Prok's Parliament

The dashing blogger-intellectual and virtual world gadfly Prokofy Neva has declared himself interrim speaker of a parliament of his own making, and announced he is "in charge" of at least 65 sims in Second Life.

You know, it's really time to be doing this, and I'm sure you'll agree : )

It's that time of the year when my landlord in RL has finally turned on the heat in our building, and now we're free to turn it off again to save off that whopping heat bill, ouch. So I thought I'd repair to my Winter Palace in Second Life. Well, I don't actually have a Winter Palace in Second Life, but I have the Voting Lodge in Duck which has that prefab Bali lodge thing by Barnesworth, a nice fireplace, FDR Adirondack chairs, and I'll be sure to put some treacly Xmas Muzak on the URL. Hot cocoa served.

See, I've gotten one too many "Parliament" invitations lately, the last one from somebody named "Princess" something who sounds like she should set up a "Palace" instead of a "Parliament" lol. Her group had the usual badly-misspelled jumble of concepts. So I thought, "Hey, I can do this, too!"

I really am sick of the sorry-assed shape of resident governance in Second Life. This last revolution (if you could call a half-assed rebellion studded with suck-ups and turn-coats a "rebellion") was so pathetic, ineffective, and cooptable that it made me nauseous. The Lindens handy evisceration and eradication of it was nauseating, too. Their certain victory in getting the mass-addicted to their "product price point changes" is inevitable unless people take action.

To get started, I think it would be most expedient if I simply declared myself "in charge" on the 65 or 70 sims where I own land (inventory coming soon). I suggest you do that, too, if you own land! This has an immediate advantage -- I can declare myself as owner of "the largest public space in the Metaverse," and thus beat out Rezzable's WrongAsWrath Rimbaud who claims Rezzable has that status lol (at least my actual public lands don't have "buy pass" on them lol). Declaring myself "in charge" of these 65-odd sims enables me to: a) return prims from my land and b) bitch to the Lindens in Concierge tickets about the behaviour of my hapless neighbours with trees waving into my land. That's pretty heady stuff, but I think I'm accountable and responsible and can manage it.

So I'm going to make Prokofy's Parliament, and any large or small landowner is welcome to join it, on their main account. You know, I'd make a group for the purpose, but hey, I'm out of groups just now, so just hold that thought.

Do you think I will encounter any resistance in declaring myself to be "in charge" of 65 or 70 -- or maybe it may be a few more than that -- sims? (You may get lucky and I may have forgotten that I own land on YOUR sim because my land group won't load the total land list anymore!) Well, given that most of those sims are mainland, with a number having no-show neighbours and abandoned land, I don't think I will find that much of a challenge. There are also people who don't speak English or any of the foreign languages I speak, or live on other time zones, so "they don't count," and they can easily overlap with their own government thingies as they wish, we won't get in each other's way.

Then there are people around me in various RP things like "Gor" or "Star Trek" and what-not -- I don't care about these people. We're not really in the same game, and if they need to go on having "kings" and "paladins" and "Captain Kirk" -- that's fine, I will just tip-toe around them.

Prok's Parliament will be a temporary expediency which, like all temporary expediencies, will last about two or three times as long as anyone thinks it should, until it will finally be overthrown, but peacefully, to ensure that European Commission grants and American college lecture circuit fees remain available to me for years to come in a comfortable retirement.

Prok's Parliament will not admit any landless whiners who hate land barons and insist on "parity" and "equality" and "fraternity" and all that other silly jazz. History shows that short work has to be made of such people. They are welcome to make their own syndicates, cells, unions, rabble, mobs, and other ineffectual bodies that may or may not get a mandate and some seats in the eventual parliament to come, depending on how they comport themselves.

What is the purpose of Prok's Parliament?

