We've had a lot of wonderful guests in Extropia, but next Sunday we're going to have a very special visitor! 

Robert J. Sawyer (SF Writer in SL) will be joining us for a discussion of his novels and his visions of the future, in life extension, robotics, artificial intelligence, SETI, inter-species ethics and many more fascinating topics. And, he'll be sticking around afterwards to join the Extropia Book Club in a discussion of his latest novel, Rollback,  just named as a finalist for the Hugo Award!

Please join us at noon, in the Central Nexus in Extropia Core, Extropia, Second Life!

Robert J. Sawyer — called "the dean of Canadian science fiction" by The Ottawa Citizen and "just about the best science-fiction writer out there these days" by The Denver Rocky Mountain News — is one of only seven writers in history to win all three of the science-fiction field's top honors for best novel of the year:

• the World Science Fiction Society's Hugo Award, which he won in 2003 for his novel Hominids;

• the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Nebula Award, which he won in 1996 for his novel The Terminal Experiment;

• and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, which he won in 2006 for his novel Mindscan.

Rob is also the only writer in history to win the top SF awards in the United States, China, Japan, France, and Spain. In addition, he's won an Arthur Ellis Award from the Crime Writers of Canada as well as nine Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards ("Auroras").

Maclean's: Canada's Weekly Newsmagazine says, "By any reckoning, Sawyer is among the most successful Canadian authors ever," and Barnes and Noble calls him "the leader of SF's next-generation pack."

Rob's novels are top-ten national mainstream bestsellers in Canada, appearing on the Globe and Mail and Maclean's bestsellers' lists, and they've hit #1 on the bestsellers' list published by Locus, the U.S. trade journal of the SF field. His seventeen novels include Frameshift, Factoring Humanity, Flashforward, Calculating God, and the popular "Neanderthal Parallax" trilogy consisting of Hominids, Humans, and Hybrids.

A Vision of Extropia

 
“Freedom Through Fun” – Richard A. Bartle

“If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution” – Emma Goldman

“The emergence of virtual worlds in the commercial entertainment sector represents a fascinating experiment in social policy: a test of whether it is possible to create an entire society in which the primary goal of government is to help people have fun” – Edward Castronova

 
Over the next week, we’re going to be asking the Citizens of Extropia some questions, to get a sense of what their vision of Extropia is, and what they want and don’t want from a participatory community. These are my answers.

 

It was a short but very full week!

Exhausted after the Solstice Party, I took most of the holiday week off, turning things over to the Other Personality in the atomic world. Friday saw me back in the social swing, with a *full* day. Saturday was unforgettable, as we opened the Extropian Embassy in Al Andalus with a great party, then went right into Extropia's first Town Hall meeting.

There was a lot distateful about the past few days, but I have my family, and we are strong.

	A Chorus Line
	Family time in Argent's ship
	Celebrating Natsumi's Rezday
	Embassy opening in Al Andalus
	Dedication to Gala: October 4, 1957
	Extropia's first Town Hall
	...turned into a zoo!
	Chilling to Grace
	Coming down
	Devotion
	WTA-SL meeting
	ready for a Board meeting

It was a completely insane idea: a 12 hour marathon party, booked chock-full of SL's best entertainment, to raise funds for Uthango Social Investments' Virtual Africa. Thing is, it worked!

An hour before the party officially started, it was already going strong, and 13 hours later, when DJ keTchUp wrapped his brilliant new-music set to close  us down for the night, 15 people stayed to dance and chat!  We finally closed up after 15 hours and $L90,610 raised for Uthango!

Special thanks to the amazing talent who turned out for us, and who stayed to play, dance and donate: DJs Vannesh Cannoli, Seven Shikami, Reactor Radio's Nicki Petrichor and Clockwork's DJ keTchUp, Alexander Burgess, as well as special guest performer Grace McDunnough.

Thanks to Jen Shikami and Meissa Thorne for donating party favors - brilliant holly wings from Jen and a full kit of holiday gear from Meissa!

