JacksonBollock

Ahhh, ever the canny political operative Ms Rhiadra, I said your status was well deserved Your inclusion of a very strategic snip from my original post is praise worthy, but (intentionally ?) obfuscates the main message which was

I've been watching the back and forth on the whole AI thing in this thread, and thought I'd just let it run its course. However, given @Scylla Rhiadra (well deserved) standing in this community, I thought I should point out that her summary is a gross misunderstanding of current GenAI and its capabilities. I've no interest in getting into a whole explanation of what's going on and how things work, and more importantly the impact on scientific discovery and genuine creative output - I've done that before and still have the bruises to show for it All I'll say is that anyone who relies on this sort of misapprehension to forecast any sort of future, whether it be for SL, or society, or even personal progression - will be quite wide of the mark and hence vulnerable.

Uphill Struggle

I'm at home now, and PBR is fine - all except the mirrors. When I look in them, all I see is a tired looking middle aged guy - what upgrade do you reckon I need??

I think though, from certain perspectives, fallbacks are bad because they cost and they dilute, and they set a precedent - where do LL call the next branch point? I know it's a particularly sensitive perspective, but it might also be that in the medium to long term the "leavers" are already factored in and actually fulfill a strategic goal. This happens all the time - certain customers are intentionally shed or even shoved out the door.

At the moment it seems unlikely they will willingly step back from mandatory PBR in the medium term, as their focus appears to be on modernizing Second Life to attract a new "high rolling" user base and future-proof the platform. This is actually good sense and any other strategy would probably result in P45s (UK for sacking) for all involved. To a degree, a mixed system could theoretically accommodate both old and new users, but it might not align with their concurrent goals of reducing support costs and driving higher engagement from users with newer hardware. Add into this the fact that (and please don't shoot the messenger) it looks like Linden Lab probably perceives the customers potentially lost due to the implementation of PBR as low value - particularly in terms of future revenue potential, alignment with long-term goals, and even externally perceived brand value. So look, I don't really care for PBR in SL, I've said already I think that the implementation is bad and clunky and ill conceived. The only excuse I can see is, as I've put so eloquently before, it's really difficult to polish the big legacy pile of t*rd which is what sadly consitutes SL at this point. On the other hand, an agile business might roll back on PBR when/if it's shown to be such a big bag of spanners that it not only doesn't attract new users, but increases cost structures as well. That would take quite a lot of sophistry on their part to sell it as anything other than a giant c*ck up, but we've seen them sell even more unbelievable messages in the (not too distant) past

From my perspective there's still not much out there which "competes" with SL. My very simplistic take is that SL uniquely facilitates "being" something, rather than "doing" something. SL lets you "be" in a different state of existence. It allows for deep immersion and identity exploration which other platforms don't. The emphasis is on extending your sense of self and your personal presence in ways the very prescriptive situational constraints and social mores of RL don't. This is different to the likes of Roblox, Minecraft, and even Fortnite which concentrate on articulating and on "doing" from the perspective of who you are in RL. I accept that even here there are certain "flow" states which allow you to lose your sense of self for a while - but this isn't the same as intentionally exploring a different state of "being" as I describe above. My Forum title/signature is a paraphrased quote from Lord of the Flies which, to me anyway, has a lot to say about SL in various ways. This mask metaphor expresses, I think, an analogy of "being" in second life. It captures a wee bit the way, we in SL, can freely shed social constraints, expectations, roles and inhibitions without self-consiousness. This makes SL unique (to my knowledge anyway) in its ability to offer a space where we can explore and inhabit different aspects of ourselves and in that way grow who we can "be". I know this sounds all a bit "out there", but I think there is some support for what I'm saying in terms of research on Presence Theory, Identity Play, and Social Constructivism. There are far cleverer people on these boards than me, like @Scylla Rhiadra who can fill me in on where I'm talking tosh So in short, probably best to try and sustain and support SL so that we don't have to look for a competitor!

Horn Dog

There's a comedy show from Scotland called Still Game - typically Scots - about a bunch of oldbies who are "still game" as they say. Anyway, last scene shows them all popping off and the world going on without them - that's how I imagine SL going in the end. Last one out, remember to turn off the lights...

Sorry Always, nicked your idea (see above). Great minds and all that

SL: Arrive at an event completely naked, p*nis attached to your forehead, and carrying a riding crop - nobody bats an eyelid. RL: Arrive at an event with slightly dishevelled hair, and a shoelace undone - people lose their minds.

Mmmm... it's whatever was in the pic that I copied from a google search on "really complicated mixer desk"

What it feels like trying to get my relatively current system working with PBR viewers.

