reasons* people wish to explore this type of deviant behavior…and I doubt those reasons are HARMLESS. They were abused themselves as children, they are exploring the fantasy of *possibly* abusing a child in reality…none of which is HARMLESS to exploit.
Further more if just ONE sexual Age Player leaves SL and wanders into the real world and commits child abuse because they had a chance to explore it on the internet..then again…someone is being HARMED.
Will we KNOW if any from the adult side of the sexual age players move their fantasy into reality…I think not.
My main concern would be more so of an adult exploring their fantasies with sex age play, which is common and thus turning it into a reality.
Yes, it is sad that utopia needs rules because we cannot self-govern ourselves.
Infected
May 16th, 2007
I normally take the piss out of Prok for her inanely long rants. However this time I say ‘Hear Hear’. Good job.
Hazim Gazov
May 16th, 2007
Actually, a very popular hentai game in Japan is where you capture and rape realistic looking children, not “cartoony” ones. It has been imported into America, and is perfectly legal, but rarely seen around, as it’s based around 2 extremely taboo subjects.
Obscure Doodad
May 16th, 2007
>>
Actually, the two are charged with possessing and transmitting real-life child pornography showing real children, not avatars. I suggest you go to the website and watch the entire movie and read everything there is to read on it. Had it not involved real pornography, I’m not sure the Lindens would be executing a ban like that so swiftly.
>>
See, this is the position LL is screaming left and right and trying desperately to get put into the lexicon, but it’s not correct and they are going to get hammered eventually.
It is not “the two” who had possession of any RL child porn. It is LL. It was on their servers. It very, very probably still is.
In fact, it’s even worse than this. “The two” could have told LL that it is on their servers. People can NOTIFY LL that it is on their servers. Tell them explicitly, you are in possession of this matter and you need to get it off of those servers.
The textures are keyed. They have a numerical code. People can trade that key around and they aren’t doing anything illegal. The key is not visible as porn. The key won’t display any porn on any computer at all regardless of viewer capable of what picture format. You can’t use that key to display the illegal image UNLESS AND UNTIL that key is used to get at the material LL is in possession of.
LL is making no effort whatsoever to scan their databases for such content. That would cost money. It would likely fail often and not be comprehensive. Those are the two reasons against doing so. Never ever forget that the first of those two reasons is the only one that matters to management. The single reason in favor of doing so is to show the court (as they will have to eventually) that they DID make such an effort.
Make no mistake. LL is not a mere conduit pipe like peer to peer file sharing. They are a Napster. They STORE content. That difference is why Napster went down and peer to peer still lives.
HoJo Kilda
May 16th, 2007
Big difference between what most people consider ageplay and pedophilia folks. While I find anyone pretending to be underage pretty creepy, It in and of itself is not illegal and I’m not going to heap scorn upon them as so many are ready to do. Pedophilia is reprehensible, immoral and dispicable because the victim has no choice. What either of these things have to do with BDSM is beyond me, but of course it’s Prok’s god given right to attack the groups she finds distasteful… again and again.
Now that people who enjoy kinky sex have been compared to Nazis I’m going to go out on a limb and say what I’ve been thinking all along. You need to get laid Prok, be it by a furry, a human, or a pocket pussy… anything besides masturbating to the sight of your own words, which you clearly do. Seriously. Get out of the house and explore 1st life a bit. I think you’re starting to believe your own tripe.
*Yawns* Tired of the Prok show, I’m going to change the channel. Tell me when there’s a thread not dominated by her/his/it’s masturbatory and moralistic diatribes.
rationality
May 16th, 2007
This has nothing to do with the ageplay thing itself, and all the more with the fact that users can in fact be banned because of a “thoughtcrime” (apart from the very serious RL pictures).
Whether the crime is ageplay, or killing virtual characters (like what happens in most shootergames), does not really matter to the point at hand.
I’ve heard and read all the “virtual childporn trains paedophiles” versus the opposing viewpoint “let them release steam before they explode and do it to a real child”. I’m not sure which one is more accurate. I’m also not going to choose either side without proper scientific research being done into both sides. That’s because it’s not the issue here; the issue is the restriction of the right to express oneself freely if one does not harm anyone else (and no, “not liking it” does not constitute harm) to anyone else. It’s about the slippery slope we have just moved onto. It’s about equaling ageplay with paedophilia in the same way they could, say, equal furrysex with bestiality, virtual killing with murder, etc etc.
In fact, this slope is so slippery you’ll be on the bottom before you know it. And I applaude those willing to take a stand.
The immediate formation of the “mob with pitchforks” and the throwing of baseless accusations that invariable goes with such a mob, does scare me.
I’m sure you all are abhorred by (RL) paedophilia, but the reason the “won’t somebody please think of the children” crowd can get away with baseless accusations, is very simple:
The moment anyone speaks up agains them (not in favor of paedophilia, but merely against the practices of the “protect the children” mob) the mob responds using that age-old trick to silence the opposition:
“If you’re against us, you must be one of them.”
I only need to refer to a number of statements above to prove my point.
You cannot -will not- believe how much I despise of people who use this tactic. There are no words for my disgust of people using it.
Akin to Godwin’s law (“In all internet discussions, the longer the discussion, the higher the likelihood of someone making a reference to the nazis approaches 1″ and the derived attitude “people who bring in nazi-references automatically lose the argument”), I apply the same rule to people using the “If you’re against us, you must be one of them.” (aka “if you’re not with us, you’re against us.”)
