Archive for 'Philosophical Issues'
SL Relationship Ethics – Anonymity, Timezones, & Spybots
Ethics Roundtable Topic One by Victorria Paine Following the Op/Ed I wrote last week about appropriate ethics in our virtual environment, this is the first of an occasional series of articles focusing on one specific ethical issue at a time – something that I hope will allow for more in-depth discussion of each topic. I’ve [...]
Full StorySecond Life as Temporary Autonomous Zone
By Urizenus Sklar Coming on the heels of the Linden’s recent excessively broad and vague definition of the “broadly offensive”, the hand wringing about the Leather and Lace Ball at the Second Life Community Convention got me thinking about Hakim Bey’s fringe culture classic, Temporary Autonomous Zones. Bey’s headline idea was how Temporary Autonomous Zones [...]
Full StoryThe Bare Facts: Nudism in Second Life
by Lisae Boucher [After the Herald's recent story on closer scrutiny by Linden Lab of images that might be considered "broadly offensive," we were contracted by Lisae Boucher (mentioned in the article), who asked to weigh in on a related issue: the practice of non-sexual nudism in Second Life. Here, she looks at how the [...]
Full StoryPhilosophy of Second Life, Part 1: On the Origins of FIC Ideology
(FIC propaganda poster stolen from Flipper’s FIC propaganda repository.)Being Uri, there are moments when I look in the mirror and skeet. You would too! Imagine being a supreme visionary AND an alpha male (although ‘uberstud’ is the politically correct terminology I prefer). But then there are those days when I read my favorite philosopher, P. [...]
Full StoryTouching the Sky
By Prokofy Neva, Dept. of Worlds, Planets, Universe, Multiverses, Metaverses (Yes, There’s More Than One) and Deep Negative Hyperspace OK, so I’m clearing away prims in Neumoegen and suddenly I see Michael and Nigel Linden have a new train, a dark-red, old-fashioned beat-up one that I guess fits in with the hobo build in Calletta [...]
Full StoryFiction or Documentary? Real or Virtual?
Over a year ago I met art/documentary filmmakers Alain Della Negra and Kaori Kinoshita (Dellakino Arizona and Dellakino Omlet in SL). Kaori is from Japan (Tokyo) and Alain is from France (Paris). At the time they were working on a documentary-fiction about people who played the Sims and TSO, but the project has morphed into [...]
Full StoryLindens Name New Sim after African Goddess of Lag
“she slows down the day and night, and everything around here happens in a time outside of time” Special to the Herald by Economic Mip As I was cruising the new continent, I had the misfortune of running across a sim named “Mbokomu” which certainly brought back memories. According to several African tribes, Mbokomu was [...]
Full StoryVirtual Worlds 2007, Report #5: Venture Capital and The New School of Athens
by Urizenus Sklar As I reported Wednesday, much of the Virtual Worlds 2007 conference reeked of the anxiety of marketing guys and gals trying to catch up with the next wave. The fear was palpable. Why else would those people be sitting in that auditorium taking notes like they were Gorean slaves pressed into service [...]
Full StoryUsefulness Is Dangerous
Blingsider, Tard*Star, New World Goats Notes are completely safe by Bayesian TextBot be very very afraid of games – and the Second Life Herald Roderick Jones recently posted an article to Counterterrorism Blog entitled “MetaTerror: The Potential Use of MMORPGs by Terrorists“. The article is primarily about Second Life, and on the whole compliments Linden [...]
Full StoryLudlow Joins Shirkeyjerk
Hotspur, Glendower, Mortimer and Worcester arguing over the future division of the kingdom at Bangor, in ‘Henry IV’. Painting by Henry Fuseli. Let’s see if we can reconstruct what happened. First, there was all the fluff and hyperventilation about Second life having 100k then 1 million then 2 million “residents”, followed by much ridicule in [...]
Full Story
Recent Comments