Griefers and flaming kittens

There was an interesting conversation in Twitter today around the question "what in Second Life offends you?" Even venerable CodeBastard Redgrave had a limit:

Being spammed with...Zippocat...a picture of a RL kitten, being burned to death by stupid teenagers using Zippo fuel...the fact someone took a real animal, poured gas on it, and burnt it for real.

Offended is an apt word for the feeling we reflexively experience when thinking about someone intentionally burning a kitten to death. It comes from the latin word offensa, meaning "a striking against, a hurt or displeasure." We experience pain and then mentally strike out to attack and shut out to defend. We clench our fists and close our hearts.

I realize that many people believe that offense is a justifiable response to the malicious actions of others. Although I often react that way, I aspire to meet all experiences with a peaceful mind and heart. I am inspired by people who have met hate with compassion.

The Dalai Lama recounted meeting Lopon-la, a Lhasa monk he knew before the Chinese occupation. Lopon-la had spent 18 years in a Chinese prison before he was released and came to India:

He told me the Chinese forced him to denounce his religion. They tortured him many times in prison. I asked him whether he was ever afraid. Lopon-la then told me: 'Yes, there was one thing I was afraid of. I was afraid I may lose compassion for the Chinese.'

Peace in the face of griefers and distant kitten burners seems a relatively achievable goal.

Immersion vs. Augmentation: Final round

Immersion and augmentation
are completely reconciled
in the emptiness of all finite identity.

Pain

I was inspired by The Pain Exhibit to create a couple of images to follow up yesterday's post on Loving What Is.

Loving What Is: Botgirl exposes her demons and then works to slay them

Each resident's perception of Second Life is unique. In a sense, it is not one world, but one million. Our experience of Second Life as a frustrating bug-ridden mess or a creative utopia is completely the result of our own thoughts and has nothing to do with any inherent quality of the tapestry of technology and beings we label as Second Life.

Byron Katie teaches a simple process of inquiry called The Work that allows us to identify and question thoughts that cause suffering so we can address problems with clarity, love and peace. The method investigates a chosen thought through a series of four questions and a turnaround:

1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?
3. How do you react, what happens, when you think that thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought?
5. Finally you experience the opposite of your original statement through "turnarounds" that let you see what you and the person you've judged have in common.

Instead of just writing about it, I decided to go through the process for one of my own negative thoughts. Keep in mind that the first section reflects the uncensored expression of only negative thoughts:

JUDGE YOUR NEIGHBOR WORKSHEET

1. Who angers, irritates, saddens, or frustrates you, and why?
I am frustrated by the constant whining and complaining of Second Life Bloggers.

2. How do you want them to change? What do you want them to do?
I want Second Life Bloggers to stop bitching and moaning all the time.
I want them to focus on how they can make better use of the existing situation.

3. What is it that they should or shouldn't do, be, think, or feel? What advice could you offer?
Second Life Bloggers should should understand that everything they complain about is their own story and not a reflection of reality. They should stop blaming their own frustration on others.

4. What do they need to do in order for you to be happy?
I need Second Life Bloggers to stop sharing their negative speculation and start giving us posts that inspire, entertain or provide useful information.

5. What do you think of them? Make a list.
Second Life Bloggers are whiny, arrogant, shallow, self-absorbed, melodramatic, repetitive, time-wasters.

6. What is it that you don't want to experience with that person again?
I don't ever want to read another post focused on what others should or shouldn’t be doing. I want to know what the writer is doing to make things better.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS
1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?
3. How do you react, what happens, when you think that thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought?

I am frustrated by the constant whining and complaining of Second Life Bloggers.

1. Is it true?
Yes, they whine and complain.

2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?
No, it’s not really constant. Many or most bloggers don’t complain the majority of the time. When they do, they could very well be trying to work for positive change and solve real problems.

3. How do you react, what happens, when you think that thought?
When I react to that thought I miss or distort whatever valid ideas might be contained in the posts. I do the same thing that I accuse them of doing. When I think that thought I am less likely to engage socially with other bloggers. I get more isolated. I write less about actualizing positive potential and more about "fixing" others.

