<nettime> Politics in SL Roundup

["second loop" <secondloop@gmail.com>]

From:
http://secondloop.wordpress.com/2008/06/26/virtual-and-actual-politics-in-second-life-and-out/

This video shows a really interesting phenomenon, virtual political
tactics, specifically griefing from SL, being reproduced in real life
against real political figures.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H02h0nGBryU
http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2008/05/20/garry-kasparov-targeted-in-real-life-repeat-of-the-anshe-chung-incident/";>http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2008/05/20/garry-kasparov-targeted-in-real-life-repeat-of-the-anshe-chung-incident/

And there are lots of political issues in SL:

- land ownership,
http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2008/06/19/linden-freezes-land-supply-as-prices-plummet/
linden labs recently stopped selling land to try to control the prices
of land in SL, which have dropped dramatically

- RL mega events like the world economic forum
http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/category/second-life/davos/

- RL entities like the border patrol training in SL

http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2008/05/15/training-virtual-border-guards/

- SL people sufering political repression in RL, like Eshi being
deported from the US after her husband died

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2008/05/the-husband-tha.html

- Prim limits, limiting the complexity of avatars (i wish i could find
the link for the page that said "you can take my land but you can't take
my designer shoes!")

- the huge debate about PG restrictions around the linden's official 5
year birthday celebration
http://www.massively.com/2008/05/30/calling-all-cultures-not-any-more/2#c12403549


- Enforcing copyright on virtual objects, enforcing the DMCA
http://www.massively.com/2008/06/17/linden-lab-responds-to-dmca-concerns/


- RL corporations like Coke's happiness island (somehow, killing
colombians doesn't make me happy). This video is hilariously disturbing,
it says "the essence of cocacola: refreshment, joy, unity and experience"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USrhNFFiT1c
http://virtualthirst.com/

Here's a slightly different view:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Gemf7fjNmU

Which of these are most interesting and relevant to you? Are there
common threads or factors here or points of intersection? It seems like
the overriding question is: will SL be a space for residents to create
the utopias they can imagine, or will it be just another corporate
advertising venue? Although dichotomies like that always already fail in
their construction. Maybe open source efforts like OpenSim
[http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page] and realXtend
[http://www.realxtend.org/] are the biggest political question, will SL
be corporate owned, or will the metaverse open up to be a real outgrowth
of community efforts? Although, it seems like Opensim is M$ friendly at
least, being written in C# and thus requiring windows, or heavily
influenced by M$ at worst, while realXtend is at least gpl licensed.
What do you think?


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