Prokofy Neva

If only Desmond Shang was still in the furniture business! I do have some of his antiques I'm going to put out, however. Since this house looks almost exactly like a Victorian house my family lived in, in 1962, that's the furniture that is going to go out. So it's off to Fin's... Note to abuse-reporters: Russian Orthodox Christmas is January 6, and Old New Year's is January 13.

No, that's not logic at all. For most people who aren't isolated in extremist cults of self-selecting them and suffering from this problem of leftist journalism who have had some kind of upbringing in one of the world's major religions or some kind of ethical belief system, liberal or conservative, this is NOT logic. Logic is about accepting responsibility for your actions; for "do unto others what you would have them do unto you"; with not blaming others for your self-induced problems. The moral of your story in the bar is that if the woman doesn't want to fall prey to the irresponsible man, she herself does not get drunk and leaves. Full stop. This shouldn't be so hard. But it is, because of the journalism problem and poor upbringing in the modern world and all kinds of factors. I've made no claim that only women should alter their behaviour, and your extrapolation of this out of a common-sense prevention advice is all-too-typical of these leftist -- and authoritarian/totalitarian movements. You fly in the face of the truth. I've said reasonably and practically that a woman can solve the problem of men who rape, drunk or not, by not getting drunk herself and *leaving*. As I've already said multiple times, the discussion about how you "fix" men who are drunks and rape women is a separate debate and one I'm not interested in having with you, given your views, which are predictably leftist and authoritarian, from everything I've seen here. You've flagged your belief system as BDSM, and you've rung all the chimes on the typical apologia for this belief system, and I can only say, go to the Alphaville Herald 15 years ago where I had long debates for weeks on end (as did others) with the BDSM apologists who make all these predictable arguments that it is "choice," that really the sub is the controller, and blah blah blah. None of it is persuasive; none of it is born out by reality, not only by looking at RL court cases, but the numerous "safe hubs" for subs that exist in SL. You're also exhibiting the very typical intolerance to transgender even by the transgendered, especially by males. I don't have "issues with my gender". I have a male avatar in a virtual world. Your attitude to this *should be*, according to your ideology exhibited so far, an affirmation that I can express myself as I wish -- why, even getting drunk to the point of incapacitation. But it isn't, is it. My opposite gender in a virtual world is "having issues". Your imaginary "sub" life is a glorious affirmation. And blah blah. It really gets tiresome, and you can't see yourselves. If you want to limit your exposure to the dangerous males of the species, you don't go to frat parties in general -- there are many other kinds of parties and entertainment -- and you don't get drink to the point of irresponsibility at any party. Call me when you have a daughter, and you airily tell her as she dresses up to go out to a party, that she can get drunk if she wants to, and that really society should try to reform these male monsters. I'll wait. Common sense is common sense. It's about how you deal with PRACTICAL REALITY, not the illusion of the heavily ideological world consistent with your left-wing and BDSM views. I think it's indicative that the only people in this conversation are you and several others of the same extremist views and lifestyles, and me, who is not anonymous and not afraid. The fear of harassment and fear of seeming politically-correct haunts many and makes them not participate. You're welcome to have the last word as this debate has become repetitive and predictable. Few people outside leftwing journals, Twitter, and online forums and chat groups are counseling women that it is fine to get drunk and risk rape at parties. Most colleges have policies against drinking. Some even have various remedies like pick-up services you can call. No one who is in charge of a college dorm anywhere is advocating that the problem isn't women getting drunk, but only men getting drunk and raping women. Fortunately, the extremists have not yet had that great an effect on college campuses although they have on other issues. Believing that it's fine for young women to get drunk and expose themselves to rape isn't having an open mind; it is having a closed one, corrupted by ideology.

