Diversity and Inclusion in Second Life

[Love Zhaoying]

14 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Yeah. Discrimation exists. Racism, misogyny and other things we may not like are part of SL, because people here have more freedom to act like jerks and a-holes here than they might have in RL or on other platforms. We can't change people. We can't ban everything we don't like. We can't even control what LL does internally or in SL.

Irony: People are "safe" to bring their "whole selves" to SL, even if they are a-holes.

Bonus: People can expect to see the same barriers and issues in SL as they see in RL.

The Utopia, she ain't here yet, man!

 

[Paul Hexem]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

Irony: People are "safe" to bring their "whole selves" to SL, even if they are a-holes.

Bonus: People can expect to see the same barriers and issues in SL as they see in RL.

The Utopia, she ain't here yet, man!

 

Yeah, but at least in SL I can instantly teleport to a different location that doesn't have the same barriers and issues.

[CaithLynnSayes]

Hey all.

Don't mind me, i just wanna show off my full Bingo card while reading this thread.

 

You got all the "current day" buzzwords... 

 

 

Now, as for my 2 cents on this; Why the frik do you care? Honestly, why? What ever happened to caring about what a person does instead of how they look? I have many friends in SL, Some of them i know what they look like RL, others i have no clue and i don't give a rats a$$. I care about them as a person and for their personality. This is one of the reasons why Western society is a complete joke at the minute. I'm sorry, but it is. You shouldn't care about any of this. Caring about this is why things like racism is very much alive. And it's not the racism you think i'm talking about, its the kind you are absolutely are not allowed to talk about. (watch this post get deleted now because i said that.)

Things like this are getting so incredibly tiresome and i wish it would stop. Somewhere around 2015-ish everybody suddenly started to care real hard about all of this and please be honest with yourselves. What good has it ever brought?

 

 

 

 

PS: @Love Zhaoying I must commend you on successfully sneaking in a semi politically loaded thread and kept it alive for this long. You have my respect.

 

[JUSTUS Palianta]

This thread is just stirring 💩though.  And it's about real life not second life should it even be here.  Love got the old 💩 stirring stick out, hope they are proud of themselves.

[Love Zhaoying]

12 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

Yeah, but at least in SL I can instantly teleport to a different location that doesn't have the same barriers and issues.

There's always a "yes but"; those souls who don't know not to give RLV control; those people who "fell asleep" in an AFK chair and woke up to a nightmare scenario; etc. etc.  Things that can be "hard to believe", but you're tempted to take seriously. 

Plus, if you are harassed by some individual who keeps "coming back" under some new Alt (we see that a lot), it's hard to get away from.

Welcome to SL - we ain't perfect, but don't give up on us.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

Pet Delight: I am using restraint in this thread, and not reading posts by anyone I have on "ignore"! (Unless they are quoted.)

It's going swimmingly. Whatever that means.

They have their say, and no harm, no foul. 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

9 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

But in reality, the fact that we all "went there" means the answer to my original (restated) question of "How is SL doing with Diversity and Inclusion?" is: not as great as some would hope.

This is somewhat true, but also unsurprising: SL is after all a mirror of RL, where diversity and equity continue to be issues.

In some ways, though, SL is a distorting mirror: because the platform is virtual, and there are relatively few "rules" (and even less enforcement), there are things one can simulate here that would simply not be permitted in RL (for obvious reasons). The distortion works in both directions: the platform is, in some ways, more "liberal" than RL, but it also permits some pretty extreme examples of what can only be called intolerance. In the case of the latter, for instance: a store owner in SL can ban whomever they want from their store for whatever reason, but a clearly discriminatory exclusion in RL would, in most places, be subject to a legal challenge. One can exclude people who represent as black from a club in SL. Trying doing that in RL.

So, in some ways SL is more inclusive (the LGBTQ+ community is a good example), and in other ways, less than RL. SL is more "extreme" than RL.
 

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

In some ways, though, SL is a distorting mirror:

Irony, as we will have mirrors finally!

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

The distortion works in both directions: the platform is, in some ways, more "liberal" than RL

This is the part I like, and was hoping to hear more about!

3 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

but it also permits some pretty extreme examples of what can only be called intolerance

:: sad face ::

 

[CaithLynnSayes]

2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

...and not reading posts by anyone I have on "ignore"!...

That's not very "inclusive", is it?

I'm on the list, aren't i?

[Love Zhaoying]

Just now, CaithLynnSayes said:

That's not very "inclusive", is it?

I'm on the list, aren't i?

I promised I would be nice to you forever, due to something recently that I already forgot what it was.

If I miss a post by you here and there, I'm sure it won't bother you one little bit!  You're a strong, smart, hoo-mon!

List? What List? Lion try make list by clawing on tree bark, but cannot read.

[CaithLynnSayes]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

I promised I would be nice to you forever, due to something recently that I already forgot what it was.

If I miss a post by you here and there, I'm sure it won't bother you one little bit!  You're a strong, smart, hoo-mon!

List? What List? Lion try make list by clawing on tree bark, but cannot read.

Oh yeah, i also kinda forgot about that, i was suppose to hold something against you forever, right?  

[ValKalAstra]

Man, election year in the US, eh?

[Paul Hexem]

13 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

There's always a "yes but"; those souls who don't know not to give RLV control; those people who "fell asleep" in an AFK chair and woke up to a nightmare scenario; etc. etc.  Things that can be "hard to believe", but you're tempted to take seriously. 

YES BUT... SL also has the little X up at the top right we can use to escape RLV or getting caught AFK, too.

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, ValKalAstra said:

Man, election year in the US, eh?

