I never really get into God and religion here or on SL or hardly anywhere else on the net, because the people that care about such things probably are already settled in their zone, and those who don’t usually aren’t respectful enough to talk with. But your statement about God setting up gravity and death and leaving it at that made me chuckle. I can see how some people would think that.

From what I see though, God gave us LOTS of rules that mankind pretty much ignores. And when people that were supposed to know better failed to follow those rules, they bore the consequenses of their decision. Egypt, Babylon, Israel, the nations of Caanan, Ninevah, and the most obvious of all, those in the days of Noah, all found out what it meant to not follow the rules given by God. That people today think they don’t have to pay attention to those historical lessons is just testament to the continued and consistent stupidity of mankind. Some don’t believe in God or the Bible and that’s their choice. People are killed every day because they earnestly didn’t believe a gun was loaded. LOL. People every day catch HIV and Herpes because they didn’t think it could happen to them, because they didn’t believe they had to follow any rules. Doi. Surprise!

I have always been of the opinion that when Linden Lab created a world, they pretty much instantly took responsibility for governing that world to a reasonable extent. Remember the novel Frankenstein? That story interestingly enough, wasn’t about a monster created by a doctor. It was about a man who created something and then monstrously failed to take responsibility for it. Most true fans of the book realize that “Frankenstien’s Monster” wasn’t referring to the beast he created (who was really quite intellgent), but the doctor himself. He became the monster.

That’s pretty much what Linden Lab has done. They created something unique and amazing, then have repeatedly refused to take responsibility for it or shape it into a reasonable society. Letting people do whatever they please is not only anarchistic in concept (and anarchy always destroys), it’s moronic.

It comes down to the old freedom-of-speech thing. Sure people have free will and freedom of speech. That doesn’t give them the right to go out and knife someone, or to yell “FIRE!” in a crowded theatre. Along with the concept of “freedom” comes an inherent obligation to treat your fellow-man with dignity and respect. When one’s exercise of “freedom” imposes upon the safety, harmony and freedom of others, then that person is no longer simply exercising his or her rights… s/he is being abusive. It is at that point that Linden Lab, the creator of Frankenstein’s Monster, bears the obligation to step in and correct. Otherwise, the monster does just what it does in the book… runs around the countryside harming innocent people.

I never really get into God and religion here or on SL or hardly anywhere else on the net, because the people that care about such things probably are already settled in their zone, and those who don’t usually aren’t respectful enough to talk with. But your statement about God setting up gravity and death and leaving it at that made me chuckle. I can see how some people would think that.

From what I see though, God gave us LOTS of rules that mankind pretty much ignores. And when people that were supposed to know better failed to follow those rules, they bore the consequenses of their decision. Egypt, Babylon, Israel, the nations of Caanan, Ninevah, and the most obvious of all, those in the days of Noah, all found out what it meant to not follow the rules given by God. That people today think they don’t have to pay attention to those historical lessons is just testament to the continued and consistent stupidity of mankind. Some don’t believe in God or the Bible and that’s their choice. People are killed every day because they earnestly didn’t believe a gun was loaded. LOL. People every day catch HIV and Herpes because they didn’t think it could happen to them, because they didn’t believe they had to follow any rules. Doi. Surprise!

I have always been of the opinion that when Linden Lab created a world, they pretty much instantly took responsibility for governing that world to a reasonable extent. Remember the novel Frankenstein? That story interestingly enough, wasn’t about a monster created by a doctor. It was about a man who created something and then monstrously failed to take responsibility for it. Most true fans of the book realize that “Frankenstien’s Monster” wasn’t referring to the beast he created (who was really quite intellgent), but the doctor himself. He became the monster.

That’s pretty much what Linden Lab has done. They created something unique and amazing, then have repeatedly refused to take responsibility for it or shape it into a reasonable society. Letting people do whatever they please is not only anarchistic in concept (and anarchy always destroys), it’s moronic.