Well, like all parliaments, its purpose is to take power, and then use power to accomplish things like getting town houses for ourselves in the capital city and pork legislation for our constituents. In order to speed up that process, I have some empty town houses I can just give you if you are a landlord, but somehow still needed a town house. I may also have some pork in a barrel on "copy" that you can take back to your people. That will free us to move on to other things like:

o preparation for the next big struggle with the Lindens -- organization, communications, blogs, etc. -- so we are not blind-sided when they roll out their next big PainPoint announcement and rile the grid for 7 days and then have a faux-concession

o response to the Linden offer other than sycophantic dick-licking on the forums -- I think it is well within our power to say "You know, we don't like $125 in June, and won't be paying it. If you don't want to lose 100 customers in June and 1,000 sims, keep it at $95 until January 2010, and then let's talk."

o drafting of positions on issues like grandfathering of mainland tier, 1/2 sim tier discounts, and group tier bonus -- so that both mainland and island owners aren't pulling the blanket on themselves on all these issues and are united

o discussion of ways and means to express will and decisions. This will never involve anybody turning their property over to anyone else or sharing Ban-Link. I think it can only be done on a voluntary, consensus basis.

o protest forms -- I don't believe these should be annoying to others, like "let's block Ahern" or self-harming "let's not log-in for a day and not take care of customers" or illegal "let's bomb the Concierge island with fire prims on alts". Let's try to think of what would really be effective.

o perhaps down the line, drafting of minimal building codes like "don't build smack on the property line so as not to be a dickhead" or "no builds over two storeys on waterfront" or whatever

o assessment of ad farming situation -- I think this is far from finished, and position on "garbage" -- I've had endless janitorial battles over the years as well all have on mainland and it would be good to get a collective position on this

o creation of committees, like a technical performance committee that could monitor sim performances to see if things like openspaces either on mainland or private islands really drag as claimed

o demand for the forums to open -- landowners who are paying customers of LL should not be cramped into something infantile and retarded called "Resident Answers" or driven like cattle off the blog into sequestered "conversations with the Lindens". "General" and "Political Science" and "Land and Economy" should all be reopened to accounts with payment information on file, and past bans for such paying customers should be lifted.

That sounds like it should keep us busy arguing for at least a year.

I will be in my Palace, I mean Voting Lodge tonight at 6 pm SLT if you would like to sit in parliament with me.
If nobody comes, that's fine, I'll wait : )

Comments

[Elanthius Flagstaff]

I won't be able to make your parliament due to the timezone thing. You seem half serious and half joking but I warn you not to try to take ownership of any of the 1278 sims I own 16sqm parcels in through Universal Network since I've already declared myself Grand Poobah of each of them.

I won't hesitate to wield my awesome virtual power to virtually achieve my virtual goals.

[rudi dutschke]

as you're one of these anti-progressive, anti-socialist assholes... get lost, though

[Ciaran Laval]

Is there a position for minister of the interior*? I've always fancied being a right bastard.

Joking aside I think we need a Linden in charge of business who looks at things from a business perspective instead of geek perspective.

* I'm not making light of people who have been victims of a minister for the interior.

[Desmond Shang]

I'll stay in Victoria City, thank you, and quietly watch the infighting of Resident Government from a safe distance.

It's all so automatic. There's always this sort of natural sorting within such movements, much like the high school breakdown of groups into jocks, nerds, cheerleaders, goths and such.

Thousands of individual voices speak far louder than quasi-elected representatives anyway. Or at least, their wallets do.

[Ann Otoole]

Ciaran Laval: "Joking aside I think we need a Linden in charge of business who looks at things from a business perspective instead of geek perspective."

You got it. Seems people are rather unhappy with the results now.

Price increase is happening. And it will spread to all land next. After all business is business.

What they need to do (I think prok calls for this) is maintain a published listing of Linden staff to SL accounts so we can see who is who and who they associate with.

I.e.; Linden Lab staff needs to be in world to see how things are working but should be forbidden from any interference or participation in the economy or the community as a whole. You don't see Disney cast members setting up a booth in main street usa and then telling customers to avoid any of those bigger official looking copybot stores and they should instead buy from the robot there in the street shilling open source stuff ripped out of the library.

I agree. There needs to be a better set of ethics at LL. But 90% of the existing staff will have to go including the board of directors so I think it is impossible.

After all the company belongs to them, not us, and the board's personal ethics are represented in how the businesses they run behave. People that don't like it can deal with it and roll with the blows or leave.

Secondlife has the momentum. The other so-called grids are unlikely to gain much traction unless they amazingly learn how to obtain a lot of venture capital in an environment that is not interested in the metaverse in the least. (After all the *(insert name of biz rag here)* magazine said so and people with a lot of money get their intel from the rags in the first class section of the jet..

[Dusan Writer]

I believe that in a parliamentary system, the executive is answerable to the parliament itself, which is all very lovely, like in Canada where the Prime Minister is just one of the gang and so on, and the Queen waves shyly from across the pond but is in the service of us all, except that she's not because we repatriated or whatever it was.

The problem with parliaments is that if the executive is accountable to its members, you'd better have more of them on your side because votes of non-confidence bring the whole house down....we've had 3 elections in 3 years I think, or it feels like it anyways, and we're bound to have another one soon enough, no one has any confidence in any of them, it's a shambles really.

And so I'd propose that if you're going to go the parliament route that you avoid the Canadian/UK flavor and lean towards being a caliphate instead, formed under the dictates of the Qur'an:

"...consult them (the people) in their affairs. Then when you have taken a decision, put your trust in Allah"

Although of course you might want to swap out Allah for, hmmm, Torley maybe, not sure.

If you DO stick with the UK-type model I'd recommend people apply to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, it's such a cool name and has this vague tinge of scandal, bringing to mind grainy footage of prostitutes with whips.

Otherwise I think the whole idea's a good one, but not owning a townhouse I'll let the hoi polloi guard the general interest and wish you well.

[Prokofy Neva]

Now, why-am-I-not-surprised that the Confederation of Democratic Simulation would immediately withdraw from any actual democratic experiment lol?

Well, uh, sure, Desmond, thousands of voices calling you "Guv'nah" and paying tier speak louder than, oh, Neufrieswiththat.

Ciaran, parliament will appoint the Interior Minister, but first, the government structure has to be set up. Police go last, after you have a constitution, government, active legislation. The mistake so many kids make is putting police first. They go last.

There are no shortage of business Lindens, it's just that they are concerned with their own business, not with yours, and can you blame them?

[Prokofy Neva]

I was thinking of something sort of like the UK, but maybe more Slovenian or Ukrainian. I want to have fistfights now and then, as needed, and I want the president to change the prime minister like gloves.

I love that title Chancellor of the Exchequer. I think I'm going to be that, too, and put out a tip jar for it, to my name.

[Prokofy Neva]

Elanthius, the parliament recognizes landowners of only 512 m2 or greater contiguously per sim. your 16 m2 garbage is a crime, not a land holding, and the parliament will be treating it accordingly.

Your virtually powerful power as Poobah only extends out 16 m2, so, we're adjusting, um, accordingly. You can't violate that new Linden policy, so there.

As for time zones, meh, yeah, well as I said, people on other time zones don't count: )

[Clubside Granville]

Sorry, too busy laughing at "Neufrieswiththat" to add anything cogent...

[Ciaran Laval]

I meant an inworld business perspective Linden, someone who will say "Look if you do this, you're going to fuck over inworld business"

[Crap Mariner]

That's Grace O'Clock, so I'll have to take a rain check.

[Prokofy Neva]

Oh, I'm all for that Ciaran, I've been calling for a Linden dedicated to inworld business for years. I'm a bit ambivalent because such a person could of course be wrongheaded, play favourites, skew to one kind of business and not another, etc. etc. They might make worse decisions as the result of having such an inhouse lobbyist. Still, the risk is worth it.

