http://slcongress.com

SLJustice

So I tend to agree with you, there will be no grid-wide government, or, even more than that, no inter-grid-wide government (when that becomes possible!) ever. And the more SL grows, the less likely that is to happen.

I think it is a very useful distinction to make here. Do we see SL as a world – or is it a metaverse, a shell for creating worlds? Spatial metaphors such as “country” can be treacherous. It is cute when an old lady from a popular joke calls a tech support number: “Hello! Is this the Internet?” It is less cute, and maybe even dangerous, when people with some access to design power don’t distinguish between particular worlds and middleware meta-tools used to create worlds.

From the history of SL depicted by Gwyn here, it looks like SL is evolving from a world into such a set of tools. As a result, there may be countries, democratic, libertarian or otherwise governed, that use the engine of SL to run. To be more exact, some of the activities of people using the SL engine can be described as corresponding, metaphorically or through an analogy, to the notion of a country. There could also be other entities that are not like countries, for example, tribes. But to conceive of the SL engine itself and of all activities driven by it as ONE such country, or tribe, or club, or world, or other coherent entity at this point of its evolution, does not make sense. SL is bigger than that. Metaphors such as “SL is a language” or “SL is middleware” or “SL is a construction set” are probably more promising.

That said, as many have pointed out, incumbents in the US have such an advantage that their re-election likelihood rivalled that of members of the Supreme Soviet, and election laws are such as to make it nearly impossible for “third parties” to gain a foothold. Alas, there’s nothing about being a politician that renders one noble.

Há, no entanto, outros mecanismos para permitir um adequado controlo dessas normas de relacionamento. As comunidades libertárias tendem a apontar o ostracismo e a exclusão como o melhor método (“portas-te mal, não te deixamos entrar”) e o mais simples de implementar, pois não requer nenhuma “estrutura” para além do mínimo. As estruturas democráticas necessitam da vontade popular em delegar a sua autoridade num grupo de representantes que organizam toda uma comunidade. Qualquer coisa que “comece do zero” e que adopte uma estrutura democrática (por exemplo, na vida real, uma associação sem fins lucrativos…) requer esta noção de opt-in. Fazê-lo à escala de todo o SL é uma tarefa inglória, extremamente morosa, e muito provavelmente mesmo impossível. Mas a escalas mais pequenas (um subconjunto de sims ou de pessoas) é possível.

Não penso que a questão tenha a ver com “concorrência” ao SL ou não.

Contra todas as evidências virtuais!

De facto, só um sistema colectivista permite ter um sistema para toda a gente. Truísmo. Para isso é preciso que a regra não seja opt-in, ou tendencialmente quem quiser isolar-se, realinhar-se, fá-lo-á.

Mas isso é inclusão à força. Não é agregar comunidades, é esmagar a individualidade dos seus membros para que aceitem o status quo político.

Enquanto houver concorrência ao SL (não havendo, será banal daqui a pouco tempo), tais conceitos iliberais nunca estabelecerão raiz.

Excelente Gwyn.

Gostava só de apontar que as questões de fraude e vandalismo não são consequência de qualquer sistema laissez-faire, mas sim de uma ausência forçada (socialista) de mecanismos espontâneos que os limitassem ao mínimo eficiente.

Ou seja, o sistema SL não permite que sejam criadas agências de protecção privadas…

On any other non-democratic form of government you never know where the corruption is; and even if you find out by mistake, there is no way you can tell everybody about it. Much less talk to the judiciary (which will not be independent).

While this naturally applies to all autocratic forms of government (believe me, you’ll never know what goes on in those), on anarchic/libertarian models things might even be messier. Having no entity to guarantee your own rights — except the ones you’re willing to enforce on your own, in your community, by the force of arms — you can’t trust a “free press” (there is no way to sue them for libel or defamation) and very likely any form of “judiciary” will be opt-in, so there is nobody you can complain to. What this means is that while under an anarchic/libertarian model of self-government you have no real protection from “corruption”, “theft”, “privacy”, or “libel/defamation”, unless you provide it on your own — by employing force.

Democracy, instead, makes the employment of force a monopoly of the State — which is democratically elected — and rooting out corruption is in the hands of the free press which is perfectly able to tell everybody about what they’ve found out — and, more to the point, tell it to the independent judiciary to investigate. It’s not a perfect model. And it naturally gives the wrong impression that democratic governments are full of corrupt politicians, just because that’s what you see on the news. These news sell, so they’re popular.

Be glad that you live in a democratic country and are able to read the paper, watch the news on TV or on the Internet, and hear all those horrible stories about corrupt politicians. If you didn’t live in a democracy, you had no way to know.

@Pablo: I’m sorry if I gave the wrong impression of SL being “independent” of RL’s national and international laws. It is not, and never was, no matter how often some have claimed (or argued) to the contrary. My interest was in analysing how SL works from inside. In the real world, we have corporations being run autocratically (almost all, without exception) and foundations and non-profit organisations who have embraced a democratic model (by far a minority, when considering all entities in the world). Both can affect thousands or millions of users (“customers” of their services). And both, naturally, are subject to precisely the same RL laws, national or international.

When analysing SL as the “community of customers of Linden Lab’s Second Life” we can, however, make comparisons, since this “community of customers” will interact in predictable, social ways, and will follow models and patterns of behaviour. This was the purpose of the essay; not to claim (or infer) that SL “has laws of its own”, but that SL as a “community of users” can — and will — evolve/develop self-governing structures following a model, depending on the “hints” and “pushing” done by Linden Lab.