Which sucks, because *I'm* terrifically busy.
Extropia's gone from one to six sims this month, and it's my job to get them rented up. I'm organizing two major events, each, oh, five times the size of anything I've done before. I'm paying tier on a gorgeous empty mall, and need to get commercial tenants in. I've got a page-long list of people I need to meet with on various things. And, I have a family that means the world to me, who I want to put first - but some of putting them first means working to keep me and the Chairman solvent, and get some other people paying tier in Extropia! So, not a good time to have my time squeezed to practically zero.
Anyhoo, I had the honor of participating in a panel debate yesterday at Orange Island, on Augmentation vs. Immersion. I was thrilled and a little intimidated to be included (and many thanks to Lillie Yifu for recommending me!): the moderator and panelists were people I deeply admire: Tom Bukowsky (Tom Boellstorff), author of the upcoming Coming of Age in Second Life, who moderated; Gwyneth Llewellyn and I represented the Immersionists, and Hiro Pendragon (Ron Blechner) and Giulio Perhaps (Giulio Prisco) showed up for the Augmentationists.
We'd discussed a number of debate questions in advance, from the narrow and legalistic to the political to the abstract - but we ended up being given five minutes each to speak freely, then time to respond. Between the makeup of the panel (all friends, all easygoing people), the lack of questions that got at disagreements, and the enormous amount of unmoderated audience participation, nothing really came of the hour. The best thing to be said about it was, everybody got to talk, and nobody left thinking that one "side" or the other was weird, hostile or illegitimate.
So, I'd chalked up the experience as "pleasant but insubstantial," and went fishing. Now fishing? That was a good time ($L1 scripted rods and open fishing on Tycho Beach, right by the flagpole)! But,
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argent_bury asked for a chatlog, and responded with a critical analysis of the issues that *should* have been raised yesterday. Go read her post. I'll wait right here. It's really worth it.
I think her first point cuts to the heart of the real distinction in perspectives: is SL for you a place or a tool? Everything else, from standards of identity and trust to "A/S/L," follows from that.
Despite the huge differences in our personalities, and in our lives in SL, Argent and I see the world in just about exactly the same way, so her nine points are mine as well. I'll just add a few paraphrasings:
- I live here. Maybe to you it's Vegas, or Tijuana, a place to avoid responsibility. To me, it's home. So, if you treat me and mine like you're on Spring Break? It won't go well. Also, I have a responsible job with a group that's made a significant investment in SL. You want grounds for trust? There you go: I'm a stakeholder here.
- You can talk to me about your life and whatever's important in it. I'm happy to listen and to help. When I reciprocate, I'll share about my life too - which, see above, is *here.* I'm not holding back; I'm giving you all I've got. And yes, I may freak out on you about how busy I am, how I'm feeling the burden of my job, how I wish I had more family time,
how I wish I had a weekend to spend tied up, gagged and fucked brainless. You ask for it, you'll get it. :P
- I think the business community, where I spend a lot of my time, is the wrong place to look for people who don't respect immersionists. The business people who don't get SL, who talk trash about finding, say, a goth chick with wings and neko eyes at their meeting? They're not inworld. The people who are, they understand that SL is a foreign market much like any other, and when you do business in one, you learn and respect their customs if you want to make a sale. The business and content creation communities get that, and I've never had anything but respect in them. Government and education? You'll find a lot of two year old playdo avs, ignorance and disregard for customs. They don't have to respect or serve their customers in the same way in their first lives, and they seem much more likely to be oblivious to the culture in SL as well.
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The lovefest was a nice thing, but there are principled disagreements that go beyond personal choice: what level of identification do you require in business, frex.
There's definitely room in the market for a deeper and richer exploration of these issues.
Honestly, I look up to you, love. I play, and I'm trying to create now and give back to the world, but you work, and in my book that gives you a lot more legitimacy than I'll ever have.
And, working among atomic people you've got a lot better handle on what attitudes towards the digital are. Every time I write a "meta" post I worry, "Am I overreacting? Are things really that bad?" Right now I don't think they are, and may never be, if we keep the dialogue open.
Honestly, I'd much rather spend time teaching myself to build better and making something that affects how people feel and think. In fact, I think I'll get on that right now.