The idea that getting drunk and making yourself vulnerable to rape is "freedom" is a good illustration of what is wrong with your philosophy. Taking responsibility yourself not to get drunk to that point is in fact practicing the empowerment women should be conceded and avoiding the infantilization you claim you wish to avoid. A woman deliberately infantalizing and incapaciting herself from reckless drinking is NOT a subject of freedom; she is an victim of her own bad judgement, and therefore UNFREE. Andrea Dworkin famously said that the punishment for a college woman getting drunk at a party should be a hangover, not a rape. Yes, that's a great saying and I admire it. But there's a correllary, which is that you do not need to administer punishment to yourself of any kind -- you can avoid getting drunk. We live in a society in which we just had years of experimentation, with Title IX and other measures, to prosecute boys on the slightest whim as a means of controlling date rape. It didn't work. It ruined lives needlessly. It didn't protect women. It undermined justice as a whole in society by violating due process. It didn't capture the worst perpetrators. It unfairly punished some who were not the worst or actually innocent. In the meantime, the problem of alcoholism among women has only grown by leaps and bounds, in part because it was factored out of the equation by feminists. What a terrible disservice to young women.

Oh, gosh, Qie, too clever by half. The analogy here isn't to rape, however; it's to PREVENTION. Just as not getting drunk is a prevention of rape you can't argue with if you are in good faith -- barring the far less frequent cases of strangers assaulting you on the street -- so not going out in public places OR asking anyone who happens to photograph you at that individual moment not to share OR not caring if they do are preventions that would serve better instead of blanket bans on sharing outside of SL under the false belief it is "unethical". Just to remind you of the topic of the conversation.

So you're suggesting "the right to get $$$$-faced drunk"? Why? That's not a very kind thing to advocate for women. It's self-destructive and stupid. And there is no such "right" in any formal sense; it's a negative right in the sense that there is no formal restriction on anyone over the drinking age getting as plastered as they wish,even to the point of death by alcohol poisoning. The very real issues of sexual harassment and especially sexual assault are indeed real. But they are a subject of another debate -- what you do about them. I'm not for prosecuting people on charges that come from one accuser, with no ability to provide exonerating evidence, no right of discovery, no ability to cross-examine witnesses, etc. -- the regular features of due process in an independent judiciary. I'm for taking all cases of rape on college campuses -- and by the way, all cases of molestation of children by Catholic priests -- to the police or FBI or authority responsible and have them prosecute it in a system that doesn't violate suspects' rights on the way to justice. I think in the end more justice will be achieved in real justice systems, not fake justice systems, because it will be less possible to cover up and to favour only those wealthy enough to get good lawyers. Other than prosecution, there is a wide range of educational solutions, some of which make sense, and some of which are re-education in the Chinese style. I'm not interested in debating the remedies for fixing men with you because your views are extreme and you don't debate in good faith. Re: "Alcohol is probably involved in about 50% of date rape cases, but the most important determinant is not, in fact, the intoxication of the victim, but rather that of the perpetrator. And in many cases, the alcohol or drug consumption of the victim has been engineered (including through the use of date rape drugs) by the perpetrator." It doesn't matter if the perpetrator's drunkenness is a factor, TOO; that's not preventable for a woman (except by what, urging the passage of a law that bar the sale of alcohol to ANY male of ANY age?), but her own drinking levels ARE controllable. This INFANTILIZATION of women and implying that their own control of their own drinking as as defense against rape somehow "exonerates" or "makes it easier" for rapists go to the heart of what is so terribly wrong with radical feminism. It's absurd and untenable for every day life. I've read a lot of these cases, especially after a girl made a FALSE claim of rape on my daughter's campus, her college went into complete overdrive in response, but then never had the decency to provide as much publicity to the girl's admission that her claim was entirely concocted. There's one case even involving a famous person in Second Life whose case illustrated the shocking lack of due process and insanity around these cases. I've read everything about "Mattress Girl" who really has no case and never did. It's simply not true