Second Thoughts

Loony Luna Bliss Just Has Two Questions to Answer But Won't Answer Them and Spouts Nonsense about Nanobots

Loony Luna has put this in a comment, but I'll answer it in a post so it doesn't fall from view:

Prokofy, I fear there has been a grave misunderstanding between us. I entered into the thread to challenge you regarding the demonization you frequently exhibit toward all technology. When I spoke of animats related to artificial intelligence I was referring to nanobiotechnology, and I asked you to look the word 'animats' up for a clearer understanding. This refers to the way 'tiny robots' could help us medically in the future, and is a very exciting field. Instead, you lumped me in with some sort of technocommunism ideas of yours by accusing me of being part of some kind of techno-cult, and I received the following message from you, which you failed to mention here in your blog: " Prokofy Neva: Coming into a thread about finding facts regarding griefers, and spouting your theories, which I don't support at all as they are fascistic, is a form of harassment itself. It's not about you "disagreeing with my ideas." It's about harassment with your theories that only support griefing in the end, in a thread seeking ways to curb them. So I saw what you did there. It's not merely a derail. It's a form of harassment with ideas that you seek because you imagine they give you power or your group power or some cult power but they are abusive to others. You have not been democratically elected in a liberal democracy under the rule of law to provide your "help" on "AI"." Basically, you are saying here that I'm an abuser...a facist, a harasser, supporting griefing, part of some sick cult, trying to circumvent democracy or rule of law. THIS was what I responded to. I guess you forgot about the above message from you?

Let's see if we can try again to deal with this SHEER IDIOCY, shall we? 

What you see here is a clear exhibition of someone so caught up in various half-assed spiritual and tech cults that they can't recognize that their ideas are -- to put it charitably -- "alternative".

They imagine they are "the norm" and "standard" and "OK" and the rest of us are hopelessly mired in FUD -- Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt.

Challenging tech cults isn't "demonizing" -- it's challenging tech cults that need to be challenged, like you'd challenge Scientology (which tech cults often themselves love to demonize, and understandably so) or challenge Moonies or challenge the Catholic Church because you don't like their beliefs about gays. (My answer to that is: go over to the Episcopalian Church then. They allow gays, they even have gay priests and they have a very similar liturgy. Instead of demanding that a mainstream religion change to your alternative views, go to the alternative).

YOU challenge things all the time, and sorry, YOU and YOUR BELIEFS will be challenged right back.

On this question, I'll repeat what I wrote to this sorry individual inworld which I already put in a blog post here:

[2018/02/26 20:48] Prokofy Neva: Hi, I didn't realize you were such a tech cultist, good Lord. Now here's what you have to read: https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/418728-encroachment-on-robin-loop/
[2018/02/26 20:48] Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.
[2018/02/26 20:49] Prokofy Neva: the person in that thread is named "animats" -- he's a total asshole -- oh, unless you think rape RP is fine, you may, I don't know, tech cultism often goes together with those extremities of depravity as well. Well, I don't want it on my lawn, dear : )
[2018/02/26 20:49] Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.
[2018/02/26 20:50] Prokofy Neva: you also have to see how insanely wrong and crazy the Lindens are here - the road isn't repaired, it was never my fault, my customers are struggling now, animats is a total freaking asshole, get a grip Luna, I thought you were better than this http://3dblogger.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2018/02/a-linden-injustice-robin-loop-road.html
[2018/02/26 20:50] Second Life: User not online - message will be stored and delivered later.

OH, UNLESS YOU THINK RAPE RP IS FINE, YOU MAY, I DON'T KNOW, TECH CULTISM OFTEN GOES TOGETHER WITH THOSE EXTREMITIES OF DEPRAVITY AS WELL.

This statement doesn't accuse Luna Bliss of "extremities of depravity" -- it has the all important article "unless". This is like "if...then" in code, you know. 

So one more time:

LUNA BLISS, DO YOU THINK RAPE RP IS FINE, YES OR NO?

YES OR NO, LUNA BLISS, STAY FOCUSED

IS RAPE RP FINE WITH YOU? ANSWER THE QUESTION, YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED IT YET, YES OR NOT.

So let's explain once again that Rape RP is among the worst form of BDSM in SL and is legal in adult areas as a public club -- on the theory that BDSM itself is legal, so why not?

Both are to be condemned, but as I've noted before, one can posit a tolerance of BDSM as a personal choice in the privacy of one's sex life, in one's home. That privacy and individual space could in theory be posited in a liberal democratic state as a necessity for freedom.

But what happens with this cult is that they are always and everywhere trying to push outwards into the public arena to normalize themselves and undermine the legitimate rejection of their cult.

Under U.S. law and EU law, "consent" is not recognized as an exoneration from the charge of assault. God knows, the BDSM cultists and edge-casers who like to be contrarian tried to push this with an appeal of a case, I believe it was from Germany at the European Court of Human Rights, but it FAILED.

Read the law -- "consent is not a defense when assault is the offense".

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 5 states that, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”  And that stands. You don't suborn it as a BDSM cultist by invoking "consent".

That's because actual bodily harm stands as an actuality and proof that "consent" doesn't diminish in law -- and in common sense and reality! -- and the mental assault of BDSM that might get a pass may be challenged as well if the court has reason to consider that the consent is a sham.

Note the actual real-life jurisprudence:

The criminalization of sadomasochistic behavior in R v. Brown was affirmed by the European Court of Human Rights when Brown was considered at the supranational level as Laskey, Jaggard and Brown v United Kingdom (1997). In the decision, the European Court of Human Rights held that the state unquestionably was entitled to regulate through criminal law the infliction of physical harm and the Court was not persuaded that the applicants' behavior belonged to the private morality sphere and therefore excluded from State intervention. 

So consent is not recognized. We who watch all these machinations also don't find the invocation of "consent" very trustworthy in the virtual context where it can try to get a blessing as "lifestyle" or "roleplay". There are too many cases "gone wrong". Too many calls to the police of cases in RL of desperate people. Too many "sub support groups" in SL. Too many abuse reports. Too many everythings. Too often, the person espousing BDSM as a sub has a history of sexual molestation and domestic violence. The idealogues are always trying to erase these facts.

Even so, in the SL context, as I said, one tends to concede the privacy of the bedroom as an element of the individual's freedom -- but it's on shaky ground, especially as the BDSM practitioner himself often wants to push out into taking over the public sphere -- or anywhere else he can get on a sim. That's why the sub always has to have a notice on her profile that if anyone has any "problems" with her they have to take it up with her dom -- drawing EVERYBODY into the drama that way.

So to return to the public roads of the Mainland:

The reality is, somebody trying to slyly introduce more widespread use of the RLV third-party BDSM viewer that enables you to restrain people and do other BDSM actions is merely an ideologues's efforts to normalize the cult.  That's what's underlying this ideological subterfuge and sabotage. It's not accident, comrades that my Flamingo Court Motel was chosen as a venue to start this campaigh with a provocation that the provocateur would know could ensure him maximum publicity -- and maximum punishment of me on the forums and with a 3-day ban. I truly don't care. It's very instructive to let these things play out in a virtual context so that you see what really goes on -- provocateurs with oppressive ideologies use the AR system and the forums try to subvert norms and impose their reign with the RLV viewer, even, by wacking at high profile individuals and pretending to be "helpful". This active measures agent has also made sure to have an "Excellent" on his forums avatar which he get by making various seemingly "benign" posts and likes and getting others' likes. It's such a transparently manipulative game that one scarcely needs to  comment.

