Principles of Second Life.

[Persephone Emerald]

4 minutes ago, UnilWay SpiritWeaver said:

Having feet helps.

And um... a body below the waist.

But yeah - every other 'metaverse' has really been about a corporation branding itself, not about making a virtual world. MMOs also succeed because while heavily branded they provide purpose. You jump into the virtual world of an MMO and right away there are squirrels to fight it out with - stuff to do.

You gotta have one or the other. Feet or squirrels... or something like that.

 

Second Life - We have feet!  You can make your own squirrels.

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Second Life - We have feet! 

 

[Rain Yootz]

Unlike most commenters here, I have been to Burning Man many times and found SL through its regional event here. I see a lot of the aspects of the Burning Man ethos here, really they are human aspects the 10 principles were distilled from. No need to go over them, but I would just mention for one, the gifting is immense here in SL. Most sims are gifted to enter, with no cover charge. This is just like the theme camps at Burning Man. A total rein of creativity and interaction in both environments. To me, Burning Man is the same as SL without having to shlep your ass out to such a massive inconvenience of extreme camping, but that aspect of the RL version is what makes it infinitely more experiential, all senses viscerally activated fully.

Here's an interesting interaction on the topic by the founders of Burning Man and Second Life...

 

[Zalificent Corvinus]

44 minutes ago, Rain Yootz said:

Most sims are gifted to enter, with no cover charge.

That's not because of "Burning Man", that's because bitter experience has told public venue owners that if they use the cover charge system, nobody comes in.

 

 

[Rain Yootz]

Interesting point, perhaps that weeds out the creators that have motives other than "gifting." Btw, I didn't mean to imply that BM invented gifting, just saying that flitting around SL feels to me a lot like flitting around BM which espouses "Gifting" as a principle.

One other glaring similarity that SL echos of BM is the scheme of User Created Content. To me, that is the secret sauce both worlds share. SL started with a few Linden Lab lands but set it up for the community to build to their own whims on a vast open blank space much like the Black Rock desert that BM started at that fills up with some crazy, wild ideas! Yeah, I'm a fan of the creativity of both realms! I can't help to not see the similarities.

[Anne Forbes]

 

A big thanks to the talented businesses and content creators who have been so generous with the SL community this holiday season!

Happy holidays to everyone.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

On 8/13/2023 at 9:56 AM, Anne Forbes said:

The 10 Principles of Burning Man | Burning Man

Is SL still like this or do you feel it has changed through the years?

"In fact, today’s conversations around the metaverse remind me a lot of the conversations we were having nearly 20 years ago about Second Life, which Philip Rosedale’s Linden Lab launched in 2003. Rosedale is very clear about the ways in which he was inspired by Snow Crash. He is also clear, however, that a trip to Burning Man in the late 1990s forever framed his thinking about virtual worlds, their inhabitants, and their ethos." ~ The metaverse is just a new word for an old idea | MIT Technology Review

"A pivotal stop was Burning Man, the orgiastic festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. A self-described introvert, Rosedale got turned in a major way by the togetherness and expressiveness of the scene. “I would just walk up to you and be like, ‘Dude, nice outfit,'” he says. “I wasn’t high. I was just walking around and just felt that way.” There was something about being stuck in the desert with a group of strangers, and forming what he calls this “magical social construct” that spoke to him deeply. And, though he’s only been to the festival once, he says it remains a profound influence for the alternate society he’s building.

Rosedale said: “Burning Man is wondrously purposeless,” he says. “It asks you not to have a reason to be there. You’re brought together by hostility of the environment. You think you could die out there, and you could die. It gets cold, the wind comes up on you. You’re brought together by a need to protect each other in the harsh environment. Second Life is a new scary, difficult environment. People are brought together by their desire to help each other through it at the beginning… Burning Man is Second Life.” ~ David Kushner: Inside Second Life With Creator Philip Rosedale – Rolling Stone

"I want my kindred: those with whom I have full fellow-feeling.” ~ Charlotte Bronte

There's a phrase in journalism: "self-reported".

It's good with a story like this, and quote like this, to get as we say "a second source."

Maybe a third, a fourth. You know, triangulate. Is RL Burning Man really like that? Does everybody feel quite the same way about these things?

Then you'd want to do some foot-padding around the grid to see if these circumstances/ideals/things/stuff pertain.

There is a Burning Life facsimile in SL as others have noted which is not like the RL BM in a number of key ways, chiefly, you don't need to go to the bathroom in SL. It's not the Sims.

[Prokofy Neva]

On 12/4/2023 at 2:22 AM, Zalificent Corvinus said:

That's not because of "Burning Man", that's because bitter experience has told public venue owners that if they use the cover charge system, nobody comes in.

 

 

It's true that the paywall system in SL is VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY rare, but you do VERY VERY VERY VERY RARELY come across it.

That's because avatars are avian creatures.

They like to fly freely everywhere, and if you turn off "fly," you are also asking for people to leave your venue before it even rezzes. Don't turn off fly. If you can't control griefing, don't have a venue.