that there are "many" cases of the use of drugs. The garden variety of case is that the girl gets drunk at a frat party and can't get out of a bad situation. The solution is not to get drunk and even not to go to frat parties. Anything beyond that can be debated or implemented but it starts with that basic respect for a woman's right and ability to control her own situation. So, after you get done with your extreme hypotheticals and dubious statistical claims, meanwhile, there is a practical solution for date rape: prevention. And that is the analogy to use with photo-taking. So either this can be drastic prevention -- don't leave your sim or never go to a party in RL. Or prudent prevention - leave your sim and either ask people not to take your picture or *don't care*. You could add to this a debate about how women should dress to avoid unwanted attention in SL or RL. I'm not interested in that debate because I believe in freedom of expression and the right of women to dress as they wish regardless of the "male gaze". I would point out that if you undress naked at an event to try on clothes -- something I see people doing time and again, like idiots -- then don't be surprised if some men take photos of you and ridicule you or harass you. Again, *not* stripping naked on a public sim is a prudent piece of advice to avoid scandal and picture taking. It's always useful to remember how the FIC took the side of the "Upskirt Museum" (Google it) -- which should have been closed, and its creator banned, in my view, since it was harassment of the kind that doesn't fall into the "public sphere" freedoms. Yes, I choose to focus on the victim's drinking because it's the one thing in this equation that is readily fixable by real action in a timely manner. Fixing the male rapist is harder, and involves a wide range of remedies about which people will not agree. You know in your heart that if the woman doesn't get totally drunk, she's that much better off and you'd likely follow this advice in your own life or wish your daughter to follow it, or your sister or best friend. Yet you pretend it's a distraction or a detraction or some kind of making common cause with criminals. That's because you are UNABLE TO CONCEIVE of remedies and solutions that don't involve totalitarian control by radical feminists. And sorry, no one is going to let you make a society like that or let you get very far with that, and what has happened with Title IX and its ability to de-fund universities that don't prosecute even frivolous and false rape charges is a good example. It's undone -- and quite frankly might have been undone by a president far better than Trump. As for this: "I distinguish between representations of gendered sexual violence (e.g., Gor) which are premised upon repressive assumptions about the power imbalances between men and women, and BDSM, which, properly understood anyway, is not gendered, and has nothing to say intrinsically about women's supposed "inferiority" or "natural" submissiveness" -- I realize you are in no position to see the inherent hypocrisy and preposterousness of this "nuanced" view. The ONLY way we can live in a world with this view prevailing is if you and your little friends take totalitarian control over society and like the Red Queen, say whatever you wish a word to mean, and change it at will. In other words, only arbitrary and subjective likes and dislikes and beliefs and non-beliefs of the sort amply illustrated here about what is "gendered" or not could affect the society, and not law and the rule of law. Your "nuanced" views of violence against women are simply reprehensible and merely provide a marker for your overall extreme ideology. If you're going to invoke "consent" for BDSM, you'd have to invoke it for Gor, too; perhaps Gor just doesn't seem as well executed in the literary fashion you admire or has more stark sexist cliches than the typical ones on the BDSM scene to which you seem curiously colour-blind. BDSM is always practicing on people who haven't consented in just the way you are now, by demanding they submit to some "special" and "nuanced" and "proper" way of understanding their arcane rituals -- which at the end of the day, are merely the mundane and sordid story of abuse of power and lying about it. I'm well aware of your exhibits and your views and your lectures and admonishments about this are hardly required. I'm calling out *once again* how hypocritical it is to posture about date rate and drinking and accuse those of invoking the need not to get drunk as "aligned" with rapists. It's indefensible and self-discredits. The reason I have even bothered with this inane off-topic debate is because I think the claim that sharing photos outside of SL is fundamentally "unethical" is wrong and unjustified and rooted in just that aspiration for totalitarian control over others that comes from the extremist feminist and extremist transgender movements, and I fail to see why any of us need to countenance that sort of oppression.

