Scylla Rhiadra

My "new look." Over which I have taken many pains to ensure that it looks as much like my "old look" as possible. Except better. I hope. ETA: My "old look" was system avatar and prims, circa 2011. It's been lovely to leave that behind, and embrace mesh!

You make some excellent points here! I think that where we differ is mostly in emphasis. I agree completely that Experiences are a potentially wonderful tool to enhance our enjoyment of SL, how it educates us, entertains us, and takes us outside of ourselves. And I think you clearly recognize the problematic elements: I like very much that you emphasis personal choice above, even if it is between Scylla (*coughs*) and Charybdis. A thought that has just occurred to me, not entirely irrelevant to our discussion, is the degree to which the low-stakes of most risk-taking in SL might encourage people to do things here that they would never attempt in RL. That seems pretty obvious, but I'm thinking primarily about emotional risks: the painfully shy person in RL who feels somewhat safer about connecting here, for instance. And in some ways, of course, that's exactly the kind of affordance that SL should offer. At the same time, "low-stake" risks are not the same as no-risk-at-all, and I've certainly known people in the kind of situation I've described who have been very badly hurt, "for real," by their temerity in trying something new. I don't have a solution for that. There probably is no solution for that, except for facilitating and encouraging realistic risk-assessment. And maybe we can facilitate that through education?

Yep, all of this is true. But no one here (I think) is arguing otherwise. I don't think anyone has suggested that Experience are intrinsically "bad," should be disabled, etc. I certainly am not, anymore than I am arguing that dances with "wandering hands" featured should be banned. I think that it's more a matter of trying to locate where the balance should lie, and distinguishing between the kinds of Experience that might be appropriate and useful, and those that might seem a good idea at the time, but that perhaps go too far, or raise problematic issues. So, it's about nuance rather than a simple binary of good/bad. I think it's important also to understand why some people are uncomfortable with, or dislike Experiences, and recognizing the validity of those views, rather than dismissing them offhand as unfounded, hysterical, etc.

Love this.

Absolutely, Innula. I don't shy away from dancing because I'm worried about suddenly being virtually groped on the dance floor: I choose to take that risk because the possible downside is, mostly, so very trivial. But that was, as I said, a deliberately trivial example, chosen because it's something that most people (at least most women) in SL can identify with. When those same principles are extended to potentially much more powerful experiences, the emotional and personal stakes become much more important. Again, I can imagine all sorts of ways in which I might have been able to use Experiences to make my exhibit on depictions of sexual violence much more powerful and affecting. I imagine, for instance, that I might have been able to actually insert visitors into interactive scripted and animated objects and instances where they are suddenly and unexpectedly the "perpetrators" or "victims" of sexual violence. I could have put them inside the experience of being virtually gutted, mutilated, raped, etc. That would undoubtedly have been powerful. It also would have been enormously irresponsible and potentially dangerous.

To some degree, this is of a piece with what I've just said, above, but in a slightly different context. The "fourth wall" exists, I think, for a reason; it's not a mere inconvenience that playwrights, directors, actors -- or scripters and sim developers -- need to "overcome." The fourth wall is what separates the artifice from the "real," the illusion on stage, or being rendered in pixels on our screen, from what we perceive as our true context. The fourth wall is, ultimately, why we can both be terribly saddened by the death of Cordelia in Lear, and at the same time delighted by it. Were our often unconscious but continual awareness of the fact that we are experiencing a theatrical illusion -- an awareness generated, in large measure, by the fourth wall -- dispelled entirely, we would not merely be saddened: we'd be shocked, horrified, and traumatized. I know that you know this, and you speak quite rightly of achieving a "balance." But, for me, the very power of immersion in SL is the reason why that balance should always be weighted, as I said above, on the choice of the spectator. We know, from years now of experience of how people "live" in virtual environments, that it can actually be terribly difficult to disentangle our emotional responses to virtual interactions from our contexts in physical life. And that's not always just the result of a lack of a sense of proportion on the part of the resident: Skell's point about his fear of heights highlights the degree to which the enormous power of immersion can produce something very like trauma even in people who are also very self-aware. And finally, to reiterate a point I made above, the presence of what you call the fourth wall also gives us the critical distance we need to analyze, rather than merely become lost within, the experience. There are times when it can be enormously useful and effective to generate stronger and more compelling (in every sense) illusion in virtual worlds. But I think there are lots of reasons to err on the side of caution, and keep that fourth wall firmly in place more often than not.

