Jump to content

Scylla Rhiadra

Resident
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    19,901

  • Joined

  • Days Won

    182

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Scylla Rhiadra

    Diversity and Inclusion in Second Life

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    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.

    • Like 2
    • Confused 1

    Diversity and Inclusion in Second Life

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    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.
     

    • Like 2

    Diversity and Inclusion in Second Life

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    35 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

    The fight against real racism ended successfully before most of us were born. The fight against “racism” today is one giant scam to get money and favors.

     

    🙄

     

    33 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:

    this topic is off the rails, half the posts will be deleted tomorrow when a Linden shows up for work and draws “forum control” as their assigned duty for the day. 

    Im out of here 😂

    Gosh. However did THAT happen???

    • Like 2
    • Haha 1

    Diversity and Inclusion in Second Life

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    9 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

    I rather doubt it was a conscious decision on the Lab's part but that of the culture in general becoming much more open and comfortable with the idea of diversity and inclusivity and then the Lab going with the flow in response.

    In general I'm sure you're right, although the decisions to publicly support BLM, and produce a "community page" for black people are surely conscious decisions that must have been considered, at least in part, from a marketing or PR perspective.

    • Like 1

    Diversity and Inclusion in Second Life

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted · Edited by Scylla Rhiadra

    26 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

    Yes.

    Ironically (or not), one of the ways LL does market itself as inclusive is by carefully tucking away the not-so-inclusive parts ("plantation RP" or r*pe play, for instance) behind the "Adult" rating.

    I wonder if many RL women might think twice about trying out SL if they were more aware of the prevalence and popularity of misogynist groups and RP here?

    26 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

    Ehhhhhh. In some ways, yes. A trip through SL is a lot like a trip around NYC in that I'll be exposed to quite a few different languages in local if I zip around enough.

    Do I see a lot of myself in SL, though? Well, there's a lot of roleplay. I'll just leave it at that. 👀

    Good distinction.

    I do see a lot of "myself" in SL -- by which I mean women of whatever sexual orientation or ethnicity who are not gendered stereotypes. (Although god knows, I run across the other type often enough too.)

    But then I'm a well-educated, privileged white woman. So . . . not a very useful measure.

    PS. Just to make it clear that "myself" is not a racialized term: I have women friends in SL who represent as (and as far as I can know, actually are) black with whom I feel a very strong affinity and connection. But then again, it's relatively easy for me not to feel that race is an issue. That's clearly and for obvious reasons not necessarily the case with WOC.

    • Like 4

    Diversity and Inclusion in Second Life

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted · Edited by Scylla Rhiadra
    Clarity

    12 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

    Screen%2BShot%2B2014-11-03%2Bat%2B3.54.09%2BPM.png

    Just a reminder. The topic is about Diversity, Inclusion and Equity is Second Life. Discussing how this dynamic at Linden Lab affects its perception within SL might be relevant, but we don't really know the diversity makeup of all the Linden employees.

    Discussion of Diversity, Inclusion and Equity practices in RL is off-topic and likely to get this thread locked.

    Yes.

    DEI is about much more than just hiring practices -- something, in regard to LL anyway, that we know nothing about in any case.

    I think a more interesting and relevant issue is how (or if) issues such as representation and diversity are reflected in LL's management and marketing of SL. That's something we can talk about.

    There is of course the other thing that makes SL somewhat unique: that "representation" among RL users is not the same thing as representation in-world. Both are relevant:

    • Does SL do a good job of signaling its inclusiveness, as a platform, to POC, members of the LGBTQ+ community, women, etc?
       
    • Does representation in-world reflect RL diversity, or are there impediments to that?

    My sense is that there are far more POC in SL now than there were when I started. Or at least more people representing as POC. Does that reflect conscious strategies on LL's part? Is it the result of a broader range of products available for diverse representation? And if the latter, is that because there is now a market for them that there wasn't at one time?

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1

    Diversity and Inclusion in Second Life

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    An important point to consider with regard to DEI in a corporate context is that it's probably mostly not about boards of directors or CEOs or shareholders suddenly "catching" wokeness, as though it were a brain virus.

    Mostly DEI is adopted by corporations because they think it makes good business sense to do so. It may be that they want to score "virtue points" with parts of their target audience, or that they want to encourage a more diverse and broad job application pool. Perhaps, like Disney, they've determined that employee retention is improved when they practice elements of DEI.

    There can be lots of reasons why a corporation might embrace a DEI policy, but I doubt many of them have a lot to do with ideology or ethics. They are corporations, not people, and their sole reason for existence is generally to generate a profit. If they decide to reflect diversity better in their hiring practices, it's almost invariably because there are sound business reasons for doing so.

    And that applies to LL. If LL has tried to increase the visibility of POC in SL, for instance, it's mostly likely because they recognize that that's a demographic they haven't properly tapped yet. If they are very much pro-LGBTQ+ (which they certainly are), that might in part reflect the makeup of the company, but it also has a lot to do with the fact that the LGBTQ+ community in SL is huge and important.