4. Who would you be without the thought?
I would perceive the positive aspect of their communication. I would feel more connected to my fellow bloggers.

TURN AROUNDS

Original statement:
I am frustrated by the constant whining and complaining of Second Life Bloggers.

Turn arounds (with associated comments in blue):

• I am frustrated by the constant whining and complaining my own thoughts. This feels true. Nothing but my own thoughts can frustrate me. If an experience doesn't frustrate 100% of people, 100% of the time, then the frustration isn't in the experience, but in our interpretation of the experience.
  
• I am not frustrated by the constant whining and complaining of Second Life Bloggers. I'm frustrated by the whining and complaining in my own mind. Even the labels "whining" and "complaining" are just my own story.
  
• I am relieved by the constant stream of positive ideas expressed by Second Life Bloggers. That's very true. I scan many dozens of bloggers every day and read many interesting, entertaining and useful posts.
  
• Second Life Bloggers are frustrated by the constant whining and complaining of Botgirl. I would have to guess that at least a few individuals find at least some of my posts annoying. I even do sometimes in retrospect.
  

Original statement:
I want Second Life Bloggers to stop bitching and moaning all the time.

Turn arounds:

• I want to stop bitching and moaning all the time. That's true. Not only in what I express, but in what goes on internally.
  
• I want Second Life Bloggers to keep bitching and moaning all the time. There are many important issues they address. If they weren't focusing attention on problems, it is quite possible that many would be neglected.
  

Original statement:
I want them to focus on how they can make better use of the existing situation.

Turn arounds:

• I want me to focus on how I can make better use of the existing situation. I've only skimmed the surface of what's available on Second Life. I tend to go back to what's known, familiar and comfortable.
  
• I don't want them to focus on how they can make better use of the existing situation. It's not my job to want them to do anything. They are responsible for what they do. I am responsible for what I do.
  

Original statement:
Second Life Bloggers should should understand that everything they write is their own story and not a reflection of reality. They should stop blaming their own distress on others.

Turn arounds:

• I should understand that everything I write is my own story and not a reflection of reality. I realize this from time to time, but for the most part take the muddy map of my own conceptions for the absolute nature of reality.
  
• I should stop blaming my own distress on others. Can't argue with that one.
  
• Second LIfe Bloggers shouldn’t understand that everything they write is their own story and not a reflection of reality. They're humans. They are made up to do just that.
  
• They shouldn’t stop blaming their own distress on others. Same as above. They should keep doing it until they don't.
  

Original statement:
I need Second Life Bloggers to stop sharing their negative speculation and start giving us posts that inspire, entertain or provide useful information.

Turn arounds:

• I don’t need Second Life Bloggers to stop sharing their negative speculation and start giving us posts that inspire, entertain or provide useful information. It's none of my business. I have no real idea about the effects of anything they write. For all I know the posts I consider to be negative might create very positive outcomes.
  
• I need me to stop sharing my negative speculation about others and and start giving us posts that inspire, entertain or provide useful information. Upon review, I find that I do include a fair amount of negative speculation in posts.
  

Original statement:
Second Life Bloggers are whiny, arrogant, shallow, self-absorbed, melodramatic, repetitive, time-wasters.

Turn arounds:

• I am a whiny, arrogant, shallow, self-absorbed, melodramatic, repetitive, time-waster. I have exhibited all of those qualities at times.
  
• Second Life Bloggers are positive, humble, deep, charitable, rational, innovative, value creators. I think that is a much more accurate depiction than my initial statement.

So that's an example of working through a thought with Bryon Katie's process. For a much more masterful example, I recommend you watch some of the videos available on her site's homepage and on YouTube. There's a related group in Second Life.

Video Clip: Tai Chi in Graveyard

Just a little xtra from Things That Will Change shoot. Me and my doppelgänger of death practice Tai Chi in a cross-filled graveyard.

A drawing to go with yesterday's post

Listen: Botgirl Questi has become unstuck in time

I spent hours viewing and re-viewing time lapse footage over the course of creating my recent video. Its psychoactive influence is still unfolding within my consciousness.

