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The illusion of Second Life government
Tateru Nino's recent post about F.I.R.E., an organization claiming to be Second Life's first political party, reminded me of a blog I wrote in 2005 about Second Life's de facto political parties. It's well worth the read, if only for the humor factor, but the gist of the article was basically that several political parties are starting to informally emerge in the arena of ideas. In today's article I would like to discuss two of the most passionate and vocal de facto parties whose debate rages on even today...The Nation Party - Those who believe that Second Life is a "world," a "nation," or a "country," and should be treated as such which includes the formation of a government.The Platform Party - Those who believe that Second Life is client-server software owned and operated by a private company and should be treated as such. What should be an obvious and quick debate can actually become quite sticky, especially when the definitions of terms like "world" and "government" can vary from formal to casual usage, and when the legitimacy of a term's usage may vary with scope. It becomes even more confusing when the nature of Second Life itself creates an illusion that resembles something profoundly familiar to us for which we have deeply-held, preexisting expectations.