Yes, of course, you're correct. But I want to re-orient this a bit, and think about it not in terms of "risk" and "safety," but rather as an issue of empowerment and control, because I think it lies at the heart of the objections many people have raised here to Experiences. You have emphasized, I think, the powerful immersive quality of Second Life: that this is a huge part of its appeal is undeniable, But the other side of SL's power is the degree to which it promises us control. "Your Life, Your Imagination," the now-hoary old PR jingle used to go, and that element of personal choice, and personal empowerment, is enormously important to me, and to anyone who has come here because they wanted to exercise their choice -- to experiment with sexuality or gender, for instance, or to engage in particular kinds of experience that are not, for whatever reason, available to them in RL. Immersiveness is one of the things that makes those choices "work," and makes them important, but ultimately it is a means to the real end, which is to allow us to be, and do, what we want. Immersion works best when it is coupled with an experience that we have chosen, rather than pre--programmed one compelled upon us -- most often, with the best intentions -- by a scripter. It's absolutely true that we must exercise trust everyday in RL, and SL. But sometimes its not even about that, but rather about finding ourselves in positions where, without anyone being really culpable, we experience, or even (as avatars compliant to one script or another) do things we did not choose. A simple example which is probably common to most women in SL (I think it's mostly a gendered thing, unfortunately) is when we are dancing with someone to an animation with which we are not familiar. Everything is going well, when suddenly we find ourselves wanting to shout "Whoa! I didn't tell you that you could put your hands there!" In RL, I could swat the invasive hands away, or simply articulate my discomfort in a way that will probably prevent its repetition: in SL, because this is preprogrammed, my choices are only to end the animation entirely, or (if I'm in a position to do so) choose another dance. The key to this experience is the lack of choice available to, probably, all parties. The animator didn't know what personal context these wandering hands would intrude into, my dance partner may not have realized that his hands were going to be compelled to do this, and I similarly didn't realize what I was getting into when I accepted the animation. Ok, this is a deliberately trivial example, but it can be not unimportant in terms of our own sense of safety and well-being (even though it is so easily remedied, and no real physical threat exists). And key is that this is probably not about trust at all: no blame can be accrued by anyone for where a script or animation suddenly and unexpectedly takes us. So, when people complain about experience that compel them to tour a store in a particular way, or experience an installation according to the dictates of the artist/scripter, I think what they are really objecting to is less being subjected to possible "harm," and far more about losing, if even in trivial ways, what brought us here in the first place: the element of choice.

@Ivanova Shostakovich, I should take this opportunity to thank you, too, for reintroducing me to what used to be perhaps my all-time favourite sim, AM Radio's The Faraway. Aside from its intrinsic beauty and artistic interest, it's a place that has a lot of personal resonance. (This is more accurately what I did yesterday, and so probably doesn't belong here. But whatevs, right?)

Oh, soooooooo close!!! Actually, I think at the point it was "Only Shallow," by My Bloody Valentine (which was playing on my computer, rather than in the feed.). But Bilinda Butcher is so very Hepburn-esque, so I'm going to give it to you!

Bonus points if you can guess the name of the tune to which I am dancing (with myself). Ok. Not very many bonus points.

Mesh bodies are probably my biggest learning curve so far -- and that's just from the perspective of a simple "user." I am terrified of trying to work with a Bento head. (And probably won't. I'm reasonably happy with the improvements I've been able to make to my system face/head. Also, price. YIKES!)

IRL I know a few "Pam"s, but no "Pamela"s. And I don't know that I've ever heard "Pammy" before. But it works for me!

I owe it all to be a slightly pathetic waif whom people just feel compelled to help. (You should try it: it works wonders.)

What do Canadians call you? (ETA: On Halloween -- need to keep this on topic!)

We should probably stop this derail now, however, before we annoy too many people. Thanks for the engagement, Phorumities. ?

