Losing My Religion (UPDATE!)

Err, my faith actually but anyway. That awful sex store has now moved closer to our parcel in Moraine so the freak responsible for it, you know, took the time to pick it up from one parcel and jam it down again right on the parcel boundary with ours. It’s been abuse reported several times over several days and nothing at all happens. I just don’t get that. It’s a clear violation of the law in SL and it goes utterly unpunished. It isn’t a resident to resident dispute, it isn’t some murky grey area where a Linden has to decide if someone is being “intolerant” or “disruptive”. It’s about selling nude pictures of age-unverified (I would like to point out!) “teens” in an area marked as Mature and not Adult (i.e. on the mainland, duh!) Maybe we should try reporting it as an ageplay violation although that seems bizarre since it is *already* a clear violation.

You know, with all the grief that Prokofy Neva has had to put up with since the SLCC chalking incident and the Lab’s total non-response to it, it’s really starting to look like the Lab just doesn’t care, or worse, is wilfully ignoring the legitimate concerns of its law abiding residents in favour of… in favour of God knows what – anarchism? I just don’t know. A fanboy would point out that they “just don’t have the resources” or some such other retarded claim that doesn’t require refutation. Anyway, I have this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that something has happened in Linden land and the TOS has as much meaning to the average Linden as the Bill of Rights had to Bush Co. Then again, I have a sneaking suspicion that if I were to invoke the law of the jungle and go after these abusers myself that I would be the one suddenly “worthy” of a TOS suspension. That’s how things roll, I guess.

Philip has said that the purpose of Second Life is to make a better world. We make things better by improving on all the good stuff we already have. I read an interesting rule of thumb (for telescope makers but which applies very well to software engineering also): “it takes less time to make a 4 inch mirror and then a 6 inch mirror than it does to make a 6 inch mirror” In other words, we iterate toward the “better”, we don’t smash everything down and then make “great leaps forward”. It makes no sense in any practise, not in engineering, not in politics, not in “better world making”. So, Philip, to make Second Life a better world, start with all the stuff that makes the real world better now than what it was, say, 70 years ago in fascist Germany – MAKE THE RULE OF LAW FUNDAMENTAL TO SECOND LIFE and then get the fuck rid of that creepy porn shop beside my parcel in Moraine! Thanks.

Update:

I just got an IM from a new neighbour saying “Hi, I got rid of that terrible mall belonging to the previous owner of the parcel beside yours” So the disgusting sex shop is gone and we now have a new neighbour who *gets* what it is to be a neighbour! I am so relieved and my faith in people is restored.

Oh yes, I created a new open group called Free Citizens Solidarity and I rented a parcel in Ravenglass (originally just to express solidarity with Prok in his struggle with the Woodybury University banalities) that is going to be our “headquarters”.