Second Life, and sharding

[Chroma Starlight]

If, hypothetically speaking, Second Life were a social sharding system, how would you want for that to work?

What would your fears or concerns be? What questions and social implications would you contemplate?

Would you pragmatically justify such a system as one way of scaling socially?

Who or what would govern such a system? A czar? A tribunal? A congress? Direct democracy? Whuffie? Individuals put on the spot to make summary judgements without context or insight?

How would it work on a place like Second Life where people are connected together in such elaborate social graphs? Wouldn't you inevitably have to divide reality according to some kind of social rank for it to be functional? Would it be that only the people on the outer layer are left in the darkness? Assuming this system was far beyond the capability of the resources in place in 2004, at some point there would have to be a transition. How would that work? According to which rules?

What if this hypothetical sharding system miscalculates or overreacts because it does not understand and never tried asking?

What if there were people who knew about it and abused that knowledge to harm people according to personal agendas? What if they co-created the conditions necessary to ensure their secret enemies never progressed in their Second Life?

How would there even be any mobility through such a system, when everyone is keeping secrets, blocking the free flow of light, and executing judgements with real consequence for those unwittingly being sharded away from their actual worlds.

What are the up-sells in your mind? Those were the fears, but fear is illusionary. What are the flip-side advantages of having a world with layers? Is it worth the inevitable cost that human systems will always eventually err because of what world(s) it protects or enables?

What are the good questions we're not hitting here? This is spooky stuff, perfect for Halloween, right?

At times, like between 2013-2015, it felt like all the stars in my sky were going out one by one without explanation. It was a pretty terrible, almost apocalyptic, feeling, and we vibed on that feeling for a very long time.

Edited October 31, 2020 by Chroma Starlight
boo!

[animats]

22 minutes ago, Chroma Starlight said:

Second Life were a social sharding system

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Sharding in games means having multiple copies of the same area so that more people can be in it at the same time. It's what you do when your MMO can't handle many users at once. Sansar had shards. Fortnite has shards. The whole point of Second Life is that it's one big world and doesn't need shards.

[Chroma Starlight]

34 minutes ago, animats said:

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Sharding in games means having multiple copies of the same area so that more people can be in it at the same time. It's what you do when your MMO can't handle many users at once. Sansar had shards. Fortnite has shards. The whole point of Second Life is that it's one big world and doesn't need shards.

There are surely other ways a sharding system might be conceived and devised. You're describing sharding systems for worlds that are essentially non-persistent stages for waves of players to move through, but something like that would never make sense for Second Life because this isn't a game, people come here for a meeting of minds (among other things). Second Life is an Etheric plane of being with a computer-based UI. It's quite something.

Edited October 31, 2020 by Chroma Starlight
typo

[Rowan Amore]

38 minutes ago, animats said:

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Sharding in games means having multiple copies of the same area so that more people can be in it at the same time. It's what you do when your MMO can't handle many users at once. Sansar had shards. Fortnite has shards. The whole point of Second Life is that it's one big world and doesn't need shards.

I'm sure there's probably a Republican conspiracy in there somewhere.  😯 🎃

[Nalates Urriah]

No no no... they keep telling you it is a Russian conspiracy... ask Hunter.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

2 hours ago, Chroma Starlight said:

There are surely other ways a sharding system might be conceived and devised. You're describing sharding systems for worlds that are essentially non-persistent stages for waves of players to move through, but something like that would never make sense for Second Life because this isn't a game, people come here for a meeting of minds (among other things). Second Life is an Etheric plane of being with a computer-based UI. It's quite something.

Shards are definitely used for persistent worlds as well, it could theoretically work for Second Life, but probably not in practice.

Regardless of what we call it -- you'll have to explain what you mean by "sharding." Otherwise this convo is going to be pretty aimless.

[Chroma Starlight]

35 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Shards are definitely used for persistent worlds as well, it could theoretically work for Second Life, but probably not in practice.

Regardless of what we call it -- you'll have to explain what you mean by "sharding." Otherwise this convo is going to be pretty aimless.