I have no clue what you're talking about!

(I didn't see anyone else bring it up, and that is a forbidden topic.)

 

[Love Zhaoying]

4 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

YES BUT... SL also has the little X up at the top right we can use to escape RLV or getting caught AFK, too.

Exactly, there's always a "Yes, But.."!

[Scylla Rhiadra]

You can't "legislate" minds or enforce rules about how people should think.

I can create a "rule" that says you can't use hateful and racist or misogynist language, for instance, but that merely masks the problem, which is the hateful mindset that such language is articulating.

There are good reasons for trying to keep the expression of hate in places where people can avoid it if they wish to, in part because because it can cause harm, and in part because it tends to reinforce discriminatory thinking (as, for instance, a region where black slaves are all "happy" to be slaves, or a r*pe sim that reinforces r*pe myths about how women really "want it").

On the whole, though, what ultimately makes the difference in the long term is what we might broadly term "education," by which I really mean challenging and debunking the attitudes, myths, and mindsets that underlie hate. Consider the case of the LGBTQ+ community over the past 50 years -- actual cultural attitudes towards things like same-sex marriage have changed. Homophobia still exists, but hateful expressions of it are now the outliers. Women, too, have come a very long way over that time, less because of legislation than because cultural attitudes have shifted. 60 years ago, we wouldn't even have been having a conversation about misogyny here.

And that's why, even as I concede that expressions of racism, misogyny, homophobia, and so on can't and probably shouldn't be "banned" from SL, I and many others continue to protest against them, loudly, when they appear. That's as it should be: if someone can express their racism in SL, I sure as hell should be able to express my anti-racism. That's how change happens.

It's a slow and painful process -- and obviously there are things that should be legislated, for a variety of reasons -- but ultimately speaking up, protesting, and educating people works best at removing the underlying, fundamental problem: ignorant and hateful beliefs.

[Love Zhaoying]

9 minutes ago, CaithLynnSayes said:

Oh yeah, i also kinda forgot about that, i was suppose to hold something against you forever, right?  

I think we agreed on something.  Whatever it was.  And we shared a moment over it. (It was probably all in my tiny little pinhead.)

Best forgotten.

LOL

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

You can't "legislate" minds or enforce rules about how people should think.

I can create a "rule" that says you can't use hateful and racist or misogynist language, for instance, but that merely masks the problem, which is the hateful mindset that such language is articulating.

There are good reasons for trying to keep the expression of hate in places where people can avoid it if they wish to, in part because because it can cause harm, and in part because it tends to reinforce discriminatory thinking (as, for instance, a region where black slaves are all "happy" to be slaves, or a r*pe sim that reinforces r*pe myths about how women really "want it").

On the whole, though, what ultimately makes the difference in the long term is what we might broadly term "education," by which I really mean challenging and debunking the attitudes, myths, and mindsets that underlie hate. Consider the case of the LGBTQ+ community over the past 50 years -- actual cultural attitudes towards things like same-sex marriage have changed. Homophobia still exists, but hateful expressions of it are now the outliers. Women, too, have come a very long way over that time, less because of legislation than because cultural attitudes have shifted. 60 years ago, we wouldn't even have been having a conversation about misogyny here.

And that's why, even as I concede that expressions of racism, misogyny, homophobia, and so on can't and probably shouldn't be "banned" from SL, I and many others continue to protest against them, loudly, when they appear. That's as it should be: if someone can express their racism in SL, I sure as hell should be able to express my anti-racism. That's how change happens.

It's a slow and painful process -- and obviously there are things that should be legislated, for a variety of reasons -- but ultimately speaking up, protesting, and educating people works best at removing the underlying, fundamental problem: ignorant and hateful beliefs.

I'm reminded of someone (who will remain unnamed) that often pops into such threads, about when the discussion is getting "real", and "deep", to mostly say "it's just RP".  Which makes me wanna yell something like, "And? You're doing it wrong!!"

Anyway, I expect them to come along any time now. 🙂

 

 

[Paul Hexem]

7 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

It's a slow and painful process -- and obviously there are things that should be legislated, for a variety of reasons -- but ultimately speaking up, protesting, and educating people works best at removing the underlying, fundamental problem: ignorant and hateful beliefs.

I watched a thing recently about Daryl Davis. I didn't do any deep dives into it, but the premise it showed off was really impressive.

[Bree Giffen]

How about height discrimination? That's a physical characteristic and there is diversity of height in SL but short avatars are definitely excluded in venues. 

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

2 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

As far as Women's day goes?  Again, if it's mostly men in SL,  maybe that's why LL doesn't bother?  (sarcasm and laughter)

You could be absolutely right, and it's entirely possible that it's a conscious decision of LL to look at who the rl users are of the platform and adjusting their PR to suit them. I've kind of thought this is exactly the case. Diversity be damned.  

Edited April 11 by Ingrid Ingersoll

[Love Zhaoying]

5 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

I watched a thing recently about Daryl Davis. I didn't do any deep dives into it, but the premise it showed off was really impressive.

Had to look it up, but yeah. We need more people like that.

[Love Zhaoying]

Just now, Bree Giffen said:

How about height discrimination? That's a physical characteristic and there is diversity of height in SL but short avatars are definitely excluded in venues. 

So from the perspective of my original question, we have "Diversity" in height, but not "Inclusion" in height.

(It comes up a lot in the different threads, how height is used to decide if someone is allowed places.)

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Ingrid Ingersoll said:

Diversity be damned.  

What next? Will we someday get a "Black Second Life", akin to what used to be called "Black Twitter" (before "X")?