I've been playing around with Second Life a bit lately, and pretty much just wandering about aimlessly trying to figure out what exactly I'm doing in a virtual world like this, when I suddenly had something of a mild revelation today.

I'd been thinking that the way to take advantage of an environment like Second Life (or "SL") is to do things in a virtual world that you can't do in real life (or "RL" in SL-speak). OK, that may sound pretty obvious, and to a certain extent it is, but a lot of what actually goes on in Second Life -- apart from the flying avatars -- is mostly just imitating the real world. The problem, though, is coming up with a good idea for something that can't (currently) be done in RL.

Then I got an issue of What Is Enlightenment? in the mail, and on the cover in great big letters it says "searching for utopia"! So I thought to myself, "That's the ultimate thing that can't be done in the real world, so why not explore that in Second Life in some way?"

OK, I'm not suggesting that utopia can be achieved in Second Life, but it might be the kind of environment in which you could play around with what the word "utopia" might actually mean. I've never been a big fan of any kind of "utopian quests", but thinking about this now, I realize that the main reason for that is that virtually all examples of such hypothetical worlds I've ever come across are handicapped by various first-tier belief systems, and so are not what you might call "integral utopias".

So what would an "integral utopia" be like? I think I'll leave that for future entries.

Ciao for now!
Grey

Well, after reading some WIE? articles and doing a bit of "networking" in Second Life, I can confidently state that I've found the secret to utopia!

Just kidding... obviously. It is, however, very clear that "community" is the key concept to focus on. And in an "integral" sense, of course. So an evolving, developing community that recognizes the strengths and special natures of all members of the community at whatever altitude they happen to be.

I guess my main complaint with most "utopias" (or attempted utopias) that I've come across (and I'm no expert...) is that they seek this perfect state by excluding people from the community and by carefully selecting its members, either that or by aggressively controlling the members it happens to have in order to ensure that they conform to some standard (and I'm thinking of both actual and fictional utopian communities here, just to be clear).

This leads to at least two problems: (1) any utopia-esque community you might achieve is restricted to an "elite" group and essentially ignores the needs of those outside the community (and often ignores the reality outside the community); and (2) with a carefully controlled group, there's a tendency to stagnate.

What does this have to do with Second Life? I'm not sure, but one thing that SL is able to do is to bring together people from all over the world with all sorts of different points of view, so stagnation is pretty much a non-issue. Of course, that's pretty much true of the internet in general, but interacting with others through avatars has a different feel than simple IM or discussion forums.

But I guess I'm still too new at this whole SL thing (and it's too late at night) for me to speculate too much about the different dynamics of a virtual world right now.

More later,
Grey

Well, this wasn't really presented as advice, but the first time I met Evonne (in Second Life), pretty much the first thing she said to me was "What do you love?" Seems like a relatively innocent question on the surface, but being dropped like a bomb by someone I'd just met, it really made me step back and think... for several days afterwards! ;-)  (I suppose it didn't help that it was like my first or second time "in-world", too, so I had no idea what to expect from the whole experience.)

Anyway, it made me realize that I should have been much more prepared to answer a question like that no matter who was asking, so now I try to keep Love as persistent in my awareness as I can.

Peace and Love,

Grey

I just happened upon this article in The Independent today:

Cow 'emissions' more damaging to planet than CO2 from cars

I knew about most of the environmental factors mentioned in this article, which are the main reason I'm (mostly) a vegan, but I had no idea that cow farts are actually a major contributor to greenhouse gases (no pun intended).

The UN report mentioned in the article, Livestock's Long Shadow, actually makes a couple of all-too-brief references to vegetarianism as a factor that could help improve the situation, but it seems to me that a radical shift away from a dependence on meat and dairy products in our diets is the only way to bring about sustainable improvements.

I don't think we all necessarily have to become vegan, and in fact I eat meat and cheese on occasion when I go out with friends, but there's absolutely no reason to eat nearly as much meat as most people in the developed world eat.

Veg out!
Grey

Or how about AQALCO as a blog title? ;-)

OK, one last post about AGLOCO, at least for a while until I see how things develop from here.

I was writing an e-mail to friends and family about AGLOCO earlier today, thinking about how they might react to the message, when I had something of a minor revelation. One of my main qualms about the whole thing is that it seems like such an "orange" (see What Is Altitude?) capitalist, materialistic undertaking. You know, "money for nothing", "get-rich-quick schemes", that kind of thing. And, naturally enough, most AGLOCO members will be attracted to it precisely for that reason.

But what if you took whatever money you earned on AGLOCO and used it for a worthy cause (say, sponsoring Zaadz ;-) or lending money through Kiva)? And what if you used that premise as a means of building a network of other people committed to doing the same thing? Maybe all working for the same cause? Well, then all of a sudden at least one "line" of the service has jumped to a whole new "level" (or "altitude"), out of orange and into green or even second tier (teal or turquoise).

I don't know how the whole company share allocation thing will work, and it's probably too early to speculate since no one has actually started earning shares yet, but with a portion of the company's shareholders actually being "integrally informed", it may even be possible to influence (however slightly) the direction in which the company evolves.

Anyway, just something to think about. It probably won't change the world, but it couldn't hurt. And I mean, if you don't do something like this, the money will just go to someone else who'll most likely use it for their own selfish purposes.

Cheers,
Grey