SecondLife: Fuck Off

Music you want to listen to while reading this:
Baz Luhrman: Everybody's Free (to Wear Sunscreen)

Some days ago I visited SecondLife (you don't even get the credit of a link), to see what it is about, and I should have known it from its logo. All I can say sofar: Fuck Off you blody bastards. All of you!
In summary: I believe that in participating all that is non-, counter- and inhumane is supported communicated and exagerated, will be ingrained into and bequeathed by social and genetic memory and thus just lead to nothing good. So why dont you just let go?! And hey, I am not talking about those who actually build and operate the thing, YOU are a totally different matter, but then again, you are Americans - get me right, by that I am not talking about ethnics and genetics I am talking about That what makes The American, THAT what makes global justice, peace, economy and freedom feel so nicely, for instance in Irak, Afghanistan, and Lebanon, the essence of The American, the clear and assured understanding of all things, and the sense of mission to beat those pure thoughts into everyone else. Now this might explain some things, then again, not very much I feel, this would be too easy, so in a short sentence: Fuck Off or if there is a hell, you will find yourselves there. We will come to the 7 deadly sins a little later...
But let me elaborate

A though before I start rambling on
Why is it that most people in SecondLife do not build those fantastic castles the dreamt of as children, but replicate fucking deepest suburbia here? Create a 1:1 copy of their "sad" lives? Their bad branded clothes, their worse cars and badly build, badly furnished houses?
If you believe this to be an argument against me claiming that people want to escape base-reality, then why the fuck replicate I at all?
No I guess it is because, people have those extreme dreams, but when it comes to realizing them - in base or virtual reality - they are all just weak and lazy, very sad fucks…

Yes, I should have known from the logo!
I have never been a big friend of conspiracy theories - by the way - a friend tells me they are something humans have - kind of - inbuilt - as they cant seem to be able to believe that small things might trigger massive events - see butterfly effect I guess - hey, shouldnt we be enlightened, reasonable beings by now, this is 21st century after all, not even pre-renaissance, but anyway - I personally feel - correct me if I am wrong that it is even worse, humans are just not build to accept happiness on top of all that.
More on that later
So what about the logo? Just feel it is far too factious. Feels like one of those "Hey, lets all get together, Someone will tell you what to do and all will be good." On top of that, as I said, I am not a friend or believer of/in conspiracy theories, but why the hand, why the eye - again? A sign, a bad joke or just a bad designer? Feel free to dive into thoughts about Free Masons, The Hand, Illuminati, the significance of 23- I havent found the Pyramid sofar, but it is surely there somehwere, between SuperContext and Barblith (now those are two things I feel I feel I could connect to but thats part of another entry of this blog a little later): Anyway YOU MUST READ MORE GRANT MORRISON! you will see why when you did. if you allowed yourselves to understand...






And by its name!
Why would you want a second life? Longer possibly, another afterwards ok, but an exchange live? Is your first one - and to be precise dont call either one the REAL LIFE!! - so miserable? What about those that have a really miserable life, say those that are starving to death, suffer violence or war. But still have energy and resources to go venture virtual? Well those are surely you are misdirecting then and this is phlegm in its worst from.
So your living conditions aren't so bad then, on the global scale. Now: dont you LOVE to be you? hmmm maybe you are YOU in SecondLife too, or more there, or only there? WHY the hell? Dont you love to be here, that is in your first live? I could imagine some instance where people would want to go virtual, would want to be immersed, get rid of a body that is say disabled, but that is not what this all is about, isnt it?
Oh no!
This is about living the 7 deadly sins to their full extend, isnt it?

Greed
So here you have the perfect virtual real estate - and forget for a moment about financing hardware - once of the first things you see is that you can purchase!!!! real estate with virtual money. Not even talking about the option to exchange US$ for virtual $. Now why not come up with a perfect world, why not come up with a world where there are no boundaries, there is no class differences?
This is NOT about compensation - do not bullshit me - this is about power, the need to oppress and control
Ahh, and from Greed we directly come to Trickerywhich is triggered by it, and then to Lying, and that brings up a totally new question: is this place more honest - or a much bigger lie! I think it is the escape from reality, which brings us to Sloth (as I mentioned above).
Lazyness - originally Sadness - or uneasness of the mind, discontent
Dante calls it the absence of love: and hey guess what, this is the reason you poor fuckers come here... too lazy to change base reality...
or are you just too scared to change…

Gluttony, another vice of excess
Well in virtual terms, I dont believe in that, and the concept is meaningless, once Greed is resolved. But as we apparently are little greedy bastards, and lazy ones as well, so we need this as a control function. But surely, only very little control in virtual terms would be required to manage all this, say by meassuring usage and impact to others? Truly, virtual resources come free (except where they interface with the real world in say storage, computing power, etc. but this could be paid by fixed fees, not by a full market system in place to make some fuckers exploit (addicted?) users). Now I have just read that there is a security flaw that allows to copy code and reuse code used for buildings, clothes, etc within SecondLife, and that this is assumed to possibly destroy not only its economy, but the entire concept. How interesting? If I created something, why would I be bothered if other people used it as well, except if I had paid for it or was extremely selfish… (I get the copyright protection issue, and why it might be necessary to pay for someone to design, but again this is not what my ranting is about). Now thanks for showing this security gap, it is unlikely though people will learn from it, rather they will try to close it…