There is absolutely no reason to bless this. Even the crazy Klytyna who is always ranting about the Madlands (the Mainland) says the Lindens will never go for a "kludge" -- a crappy workaround of sim seam "problems" -- involving using restraint from the RLV viewer in some fashion AND a channel which as EVEN Klytyna notes will be exploited by social misfits, i.e. griefers. This isn't rocket science.

That loony Luna keeps thinking it is rocket science, science that we should "bless" and not be afraid of is only more stark evidence of how deep in the cult she is. Once again, Luna Bliss:

ARE YOU OR ARE YOU NOT FOR RAPE RP, YES OR NO.

I think the Lindens would be within their rights to ban it as a public club or site that has mazes or some kind of build to enact these creepy fantasies out is no longer a private matter inside the home. Of course, the Lindens don't have a concept of "a reasonable expectation of privacy". They think it's fine to allow spam cars on the public roads that can go in your house or lawn. They have sometimes been known if they get a hostile AR from your enemy to go inside a PG house and remove some classic work of art that involves a nude. They're crazy that way, too. It's always about literalism and enabling your enemies -- especially if those enemies are the Lindens' friends.

I also think it's wrong to parade chained human beings at public events. It's because then WE are forced to join in, in this oppression of this other human being. We're supposed to buy the line that she has consented to it (it's usually a woman, but it can sometimes be a man). Well, we don't buy it? It's a backlash against feminism and the progress of women's rights in Western civilization. It is a cult filled with lies that starts with the claim of consent, which has so many red flags around it, and keeps going through the notion that the greatest form of love is to turn yourself into a slave obeying the commands of a narcissistic. It's a perversion of the love taught by the world's great religions which has to do with self-sacrifice, but not oppression, with "doing unto others as you would have them do unto you" -- empathy -- which is really quite different than the oppressive fuck-you hedony of "an it harm none, do what ye will" -- because narcissists aren't the best judge of what is harm, you know? Ever. Certainly the hugely devious and depraved Alistair Crowley wasn't, if you read his sordid history. What did he leave behind but a lot of broken lives, and a lot of recipes for assholes in the future to break other people's lives? Nothing good.

Calling out the oppressive nature of the BDSM cult and the Rape RP cult isn't "demonization" or "not recognizing people's rights" because they don't have rights to impose this on others and even make it part of their fake shtick that they don't. But of course they do -- the BDSM personality in SL is always stamping his foot and demanding instant service and gas-lighting and pulling the football away from other people, whether they are store clerks or rentals agents. We've all seen it and of course this kind of person finds it impossible to go "out of character".

And once again, Luna Bliss, she of the Bible-reading and Ashram living and other supposedly "peaceful and benign" activities that seque into her tech cults is free to comment:

ARE YOU OR ARE YOU NOT FOR BDSM IMPOSITION ON THE PUBLIC SPHERE, YES OR NO?

ARE YOU OR ARE YOU NOT FOR RAPE RP YES OR NO?

ARE YOU OR ARE YOU NOT FOR USING RLV AS A 'WORKAROUND' TO THE SUPPOSED 'PROBLEM' OF SIM SEAMS? YES OR NO.

So let's look at the rest of this nonsense:

When I spoke of animats related to artificial intelligence I was referring to nanobiotechnology, and I asked you to look the word 'animats' up for a clearer understanding. This refers to the way 'tiny robots' could help us medically in the future, and is a very exciting field.

Actually, um, no. Anyone can go and look up animats -- I have -- and see there is DEBATE around it as there is on any artificial intelligence. I think it's no accident that the Kremlin, which represents one of the most aggressive and oppressive forces on earth, has put a lot of investment into this field as they hope to use it control people and things. Technology does have the engineers' ideologies welded into it in troublesome ways -- the lack of a "dislike" button on Facebook is one obvious example -- but technology is also wielded by coders and techs who want power over other human beings and whose ethics are lacking and skewed, to say the least. They are not regulated in a liberal democratic society and should be.

The animats field IS NOT in fact bout nanobiotechnology, that's only one sub-set of it.

Some cultists think that it's fine to have tiny robots injected in your skin and bloodstreams. I don't, and find this field totally unchallenged and unregulated and also PS not implemented but that's not an excuse to act against it.

I remember Sidewinder Linden, a Linden with cult technologies as I discovered, kept arguing strenously for nanobots, saying, why, we allow medicines into our bloodstreams, and look, they have time release mechanisms and so on and how are nanobots different?

That's surely a specious argument, as chemicals aren't coded. They are elements with properties, or mixtures of elements, with known properties. BTW not all their side effects are always known

Chemicals which are a limited substance are not at all the same as coded chips or coded anything. Code depends on the will of the coder, and one shouldn't pretend this isn't in the equation. The coder or programmer can also change the action of nanobots in a hostile way.

We already see how terribly infested the Internet and computers are with hackers who spread spam, bugs, malicious code, and cause trillions of dollars of damage. This article just talking about some of the Russian hacking gives you an idea of how vast this damage is, and how much it affects lives. The malice of hackers is enabled in several ways -- by the same kind of thinker and persona being on the other side of the firewall as the computer security person whose ideology is often no different, and who tends to blame poor security rather than the malice of hackers for problems -- the inverse of the rule of law as it has been established for ages. The coder and hacker do not recognize any rule of law over THEMSELVES.

"Mathematics makes the state obsolete," sneers Andrea Shepherd of Tor, a former Linden. That about sums up the sheer lawlessness of the crypto-anarchist and their total indifference to others and their privileging of their own whims as the authoritarianism by which we must rule. PS Andrea savaged another Twitter user who *rightly* criticized her arrogant bullshit and Tor's abusiveness by mocking her on Twitter and blatantly mischaracterized his satirization of her as "sexism" and "misogyny".  This fellow, whose name was Gerasimov spelled in a l33t sort of way once kidded, "Go to the Washington Monument and jump, Andrea, Tor will save you." This was a reference to the Biblical temptation of Satan to Christ, who said "the angels will save you lest you dash your foot against a stone," telling Jesus to jump off a tower to prove He was God. But Jesus did not need to prove this, nor at Satan's bidding.

Andrea then proceeded in good Second Life fashion to ruin this guy's life, hunting him down, finding his real name, emailing his bosses, and getting him to resign from his job and leave Twitter. What a total asshole is Andrea! THIS is the totalitarianism we live under from the code-as-law crew. No thanks. 

Unlike doctors and lawyers -- professions that have board certification, societies, and ethics charters -- computer programmers have NOTHING. Their societies for "responsibility" or "ethics" in fact aren't about the ethics of THEIR OWN FIELD but about how to wield tech in some politicized aim elsewhere, against others.

So I totally get it that Luna Bliss may think nanobots are the saviour of humankind, and perhaps she has some urgent case of her own relative (she has written about her daughter on a card on her sim) where she thinks this might work. That doesn't mean that the rest of us can't criticize technology and be highly skeptical of the ethics of those we already see are hugely problematic -- like Musk and Thiel.