Once avatars can fly in and settle their easily-ruffled feathers on a perch somewhere, they may reach into their feathery breast pockets and bring out 100L to put in your tip jar, if you have made them very easily viewed, quick-rezzing, and not complicated and not undercut yourself by leaving them at 5-10-15 but put in reasonable increments like 50-100-250-500.

If you have free content or content for 1L or 10L you can also encourage stays by birds and offset your costs.

SL is for the birds.

Plan accordingly.

 

[Anne Forbes]

Hi, Prok,

I originally started the thread with "Is SL still like Burning Man or do you feel it has changed through the years?". It confused people who weren't aware of SL's history. I added the sources after the responses started showing up.

Thanks for the responses.

Anne

[Zalificent Corvinus]

10 hours ago, Anne Forbes said:

 It confused people who weren't aware of SL's history.

We weren't confused, we just don't agree that SL has jack sh*t to do with Burning Man.

[InnerCity Elf]

16 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

It's true that the paywall system in SL is VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY rare, but you do VERY VERY VERY VERY RARELY come across it.

That's because avatars are avian creatures.

They like to fly freely everywhere, and if you turn off "fly," you are also asking for people to leave your venue before it even rezzes. Don't turn off fly. If you can't control griefing, don't have a venue.

Once avatars can fly in and settle their easily-ruffled feathers on a perch somewhere, they may reach into their feathery breast pockets and bring out 100L to put in your tip jar, if you have made them very easily viewed, quick-rezzing, and not complicated and not undercut yourself by leaving them at 5-10-15 but put in reasonable increments like 50-100-250-500.

If you have free content or content for 1L or 10L you can also encourage stays by birds and offset your costs.

SL is for the birds.

Plan accordingly.

 

 

2 hours ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

We weren't confused, we just don't agree that SL has jack sh*t to do with Burning Man.

Idk about Burning Man, it's interesting in any case, especially for SLers outside of the Burning Man or SL history orbit, reading from people who've actually been there... .

But we agree that "SL is for the birds", ruffled feathers and all, that's TOO accurate AND cute to not! 

Edited December 15, 2023 by InnerCity Elf
no-glasses typo...

[BilliJo Aldrin]

21 minutes ago, InnerCity Elf said:

 

Idk about Burning Man, it's interesting in any case, especially for SLers outside of the Burning Man or SL history orbit, reading from people who've actually been there... .

But we agree that "SL is for the birds", ruffled feathers and all, that's TOO accurate AND cute to not! 

I've really enjoyed burning man this year, all those freaks trapped out in the dessert because of the rain. 😂

At least it never rains in SL, except for those people trying to rain on your parade of course

[InnerCity Elf]

1 minute ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

I've really enjoyed burning man this year, all those freaks trapped out in the dessert because of the rain. 😂

Starting to read, I expected a joke about you having burnt your gingerbread men this year, nothing about real men trapped in desserts. Must've been a mighty dessert, though, probably Christmas Pudding

[Alwin Alcott]

13 hours ago, Anne Forbes said:

I originally started the thread with "Is SL still like Burning Man or do you feel it has changed through the years?".

no you didn't , you made a misleading title and after that started about something totally different what you quote here.

the original : 

Quote

Principles of Second Life.

 

[BilliJo Aldrin]

1 hour ago, InnerCity Elf said:

Starting to read, I expected a joke about you having burnt your gingerbread men this year, nothing about real men trapped in desserts. Must've been a mighty dessert, though, probably Christmas Pudding

that’s one of the two word pairs i always get wrong, the other is waste and waist, I always forget which is which, until i type it out, then i go “thats not right” and type the other one 😁

[Prokofy Neva]

On 8/14/2023 at 9:10 AM, InnerCity Elf said:

I loved Snow Crash back then, but for sure, the first time I read the title in relation to Philip Rosedale/SL, my thoughts pretty much were, "right, sure, Hiro, the protagonist, is a programmer and sword fighte, of course it would be a favourite of anyone involved in computers, coding, and the like". I guess I may have to reread it, with the thought if SL and parallels simmering in the back of my mind, as it never really made that link unprompted. 

Being European, too, my knowledge of Burning Man is very second-hand. To me, it mostly says, "hippie festival, probably an interesting experience, but not one I'm too keen on", but I guess I can see potential similarities, for example, a kind of at least surface or somewhat degree/idea of egality and self-organization, or as a kind of social experiment that people engage in willingly, people living out some dream, ... and naked people, of course  

Really should reread Snow Crash (sold it ages ago, but my library probably has it), and see how my present self likes and interprets it, as a first-hand experience of Burning Man won't happen.

My chief take-away from Snow Crash vis-a-vis Second Life is that in Snow Crash, the characters loved to frequent a club called the "Black Sun" which was a giant black box, when viewed from the outside.

I think that's the most popular part of Snow Crash for the denizens of the Mainland in SL. I'm looking at some now just on one sim.

 

 

[Prokofy Neva]

14 hours ago, Anne Forbes said:

Hi, Prok,

I originally started the thread with "Is SL still like Burning Man or do you feel it has changed through the years?". It confused people who weren't aware of SL's history. I added the sources after the responses started showing up.

Thanks for the responses.

