What virtual space teaches
Mon Aug 30, 2010 8:58:50 pm

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I want to write something about virtual space. People have always needed and sought out escapes.
The types of escapes just vary with what is available to use. I have been an off and on user of secondlife since about 2006. I read a Wired article at that time that featured that virtual space and then tried it out.
Over the years I have been somewhat bemused to find that secondlife or sl as it's mostly referred to by it's user-base mirrors a lot of the physical world back to us.
Today as I write this a 13 year old (the teen grid was or is being integrated with the main grid) posted a message in the sl blog claiming that he or she had been ripped off by one of the merchants. The responses were predictable and also without compassion. Just suck it up and realize that trust is stupid-everyone will take advantage of you so now you either learn that or you keep getting taken. I'm paraphrasing but that is the essence of the advice that was given.
There was also some advice to not be nasty or harsh with the merchant and the constant reminder that you can't name names in the the blogs at sl.
For me it is a real fool's errand to be involved with secondlife. You really cannot win there. The merchants in sl get super upset if anyone rips them off but let something occur to a plain user and it's buyer beware and that ends it.
So sl teaches us one thing if we are open to it, and that is that there are separate rules governing commercial interests versus any consumer protection. Consumer protection by it's very nature is socialistic-therefore it's communism and cannot be tolerated. So like a Goldman Sachs customer if you haven't done all your homework and you get screwed-tough beans! And if you did all your homework you wouldn't be buying and that wouldn't be good either so really the marketplace wants stupid and silent consumers.
In sl and in the physical world if you want to commit larceny you really want to be in business.
The interesting bit to all this is that the majority now back business because business interests have spent a lot of money funding mouthpieces that promote the business ideal. The ideal touted is that business is good and businesses are all about providing for their consumers. If that were true consumer protection and men like Ralph Nader would never have risen to prominence. Don't take my word for it though. Simply search consumer fraud and auto repair.
Auto repair fraud in the US is a billion dollar industry last time I checked. When States run scam catcher programs they find a lot of crooks disguised as businesses but since the crooks can use their money to lobby the US Congress they can help to shutdown those programs and stop "wasteful" government programs. How good is that-for them!
In sl it's very similar. There just is no money to prevent merchants from ripping people off BUT Linden Labs-the creator of secondlife does it's part to help merchants in secondlife who have had their creations copied. Seems biased to me but I'm not an sl merchant. I'm just one of those ordinary consumers. I have no rights in sl and in the physical world? Well maybe it's mixed in the physical world but the lobbyists for business and the political right both say that business can manage itself fine without any government interference. So to me secondlife is just a little ahead of the physical world but I'm sure given a little time the real world can catch up.