There's more in this vein:

Instead, you lumped me in with some sort of technocommunism ideas of yours by accusing me of being part of some kind of techno-cult, and I received the following message from you, which you failed to mention here in your blog: " Prokofy Neva: Coming into a thread about finding facts regarding griefers, and spouting your theories, which I don't support at all as they are fascistic, is a form of harassment itself. It's not about you "disagreeing with my ideas." It's about harassment with your theories that only support griefing in the end, in a thread seeking ways to curb them. So I saw what you did there. It's not merely a derail. It's a form of harassment with ideas that you seek because you imagine they give you power or your group power or some cult power but they are abusive to others. You have not been democratically elected in a liberal democracy under the rule of law to provide your "help" on "AI"."

Luna implies here that I've insulted her but it's her tech cult ideas that are the insult. Her constant heckling of me in the thread in which I'm trying to stop griefing by Woodbuy alts masquerading as my "bot" and spouting racist nonsense is simply creepy. She never condemns the Woodbury griefers. She also lacks total curiousness and empathy about how to stop this form of griefing by stopping conference calls -- something that many people want. Indeed, this feature is available on Firestorm, which Luna no doubt uses like many do. She can't explain, like others boosting Firestorm -- which she likely does as well -- why, if you CAN turn off the conference calls, hundreds of angry people harass me with claims I've spammed them. Wouldn't they shut it down after one spam and call it a day? Either they do NOT have Firestorm or hey, this is not enough. People should have the right NEVER to be conferenced. EVER. Opt-out FOREVER. What stops Luna Bliss from accepting that? Her tech cultism?

Luna is spouting sheer nonsense about me needing to take LSD -- as if that removes griefing -- and then even admitting herself that she is derailing the thread. She's merely word-salading now.

Basically, you are saying here that I'm an abuser...a facist, a harasser, supporting griefing, part of some sick cult, trying to circumvent democracy or rule of law. THIS was what I responded to. I guess you forgot about the above message from you?

Um, no, Luna Bliss, I didn't "forget" this post but I stand TOTALLY by my remarks which indeed were the proper pushback and self-defense to your weird culty heckling. If you find "the shoe fits," ask yourself if it really does?

Go back and look at your BEHAVIOR in this thread -- heckling, ridicule, stupidity, culty nonsense, with no recognition of the actual problem at hand, and no empathy for it. Note: NO EMPATHY. Because -- tech cult.

Why are you excusing griefers? You never once condemn them in this thread.

Why are you heckling me during a perfectly reasonable and normal effort to stop conference call spamming which most people don't want even if it doesn't involve griefers impersonating me with racist Trumpkin sayings.

You haven't supplied any use case for the need to spam everyone on a sim. Why are you morally blind to the problem of spam in conference calls?
Do you think just because a coder "can" and just because code "is" that we must argue backward to acceptance? Why? You likely don't feel that way about guns or the atom bomb.

THAT is the problem. You're silent on this question because evidently -- and prove me wrong here -- your tech cultism means that you must "excuse" every exploit and "allow" every coded thing. Well? 

YES OR NO, LUNA BLISS, ARE YOU FOR CONFERENCE CALL SPAMMING OR NOT?  YES OR NO.

In fact, sick tech cults do circumvent democracy and the rule of law. You're unable to invoke any actual normal real-life notions of restraint, choice, moderation. In short, a tech cultist.

But I've broken down the two questions here that you can answer in the negative IF you are not a cultist. So go ahead, I'll wait.

LUNA BLISS, ARE YOU FOR CONFERENCE CALL SPAMMING OR NOT?  YES OR NO?

LUNA BLISS, ARE YOU FOR RAPE RP YES OR NO?

Instead of spouting about nanobots and demanding that I expand my mind by taking LSD, answer those questions.

PS

So I log in after my completely unnecessary and unjust 3-day ban from the Lindens to find this message:

(Saved Tue Feb 27 15:36:02 2018)Hi :) I'm not a tech-cultist, but I'm discovering new ways technology could be used to benefit our consciousness, our spirituality. I don't have a firm enough grasp of it all to explain well just yet -- it's a lot to take in. I do understand the dangers that go with this though, and careful attention must be given along the way. With great power comes something great or horrible depending on what we do with it. Luna Bliss Virtual World Designer
[14:39] Luna Bliss: (Saved Tue Feb 27 15:40:01 2018)I think you're imagining that I condone all these punks that harass you, and I certainly do not. My comments on the forum related to your reference to organic law, and I'm very interested in artificial intelligence atm. I guess I took the thread on a kind of derail, but I'm just so enthused about what I'm learning (how technology could help us in the future with AI) that I could not help it ;0 Luna Bliss Virtual World Designer

So again, um, yeah, that's why I wrote my post about griefers exploiting the friendship consent function of calling cards? As none of us consented to have griefer bots as friends spamming us. Derp! 

And yet Luna had to come in to the thread and heckle, go off topic, ridicule and introduce all kinds of BULLSHIT simply because she COULD NOT BEAR that her tech cults were being criticized.

And rightly so.

And I'll go on doing that because in fact I have no demonstration that Luna "Bliss" has any awareness of the harmfulness of tech, if she can't even tolerate a thread on spam from bots.

I'm not enthused by artificially intelligence or the intelligent artifice that promotes it from coders who are the ones who really take power with it. Seeing their ethics-free behavior and appalling destructiveness and oppression in the last 20 year that I've been writing on this topic, I have no reason whatsoever to get all dewey-eyed and girlish and sigh about the wonders of tech. 

Luna Bliss cannot stay focused and off drugs or off the high of tech cultism long enough to answer to specific questions. I may never get answers. Or I will get answers but with some lecture. Or answers with a caveat. At this point, I have little faith in the tech cultist of having self-awareness. Bye!

animats going after land sellers -- why such a busybody? Go play on your own sim dude

As this is a thread that may get closed or disappear, let's capture it:

• Is "LIFE Properties" owned by Linden Labs?

By animats, Wednesday at 03:08 AM in General Discussion 

 

Posted Wednesday at 03:08 AM

Is "LIFE Properties", which holds a huge amount of land full of placeholder buildings, separate from Linden Labs? Or is it just a name Linden Labs uses for real estate?

 
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Gadget Portal

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Posted Wednesday at 05:11 AM

That's just some resident. LL doesn't sell land like that.

 
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Callum Meriman

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Posted Wednesday at 05:37 AM

Often thought it's a Linden moonlighting.

 
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iamyourneighbour

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Posted Thursday at 04:52 AM

Lol I am the guy that puts propaganda poster near then to discourage people from buying them

 
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November Velde

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Posted Thursday at 04:56 AM

I wanted to buy a piece of abandoned land and filed a ticket, as required. I was told that it would be put up for auction. I replied asking why auction it when there is direct interest. I did not get an answer. The auction went off and as predicted, Life properties snapped it up. This one, unlike any other of their lots, has not been set for re-sale (at an astronomical price) nor is it available for rent (also like most any of their lots) and has been that way since they claimed it. So, perhaps there is some connection. Or perhaps it is a coincidence.

 
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Gadget Portal

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Posted Thursday at 05:04 AM

I suspect they use a bot, or bots, to buy up the land, then go back and set them for resale by hand later.

