9 posts from May 2007

An article by Mitch Wagner at Information Week a while back got me to thinking: what's the purpose to SL? People are joining the community at a farly fast clip, but once they have joined, then what? Mitch's article attempted to deal with that question from the user's perspective by listing 12 things to do, but I think he missed the larger issue. What's the purpose of Second Life? So let's consider what's possible.

To judge by the results of a few cursory searches, there's a lot of sex going on in Second Life. Some of you may be too young to remember the cybersex craze a few years back. If you missed it, think of it as a lot of one-handed typing (which might lead to a good pun on "sticky keys," but let's not go there). To be fair, Second Life takes it a bit farther by giving the user something look at besides lines of text on the screen, but still...

I'm not trying to denigrate anyone who might be into that sort of thing. I'm a bit of a 70s throwback - if it feels good and doesn't hurt anyone else, go for it. But there must be more to it than watching some avatars do the nasty. My personal take on it is that the participants are either getting something that they cannot get in real life or they are exploring aspects of their personality that they might otherwise repress in real life for fear of repercussions. Second Life, like almost anything on the Internet, affords a degree of anonymity that is not available in real life (for a good look at how anonymous you really are in Second Life, consider the Identify and Anonymity section of Mitch's interview with Phillip Rosedale from last week). So people can indulge their fantasies with little feal of real world consequences. This raises a whole slew of ethical questions that are far outside the point of this whole ramble, so I'll let it drop for now. Perhaps I'll come back to those in another entry, perhaps not.

There is also a lot of money-making going on. Well, money-making of a sort. If you consider April's economic activity, the vast majority of transations were for less than L$1000 (a bit more than four bucks (US$)), and perhaps half of the transactions were for less than L$20 (less than a dime). Now keep in mind that these transactions are only for Lindens. If someone goes off-grid to transact in real money, there would be no way to keep track of that in-world. So if most sellers are collecting less than $.10 per transaction, whatever they are doing must be because they enjoy it, not because they're expecting to become the next Second Life billionaire. The money is gravy rather than the primary motivator. On the other hand, a lot of $0.10 transactions can add up over time. And if you think about it, there are few material costs involved - just skill and creativity (which kind of goes back to my previous post), so perhaps they are thinking volume?

To pick up on Mitch's #2 activity, people chat. A lot. I was tangentally discussing this with a couple of friends last night (maybe the night before) at Philosophy House.  A point that I raised in the discussion was that I would have had to scour the entire town to come up with even a couple of people who could discuss philosophy intelligently and at Philosophy House there are a good dozen or more who show up on a regular basis. I didn't have to do any scouring - there they are, all gathered together in a single place at the same time. I think it is the one area where Second Life excels: the capability to gather people who share similar interests who can share those interests in real-time. I don't think any of the discussions have changed my viewpoints on most matters, but the exchange of differing viewpoints in a civilized manner is the best part. I may not agree with others' views, but the mere communication of a differeing view is enough to make me sit back and go "Hmmmm." And in my book, that's the most important part: the expanded view.

Many years back, British science historian James Burke made a comment in one of his history serials (I forget whether it was "Connections" or "The Day the Universe Changed"). Acording to Burke, one idea plus one idea doesn't equal two ideas; it equals three or more depending upon how good the original ideas were. And that is Second Life's strongest asset - the ability to draw people together and have them share ideas. Whether anyone makes money off of it is completely secondary to the original exchange of ideas.

Last night, the Level Playing Field Institute hosted an event in Palo Alto, California. The event was somewhat mirrored in SL through streaming media. Mitch Kapor (chairman of Linden Labs, founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and creator of the Lotus spreadsheet application among other accomplishments) gave some introductory remarks at the SL portion of the event. In his remarks, Mitch made a few comments that lead me to believe that in his view, Dr. Martin Luther King's hope for a completely equal society had been achieved in SL. Not being a professional journalist, I didn't take his words down verbatim, nor do I know the address where the video stream was hosted so you may check for yourself. You'll just have to depend upon my recollection. [edit: better yet, here's a report from the Second Life Herald]

Mitch's proposition was that in SL, everyone is equal because no one knows (and most don't care) who you are, where you live, what kind of car you drive, what color your skin may be, whether you attend a church or not, etc. What matters in his view is what you know and what you can do. So we now have a world where people are truly judged, "not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

