SynesthetiQ

HI Nick, While your sense of responsibility and commitment to condom use is really laudable, sadly many men don't share that responsibility. Condom use is really problematic across society (probably shouldn't be, but it is) and largely (sadly, speaking as a man) the problem lies squarely with men. If for no other reason than the "receiving partners" are the ones disproportionately most at risk from the consequences of unprotected sex and thus we men tend to shirk our share of the responsibility. I do therefore agree with Finite that there are many initiatives under way which seek to either educate men specifically, empower women more, and/or find other interventions. For a really interesting read on this have a look at https://www.bustle.com/wellness/why-dont-guys-like-condoms-like-unprotected-sex Also in terms of your request for alternative interventions against HIV, have a look at https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/prep.html

I think you're giving the male population of SL too much credit. I'm thinking the test is a little bit like how you test if pasta is cooked - if you throw it at the wall and it sticks, then probably worth a quick rinse.

If everyone just stuck to SL sex, the only responsibility the man would have is to occasionally wash the sock.

Thanks for this Scylla, for what it's worth I agree with you completely (currently more a poisoned chalice than anything - sorry 🙂) The only thing I'd say additionally is that, from a business environment analysis, the scope of external stakeholders affecting SL policy will also include: Sales prospects (prospective new channels, business partners, consumer groups/demographics) Investors From my perspective these are critical to any promising future for SL; one which doesn't see it relegated (as some commentators predict) into simply being a virtual sex and kink platform. Maybe I'm just misreading the writing on the wall, but isn't it the case that: the current pool of residents (measured by concurrency and/or DAUs) and associated economic activity is contracting and has been for a long time (despite a much misinterpreted COVID bump)? Genuine new signups that stay longer than 5 minutes are also stagnant, indicating that the current offering isn't attractive and that current marketing and onboarding isn't working? Any attempt at a PESTLE (ish) analysis for SL now versus 2 years ago (pre acquisition and and pre COVID) suggests the need for a change - which I'm sure the new owners are only too aware of.. That's just me though and, as revealed by my ignorance of the brand names within the SL sex industry 🙂, what do I know? Genuinely though I do have a lot of love for SL - admittedly more so from my first incarnation (back in 2005-2007) - but that might be more to do with where I am now vs then. Really I'm just open for a debate, for which I agree I sometimes err too much on the side of obnoxious "Devil's Advocate"! Anyway, that's my last post on this subject (everyone will pleased to know) because I know I've hammered it ad nauseum.🤐

Lessons for us all I think (me included). I admit I'm guilty more than most of the whole "Come writers and critics, Who prophesize with your pen" thing, but the future interests me and I enjoy taking a punt at guessing what's around the corner. We'll all see what's coming soon enough 😀

First off I'm sorry for the various analogies. To be fair the "aging cows" thing was more a reference to the fact that I think the current population and business model is seen as a cash cow asset to be sweated with the minimum investment, rather than an insinuation residents are seen as individuals displaying any sort of bovine traits. In this context then, yeah of course, if you have a pool of residents only 40% of whom are premium and/or own land, it's always easier to sweeten the deal and try to convert the remaining 60% to fee paying customers. That's not even a strategy, that's just tactical, It's cheap and easy and doesn't hurt you too much if it fails. By all means take some petty cash from the pot (because I'm sorry, but relatively that's all it cost) and plop out a new set of Linden Homes or whatever. Again, sorry for the analogy in advance, but it's like waving a shiny cheap trinket in front of a baby to distract her while you change her diaper. The trouble is that pot of prospects is finite and seems to be contracting. Personally (for what its worth) my reading of the situation is that the new owners aren't here just to sweat the assets for the next 10 years and then call it a day - which ironically feels like the preferred option for many in these forums. Given the rapidly evolving ecosystem for businesses like SL, there are incredible opportunities in the short term to leverage SL into something great - something that makes the current revenue streams look pretty small. In order to take advantage of these opportunities however, a lot will have to change including how SL is perceived as a brand and the values it communicates to the wider world. Which means modifying some policies and accepted behaviours, particularly for people flagged as potentially vulnerable, whether by age or observed behaviour or whatever other metric LL wants to use. I do admit one of many flies in my ointment, is that in my mind's eye I have a halcyon view of what SL might evolve into - and truly I don't expect anyone here to share that view. I mean if you really wanted to, SL could stay as it is give or take and be a self supporting backwater for 10 years, and that might be fine. Another way might be to forget porn and gambling controls and any other behavioural interventions, SL could be the virtual pornhub of 2025 - a good living to be made in that. To be fair we've already imported the whole lovesense thing I believe into our sex clubs so we're not against opening up a bit to the brave new world! A hard NO to "pixie dust" NFTs and the Blockchain, but by all means let's get some of that LoveSense action on board 😀 It all depends on your personal vision for the future of SL and how we might get there.

I think the point I'm making Rowan is that nobody really cares what the current pool of aging (both in terms of SL and RL) residents think - least of all the new owners, nor any prospective investors. You guys are a given, you're the aging cow the farmer keeps on for its dwindling milk production, right up until it costs more to keep you than he would make by sending you off to the local abattoir. Mostly you're prime examples of the sunk cost fallacy, LL could institute a new technology tomorrow which relegated avatars to decorated poo emoji and you wouldn't leave. I keep hearing people on these forums shout "PERSUADE US - SELL IT TO US" - trust me, nobody's selling to you. I know it sounds really harsh and I apologise for that, but I just want to really clearly articulate some things. LL was "acquired" by Randy and Brad. I'm just going to ask what people here think the motivations where for that. Why did LL decide it was time to sell out, why did Randy and Brad think SL was a worthy of their cash? Whatever the reason, R & B will be looking at two things (not rocket science by the way): ROI (Return on Investment) - if they decide to keep SL and develop it, they'll be expecting a decent ROI over the medium to long term. I can guarantee that if SL stays as it is with no major changes to platform and target demographic and adhere to merely satisficing the current aging pool of residents - they ain't going to get anywhere near that ROI. A forecast profitable Exit. Nobody, and I mean nobody looks at an acquisition like this without considering when and how they might exit, which at the end of the day means answering the question "Who in hell will buy this thing off of us when we're done?". Whatever people here think, all the gradual incremental changes in technology and online behaviour we've seen over the past decade are now reaching critical mass and I think most commentators and the investors who listen to them agree that the next 5 years isn't going to look anything like the past 15. (just to reiterate - you guys can agree with the forecasts or not - nobody actually cares). To cut the chase, and I'm as sad about it as you, the fact is "What it looks like", is much more important than "What it is". So for SL: Less latitude when it comes to accepted behaviour and acceptance of "kinks". More sensitivity as to what transactions are accepted through Tilia. Nobody wants even a whisper of Tilia being a glorified laundering mechanism for virtual prostitution or gambling (just two examples). More necessity to be perceived as a Good and Responsible actor in today's zeitgeist. So implementing policies which "appear" to manage levels of addiction and general emotional wellbeing - including the expulsion in the event of any hint of sexism, misogyny, or illegal sexual behaviour - notice I emphasise the word "hint". That's it really. I completely understand nobody on these forums agree with this and I'm completely open to the resulting ridicule - sorry and all that 😀

I know I should Lindal, I'm just a bit contrary that's all 😀 It is getting to the point that I can feel the ambient level of paranoia escalate by 90% in any room I enter. Seems most SL residents have at least one skeleton in the cupboard they'd rather not see again in alt form 😀

Sorry Lindal, sadly that was just my poor attempt at humour 😀 My avatar and profile is as described though, so you can imagine unsolicited friend requests are in pretty short supply (not unknown though) 😀

I'm 2 months old, I have an empty profile, and I'm wandering around in a system avatar. This friends thing you speak of, what exactly is that?

