A responsible opposing viewpoint:

This is reprinted from the comments to Manifesto: I'm not out to ruin anybody's fun.. I decided to post it here and respond here, because that way it looks more like content... actually, it really is content. Glyn is helping me to get into the real guts of the issue.

I hope to use this blog to discuss and debate, and not just bash, Second Life. Please come back soon, Glyn (and if you post again, please tell me what gender you are, so I can refer to you with an occasional pronoun in the future.)

glyn moody said...

These are all good points. But I think it's important to distinguish between what you can use and what others can.

Certainly, it would be possible to use the Lynx browser if you really wanted sleek, lean software. But I doubt whether many people could. Indeed, I will never forget seeing my parents - well into their 70s - getting the hang of a Web browser in about a minute: this, despite the fact that practically all other software was a complete mystery and required hours of hand-holding.

That, I think, is what Second Life is about: making it easier for people who find current methods difficult. The thing is, we are social animals; anything that is modelled on our social behaviour is far easier to assimilate and adopt. I don't think IRC really manages that. Indeed, even though I've been using computers for over a quarter of a century, I never use it because I find its interface pretty, well, barbarous. But conferences in Second Life don't have this feeling: they feel natural for all their crude graphics and movement.

Arguably Second Life's biggest failing is the fact that you need to type: I don't think it will really take off until we can just talk and hear others there.

As for the super-elaborate graphics, and super-expensive computers, I think you might want to redirect your ire towards that nice Mr Ballmer: Vista looks pretty hungry in this regard, and seems to offer practically nothing over Windows 3.1. Second Life may be computationally and graphically intensive, but it is also unbelievably beyond anything that VRML, say, was offering ten years ago, so the requirements seem justified

Okay, now here are Glyn's comments again, annotated with my responses.

These are all good points. But I think it's important to distinguish between what you can use and what others can.

Sure, but it seems to me a "given" that, for purposes of this discussion, the point of view represented by me is my point of view, and the point of view represnted by you is your point of view. If I hate second life, that's my prerogative, and if you love Second Life, that's yours. (You've never actually said that you love Second Life, I'm presenting it here as a hypothetical.) Neither position requires a moral justification, and neither positition is morally superior to the other.

Certainly, it would be possible to use the Lynx browser if you really wanted sleek, lean software. But I doubt whether many people could. Indeed, I will never forget seeing my parents - well into their 70s - getting the hang of a Web browser in about a minute: this, despite the fact that practically all other software was a complete mystery and required hours of hand-holding.

For anyone not familiar with Lynx, it works in Linux/Unix systems. It's a text browser for the web, which means that it does't display graphics or support a mouse, but it runs from the command line and is very fast. I like to do my writing from the console, where there are few distractions, and so I inevitably use Lynx from time to time. It's a pretty Spartan affair, and only a true geek would love such spare simplicity. You get no pictures, no logos, no javascript, no graphics of any kind, just white text on a black background... or, occasionally, black text on a white background.

As an example, Lynx is both the same and different than Second Life. It's the same because, like Second Life, it represents an extreme, even though it's the opposite extreme. If Second Life were to become common coin of interaction with the net, to the extent that I would have to use it, I'd feel about the same way about that I'd feel if I were forced to use Lynx. It's different because, unlike Second Life, it doesn't demand its own standard. Lynx looks different from Firefox or Internet Explorer, but it interprets the same html.


That, I think, is what Second Life is about: making it easier for people who find current methods difficult.

Perhaps "difficult" isn't the word you wanted to use. Second Life is like using IRC and playing PacMan at the same time. How can anyone who finds IRC difficult find Second Life easy?

The thing is, we are social animals; anything that is modelled on our social behaviour is far easier to assimilate and adopt. I don't think IRC really manages that. Indeed, even though I've been using computers for over a quarter of a century, I never use it because I find its interface pretty, well, barbarous. But conferences in Second Life don't have this feeling: they feel natural for all their crude graphics and movement.

This is where you are wrong-- not because your perceptions aren't valid, but because you assign them to the entire species, assuming that's what you meant by "social animals". Second life doesn't feel natural for "people". It feels natural for a type of person, maybe someone who has played a lot of video games, I really don't know. Maybe I could learn to experience second life as you do-- but if it has to be learned, that's the definition of user unfriendliness, is it not? I mean, once you've learned it, anything becomes user-friendly, right?

Arguably, Second Life's biggest failing is the fact that you need to type: I don't think it will really take off until we can just talk and hear others there.

You've reminded me of the fact that voice chat has been available in IRC for at least as long as I've been using it, since 2002, and yet I've never seen it used, not once. I've got a microphone and speakers, I suppose I could have used it myself if it I'd wanted to. Could it be that there's really a lack of interest in voice chat? Perhaps it interferes with the sense of privacy that computing affords, the quiet concentration. Could it be that everybody speaking at once would just be too difficult to process? I don't know, but just because voice chat was a nonstarter for IRC doesn't mean it wouldn't take off in second life. I only know, that, for me, the prospect of voice chat makes Second Life seem less, not more, attractive.

As for the super-elaborate graphics, and super-expensive computers, I think you might want to redirect your ire towards that nice Mr Ballmer: Vista looks pretty hungry in this regard, and seems to offer practically nothing over Windows 3.1. Second Life may be computationally and graphically intensive, but it is also unbelievably beyond anything that VRML, say, was offering ten years ago, so the requirements seem justified.

I would argue that it's perfectly reasonable and appropriate that elaborate graphics should be
required for games; it's not reasonable and appropriate that elaborate graphics should be required for human communication, at least if they're not necessary.

My question is: do you know of anyone who found the Second Life interface "easy" who didn't have some kind of gaming background? My hypothesis is that if you get into second life, it's not because we're social animals or because it "mirrors social behavior", or anything so universal, its because you have a gaming background. A capacity to enjoy Second Life is not a distinguishing characteristics of the human species. You like it, I hate, and yet you and I have the same number of chromosomes.

One characteristic of second life hype is to imbue SL with characteristics that speak to our fundamental human characteristics, Sure, we're "social creatures", and that's part of the appeal of SL, but the same can be said of scores of human activities from New England Barn raising to kareoke bars to addicts sharing needles.

You're trying to sound like you're saying more than you're actually saying. There's a word for that, and the word is hype. Hype hype hypetty hype.