If you used this argument above, shame on you. Regardless of what the issue really is, there is no excuse -ever- to throw out logic and replace it with fearmongering.
It’s the same trick Bush used in his war on terror. As far as I’m concerned, those using it are even lower lifeforms than the paedophiles they claim to fight against.
It’s a tactic worthy of a totalitarian regime. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
But ofcourse, I know you’re not. You’re like the crusaders of old times: “Let’s burn and pillage our way to Jerusalem. Damn rationality, damn moderation, we have a holy cause to support and we’ll steamwall all who get in our way.”
Fanatics, the lot of you. Begone.
The 9th Circuit
May 16th, 2007
@ rationality;
You must be a pedophile.
Myrrh Massiel
May 16th, 2007
…ceci n’est pas une pipe…
…truthfully, i think the rancorous cries against latter-day witches and communists are good to hear – they viscerally demonstrate the chilling effect that anything less than a common carrier platform bears in the face of cultural relativism…especially amongst so diverse a population as second life, to foster that liability upon the platform and its communities is untenable…
Jessica Holyoke
May 16th, 2007
@Prok,
I just realized that I spoke on a number of issues as to censorship, jurisdiction, theories of criminal justice, sexual ageplay and consentual relationships and you dismissed everything I said as “stretched and far-fetched” by asking for something that can never be produced. Namely “where images *and interactivity with* *simulated* child pornography have been cleared, allowed, and even encouraged and no action has been taken against them in any country, ever, and has no age and/or identity verification process related to it. And I don’t mean cartoon-like hentai in Japan. I mean realistic human depictions.” The major sticking point for me is that cleared and allowed are words suggesting that there exists, or should exist, prior restraint on speech. The West doesn’t require that you pre-clear things that you say. That’s why its called Freedom of Speech.
And if we want to be clear about that in the Linden’s case. When they announced the change in advertising policy regarding ageplay, they could have announced then that ageplay would not be condoned on the grid in public places.
@obscure
Napster failed because they encouraged copyright infringement. If they didn’t advertise about infringing uses, Napster may still be like it was. The Linden’s aren’t encouraging lawlessness, they, at every turn, are promoting compliance with the law.
Ananda
May 16th, 2007
A comment in another thread reminded me of what is dying here – because of course SL isn’t going anywhere. What is being lamented is the passing of any vestige of the idea that SL is a Temporary Autonomous Zone – a place where, at least for a while, the rules of the dominant reality do not apply.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Autonomous_Zone
Actually this death has been going on ever since SL was created. It is basically inevitable that any area of anarchy, full of unbounded creativity, will get corrupted and get noticed eventually by the rules-makers, and the definers of what is “real” and what isn’t. SL is inexorably becoming just another part of RL. What is so extraordinary, and what I’ve felt privileged to be a part of, is that SL got so large and lasted so long before this happened.
I don’t share Myrrh’s sense that becoming a common carrier would have saved SL from this fate. Once the regulators figure out how to regulate a place, its “TAZness” is pretty much gone and all the freaks and artists and dreamers need to find or make a new one, somewhere.
And I don’t defend the pedophiles (read pedophiles NOT ageplayers) either. I don’t count them among the dreamers – they are nothing but the disgusting parasites who took advantage of the freedoms here and inevitably brought those who would destroy it.
So SL will go on, and in a few corners here and there, -especially as hosting your own sims becomes a reality – you may find a mini-TAZ. But it will never be what it was, and realize YOU, in your righteous zeal to vilify certain behavior, however much they deserved it, YOU took freedom away from all the others who never did any such thing.
Obscure Doodad
May 16th, 2007
But you see, “Second Life will go on” is not what the investors had in mind. “Going on” does not fund management bonuses at the end of the year that might be tied to revenue or profit increases. The Board of Directors will be clamoring to know why the profit growth curve, which was the reason the private investors put up their money, now points flat or down. Those questions are asked of the CEO. The CEO tells them about “unforseeable events” that are now handled and “any day now” their hard work will result in resumption of growth — despite the fact that the hiccup, the hesitation, the period of time that now exists to suggest SL is NOT the inevitable dominant player in the field, might be grabbed by competitors.
A lot of private money for competing platforms might have chosen not to invest because of what they saw as the inevitability of SL being the dominant player. That sense of inevitability is destroyed. LL has very, very little time to close the door they’ve opened.
Prokofy Neva
May 16th, 2007
Actually this death has been going on ever since SL was created. It is basically inevitable that any area of anarchy, full of unbounded creativity, will get corrupted and get noticed eventually by the rules-makers, and the definers of what is “real” and what isn’t.
I don’t buy this argumentation about the TAZ whatsoever. People who were given a TAZ turned it into the usual tawdry and completely hum-drum and predictable criminal activity of RL. It is not that RL overzealousness invaded with its over-regulatory powers and church ladies. It’s that people had an amazing free and international place to create and commune and do marvelous things, but they could think of nothing better than getting out a whip and chain and muzzling an 8-year-old.
It is merely proof again that human behaviour degenerates. Human nature is not inherently good as many around the free culture movement believe. It may have its good essence, but it is weak and prone to crime, and degenerates to crime each time it is given a chance, with few exceptions. Studies of the great schools of thought and art throughout human history, and how they rise to influence or degenerate to crime abound. You can think of the glories of Spanish art and exploration and the spiral downward to the Spanish Inquisition.
It’s not that real life encroached from outside; it’s that real-life encroached from inside.