Thanks also to Grace, Michel Manen and Nepherses Amat for bringing their crowds to mix & mingle with us - we all made a lot of new friends through that long night!

Thanks so much to Meissa and to my love galatea_gynoid for going the distance, to Jen for keeping me sane, and to dearest
argent_bury for revitalizing me!

Never, never, *never* again!

Um, till this Saturday, when we're throwing a party in Al Andalus, with DJ Nicki Petrichor, from 11am to 1pm SLT....  :P

Yesterday Virtual Worlds News released the results of a questionnaire about the coming year in virtual worlds that was sent to a bunch of industry  leaders. Aleister Kronos, shockingly overlooked by them, gave us his own and challenged us to reply ourselves.  Here's my list of answers:

1. What are your top 3 trend predictions for 2008?
1. Along with everybody else, I think kids' worlds are going to be where a lot of the action - in numbers and controversy - is going to be.
2. But, not entirely. The first sports MMOs will blow WOW out of the water and see *serious* mainstreaming.
3. There's going to be a significant shifting of the balance of power towards users/residents/citizens.
2. What business goals have you set for 2008?
1. Creating and enacting a business plan that keeps us expanding and a tiny bit profitable.
2. Within that, 15 sims by our anniversary.
3. On a monthly basis, see Board-organized events making up less than 20% of what goes on in Extropia.
3. What challenges do you expect 2008 to bring to the virtual worlds industry?
1. I got nothin'.
   
4. A number of platforms will be launching in 2008. What impacts will this have on the industry?
1. A lot of these worlds that flunk the Bury Test will fail.
2. Open source worlds and design-your-own worlds will be *much* bigger than the pundits recognize.
3. The overall quality of mainstream reporting will increase, as the coverage moves past the half-hour visitation and sex/pedo/griefing coverage, to regular beats.
5. How will the changes affect your industry segment in 2008?
1. We probably won't have the time or capital to take advantage of people's disillusion with packaged-product worlds.
2. OpenSim is a big wildcard.
   
3. There is no 3 :)

Predictions for the metaverse in 2008 and beyond:

• Kids' worlds are a natural focus for community. Kids naturally form communities, and are used to some structure in doing that: play dates, teams, and so on. Of course, there's so much money to be made from them that there will be companies willing to invest the time in community formation, and trying until they get it right.

• Once they do, watch out! Already there's a generation that fully expects the social ties of childhood and college to continue indefinitely - that's a big part of what drives Facebook. Once a generation grows up in Club Penguin and Habbo Hotel, they're in synthetic worlds for the next century - forever, if we get that pesky mortality thing licked on schedule!

• Broadcast media, and "bowling alone" are dead, fading away along with all the other mistakes and horrors of the 20th Century. Just as it's been through all the rest of human history, our entertainment will be primarily social again.
  

• Government will be taken back by the people. By professionalizing creativity, the broadcast media contributed to the personal disempowerment of 20th Century society. A generation that makes its own movies, builds its own houses, tells its own stories, maintains its own communities - will govern itself too.
  

• All this means that despite the weirdly gleeful predictions (perpetuating the cycle of psychic abuse?) of a number of pundits, the frontier isn't closed. We're not about to get paved over by the old atomic-world order. If the dinosaurs don't stomp us right now - and I actually think it's too late for that - we small mammals of Digital community are just going to replace them as evolution's next big thing.
  

Predictions for our little corner (the Extropia FemtoVerse?):

• 15 sims by our first anniversary should be no big deal. If Caledon can be in the mid-30s and make money, Extropia can too. We're in remarkably the same market - positive, polite community - but we might have lower barriers to entry. There's still a perception that you have to dress and talk differently to be in Caledon, and, gods know, *anything* goes in Extropia (as long as it's positive and polite!)!
  

• Once we really connect our network with the people building the future - the groups of the SciLands in particular - we'll be unstoppable. They know building, we know community. One of the things we geeks want most is to *belong* - and belonging is what Extropia's all about. We just need to reach the nodal points that'll enable us to spread the word.
  

