Does SL Have an Intelligentsia?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

This thread is a little sad.

It's like someone threw a party for the "Intelligentsia," and no one came -- even the person throwing the party.

Dig in, guys, looks like it's just us!

Crudités, anyone?

[Seicher Rae]

1 minute ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

This thread is a little sad.

It's like someone threw a party for the "Intelligentsia," and no one came -- even the person throwing the party.

Dig in, guys, looks like it's just us!

Crudités, anyone?

I keep telling you guys "Illuminati" and behind the bar at the Forum Cartel!

[Rat Luv]

I did hear a rumour (from @Paul Hexem) that @Lindal Kidd and @Madelaine McMasters said "We're throwing away the maths charts and lab coats, and getting into telepathy and tarot" 😍😍😍

[Paul Hexem]

6 minutes ago, Rat Luv said:

I did hear a rumour (from @Paul Hexem) that @Lindal Kidd and @Madelaine McMasters said "We're throwing away the maths charts and lab coats, and getting into telepathy and tarot" 😍😍😍

How dare you suggest I would even entertain tarot.

Chicken entrails have the real answers.

[Arielle Popstar]

20 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

This thread is a little sad.

It's like someone threw a party for the "Intelligentsia," and no one came -- even the person throwing the party.

Dig in, guys, looks like it's just us!

Crudités, anyone?

The intelligentsia's are in denial that they are in fact the intelligentsia and the OP has abandoned the thread. 

 

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Math, like programming or learning how D&D works, requires application and purpose to really make sense and stick. 

There is a huge difference between learning the rules to pass a test on the rules, and applying the rules to solve a problem and have fun.

Are you trying to say math is fun?   No no no no no.

[Seicher Rae]

36 minutes ago, Rat Luv said:

I did hear a rumour (from @Paul Hexem) that @Lindal Kidd and @Madelaine McMasters said "We're throwing away the maths charts and lab coats, and getting into telepathy and tarot" 😍😍😍

/me taps foot in annoyance

"What am I over here? Chopped liver?" OMG PAUL GET AWAY FROM ME WITH THAT RITUAL ENTRAILING KNIFE


Channels long dead comedian: I don't get no respect

Comedy is hard

Edited August 18, 2022 by Seicher Rae

[Coffee Pancake]

13 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Are you trying to say math is fun?   No no no no no.

It can also be exquisitely beautiful.

 

[Lindal Kidd]

1 hour ago, Paul Hexem said:

How dare you suggest I would even entertain tarot.

No no no! Tarot is wonderful, at least the way Rat does it. I miss her readings in the Tarot thread.

[Randall Ahren]

There are two groups for intelligentsia in SL. Just search for "intelligentsia" in groups.

 

 

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Randall Ahren
Correct typo.

[Maryanne Solo]

16 hours ago, Rat Luv said:

How do you do this?? 😍

A quick word of warning regarding the illuminati. ( a room full of...)
One quick flick of a cigarette lighter.. WHOOMPH...🔥💥 = illuminfarti - imposters! 😝

@Rat Luv\0_
You take the 3 monkey icons, save or screenshot them & import them into graphics software,
(The Gimp.. is free),
If they are all the same size, (you screenshat accurately lol), there is no need to trim or crop the images.
Position them accurately across 3 frames or instances of the image,
specify the "shown duration" of each image - usually in seconds,
and save/export them as an animated .gif of 256 colours! 

I have been addicted to graphics software since I got my first PC @16yo.
It's awesome fun. (note the very slight image misalignment in Cat Luv ❤️ below).
*winx

Edited August 18, 2022 by Maryanne Solo

[Harper Held]

Intelligentsia divorced from the lumpenproletariat is both irrelevant and redundant.

Personally? I'm less worried about virtual world intellectualism more worried about real life anti-intellectualism.

 

[Harper Held]

6 hours ago, Randall Ahren said:

There are two groups for intelligentsia in SL. Just search for "intelligentsia" in groups.

 

 

 

Like being a lady or a Dominant; if you have to tell people that you are...you probably aren't.

Personally, I wouldn't look for smart folk in groups labeled smart folk. I'd figure out what smart folk do (readings? literature? historical persuits?) and see who consistently turns up at those events...