I might agree with his assertion, in principle, but I think it falls short on the practical implementation. Consider me, for example (what can I say? I'm an easy target). Leaving aside a fairly strong background in computers (in comparison to Joe Six-Pack, anyway), I don't know anything that would be useful to anyone in SL. It might be possible that I could function as an academic tutor in some subject areas, but because I don't know much about working with prims or scipting and am not terribly artistic to begin with, my potential to be an economically viable entity in SL in its current incarnation is very slim. Instead, I would have to exist as as nothing more than a consumer, cabable of interacting with other SL residents, but incapable of being economically productive.

Consider, also, the basic infrastructure that must be in place for me to even be present in SL. I must be affluent enough to own a fairly current computer (or at least have easy access to one). I must also have a fast internet connection or be willing to wait a very long time for all of the textures to finish rezzing on a slow one. I must be comptuer literate enough to use the software. I must be capable of using text as a communication tool (enough written language skills to be able to communicate effectively) and I must have something to say that people might actually be interested in hearing (arguable whether I meet that condition, but we can pretend).

In effect, SL is an environment where the residents have a greater degree of commonality than you would find in real life. Until such a time as SL is practically accessible to the public at large, Dr. King's dream remains only a dream, even in the virtual world.

The alternator on my car gave up the ghost rather unexpectedly last weekend and I was not able to leave it with a mechanic. I was dreading the prospect of being without wheels for a week (I only live a mile or so from where I work, so it was potentially a major inconvenience, but not a crisis), when fortune smiled. A friend was going out of the country for a few weeks and asked if I could take care of his car (a very nice Jaguar sedan) while he was gone. The two events were so close together that I figured that it must have been kismet or something. So while waiting for an opportune time to become a grease monkey, I've been tooling around in a Jag (less than 50 miles worth of tooling, but still...).

I don't know why it is, but all of a sudden it seems like half the drivers out there want to race or something. I'm a pretty sedate driver, so it's not like I was zipping around trying to show off the car or revving the engine while sitting at a stop light. But it seems that as soon as the driver in the next lane sees the little hood ornament, they want to peel out from the light and beat me across the intersection. C'mon, guys! Get a grip on that testosterone level. I can't speak for anyone else in your car, but I'm certainly not impressed.

And just to prove the point, I replaced the alternator and serpentine belt in my car this afternoon. I'm back in my Mr. Conservative sedan and no one wants to race anymore. I guess it just goes to show that guys never grow up, they just get bigger.

I believe that it was on New Year's Eve 1999 when a Russian friend made an observation regarding Germans (the details of that night are a bit fuzzy, but I vaguely recall that the world did not come to an end at midnight). The observation stemmed from a flight-delay problem in Berlin or Frankfurt a few weeks earlier, but the friend generalized to the culture as a whole to the effect that Germans would rather that there be no rule than make an exception to a rule. This is a fairly accurate observation in my experience and I do not take it as a disparaging remark. I should qualify my concurrence by noting that this applies in an institutional setting. The reason why this springs to mind is that it's that time of year again when high school seniors (and their parents) complain that they cannot participate in graduation ceremonies because they did not pass one or more of the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) tests and, thus, cannot receive a diploma. If you are not from Texas, you may be scratching your head over this, but you can search for "commencement" or "graduation" at the sites for any of the major newspapers in the state to find relevant articles (Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, Austin American Statesman, El Paso Times, etc.).

For those of you not from Texas, it works like this. Each year, all students in grades 3 through 11 are tested in Reading and Math. Writing, Science and Social Studies are tested two or three times, but not at each grade level. Testing takes place in April so that results can be returned by early to mid-May. In order to receive a diploma, a senior must have passed all of these tests. Juniors who do not pass one or more of the exit-level tests have four or five additional chances to take and pass the exams before the end of their senior year. This year there are approximately 40,000 seniors in Texas who are ineligible for a diploma because they have not met this requirement. This comes out to something like 15% of the seniors, state-wide. At the local high school it's about half of the senior class, although that number also includes students who have not earned sufficient credits to graduate.

