Kami Harbinger

There's more of the usual whining on Terranova about how class divisions in games and social climbing are "worrying", or "cause for concern". They're not worrying at all, this is absolutely normal, and almost a tautology given a moment's thought about the situation.

The basic requirements to enter Second Life, World of Warcraft, or any other high-end virtual world are: a reasonably good computer (a $2000+ computer if you want to play without lag), broadband Internet access (almost requiring you to be in the central area of a major metropolis, which has a high cost of living), spare time and energy (a job that doesn't totally exhaust you by the end of the day), and sufficient education to find it interesting at all (the majority are college-educated).

So that's about 1% of the population of Earth. Even in the U.S., that's still no more than 10% of the population. They're only available to the richest, most-connected, best-educated 100M people on the planet (as noted by Neal Stephenson in Snow Crash about advertising on The Street).

Obviously any activity that requires these things will be "elitist", and people will socialize with others of their own class and schmooze for jobs and relationships with others of their kind. It's not some giant class conspiracy or clique, it's people getting the best entertainment they can afford and enjoy.

When the lower classes have time and money to play videogames at all, they play sports games, action games, and first-person shooters on consoles and 4-year-old computers (the upper classes play those, too, but they have additional choices made possible by higher income).

There are two kinds of people in the world. Insert joke here... But no, I'm serious. Success and failure don't depend on the environment (say, Second Life or First Life), or your background, or anything else. They depend solely on attitude.

Some people use hard work and dedication to succeed, whether in business or entertainment. If they're bored, they make something or go find someone to have fun with. If they're poor, they make something or go find someone to make money with. It's possible for them to fail, but they'll just dust themselves off and try again. Since I'm a programmer, I call these people Ones.

Others just laze along and do nothing, and expect to be fed and entertained by others. At best they'll begrudgingly go along if a One tells them to, and might have fun despite themselves. It is absolutely impossible for these people to succeed at anything; if they by chance achieve a goal or receive wealth or anything else of value, they will ruin and waste it, they don't know how to do anything else. I call these people Zeroes.

I don't know what the percentage of Ones in society is; on good days, I think it's 50%, on bad days I think it might be more like 10%.

These are not innate--Zeroes can wake up and stop sucking and become Ones, Ones can fall down and become Zeroes. Your behaviors don't just apply to one part of life, they affect everything you do. It's not a matter of coincidence or "luck" (there is no such thing, just random chance). It's just a matter of choosing hard work and dedication.

Or you can choose laziness and failure. Up to you.

I've been looking at architecture a lot more recently, since starting to build places in SL.

"Those struts and fretwork are cool-looking, but they don't have to be load-bearing in SL..."

"If only there was no gravity, this building could be made a lot more attractive..."

I saw a building today with a spiraling wall rising out of the top. No purpose, just decorative, and for a moment I wasn't sure which world I was in.

Frapper has a taggable map showing the "First Life" locations of Second Life residents. Go add yourself!

Hiro is approaching the Street. It is the Broadway, the Champs Elysees of the Metaverse. It is the brilliantly lit boulevard that can be seen, miniaturized and backward, reflected in the lenses of his goggles. It does not really exist. But right now, millions of people are walking up and down it.
-Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash