It pains me to see as usual we get an interesting topic on the go, and again the same old coven of nay sayers chip in with personal comments, but hey such is the nature of freedom of speech.
Alberik you are right about the nature of TOS, I was recently asked to write note card to hand to new residents, and was told “we need more fire and brimstone to deter the griefers” to which I answered this means sod all in so far as the note card is concerned, but maybe we try appealing to the majority in a human manner.

My view has and always will be that somewhere along this magical mystery tour we are on, in so far as Virtual technology is concerned some have taken it upon themselves to not see beyond the pioneering nature, and have in my view taken up the “rabbit in headlight’s stance” because of fear of change.

I welcome the input of the real life governing bodies in this trip we take, as the next hurdle we face is the trust and credibility issue “is the avatars word his bond?”

Again I thank all for their part in this debate

your humble servant “grin”

Thanks for confirming that cyberspace libertarianism draws on the trope of the frontier as I originally argued. the cyberspace libertarianism very much draws on those motifs of rugged individualism and pioneering It is unclear to me how you managed to discover the rest of your more than faintly overstated allegations in my brief comment.

If you are going to insist on sticking out your tongue while grinding your teeth together I am not sure why the rest of us have to watch. It is anatomically interesting but it cannot be comfortable for you.

Here’s what you wrote, again, in case you forgot — I don’t have my foot in my mouth but you may have your head somewhere else:

“The frontier was not a blank sheet where the rugged individualist wrote his own story. The frontier was pretty much a place where the rugged individualist lobbied Washington furiously for the protection of the US cavalry, subsidies from the US treasury, and a privileged position on the railway network so he could seek rents from his competitors.”

In fact, for that rugged individualist, it *was* a blank slate in his perception, if nothing else. And it was an *actual blank slate* in many places and instances because it was not all cowboys vs. Indians and the brave calvary riding to the rescue as you imagine — you merely go in the opposite direction with the caricature.

You’ve also introduced this sort of funny anti-American meme of the pioneer as lobbying furiously for subsidies, army protection and a cushy spot by the railroad — it’s a caricature. You can’t explain complex social and political phenomena in this sort of jargonistic glib leftist revisionist fashion — it’s just too simplistic and silly.

In fact, the cyberspace libertarianism very much draws on those motifs of rugged individualism and pioneering that in fact are legitimate and actual and not the imperialist blah-blah that you try to posit. Cyberspace pioneers may have gotten their start in government institutions and government-funded universities, but they certainly didn’t remain there for long. In the long span of 100 years, even I am an early pioneer of the Internet and I didn’t have any government funding nor did I look for a cushy spot by the railroad — or even the telehub.

Your notion that American history is “nonsense” is a marker for a) your anti-Americanism or b) your own extremist political position within the American scene.

You would do better, Prokofy, to avoid filling your mouth when tripe when you have already filled it with your foot.

this is NOT true: “online, your reputation accrues first in the communities you join, and extends from there.”

This is NOT your best post and this is what I do NOT like about you.

Implying that the avatar is something constructed by “thecommunity” (whatever the hell that is) or something constructed “online” (whatever that really means) implies that the individual has now lost his ground. He goes online, and loses his rights. He only gains them if he gives his “true identity”.

In fact, there is a subtle but real pressure to provide your real name. Metanomics shouldn’t even have to require this of people, but it *is* considered the “right thing to do” if you hope to be “noticed” and “taken seriously”. That’s a shame, because there was once a higher vision for our world, but of course, it’s been trampled, and Metanomics has been very much part of that trampling, hauling in game gods with real name and RL reputatoins as game gods as the early guests, and setting the bar there for “realness”.

I’m sorry, but my reputation does not depend on what a bunch of anonymous creeps think about me in a stupid game. It doesn’t depend on what even right-thinking thoughtful adults in an augmented reality think about me. That is, there might be some “reputational” field that has this or that validity or no validity, depending on your values.

But so often reputation is in fact then power — power of the community to control that constructed self. And that I simply refuse to have any part of — and in fact, a lot of people implicity reject it by taking on an anonymous avatar in the first place. They simply don’t wish to cede the shaping or reputationalizing of their “real selves” to that horde online that can be so insolent and cruel. And they are right to do so.

Alberik Rotaru is writing tripe. One doesn’t need to idealize cowboys and their venturing to respect the individual and his ruggedness and private property. To imply that land rights only came from the barrel of the gun is to swing to the other extreme of revisionist history. This silly socialist notion that settlers are merely subsidized rent-seekers simply belies the historical record. There are plenty of ordinary families moving into ordinary places and setting them where they don’t have to shoot the natives or even find any natives. No need for exaggeration.

Everything depends on how you first perceive the world — even as a world at all, or whether it is a mere “3-d visualization platform” as the guy says about his toy in your other post.

If it is a world — a brand new world, a better world — then people might wish to construct better, separate, more free identities for that world through their avatar, where they need not be bound by the associations and prejudices that accrue to geography and gender.

But the world is really quite eroded as a concept, and Metanomics, with its meta-meddling has contributed to this process, of course, and you can only look properly cool and business like if you can prove you don’t immerse but only meta-ize and augment or only consult ABOUT or write ABOUT immersion, but never immerse.

Then, that sort of tattered world becomes more and more shrill about demanding credentials.

As for you “really trying to run an inworld business”. I seem to have forgotten that you do have a prefab business. I remember sort of stumbling on it. It seems to me, however, that this is merely a kind of testing device, a hobby, not really a way to earn a living, just a sort of “getting your hands wet” sort of thing, as you have your other real business, of which VWs are only a part.

It’s true that in SL, when it comes to work, say on a build, or sharing a sim project, the only thing that counts is their inworld reputation for performing, delivering, being can-do, etc. etc. And that’s indeed how people are judged.

The degree of separation between virtual and actual worlds, sometimes known as the magic circle, was always wildly exaggerated. Despite all the exciting stuff in the TOS that claims to place LL beyond the reach of any court or consumer law, when those terms have gone to court they’ve been caught short. LL probably has the most fire-breathing TOS, the courts have pretty much disregarded the wilder clauses of the TOS. The breadth of LL’s claims is one reason the courts have consistently ruled against them when their TOS has been considered.

There is a libertarian mythology in virtual worlds that is usually built on a total misunderstanding of the history of the US frontier. (See Mitch Kapor’s good-bye and thanks for all the fish speech for a classic example) The frontier was a government enterprise from beginning to end and one where the natural rights to the land involved quite a lot of gunplay to persuade the existing inhabitants that the frontier no longer belonged to them.

The frontier was not a blank sheet where the rugged individualist wrote his own story. The frontier was pretty much a place where the rugged individualist lobbied Washington furiously for the protection of the US cavalry, subsidies from the US treasury, and a privileged position on the railway network so he could seek rents from his competitors.

Magic circle claims pretty much come down to the same thing. Which is a long way from who am I but then who am I is a big question.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2009/feb/06/virtual-worlds-policy-berr-government-eu-security-it-policy