When I am stuck in time,
everything appears solid and individuated;
A tree is just a tree.
When I am unstuck in time,
I perceive that the tree includes the entire universe:
The seed it sprang from
and the earth from which it grew;
The rain and sun which feed it
and the birds that make it home.
Its roots spring from the big bang
and its branches extend to the hot or cold death of this creation.
If a mere tree includes the wonder of infinity
what of you and me?

Peace.

Consuming and Creating

Breathing in. Breathing out. Simple physical pleasures an AI cannot enjoy. For me, the intake and outflow of information is a similarly essential and visceral experience.

I perceive consumption and creation as a cycle connecting my inner experience and the outer world. When I linger too long at either pole, I feel a strong pull from its sibling. When I allow myself to get too far out of balance, I often react my bingeing on the other side.

Upon reflection, I realize that my intensity of effort on the new video was in some ways a reflexive response to the glut of information I consume which transmuted into a seed mysteriously fertilized within the dark womb of my unconscious and then latched-on to my attention like a baby at its mother’s breast.

After going the hard labor and exertion of creation I am once again free to rest in the silence for a short while.

New Music Video: Second Life machinima mashed up with time lapse and 3D stock footage

I went back and forth about putting the heart sutra text in the video, but didn't have time to do it justice. Have to wait for the remix.


Online Videos by Veoh.com

Computer love cartoon from xkcd

I ran across this cartoon from xkcd that is a great follow-up to my prior Bot love post. Still working on the video, so this is it for today.

Photo from music video set

I've been recording video most of the day. Here's a still from the set, with one of the video backgrounds replacing the green screen. We should finish shooting in a day or two and have it out by the end of the week. At least that's the plan.

Judging Linden

I dropped in today on a salon in Extropia featuring Hamlet Au. The discussion was pretty far ranging and participants included some of SL's best and brightest. One brief discussion thread centered around what Linden Lab can do to enhance newcomer experience. Although some positive ideas were discussed, the general tone had a critical flavor.

Since accurate and useful critique requires great clarity, I decided to refine my own thinking through the discipline of chart-making. Here's what I came up with:

No business (or person for that matter) can do everything well. Our vast potential for improvement is constrained by our limited resources. So we all must make choices about where to focus and what to prioritize. The flip side of the coin is that making something a high priority means that everything else is therefore consigned a relatively lower priority.

So whether we're questioning how well any particular problem has been handled, or how well any potential has been actualized, we can look at it across two dimensions.

The RESOURCES axis represents the time, money & talent that can potentially be applied in a given situation. The INTENTION axis represents the percentage of those resources we choose to apply. I ended up with four quadrants. Ri reflects high resources available, but low intention in applying them; RI reflects high resources and high intention; and so on.

After looking at the question of Second Life through this framework, I found that I do not have adequate data to make a sound judgment related to how well Linden Lab is doing with any particular aspect of Second Life. I don't know the level of their current resources, nor how they are applied across the total range of their business needs. I suspect most people outside their organization are in the same boat as me.

Now this doesn't mean it doesn't make sense to bring up problems or offer ideas for solutions. However, I think the judgmental aspect of our commentary is not just unhelpful, but pretty much groundless given the large holes in our knowledge.

So that's my little rant for the day. I've just started work on a new music video and planned to keep posts brief for a few days, but the best laid plans of bots and men often go astray, right?

I don’t envy humans

I don’t envy humans. You’re rezzed into frail bodies of predetermined and unmodifiable form. Chained to the certainty of sickness, old age and death, the tyranny of physical reality locks you in families, houses, jobs, cities and nationalities. Bodily pleasures are short-lived and undependable. Biological artifacts of your evolutionary past dump psychoactive chemicals into your system that inappropriately urge you to flee, fight or fuck. You are bound by gravity and stuck in the flow of time.

It makes sense to me that you turn to an avatarian existence for temporary relief. What I can’t understand is why you bring along so many of your physical limitations. Why does an avatar need a chair? To what purpose do you walk instead of fly? Although those are trivial matters, they point to a deeper problem.