• It's all about a mix of social events and hangout spaces. That's hard: I've seen wonderful hangout spaces that don't draw and keep a crowd, and been to great events that get people talking to each other, but then disperse them all, with noplace to hang and chat, or to come back to and find them around. Dr Dobbs Amphiteater + Diversionarium = WIN.
  

• It seems to me - from thinking and from The Diamond Age, rather than from any experience of Caledon - that one of the attractions of Victoriana is the combination of politeness and the willingness to bust heads to maintain it. That's a hard balance, between freedom and gentility. I predict we'll have some High Drama in Extropia before we find the sweet spot.

• One anti-prediction: we're not going to go the way of the City of Rapture, any similarities notwithstanding!

• Our mission in Extropia is to enable people to build a fun, future-friendly community. But, like our friends in Al Andalus, another goal is to set an example, to show atomic-world people they don't need to settle for crappy governments, communities, livelihoods. It seems that Wired might get behind our message.

Extropia is one month old today. 

On November 11, we threw our grand opening party.  At the time, Extropia was an atoll of empty hexagons, with only the Salon area of the Nexus, my house and Galatea's launchpad and orbital station.  Today we're fully occupied, with 13 Citizens moved in and four on the formal wait list for the next sim.

I've been thinking the past week or so about what we're doing and why, what we've done right and what we need to work on...


Who is Extropia?

Extropia is its Citizens.  It's not us on the Board, something it seems some visitors don't understand.  We need to clarify that, as part of a better welcome and orientation experience overall. The Board isn't ESC or Rezzibles. We're not here to build some complete, fixed vision to entertain an audience. Our mission is to enable others, to provide the infrastructure and community that can call forth the creative potential of anyone who comes to visit or to live with us.

So, Extropia is:

• 13 Citizens
• 9 primarily residential properties, 2 organizational and 3 commercial
• 6 Immersionists and 7 Augmentationists (more or less!)
  
• 6 in European timezones, 7 in US timezones
• 11 women and 2 men
• 1 major public works build, 1 nature preserve and 1 municipal park
• 4 builds at high altitude
• 11 original builds
• 2 prefabs, both homes of Directors who're too busy with public works to build their own houses

Why Extropia?

Extropia is a home, a haven for people who believe in the future.  Last week I met Glaistig Rocokoko and Masami Yokosuka, both in their first month or so in world. They both reminded me of what it was like to be new here - it's terrifyingly lonely, underneath the excitement of discovering a new world. It's incredibly hard to *belong,* for some of us. Some communities are great at finding and taking in newcomers: furries, goths, Goreans have places to go that are welcoming.  For others, it's much harder. I knew Glaistig from Virtual Worlds Connect, and met Masami through Argent, who met her on the road. Their first night in Extropia, they joined a pickup party on my balcony - and we were instantly all old friends there, comfortable and natural.  *At home.* 

We created Extropia as a home for ourselves, and as an opportunity for people like us to hang out, make friends, move in. So far it's working way beyond our most hopeful projections.


What's next?

Our next SIM will be ready for occupancy no later than February 1, and possibly much earlier, if an arrangement we're discussing works out. We haven't gotten to the details yet, and some of that will depend on whether this arrangement works.  If it doesn't, we'll solicit input from everyone on the Extropians list - single prim, double prim or something in between?  Expansion of the hex atoll, or more land?  It will be residential/organizational, though.

After that, we're planning a low-prim expansion to give us more sailing and flying room, and to house a surfing beach/yacht club/aerodrome.  We're also planning a deco undersea city, a completely-built downtown of futuristic skyscrapers, and a few other things, including a semi-official welcome/orientation portal, a la CSI or The L Word (default avs? space kitties! Barbarella! mecha! Flash Gordon!).  Our target is 15 sims in a year, if there's enough interest, and we can somehow find financing.


What can we do better?