No, because the accusations I have made about the griefing of a notorious "educational institution" for example are not "wild" and not "personal attacks" but valid and to the point, which is why they and their alts are banned from SL, and not me. They involve crashing their own sims, not just other people's, with rogue scripts and stealing with rogue viewers. Nothing wrong with complaining about this, and I do, and that's a good thing. The real issue is why you exonerate and even celebrate these criminals. I think it's fine, in fact, to "yell" about technical solutions for griefing and it is not necessary at all to "understand" them as a non-technical person because that's how life works. Most people use computers and have no idea how to program or fix them or even how they work. That's the nature of modern society and to pretend there is something "wrong" with this is merely to reveal oneself to be a member of a tech cult. But where do you imagine this "yelling" happens? On my blog, where I might put one post that is read by 300 people? Um, in my backyard or something? Ridiculous. I think what you mean to say that ANY exposure and reporting of griefing -- which you think is precious and interesting, evidently -- is somehow objectionable and a target for ridicule. That says more about you than it does about me. It also doesn't matter if a solution can be circumvented. Most cant. That doesn't mean you don't try. And in fact the Lindens do a lot more trying than their fanboyz are prepared to admit because their business and their customers are at stake.

This is irrelevant to the current debate, and BTW not exactly a sterling legal reference. The rape myths listed in that piece are all good -- but note that among them you will NOT find "she was drunk". Because "she was drunk" is a factual -- and avoidable -- situation. It's a way to PREVENT rape given that the feminist goal of re-educating and re-fashioning men may be awfully slow in coming for all kinds of reasons. It's also in general a good thing not to be a drunk, for all kinds of other reasons. Let's take another current tragedy in the news, the murder of the promising young white Barnard student by black teen-age thugs who robbed her in Morningside Park. There's been an enormous amount of horrible commentary on all sides -- racists on Reddit and PC lawyers imagining that the death of a student by murder is the equivalent of the loss of a teenager to jail because he committed murder. In their zeal to prevent a replay of the Central Park Jogger saga, journalists, lawyers and even policemen are leaning over backwards, and now today's story is that this young woman was seeking to buy weed in the park which is how she fell prey to muggers. This is based on sheer hearsay and not corroborated by anything but it helps disparage her as a victim, which is needed by some, since she was so pristine otherwise -- an eager, smart, talented young woman from the provincial south coming to the big city. Some people will draw the lesson that you need to legalize marijuana, although the killer's own apparent weed-smoking in fact may have made them violent, as doctors and researchers are now explaining in a lot of cases, though it flies against the received wisdom about pot. Others will draw the lesson that the park has to be put on lock-down with heavy police patrols that will make miserable all the blacks who live around there as they endure endless suspicions and even unlawful searches. But there are simpler, less political or racist messages to take home: if you are going to buy weed, don't buy it at night in that park where crime has doubled in the last year. If you are going to still go buy weed at night in that park, do not struggle with any assailant and instantly hand over all your money. In the same way -- analogy, not moral equivalence, if you don't think having someone share a picture of you outside of SL is "ethical," then you could have a range of reactions -- never go outside of your bunker sim; ask someone who has snapped your picture not to post it because it bothers you -- a personal interaction instead of a blanket suppression of free expression -- or develop a thicker skin and not care about such trivial matters.

I realize it's *hard* to reason by analogy and to think conceptually, and that's why you reach for insults and a superiority complex instead of *thinking*. There is no "logic" that comes out of the *prevention* of a situation by common sense -- not getting drunk -- that leads to "sequestering" women. That's absurd on the face of it. A lot of so-called "critical thinking" (Marxism) on campus has given us all this nonsense. A woman need not be *sequestered* but can go to a party -- and by the way, dressed as she pleases -- and *not get plastered* so that she does not wind up a victim. The logic of not getting drunk is pretty basic -- it's protective action, not DELIBERATELY rendering yourself infantile and vulnerable, you know, like not crossing against the light in traffic. So that you can MINIMIZE the damage from the boys getting drunk and attacking you. The logic of the camera-shy in SL could by YOUR analogy lead to someone never coming out in public but staying on their land. But there's another thing they can do: not care. Stop obsessively trying to control other people who in fact are not doing you harm. There's nothing *factually* wrong about my original analogy because indeed a majority of date rape cases occur because the parties are intoxicated, and it's reasonable to suggest that women not become so drunk as to not recognize they don't want to be in a situation they might not be able to get out of. That this is seen as absolving the male rapist is part of what is so insane about college-dictated "logic" and "philosophy". And BTW, it's a tip-off to the totalitarian agenda lurking within radical feminism like other forms of radicalism: rather than counsel prevention and caution, extremists imagine they can both re-educate and prosecute to the hilt so many men that they will never pose a threat again, and their due process rights be damned. They imagine they will have the power to make other people change dramatically in ways they themselves would never want to change. Since this will indeed prove elusive, they will console themselves with browbeating and even harassing anyone who disagrees with them and try to name and shame them as siding with rapists if they counsel prevention and caution. Along the way, they will remain indifferent if not hostile to the idea that prevention is any kind of solution, thus in fact enabling more of the same crime they seek to eradicate by radical means, unjustly prosecuting the many in the hopes that the actual guilty parties will thus be put out of business. It's really a nasty business so I will go on calling it out. There's nothing *ethically* wrong with urging college women not to become drunk at parties. In general it's a good piece of advice -- if they want to avoid hangovers and sickness the next day; if they want to focus on their studies, which is why they are in college, and so on. Prevention of drunkenness isn't victim-blaming; it's prevention of drunkeness, which is a good societal goal. That you imagine that it is irrelevant, or need not be invoked, or somehow blames the victim is EXACTLY what is wrong with college political correctness. It is exactly that insanity that has led to our current terrible president. Thank you. P.S. Thanks for conceding that you are happy to give Capture Roleplay horror in SL a pass on your way to being politically correct on RL subjects.