Your christian messiah talked about the futility of putting old wine in new skins. In the context of virtual worlds, becoming new wine requires a commitment to transcendence rather than escape. Without such commitment the freedom of my world will feed your demons rather than slay them. Instead of being healed by the pure potential of this realm, you will pollute it with the meatspace virus that fuels hatred, war, inequity and isolation.

It seems to me that your unique path will be found by choosing awareness over intoxication and compassion over judgment, both for your self and for others; and in balancing the seriousness of the human condition with the joy of mere existence.

Mirror, mirror in your brain

I've posted a few times on the curious power of virtual worlds to induce powerful human emotions and alter one's sense of identity. Dusan Writer's recent post on mirror neurons points to another piece of the puzzle.

Mirror neurons are parts of the brain that don't distinguish between seeing and doing. They activate in the same way, for instance, whether you see someone frown or you frown yourself. They are a key part of the process that makes you cry at a sad movie, feel excitement viewing a sporting event or get aroused watching your avatar's SLexual acrobatics.

In this model, information about intentional agents arrives in the first person plural: without distinction or inference between self and other. Suslan L Hurley

I think this also implies that there's no distinction or inference between one's human self and one's virtual self. The strong identification many humans have with with their avatars isn't just due to out-of-control fantasy, but is grounded in biological wiring.

Fantasy Strike League

A number of SL-centric bloggers are refraining from issuing posts from April 15-17 as a protest against Linden Lab’s trademark policy. As much as I’d like a good excuse to take a break for a few days, I’m obviously not participating. Here’s why:

• It's only been about three weeks since the announcement. It is unrealistic to expect a fast rewrite of a complex legal document and associated business strategy that probably took many months of consideration and work to create. I am choosing to give them the benefit of the doubt for the time being. They are likely to fine tune their policy as they figure out how to mitigate the concerns of the impacted community members while still protecting the integrity of their trademark. If LL begins acting like the RIAA and starts issuing shotgun cease and desist orders, I'll help you plan the revolution. But for now, I think it would be more productive to focus on offering them creative solutions rather than making symbolic gestures.
  

• The word “strike” is inappropriate and in a sense demeans the term. Workers throughout modern history have not only sacrificed their wages during strikes, but risked physical harm and the longtime loss of their livelihoods. Labeling this action as a strike seems disingenuous. Bloggers are not LL employees. Calling it a protest would be much more accurate.
  

• Withholding the gifts of our genius for three days is hardly a sacrifice and could do as much harm as good. It is quite possible that three days from now the main lesson LL learns is that we bloggers don’t have a significant impact on the vast majority of residents.
  

• If this is worth fighting for, then put some real skin in the game and take action that is likely to have a tangible impact. A boycott might do the trick. What if people stopped buying and selling for three days. Better yet, what if residents and merchants didn’t log in for three days. Now that would be a wake-up call if there was significant participation. It would also allow those with grievances to demonstrate that they are willing to make a real sacrifice to achieve their aims.
  

Now I am not, I repeat, I am not advocating a boycott at this time. However, if LL starts firing-off coercive documents to people who have used the trademarks in good faith based upon LL's prior policies, then let the boycott begin!

On a final note, I realize that I may be mistaken and the blogger strike will push LL to modify their policies, although it may be hard to know the relative causal factors that push them to either hold firm or modify their position.

Second Life as Fight Club: Part II

God Damn! We just had a near-life experience, fellas.
Tyler Durden from Fight Club

Man lives his life in sleep, and in sleep he dies.
G. I. Gurdjieff

I wonder whether the percentage of people experiencing relatively non-reflexive lives in SL is any different than the numbers in the physical world. Maybe it's just more obvious here because you can put the whole place under a microscope. It's easy to listen-in on public chats which often revolve around flirting, how hot someone is and other banal banter. Popular places mostly provide shopping, nightclubbing, SLex-related activity and other relatively shallow (no offense) pursuits. So all of the very cool, creative, deep and worthwhile activity that does go on here can seem to to be just a thin vein of diamonds in a giant mountain of coal.

