Onward, Christian Soldiers!

The youth movement of Dutch mainstream political party CDA has turned their attention to Second Life and, as the true Christians they are, they are crapping in their pants about this virtual world ‘with no policing or government with any form of authority‘.

With a rather convoluted and poorly argumented statement issued to the press yesterday the CDJA (Christendemocratisch Jongeren Appèl - Christian Democrat Youth Appeal) presents the view that government agencies should not be allowed to invest in the virtual world. Their main points: it’s criminal, it’s anonymous, it’s a hype, it’s addictive, it has no overall authority.

One could level exactly the same criticism about the Internet as a whole, and yet I am reading their press statement on their website - apparently even the Christian Soldiers have come to realise that it is useful to stake out your Internet territory amidst the porn sites and the gambling emporiums. Judged by the look of their site they have invested a substantial amount of money into doing so, thereby sponsoring providers, web developers and programmers who also help continue the darker side of the Internet.

They have probably noticed the inherent weakness in their argument themselves, and to avoid bringing God Himself into the discussion they decided to pull out the old story about taxpayers’ money. Tens of thousands of euros! For the city of The Hague with it’s 470,000 inhabitants that means at the very most a few dimes per citizen. Not bad if you realize that the eternal debate in Holland is about how to bring government closer to the people. They are trying to do just that.

Reading the statement I get the feeling that the CDJA leadership has wandered about Second Life as hapless noobs, being caged and shot at, with no idea about the Report Abuse tab. Lost in Search - Popular Places they ended up on the porn-and-gambling side of Second Life. These descendants of the Crusaders, surfing on the wave of new moralism sweeping this tiny but inherently libertarian country, decided to take up arms against the infidels and their sinful ways.

There is a valid argument to be made about the usefulness of Second Life to governments and companies, but the CDJA does not make it. Instead, they write a statement full of moralstic drivel and fearmongering, thereby proving that they are simply afraid of anything smacking of freedom.

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The following is my translation of the full text of the press statement of the CDJA (in real life I am a professional translator of English and French):
No tax payers’ money in Second Life
THE HAGUE – Thursday, March 29th, 2007

The CDJA, the youth organisation of Dutch christian democrat party CDA [the party of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, LC] wants to see a ban on government investment in the virtual world of Second Life.
Tens of thousands of euros have already been wasted by for example the cities of The Hague and Zoetermeer, which have started building projects in the virtual world to extend their service potential.

‘The government should not sponsor a game which seems to become more and more a playground for criminals’, says CDJA-chairman Harry van der Molen. ‘The CDJA therefore wants to ban the investment of taxpayers’ money into Second Life’.

The CDJA is worried about media allegations that gambling and swindling, but also violence and stalking are daily occurrences in Second Life. In games like Second Life, to which more and more people get addicted, the lines between the real world and the virtual world get blurred. Furthermore, Second Life knows no policing or government with any form of authority, which makes joining pointless.

Harry van der Molen: ‘The government should not tell us fairy tales about offering services to virtual people who can purport to be anyone. It is an unhealthy commercial hype in which the government should not get involved.’

Goin’ to the Bank

Franky, I never liked the Commodores, but that song title lends itself perfectly for today’s visit. I have been flying around the complex of sims built by one of the largest Dutch banks: ABN AMRO.

It is an absolutely sumptuous office complex, hovering above a tropical island. A great looking build but with little or no attention to detail: either I hovered above chairs or sank right through them. The bank communicates to it’s visitors in English and Dutch - but mainly in Dutch. That makes the extensive sim complex and all the time and effort put into it (building went on as I visited) about as effective a marketing tool as a village newspaper ad, being that there are only about 5,000 regular Dutch users of SL. One gets the impression that the bank was hoodwinked into buying all this by some slick boys in the marketing department.

The main sim breathes a bank atmosphere: it’s all steel and glass and hardwood floors, full of corners to sit and discuss bank matters with nonexistent staff (save the builder I saw one staff member - and she was just there to communicate with the builder, saying that she was ‘just giving a demo’. One wonders to whom.) ‘Helivators’ - floating circular elevators - bring you to your desired location, that is, if you know enough Dutch to understand their communication. You could go to the meeting rooms and check out the five lounges with exotic names such as Hong Kong, Detroit or Padua. Don’t be fooled though - they all look the same, and they’re not very luxurious either. You could go to the Business Shop and buy yourself a suit or grab a freebie tee - unequivocally and absolutely the worst freebie anyone ever gave me, and I say that as a clothing creator.

To the north of the main island lies ABN AMRO Events. It sports a tennis court and a lot of (Dutch language) advertisemens about the the bank’s World Tennis Tournament of 2007 - which ended a month ago. To the west lies the Beleggerseiland or investor island. Another international activity of the bank, advertised in (let’s face it) a language which is illegible to by far most of the world’s investors. Here I do not have access but, oh what fun, it looks like a percentage sign.