I cannot speak for other states, but in Texas the problem goes back 15 or 20 years to a time when our high schools were handing out diplomas to students who couldn't read or write well enough to fill out an employment application, much less have any chance of success in post-secondary education. So the state adopted a series of standards (currently known as the "Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills" or TEKS, though they have gone by various names over the years, some of which are even repeatable in polite company) which said students must demonstrate particular levels of knowledge and the ability to use certain skills in order to receive a diploma from a publicly funded school. I first encountered this when I went back to get my teaching certificate starting the semester after I had received my bachelor's degree. The College of Education required that I take and pass a basic literacy test before I could enter the program. My initial thought was that if the university had awarded me a degree less than a month earlier and now wanted to make sure that I could read and write, it did not speak well of their confidence in the quality of the education they were providing to their undergraduates. But I digress.

To return to my initial point, something in one of the articles (I believe it was the El Paso Times) struck me as being so outrageous that it could not pass without comment from me. Some parents of seniors who were not being allowed to participate in graduation ceremonies were complaining that they had spent hundreds of dollars on invitations, announcements, caps, gowns, and so forth for a ceremony in which their child could not participate. Remember, this is after their child was given four or five opportunities to meet the graduation requirements, which were known in advance, and failed to do so. Perhaps I was German in a prior life, but my reaction was, "you know, if you had taken the money you spent on all of this and invested it in books or other educational resources a few years back, this might not have been a problem." If you want something, then you have to do what's necessary to make it happen. That's not being a hard-ass; that's life. And if these seniors haven't got that message by this point in time, they certainly are not ready for real life. So why should they be told that they are ready, which is kind of the whole point of the graduation ceremony in the first place.

A few weeks ago I came across an article somewhere on MSN relating the author's experience as "the other woman" in an on-going affair with a married man. I regret that I did not bookmark the article so that I could at least provide a link, but I wasn't planning to blog it at the time. A cursory search at MSN turned up nothing and I really don't feel like digging for it as its contents have little to do with the point. Suffice it to say that she presents what seems to be a good depiction of a relationship that seems to have no object beyond immediate gratification. There was nothing stellar about the article itself, but the subject matter raised a few questions that I have been pondering. While I try not to be too judgmental regarding others' behaviors, there were a few things about the whole situation that didn't sit well and a few other items that made me go, "hmmmm."

One of the first "hmmmm" items was a linguistic one. While the word "infidelity" simply means "unfaithful," in its most common usage it implies a sexual relationship with a third party. But one can be unfaithful in a variety of contexts where adherence to mutually-accepted norms of behavior vis-a-vis third parties are violated. I am reminded of a few episodes of "Boston Legal" where Denny Crane views Alan Shore's friendship with another attorney as being unfaithful to their relationship. Spader and Shatner play off of each other so well that I'd nominate both of them for an Emmy in a heartbeat (not my decision, but I wish luck to both of them). Someone having any sort of a non-hostile relationship with someone in a different group can be viewed as being unfaithful, depending on the circumstances between the two groups.

But since "infidelity" in it normal usage does imply sexual relations outside of a monogamous relationship, here's an interesting "hmmmm." There is no word in the English language for the wife of a man who is unfaithful. We might call a man whose wife is unfaithful a "cuckold," but there is no corresponding term for a woman whose husband is cheating. The conclusion that I would reach from this odd datum is that sexual infidelity on the part of the male, while generally viewed as being socially unacceptable, is more-or-less expected and undeserving of any special mention. The injured wife might have a few choice names in her repertoire, though, most of which are probably not repeatable in polite company ("hell hath no fury" and all that).

Anyway, to continue on to my original point, the whole concept of infidelity strikes me as odd. But the oddness stems more from "why" than anything else. What is the purpose of monogamy and, for that matter, infidelity? Is monogamy mostly cultural or biological? If it's cultural, why is it an almost universally expected behavior? If it's biological, why are there so many instances where the behavior is not consistently exhibited? We've all seen, read or heard various explanations of the need to provide for offspring as being the origin of the family unit (humans are social animals, after all) through some sort of a division of labor to facilitate the task of child-rearing. I had a rousing discussion with a friend a few years ago over the purpose of marriage, for example. His contention was that marriage was created to insure the orderly transfer of property, though I did point out that in materially poor societies (hunter-gatherers, for example), there is little to no property that would survive beyond the immediate needs of the moment and, therefor, no need to insure its orderly transfer, yet these societies had marriage or some similar form of institutionalized pair-bonding. He was not impressed and did not concede the point, but I digress. As best as I can determine, the components of relationship fidelity have both a cultural and biological basis, though I suspect that the cultural component is the dominant one.

Moreso than either the cultural or biological issues, I see a HUGE ethical issue. Consider, for example, a pair-bonded couple (whether heterosexual or homosexual is irrelevant). The relationship is based upon mutually agreed-upon standards of behavior. In essence, it is a contract conferring certain benefits upon both parties and imposing certain obligations. Among those obligations, especially in a marriage, is the expectation of sexual fidelity on the part of both parties. Regarding so-called "open marriages," my personal view is that they are little more than a method of sharing economic resources for mutually agreed-upon purposes. Since I could be looking at this from a heavily biased perspective, I'll concede that view could be erroneous, but I wanted to make clear that they were not included as subjects of this discussion.

So here we have a contract: I'll do this for you, if you'll do that for me and don't be doing that with anyone except me. Since I have promised to abide by certain standards of behavior, if the other party were to violate their promise, would that relieve me of the obligations imposed by my promise? Tit for tat, as it were? Or am I obligated to continue to abide by the terms of the agreement, even being the aggrieved party? I have no solid answers to any of those questions. Actually, I have no solid answers to much of anything, but that's a different topic. If I remember a few law classes that I took many moons ago, there is a partial answer in the form of equitable maxims. For example, you must come to equity "with clean hands" and "he who wants equity must do equity" or words to that effect. Abiding by my side of the agreement does give me the moral high ground, but is it necessary or is it just a social expectation?

What if I am the aggrieving party? Firstly, my personal integrity should be immediately suspect. If I am willing to breach a promise to someone who is supposedly more important to me than anyone else, what would lead anyone to believe that I would keep a promise to a total stranger? It's an old argument and has been rehashed more times than I'd care to count. Suffice it to say that there are a large number of people who would cheat on their spouses at the drop of a hat, but who wouldn't even consider taking something that didn't belong to them. By the same token, there are an equally large number of people who would rob you blind without batting an eye, but who wouldn't even consider an extra-marital affair. An interesting dichotomy, no?

To be fair, there are certain social stigmas that go along with such behavior, though those stigmas would appear to be very dependent upon the culture in which they appear. I was surprised at my European friends' almost complete lack of interest in the Clinton-Lewinsky incident; their attitude was generally one of "who cares - he's the President and Presidents do that sort of thing". Yet these same people were scandalized by the revelation of infidelity by someone they knew personally. Do we differentiate based upon social or political status? Is infidelity acceptable if you're high and mighty, but unacceptable if you're Joe Six-Pack? And to repeat an earlier point, is it acceptable (in a wink-wink-nudge-nudge kind of way) if you're Joe Six-Pack, but unacceptable if you're Jane Six-Pack?

Which leads, in a round about sort of way, to a question that has been pestering me ever since I read that article. Aside from selfishness, I can't think of any reason for engaging in such behavior. So the question that bugs the heck out of me is how selfish would one have to be to impose the "other woman" stigma on someone else in order to gain some sort of gratification? If a relationship with the someone else is that important, why not just terminate the existing relationship (we have "no fault" divorce in this country, you know) and start the new one under conditions where no stigma would attach? Or is this a case of wanting to have your cake and eat it too (wasn't there a song many years back about "having your Kate and Edith, too")? Is it a case of "I'm too slick to get caught"? Or is it something else?

As I mentioned earlier, I don't have any solid answers to any of these questions. Would I engage in an extra-marital affair were I in a position to do so? I don't know. I'd like to think that I wouldn't, but I'd also like to think that I wouldn't put myself in a position where the opportunity could arise. The best way to deal with a problems is to not let it become a problem in the first place. I know several women who, under the right circumstances, could get me to drop trou' in a New York minute. However, I'm also relatively confident that those circumstances would never arise.

So I guess the fundamental question (and one to which I do not have an answer) is whether fidelity is an ethical choice or merely a means to avoid this:

ATT66

At one of the many chats and discussions that take place at Philosophy House, someone asked me about my own philosophy (perhaps that's why it's called Philosophy House -- wow! What a concept!). I was pretty much thrown for a loop by it, too. Not so much because I don't know what I believe, but because I wasn't sure of a label that I could attach to the whole shebang that would make sense to anyone other than me. I don't have any single overriding set of beliefs, and would have to call myself an "eclectic" since I do tend to draw from several fields of thought.

I suppose that ethically I'm pretty much a Stoic in the classical sense of the word. In today's language the term has come to mean someone who's "stiff upper lip" and that sort of thing; kind of a cold-hearted, unfeeling bastard in some usages. However, that's not what the Greeks and Romans meant by the term. A Stoic is one who tries to be rational by controlling their emotions. The Greeks used the term "apathos" (my Greek is almost non-existent, so please don't hold me to that), which we now call "apathetic". In our usage, it means one who really doesn't care about much of anything. To the Greeks, though, it means not driven by their passions ("a", meaning "without", and "pathos", meaning "passion", but probably closer to "suffering" or "pain"). The idea is that emotion, especially strong emotion, leads to false perceptions and interferes with rational thought. Therefore, by keeping a tight rein on one's emotions, one can approach life rationally and logically.

In the Stoic belief system, the self is the only thing which is truly within our power to control. Thus, there is the self and everything else is information, which we may choose to act upon or not, as reason may dictate under the circumstances. In the search for any capital-T truth, there are certainly flaws within this system. But since its beliefs are centered around control of the self rather than around control of the surroundings, its ultimate end would be a harmonious relationship with the world at large by adapting ourselves to the world as we perceive it to be rather than trying to change the world to suit our desires. Perhaps "happiness" might be an accurate term, but it's more more along the lines of eudaimonia ("the virtuous exercise of rationality") than anything else. Keep in mind that "virtue" to the Greeks was something closer to "habitual excellence" than to any sort of cheerfulness. In other words, whatever you're going to do, do it well.

Because the self is the root of everything, this would logically imply the existence of a self. Which more or less leads into a second foundational belief. In order for this to work well, I must accept two concepts: existence and identity. In simpler terms, "I am" and "I am me". Existence is a constant (otherwise I wouldn't be here writing this - of course I could be a figment of your tormented imagination, in which case I would suggest that you are in serious need of therapy because you should be able to come up with a better imaginary friend); identity is not. If we are shaped and molded by our experiences (well, those experiences which we allow to shape and mold us, anyway), then our identify must change to a certain extent. In many ways, I am the same person that I was when I was 10, but in many other ways I am a completely different person than I was when I was 10. I am also a different person than I was when I woke up this morning. It's probably not a noticable difference, but that difference must exist or I would stagnate.

Somone asked if this was a Cartesian view. I suppose that at its core it is ("cogito ergo sum" and all that), but it really isn't. Descartes' next leap was something to the effect that God would not try to deceive him. I can't make that leap. So instead of relying on some divinely given version of reality, I have to rely on what I can perceive. But I must also concede the possibility that my perception might not be an accurate rendering of reality. However, to make that concession, there must also be some degree of probability that it is accurate. Being rather confident of my own perceptive ability (self-centered SOB that I am), I assign it a higher probability of accuracy than its probability of inaccuracy. So, using the example of rain in Dallas that I mentioned in my previous post, if I walk outside and get wet, it is highly probable that it is, indeed, raining. But there is some chance that I am not perceiving the event correctly, so I cannot say with certainty that it is raining, merely that it is highly probable. Sounds a bit Bayesian, but I don't have the head for math to be able to calculate it precisely. Instead, I believe that it is raining, but concede the remote possiblity that I could be wrong.

So, in short, I am certain of my own existence. My identity is somewhat malleable, but I am certain that I have one. All else is probabilities.

One of my friends in Second Life calls me "the wandering Fergus" ("the wondering Fergus" might work, too). I'm sure she means it as a joke or as friendly teasing, but it's very close to accurate. I'd like to see everything that I possibly can, while still allowing myself time to socialize and have a good time. It's a tall order and most likely well nigh impossible as the content is growing faster than can be seen by any one person. But, hey! A fella's gotta have goals.