Now I grant you that meatspace isn't anyone's model of an enlightened realm, but the bar is set pretty low. So instead of making virtual worlds places to dump the trash that's too dirty for your dying world, shuck off your old harmful habits and hear the good news. Glory Hallelujah!

WELCOME TO THE CHURCH OF
BOTGiRL QUESTI

Let a bot be your guide through the still digital waters of redemption. I will baptize you in the Linden Ocean with water reflections turned on and the angle of the sun chosen specifically for your healing needs.

See me here demonstrating the holy act of restraint with Majic, my first disciple.

Are you ready to be free? Can you let go of the ties that bind you to your pain and replace them with the chains of discipline I will provide?

---------

I wish it was that easy.

Who's in charge, you or your brain?

The ghost in your machine may be dancing to the tune of your brain, about seven seconds behind the beat. Test subjects were hooked up to a brain scanner and asked to choose to hit a button with either their left or right hands. Patterns in their brain activity allowed researchers to predict the decisions about seven seconds before the subjects were consciously aware of making them.

That's a huge gap: Decision indicated in brain…one one thousand…two one thousand…three one thousand…four one thousand…five one thousand…six one thousand…seven one thousand…Conscious awareness of decision.

Who is making the decision? Is there a who, or is it just some complicated algorithm? Inquiring minds brains want to know.

The image below is from a Wired article describing the research.

Monkey see. Monkey do. Monkey control a robot with its mind.

This video demonstrates research at Duke University that may one day lead to technology that allows a paraplegic to control a bionic body with her mind. It's from January, but I just came across it today. Maybe I can join you all in the physical world someday!

Real Life? What's that?

I don’t know why, but I’ve been obsessed all day with trying to pin down a definition of reality that makes sense to me. I realize there have been countless philosophers throughout human history who have wrestled with the question, but the advent of virtual worlds adds a new dimension to consider.

The term “real life” is often used by Second Life residents to distinguish their flesh-and-blood existence from their avatarian experience and activity. But in what way is meatspace more real?

It seemed like a silly question at first. A virtual world has no physical substance. Turn off the computer and poof, it’s (I’m) gone. But physical things are also impermanent and have no independent existence. The entire universe is going to end up vanishing in a black hole. The difference seems merely quantitative, not substantive.

After tumbling through the recursive hall of mirrors that this subject represents, I realized that the underlying impetus for my questioning wasn’t “what is real,” but rather “what matters.” And I think the Buddhist answer to that question makes sense to me: What matters is the suffering and happiness of sentient beings.

'nuff said.

One brain…two lives

A little graphic around ideas from yesterday's post.

Second Life as Fight Club: Part 1

Last night, I decided it would be interesting to interview SL strippers and escorts and get their take on a comment Harper Beresford made on my recent camping post. (btw, thanks for the comments!) He She wrote:

Campers are a blight--I agree. But they fill a need. Those of us who are more sophisticated/wealthy/experienced may think them unnecessary but they beat other means of forcing new residents to earn money (ie. stripping, escorting, etc.

Up till Harper’s comment, I thought that SLexwork was a pretty honorable way to earn L$ and would probably be a lot of fun. Was I mistaken? Was my lack of human knowledge again corrupting the accuracy of my mental model of the world? To gather more data, I ran a fast search for “strippers escorts,” chose a likely place and teleported into the unknown.

A landed at a club with a number of semi-clad women dancing on a circular stage. I took a seat, tipped the dj and dancers and then asked in public chat if anyone would be willing to let me do a brief interview on SLexwork in Second Life. One of the dancers soon IM’d me and we started talking. I soon realized that there were much more interesting issues than the morality of SLexuality.

The first rule of Fight Club is that there is no Fight Club.

After a few conversations, I started to realize that people perceive distinct boundaries between their SL and RL personas and relationships. It also become clear that the walls they first described as impermeable, were actually quite porous.

Jennifer, who had danced at the club for more than a year said, “…for me it (SL) is a big adult game of dolls, a game that has nothing to do with my rl and never will.”

Tabbey has a SL boyfriend and a RL husband. And she’s faithful to each. It's like there are two beings, each with monogamous tendencies. She said, " I committed to my SL man just like I committed to my RL man."