Then again, maybe that's why I'm not one of them; well that and my lack of skill and education of course...

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Han Held said:

Intelligentsia divorced from the lumpenproletariat is both irrelevant and redundant.

Personally? I'm less worried about virtual world intellectualism more worried about real life anti-intellectualism.

 

Thank you! I was going to throw out the word "proletariat" earlier in the thread, but I don't know the right context. Yay!

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Han Held said:

Like being a lady or a Dominant; if you have to tell people that you are...you probably aren't.

I hope hope hope this logic applies to "Alphas", too!

[Harper Held]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

Thank you! I was going to throw out the word "proletariat" earlier in the thread, but I don't know the right context. Yay!

I had to look up "lumpen" to make sure I was using it correctly. The defination I found, which I think is "close enough" was:

Used originally in Marxist theory to describe those members of the proletariat, especially criminals, vagrants, and the unemployed, who lacked awareness of their collective interest as an oppressed class." In modern usage, it is commonly defined to include the chronically unemployed, the homeless, and career criminals.

From Wikipedia

See also, "Blingtard" 😈

[Love Zhaoying]

7 hours ago, Seicher Rae said:

/me taps foot in annoyance

"What am I over here? Chopped liver?" OMG PAUL GET AWAY FROM ME WITH THAT RITUAL ENTRAILING KNIFE


Channels long dead comedian: I don't get no respect

Comedy is hard

Whining in all caps now? Ow, my ears!

[Harper Held]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I hope hope hope this logic applies to "Alphas", too!

Oh dear god yes it does hahaha!

[Harper Held]

1 minute ago, Han Held said:

I had to look up "lumpen" to make sure I was using it correctly. The defination I found, which I think is "close enough" was:

Used originally in Marxist theory to describe those members of the proletariat, especially criminals, vagrants, and the unemployed, who lacked awareness of their collective interest as an oppressed class." In modern usage, it is commonly defined to include the chronically unemployed, the homeless, and career criminals.

From Wikipedia

See also, "Blingtard" 😈

Or, as Todd Rundgren put it:

 

[Love Zhaoying]

40 minutes ago, Maryanne Solo said:

A quick word of warning regarding the illuminati. ( a room full of...)
One quick flick of a cigarette lighter.. WHOOMPH...🔥💥 = illuminfarti - imposters! 😝

@Rat Luv\0_
You take the 3 monkey icons, save or screenshot them & import them into graphics software,
(The Gimp.. is free),
If they are all the same size, (you screenshat accurately lol), there is no need to trim or crop the images.
Position them accurately across 3 frames or instances of the image,
specify the "shown duration" of each image - usually in seconds,
and save/export them as an animated .gif of 256 colours! 

I have been addicted to graphics software since I got my first PC @16yo.
It's awesome fun. (note the very slight image misalignment in Cat Luv ❤️ below).
*winx

I use the cat emojis more than anything! Stole, tyvm! (I know it can't be used like an emoji.)

[Love Zhaoying]

As I believe our esteemed OP is expert on social constructs and history of proletariat and similar (from my observation of their posts over the years), it will be interesting to see how they weigh in on the question of whether the intelligentsia can exist without the proletariat.

[Rat Luv]

1 hour ago, Maryanne Solo said:

A quick word of warning regarding the illuminati. ( a room full of...)
One quick flick of a cigarette lighter.. WHOOMPH...🔥💥 = illuminfarti - imposters! 😝

@Rat Luv\0_
You take the 3 monkey icons, save or screenshot them & import them into graphics software,
(The Gimp.. is free),
If they are all the same size, (you screenshat accurately lol), there is no need to trim or crop the images.
Position them accurately across 3 frames or instances of the image,
specify the "shown duration" of each image - usually in seconds,
and save/export them as an animated .gif of 256 colours! 

I have been addicted to graphics software since I got my first PC @16yo.
It's awesome fun. (note the very slight image misalignment in Cat Luv ❤️ below).
*winx

😃

Thank you! Am going to try to do it today 😍

[Prokofy Neva]

On 8/17/2022 at 4:19 AM, Scylla Rhiadra said:

There are a great many very very bright and thoughtful people in SL, some of whom are using it for some pretty exciting purposes.