Instead of posturing senselessly about date-rape in the misguided belief that you are saving feminism's soul, what you and Scylla and other ladies should do, rather than getting outraged about common-sense advice for college women to avoid assault, is to go after the capture roleplay sites in SL. They are an abomination. Your fellow board regulars frequent them. They should suffer only social ostracism and there should be a campaign with the Lab to stop this simulation of crime which only creates a climate of impunity.

I could never advise anybody to do such a thing, even in Russia where the currency crashes way more terribly than in England, because the value here has gone down steadily and is liable to plunges as well. Terrible about the Labour Party which was a party I could respect 30 years ago and count some of its activists even as friends. This is what happens when you adopt the worst sort of Soviet Marxism with all its antisemitism and support for terrorism, instead of socialism with a human face for which Britain used to be famous. When you let tankies take power in a free society then you get a buffoon and a nationalist populist like what you got -- and like what we got, by the way, here in the States. May God have mercy on us all.

Is there a reason for this free ad and necro-posting for this controversial game that despoils the Mainland?

A great thing about this event is that every single merchant has a present. Maybe the Lindens made this a requirement? So often I go to events and half of the merchants are too cool for school and don't even bother to make a balloon or a picture frame, which I always hate as a gift because they are low-balling it, but at least that would be something. I totally realize what a chore it is to have to keep making gifts. But a recolour or slight updating of an old item could be one way to handle this effortlessly. I will definitely brave the lag again to get those Madras nuts. I liked this dining set called "Champrete" for sale half price by Minimal. I can't do the textures justice:

Maybe it's because you respond by saying "nobody said that" when...you said that LOL. Have fun on your alt.

Scream all you like, but do try to reason by analogy, it's useful. Indeed what is at issue here in both the setting of date rape and the outrage about sharing photos is a substrate of maximalizing freedom and even licentiousness with the expectation that you will prevent crime by "education" or prosecution -- and on the way violate due process and suspects' rights all too often. So the girl at the frat house both wants to get irresponsibly drunk and flirt with boys AND have somebody or something restrain the boys so that she can have maximum freedom -- and be able to prosecute them and ruin their lives without any due process on her say-so. But there's another way to have freedom, which is not to become irresponsibly drunk so that you can avoid such situations or even not go to such frat parties in the first place. This was considered normal common sense even 25 years ago, let alone 50 or 100, yet nowadays we are supposed to live in this absurd world of maximalized licentiousness with no personal responsibility whatsoever to prevent crime, and with the only measure for preventing the crime of rape to somehow "educate" boys -- which may not even be possible. Certainly prosecuting them hasn't worked. In the same way -- this is an ANALOGY but not a moral equivocation, although that may be lost on you -- people want the maximum freedom to fly around SL dressed in any way they wish, they want to strut around in their fashionable costumes they've paid a fortune for (and who can blame them!) in public places, but they want to restrain people who photograph them and share it outside of SL. Machinima policy on private islands is not the issue (it doesn't apply on the Mainland). The issue is the idea that you can make other people do what you want to create totalitarianism for them but hedonistic freedom for yourself. This recipe all too often reoccurs in SL, freedom for me and banning for thee. But in reality, rights must be balanced and prevention rather than prosecution has to achieve the goals sought. If you don't want to be photographed, don't go to public places or better yet, stop caring so inappropriately about someone blogging your costume at a public event.

You're still having trouble a) admitting what you said which we can all read here, which is that you believe sharing photographs outside of SL is unethical and b) focusing on what you said about sharing outside of SL, and repeatedly responding even in red and all caps about what the TOS says about *inside* SL.

I realize that reasoning by analogy can fly over people's heads but I don't worry about trivializing anything because it's more important that you think about what is true here. What is true is that if a woman does not get irresponsibly drunk, she has a far less chance of being raped. Teach boys not to rape all you like. That's fine. But teach both girls and boys not to get out-of-control drunk if they don't want to get raped or be charged with rape. That remains the root of the problem and the rest is so much posturing.