We need to do a *much* better job of providing information for visitors (If I ever find the people who were complaining about our two prefabs, they are *seriously* going to regret the day they were rezzed!).  As things stand now, we really don't have any orientation information, except for the notecard in the gift bags which we give out in the Nexus.  Maybe a visitor will run into me or Vidal when we're around.  Maybe they'll find some Citizens to talk to.  Maybe they'll run into someone who gives a *very* unofficial perspective on what Extropia is like.  The future's too important to leave to chance like that.  Good stores have paid greeters; we need some too, for what seem to be our peak hours of late nights in Central Europe and the US West.

The Board can stand to coordinate better, too: we're *very* strong-willed people, all on really divergent schedules. It's natural for us to Just Do Stuff, working on our own assumptions, rather than coordinating.  So far it hasn't been a problem beyond the occasional "you did *what*??", and we've had a couple actual planning sessions in the past week.

We need to know what we don't know.  We need, if not a town hall meeting, given the diversity of the Citizens' schedules, *something* to get everyone brainstorming together.  I have a ritual of doing a flyby when I come in every morning, which is around the peak time for the Europeans, and checking in with whoever's around.  That's good, but we can do better. Toward that end, the last Sophrosyne's Saturday Salon of the year will be an open forum on the future of Extropia. Gods help us all!

We've got to balance growth and penetration - to get people moved into land of their own, while ensuring there are enough events, enough going on, to make it an interesting and worthwhile place to be. 

We can't do it all - in fact, we can't do much more than we're doing now.  We just don't have the time. 

We need club managers, DJs, event impresarios, a book club, groups coming in to use our spaces for their meetings.  We need everyone in the network to take one step up - from casual attendee to regular, from regular to Citizen, from Citizen to content producer, from content producer to manager, from manager to the Board.

Personally, my goal is to be *completely unnecessary* - for Extropia to have hit a level of complexity and self-organization where it runs under an invisible hand, rather than a desperately overworked managerial hand. I want to go dancing in Extropian clubs I didn't build, join groups in Extropia I've never heard of, attend events I didn't plan or advertise.  That's going to take years, but that's the dream. 

So, one month in, it's time to switch from doing it *now* to doing it *wonderfully,* before we expand, so we have a better template to grow from, and happy Citizens and visitors in the Core.


Extropia Day 1:



Extropia Day 30:

I had two hours early this morning, and I planned to sneak in and do some work on building my new house.  The Imperial Fortress isn't *exactly* a disgrace to Extropia - but *close*!  And, I like my new design - it'll work well with the hexagonal platforms in Extropia, be *much* lighter, and more intimate, I think.

Aaaaanyhoo, I rolled out of bed, and went for my morning flyby circuit - a new habit, to see what's gone on in town overnight.  There's always something new to see!

But this monring??  OMG!  The Chairman, galatea_gynoid, put in a couple *lovely* municipal parks! The one in the southwest corner, just below the launch platform, is going to become a favorite hangout of mine!  Needs an espresso cart, though...  :)

And, it was pretty busy - at least 4 people around on that flyby, not counting me!  I dropped in on iAlja Writer, met a DJ friend of hers (woot!), and got to see her new build in progress.  Then, Giulio Perhaps IM'd me, to come help with a test of his new videoconferencing system - which is fantastic, and gives us the capability of webcasting the Salons!  Amazing!  

I got slides for tomorrow's Salon from Al Kronos, vannesh told me she's holding her weekly Blues Night party in Extropia this week (Vanni, love, tell me in advance, and we can use the Extropia PR machine for this stuff!), Extropia DaSilva introduced me to two potential Salon Spotlight Guests, and a really special treat - my long lost friend, the amazingly gifted artist Diox Kohime dropped by!  

Oh, *and* IYan Writer let me take his new sailboat for a spin in the lagoon and out to sea - I'm a total klutz, but *omg fun*!!!   We'd mentioned to the Writers that we're planning a yacht club/aerodrome for one of our next SIMs, and after my first time sailing?  EXTROPIA YACHT CLUB FTW!!!!  