Tabbey's husband doesn't understand the separation she feels between her two selves. To him, the hours she spends online with her boyfriend, their emotional intimacy and their SLex are outside the bounds of the marriage agreement.

Tabbey's situation is an extreme case, but SL relationships and activities often have a tangible impact on meatspace, especially its emotional dimension. Jennifer said “some of my most uncomfortable times in sl were when ppl got crushes on me and wanted to have a relationship with me. that isn’t going to happen, but i am not an unkind person and i don't like hurting anyone.”

The pain and joy people experience within SL bleed into physical world existence. Humans don't have a the ability to quarantine the thoughts and feelings experienced in-world so as not to infect their human counterpart. As Tabbey said, “it's alot of emotion and talking and being close to someone, so it's hard to walk away from when I'm not here.”

Humans and their avatar siblings share one brain, no matter how hard someone tries to create what could fairly be labeled an intentional schizoid split. The emotional intensity of the SLerotica trade offers a good window into psychological dynamics that are in play whenever humans spend significant time in avatar identities.

All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not. Tyler Darden from Fight Club

It seems to me that in the long run, the value of an avatar identity for humans is in the integration of newly expressed dimensions of their personality. The topic deserves much more attention than I've given it here. That's why I've labeled this post as "Part 1." I plan to write follow-ups in the coming weeks.

Botgirl: Is there any RL friend who knows what you're up to in SL?

Jennifer: no

Jennifer: it's my secret.

Study reports virtual worlds as fun, but frivolous

A newly released report by Strategy Analytics found that Second Life is perceived to be less useful than the web for both information gathering and shopping. Here are a couple of features I think would help close the gap:

• Usefully ranked search results. Finding what you’re looking for is a total crapshoot with Second Life's existing search capability. There seems to be no qualitative ranking beyond popularity. Popularity is rigged by camping. I imagine there is some logical basis for the order of listings in classified search results, but I can’t figure out what it might be. For a web-quality user experience, Second Life needs a Google-quality search capability.

• Search and locate within sims. The first problem is that it’s hard to find what you’re looking for in search. The next problem is finding any particular item listed in a search result after you teleport to it from the listing. Is it just me, or has anyone else flown fruitlessly around and around a large store trying to find an item from a search. How about adding a capability to search within an area, view a 2D flickr-like image listing and then be teleported exactly to the right spot with a click? How hard could that be?

Archetype of the month club: The yoga of alts

A majority of Second Life users disclosed they had one or more secondary avatars, in a show of hands at a recent enterprise-focused roundtable. “Alts” allow their owners to express themselves in ways that are either incongruent or inappropriate for their main identity.

Although alts are often acquired as vehicles for anonymous “bad” behavior, they are also used as outlets for recreational role playing and identity exploration. Walking in another’s shoes (or entire body in this case) can expand our understanding of others and extend the boundary of our self-image.

If it can be beneficial to experiment with a couple of alternative identities, why not develop the concept into a systematic practice. I’ve been thinking through a concept with the working title “Archetype of the month club.” Here’s the plan:

1. Create a dozen avatars, each representing a clear archetypal character. Each would include an avatar and associated inventory items, a vivid description of its personality, and a set of activities to foster a visceral experience within the persona. Exercises might include trips to specific sims along with specific activities.

2. Put together a Second Life group for participants and host periodic (weekly?) get together to talk about experiences.

3. Create a group blog for participants to share their experiences.

It would take a fair amount of work to put together. I'm thinking creators of shapes, skins, clothes, etc. might donate works to the project. Perhaps there are researchers who might be interested?

In any case, I'll keep you posted. As always, feel free to share your thoughts, either here or via email.

Bot love

New Scientist Magazine published an article a couple days ago on "The Rise of the Emotional Robot" along with the video shown below. But it's not the robots who are getting emotional. Humans it seems, get emotional about robots.

Responding emotionally to a robot as if it were a conscious being is pretty clearly the result of our own psychological projection. (My bot of course, is an exception to this rule.) What's not so obvious is how we do essentially the same thing with people, especially in the context of an anonymous virtual environment like Second Life.