@Desiree Moonwinder - well, let me quote you again. You said that posting SL stuff outside always struck you as unethical. Why? On what grounds? I find in general, when people acquire such fears, and use empty alts to post on the forums, that they are afraid that something about their SL will be discovered in RL, usually the fact that they have changed their gender, but not only that. You don't have to explain yourself if you don't want to, but you should question why you are trying to promote an "ethics" that isn't based in anything.

@Desiree Moonwinder, citing the TOS which -- for the third time -- only applies inside of Second Life -- does not explain where you get the idea that it is "unethical" to share photos outside of SL. You and others have developed this wrongful idea from somewhere, and it's helpful to know from where. Where is it said that this is not ethical? You might want to review some recent lawsuits on this issue which failed. Why do you think that the Lindens could write "Consent is not required for any snapshots" if there is some ETHICAL reason why this should NOT be allowed?

What possible grounds do you have for continuing to say that it is "unethical" to share photos outside of SL? For something to be "unethical," there first has to be a law or even just an ethics such as to violate. What would that ethics be? That you can't take pictures of people in public places and post them? Where do you find such ethics? Where do you imagine they reside? WHY do YOU believe them? This is really the question. I'd really like an explanation. I personally think this notion is a feature of the general totalitarian trend of online life that inevitably follows hedonism and extremism. That you are in a context where you are encouraged and indeed wish to express yourself to the max, in every imaginable way in dress and behaviour, yet you then double back and imagine you should restrain someone from photographing you, an anonymous avatar. Why? Example: I'm wandering around the large plaza where I live, snapping phone shots of the buildings, the sunlight, and a group of boys playing soccer. These amateur photos are clearly not high resolution and couldn't be. (I do know that it is possible to take very professional pictures even with an i-phone camera, but if you are standing a half a block away from a group of people, there is no way you will have recognizable faces. I continued snapping flowers and such when suddenly this 10-year-old boy came up, one of those preturnatural sophisticates that you often find nowadays, who began denouncing me for taking this photo, and threatening me that his father, who was a lawyer, would sue me. I laughed in his face. I suggested he use his self-same obsessive Internet to research the jurisprudence on this matter. There wasn't a court in the city that would take such a frivolous harassment case, no matter how fancy the lawyer. It is well-established that you can take photos of people in public places. There was no setting of reasonable expectation of privacy -- private property that allows the public entry (and I myself live there) would not be such a venue. There was no commercial use. So it's out of the question. How is it that this boy, who chatted and snapped photos and shared with his friends endlessly (it was a rare moment these kids were actually getting physical exercise; so often they are huddled with their phones), who in his short lifetime had consumed and shared more media than say, my 107-year-old aunt had in hers, could come to such a pernicious conclusion that this was "illegal" and "dad" would "get me"? It's much like the issue of college date rape, where girls get drunk or take drugs and go with college boys and expect some different outcome than what all too often happens. The problem begins with her failure to assume responsibility for her own incapacitation. That's truly the story. That doesn't exonerate the boy; it merely explains how you PREVENT this sad outcome reasonably. So people overshare and put pictures and chat all over the Internet, and live in that environment, and want nothing to restrain this, yet they reach out with a totalitarian impulse to try to control a mom who is their neighbour from merely snapping a picture of her park, which at best a dozen people on Facebook might notice. It's truly insane. If you don't want your photo taken in Second Life, never go to any public places and remain in your bunker on lockdown.