Also, LL seems very inconsistent about land they set for sale directly and put for auction, in my experience. Probably depends on which agent reads the ticket.

 
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iamyourneighbour

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Posted Thursday at 02:41 PM

Imo the turn over isn't that high, my little marketplace shop racks in a messy 1.5-2K L$ range a day while one of their held land, beach block too, has been sitting there for sale for over three month. 

Maybe me jinxing it has an effect, IDK. 

 
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Prokofy Neva

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Posted 38 minutes ago

Why do you care, animats?

That's the real question.

If someone wants to buy up a lot of land, that is legal. They are not required to sell it or rent it. They can do whatever they want with it, as long as they do violate the TOS. It's not a violation of the TOS to not sell your land, or sell it for a high price.

Interfering with another resident selling or not selling land is harassment, iamyourneighbour. Why are you doing that? If you imagine you keep your own business afloat by trying to get other people to stay away from abandoned land you want as a great "easement" without paying tier, I'm sorry, Second Life doesn't create and sustain that condition for you AND you don't get to harass others to maintain it.

And again, animats, If they put buildings on it and just have it as a "placeholder," that would not be your business?

This isn't my company, but I happen to know it's a real company with real land holdings and sales, I've bought and rented-to-buy from them as have many others.

Again, what possible business is this of yours? 

Do you have some idea that you should get to decide when/how/for much/in what manner some company gets to sell land? You don't.

Usually when somebody starts a thread to harass one business they don't like for any reason or no reason, valid or not, the Lindens shut down the thread.

My answer:

  On 2/22/2018 at 2:41 PM, iamyourneighbour said:

Imo the turn over isn't that high, my little marketplace shop racks in a messy 1.5-2K L$ range a day while one of their held land, beach block too, has been sitting there for sale for over three month. 

Maybe me jinxing it has an effect, IDK. 

No. And if your business model depends on "jinxing" others, it is immoral and likely a TOS violation can be found to report you.

What you have to understand about a big operation like LIFE is rentals math, which I'm not sure you understand.

To look at one piece of land and say about it "wow, they are losing money selling it at that price when no one buys it, why I can run circles around them selling my little 512s" -- it's just fallacious. Because you aren't seeing their HUGE operation.

It's like in RL, companies buying in bulk and selling when the market warrants it, and warehousing it otherwise.

It is cheaper for a big landlord paying bulk tier, especially if they have a further Linden bulk discount which many of them have, beyond the group 10% or the bulk discount available after $195 tier -- to simply leave land for sale at a high price.

Why?

Because the tier they have to pay on that land -- even for months at at time -- is NOT going to be higher than the high price they charge for land. So they can STILL make a profit.

Look at ALL their sales on the many sims they own and you will see that the higher price they get pays tier and leaves them a profit; their keeping up prices also rewards them. That's why they do this; that's why they stay in business and others don't.

Only very large operations can do this; Anshe Chung could do it. I'm not in the land-selling business but the occasional times when I want to sell a parcel, I can't afford to do that. Nor can you.

To pay tier months on end on land that "yields nothing". To wait 9 months or 18 months for it to sell. It wouldn't be practical or advisible at my low level or yours.

For a giant company, it is, as they help keep prices in general high when they do that, i.e on Zindra. There is nothing illegal about this; it is the market, albeit in the distorted form that SL takes as there are no longer any freely-available public data on these matters. 

You don't know who wins the auction often; you can't see if they bid up the price (you could see this before) and adjust your own purchasing accordingly, and encourage others as well not to buy from people who deliberately jack up auctions. That used to happen; now it can't, there is no confirmation or information. Seeing what you see in world is not confirmation as land can flip and change hands rapidly with many buyers after an auction.

So again, the question is this: why the harassment of people who sell land in ways you don't like, and the implication you are going to "get them"? With a provocative post like this, and with the comments that pile up it?

If you don't like those high prices, don't buy them? You have WAY more choice than we had 13 years ago.

If the Lindens don't like this, then rather than allowing griefers and forums posters harass people, they need to make a policy and then deliver it. If they don't like large land holdings and monopolies, they can bar it on their servers for any reason or no reason in the TOS, the end.

They used to try to "get rid of" Anshe by printing so many new sims they figured she couldn't buy them all. They were wrong.

At this point, I would guess that anyone buying abandoned land appearing on the open auction is doing the Lindens a favour. 

I myself advocate that abandoned land NOT be put on the open auction until FIRST those who LIVE ON THAT SIM can bid for it in a local auction or simply request it. I believe the Lindens should just set any land to sale to anyone who requests it, full stop. Their notion that there are all these people who should fairly have a bid at land next to you is totally misplaced. You're the best caretaker of land on YOUR sim and you should imply get it on request. ONLY THEN should it go to auction.

Lobby for reasonable policies like that instead of heckling people with signs, putting up nuisances to drive away buyers, posting harassment messages in the forums. It's not all your world, either. It belongs to all of us. The Lindens need to end their aversion to governance and put in a few simple policies to stop driving conflicts.

 

• Edit

What is Means to Suffer Losses, What it Means to be Stalked and Harassed

A threatening, stalking day-old alt named KillGriefer Blogger, making dollar payments to harass, and stalking me to my location in SL.  This alt also swore at me in bad HUD Russian. Um, this is art? This is education? This is "OK"?

Well, SLuniverse.com Sharia Court is not to be trusted, no surprise there. Just when it seems as if the case is closed and the verdict from Mullah Shang was going to stand, there is a wild last-ditch effort to try to erode what is achieved by this very rough justice. Of course, one has to note the hypocrisy of Cristiano Midnight, who usually comes into discussions about Prokofy to say "no fair discussing Prokofy, he's not here to defend himself" -- usually to cut off discussion that in fact exonerates me lol -- but who has let *this* thread go on for an abnormally long time -- I guess because he sees it as an anti-Woodbury thread, and they are are all there in spades to peddle their lies.

In the weeks when Loki Clifton was "holding talks with the Lindens" and meeting with "Jack, Cyn and Jeska" (!), I was writing letters to the Lindens. I was demanding some kind of ultimate resolution of the chronic Woodbury infestation problem. I was writing letters with long lists of their offenses which I had AR'd -- because Lindens inevitably, in a big system with thousands of ARs pouring in, tend to see each incident as a limited, narrow thing, and if it is only a complaint about say, harassment dollar payments, or flying around buzzing from parcel to parcel as they get banned, to ignore it. Below the radar, or not serious.

So I was trying to show the patterns, make the lists, identify the groups, show that this was a systematic, deliberate, conspiratorial grouping action, and therefore required two things: a) suspension of the group, as its sole purpose was for harassment and griefing (not education); and b) confiscation of the land, as it was used solely for griefing and harassment (not art). The Lindens took these two demands seriously. I've blogged about all this repeatedly already, but it's worth stating again: they gave me form letters, they used their stock phrases out of the customer service handbook, but they did take it seriously. It was *a* factor in the Woodbury banning, and an important one, so it is NOT true that I say the harassment of me for three years (which the Lindens were liable for) wasn't a factor. Of course it was.

It occurs to me as I look over the screenshots that I took and kept as documentation of griefing, which I sent to the Lindens, that one particular nasty one could have helped make the case about "cyberbullying" that might have finally resonated with at least their desire to limit liability for litigation (that's all that we have to motivate them; little else does.)