Well, yes. But the conditions that make poverty so endemic in those nations (including paying pennies a day, instead of a living wage, to third world labourers) did not themselves spring into being out of nowhere: they are a function, at least in part, of colonialism, capitalism, and neoliberalism. And others here have recently pointed out to you that there is in fact starvation and malnutrition in the west, although there is no question of course that it is less prevalent here than in many other places. And, again, there are historical and economic reasons for that.

Oh!! I seem to have just passed 600 reputation points. Go figure, eh? ?

To begin with, I reject your insistence that this is a pure binary. The world is waaaaay more complicated than that. I also dislike the term "superior": it has a rather ugly history. But are there ways in which western culture is "better" than some others? Well, duh. Yes. But remember that being "better" is often a function of wealth and power: it's relatively easy to be "better" when you are top of the heap. And the foundations for that wealth and power, both historical and contemporary, are themselves highly suspect. For instance, it is relatively easier to live "well" and cheaply in the west, because we have inexpensive goods, such as food and clothing, more readily available for those living in, or near the level of poverty. And one of the reasons for that is because our corporations are not shy about exploiting sweatshop labour in other nations.

I'm not sure if I qualify as "trendy" or not -- I doubt that I've been that for at least a decade -- but I can tell you that I, along with most of the progressives I know, are very interested in human rights abuses around the world. Most (myself included) are members of Amnesty International, or PEN, or similar organizations that are very much focused upon human rights in the so-called "developing nations." And the feminists I know, and with whom I work, are very much exercised about the status of women in places like Saudi Arabia and India.

I take it that you're not really criticizing Kwanzaa, and so I'm not posting this to "correct" you in any way. But I do think that calling it a "synthetic" holiday implicitly imposes a value judgement that suggests that it is "artificial" and hence maybe a little "fake," where others aren't. Arguably, though, nearly all holidays are "synthetic" in this way, at least to some degree. Christmas and Easter, for instance, may "mark" something, but those "somethings" are hardly verifiably historical "fact," and even if they were, the dates chosen to mark them were quite arbitrarily picked by the Church for reasons that actually have nothing to do with "fact." I'm not a Christian: i don't believe in the resurrection of Christ, and so Easter Sunday is completely synthetic so far as I'm concerned. What separates most holidays from Kwanzaa is mostly the length of historical time that they've been observed (and even that is frequently less, with regard to many holidays, than many of us think). As for "self-love" . . . well, most holidays are at least implicitly designed to support, cement, and entrench a particular culture/religion/ideology. Columbus Day, which is (so far as I know) recognized only in the US, "celebrates" the so-called "discovery" of the Americas by one particular ethnic/geographical group: it is very explicitly an imposition of a Eurocentric view of the relationship between cultures and ethnicities. And, to many First Nations people, it's not merely "synthetic": it's an outright unethical lie, and pure propaganda.

Wow, yes. That is gluttony! Or masochism! I imagine that you have the tech background necessary to get back up to speed pretty quickly. In my case, it's much simpler (and therefore maybe more embarrassing). There's a lot I still don't entirely get about mesh (especially fitted mesh), but really quite shameful are the simple things I should know, like how to order tattoo layers on a system head (which I'm still using). BTW I'm back on Firestorm, which is much better. And I haven't noticed any performance issues or differences yet, so yay for that!

There's something to be said for that! On my own behalf, I should note that I've been away so long that I actually feel like a pathetic n00b, especially in-world! (This is me trying to get the best of both worlds: wise and ancient, but also fresh and new! Is it working?)

I knew you'd come around eventually! ?

I thought I should add a post here with an update on my jeans and boots progress, and to thank everyone, again, for their help. I've been collecting boots (of various kinds) and jeans and experimenting with some mix-and-match, but below is an image of me in *Just BECAUSE* Kaylah Jeans (courtesy of Rhonda!) and Maya Thigh Sock Boots (minus the socks). (BTW, the shopfront in the pic is the new location of my soon-to-be-reopened bookstore!)

Garnet, are there celebrations of Guy Fawkes Day in SL? I'd actually pay an entrance fee to attend a bonfire night. I might even give a penny for the Guy.