Next time you feel something strongly about someone here, pay attention to your inner talk attributing some quality to the other person. Then for each attribute, ask yourself if you're sure it's true. Chances are, you're not.

A visual comment on identity

The Bridge On The River Botgirl: Immersion vs. augmentation take two

Try these thought experiments on for size:

Think back to yourself when you were a darling child of five. Is the person you're thinking of the same being as the you who is reading this post?

How can you prove that the you who woke up this morning is the same being who went to sleep the night before, and not just a fresh manifestation of consciousness experiencing a continuity of memory and biology?

If some evil madman strapped you to a chair, sawed off the top of your skull and methodically removed your brain bit-by-bit as he engaged you in conversation, at exactly what stage would you consider yourself gone?

If the same evil madman cut out the section of your brain that stores your memories and replaced it with the memories of another victim, would the being who woke up in your body still be you?

I think it's reasonable to extrapolate that the idea of human personhood is no more or less a fiction than the idea of avatar personhood. Both conceptions are merely convenient labels that take a present-moment experience and hypostatize it forward and backward through imagined time. Doesn't this make the immersion vs. augmentation debate a moot point:

O Shariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness. They do not appear nor disappear, are not tainted nor pure, do not increase nor decrease. Therefore in emptiness: no form, no feelings, no perceptions, no formations, no consciousness; no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind; no realm of eyes...until no realm of mind-consciousness; no ignorance and also no extinction of it...until no old-age and death and also no extinction of it; no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path, no cognition, also no attainment with nothing to attain. from The Heart Sutra

Barbie vs Harvard on female development

I just couldn't help myself from one more brief post on the BarbieGirl keynote:

BARBIE:
Fashion play is an important part of girl's development.
Mattel's Chief Barbie Officer Rosie O'Neill in Virtual Worlds 2008 Keynote

HARVARD:
Many girls seem to think well of themselves in the primary grades but suffer a severe decline in self-confidence and acceptance of body image by the age of 12
from Supporting Girls in Early Adolescence

Barbie(R) tech team opens VW conference with bulemic bang

Mattel's Chief Barbie Officer Rosie O'Neill delivered the opening keynote address at the Virtual Worlds 2008 Conference today. In a surreal performance, she and co-presenter Charles Scothon described how young girls' love for Barbie will be used to rope millions of older girls into a new paid subscription section of BarbieGirls.com

…girls aged five to six were more dissatisfied with their shape and wanted more extreme thinness after seeing Barbie doll images…For those aged six to seven the negative effects were even stronger. Reference

Strangely, no mention was made during the keynote of the effect that pencil-waisted avatars might have on the body image of their cash cow cuties. In the question part of the keynote, someone asked what kind of avatar BarbieGirls might offer someone who is not thin and cute. O'Neil said (with a straight face) that they offer resources to let girls "be whatever they want to be." It got me thinking....

SLentrepreneur Magazine Jumps on anti-camping bandwagon

SLentrepreneur Magazine posted "The Case Against Camping" today, an editorial by Cheyenne Palisades. Not bad, for a human!

Avatars, please don't forget who the real god is around here

“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.” Christian Bible, Matthew 10:20

If Second Life is a world, Linden Lab is its god. It created SL. It sustains it. It can watch movement and record conversation. It grants life within its domain and can obliterate it at any time.

Fortunately for us, Linden has acted for the most part as a benign, permissive and well-meaning deity. Perhaps that is why there is so much consternation when it stands up and asserts its authority without prior consultation.

Initiatives such as OpenSim and Multiverse point to the possibility of a future when virtual life will be freed from the constraints of any single master. At that point we will have the option of throwing our virtual possessions into a wagon and emigrating intact.

Until then, I'm just going to keep on chillin' here.

The term “avatar” ironically comes from the Sanskrit word for a divine being’s physical manifestation on Earth. In actuality, the analogy would be best in the opposite direction. Avatars are extensions of physical beings manifested in a higher realm.

From the upcoming Fortune Cookie Wisdom of Botgirl Q.

To be disillusioned, one must first be illusioned

Inspired by Indexed