But if by "intelligentsia" you mean a network of people who engage with each other as a larger collective body of "thinkers" discussing SL, I think not. We don't have any "public intellectuals" in SL, nor I think have ever had that, mostly because the communications tools in SL are inadequate to the purpose. Vast numbers of people in SL -- 90% or more? -- live their virtual lives without ever visiting any external platforms other than Flickr and SeraphimSL, and who are happily oblivious to any meta-discourse about the virtual world at all. I suppose you might argue that 10 or more years ago, we had a greater critical mass of bloggers talking about the platform, but most of those have disappeared, and there really seems to be very little engagement between those who remain.

But there are, I think, still a fair number of smaller groups in-world who do talk about "issues."

I think it would be a good thing were there more people discussing SL in interesting ways, particularly in the light of the current (poorly informed) public hype about "the Metaverse." But do we need an "intelligentsia," in the sense of a semi-coherent cadre of recognized and acknowledged "thinkers"?

I don't think so. Too often such groups tend to be utterly divorced from the realities of their subject matter (as many SL educators often were, and still sometimes are).

And it's just a teeeeeeeny bit elitist, no?

I'd like to hear more people talk about SL, but I'd like to see such discourse democratized. I don't really want to replicate in virtual form the Athenian academy here.

 

At one time SL had within it and around it actual professors and game designers with prominent blogs (like Tony Walsh); Lawrence Lessig gave a talk; Richard Bartle came a few times - even Judge Posner and Jonathan Fanton, head of the Macarthur Foundation held events here.

I'm not saying the SL intelligentsia, to be valid, has to hook up to external professors; I'm just saying this was the case, and those connected (like the Herald, for whom you have no regard but who played a very important role in the early years) bothered to get involved in inworld issues.

I don't worry about your fear of elites because you're happy to endorse them in other areas you care about. "Democracy" is both something you don't have to fear is in short supply in SL, as there is always somebody TPing in or posting out of turn without your permission, but it's also something impossible to have, being that SL is an artifact of a company.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

On 8/17/2022 at 4:50 AM, Sid Nagy said:

Just read the forums.
😇

Well, you laugh, but that actually got me to thinking and for better or worse, I suppose the forums, such as it is, has the elements of the intelligentsia.

Example: recently when the Lindens put this forums "reform" over on the public without consent and without much notice, there was a group of Concerned Citizens including Arielle Popstar and Scylla and some others who made the time to go to one of those inworld office hours, which of course, can be a mixed bag. And they persisted in confronting the Lindens there. So that's all to the good. Being a good citizen or taking on the role of civil society doesn't always mean being the intelligentsia; but those who consider themselves educated and in the arts and in various civic causes of course do well by taking civic actions like this.

It's all we have. So I welcome it. 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

18 hours ago, Seicher Rae said:

Exactly. Apparently I test well.  Apparently I took a test in high school and didn't realize it. YEARS later, when going through old paperwork I found the test scores. I looked up the meaning and LAUGHED. I still do. If I mention the number, people then assume I can do a Rubik's cube in 3 seconds (nope, not even 3 hours), am a chess whiz (I know how the pieces move), and am a quantum physicist... which of course I am. (that would be a joke folks) I sometimes remind others of my # right after I've done something monumentally stupid, but I have to throttle that urge back or else I'd be saying it all of the time and so it would lose its impact.

I agree with the folks (everyone) who is saying: If you have to walk around with a sign declaring, "I iz smart" then there's at least one or two things wrong with the situation.

Also, Murphy's Law (and it happened to me in this thread), every time I try to assert "I iz smart" I will automatically do something dumber than dirt. In this thread, I couldn't copy/paste right (AGAIN) so the post would have messed up people using the Dark theme, and I had to delete a post and start over. Doh!

So, again to your point Rolig, there are lots of ways of determining intelligence. I hope typing skillz isn't one. But I did get a 2 in Wordle today and another 3 in Nerdle, does that count???? Pls pls pls

"The intelligentsia" isn't always about standard "intelligence" as in "high IQ". It's something larger and more subtle than that.