I don’t see how hosting one’s own sim with a mini-TAZ is going to confer more specialness and magicalfulness. It won’t. If anything, an individual without a company behind him and rich VCs and influence like the ebay guy and such will be even more prone to regulatory influences.
I find that the spoof song that Frogg Marlowe is doing these days mashing up the Youtube Candy Mountain is actually profoundly emblematic of Second Life. The song goes like this, crying “Shun the unbelievers!”. The Believers keep telling a skeptical unicorn (a unicorn! but skeptical!) that there’s a magical candy mountain that they should all race to and get candy. So he comes with them, grumping all the way, and they point to it and he finally crosses the magical bridge…but then somehow it crashes and he wakes up with his kidney missing and his side bleeding.
Prokofy Neva
May 16th, 2007
@Prok,
I just realized that I spoke on a number of issues as to censorship, jurisdiction, theories of criminal justice, sexual ageplay and consentual relationships and you dismissed everything I said as “stretched and far-fetched” by asking for something that can never be produced. Namely “where images *and interactivity with* *simulated* child pornography have been cleared, allowed, and even encouraged and no action has been taken against them in any country, ever, and has no age and/or identity verification process related to it. And I don’t mean cartoon-like hentai in Japan. I mean realistic human depictions.” The major sticking point for me is that cleared and allowed are words suggesting that there exists, or should exist, prior restraint on speech. The West doesn’t require that you pre-clear things that you say. That’s why its called Freedom of Speech.
Uh, gosh, Jessica, d’ya think? P.S. I live in “The West”. Actually I live on “The East Side” in “Manhattan” and I do like to think that I know a thing or two about freedom of speech given all my RL jobs over the years *chuckles*.
I repeat my challenge. Exactly as I gave it. And don’t trump up special prior restraint messages out of “cleared” and “allowed” when CLEARLY my meaning here is BY THE HOST or BY THE HOSTING COMPANY. Because that’s my point. Just about any Internet Service Provide or website has elaborate TOS that in fact often is far less protective than the First Amendment protections. This is all an area of law being hotly battled constantly, and your certitude about it is entirely misplaced.
Show me an ISP or a website or a host that is in full-swing operation, has itself made a legal, moral, commercial determination that images such as we find in SL showing very realistic human child avatars in unspeakable situations that has been given a blessing and a greenlight by authorities, communities, media, etc.
And no fair, as I already indicated, finding some obscure Japanese hentai game that 117 people may have on some obscure uncertified server. I mean something that is like Second Life. And…you won’t find it. Because…it doesn’t exist. And that’s because….communities/media/law would object strongly to it. If somebody wants to go have a civil rights court battle to gain the right to trade in such images out in that very far and extreme and lonely place called “pretending that crime is about rights”, lots of luck. I just think you are creating a norm and a certitude based on nothing whatsoever except your individualized experience that this was tolerated for a time in Second Life and somehow therefore “should” be tolerated.
Don’t forget that the Lindens made up their anti-ageplay advertising thing before the German story broke, and I think it was indeed before they knew there was such a story. And they delivered the policy in a wierd way, not on the blog, but through only one Governance team Linden, Chadrick, who was allowed to go around with singleton notecards, not official abuse report citations from the existing warning and discipline system. That suggests to me the usual sort of Love Machine and “distributive decision-making” cultic activity at work, where Chadrick, possibly personally alarmed at the implications for the shutting down of all SL by this stuff he was seeing being abuse reported strenuously by many concerned citizens, felt the Lab had to act. He was given the go-ahead to see if anyone would salute once it went up the flag pole.
Meanwhile, media and real-life exigencies forced the experiment/nature taking its course approach to move along much faster and suddenly, Robin was on German TV and suddenly now a full-blown blog was needed.
So now we have two facts on the ground. One is the Chadrick notecard citation, extrajudicial in every way (that has become more clear to me with time, I wish I had protested it earlier), discretionary (very bad policy) and setting up a host of bad governance precedents that Chadrick may feel emboldened to go on and freelance with the way Meta freelanced with the TOS takedown messages). That said basically “Do ageplay if you want in your own home, but don’t advertise clubs in the classifieds or spam notecards or attract too much attention to your foul activity and maybe no one will notice”. All that happened with that liberal laissez-faire and discretionary approach is that dozens of citizens then, seeing that LL was finally taking action, wished to push them harder, and AR’d harder because in fact they had loads of cases of avatars going around spamming cards or carrying profiles advertising child escort services. Isn’t advertising on a profile as much advertising as on the classifieds? and so on.
The other fact on the ground is the apparent actual RL porn that these adults had — and all this palaver about upload and download is beside the point, truly — which led to them being banned for that, not for their simulated avatar-based porn.
So…in between those two facts on the ground there is a whole area still of discretionary action, leaving people guessing whether LL has in fact banned any form of ageplay whatsoever (I think we can read it accurately that they have not, and have not explicitly done so, so as not to lose customers from all lifestyles).
Others can make a perfectly legitimate reading that indeed they have banned any form of simulated ageplay, too, but only time will tell whether their ARs will stick. I don’t see the police blotter filling up with ageplay citations but they could be hidden under verbiage like “obscene” or something.
The responsibility for extreme lifestyles is being placed squarely back on the shoulders of the lifestylers. They wanted their freedom. Now they have it. Let them face their families, communities, police, media, the larger society with their insistence that what they do in Second Life is OK.
And if we want to be clear about that in the Linden’s case. When they announced the change in advertising policy regarding ageplay, they could have announced then that ageplay would not be condoned on the grid in public places.