When I sent a picture of a day-old Woodbury alt tracking me (apparently using some viewer that reveals map location even without friend permissions) to where I was in the Rekviem Cafe (see photo above), and that day-old alt's name was KillGrifer Blogger -- i.e. a harassing incitement message to kill a blogger about griefers that these griefers don't like -- I think the Lindens took it seriously. At least, as seriously as their flawed TOS lets them. Yeah, everyone knows that when a day-old robot alt named KillGrifer Blogger shows up stalking you in SL, that they can't REALLY kill you; they are just assholes, trying to intimidate you. Even so, it's not allowed. It's not right. It's *wrong*. 

Says Ramen Jedburgh: Prok suffered what huge losses for what? Seriously, the only thing I was aware of (since ~2007, maybe 2008 or so) was people showing up at the dam, idling while making petty comments that nobody could hear anyway, then leaving. Did something else happen?

Adds the vicious fictional "law student" Joanna Falmer:

Give me a break. It's a video game and she didn't suffer "losses like crazy". If she suffered any losses, they were probably mainly caused by her own behaviour. She chose to engage in feuds with various people and groups over the course of several years. When she daily harrasses people on her blog, some people will react (when she describes her defenders as assholes (you) or griefers and stalkers (Dale Innis), imagine how she behaves towards her perceived enemies - she really needs to wash her mouth out with soap). Yes, both parties probably behaved somewhat childish, but it's not like she suffered "losses like crazy" just because Woodbury University had a parcel in Ravenglass (she could easily have moved to a private island - Linden Lab could probably have offered her land in exchange, which happened in Lias' case, after her complaints about the infohub in Bear) or some people came to her public meetings.

Desmond concedes that when I say I suffered mad losses, I really suffered mad losses. That's true. Ramen is a fucking retard. Desmond concedes this even with believing that I "lie" about him in my erstwhile critique of his venality in SL.

That's because he's in the rentals business, and knows how it works. If some asshole has flown into your client's house with a giant penis, like the BlakHax alt did on a number of occasions in Ravenglass (and Ramen can't be unaware of this), why, that client, who has paid US $26 (L$7200 Lindens) for a large house on a large lot REFUNDS. And then I *LOSE* that US $26.  When that happens four times, it's *over $100 US real dollars*.

This isn't "starting feuds" with someone; it's minding your own business when someone decides to mount an aggressive and obscene attack on your tenants "because they can". It isn't "attacking someone on my blog" -- writing about these antics in an effort to try to get exposure and condemnation of the group in the interests of civilization is the right thing to do.

So, ever the minimizer of people griefed, because he's a dysfunctional liar, Imnotgoing Sideways, has this lie to contribute:

You're talking about someone who described two entries in a shout box, three months ago as "Constantly and repeatedly" just yesterday. (=_=)

I took the step back and found a liar making gross exaggerations about my own behaviour. Why should I believe anything else this liar says? (=_=)

Yeah. Two entries is two too many; that it takes place three months ago or is "only two" doesn't mean it isn't stalkery harassment. Everyone knows that. And dozen entries from a half dozen people tag-teaming and group-harassing is what "constantly and repeatedly" means. Not "the two entries" but ALL the entries *from this deliberate griefing group that this freak is deliberately a member of*. That's what group harassment *is*. Collective action to harass people. Again, look at the screen shot *just* of the inbox, when a lot of the entries in fact were already deleted, when the harassment friending shots were not included. Multiple people sending multiple notices from the Woodbury University group on AU *to harass and annoy*. Documentation. Irrefutable.

Multiply that over and over again with the entire list of things I've already documented -- putting up "quarantine" signs on newbie homes and telling them they were evicted (a few refunded and left, or fled, scared without even refunding); flying around over and over against just to bother people (tenants complain about people coming in their house; when we check the visitor tracker in that area, it's the Woodburies flies who are always sitting on the dung-heap next door on their land). Invisible Woodburies ringing doorbells -- that feaks people, they leave, kaching, refund. Woodburies giant griefing cubes glowing -- people feel their view is ruined -- REFUND.

Then far worse attacks -- someone's entire home is dismantled, because they were new and left it in share. An expensive US $50 home is taken to bits, with pieces of stereos and walls and lamps scattered all over the sim and in the air. Very unsettling. Very nasty. That person at first appears to roll with it, but then...simply leaves. Doesn't come back. Doesn't pay their rent when due. *Leaves SL completely never to be heard from again* even though that person was a RL artist and intellectual interested in exploring and attending events. That person is griefed DIRECTLY by Woodbury goons who TAKE APART A HOUSE AND GRIEF IT AND DESTROY PROPERTY, and that person doesn't pay me US $26 for that house; and he is lost to the Lindens in general, for ever buying more land or a premium; he's lost to the musicians he would have tipped; he's lost to the other builders and craftsmen he would have bought from.

Oh, we get it. This is the "Theater of Absurd". We're supposed to not take the SRS BSNS seriously! We're supposed to "poke fun" at ourselves or roll with those endlessl poking us! We're supposed to laugh at mass culture and suburban tastes.

Except...how many times do you think the joke has to be made to "get it"? To succeed as "art"? Would hundreds of times over three years maybe be *too many times* of dismantling a suburban house because you hated its mass culture taste, and scattering it on a sim because you hated the blogger who owned it who exposed you as evil?

The answer isn't to shout, with gleeful Dale-Scale malicious cynicism, that hey, you put your house in share, that's your problem. Newbies do that often, confusing "set prims" with "share prims". Some housemakers compound this problem by leaving their builds in share with group for some annoying reason (sometimes because they are made up of parts from multiple creators, I guess, who the hell knows). If someone takes something out of the Linden library, it was ALREADY put in share. Alyx Stoklitsky, by his own admission, and other regular Woodbury griefer alts hanging around Ravenglass ROUTINELY scanned the entire area (perhaps with a script), looking for people who had done this newbie mistake. They would take paintings put in that freebie frame that is in share; they would take people's prefabs or rugs accidently left in share; they would take deeded TVs that are obviously in share; and they would move, break, bury, scatter, litter them all over. Even after Woodbury was banned, one of the alts came back, Commissar Kozlov, to find a newbie-share accident, a picture frame, blow it up, and push it in my face, as if to say "See? Even when banned we will keep doing this.)

Because they can. Because the tools let them. Because they think the answer to stopping them from doing that lies in changing the tools, not in having civilization and having law.

So yeah, there were real losses. Lots of them. Dozens. Maybe a hundred. Hundreds of real US dollars. Maybe more than a thousand.

Someone might say, but why did you put up with it? Simple: this was my flagship sim, the sim for which my entire business was made, with a build that I had paid for in the middle of it by Foolish Frost, a landmark build that everyone know.

Why would I move something like that because of a bunch of thugs? Why would I cave into thugs, dismantle a build I paid for, move to another flat pancake sim away from this beautifully landscaped oldworld sim near the newbie orientation centers and waterways and infohubs. Why? Why would anyone be required to give up their land, builds, and business to satisfy the strange dysfunctional geek-religionist notion that the way to solve thuggishness *by them themselves* is for their victims to move, change, accommodate? What sort of logic or morality is THAT?!