Oh ok then, I'm glad that's all sorted out 😀

I understand that there are a few people on these forums that firmly believe history is destiny. The logic (if it can be called that) goes that SL has "survived" in its current state for over a decade - despite all previous harbingers of doom and gloom. As a result its obviously safe to extrapolate and spin that history into a future of many more years of support for a stagnant economy, anachronistic culture, and dwindling user base. Nobody is forecast to make any real ROI, but that's ok because look how realistic my boobs are. The truth is there are lots of genuinely new legal, societal, technological changes and pressures which are beginning to impact SL and the rest of the online world. Given current research shows that Americans spend (on average) around 30% of their time online, the idea that we as individuals and our associated behaviours won't also come under scrutiny and legislation is pretty silly. In the beginning of course it won't be legislation which reflects and attempts to mitigate these pressures (however there are already quite well funded lobbying groups attempting to do just that). It'll actually be commercial online businesses across social media, gaming and yes virtual worlds pushing the changes. All of whom need new investors and customers with deep pockets, and consequentially need to be seen as responsible actors and display an adherence to the same set of brand values as this target demographic. Much talk on these forums has been around the future of SL - what the new hires mean - what the new owners are thinking when they institute changes to ToS. If you think their strategy is to invest good money after bad in developing clever, commercially and technically savvy ways to keep SL as it is and keep the current slowly decreasing user base happy, then sadly I think there's a lot of disappointment coming your way. Nobody hired the new VP of engineering for his ability to manage a jira backlog of low priority BAU concerns and gripes. I suspect the new owners of SL will gradually institute tighter controls over user behaviour and attitudes, not really because they care about your potential addictive tendencies or ensuring your civil liberties as a self determining adult. It will all be done purely to ensure that SL is seen as a safe and socially palatable haven for investors to place their money and expect a good ROI in the forecast context of the next 5 to 10 years. So is it likely that SL will institute some sort of access control to minimise the potential for addictive behaviour? In the short term probably not - however in the medium term maybe. Either way, the deciding factors really won't include whether or not a few of the current residents lose out on some fishing time or feel their imagined civil liberties to be infringed.

Sorry people, just ignore. In the end turned out I hadn't cleared the cache properly after all. When I did, normal service was resumed 😀

HI animats, First off, thanks for all your really well informed posts on this subject. It's something that's really close to my heart both here and as part of my RL day job, and I always walk away from your posts having learned something 😀 The only difference in perspective I have with this excerpt is the reliance on in-house platform specific tools and IP protection mechanisms. In my view it's only a matter of time before we have open interoperability standards across the industry which will allow creators to create, distribute and profit from their work seamlessly across multiple platforms (nothing new really for SL creators to do their work external to SL as it is) It'll also help consumers because they won't have to support multiple discrete presences across multiple platforms, as an example a single shirt or outfit will be bought once and then duplicated seamlessly and at zero cost across multiple platforms. There are certain interoperability standards and asset classes emerging as we speak, I won't mention them here though because I don't want to be called out (maybe completely fairly ) for indulging too much in some sort of buzzword hyperbole. I can see however that this sort of approach and potential tools have been discussed extensively in this thread already - so I'm probably not saying anything new. 😀 Anyway, this sort of approach is nothing new obviously in any sort of engineering or creative process. My RL product backlog would be going nowhere fast if the team didn't spend most their time on Stackoverflow and leveraging third party APIs. In my short time in SL I can see that it definitely has some great USPs which could make it a great success in the coming few years. My view is that it should "stick to the knitting" as we used to say back in the day, which isn't building content creation tools or IP protection standards from scratch. I genuinely feel SL has a really bright future if it offloads the responsibility for building tools and ownership/trust mechanisms (things which we're not great at any more) but concentrated on the platform dynamics (things which SL is still great at) by virtue of being being a leader in openness to interoperability standards (embryonic as they are). Anyway, in a bit of a rush, so sorry but probably haven't articulated very clearly. Thanks again.

This doesn't feel "off topic" to me at all. From and including Roe v Wade onwards, there has been no (as far as I know) absolute right to unregulated abortion. There is always the consideration and protection of "potential life" which generally becomes compelling (in legal terms anyway) when the fetus achieves "viability" - usually defined as the point where the fetus is potentially able to live outside the mother's womb albeit with artificial support. It's the question of viability and its complexity and dependence on context - including access to medical technology (as accepted by Roe v Wade as far back as 1973) which is often used as a key challenge to existing abortion laws at any specific stage in a pregnancy. It's therefore the case then that as technology and medicine marches on, the time period for a fetus to become viable will reduce. Currently I believe that modern practitioners still hold that 24 weeks is when a fetus potentially becomes viable, and at that point access to abortion becomes a much more difficult conversation. Even given that endangerment to the mother's physical and mental health is an overriding consideration. All I'm really saying then is that this sort of challenge to a woman's right to choose is likely to become much more frequent as medical science (including perhaps availability of artificial wombs) pushes back the timeline for viability. Once a pregnancy moves into a phase where there is a relatively high potential for viability of the fetus, then we move into an ethical and moral discussion of relative human rights.

To be honest when I first arrived in these forums I did raise an eyebrow when I saw the women's thread. But then just thought I was missing something - being new and all that. I'm not sure if it's related to the general demographic of the forums (I'm in the same demographic by the way), but I know that most of my RL friends and colleagues would see it as pretty crass (at best). There are no doubt lot's of reasons why I'm missing the whole zeitgeist on this, and I definitely don't want to come across as a spoilsport; I'm genuinely open to being educated on this. is there a fine line between artistic expression (erotic or not) and simple (anachronistic) titillation? That's a genuine question from a philistine of the first order 😀

You've obviously not seen the size of my digit ratio, it's quite small.

Fist? Or is that a whole different conversation?

I'm not a great shopper to be honest - after getting on for 2 months, I'm still running around in the free "Johnny Mesh" avatar I got when I joined up, so definitely take my perspective with a pinch of salt 😀 My understanding though is that this new NextUp thingy works a bit like this - please tell me if I'm wrong: Random thing is shown and available on "stage" for purchase - You know what you're paying and what you're getting. But, behind the "curtain" waiting to come on, might be something more lovely - more rare; the thing you've been wanting your whole life long! The only way you can get the current thing off the stage and get to look at the next thing, is by buying the current thing. You might not normally dream of spending money on this current thing - but now your money also buys you the chance to see if what's behind the curtain is the thing you really want. If this is correct, then I do agree with the OP that this is just gaming the "new" system. If it's not correct, just ignore me and go about your business 😀 Some people will spend money they don't have for something they don't really want just to see what's behind the curtain. Feels a little bit like gambling to me. As for the ethics, morality or not of the whole thing, that's not really for me to say. However for people who err on the "if you don't want it, don't buy it" side of the argument, I'd say it doesn't feel quite as clear cut as that (to me at any rate). The question of addiction (in this case to gambling) vs personal responsibility is generally considered pretty nuanced, so probably worth a bit of sensitive discussion either way.

Really beautiful and evocative.

I think there's also the risk of people using Google's reverse image search to find your RL identity or your other social media accounts (if you use the same photo obviously). If I definitely wanted to keep SL and RL separate, the safest course of action is probably not to post an RL picture - particularly not one I might have posted elsewhere.

while I really don't have any skin in this particular game, it's probably no bad thing to point out that the "award winning cult classic" you use to support your case (whatever that may actually be) was released in 1998. Even if we overlook the obvious argumentum ad populum fallacy of your logic (I know you like a bit of Latin) it might still be better if you could dig out something more relevant than an excellent movie getting on for a quarter of a century old. I know you understand that this slip up would normally provide me the opportunity to indulge in the same level of Reductio ad Absurdum reasoning as you revelled in earlier so I won't spell it out for you, and I definitely won't indulge in the "overt sarcasm" you apparently pride yourself in - I sort of adhere to the old "sarcasm as the lowest form of wit" perspective. Now apparently this sort of post would leave me open to allegations of rampant pomposity, but I feel pretty safe in this case because.. well to be frank, if you called someone pompous the irony would be palpable.

I'd have attributed that to Monica, the proof was on her dress apparently 😀

Just swirl it around your mouth and don't inhale. You'll be fine 😀

I've no idea why this subject is causing so much contention. At the end of the day, it's well accepted that there are many Socio-Cultural influences on behaviour, and there's no doubt that marketing and social media firms have made a good living for decades by subtly (and not so subtly) leveraging those influences. Is product placement (branded or otherwise) within digital imagery a tried and tested influencing mechanism? The answer is of course YES! The degree of influence is contingent on lots of different things, including factors such as: Is the "influencer" perceived as worthy of emulation? What is the volume and relative suggestibility of the target audience? Self delusion aside, I think we can agree that any "influence" coming from these forums is localised to a tiny demographic which has already made its behavioural bed and been lying in it for quite a few years 😀 Do what you want to do, nobody outside these forums cares - and that's a good thing!