Prokofy Neva
May 16th, 2007
My point about Chadrick’s notecard isn’t that I object to the Lindens taking action against ageplay advertising — they should have done that ages ago. No, my point is that all disciplinary action in SL should come in the form of a formal system of due process, such as it is. It should have an AR, a ticket with a number, a Linden reviewing it, a warning sent through the official servers, an appeals process, etc. If the company needs to warn people, it must warn them in an official system that has numbers and oversight, not through Chadrick freelancing with notecards. My opposition here is to the form in which the action is taken, not the content.
Re: “And if we want to be clear about that in the Linden’s case. When they announced the change in advertising policy regarding ageplay, they could have announced then that ageplay would not be condoned on the grid in public places.”
They deliberately refused to clarify this because if they define “public places” they will be caught up in an endless wrangle. What is a public place? The only truly public place they can reasonably define is the classifieds or the forums because in theory, any one on private property can set up walls, ban lines, etc. to block entry.
Prokofy Neva
May 16th, 2007
>But you see, “Second Life will go on” is not what the investors had in mind. “Going on” does not fund management bonuses at the end of the year that might be tied to revenue or profit increases. The Board of Directors will be clamoring to know why the profit growth curve, which was the reason the private investors put up their money, now points flat or down. Those questions are asked of the CEO. The CEO tells them about “unforseeable events” that are now handled and “any day now” their hard work will result in resumption of growth — despite the fact that the hiccup, the hesitation, the period of time that now exists to suggest SL is NOT the inevitable dominant player in the field, might be grabbed by competitors.
>A lot of private money for competing platforms might have chosen not to invest because of what they saw as the inevitability of SL being the dominant player. That sense of inevitability is destroyed. LL has very, very little time to close the door they’ve opened.
Obscure, I think these sorts of surly gloom-and-doom comments about LL as a whole need to be backed by metrics. And you’ll have to admit that you don’t have them.
If anything else, look at the media coverage, which at least gives us a rough sense of things. The furor over the German tabloid TV about ageplay has now died down, and the Google media aggregator on SL is now throwing out stories about travel, fun, cruise ships, Autodesk, IBM sales desks — fun and business galore. Playboy is coming — but so is the IBM sales desk and the cruise ship. If anything, Playboy would clean up an ageplay problem by being scrupulous about abiding by the law, given that they are a RL company with a crack team of lawyers totally on point 24/7, unlike the gaggle of Internet lawyers that collect at every Herald posting.
So the dog barks, the caravan moves on.
The 9th Circuit
May 16th, 2007
>”The Board of Directors will be clamoring to know why the profit growth curve, which was the reason the private investors put up their money, now points flat or down.”<
The announcement of voice integration and its eventual implementation will have more to do with SL’s profit growth rate pointing down than age play ever could. A very small percentage of the SL population has ever engaged in, or even come in contact with any type of age play, And an even smaller percentage could care less about it.
As to voice? Voice affects everyone and the overwhelming large majority of the SL player base has rejected it, and has sent a loud and clear message to LL that they do not want it. ALL LL has done with this valuable and overwhelming feedback however, is ignore it and trounce forward with this ill conceived idea.
So if there is any future growth stump in the horizon for SL, put the blame were it belongs.
Voice.
Ananda
May 17th, 2007
Thanks for pointing out my grammatical error with such verbosity, Prokofy
“It is basically inevitable that any area of anarchy, full of unbounded creativity, will get corrupted; and get noticed eventually by the rules-makers…”
There, all better.
Obscure Doodad
May 17th, 2007
No metrics? True. It is a privately held company with no obligation to make SEC filings. They certainly WANT to go public someday, but that day hasn’t arrived.
The reasons to talk about revenue or (alleged) profit growth curve flattening and/or reverse are oblique. On the blog last night there is this phrase:
“As both the Risk and Governance Team grow . . .”
Where you might be able to make a case for a Governance team contributing to revenue growth, it’s hard to see how a team devoted to reducing LL risk increases revenue. As for profit, both are salary burdens not being devoted to gross margin increases. Risk reduction in general is friction in the operation of a company. It is expense that is chopped relentlessly from the top line and inevitably reduces the bottom line.
Risk reduction in a company wide manner is something that is supposed to be addressed in the business model on day one. Bandaids later are very expensive.
Another item of interest was a comment by Robin Linden that they are checking with their lawyers (plural) about laws in other countries. That Ain’t Cheap. Every phone call to a lawyer comes off the top line. Most such phone calls result in “we’ll have to check into that.” Checking into that translates into 20-30 billable hours.
We have no formal survey on who will or won’t age verify and the numbers relevant to that. The posts are far more than 50% against. If it was exactly 50%, if even 1/2 the population is barred from adult areas, that will be potentially, not certain, but potentially 1/2 of all adult area sim spending by residents that dries up. The tier for those sims that is not funded by residents has to be funded by land owner out of pocket. Some % of those will sell the land, and with some measure of urgency to avoid another month of tier expense. Urgent selling depresses prices.
This translates to less ability to make profit on land baronry and this translates into less interest in paying tier — AND THIS translates into reduced LL revenue. It’s all about tier in their revenue model. Tier can dwarf premium revenue.
So in the absence of metrics, what we do is make trend observations. It is possible that imposing age verification and squeezing out adult content from SL will bring in more RL companies, but that means the SL business model changes and becomes much more There.com-ish — who have a head start on that model. It is also possible, and it would seem more likely, that squeezing out adult content reduces tier income from those sims. That is, by definition, a flattening or reversal of the revenue and profit curves.