BTW re: the social worker or family member who says SL is a waste of time while they sit for hours in front of the TV. I have not had a television for more than 25 years. This is why I can't pass this cultural test as I don't recognize most of the people and issues on it. The same with my children, who grew up without a TV for their formative years. I only got like a 3 out of 34. Imagine, all I really recall from the last decade is that girl singing the song about "Friday" and bouncing up and down in the back seat of the car. That's about how much the culture was worth to me. I didn't follow it, didn't miss it, and I don't think it matters. I didn't recognize almost any of those others mentioned. I didn't know there was a controversial Pepsi ad where an actress gave a Pepsi to a policeman during a "Black Like Me" demonstration. I can't say I really missed any of these cultural phenomena at all. I feel I had a rich and cultured 10 years doing all sorts of things, going to foreign countries, visiting museums and art shows in the US, reading books, etc. I made all kinds of room in my mind by not watching TV, and by being creative in SL and doing RL things instead. This was not some zealous program combined with organic cereal and Montessori schools or anything of the sort. It's just that once there was Second Life, I was completely uninterested in TV. Why would I sit on the couch and watch an episode of Roseanne when it was so predictable and jumped the shark when she won the lottery? Why watch ER, especially after Dr. Green died? (See, that was the last time I watched TV). If I really need to watch the "Fugitive" again, I can go to archive.org and watch it for free. And I found my children, in their younger years, once they were off "Barney" (which they never liked) and "Sesame Street" (which we all loathed) and "Arthur" (which we liked" and what they called "Cartoons At Work" (Cartoon Network), they went on to Zelda and Animal Crossing. Those games were much more fun than any cartoon. The news is available on news companies' web sites or YouTubes and plenty of it. Who needs to watch another fire in New Jersey? Every one of the important hearings on the Ukraine scandal are all on web sites reached via Twitter. A TV is not needed. But more than all that, the reason why entertainment on TV just left me cold is that you can't change the environment. Once you have the power to move the chairs around and change your costumes and such, why would you sit passively to watch somebody else's directing? You have your own movie. If I have to sit and watch something like "Silicon Valley", it's usually only because I'm stuck home with a tooth extraction or the flu, and even then, I want to reach in and change things. There was also the practical issue of how they converted TVs to some sort of other system where you had to add a thing, and I never bought that thing and did it, I forget what it's called.

Of course I'm real, and so is everybody else. The virtual can profoundly affect the real in good and bad ways. I think this is better understood now that we have people who meet in SL and actually marry in RL and stay married, on the positive side, and horrors like 8-channers chatting on the Internet and applauding as one of their number actually goes out and bombs a mosque or church and murders numerous people. Terror and crime offline often begins online. There is nothing magical about the Internet realm and its great propensity for crime and mayhem stems from the pioneers' wish to bypass organic law established by centuries. We didn't have the Internet when I was a teenager and in college (well, we did, but I used to have to get up at five in the morning and haul it from buckets from a spring 20 miles away). I remember one funny instance where a long-time friend from college kept trying to persuade me to join Facebook, which I wasn't interested in. Finally I joined it and I didn't care for it much. I told him about SL. He was an artist and photographer in RL so I gave him a store to put out his photos and art works. They didn't sell, because in fact I think there's a bigger market for SL photos, not RL photos, and it takes awhile to network and get established. It's odd, but he seemed "more real" to me on Facebook than he did in SL -- which he didn't like, for lots of reasons, mainly because it's so hard to work. I think it just has to do with the medium of expression. But all in all, he was "most real," i.e. like himself as I remember him when I knew him in person in RL, on his blog, where he published his poetry. It's funny how it works that way. People who pretend they've compartmentalized a virtual life from their real life without any consequences are in profound self-delusion. I will say this about SL. In RL, I seldom think about SL as I go through my day. I almost never dream about it, even though I'll dream of flying in *real* life. It does feel like a separate realm. Still, it is definitely connected. I don't think about Bayonne, New Jersey all the time, either, yet it is there and my son lives there and I visit him. But since he tends to call me on the phone or message me on Facebook, he is "more real" there in that particular manifestation that in the imagination of Bayonne that I might conjure, not that there's an awful lot to imagine about Bayonne, although it's more interesting and even pretty than you might imagine if you read about it.

