Does this mean that LL shouldn’t make any further improvements to SL? By all means, no, not at all. An easier-to-use SL will attract more “tourists”, and since the number of those that remain Residents is always small, the more “tourists” are at least willing to visit, the better. Many people have forfeited SL in 2004 or 2005 because they had impossibly underpowered computers or quickly tired of the many grid blackouts back then, and thus gave SL away — only to return now in 2009, with a brand new computer, a good broadband connection, a much better grid infrastructure in place, and suddenly realise what SL is all about. This happens all the time. Most, of course, will never return after a first bad experience. Improving the experience is thus quite important, as well as having more and more reference works (studies, both academic and business) explaining what SL is being used for. This will make SL more widely available, even though the vast majority will never “get it”.
Similarly, most esoteric traditions in RL have tried to make themselves more widely available as well — even though charlatans outnumber by far the few available real teachers. Not because they wish to gather more “faithful converts” (esoterism dismisses the whole notion of “faith”, as in “completely and utterly ‘believing’ in what a so-called ‘authority’ says”, since it runs contrary to any path of self-improvement — you need to believe in yourself only), but because they simply wish to make themselves more known to eventual, potential human beings out there, who do have the right mindset, but had no opportunity thus far to find a teacher. SL should be promoted in the same way: reaching out to the furthest corners of the world, not because “everybody will benefit for being in SL”, but because the number of people that will is so small that they ought to get the opportunity to know about SL and join it.
This might also be the reason why LL doesn’t do any mass-market advertising. It runs contrary to the whole idea. Word of mouth (which in esoterism is known as “oral transmission of teachings”) is the only way to successfully reach someone with the right mindset to join SL.
So is SL a religion after all, and not a virtual world? You tell me 🙂 I’m definitely not the right person to talk about it, anyway…