Now come on Ingrid, that's not quite fair. I mean his picture was also posted in jest, you know that really funny story about the young girl s*x trafficked thousand of miles from home, and then imprisoned as a modern day slave under the notional agreement she'll be released after she pays off her travel costs with the money she makes as a prostitute. To be fair his joke is funnier than yours, coz you know - his is true.

I don't know, I mean burning animals can be funny too. Like, you know when you're frying a sausage but forget to pr*ck it first, and it makes that high pitched farty sounding whine as it releases pent up gases? That can be quite funny too sometimes.

I don't know, I was thinking more a Procne and Tereus type thing. Does Ingrid have a sister? If she does, maybe she'd be better with the BBQ. Don't tell me, we can't find Greek Mythology funny either?? Spoil sports.

Speak for yourself I might (and am perfectly within my rights) to find a very bad "representation" of a baby on a BBQ amusing. I might also be amused at people who cling to the old adage "no one has the right not to be offended" but only up to the point that they themselves feel offended. I might also find amusing that in 2024 the epithet of "b*stard" may be applied to an infant, along with everything it societally implies, and goes unmentioned and without offence.

Hey, I find lots of things sickening - blatant hypocrisy being one - along with images posted in general forums of sticky stuff sprayed in unrealistic volumes across latex, but you don't hear me complaining. Oh wait....

To be fair, it's likely that even the most comprehensive verification process would fail in the face of most modern suitably motivated pre-teens and teens. The idea then would be to de-motivate them as much as possible. Given the current demographic of much of the SL user base, the best course of action would therefore be a Customer Testimonial marketing campaign - with real customers talking on camera in glowing terms about SL - particularly the s*xy bits The very thought of Granny and/or Grandpa sucking on anything other than a Werthers Original, would certainly act as a strong and visceral de-motivation for most right minded pre-teens and teens (and most wrong minded for that matter). Just think of it in terms of the scene in The Shining when Jack encounters two attractive women in Room 237. Jack approaches and kisses one of the women as she emerges from the bath. At some point Jack glances into a mirror and sees that the woman has transformed into an old, decomposing corpse with a grotesque and horrifying appearance. Just let the kids look into the mirror people - no age verification needed!

An almost perfect illustrative example of the behaviour in question - well done! If you'd read further in the wikipedia description, you would also have seen. "In conflict theory, passive-aggressive behavior can resemble a behavior better described as catty, as it consists of deliberate, active, but carefully veiled hostile acts which are distinctively different in character from the non-assertive style of passive resistance." Catty, I'm guessing, being more what you were going for in the first place

I agree, I mean look at the flames, that kid is going to be chargrilled on the outside and raw on the inside. If you're going to do it, do it right - wait for the coals to die down before slapping it on the BBQ. Or is it that this image degrades and objectifies an inanimate digital artifact rather than a real person that upsets you? It's difficult to judge where the line for morally outraged virtue signalling is drawn these days

At this point, attempts to enhance SL with PBR are literally like trying to polish a t*rd. There are a few who can and might appreciate the immersive aesthetics. The moist luminescent sheen reflecting the moonlight - so real we could almost reach out and press our digital fingers into its still-warm squishiness. The rest of us, however, might think we seem to be paying a lot of money just to stand around and look at a t*rd.

What on earth? (Walk away, walk away Jackson - if you're going to have that brain aneurysm, don't waste it on this 🙏) Good, well informed points Harper 👍 (Come on Jackson, you know sarcasm doesn't translate well in text!)

I was being facetious Aiyumei, mixed with a fair amount of genuinely losing the will to live. GDPR aint rocket science, it's not new, and in 2024 the reasons people are not aware of it or its benefits, are largely because they choose not to know - blissful ignorance and all that. Add in to the mix the average use case for a platform like this, as again facetiously outlined in my post, and you form an idea about why some would prefer good governance and oversight not to be in place - but that's a whole other ball game. At the end of the day, one really can't keep discussing the same old stuff over and over again, with the same people who prefer to adopt that heady mixture of sophistry and ignorance to get by in life, while wearing it as a badge of honour. The point I was making is that, without a legitimate RL legal entity to pursue, GDPR and any other legal governance transgressions will be very difficult and costly to enforce - although not impossible obviously. In light of all this, the only thing anyone can really do is communicate the risk to prospective and current platform users in the hope that common sense will prevail - if it doesn't, it doesn't. At this point I'll leave this conversation. Thanks though

Can we just dismiss the video because they're annoying d*cks? I personally don't need any other reason than that.