Ambitious executives only need to see a few quarters of that before they get resumes out. Being an executive at a shrinking company is not the sort of thing you want on a resume.
Odysseus Burton
May 18th, 2007
Leaving any place, forever, for a belief or cause is not to be sneered at lightly by the general crowd here. The cause of “freedom & creativity of art” championed here though is misplaced.
Paedophillia is an activity that is taboo by the vast bulk of the population of this planet, universally sanctioned in Law by all but the most failed of states & territories under active armed conflict. To my mind, Ageplay of a sexual nature is an odious act that deserves equal sanction.
Those who “cyberdiddle” childlike avatars are satisfying the most vile of appetites.
I, as a simLORD, or Estate Manager, will not suffer childlike avatars to walk the streets of my SIM, or parcels I patrol, I have a “Mature” rating on my SIM, so it’s restricted to only adult appearing avatars, period.
I find that I MUST stop myself at the doors of a users 2nd Life property & home without objectively founded suspicion. A users home is a place where the expectation of privacy must be honoured.
But I don’t have to suffer deviants walking in the streets, there will be no NAMBLA Day or Paedophillia Pride Parades in my Second Life, nor that of the nearly complete population of all residents of this, our Virtual World.
Prokofy Neva
May 18th, 2007
Well said, Odysseus.
anon
May 18th, 2007
Odysseus, I would say exactly the same thing about murder. And other crimes too. Yet those are not nearly so sanctioned in SL — for some very good reasons.
Odysseus Burton
May 18th, 2007
I have only this brief retort anon, in Canada, for example, but common to many national courts, that the simulated child pornography is of equal weight as a crime, therefore to engage in Sexual Ageplay is to create Child Pornography, and infact renders Linden Labs an unwitting & nonculpable accomplice by providing access to the technical means to author such works. Reproduction & it’s physical act are powerful central drives to the human condition, and in fact all life here in the 1st. As is easily attested to by the volume of Sextrade Commerce & it’s auxillary services that cater to the workers as well. Now imagine this primal attraction & it’s attendant compulsion bottled within. We are not talking about Nabokov’s Lolita here, we are talking of those people who are, for whatever reason, sexually attracted to children. That they can vent this compulsion within Second Life without immediate harm to a minor is it’s only saving grace. So I say to anyone, if you come here to Second Life to do this, to vent without harm to an innocent, STOP! Stop NOW!! Seek immediate psychiatric help of the 1st order, don’t become a monster.
anon
May 18th, 2007
Once again, we could say exactly the same thing about murder, and many other crimes. Where are the pleas begging those who engage in gunplay to seek immediate psychiatric help?
The reason why other crimes can be depicted, in case you missed it, is all about the difference between *real* and *pretend*. I don’t want to be all pedantic and show you step by step what the difference is between real and pretend. But here’s a hint in case you need one: The doctors on TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy aren’t really doctors, they’re Hollywood actors. If they were to operate on a real person, it would be a crime.
warm fuzzies
May 18th, 2007
((I find this a lot of hogwash, frankly. It posits the idea that the measures the Lindens had to take regarding ageplay constitute a chilling effect on art and freedom of speech. It implies that this is a selective policy proper to Linden Lab’s management only.))
I agree Prok. Every organization has its rules and while I think there is a LOT to criticize in Linden Lab in these issues, leaving the system because the company decided to draw a line is total nonsense. If she want to leave SL, fine, and for whatever reason, fine. That’s her right. She’s not the first. But to do so because of some imagined “restriction of freedom” is bogus.
While I don’t applaud the way they did so, I approve of any steps taken against pedophelia concepts anywhere, whether in VR or RL, and whether it involes “real children” or depiction of children. Pedophelia in any form potentially endangers children, and that’s the core thing.
What Myrrh is saying is that she’s leaving SL not because of technical problems, or because of corporate pandering or because they ripped her off, but because they won’t let her do whatever she @#%$ well pleases, no matter how perverted it may be.
Hey Myrrh, sorry ya feel that way, but good riddance. Nothing personal, but some fences are designed to protect people and trying to tear down every fence in the world would do more harm than good. If society refuses to draw any line, it ceases becoming society.
Odysseus Burton
May 18th, 2007
My point would be here, even though it’s pretend, it is still a crime in many jurisdictions. The act of Sexual Ageplay “creates” child pornography, and can be deemed a criminal act, unless it rises to the level of a recognized work of art or literature. Whereas an act of Violent Gunplay, whether well done or of the most amateurish level, is not a crime in and of itself. Is this differentiation hypocrasy? Yes, but one that the vast bulk of adults agree is acceptable for the purposes it serves.
Deanfred Brandeis
May 18th, 2007
First, I must admit that so far, I’ve read no comment except this one: http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2007/05/living_rich_com.html#comment-69635202
On that note:
> Actually, they usually say: “An it harm none, do as you will” to give it that faux medieval feel to it, even though it’s probably no more than 50 years vintage lol.
Nice. A little irrelevant “back in my day” banter to get us all off track.
> This wiccan/pagan/secular humanist/reward tekkie wiki meme around the Internet that passes for whatever “moral compass” the youth and half-educated adults of the Internet have is one of the things I repudiate most strenuously.
I personally find neo-paganism kind of ridiculous, but who the hell cares, Prokofy? You (and the commenter you replied to) brought up the issue of the morality of freedom of action that bars coercion, so what exactly is wrong with that?