The cynical sordid little fictional Joanna Falmer says, in a supreme act of bad faith, says I should have moved to a locked-down island to get away from Woodbury's *deliberate* purchase of land to grief me, and *deliberate* mounting of attacks on me, regularly. Why? The solution is to delete their group and land, not for me to move. Don't like losing your property in a virtual world? I don't like the idea of confiscation of property without due process and compensation, either. But just what sort of fair punishment should there be of people who DELIBERATELY buy land to grief and DELIBERATELY cost hundreds of REAL DOLLARS in losses?

Is it being a masochist to stay under those circumstances? Of course not. I have lots of sims -- I go to other sims. I reparcel the entire sim, and change it from luxury large rentals with huge expensive houses -- a magnet for griefers with giant penises -- and put out out empty lots, or small cabins. It becomes a newbie loss-leader. Newbies are griefer-magnets, too, but at least the losses are mitigated. I warn people moving into the ugly griefer build neighbourhood that they can expect griefing. If their idea of a view doesn't include a Soviet submarine and somebody riding a glowing vehicle named "Prok's Chicken Hope", then they are in the wrong rentals. I found quite a few plucky people that were happy for the low price and ignored the griefing --- they weren't there much. One person even moved in deliberately to help pay rent and abuse report the griefing -- thanks ichabod! 

So, I adapted, I adjusted, I moved on. I spent my time on other sims, developing them. I put up a profile grabber to let the griefers know they were being watched, and I banned them as soon as the alts appeared so they couldn't fly into the tower to harass people. I reported them, and encouraged my tenants to report them.

I shouldn't have had to do this for three years. I especially shouldn't have had to do this for three years AFTER this group's island was ALREADY confiscated for harassing PRIOR to that in 2007. I shouldn't have to do this because I'm a "poor middle-aged single mad mom". I shouldn't have to do this because I "write a blog attacking people" (er, I only attack people who do *those* kinds of things).

I shouldn't have to, just because it's a virtual world. It's not about victimhood; it's not about pity. It's never been about that. A thousand dollars of real money over three years is a loss, but nothing compared to the real recession's losses which I've also suffered. It's not about feeling sorry for myself; it's not about self-pity; it's not about "taking two to tango"; it's not about getting "karma" and "just desserts".

It's about documenting and exposing and fighting back what is wrong. That's all. And doing it on behalf of other people -- my tenants.

And here's a bit of strange emotional hysteria from the unstable Hypatia Callisto:

And Prok has done this too - as many other land barons have - even blogged it, Prok even threatened me on SC when I merely mentioned her bad changes to the terraform (I had terraformed that whole area nicely, when I prepared those lots for Serra and you out of your old land next to Robin Linden - when you gave your lot to Robin, who later sold your lot to Prokofy starting that whole mess with me), which is why I sold my land in Alice and cancelled my premium account.

Um, I never terraformed anything deliberately to harass anyone, or terraformed "strangely". Bad changes? I have no recollection of this, but it is hardly anything that couldn't have been fixed -- of course, like Desmond's deliberate tree-waving for months on the property of one of his friends who bought land for him.

Desmond sold for a song, or gave away, some of his smaller prim parcels in Alice. Hypatia did as well -- there was a square near Robin's garden. She didn't do this under duress; she did this because Desmond moved out of Alice, and she is one of Desmond's ardent fangirlz, and she left with him. No one harassed her; I didn't do a thing to her. I have no idea what her emo rant is about, but claiming that you've given up your premium account and left the mainland "because of the evil land baron Prokofy" is an outrageous lie. Desmond himself broke up his camp in Alice -- full stop. His little friends, that he had once given land to, also ended up decamping -- full stop. No one forced them to do this; no one needed their land in cheap PG which is impossible to rent except to a very niche audience. Honestly, that people think they can get away with crap like this!

Well, not as long as I am able to go on blogging, and setting the record straight. The record here should be ample enough -- and I have hundreds more screenshots if you are somehow unpersuaded -- that these people deliberately, systematically, egregiously griefed me and caused me losses in Second Life, with the Lindens' connivance, for three years. It's now ended, at least for now, at least in part due to my abuse reports and appeals to those Lindens, one of whom is now quitting (Jeska Linden). I wonder if Jeska will ever tell us what she knows...

I Want to Play SL on a Box

You wouldn't believe what I went through to get a new computer to play SL. In fact, no one in Concierge or among the geek squads of SL want to believe this, and that's why SL doesn't grow. They argued and argued with me, instead of figuring how I could buy this box. They had "suggestions" that all amount to not buying this box, but buying parts that do not make a box. I wanted to buy a box. I finally did, but it took an entire day to accomplish this seemingly simple task.

I've really come to believe that the single greatest reason for user attrition in SL isn't the interface, it's the graphic card. There is a heavy bias among Linden tekkies against this notion; they don't believe it. As we all know, they speak disparagingly to us about having "computers ready for Kindergarten". As I told Jack Linden today, I had a computer that wasn't even taking solids yet; I had another computer that couldn't hold a Cheerio between its fingers yet, and they couldn't play SL. This is a graphics card problem. It is not about people living in the dark ages. It is about the Lindens living in the Twighlight Zone in denial.

Torley is of course the main cheerleader for this grotesque notion that people are to blame for backwards computers -- we are told to "chop the slop" and let go our illusions that computers are to blame for problems with Windlight, even though the JIRA will explain that it is buggy stuff and leaks and flaws, not our cards.

It's very hard, in this windstorm of propaganda about the computers never being the problem to make this point, but it has to be made: no one should have to build their own computer, or custom-order parts from wonky sites like NewEgg (I wish I had a dollar for every geek who tells me, like it's some elite insight knowledge, about that site ROFL), or go to "your local independent computer store" or in general, engage in any tekkie wiki geeky bullshit whatsoever. They should be able to walk into a Best Buy or a Circuit City (well, wait, they went bankrupt, forgot that), pay $1000 or $1200, and get a box that they turn on within 20 minutes to play SL without a lot of mumbo jumbo.

After all, that's what they do to play WoW, Warhammer, Spore, the Sims, Final Fantasy, and a zillion movies and YouTubes.

The Lindens should assign a staff person to do nothing but canvass Best Buy and Dell and all those sites and stores and find out what is actually on the market that isn't custom built, and try to adjust the software accordingly -- that is, if they do want to increase retention.

Greedy Guni

Ugh, I've dealt with Anshe Chung for 4 years, and I've generally respected and supported what she has done, although there have been times when she has behaved like an utter asshole and gouged the hell out of me and engaged in what can only be called "sharp business practices". That's how she got to be an SL millionaire, and I understand that. I'm always welcome NOT to pay her exhorbitant prices.

But I feel on the openspace gouge, ACS needs to be called hard, and needs to become accountable to the many hundreds of their customers, if not thousands, renting these sims.

Right now, Guni is holding a town hall, from which I've been ejected for asking too many uncomfortable questions, with a gaggle of his sycophants chiming in to silence me.

The fact is, all this time, ACS has been gouging on the OS sims. They were the lucky ones, due to being so large, who got them second after Adam Zaius, 4 to a pack, when they weren't offered as easily as they are offered today to everyone with one click in the land store. So they bought hundreds if not thousands of them, and the tier on all of them was grandfathered. That means they paid $50 per sim in tier, and charged us $85 in tier.