What I mean here when I speak of sharding would be any situation where people could go from existing together in a conventional sense to finding themselves apart despite sharing x,y,z proximity as a base function of the grid, though the details of that might easily be quite complex and varied depending upon the amount of virtual hyperdimensionality that this flavor of sharding might create. It sounds like a function of the world as described but it could as easily be a function of agents and avatars and the light or energy or information that they emit, flowing across the grid of the base virtual material world like ghosts as far as those in the lower planes might be concerned or normally able to perceive.

So that's one way sharding might work for Second Life; an extension of the classic grid that creates a space to exist 'between' the other three main coordinates for those who have so ascended from one to another.

Edited October 31, 2020 by Chroma Starlight

[Wulfie Reanimator]

50 minutes ago, Chroma Starlight said:

What I mean here when I speak of sharding would be any situation where people could go from existing together in a conventional sense to finding themselves apart despite sharing x,y,z proximity as a base function of the grid, though the details of that might easily be quite complex and varied depending upon the amount of virtual hyperdimensionality that this flavor of sharding might create. It sounds like a function of the world as described but it could as easily be a function of agents and avatars and the light or energy or information that they emit, flowing across the grid of the base virtual material world like ghosts as far as those in the lower planes might be concerned or normally able to perceive.

So that's one way sharding might work for Second Life; an extension of the classic grid that creates a space to exist 'between' the other three main coordinates for those who have so ascended from one to another.

The biggest technical hurdle LL would have to solve is the fact that anyone can change the world in any unpredictable way.

Sure, you can have multiple instances of a sim, so that 500 people can exist within it, even if only up to 100 of them can see each other. But what happens when somebody rezzes an object? Does that object get rezzed in every shard?

And what happens when objects are scripted to interact with avatars, such as speak to them or even follow them? It would be pretty weird to see objects floating about and interacting with non-existing avatars.

Or maybe whenever a new shard is created, it starts from some backup save and the changes in one shard don't affect another. But then what decides that backup point and how do you make sure it can't be used to exploit something like the permission system? What happens when an avatar leaves the sim (shard) and immediately teleports back in, into a different shard which might be in a slightly/completely different state?

Even the persistent worlds of other games are relatively static, with the dynamic content (items you can pick up, enemies, some mini-events, etc) being separate but predictable because the players are inherently more limited in their abilities to affect permanent free-form change in the world.

Edited October 31, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Chroma Starlight]

2 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

The biggest technical hurdle LL would have to solve is the fact that anyone can change the world in any unpredictable way.

Sure, you can have multiple instances of a sim, so that 500 people can exist within it, even if only up to 100 of them can see each other. But what happens when somebody rezzes an object? Does that object get rezzed in every shard?

And what happens when objects are scripted to interact with avatars, such as speak to them or even follow them? It would be pretty weird to see objects floating about and interacting with non-existing avatars.

Or maybe whenever a new shard is created, it starts from some backup save and the changes in one shard don't affect another. But then what decides that backup point and how do you make sure it can't be used to exploit something like the permission system? What happens when an avatar leaves the sim (shard) and immediately teleports back in, into a different shard which might be in a slightly/completely different state?

Even the persistent worlds of other games are relatively static, with the dynamic content (items you can pick up, enemies, some mini-events, etc) being separate but predictable because the players are inherently more limited in their abilities to affect permanent free-form change in the world.

These answers seem to depend on the intent for how such a feature would be operate. It could be that these 'shards' are really just different modes of being that exist over the same single grid, so that there is actually only one instance of the world being simulated but different separate phases of movement through it.

