"I Will Delete You Immediately"

I've been generally a big supporter of the "Working in Second Life" concept, and also a supporter of "mixed reality events," coming to their defense when hordes of blingtards gripe that real life is a buzz-kill to their SL fantasy role-play. I took on swashbuckling pirate-role-player Burnham Bedlam in this thread where I also tried to address the alarming dimensions of Beth Noveck with her collectivist ideologies in the White House.

Of course as usual, this particular Linden on the job, Amanda Linden, wants to press loyal residents into service having a happy little discussion about their joy joy technology and its fabulous guests gracing it, not really deal with the substance of the issue.

So when people argue about whether mixed reality projects work at all (some people think they are huge failures and LL's technology is simply not yet up to the job) or whether immersive virtual worlds shouldnt' be disrupted by real-life stuff that is boring and stupid -- and they argue (at least I argue) that this particular U.S. government official is scarily already making use of new technologies in very disturbing ways, Amanda Linden watches with growing exasperation as people walk on her nicely-waxed floor and upset the shine. Finally, she intervenes:

"I've been watching this string for a week--quietly reading and interested in where it was going. No, I have not deleted any comments--so much for Linden sensorship. Enough. This string has wandered far from my initial intention around the benefits and challenges re: mixed reality events. This is not a place to sound off on personal rants of any kind. Period.

 If anyone would like to continue the conversation re: the intended topic, then please go ahead--positive, negative, constuctive, or musing. Otherwise, do not comment on my posts. I will delete you immediately as now, you have been forewarned.

 Thanks for understanding."

Anyway, my attempt to keep questioning the "inevitability of technocommunism":

Amanda,

Let me see if I can conceptualize this in a way that will help you see that this discussion is not about off-topic rants or people's personal agendas.

Any discussion of mixed reality cannot exclude by definition that reality's content. By definition, mixed reality is, well, mixed reality. It mixes into virtuality -- in our case a human community of social media -- the real life issues of real life using the virtual platform. You can't say that just because an event with real-life controversial political content in it, with a real-life U.S. government official and one-time SL resident in it, is funnelled through the blender of virtual reality it then becomes off-limits, or off-topic, or verboten in some way that isn't acceptable. It is acceptable because mixing reality means mixing the real issues of real life into a virtual setting with its own laws and culture and enabling them to clash, to one extent or another.

While it might be nice in theory to have a more abstract discussion about the outward technical wrappings of mixed reality events in general, events are accelerating far too fast for this -- we now see that the cultures and mechanisms of technology are inserting themselves into real-life government in what many will find are disturbing and challenging ways. The abstract discussion of the theory of "benefit of mixed events" is already overtaken by those very events; the technologies of social media and new media are *already* being used in government in accelerated ways, and virtuality is not far behind; indeed, already at the door. Are we supposed to wait for the virtualization of government to be completed before we can talk about it on the blog of a virtual reality manufacturing company?

By the same token, any discussion of mixed reality cannot exclude a discussion of the exigencies and culture and technical trappings of virtual reality. People trying to function in real life at a meeting are going to want virtual reality technology not to get in the way or call attention to itself, but instead, to enhance the meeting. People who have hitherto used virtual reality for one purpose are going to resent what they see as invalidation of that purpose in the course of adapting that technology to other purposes and this needs to be managed with sensitivity and rules of the road.

Marshal McCluhan talked about the medium of television as the great reducer. On the blue screen in the box, the Vietnam War could be reduced to a news show, in which "the bad news of the war helped sell the good news of commercials".

Reducing the first such massively viewable war in this way in one sense enabled it; in another sense, it ultimately fostered a movement to end it. How will virtuality and the Metaverse do these things?

Virtual reality technology might be some kind of reducer in the same way (and for some, a trivializer), but I think it's more -- I think virtual reality is prototyping, simulating and launching models that will be used in real life -- so that far from reality being squeezed into a box but still retaining somewhere its own autonomy, virtuality will squeeze into reality and become indistinguishable. Whether that is a good of bad thing needs to be strenuously and freely debated -- unless, of course, we're being directed to sit back and let technologists (aided by Linden "sensor-ship") take their course and let coded
nanobots decide.

Amanda, if you want these events in Second Life to serve merely as corporate press releases, then put them on lindenlab.com and don't have comments open. If you want them to be part of a vibrant and interactive community, you will have to accept how people view and comment on them. No one in this discussion has violated the TOS in any way, nor have they even gone "off-topic".To sling a " I will delete you immediately as now, you have been forewarned" sort of comment at people taking part generally in good faith in a difficult discussion is to open up -- again -- the scary prospect of this technological culture invading real-life governance when real-life government begins to use this technology.

Comments

[melponeme_k]

"If anyone would like to continue the conversation re: the intended topic, then please go ahead--positive, negative, constuctive, or musing. Otherwise, do not comment on my posts. I will delete you immediately as now, you have been forewarned."

The rich part of these type of comments is that the people who utter them generally fancy themselves liberal. I've seen it time and time again on all the "liberal" news sites.

[Darien Caldwell]

Well, at least she's 'keeping it real', I imagine this is really what many Lindens are thinking when they put on the fake smile. I don't really see anything in that thread that's 'a rant', unless she takes long posts to be a rant. But yes, she wants happy gushing over how wonderful the event nobody was invited to was for everyone.

Although I have to wonder, when she says 'I'll delete you immediately' does she mean your comment, or your account?

[Orange Montagne]

The statement is an unacceptably brutal way for a corporation to address it's loyal, paying customers and user base.

[brinda allen]

@Orange.... here here.
The "threat" would seem to be something I would expect from a juvenile,not from someone supposedly representing a corporation with customers that are paying the freight.