    So I think that people who are yelling at corporations for "caving in to wokeness" are barking up the wrong tree. What they are doing, in fact, is finding ways to maximize profits and improve operations.

    • Like 3
    • Thanks 3

    Diversity and Inclusion in Second Life

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    30 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

    And I maintain that it's better that way- those really bad people with really bad ideas are like mold and will get worse if out of sight.

    Well, this tends to be my view: bannings just drive stuff underground. There are advantages to that -- people don't have the same freedom to actually advocate for misogyny, racism, or what-have-you, but on the whole I'd rather that the festering pustules were visible. I don't want to have anything to do with someone who holds egregiously racist or homophobic views, or who can only get it up if he's imagining he is inflicting pain or humiliation, so I find it quite useful when people make their toxicity clear and open.

    33 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

    One of my favorite things about SL is how much freedom of expression we have (outside of the forums, anyway).

    DEI isn't actually "against" those things, in theory anyway. It's actually about amplifying the voices of those who are seldom heard or seen. DEI doesn't say "Don't hire white guys!"; it says "Be more diverse in those whom you hire." In practice, that does mean hiring fewer white guys, but that's mostly because they've had advantages for hiring in the past.

    How it works in practice is, of course, sometimes a different thing.

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 2

    Diversity and Inclusion in Second Life

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted · Edited by Scylla Rhiadra
    Subject-verb agreement. -1% on grade.

    This rather depends what you mean by DEI (which in Canada, btw, is more generally "IDE," for whatever reason).

    I think SL culture is pretty inclusive, on the whole, and gloriously diverse in some ways (especially with regard to gender and sexuality; less so maybe in other regards). Probably more so than RL. Is it equitable? That likely depends on your metric, but overall probably?

    But DEI is generally used in the context of institutional policies, rather than as a description of a "culture" or "society."

    The LL ToS and CS, and most especially the "toleration" clause in the latter, do, arguably, mandate DEI. Or would, if they were enforced as written, which of course they are not.

    In practice, LL's policy of "tolerance" has tended to extend to the "intolerant," with a few exceptions for really egregious views, behaviours, etc. So violent and hateful misogyny is also tolerated here (in pretty much any form you want to name. I have receipts), as, to a slightly lesser degree, are homophobia, transphobia, racism, Islamophobia, and a number of other toxic perspectives.

    And what that has meant in practice is that, despite the generally inclusive nature of SL, there are corners of it that are really pretty deeply uninclusive and hateful.

    On the whole, I think LL gets it right. At least, I don't have any alternate suggestions that don't involve censorship (which I abhor). Probably, however, I wouldn't complain too loudly if the more extreme forms of misogyny -- snuff porn and Dolcett, for instance -- were actually suppressed, in line with the way in which extreme articulations of racism currently are.

    • Thanks 4

    Oh my Gawd! - Totally unOfficial Pet Peeve Thread.

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    18 minutes ago, Bagnu said:

    I haven seen "Day of the Triffids" either. The blindness part horrifies me too much. I started the book, but had to put it down. 

    I didn't realize until yesterday (and this conversation) that there had been a 2009 "TV" remake of The Day of the Triffids. I watched a bit of it: it's not bad. It's certainly got a pretty good cast -- Joely Richardson, Scott Dugard, Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Cox, and (weirdly, although he was pretty good in it) Jason Priestley.

    But yeah, the first 20 minutes or so were traumatizing. Something else I didn't know until yesterday: the novel was the inspiration for the movie 28 Days After.

    • Like 3

    Oh my Gawd! - Totally unOfficial Pet Peeve Thread.

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    3 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

     

    For the "Best Experience" you need to watch rocky Horror" AND "Young Frankenstein" back to back as a "Double Feature", just as they were shown, in a small cinema in Central London, for many yeas.

    You also need a cigarette lighter, to spark up and hold above your head during one of the songs. Fishnet stockings and sussies are also recommended.

    image.thumb.jpeg.21396b8739c8566b882bd44c1040ab94.jpeg

    "There's a light... Over at the Zalistein place..."

    Sing along when you've learned the words.

    I really don't need an excuse to visit London.

    Just time and . . . air fare. (And an airliner that doesn't use Boeing!)

    • Like 1
    • Haha 1

    Oh my Gawd! - Totally unOfficial Pet Peeve Thread.

    in General Discussion Forum

    Posted

    7 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

    It was a musical before it was a movie..

    Sorry, "not Broadway" though (my bad) (from Wikipedia): The film is based on the 1973 musical stage production The Rocky Horror Show,, with music, book, and lyrics by O'Brien.

     

    Oh thank god. Yes, of course. I thought you were talking about The Day of the Triffids.

    And yes, of course I've seen the movie of Rocky Horror -- but no, never a stage version!

    • Like 2
×
×
  • Create New...