As any one hustling the OS sims now, the most they can charge is about $90, and normally the market price is $75, but that's for *the class five, non-grandfathered, $295 tier sims*. These are *class four, grandfathered, $195 tier sims*. I've been paying $85 for a class 4 OS with no estate perms -- as have many others. Why? Because for one, I didn't realize at first that it was still class 4. It doesn't sit up and bark and tell you that. I also didn't realize that people with the $50 sims were charging only $65 lol.

So I think it's reasonable to expect that Guni, in making his price hikes now due to the Lindens' announcement, be cognizant of the fact that he has gouged all this time, and not hike the price at all, or hike it reasonably, not overpriced Dreamland style. For one. If he wishes to hang on to his customers. And at the very least, if he raises the price to Dreamland/gangland-style of $150 or more, to offer estate management perms -- something ACS does not offer on any OS sim, new or old.

The reasons they are mumbling about this strange practice of refusing the the EM perms make no sense. They are saying that because some are within regions of the same name, and not separate estates, they can't do this. But...they can. They merely have to make them their own estates, as all the other managers do. Every single other SALES agent of these OS sims is offering EMs. With the price hike, that's an absolute requirement.

The Stubborn Geek

Terrible geek stubborness and viciousness on this question of Windlight from radarm -- and the crippling of Second Life for many people who don't have good enough graphic cards. I'm one of them, and my SL is now reduced to an absolute crawl, especially with this last security update. Duh, I know how to fix the settings to "turn it off" -- but that's not the issue. It's not about dumbing it down -- which doesn't really turn it off. Windlight was calculated to be a game-changer, and is. No one in fact needed it -- except for a handful of gamer geeks in San Francisco trying to "keep up with the Jones" -- although those Jones like WoW or Ultima don't even need this heavy a graphic card rotation.

You can't use your old viewers pre-Windlight because...you can't. Windlight bores me profoundly with its pina colada tropical hues -- they look awful on old New England mainland -- but I guess that's the idea -- to make you flee your grey North West Coastal rock and murky lakes for more blistering white sands and teal seas.

Radarm, who has always been a nasty character to me, is ranting about this still -- and me here. And I push back, as is known, and I also have further ammunition from, of all places, Hamlet nee Linden Au -- he's repeatedly blogged about this, in the face of Torlian inanity and Pollyanaism, and now has blogged twice in one week.

I don't know why, since the Lindens declared Día de la Liberación more than a year ago, why they can't make a non-Windlight, viewable viewer. Remember the Dia? Declared by the Revolutionary Linden Comrade Zero Linden? Here's what Commander Zero had to say back in June 2007:

"The day of liberation is almost upon us. In the next release, 1.18, we’ll be shipping a project called “Message Liberation”. This project lets us make almost all viewer updates be optional, so you can download them if and when you want."

So...why can't we make Windlight's later updates completely optional, Comrade?

"Now, to be sure, there are still some kinds of changes where we’ll require you to download a new viewer. Closing security holes is a likely example. And there are others, like some database maintenance, where we’ll have to close the entire grid for an update. But, our aim is to do these as little as possible, and Message Liberation goes a long way to making that possible."

But Comrade, you didn't say Windlight was one of those "mandatory changes"!

Why I am Voting for Obama -- and Why You Should, Too

I voted for Obama in the Democratic primaries, and I will vote for him in the presidential election. I don't know Obama, and hadn't heard of him when someone told me seemingly a few short years ago that the senator from Illinois would be president. I've actually had occasion in RL to meet John McCain and admire some of the important things he has done, but I will not be voting for him. I don't care for Obama all that much, and I especially dislike some of his rabid followers from the Twitter gang.

So...Why am I voting for Obama? It's simple. We only have two parties in this country (although there really should be more, and we should become more like the parliaments of Europe with a multiparty system). The party in power is responsible for the war in Iraq, which has not only cost hundreds of thousands of lives, including of our own soldiers, but has led our government to abandon its principles and consent to torture of foreigners abroad. The party associated with these crimes has to be voted out of office. They need to be gone, and they need to take all the furniture -- there has to be a complete turnover. Closer to home, the banking crisis seems the fault of the current regime -- and the party associated with that can't stick around to mess it up more.

The war in Iraq and the torture that became notorious in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are issues that in fact many loyal Republicans are concerned about, and will make them change their vote. Obama supporters particularly on the West Coast, out of touch with the flyover states, are nervous now, and some are suffused with hatred or derision in the latest cultural war around Sarah Palin -- they imagine that their man is losing, because they are convinced that the other Americans they are never able to reach and persuade are yahoos, and will vote for "the mavericks".

But they're wrong. They won't be doing that. They don't like the war in Iraq or torture -- and now the banking and credit mess and recession -- any more than you do if you support Obama. And they will vote for change on that basis. Just as in the first round, it didn't matter if Obama was black for those possibly made uneasy by that factor -- some voted for him because he was "driving-while-not-Hillary". And so now, they will vote, regardless of his race, because he is driving-while-not-a-Republican. People like Dave Winer are simply wrong about "the whole Northeast being racist" (and of course the South). They don't care. They want Bush and the gang out -- and all their works, and all their empty promises...and that means their fellow Republicans.

I'm not voting for Obama as a wayward McCain Democrat, however. I think Obama's simply more sane and sober, and the debates have shown us that. We've only got two to chose from. We don't have more. This isn't Russia, where there's a bigger choice. And unfortunately, my feeling about McCain is that he is a broken human being. He is broken by torture, not only as a physical and mental breaking, but the breaking involved in confessing and helping the enemy (understandably, because he was tortured -- that's one of the pragmatic reasons why we shouldn't torture other people, so they won't torture us). I feel that "broken" factor alone is enough not to place him in the White House, under the enormous pressure of office, where he could break, physically or mentally. The "broken" factor was ok for being a senator; it is not ok for being a president. I think the cracks are visible even in the debates, where he talks obsessively about helping veterans, heedless of schoolchildren, or talks obsessively of things he thinks we will believe he did to head off the recession -- which just aren't credible. And P.S., hats off to McCain, of course, for the McCain Act on torture -- and yet it does not go far enough, as we know, and does not deal with impunity of current officials. Not that Obama is any maverick in this area, either, and not that we can expect the Democrats to do anything dramatic like try to previous administration's figures responsible for this torture abroad -- which of course must be done.

Yes, Nazism and Communism Can and Should Be Compared

A makeshift memorial at the mass grave of Kuropaty, whose victims were executed by the NKVD in Belarus, destroyed by pro-communist vandals. Photo by Charter97.

Generally, I don't like to discuss real-life topics on this blog, but I'm going to do three posts now on RL subjects that are certain to get some people mad. I usually refrain from RL subjects because I don't wish to debate them with anonymous people who may have very different levels of life experience and education than me. Still, I feel they are all important topics that need addressing, that help to explain my overall world view, and are good subjects to study.

I don't think I have the patience to go sifting back through this very long and contentious thread on ad-farms to find out how on earth they came to this age-old debate, but there it is -- Argent Stonecutter writing, and apparently later erasing, this comment:

"Only a Nazi would try to equate Communism with the Holocaust".