> Note carefully the ideology contained in this concept. The ideology is: “I get to do whatever the fuck I want, by my desires and by my reckoning, as long as it doesn’t harm anybody as I imagine it — forever, without anyone telling me what to do.”
That seems to be the gist, yes. Who deserves to tell me what to do? You? The president? Jesus? The FBI? The queen of England? By what right other than that (fictional right) of a master to his slave can anyone claim the right to tell another person what to do and morally expect him to do it, without the latter’s consent?
> Note how it contrasts with another, more ancient Judeo-Christian concept, called “Do until others/as ye would have them do until you”.
I note the contrast quite well, yes, and this morality is bankrupt.
> That concept differs because it creates context, community, responsibility, empathy. It creates a dimension where if I swing my arm, I imagine, oh, if it hits someone’s nose, that hurts, like it would hurt if I got punched. So I don’t do that until I first look — is there anyone in striking distance?
No, it creates slavery. It means that if I *must* *morally* do to everyone I encounter that which I want done to me, I am morally obligated to be the slave of every other person. It is then immoral of me not to do good to everyone who presents himself to me. My own good is sacrificed for the good of everyone else. You might know this as altruism, but it’s really just slavery.
Your characterization of the morality of non-coercion is baffling and a flat-out lie. If you swing your arm with no regard for others and harm another, you are in the wrong. Why are you ignoring the “harm none”, barring of coercion part of this idea?
> Contrast that with the wiccan crap which says “I swing and swing and swing because there’s nothing inherently wrong with swinging, and as long as I feel like swinging, that’s what counts.”
So what? What right do you or anyone else except the person himself have to assign purpose to a person? If I wish to swing my arm and coerce no one, how is it that you or any one else has the authority to enforce your own purpose on me?
> The “an harm none” isn’t a context of a neighbour or a reciprocity, it’s an abstraction, a blow-off, a check-off, something in which I say, “Oh, this is a victimless crime as far as I imagine it to be, so I can do what I wish”.
Is reciprocity a moral requirement in your world? Who decides what qualifies as reciprocal? Strangely, you mention “abstraction” as if that qualifies an idea as false. Why? And why, if an action has no victim, is it a crime? If no one is coerced, what moral code gives you or someone else the authority to declare it a crime? Slavery?
> And they extend it out endlessly. There is never a boundary. It’s “do what you will”. Let your will extend forever, never meeting anything to counter it, never being circumscribed by even…the will of others similarly minded.
Reality always intervenes to counteract unrealistic desires. One’s will cannot extend beyond what is possible, obviously.
But I’m still at a loss as to why you think you or Jesus or the FBI or anyone else has the right to tell another person that his non-coercive actions are immoral.
Deanfred Brandeis
May 18th, 2007
Issues of what LL can and can’t do in this context, however, are mostly irrelevant. They are not a government. This is not a level playing field. They can put (to an extent) whatever restrictions they like upon customers as a condition of being able to use their product. This is a market issue–between a free company and its free customers who freely consent to do business together.
Sadako Shikami
May 18th, 2007
I see so many people here saying “leave if you don’t like it.” Yet Myrrh *is* leaving, because she didn’t like it. Our best vote is always with our feet, eh? One voice may not matter. Who knows what SL will be like a year from now, five years from now? And how many will vote with their feet? I can appreciate the sentiment.
MillyToast Ling
May 21st, 2007
Dear All
I am a newbie. I was rezzed two weeks ago. I have found all your posts to be very interesting. I just think that it seems that SL is just developing as a RL society would. It’s all perfectly natural and a fascinating subject for anthropologial study.
My own experience is that all the avatars I have met have been very polite, respectful and friendly towards me. The only bad experience with an avatar was with a teacher of a beginners Italian class who kept demanding that I ‘sit down’ at her class when I had already explained that as a mac user i had no right click and was therefore unable to do so easily. (I’ve got one now).
My RL friends have all either not heard of the whole virtual world concept or have but said ‘that’s the place that paedophiles pretend to be children so they can seduce children’. So there is an image problem there that needs to be addressed. As far as whether or not the ageplay sexual behaviour is harmful or not is a philosophical debate worth having. I would be interested to hear from any RL medical workers in the field as to whether or not it is a helpful therapy or harmful encouragement to a person who is unfortunate enough to have desires that are considered by the majority to be morally wrong whether or not carried into RL. I am going to see if I can find any references to research in this area. Calling people ‘sick and perverted’ is definitely not a helpful therapy. If someone is outside one’s definition of good then it is one’s duty, I believe, to offer support and guidance where one can, or let someone else do so. Being abusive is not helpful to anyone.
p.s. I keep coming across derogatory references in SL to ‘Furries’. I would like to know how Furries feel about this. It feels very similar to racism.
Fulano Giles
May 22nd, 2007
Having taken the time to read the preceding posts, several points come to mind:
First, the tendency to act out behaviors in an virtual setting has not been shown to lead to the duplication of said activities in RL, that being said, it is not the activity itself that worries me but rather the reinforcement of erotic feelings associated with child abuse.
I recently discovered that several of my friends and acquaintances were abused as children and the raw anger, shame and pain that was evident as they told their stories has lead me to believe that it would be kinder if their abuser had ended their lives instead of leaving them to slowly die internally, isolated by fear from normal human contact for the rest of their lives.