To sum it all up: it’s a waste of space. The English speaking visitor is welcomed in his own language and then left to fend for himself. You could discuss bank matters here until kingdom come, if only there was one staff member present (I made sure to visit during local office hours). I found no information particular to SL (how about opening accounts for people who want to become paying Residents, but who do not have credit cards?). I just found posters I also encounter at local bank offices, which have actual people in them to which you can talk. I will surely be back to shoot promo pictures for my coming line of business outfits, but that is not what it’s intended for.

A sumptous office… note the Helivator in the upper center of the shot.

Looking towards the Business Shop

The Hong Kong Lounge and a very manly sitting pose

I can look serious if I want to

High Art in the High Alps

Granted, I have special feelings for Neufreistadt. Here’s a sim that’s not a mall, not a tropical island, not rife with casino’s, clubs, and camping chairs, but a labour of love. Recreated in prims and textures, positioned high above ground level, lies a Bavarian mountain village which looks stunning, even through the eternal mist.

Neufreistadt is run democratically by it’s Residents (as part of the CDS, the Confederation of Democratic Simulators), and maybe that’s why it has taken two years to erect and open a Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) there. A long wait, but one which proves well worth it.

The museum, with art exhibits on three floors and on the roof, rises high above the village center and is of a surprisingly modern architectural design. The visitor is told how to switch off the eternal mist, permeating even the buildings on the mountain, in order to get a clear view of the art. Apart from the paintings and sculptures you will find a video, two paintings with attached sound, and a spectacular kinetic installation on the roof which is also fully interactive. This installation by Adam Ramona invites to play with the different possibilities: you are invited to jump on it - don’t try this in the Guggenheim or the Louvre!

Curator Delia Lake and enthousiast TOPGenosse Brouwer have really put together a museum of considerable worth with a well-balanced and harmonious collection of interesting artwork from across Second Life.

Adam Ramona’s spectacular rooftop installation

“Robobirth” by Starax Statosky, in front of “Will I Dream?” by Tremali Lightworker

First floor with visitors (yes, that’s me in the pinstripe)

The Neufreistadt Museum of Contemporary Art, rising high above the village

It’s a nigger!

“Opinions,” wrote Thomas Mann, “cannot survive if one has no chance to fight for them.” I am in Mann, part of a group of six sims named after German writers (others are for example Rilke and Duerrenmatt), all built to recreate the lush green mountains of Germany, bisected by a river. One thinks of the Loreley, the mythical blonde maiden luring skippers to run aground on the jagged rocks along the river Rhine. One thinks of sunny summer holidays spent in beautiful Germany. To the south, there is the magnificent Burgruine or castle ruin. To the north there are just mountains and woods. Here, at the beginning of Schopenhauerstrasse, is the Biergarten.
                                                   

Although it is night in Europe, the Biergarten is brimming with activity. German is of course the language of choice here; I assume that these are fellow insomniacs from across the Dutch-German border, hanging out in an environment which truly breaths a German atmosphere.

But then I hear a soundbyte in American English with unmistakable southern drawl, accompanied by the text of it, written out in the chat log:

Sweet Jesus! What is that?

What the fuck is that?

It’s a nigger!*

I see the person doing it; a tall dark-clad guy called Titan Tornado. He repeats and repeats it, and there is even a pointing gesture coupled to the soundbyte. Someone has put a lot of work into this, apparently. And while his girlfriend, a bimbo with a long whip whose ‘slave’ he purports to be, tries to run me off of the sim (she probably read my profile which says I am both a lesbian and a left-leaning person) I catch this guy’s second trick: a combination of lines in chat text which form a swastika.

The Germans in the Biergarten react lukewarm to the antics of this loud and obnoxious guy. “Seems that Titan has a very limited vocabulary”, says one. Nobody objects, nobody speaks out. I, too, am too flabbergasted to say anything. But I fly up and away, copy the swastika from the history tab, and paste it in an abuse report. Linden Lab has given me the chance to fight for my opinion, which is that hate speech and the display of symbols of hate have no place in Second Life. And the Terms of Service are on my side.

(I do wish to emphasize that on subsequent visits to the Biergarten I found it to be a pleasant place and not a meeting point for neofascists. The German Second Life community has a lot more to offer than this run-in with a tiny minority suggests.)

 

*At first I thought this was part of some Ku Klux Klan speech, but after feeding it into Google I think it is a rearrangement of different quotes by Gunnery Sergeant Hartman from the movie Full Metal Jacket.

 

The Biergarten in Mann/Rilke

The Burgruine in all it’s splendour

 

Somewhere on a mountain slope

 

In the Neighbourhood

What inspires people to create a place for themselves in Second Life which looks exactly like a dreary suburb? Last night I looked about in the sim complex of Shermerville, where decidedly unspectacular houses stand neatly row by row along a square American style road pattern. Roads which, of course, are numbered as if to emphasize the lack of fantasy of the creators of these sims.