[Connie Sec]

I shall tiptoe around Prok's Parliament RP and bow to the Linden Gods After all, their autocracy trumps Prok's Parliament every time.

[Ric Mollor]

It's going to be difficult to express any dissatisfaction with the policies of LL without experiencing a bit of conflict of interest.

The only way to *really* get noticed is to cause a loss of business or a decline in reputation that will ultimately cause a dent in Linden Labs bottom line. However since many of the unhappy users are earning or *pretending* to earn income from Second Life it's rather hard to get them motivated to do something that might hurt their prospects.

Even though the official blog is now frequently closed and the forums are hidden behind a search engine blocking login screen there are *plenty* of other places that could be used to paint Second Life in an unfavorable light.

But will the unhappy do more than whine to each other in their group chat? They can't even seem to keep up a serious protest effort!

[Sigmund Leominster]

Cool! My meager but adequate 512m2 buys me in then. In line with most progressive parliamentary systems, I'd like to lobby for any post that is "without-portfolio." This, in effect, means I get to enjoy the fruits of abuse - sorry, "parliamentary privilege" - yet don't actually have to do any work. I'll be happy to turn up at any junket or bean-feast with my current mistress-du-jour in tow ("Oh, Siggy, I love that you're so powerful and important!") and make bold, sweeping pontifications with maximum sound-bites and minimum substance.

Of course, I think all parliamentary posts should come with an official residence. I'm thinking of a multi-roomed residence on a whole sim with enough prims to befit the status of "parliamentarian" and well- tended gardens groomed to perfection by noobs looking to make $5L per hour in a real job, not wasting time camping.

So, I humbly submit myself - selflessly - to serve as a simple representative of this great world of hours. I promise - nay pledge - to uphold the Truth, stand for Decency, and work to ensure that ALL the residents of Second Life can live in Liberty, Egality, and Fraternity - or whatever they chose to name their sim.

Er, any Post 6 Grrlz looking for secretarial work?

[wrongaswrath]

com'on prok--you sould never wanna take the spotlight on trying to actually do something? Much easier to snipe from the frindge. Plus the world, virtaul and otherwise, needs critics without unclear special interests. And would hate to see you swap places with an apologist like er...torley, who has to compromise what little integrity is available in order to "acheive" something. No best for you to be outside any parliament--in a tank with orders to shoot first ask useless permissions later.

[real]

I now reboot the Republic..to the First Galatic Empire!!!..mwahh!

- palpatine linden.
between sponge baths.

[Prokofy Neva]

I do actually try to do something, duh. I run a rentals business on the Mainland -- the largest, and oldest open public rentals system. And I run a large public land preserve, plus I regularly hold discussion events. I think that stands for itself.

I don't care if I have "special interests" -- a mainland land baron is almost an oxymoron. I think to make valid criticism of SL, it's good to have some skin in, it gives you enormous amounts of field data.

[Maggie Darwin]

so... having no public rabble to rouse elsewhere (LL blog, JIRA), Prok is now privatizing his collectivism. I really don't hold with folks calling him anti-Socialist; the style should be familiar.

Since you struggle towards the power wielded by the majority in a democratic parliament, Prok, perhaps your personal party (of course your parliament will have parties, no?) needs a snappy name reflecting your personal aspirations.

"Majority Party" has a certain ring to it in English. But with your expertise in the culture of the Rodina, it's inevitable: All hail the founding of the the SL Bolshevik Party!

After all, the landbarons control the means of production...

You really should read that Nomic web page before founding your own deliberative body.

[Prokofy Neva]

I think "Party of Power" works well, don't you? Let's go with that. Yes, there will be other parties. But they will be "Dwarf Parties" cf Russia.

: )

[wowstillalive]

I'd heard you had passed away from a massive heart attack! Great to see you're still alive. I'll check back in another 2 years.