Anything that promotes child abuse and the pain it causes should be stripped from civilized society with extreme prejudice. Justifying it’s protection as the first step onto a slippery slope is essentially the same as equating the prosecution of murder with the first step on the inevitable road to a police state. I’m sorry that Myrrh chose this as her hill to die on, there are much more worthy causes.
Second, violence is not banned in SL for the simple reason that it is impossible to damage an Avatar in any meaningful or lasting manner. Those who use scripts to cause violence in the sense that they cause extreme lag or other annoyances are dealt with by the Lindens on a regular basis – go read the police blotter if you don’t believe me.
Third, the inclusion of Furries in a list including Goreans, Ageplayers, and etc would indicate a lack of time spend in SL and a fundamental ignorance of one of it’s more visible groups. Though not a furry myself, I have been a part of SecondLife since 2005 I have had ample opportunity to interact with the Furry community and have found them to be an almost universally life affirming and genteel group who both respect and wish to be respected. Their inclusion in the blasphemous version of Pastor Niemoller’s quote both saddens and sickens me.
PS. MillyToast, it is very similar to racism and it is very sad.
Tom
May 23rd, 2007
Freedom isn’t free. We hear that expression a lot in America lately. What does it mean?
A lot of people argue that particular types of behavior or beliefs are part of our rights as adults and that no one should be allowed to interfere with them. Other people argue that certain types of behavior and beliefs are bad for soceity as a whole and should be banned regardless of venue or actual criminal behavior.
Take me for example. There are two things that come to mind that I hate. I hate rap music and I hate the “white power” movement (KKK, neo-nazis, skinheads, call them what you will). My hatred of rap is vast. I find the music as a whole offensive to the ears, degrading to women, and at best, a bunch of self-indulgent chest beating on the part of the artist in question. If you play rap in your commercial, I won’t buy your product. If you play rap in your store, I’ll shop elsewhere. As far as the “white power” movement goes, I intensely disagree with their message. Again, I find it offensive, small-minded, and dangerous. If you are a racist, I will cease to hang out with you.
Now, I am old enough to remember back when music albums didn’t have warning labels about content. Old enough to remember when the US government thought about sticking its incredibly big nose into the issue of free speech and try to censor the rap industry. Despite the fact that I hate rap, I would have stood beside them, marched with them to Washington, to protect their right to their freedom of expression. Despite the fact that I hate the “white power” movement, I would also stand with them for their right to express their beliefs, no matter how offensive those beliefs are to me. THAT is what it means to be an American. I would stand by people I detest to ensure freedom of expression for all. The Constitution doesn’t just cover the things you agree with and not the things you dislike. It has to cover everyone, equally, or we all lose a little freedom.
Now we get into a shadier issue. What about criminal activity? Well, I don’t support that because it’s against the law, and often just plain human decency. Everyone thinks this whole Linden Labs ban is about ageplay, and to some degree it is. I am definately against actual child pornography where real children are involved. Degenrates who actually prey on children in such a manner should be prosecuted. No argument from me there. But two adults with no child being harmed? No. Their rights as adults should be observed and people should butt out of their business, no matter how much their behavior offends your own personal sensibilities.
Freedom isn’t free. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made. In times of war, it usually means lives. In times of social crisis, like this, it often means sucking it up and supporting people you would otherwise detest because their rights are being infringed upon. Treat others as you yourself would like to be treated. It’s a simple philosophy.
Tom
May 23rd, 2007
After my last post, I need to post something else. I didn’t post with my initial, because it detracted from my statements within the post itself. (Hopefull, once you read this, you’ll understand.)
Linden Labs crushing ageplay isn’t necessarily a social issue or decision. They let it run amok for many years because, legally in the US where Linden Labs is based, they were not breaking any laws. No, the Lindens’ decision to ban ageplay is a simple business one.
With Second Life ever-expanding, it is growing in the world-wide marketplace, mainly Europe. Linden is probably now thinking of expanding its horizons, and servers, overseas. But to do so, brings them some legal problems. Many European nations do not distinguish between actual child pornography where a real child is being abused and virtual ageplay between consenting adults above the age of majority. If Linden Labs sets up servers in Europe, they would then be held accountable for what appears on said servers. So, in an effort to appease their new European overloards (j/k), they have to conform to the European laws. Business decision, pure and simple.
Second Life is Linden Labs’ property, and as such they can do whatever they want with it. I totally support their right to run their business how they see fit. It is also perfectly alright for people to leave their accounts behind because they don’t like the decision. That’s their right also. Our personal opinions don’t matter in this instance because the Lindens want to expand their business using property they own. If we don’t like we can either suck it up or leave.
Karen Palen
May 24th, 2007
Philip Rosedale talks a good line about freedom of expression, but when it comes to “unpleasant” ideas like small avatars he folds.
The word for that is hypocrisy!
For example, exactly WHAT *IS* the “simulated age” of an avatar?
When this whole fuss started I discussed this with a 50 year old woman who is 4ft tall in real life.
She claimed that the real discrimination was not age but height! If you are 4ft tall you *MUST* be a child – no debate allowed!
I have had the privilege of knowing this woman for over 20 years now and have had the opportunity to witness this discrimination first hand.
At her suggestion (insistence?) I adopted her “persona” as my Second life Persona – Karen Palen.
I can now personally bear witness to the pain she faces every day!
Dumb things like having her 25 year old daughter told to “make your child behave”! Serious things like not being believed when she reports an attempted rape.
The fact is that “freedom of thought” means nothing unless the most extreme and upsetting thoughts are protected!