At any rate, while engaged in my wandering a couple of days ago, I stumbled onto a place called "Knowledge Park". You might think of it as being SL's equivalent of a small web portal with teleports to other places in SL that others might find interesting. They're pretty much grouped by interest area. For example, there is a section for sci-fi buffs and another one dealing with astronomy. Although Knowledge Park provides portals to other areas, there is no return teleport, so you'll definitely want to set a landmark so you can revisit. I took the portal to the SL Planetarium and was astounded by what I found at the other end.

The planetarium itself was nice, but a bit disappointing. It's a good start, but would take a great deal of scripting and texturing to bring it up to its full potential. Don't take that wrong. I'm not throwing stones at anyone's efforts. "Those who can, do" and all that. The surprise was in what was right next door to it: the International Spaceflight Museum. The ISM is worth every minute you can spend there, and you can easily spend a few hours. I highly recomment the rocket ride to Near Earth Orbit, just for the fun of it. If you'd rather not bother, there is a simple teleporter to take you there. I did not find a teleport back to the museum from Near Earth Orbit, so you may want to set a landmark before heading off.

Once there, you can explore the solar system, including the planets, their moons and exhibits on some of the major satellite missions to them. New exhibits are under construction and I spent a few minuts chatting with some universtity students who were working on a mock-up of one of the Apollo moon landings.

My first thought upon arrival was, "WOW!" But my second thought was that this would be a wonderful place to bring students for a virtual field trip. Then a couple of other thoughts hit and convinced me that this was not such a hot idea, after all.

First, I teach middle school. I can just imagine the problems with shepherding a group of rambunctious 13-year-olds through an environment where they are pretty much free to go where ever they would like and, let's face it, a major chunk of SL is definitely not for kids. It's possible that the ISM is mirrored in Teen Second Life, but I don't know for sure (minors aren't allowed in SL and adults aren't allowed in TSL - east is east and west is west and ne'er the twain shall meet). The second problem that occurred to me was that the SL client software needs to use a couple of TCP/IP ports that are probably blocked by any school district's firewall. Thirdly, SL itself is typically classified as "entertainment" by most web-filtering software, so you probably wouldn't be able to contact the SL servers even if the necessary ports were open, although it could probably be added to the a white list of approved sites (not likely considering the other content in SL). And lastly, SL is a bandwidth hog. Unless someone can come up with an SL caching proxy of some sort (all clients talk to the proxy - content is transferred over the WAN link once, and then redistributed over LAN links as needed), the sheer volume of data being sent to a 30-seat lab would choke an entire district's WAN lines in a heartbeat.

There are probably work-arounds for all of these problems. Some of them would depend upon the cooperativeness of the IT department, while the bandwidth issue woudl have to be resolved by the good folks at Linden Labs. At any rate, the potential use of this virtual world technology in an educational setting is phenominal. It's just not feasible in my present situation. Bummer.

First off, let me state that everyone is entitled to their beliefs. I don't particularly care whether you believe in God, Allah, Buddha, the Great Spirit, or nothing at all. If it makes you happy to believe it, then go for it. So what follows is not to belittle anyone's beliefs, but rather to show what happens when people's most important beliefs are challenged or perceived as challenged.

Sunday's topic in the epistemology discussion was "evidentialism". It's not a bad system, as far as it goes. In fact, it pretty much forms the foundation of our legal system. The afternoon discussion went very well, essentially arriving at the conclusion that it leads to no capital-T truths, but is workable enough for dealing with small-T truths (everyday facts and conclusions regarding perceived objects and events). The evening discussion started off well enough, pretty much agreeing that it works when you're talking about "normality", but starts to fall apart when one begins to examine other possible explanations.

The example used was a statement by a friend that it was raining in Dallas. For most of us, a generally truthful person's statement about something of that magnitude is sufficient evidence to accept it as a factually accurate description of an event that we are not capable of experiencing for ourselves. We believe that the speaker is rational enough to know whether it's raining or not and truthful enough that we believe they would not intentionally tell us something that they did not believe to be accurate. But for a person with a less-than-rational outlook (what we might commonly call "paranoid") then those two assumptions may not pertain.