There could be rules that govern how or if interaction occurs between some hypothetical base and out-of-phase plane or shard. There might be extra constraints on agent capabilities. Alternately, if building is a major reason for sharding, then perhaps objects could be local in phase until the changes are journalled or 'published' and then quietly replicated/distributed/synchronized when nobody's around to notice or when a region reboots or even arbitrarily by the owner building from the shard. I'm not entirely sure what the use case for that would be, perhaps for building unobtrusively in regions that have both user and official content, green rooms, and/or the best spot possible for the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

I'm also not sure that moving that between such planes or shards would necessitate a teleport, only just a change in agent/avatar phase might suffice. Agent interaction with out-of-phase shards/planes could be limited or governed by rules that make the complications more manageable for the intended use cases. A simple implementation might only permit building or interaction on the base shard/plane but exist 'upwards' in plane or shard from the base material world, or perhaps there could be objects that don't span shards/planes at all, unique to wherever they are built. Some island regions could possibly only exist as destinations visible to specific shards or planes, allowing greater differentiation of the world. It may even be the shards are a way of grouping different markets on the same grid or addressing other specific needs.

Edited October 31, 2020 by Chroma Starlight

[Theresa Tennyson]

3 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

The biggest technical hurdle LL would have to solve is the fact that anyone can change the world in any unpredictable way.

Sure, you can have multiple instances of a sim, so that 500 people can exist within it, even if only up to 100 of them can see each other. But what happens when somebody rezzes an object? Does that object get rezzed in every shard?

And what happens when objects are scripted to interact with avatars, such as speak to them or even follow them? It would be pretty weird to see objects floating about and interacting with non-existing avatars.

Or maybe whenever a new shard is created, it starts from some backup save and the changes in one shard don't affect another. But then what decides that backup point and how do you make sure it can't be used to exploit something like the permission system? What happens when an avatar leaves the sim (shard) and immediately teleports back in, into a different shard which might be in a slightly/completely different state?

Even the persistent worlds of other games are relatively static, with the dynamic content (items you can pick up, enemies, some mini-events, etc) being separate but predictable because the players are inherently more limited in their abilities to affect permanent free-form change in the world.

With Second Life as it stands now there are very few environments that would benefit from sharding - mostly shopping areas or performance venues, which aren't highly interactive and where visitors can't make changes anyway. I've been giving this some thought for a while.

Shards could be limited to private regions and their ability to be sharded would be set by the owner. In order for a Second Life region to be sharded, it should be "locked" so that the basic built environment can't be changed while it exists in multiple shards. This would prevent exploits like being able to take multiple copies of no-copy objects. Shards could be spun up dynamically on an as-needed basis. Scripted objects that respond differently to different accounts should communicate to an off-world database instead of keeping all their information local

For performances, there would need to be a way of having certain designated accounts present simultaneously in all shards (which already is done in other online environments) and ideally the ability to form casual groups so that people traveling together would arrive on the same instance of the region.

[Bree Giffen]

Chroma you are grasping at the greater concept of multiple existence, the ability to be one person and many people all at once. A unified multiple conscience and intelligence that mankind moves toward until everyone is one being and we achieve deification. People are afraid of this concept but they are only holding themselves back. 

[Rowan Amore]

1 minute ago, Bree Giffen said:

Chroma you are grasping at the greater concept of multiple existence, the ability to be one person and many people all at once. A unified multiple conscience and intelligence that mankind moves toward until everyone is one being and we achieve deification. People are afraid of this concept but they are only holding themselves back. 

Gonna have to take a pass on that.

[Chroma Starlight]

5 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

Chroma you are grasping at the greater concept of multiple existence, the ability to be one person and many people all at once. A unified multiple conscience and intelligence that mankind moves toward until everyone is one being and we achieve deification. People are afraid of this concept but they are only holding themselves back. 

It's astonishing what is possible, even accessible, to those who transcend fear, once they learn to recognize it mindfully and become equipped with the skills needed to reconnect with their center and allow it to cultivate something new. One needn't even wait for some exciting future, you can become attuned to it right now; what's old is new again. That is a wonder of the present age.  We have felt at times these last two years like we rolled off the best side of the bed into the magical realism genre, a consolation prize that more than makes up for what came before, indeed, we would not dare change a single step along the path that brought us here, despite all the misery along the way, because right here is too good to miss.

