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Published in The Second Life Herald found here.
A “proper” prosperous capitalistic society with reason and purpose emerges from the burning embers of a historically passionate art and development community. A natural open source economy, is overshadowed by demeaning skyscrapers filled with marketing executives, armed with nondisclosure agreements, scouring the lands for the next branding concept to further mind control marketing schemes with narrow demographics. New laws are created and distributed throughout the land like barbwire fences; with new methods verifying the identity of the “citizens†to make the economy safer for enterprise. The grid buckles from the recent surge of use and chaos ensues.
Am i dreaming…is the machine mind closing in, am I delusional from too many crossed wires and in need of a serious tune up; or is this Neko Cyborg just evolving into some sort of new dream state reality, never before possible in the mind of a machine created by man. Or maybe it was the over clocking of my circuits from hours of building in the sand under the scorching black sun; combined with idle wanderings in The Wastelands. Is the Soma pill a freebie; or is it still being scripted in a lab underneath Nexis Prime?
Dreaming or not, I constantly ponder if drawing a line between the functional capitalistic system and the freedom and individuality of an open source development community is even possible. Will the coming world metropolis along with the pressure of industry hinder the community from freely creating content, or will the two coexist? The looming conglomerate businesses that seem to be moving in and clogging the grid could very well help this humble economy of developers foresee their future and stimulate the economy.
The aristocracy that is “Linden Lab†seems to be struggling to deal with the pressures of a thriving economy as well, from the abolishment of First Land due to land barrons buying it up and selling it for full market prices, to the overpopulated grid and the stress of dealing with residents who feel that they are not being heard. The Lindens seem to be quite overworked, from grid outages to dealing with fraud and the concept of how to manage identities, to how to deal with griefers.
So at the end of the day, when the Linden dollar has risen to the challenge of international markets and fallen to the greed of capitalism, we must ask the questions that are looming. How will we manage this uncontrollable race of capitalism to an imaginary finish line? Is diversity of races and a culture of artists and free thinkers who are on the front lines of thought important to us? Or, are we more interested in forming a solid brand name that is marketable to the masses? Is this world a place for everyone to freely state their opinions and create freely in a limitless environment, or will we let a select few with deep pockets dictate what “brand†of imagination is the finest. At some point we must define some guidelines in between these two extremes; otherwise the free spirited minorities will be driven further and further underground. Once again coming back to the same question. Where do we go from here?