Evidently a 16 m2 advertiser, Uma Troell, who posted this very long densely-packed apologia for her ad farms, had the tastelessness to compare the problem faced by advertisers as ad farms are regulated are like the famous poem by Rev Niemöller, "First, they came for the Communists..." So that set off Argent's outrage. Argent's flippant comment -- that wound up calling a protesting ad-farmer a Nazi, set off the fellow named Holocluck (who you may recall from the railroad saga), who then angrily demanded:

"As someone whose parents survived the holocaust, I take offense of your flippantly referring to PLAYERS as Nazis short of an actual WWII role play. And with a smileface yet.

Please retract your statement with an apology promptly.

Any of you who fling around terms into an asinine and off topic discussion without knowing the significance of them and the true nature of their impact just to look clever ought to all be ashamed of themselves."

Whereupon Argent deleted his comment, not having learned in fact that yes, Nazism can and should be compared to Communism. And whereupon Holocluck unnecessarily made someone actually erase their comment and even demand a recantation, which he should not have done (and which is hard to do on the Internet, anyway, as we can see) -- even with his own tragic personal story. In fact, his anger, if you think of it as justified, should have been directed at Uma's original tasteless invocation of Godwin, rather than Argent's common politically-correct belief on the left.

I'm not going to get into the issue -- this time -- of whether any people or phenomena in a virtual world should ever be compared to historical mass murderers. I will point out, however, that it's usually more socially acceptable to call someone a Nazi -- something everyone can agree on as bad, even if misapplied to "a game" than it is to call them a Communist -- where either there will be laughter and derision at taking the ideology seriously as evil, or where the PC police will come and try to stamp out this latest insurrection against the Comrades. But...Here's the problem with all this: people are simply not sufficiently educated on why Communism can and should be compared and contrasted with Nazis (and of course even serious studies are made of this very comparison like Bullock's huge work) -- and why in fact how Communism, even just viewed from the Eurasian continent, is in many ways worse than Nazism, primarily for these factors:

o Communists stayed in power longer, and are still very much in power in some countries; their legacy is far more enduring
o Communists have never been tried for their mass atrocities and crimes against humanity, and where efforts have been made to "decommunize" in the same manner as "deNazification," the efforts have led to profound struggles over civil rights implications
o Communists killed many more people than Nazis.

What Metanomics Erases

I'm annoyed to constantly have my comments blocked on Metanomics whenever I post, and I'm tired of the bullshit excuses, even from decent people like Roland. who says now and then "OMG, you were in the spam filter". I'm sorry, that's bullshit. And I'll start a reciprocity of banning Beyers Sellers from posting here and advertising himself all the time unless there's a stop put to this.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for me to be blocked from that site. There's nothing objectionable in my posts even by the church-lady standards that Beyers tries to instill.

Here's my post that was blocked re: Silicon Valley and the economy.

Silicon Valley Feeling the Pain
Submitted by Prokofy Neva (not verified) on Fri, 10/10/2008 - 22:18.

I am very glad that Silicon Valley is finally feeling the burn that the rest of us have felt in the country for a year. We've heard all too many arrogant and nasty comments about people "borrowing beyond their means" from people who live off VC capital; it was only a few weeks ago that we had to endure snarky comments about how "Silicon Valley adds value" and how bankers and financiers on the East Coast "don't add value" and how SV is now recruiting the East Coasters.

In fact, the recession will affect everyone, and Silicon Valley will not be exempt. Who do they think buys all their computers and gadgets?

Clay Shirky is far too boastful. The capital requirements are still major, and there will be less and less willingness to tolerate so many repetitive duplicates of social media outlets and their widgets. We are likely to see them winnowed down.

I don't buy this facile connection between "hard times" and "escapism" because Second Life isn't "escapism" for everybody. It is not like going to the movies; the learning curve and the difficulties means it is for a niche that is not likely to change so drastically with the economy.

I saw customers leave SL with gas prices going up because they really needed every last dollar. They came back when gas prices fell, also because they don't drive around to malls or restaurants as much as they did before gas prices were up. It isn't so much about "escapism" as it is about the price of gas.

The recession was in full swing even this past summer, when the SL economy was tanking, so you cannot say in such simplistic terms that recession causes "cocooning" in SL. It could just as well cause

A Biased History of Social Media

Everybody's raving about this History of Social Media as if it is the greatest thing since creamed cheese, but it's a typically biased, geeky product that -- as I described it on the Muddle -- is proof that history gets written by the victors.

Or maybe not. What's funny is that history is in fact an act that victors engage in to try to prevail -- and they may not. In fact, it's too early to decide "what the history of social media" is because it's just born. The Internet is only about 15 years old -- very young. Sixteen years ago -- even earlier, with Compuserve, Hayes Smartcom, we would send files back and forth on the modem, and attach little messages on the top, where the file name only was supposed to go. That was the first kind of "email". Then, by 1995, we were following about 30 steps to log on to and send messages through Compuserve, and we were still using gophers. We had a boss who was very "scientific" who made us print out and save each and every email message in a big black binder. There didn't yet seem to be an easier way to save them (and there still isn't! Trying to save email is one of the most counterintuitive and stupid things on the web!). We rapidly filled several such binders, and gave up -- it turned out every email wasn't as grave and important as every telegram used to be...

To hear geeks tell is, the "early Internet was filled with porn". We know that it wasn't (and this guy doesn't seem to claim that, either). It was filled with pictures of people's cats, those temple creatures brought to every new home, and those wav files that said things like "Houston, we have a problem!". I used to publish a little newsletter at work filled with random weird Internet sites found by an Internet page randomizer that preceded "I'm feeling lucky" on Google and gave you pages like the one page of one guy in some place like Kyrgyzstan, or a fish shack in Louisiana with blackened catfish on the menu. Weblogs were merely geeky stupid things filling up space obsessively then, with things like "Fixed this bug" or "adjusted this line".

What Stephen Downes (Connectivism U prof) has on his server is a cached page of this "History" because apparently the original guy took it down, no doubt under a barrage of correctives from people as geeky and obsessive as he is.

And I'll join in, from a different perspective. This is one of the most biased things I've seen. It illustrates in spades that extremist geeky hatred of "walled gardens" and proprietary software and of course is Amero-centric, even as it tries desperately to be cool by mentioning that wow, Orkut is really popular in Brazil (without ever telling you why). As usual when people are trying to be fake third-wordly, he leaves out Russia. Where Live Journal, which was dying here, became wildly popular and was even bought out by a Russian. And...why? The author, Trebor Scholz, can't tell us, and I don't know, and his only answer is to attribute it to "captive" status of such services where you can't easily port your friendship network or your content.

And...why did you need to do that again, if you aren't Robert Scoble?

But here's what he left out, in this history of social media, something as obvious as air: AIM. History is often more about what you leave out, not what you put in. AOL's instant messaging service. They always do leave it out! It comes from that visceral geeky hatred of AOL as a "walled garden" but hell, this "walled garden" grew the most popular messaging system on the planet, used by millions of teenagers -- it dwarfs any of the other services. Everybody has an AIM. Or a Yahoo Messenger. And this is simply left out of the History. If it isn't opensource or free or non-walled, in the way this typical nerd demands that it be, it doesn't count. That is, he does include "AIMpages" in a long list, next to Christian Biblical pages, just so we know that they are in the negligible bin that isn't culturally correct.