Anne

I'm 19+ years old and I got it.

I have followed Philip Linden's adventures with interest.

I think he was enamored with the creativity of Burning Man because he saw BM from one of those air-conditioned RVs with all the amenities inside and because Burning Man does not last forever; it's a few weeks. This past year due to the hordes of people, bad weather, and poor sanitation management, it became unbearable, go Google it.

Philip (may he live forever!) invented Second Life but didn't live inside of it like we do. He lived in a lovely California house somewhere with all the amenities and then some, even with problems like "we can't water our lawns". 

So he may not have ever considered that one day of a giant spinning multi-coloured dildo is "art" or "funny," but 5 years of it after the creator logs out, never returns, and you have to keep looking at it, is not.

 

[InnerCity Elf]

4 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

that’s one of the two word pairs i always get wrong, the other is waste and waist, I always forget which is which, until i type it out, then i go “thats not right” and type the other one 😁

What's funniest to me is, when I type the right word but for some weird reason it looks so wrong that I actually look it up to be sure, but still it looks sooo wrong  As if sometimes, the brain just "disconnects" with a word.

Edited December 15, 2023 by InnerCity Elf

[Love Zhaoying]

4 hours ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

I always forget which is which

It can be hard to remember which witch is which, too!

Child: "Will Santa Claus and his Reindeer come this year?" Adult: "There, there young one..They're going to be there, to get their cookies!"

[Zalificent Corvinus]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Child: "Will Santa Claus and his Reindeer come this year?" Adult: "There, there young one..They're going to be there, to get their cookies!"

🎶 He better watch out 🎶

🎶 He better take care 🎶

🎶 He better wear a 'chute 🎶

🎶 When he's up in the air 🎶

🎶 Santa Klaws is being shot down 🎶

 🎶 Santa Klaws is being shot down 🎶

 🎶 Santa Klaws is being...  🎶

 🎶 ...SHOT DOWN! 🎶

 

 

[Anne Forbes]

17 hours ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

We weren't confused, we just don't agree that SL has jack sh*t to do with Burning Man.

Oh! Okay. Just curious, who is "we". Do you have any evidence that it doesn't, other than your opinion?

[Anne Forbes]

12 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I'm 19+ years old and I got it.

I have followed Philip Linden's adventures with interest.

I think he was enamored with the creativity of Burning Man because he saw BM from one of those air-conditioned RVs with all the amenities inside and because Burning Man does not last forever; it's a few weeks. This past year due to the hordes of people, bad weather, and poor sanitation management, it became unbearable, go Google it.

Philip (may he live forever!) invented Second Life but didn't live inside of it like we do. He lived in a lovely California house somewhere with all the amenities and then some, even with problems like "we can't water our lawns". 

So he may not have ever considered that one day of a giant spinning multi-coloured dildo is "art" or "funny," but 5 years of it after the creator logs out, never returns, and you have to keep looking at it, is not.

 

I did happen to see the burning/raining man festival coverage when it hit the news earlier this year. I don't normally see anything about BM in the news, so it caught my eye. 

I agree about Philip being enamored with the creativity. It reminds me of the John Lennon/Paul McCartney interview where they were talking about starting Apple Corps. John says they "Set it up and then see where it goes. It's like a top and we set it goin' and hope for the best."

In Second Life's case though, it was spinning dildos. 

[Rowan Amore]

Totally off topic but interesting observation.  One can type dildo but not ***** or *****.

ETA...actual anatomically named body parts aren't allowed, v.a.Gina and p.e.nis

Edited December 16, 2023 by Rowan Amore

[Zalificent Corvinus]

12 hours ago, Anne Forbes said:

I agree about Philip being enamored with

...Shmoozing with anyone who offers him the hope of more than 5 mins of screen time for an audience of more than 10 people.

A photo of Phil hanging out with some nonentity of a vblogger, or a festival organiser, does not mean that it has anything to do with the "true purpose and founding values of SecondLife".

13 hours ago, Anne Forbes said:

Do you have any evidence that it doesn't, other than your opinion?

Do you have any evidence that it does, other than your opinion?

And no, an old photo of Phil sipping bear in the desert with some hippie-wannabe doesn't count.

 

Phil's "golden vision" of nice high brow people, spending most of their time in business to business teleconference power meetings, and filling in between, by loitering in art installations listening to gratuitous abuse of a clarinet, by some aging hipster with a goatee beard and a beret, that "golden vision" for SL DIED about 60 seconds after he opened the doors to the public and  Noob #1 and Noob #2 exchanged the following IM's

"Hi

Hi

ur hawt wanna ERP

ok"

 

SL isn't a teleconferenced middle manager hipster suburban art commune with bad jazz music, inspired by a week long drug fest in the desert for people who were born 20 years too late to go to Woodstock.

Edited December 16, 2023 by Zalificent Corvinus

[PheebyKatz]

On 8/13/2023 at 6:16 PM, Persephone Emerald said:

I think there are a few SL users who end up naked, sweaty and high while they're in SL.

I thought that was pretty much everyone's RL while they're inworld.

I'm sweating, at least. I hope it still counts.