This cultural moment feels like singularity, and we want to be out on the asymptote lest we blink and it disappear without us. It's quite something, especially if you were starting to believe you'd seen pretty much the full extent of what life could offer you, and then new wonderful paradigms start memeing at you spookily. I know exactly where and how I want to belong- in, to, and of light and love. If you already split apart and come together anyway, what power can fear have over being a willing part of something larger that you believe strongly in? Plus, transitions are beautiful and fun and exhilarating and existence affirming when you detach from fear, start taking the steps, and then realize that your frame-of-view has become something new and for once in your life was actually a result of your informed consent, your will to set intent with determination to let light flow from your heart and recode life for new possibility. Is there anything that cannot be accomplished with an Internet subgenre, higher expressions of love, and a little something extradimensional? n__n

 

Edited November 1, 2020 by Chroma Starlight
what even did i just

[Paul Hexem]

I said this would happen when they legalized marijuana, but nobody listened to me.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

Ah, this went off the rails very quickly. I thought this was going to be a technical discussion.

Personally I just want someone to upload the internet to my brain, and my brain to the internet after my death. That's enough transhumanism for me.

Edited November 1, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Ah, this went off the rails very quickly. I thought this was going to be a technical discussion.

Personally I just want someone to upload the internet to my brain, and my brain to the internet after my death. That's enough transhumanism for me.

It was never ON the rails.

[Chroma Starlight]

4 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Ah, this went off the rails very quickly. I thought this was going to be a technical discussion.

Personally I just want someone to upload the internet to my brain, and my brain to the internet after my death. That's enough transhumanism for me.

Sometimes I think we went transhumanist on the Internet around age fourteen. All you need to do to upload yourself to the Internet is to dwell there long enough and with the right approach. You can have utterly immersive experiences on a text terminal when the signal being modulated over that channel contains the information needed to recreate the experience locally; it's sort of the ultimate in lossy compression.

Quote

Philcon'98, Internet room.

 

Why don't you lead the conversation back to a technical facet as suits you, and let's discover if this thread can be pluralistic enough for even just two parallel aspects on the spectrum of the idea to exist in one shard instance together while also in plain open view of one another in peaceful coexistence. Maybe there's more than one path through this. n__n

Edited November 1, 2020 by Chroma Starlight
ironic edit

[Nick0678]

I don't know probably i missed that part back in 1998-99, all i remember is my military training on Leopard tanks and M60A3's, driving a Suzuki GSXR and the only game i played was Snake on my Nokia 3210 when i had spare time, nothing important about Internet, transhumanism and such stuff.

I suppose that "we" statement is related to specific categories of people who think of internet in a different way (and mostly younger generations).

 

[HRH Andrew]

I first read the title as Second Life, and sharting 😂

[Chroma Starlight]

Right then. Continuing with the non-technical aspects of this sharding thread, have we considered 'Code Switching' overhead?

Could sharding be a means to prevent involuntary Code Switching and thereby enable users, particularly the vulnerable ones, to unleash their full creative potentials in communities of light and love rather than burn enormous amounts of time and energy for years and years unending, years lost to an enduring pandemic of divisive controlling degrading vacuous memes spread by those people who are not even conscious of the harm that comes at such a great potential cost and with such terrible disruption to the possibility and harmony that would otherwise have probably already long ago elevated all the world by default.

Would it better just to lifeban all those who carry such burdens and act out upon them? But then we couldn't collect their subscription fees, they wouldn't be circulating money in the economy, they wouldn't be providing cover for the true activity at the center of a Hollow Earth. Why not just take their money and then deny them the benefit of living in the best possible world, the same world that their toxic memes would have denied them anyway? Put them in a special shard and call it purgatory or the cornfield or Duat or something. Compassionately offer them access to a path out with the understanding they too are vulnerable and deserving of love, but see that Ma'at or a similar spirit vigilantly guards its exit from the unready. Be sure to explicitly tell them what's going on and what they must do about that to progress because, again, there's great diversity of thought and cognition in the world, and something that seems completely obvious to one person might be utterly obscure to others, particularly if their hearts need clearing when their souls emerge from wherever origins up into this realm.

So that's one version of a rationale for a shard; a global-level layering of the world intended to preserve as much plurality and diversity as possible and elevate spirits for those who still believe in that vision for humanity.  What's yours?

Edited November 3, 2020 by Chroma Starlight