[syndicate] SL: You're either with the body, or you're with the avatars!

[patrick lichty]

I understand the situation you explained  
and the points in our life where we are prone to give up are many,  
still you "came to visit but decided to stay"

I'd argue the following timeline.

I had an account for over 3 years
In Nov. decided to begin a performance group there
In Dec. Father nearly dies, use as support net, live there for 2-3
weeks.
After Jan., continue research/performance, but no longer 'living' there.
Have good interactions, small but good community, obsession subsides -
honeymoon over.

The problem that I have is that I am not one of the evangelized, but as
one who chooses to explore it, I am also often demonized by those who
disagree with the whole milieu in principle. 

This is another problem with SL at the moment - its politics are very
polar.  Many tend to be one of the utopian throng, or one of those who
feel that it is extremely deleterious to society.

I think it has problems, but phenomenologically speaking, there is a lot
of cultural activity there, it is a highly memetic area right now, and
it is very interesting to study and explore.

That's where I am.  While I like to explore it, I also want to look at
it in a sense of phenomenological criticism, and that means that in some
ways, both camps look at me skeptically.

Come on, isn't this "you're with the flesh or with the virtual" a
Bush-esque polemic?  

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I think the worst thing with sl type of business ventures is that,  
patrick, you are being controlled by them, controlled by the software.  
you might feel it is a world where you freely roam and within which  
you experience what you want and you tend to blend with the  
"atmosphere". this atmosphere is totally man made, the software is  
designed by the owners of the business to their goals. their goals  
are, as you know, to first gain a lot of users and make a lot of  
marketing noise (they are succeeding in this) and second to make money  
out of their business with those users. the software is their control  
tool over you the users of the service.

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Well, yes!  This is part of the reason why I'm studying it.  This is
part of the reason why I want to look at the nukes going off in the
fishbowl; the protests going on in the private niche server.  In some
ways, do you think this is much more draconian than using Windows?  

In our campus, commerce is forbidden.  This may not mean that LL will be
getting more subscribers (Look at AOL in its heyday - I see many
similarities, except for the rampant capitalism, far greater in SL)

And the Net?  The idea that the Net is free is a fallacy as well.

I get your point, but much software limits possibilities to its own
goals - I'm conflating issues here, Bryce makes landscapes, Photoshop
alters images, SL creates a world in which faux worlds are created for
the sake of commerce.

Can we engage with these sorts of things critically while understanding
our complicity?

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it is generally a bad idea, I find, to delve willingly in areas where  
one is being controlled. it is generally a good idea, I find, to  
resist any control and even better to avoid controlled areas.

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Then get off the Internet.  Most ISPs hold archives of all email
transactions and US intelligence does _some monitoring of
communications, and many ISPs do have an AUP.  Further that with the
fact that many trunk lines are controlled by private corporations which
are not bound by freedom of speech merely make them more implicitly part
of the same problems made explicit by SL.  

Consider the draconian measures that Verio put on Thing.net few years
ago because of RTMark's actions.  The aggrieved corporations went to NTT
and got the whole server on a 30-day cancellation, which threatened a
ton on NYC institutions.  Tell me, is that not control?

In addition, would it have made sense for someone interested doing
research in Cold War Communism never to have set foot in the USSR?  I
realize that everything I have is potentially logged (as with this email
by XO.com).

For now, SL is a cultural milieu in online culture which I happen to
have an interest, although I do not feel that I have the fanaticism of
many of its proponents like the New Media Consortium.

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what areas in SL are uncontrolled and unmonitored ? none.
everything you engage in there is known and logged and this data is  
crossed with other data that you willingly give away.

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This is my big criticism of Web 2.0, and part of my research.
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PLUS it looks like shit!
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Well, what do you expect from a goddamn game engine?  It's one step up
from VRML.  Come on - now that's just a pot-shot.  BFD.
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> For me, it is a place in which I study the sociology and artforms of
the
place and then bring those artifacts into the physical.

I understand this, and please understand that I am as curious as you  
are. that's the good side of all this over-coverage of SL: my  
curiosity is satisfied without me having to go there at all.

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Well then, I am more than happy to be your critical eyes and ears for
now.
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it looks to me that people have too powerful machines and they don't  
know what to do with this hardware power. they feel they need to  
consume the hardware power with new software fuel. some, kof kof, new  
media type of people are very prone to technological consumption for  
its own sake. they are going to be the first out there who get the new  
shelter... for them, participating to old style mailing lists is so  
passe
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And I hate blogs for the fact that they tend to only be pontification
engines, and WIKIS for their _tendency_ to be intellectual oatmeal.  I
use them a little so, like McLuhan, I understand the technology so I can
operate from an informed position.
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> It is an elite place.  Period.

with 4 million elitists ? looks like the last pair of Nikes to me
(btw, I think this
http://rhizome.org/thread.rhiz?thread=23737&page=1#46558
totally disqualifies the O1s as, yeah, activists. they are just  
bullshit scam artists drawing money for a company that is as evil as  
Nike)


> WHAT I DON'T LIKE/MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT SL

thanks, patrick for remaining unblinded.


i chastize for popularizing  
more childishness

**********Now, that I wholeheartedly concur with.

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I've read a lot of Dick, and my favorite is also Vonnegut's "Harrison
Bergeron", of which I enjoyed the movie adaptation far better, because
it left us with some glimmer of hope for a viral underground.

Good points, Fred.
I hope you don't disrespect me too much for researching behind the Neue
KorporatIronKurtain.

I figure it won't be forever.