Oy yoy yoy, in spite of you telling me what I do in SL is labor, it isn't if anything it's challenging the structure and at times in fact close to bringing down the sim because of particle streams. Or another way to look at it, it's a lot less labor and a lot more thinking than any other art- form; I work physically harder at music-making (where I'm feeding the corporate club-owners) or typing theory (where I'm feeding no one).
I also don't get a sense that you're talking about anything other than a distant corp - you might want to look at the internal structure of SL farms for example. - Alan On Wed, 7 Oct 2009, mark cooley wrote: > I'm with you Marc. Also though, there should be some recognition here of > attention capital. when we're participating in so-called social networking > sites we're in fact providing labor for the corporations that own the > platforms. Simply, it goes like this - some influential economists and > "thinkers" in the 70's were sitting around thinking about the evils of > leisure time - if they could just get people to think of work as leisure then > everything would be great - what they came up with is an idea that if people > could be convinced that they were in fact serving themselves and a > "community" while doing labor then they could get a whole lot of people doing > their labor for them at no cost. Web 2.0 is little more than the fulfillment > of this dream. In the case of SL they're actually getting people to pay them > for doing their labor. Imagine going back to the mid 20th century and telling > an industrialist that in the future they wouldn't have to build a factory, > in fact they wouldn't even have to supply the machinery for their workers, > and their workers wouldn't understand themselves as such at all - they'd be > happy to make your products (content) for you because they'd feel like > somehow they're serving themselves. They'd see themselves as "socializing" > with "friends" rather than doing what they're doing 9 times out of 10, > sitting alone in front of the computer indulging in their most > exhibitionistic fantasies for an audience that's too busy indulging in their > own egos to care. > > I think we need more people willing to step out into the real world. It needs > some attention. There are many intelligent minds stuck in the factory who > could do some good out (t)here. > > >> mmm, >> >> I'm not asking for A mono-cultural and isolated thing here, more of a >> conscious effort by people to support each other, artists or whatever >> those communities may be. I feel that sharing and supporting others is >> an honourable thing to do - not for any religious reasons or official >> ideology, but because as an individual who respects others (humans), I >> want a better world to live in, therefor I must do something of value >> and not just care about my own singular entity. I have made the decision >> to bypass the 'heroic' stance of genius in order to seek a life beyond >> such distractions which really is more about childish fantasies and >> top-down control - in so many different ways in our cultures. I know it >> sounds corny, but I still believe in things like love and respect, and >> other equally silly things - I know some adhere to a post-human agenda >> and this is their choice, which is more about nihilism for the self and >> ignore others and their very 'real' contextual situations. I am not >> asking people to be like me, but I am asking for people to protect their >> cultures before it is taken away from them. >> >> Also, >> >>> for that matter the fibers this stuff goes out on - it's all >>> corporate. How we situate ourselves, how we fight abuse, those >>> are integral to this, but I don't feel withdrawal - which is >>> only an inauthentic withdrawal (in the Sartrean sense) - is any >>> sort of answer. >> >> It may all be corporate, but humans are not necessarily corporate >> drones, unfortunately many of us are engineered and (de)educated to be, >> and this is one of important points here - if we all fall into a fait >> accompli, absolutist or even such an emperical state of being of >> accepting what we are fed, then the battle will be lost, perhaps it is >> already... >> >> I really do not agree that SL is grass roots, although I do agree that >> it is populist which is not always a negative factor, such a thing can >> change things in our world and make brilliant things happen. SL, is >> centralist, successfully exploiting a digitally networked Internet >> culture, like google has. It may have been once, not sure though. One >> really cannot call it grass roots in respect of its reasons, function >> and purpose. >> >> But of course, all that is being discussed here is different reasons for >> our existence, ways of being - it all melds together somehow. >> >> wishing you well. >> >> marc > > ******************************************** > > > > == current text file: http://www.alansondheim.org/qh.txt last text file: http://www.alansondheim.org/qg.txt email archive: http://sondheim.rupamsunyata.org/ webpage http://www.alansondheim.org sondheimat gmail.com, panix.com == _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