The point was then raised questioning whether an otherwise truthful person's assertion regarding the existence (or not) of God was sufficient to cause someone else to change their belief based upon that assertion. For example, my friend says, "I know God exists." Is that statement sufficient evidence to justify my own belief or changing my own belief in God's existence? And the discussion began to deteriorate from about that point. All in all, not a pretty scene with the topic now being existence or non-existence and replete with "how dare you?" and comments of that sort.

Whether true or not, there seem to be some topics which are real hot-button issues with some people. Especially when taken in a different context from what was originally intended. Back in my college days, I worked as a bartender (among other jobs). The standard rule was to never discuss religion, sex or politics (sometimes sports, depending on who the local favorite was). Being an essentially filthy-minded lecher, I couldn't abide by the sex part. Since my minor was Political Science, I couldn't stay away from the politics part (probably lost more than a few tips in the process, too). But the religion part was a hard and fast rule for exactly this reason - even people who practice the same faith have a hard time agreeing on some aspects of their beliefs. Imagine the problems with people of different faiths trying to persuade each other that their most closely-held beliefs are wrong.

So, I'm back to my "no religion" stance. Believe what you want. You might even be welcome to discuss the topic with me privately. But it probably has no place in any public philosophical discussion unless everyone involved is amenable and agrees to remain civil about it.

On rye with swiss and just a bit of dijon mustard, please.

So what's to tell? I'm exploring this thing called "Second Life" (www.secondlife.com). Being the kind of person who likes to talk about things as an aid to learning, what better way to do it than by blogging it? In real life, I'm a social studies teacher in Texas.

I got onto SL out of curiosity about all they hype I've been seeing for the past few months in the various trade mags that I receive (and seldom have time to do more than skim through). I suppose the biggest draws to SL are the fact that it's free (for now, anyway - looks like they're going to start charging a fee for age verification for users who want access to adult-oriented areas) and it's almost entirely user-built. Linden Labs provides the server space and basically sets the ground rules; the users do everything else. There are currently around 6,000,000 registered users (called "residents"), although that number also includes those users who have more than one account. There have been a bit more than a million and a half logins within the past 60 days, though I don't know whether that is total logins or unique residents logged in. At any rate, it appears to be a rather large user base in spite of the arguments over just how big. There are two Second Life realms (for lack of a better term) available: Second Life and Teen Second Life. Adults, with very rare exceptions, are not allowed in Teen Second Life and minors are not allowed at all in regular Second Life. I'm sure there are at least a few minors in SL. Create an environment where males (adolescent or not) can see cartoon boobies and they'll flock to your site, at least for a while.

At any rate, I can see where SL might fill a void in the online community. Unless you're willing to spend some money, about the only things you can do are sight-see (it is generally quite striking) and chat.In practical effect, it's no different from web-surfing (which can be a lot more educational). IM'ing or hanging out in chat room. Where SL comes in is that it's a 3-D environment, so you actually have something to look at while you're doing it.In that respect, it's pretty decent. And it may sound funny, but an avatar party is infinitely better than reams of text in a chat room. Where it also stands out is with musicians and artists being able to share their work through streaming media.

So there I am - wandering around like any noob. And the first places that I manage to find are the library and a place called "Philosophy House". How's that for being a true nerd? The bad thing about the library is: no books. Lots of notices about events and exhibits, but no books that I could find. Bummer. You'd think they'd at least make their knowledge base available. Think I'll head back there and do some more exploring. It's a very interesting place.

The Philosophy House, though... That's something else entirely. It's not even fair to call it a house - it's just a dozen or so stumps arranged around a fire pit. Works out well, though. The minimalism of the surroundings lets you concentrate that much more on the conversation. And what conversations! I think I have died and gone to heaven.

Start from the premise that I'm not just a nerd -- I'm a super nerd. Pick a subject, any subject; I've probably studied it, at least a little. And if it's in the liberal arts, a lot. Now tack onto that the fact that I'm curious about almost everything. I want to know what it is, why it is, how it works and how it fits into the big picture that we generally call "life". It doesn't matter that it's not relevant to what I'm currently doing. What matters is that at some point it might be relevant or useful. Now add to that mix a group of highly intelligent and articulate people with similar interests and let them start talking. Some of it really makes my head spin, but I haven't had this much fun since arguing with my friends in college.