It comes down to the old freedom-of-speech thing. Sure people have free will and freedom of speech. That doesn’t give them the right to go out and knife someone, or to yell “FIRE!” in a crowded theatre. Along with the concept of “freedom” comes an inherent obligation to treat your fellow-man with dignity and respect. When one’s exercise of “freedom” imposes upon the safety, harmony and freedom of others, then that person is no longer simply exercising his or her rights… s/he is being abusive. It is at that point that Linden Lab, the creator of Frankenstein’s Monster, bears the obligation to step in and correct. Otherwise, the monster does just what it does in the book… runs around the countryside harming innocent people.

People in world will (and have) band together to form their own communities regulated in ways they see fit. Others that have better perspective don’t call for regulation and don’t need a policed and rule-driven community to hide in because they realize they can just log off when things get crazy.

And yeah, SLH is a joke, but I think the staff at SLH get the punchline already!

I think it’s hilarious that the majority of the people who have posted above are likely the very first ones that scream if LL moderates anything. Then when Uri opens up a newszine that allows people to say just about anything they like, these people are the first to harass him for doing so. LOL. What hypocrites.

I don’t particularly like the way this zine is moderated. I would like to see the Herald become a more responsible rag. But… the leader blurb itself visible on every page says: “The Second Life Herald is in no way, shape or form associated with Linden Lab (the company that operates Second Life), nor with Electronic Arts, nor any other aspect of the Dark Side of the Force.” I think it’s pretty obvious from that blurb that Uri never intended this to be a professional newspaper. It’s basically a flamerzine with a bit of irony thrown in, that has occasional glimpses of actual news. And most people realize that.

If anyone doesn’t like the way Uri does things here, then STOP READING THE ZINE AND GO OPEN YOUR OWN NEWSPAPER. It’s his company, his newspaper. Like people are always screaming about on SL… he pretty much has the right to do what he wants without censorship from anyone. If people want a “responsible” SL newspaper, go out and MAKE ONE. Duh. Otherwise, the complaints are just from a bunch of equally-offensive hypocrites flapping their jaws.

Yeah Dave, I won’t argue with that observation. If anything, SL rather than being a fantasy world TOO WELL mimics RL. And there are sure a bunch of drama queens in RL. Only difference is that in RL I can sue the jeebers out of someone who slanders me, I can file criminal charges against someone who steals from me, and there are few people in RL with the guts (or stupid enough) to get in my face.

None of that really applies to SL. The concept of allowing people to be who and what they want to be is an interesting one and I won’t debate that concept. But a board that’s largely unmoderated in any way (the abuse system is just a joke), goes way beyond “tolerance” and into absolute anarchy. All of human history has shown that total anarchy never benefits anyone. It’s destructive.

Ah, I ramble. Your point is well made. There are drama queens in SL because they’re likely drama queens in RL. But I do think LL could do a bit more about their activities without crossing the line of intolerance. Even the TOS states that no user shall intentionally harass another user. There’s not really even a valid way to report such abuse with chat log evidence. I don’t see the “no harassment” rule enforced very much… thus the prevalence of drama queens. If they knew their moronic activity could bring heavy consequenses, they might think twice about doing what they do.

But yeah, you’re right. Drama queens plague both SL and RL. There’s always the emotionally-challenged.

Bingo. You hit the nail on the head. Which makes this little line from the article…

“The Second Life Herald is a groundbreaking newspaper that defines the state of the art in news”

..pretty damn moot.

“Using weblog system from TypePad….. oooh yeah, that’s some real state of art. Idiot.”

The Herald’s commenters are far more astute than the Herald’s actual “writing” staff and “editors.”

OH REALLLLLLY?

Using weblog system from TypePad….. oooh yeah, that’s some real state of art. Idiot.

That’s because RL humans are involved…plenty of them socially inept!

I never understand why people try to use issues that are quite common IRL as reasons why SL has problems. The whole basic idea was for people to be free to make and do just about anything they wanted (within legal limits).

Well, apparently bling, super sex machines and cartoon animals in diapers is the best the majority of the population can come up with. The answer to that is social change, though, not game regulation.

I know that wasn’t Blinders off’s point but I just saw the above comment and thought about that.