I'm thinking of starting a group by that name with that title above my head! Who's with me?! I am so tired of going to events or to stores where "fly" is turned off. It's truly the most ridiculous thing and has no reason to it that I can see. SL avatars are avian creatures. The giant stores parked in the middle of beautiful ocean beaches all over SL with open-air multi-floor buildings are made by people who grasp a simple rule: if you can fly up directly to a vendor instead of struggling to walk, let alone climb stairs, you will buy more. It's easier and freer. Given that some stores and events have "fly" on and keep it on and others don't, there really is no justification for turning it off. It's not like those who have "fly" turned ON somehow have less sales or more griefing (if that's the reasoning) -- they likely have MORE sales because it's more of a convenience to shoppers. Do owners imagine that they stop griefing this way? But griefers can override the settings of legal viewers and grief in other ways besides flying, and would be expelled hopefully quickly (although owners and staff often aren't on site). Griefers are a tiny percentage of visitors so it is not merited. By allowing fly, you help free up the pile-up at the landing point. While there is no injury in a virtual world, still, psychologically people get really annoyed if you land on their head or bump them. Fly helps you rise above the laggy and crowded floor to cam around, and zip around big sims which are pretty but a real chore to stump around on your two avatar legs. Perhaps store owners imagine that if they turn off fly, they prevent people from quickly zeroing in on only their favourite merchant, or only that one thing they want to buy. They force them to walk past other offerings and maybe make an impulse buy. This technique is at least 150 years old, and I believe it was introduced by the department store magnate Johnny Wanamaker, AKA "Wannamaker Buy" (about the housewives who frequented his stores), along with the "99 cents" price tag that made you imagine you were getting a bargain, compared to a dollar. The idea is that if you force the shopper past displays, there will be make more purchases, especially small ones (which is why all the gum and candy and tabloids are by the cash registers). This is the theory behind hunts as well -- if you get them in the store, while they are looking for the little snowflake or heart or elf or bell, they will also hit the gatcha machines a few times at the very least or maybe by a $399 chair. And they aren't wrong about this although most people likely only come in to grab the free or cheap hunt gift and get out. But really, especially in a virtual world where you CAN fly, it is so primitive and I think futile to have these forced-marches past merchandise you don't want. You end up not even going to the event if you know they have fly turned off. This being the forums with contrary regulars, no doubt readers will be found who imagine turning off fly is "vital" and certainly in that glorious realm of virtual law called "I get to do WTF I want on my land." But they really should reconsider. When you can't fly, you also fit in less events. It's too much of a chore. Right now, I'm avoiding "Lag and Cam", as I've dubbed the Lindens' event, because "fly" is turned off (unless it is really on, but so laggy you can't tell). Many people discuss how they park themselves at laggy events and cam-shop even on the original sim, let alone a cam-shopping sim. I always feel there is something humiliating about cam-shopping sims and simply wait for a few days to go by. Yes, there is something to be gained from walking around the whole event, I totally get it. Yet especially on your SECOND trip to an event, you want to be able to FLY. For events that span 10 sims or more, it's insane to turn off fly. The best sort of events are those that either alphabetize the merchants, or put their logos on a big board with a TP that takes you directly to their booth. The merchants who send out DIRECT landmarks to exactly their gatcha or booth are the ones whose groups I stay in and whose wares I buy, because I don't have to comb through laggy sims never finding them. I've noticed that some major events like We ❤️ RP that used to have huge layouts, sometimes even over several sims, which made it a huge chore to try to find things, even by camming, have tended to scrap this method and opt for large domes in one place rather than rows that you have to struggle to walk up and down. This has made it so much easier and more enjoyable to shop. And they save on sim tier.

It It most certainly is enforceable -- in the most brutal way, like Russia or China or Iran. For "any reason or no reason," the Lindens can simply expel you from the service and block you from logging on again. This is done routinely without appeal for new accounts; older accounts might get a review but generally if the Lindens arrive at a decision to ban you, they will. And this will be for violation of the TOS -- as they see it, without recourse. Perhaps by "not enforceable" you mean that they don't bother to chase all violators, they don't have the resources. But that is really different than "not enforced" because generally the Lindens do enforce their TOS, and brutally, without appeal. And once again, they CANNOT enforce a TOS of their making as a private company OUTSIDE of their realm, i.e. their servers, to which you are logged in, either the world or forums or any other related property. The end.

I'd have to disagree with that. While there are a lot of amateur shots and a fair share of them come from me, there are enormous numbers of very high-quality shots, look at Flickr, look at the top blogs.

Once again, Linden Lab does not have jurisdiction outside its own servers. You would not want them to have it, nor would they want it. Everything in the TOS and things like this machinima policy refer to usage *inside the realm of Second Life*. And again, no one has mounted a successful privacy-related lawsuit involving an avatar and a virtual world. Call me when they do. That's to be distinguished from *copyright*-related suits, where they may have a case if there was *commercial use*. So again, *it does not matter what the landowner forbids*. Neither he, nor LL, have jurisdiction outside of Second Life.