Lust
ah yeah, detraction from the love to god - or the powers that be - hmm not talking about that here - () - excessive love of yourself (that is more one of the above), or others, especially should harm come to them hmm we all get that - the desire for excitement, specifically sexuality. I guess we all agree that this sin is about control. Control yourself (good), control thy neighbour or citizen (bad). In this case, I guess - at least as the current authorities would view it - we should actually support this sin.
What does that mean in terms of 2ndLife? Ha! Very simple: Currently it doesnt work. You CANT shag online, well you can, but then what, get your webcam out, your cybersuit on, some iVibrator, and off we go.
Clearly only half optimal solution - currently
or do I personally just not get the fascination of virtual sex? Am I missing something here? Reason this is so important is that quite some people claim that online relationships have serious advantages (at the beginning at least)… hmm

Pride and Arrogance
I must say, I do not fully subscribe to this being the most original and serious sin: As self-aware beings, we are - by design - allowed a certain pride in who we are, what we do…, and we are allowed a certain arrogance over those who don't use their capabilities to the fullest (not those with lesser capabilities).
But it is also clear, why this is called "The devil's favourite sin..." all the things people do out of pride, arrogance and overestimation of their abilities: creating hierarchy, classes, castes, the arrogance of those in power above those who are not.
So, SecondLifers, do you love yourselves too much or not at all? How about your love/tolerance towards others? Do you create bridges or walls with SecondLife, do you share, enhance others, or just improve yourselves?

By the way, by now you must have realized that this is not about the sins in relation to God - whatever that concept might mean to you - but about relation between other living beings. Hmm that actually brings an important aspect to mind, about whether AI and social-genetic-group-ideas or hive-minds are actual beings... surely worth another entry.

Wrath, Hatred and Anger, Envy and Jealousy
Lets see where we go with virutal environments in the future, I can well imagine having certain real estates for certain groups, cant you? Do you remember this C64 game that went along the lines of "How many Jews do you want to kill today..." Now SecondLife seems closely controlled and not more prone to those sins than the normal world, but think about what you could do to an Avatar : if you could… and no one new… Now obviously this would be true of every virtual environment.

***

So go to hell
you weak and greedy bastards, flee into your virtual world, and let the real one go wasted, but believe me, you will feel the effects, you will just be more miserable in base reality, and we are not yet in a state where you watch with awe endless rows of full-body immersion tanks with sleepers illuminated in fluorescent green, dreaming endless virtual dreams, under 1000ands of meters of ice age ice. You will have to face base reality from time to time and it will hit you everytime harder…

But I'd love Virtual Reality
Get me right, I understand the advantages, I would love to be able to fly, to change appearance, to model and build, to create, to interact in better and more comprehensive ways. But in a truly democratic, non-capitalist, non-totalitarian and non-fascist system only! Where there is true freedom and liberty for the individual and neither control of the any body nor control of the masses, nor of any kind of market. Ok, certain rules must exist, I understand, but there are better ones. (I just wanted to say than market-economies and what evolution is based on, hmm need to think about that actually).
I also understand why we need early adopters, and for that I salute thee, but you see that this is going in the wrong direction, nothing good will come out of this. In the best case it will be equal to the shitty (is it really?) situation we have right now

And do not join
Do NOT feel pressured to participate, just because SUN now have their SecondLife presence, and their CEO fraternizes with the common avatars. DONT! He is not here to have fun, otherwise he wouldnt tell all those newspapers about it. He is here because he is afraid to miss out. What? Business I guess. And you are the lambs driven to consumption.

But we like it, let us have some fun, please
you say. Right, then be honest, do something that is a game, play HalfLife or Halo for Christ's sake! No pretence here, it is what it says on the package.

And believe me, it is NOT BETTER than the real thing
At the current state of technology - mainly interfaces - it cannot be even equal. Dont believe the brainwashing bullshit they feed you about "community". Have you ever seen Democracy working? Why should this be different, except that this is better controlled? But - you say - we can vote with our feet, or can hack it - can you? - and if you can, or participate in baseworld demorcacy, why dont you buy some guns and shoot some baseworld presendents for a start? That would so some good. But you wont, you are lazy [sic!] and your are afraid[sic!]!!!! So you dont deserve better!!!!!!!

Dont by beauty magazines (they will only make you feel ugly) and dont immserse yourselves in SecondLife (you know why by now and if you dont, you are just pretending)

So, closing off
Why is it that most people in SecondLife do not build those fantastic castles the dreamt of as children, but replicate fucking deepest suburbia here? Create a 1:1 copy of their "sad" lives? Their bad branded clothes, their worse cars and badly build, badly furnished houses?
If you believe this to be an argument against me claiming that people want to escape base-reality, then why the fuck replicate I at all?
No I guess it is because, people have those extreme dreams, but when it comes to realizing them - in base or virtual reality - they are all just weak and lazy, very sad fucks…

Fucking hell, invest dreams, energy, resources and capabilities in one world and don't fritter them around to create bad copies of mediocre originals!!!