A plus: you can rez your vehicle here and drive around, and so I pulled the already rather drab Nissan Sentra from the inventory, set the colour to a subdued beige metallic and trundled along the avenues and streets, humming Tom Waits’ In the Neighbourhood:

Well the eggs chase the bacon

Round the fryin’ pan

and the whinin’ dog pidgeons

by the steeple bell rope

and the dogs tipped the garbage pails

over last night

and there’s always construction work

bothering you

In the neighbourhood…

When you say suburbia these days, unfortunately, you say security and fear, and so the Sentra, which can hardly run in a straight line, kept bumping into the No Entry tapes I love and cherish so much… maybe walking is better.

I met noone on my tour, not a living soul, apart from someone building a house. When I asked him if I could bother him with some questions, he disappeared. It could be that he crashed or signed off, but in this area I was almost convinced he was avoiding that strange girl who dared interrupt the building of his nondescript home. A stranger! Just when he was settling for a calm and boring Second Life in Shermerville!

Not a house here looks remarkable, not a company building stands out. American as this place may be, it reminded me also of parts of the Netherlands, where boxy ’60s style brick school buildings and detached and semidetached houses are grouped together in orderly patterns. A definite plus is the attention given here to trees - Shermerville has a lushness about it that is very pleasing when compared to the barren mainland wastelands where ugly malls and casinos compete for space with mock castles and private homes.

But still, I wonder. Here’s a virtual world in wich you can build whatever you like, live however which way you want to live, and drive or fly whatever you like. And yet we see seven sims, all alike, all decked out in suburban drabness - with an option for two more to complete the square. It doesn’t all have to be cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic or tropical… but is suburbia the Second Life you’d wish yourself?

The Nissan feels right at home here…

Overview

Crashing a Linden

Baby furries came out in droves to the weekly office our of Robin Linden yesterday. My modest laptop couldn’t keep up with the slowdown connected to the massive gathering, spread out over two sims. Just before the start I got redmapped - I had a hell of a time getting back in to the sim south of Robin’s office area and couldn’t possibly enter the area itself. Since flying about went in leaps and bounds, there is no way I can reproduce the debate for you. Snippets, at best, about concerns relating to a notice issued by Linden Lab:

Dear Second Life Resident:

Linden Lab would like to inform you that your land or business is possibly not in compliance with Second Life’s Community Standards. The depiction of sexual activity involving minors may violate real-world laws in some areas, and the Second Life community as a whole has made it clear that it views such behavior to be broadly offensive.

Linden Lab chooses not to allow the advertising or promotion of age play or related activities in any public forum — including in-world textures, classified ads, the Second Life forums, or parcel descriptions.

Advertisements, promotions, or descriptions of such activities must be
removed to avoid account sanctions. Any account asserting an age that does
not meet Second Life’s minimum age of eligibility will be closed.

Linden Lab

The reply read thus:

At 17:00 on March 8th, 2007, there will be a peaceful civil rights demonstration at the office of Robin Linden in protest of the sudden enforcement of restrictive and discriminatory ageplayer policies spurred on because of Fox News’ biased and slanted Video Blog Report.

Many harmless people are needlessly being pushed into the shadows merely for being “offensive”. SecondLife’s public image should not overshadow the founding principles it was founded on, especially when their blanket actions hurts the lives of many citizens of SecondLife who are causing no harm to other citizens.

As I said - no description of the debate is possible. But although I am absolutely no age play advocate and steer clear of such places, there are a few things to be said about the LL notice. First of all I wonder what the laws are in ’some areas’ and, of course, what areas are meant. Homosexuality is outlawed, too, in ’some areas’. Whether or not age play is your cup of tea is not the question. The question is first and foremost which concerns weigh heavier for Linden Lab - those of publicity and money or those of the freedom f it’s Residents? If a born-again Christian group offers to invest big time in SL ‘if all the sex is kicked out’ or ‘all the gay sims and clubs are closed’, are they going to comply as well?

The depiction of sexual activity involving minors may violate real-world laws in some areas - frankly I can live with that. I have no love lost for those who fantasize about having sex with minors, even if those minors are grown-ups in RL. But what about Linden Lab chooses not to allow the advertising or promotion of age play or related activities? Related activities such as… just being little kids, as a lot of these baby furries enjoy? They need to be more specific at LL.

Anyway, since there was hardly a debate anyway, and I couldn’t follow more than half of it, marooned as I was in Waterhead, offline or trying to move closer in an almost overloaded neighbouring sim, here’s a picture. Grey-out courtesy of Hewlett-Packard… I spotted three Lindens, by the way, and the presence of spike-headed security chief Chadrick Linden suggests why they were there (with the exception of Robin Linden of course, who was supposed to be there anyway).

I tried for more pictures, but I crashed and gave up. It was very late in Real Life Holland anyway…