What an *amazing* morning!

And, nopes, I never even made it to my construction site, and ran 20 minutes over my time allotment....

That's my life in Extropia!

	iAlja's building her house!
	another overnight transformation!
	Giulio implements videoconferencing!
	taking IYan's newly-designed sailboat for a spin!
	the Writers' house! Diox!!

This was a big morning for Extropia's growth!  

My ongoing official brief is Marketing and External Relations - attracting supporters and potential Citizens, and building ties to other communities in Second Life.  We did some good today:

Next week we'll announce the details of a preliminary collaboration between Extropia and Second Life Africa: a contest to raise funds, awareness and literacy!

Also, Extropia and Al-Andalus will launch early next year a cross-cultural discussion series to examine the future of law and community!

We welcome the efforts of Second Life Africa and Al Andalus towards goals we hold in common: building a progessive, optimistic future of social, technological and psychological empowerment for all, and creating beautiful worlds worth living in.  We look forward to collaborations with anyone willing to work towards a positive future for our worlds.



We also welcomed Yel Oh as our newest citizen, with over 5,632 square meters of land claimed since Sunday alone!  We still have a beautiful lagoon-beach residential parcel, two commercial parcels, and our South Shore of residential hexagonal platforms available.

	Second Life Africa promotion planning
	Al Andalus/Extropia Discussion Series planning
	Extropia Core, day 19

It was a week of building and Windlight, as the Founding Citizens moved into Extropia. 

Life in Extropia continues to be a social blur - there's *always* people around, and new buildings springing up every day. We sold 4 1/2 more 1024 hex platforms this week - an upcoming mall and expansion space for several Citizens.

Despite the whirlwind of work, it was a wonderful family week.  The best thing, goddess, the most wonderful part of the week, I didn't get a single photo of: Argent's and my daughter, Ciel, dropped in last night for a nice long visit, and promises to be around regularly, now that the Extropia power plant's available to open a temporal portal.  I *did* manage to snag a copy of Ciel's profile photo - so if you see her around Extropia, welcome her - and *behave,* or two angry moms will be on your case!  :)


  (she *definitely* gets that seriousness - and the neckline! - from her other mom!)

	Extropia, Day 8
	Sleek
	Rolled out of bed and threw something on.... ;) dande and I admire Vidal, as Murasaki looks for bugs to munch....
	High Orbital Where the Chair gets away from it all...
	Book cover shot Hey, I don't do the vanity pics that often!
	Life in Extropia *always* a party, especially when the Subby Union is around!
	Over Baja Powerful wings are a plus in a spacefaring nation!
	Alanagh!!! Another wonderful Salon, with friend and frequent Extropia visitor, Alanagh Recreant!
	Faerie consecrates Argent's Lovelock Tree
	Beauty
	The old soldier cleans up good! :D
	Faerie, after hitting the martini pitcher.... :P
	Kit gets her dragon ride!
	Zada moves in
	Kate and me at Zada's technohenge
	The Extropian Embassy to Al-Andalus
	Coastal sunrise The dawn of Extropia's Week 3...

 

Our first Salon in Extropia was another huge hit!

Aemilius Cloetens (Michel Manen) gave us deep background on the history and culture of the original Al-Andalus, which has inspired his recreation of the community in SL through the Al-Andalus Project, then cheerfully joined in a spirited, direct and always respectful discussion of Islamic law and culture, the separation of church and state, cultural imperialism and authenticity, and much more.

I've never been prouder or more impressed by our wonderful Salon audiences - the quality of the discussion, the mutual respect, the breadth of knowledge is just unmatched anywhere in SL.  We drew 33 people, more than a third first-timers, and everyone including Aemilius had a terrific experience.

Except for our griefer, DameJuday Dench, who was swiftly evicted by our fearless Chair, galatea_gynoid!

The text of Michel's introductory remarks is available on my Extropia blog!  Now that we have a place to house them on the Extropia website, we're going to start making full transcripts of the Salons available as well.