@Grace - I agree that good definitions can help dialogue, even if it's just acting a sort of shorthand in conversation. I'm personally pretty fond of the "original" definitions of the terms posted at slecreativity. I guess what I wanted to do with the meme I posted was to see just how able those definitions are at covering the broad range of convictions individuals have about SL.
That was me, Argent, posting above. I'm into pseudonymity, not anonymity. :P
Gods know, without your strength and support, I couldn't keep doing this -
http://transumanar.com/index.php/site/mo
I think the point dandellion makes is valid, but works both ways, the immersionist do a great job of alienating the 'business' community as well. (though its not just the business community that usually fails to recognise the immersionists!)
Its not willing intolerance, its a failure to understand AND explain - in this I think Orange made a mistake in taken 4 participants from the SL community, as they speak the same language even though their views may differ.
Posted my take on the discussion, the even and list of 3 over on http://digado.nl/immersionism-and-augmen
Or do you mean "alienate" in the way that they treat us - with vocal hostility and open contempt? Unrefutable accusations of "escapism," for example?
I've never seen immersionist hostility to business in SL - quite the opposite, as many of us *are* SL entrepreneurs and content creators, as we have a greater stake in SL as a marketplace and community than any external enterprise ever could.
As to the first, well, that's true of every minority *by definition* - we talk funny, dress funny, eat weird food, listen to "that noise" instead of proper music, believe in radicalism and superstition instead of proper politics and religion. That's what a minority *is.*
We're not doing it to piss off the mainstream culture. Frankly, we spend most of our time *hiding* from the mainstream culture, because we don't like being on the receiving end of anger and scorn.
But when people from the mainstream culture take offense at our self-expression? That's not us being antagonistic, most of the time. That's them being prejudiced.
Thankfully, and surprisingly, there was not a bit of that prejudice expressed at the Orange Island event - which as Giulio says, gives some hope for humanity.
You are mentioning failure to understand and explain. Well, I am not asserting that I understand everything in SL, that moment I will write a so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish post and close my blog. But I am sure that I do understand a lot of sub-communities and lifestyles in SL. You know, beside hanging around meeting people, exploring sims building and writing, I do have business meetings in SL, I do (though don't like to) talk as my human, meet people who I know in meatspace too, I even used voice (via Skype though). So don't tell me that I don't understand augmentatist position cause I am augmentationist (which is the point of What Are Immersion And Augmentation (http://metaverse.acidzen.org/2008/what-are-immersion-and-augmentation) post). I do extend my human into metaverse via digital persons.
Only form of "intolerance" one can see from me (and I believe that is the case with Soph and many more) is reaction on griefing and sometimes on noob avatars of the several months old residents. Well, maybe the later is not a quite nice behaviour, but if you came into the virtual world, as a augmentative businessman, then show a little understanding and respect for the environment and people around you and get some hair and something bretter than plain color skin.
The only thing I've criticized you for is for applying the "escapist" level in the face of evidence to the contrary.
I'm not angry, and I don't disrespect you - and I think that, as was the case among the panelists, our points of agreement vastly outnumber our disagreements.
1) Well if you use Dandellions Wikipedia copy/paste definition you've shown it to the contrary - as I commented on. That is not, however, the entire definition and certainly not the way I see it as I've explained. As you said, there is really no point in going over the yes/no thing, but it would certainly help to counter the right arguments and definitions and ironically again, dandellion who was quite right to point this out in her blogpost.
"...failure to understand or explain, or accused you of ignorance."
2) That was the point and the context of the post you've linked to, and the debate 'a mix of cultures' was about, understanding between 2 'cultures' rather then to concern ourselves with exactly the above, definitions :)
Only form of "intolerance" one can see from me (and I believe that is the case with Soph and many more) is reaction on griefing and sometimes on noob avatars of the several months old residents.
Sophrosyne Stenvaag: “Thankfully, and surprisingly, there was not a bit of that prejudice expressed at the Orange Island event - which as Giulio says, gives some hope for humanity.”
You need these kind of confrontations, understand and contradict the 'not so immersed sub-community' with these prejudices to help those people with these beliefs understand you. In avoiding them you alienate yourself as well. This works both ways.