I have nowhere the contribution to Second Life that Myrrh does, but I too and leaving until such time as things change.
However as a Venture Capitalist by trade I can do something to see that an alternative is created!
This won’t happen overnight, but it IS in progress!
See http://www.ourstage.com/ for an example of one such project we are already finding. A truly “ungameable” music and video rating system!
Just imagine if Second Life was truly controlled by the users in this way and not controlled by a few loudmouthed pressure groups!
Blinders Off
Jun 13th, 2007
(( From Tom: Second Life is Linden Labs’ property, and as such they can do whatever they want with it. I totally support their right to run their business how they see fit. It is also perfectly alright for people to leave their accounts behind because they don’t like the decision. That’s their right also. Our personal opinions don’t matter in this instance because the Lindens want to expand their business using property they own. If we don’t like we can either suck it up or leave.))
Tom, common sentiments. My response to this:
1. Second Life is Linden Lab property, yes. But the content is the property of the users, by Linden Lab’s own admission. We have to ask the quesiton: at what point do the clients who are financially supporting the system have some right to object to sweeping decisions that might negatively impact all their work and investment? It may be LL “property” and they do have the “right” to make decisions regarding that property, but as those decisions affect the activity of hundreds of thousands of people, it is conceivable that they do have some responsibility to their customers. Although a landlord “owns” a house, he does not have the right to bulldoze it while the renters are eating dinner.
I have to wonder why it is that there are no “moderators” on Second Life. What… they decided to create a virtual world with no police force? No one to instantly take out a griefer if the need arises? That’s just one item that the LL decision machine made that is not in the best interest of their customers. LL “property” or not, there are some serious problems and at the rates they’re charging, they do owe something to the users of this system.
2. People DO invest on SL, both in time and money. And yes, while they CAN leave if they get tired of it, that leaving usually means totally abandoning something they’ve spent a great deal of time developing, abandoning friends they have made here, and in many cases, losing significant financial investment.
So while I respect what you say, I don’t believe it is a realistic viewpoint. Saying that people can “just go home” if they don’t like it is like saying “If you don’t like the United States, move elsewhere”. It’s a stance that is unsympathetic, condescending and abusive to those who have legitimate complaints.
The alternative: when someone doesn’t like something, they do have the right to speak up. And they have the right to do so without some troll telling them “love it or leave it”. LOL
Absolutely not calling you a troll. Your post was thoughtful and respectful. Unfortunately I all too often hear that sentiment used as a direct attack against someone who is doing nothing more than voicing legitimate concerns.
The U.S. was built on the backs of people who didn’t like something and who had the guts to protest for active change. Leaving SL is an option, and a quite valid one if someone decides to do so. But it is not in every case always the best one. I would myself love to see an SL “Supreme Court” in which users could challenge decisions made by LL and have the overturned. That would be interesting. Or a “vote” system where every paying member has one vote per IP address to decide on a major policy change… and that vote could be triggered by a petition containing 50 signatures. Basically, considering the structure of SL, there is need for LL to be accountable to the community. Because as it is now, they have way too much power over the lives of way too many people, and that power seems to often be used indiscriminately and against the majority wishes.
Sprulin Pace
Jul 21st, 2007
I met Myrrh and thought she was a sailing cutie; had no idea so much controversy would swirl around her. Just talked to her last night. She was in SL shopping. Seems unaffected by all the hoohaa. Her only complaint was that she can’t find clothes that fit regular proportions anywhere in SL…now doesn’t that about sum it all up with regard to Myrrh and SL?
Best of all, she remains a sailing cutie.
Sigh
Jul 28th, 2007
Simulated child rape IS against the law in the U.S. It is not frequently charged and prosecuted because there are usually plenty of other crimes you can charge the perpetrators with once you take a look at their closets and computers.
It is against the law for good reason. Pedophiles have a disease, that disease is increased and encouraged by the continuous use of materials that depict child rape. If you don’t think child rape is a problem, spend a couple of hours with Chris Hanson and MSNBC watching “to catch a predator”. Or go to a library and read up on the psychology literature. Child rape is disturbingly common and incredibly damaging to children.
The fact that the Lindens let simulated child rape go on in SL for this long is a real stain on them. It was their fear of the NO RULES fanatics that kept them from taking action. They knew it was wrong and illegal a LONG time ago. But there’s a percentage of their customer base that will call them Nazis any time they institute a rule, so they waited for a public excuse. Pathetic really.
If you find you can’t stop engaging in or watching simulated child porn, GET PSYCHOLOGICAL HELP IMMEDIATELY. You CAN deal with it, there are mental tools and medical treatments you can use to change the way you react to things. You are not doomed to ruin your life. You can get a handle on it. But you need to reach out and get help immediately. Don’t wait to get help until you are in prison. You CAN avoid ruining your life. You can visit a psychologist anonymously. Do it today.
Myrrh Massiel
Aug 12th, 2007
>Simulated child rape IS against the law in the U.S.
…you’re mistaken…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Free_Speech_Coalition
wbcraid
Sep 24th, 2008
They came first for the ageplayers,
and I didn’t speak up because I thought ageplay was soft.
Then they came for the BDSMers,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t into letting women beat me.
Then they came for the furries,
and I didn’t speak up because I was helping.
Then they came for the goreans,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t gorean anymore.
Then they came for me…
lol, jk.
Side effects of drug xanax.
Sep 16th, 2009
Buy xanax online.
Xanax. Xanax side effects.