Differing objectives

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[b:sxdmr9uw][u:sxdmr9uw]Differing objectives[/b:sxdmr9uw][/u:sxdmr9uw]

During the judiciary debate, I have noticed that the people who fall into the two differing camps tend to have more in common with the people in their own camp, as compared to the opposing camp, in ways not related to the judiciary itself. That, and a recent exchange with Aliasi on the forums in which she compared the CDS to a research facility, has lead me to believe that there are, to some degree of approximation, but precisely enough to be meaningful, two quite distinct groups of people, with two quite distinct, and often, as the judiciary debate has shown, quite conflicting sets of objectives. Further, it is not always obvious from the surface that these people have different objectives, since the objectives have superficial similarities. Further, the different groups are not separated by political faction, but it seems that both of each are in at least two of the three factions.

The two groups seem to be, on the one hand, the [b:sxdmr9uw]experimenters[/b:sxdmr9uw], and, on the other hand, the [b:sxdmr9uw]organisers[/b:sxdmr9uw].

The [b:sxdmr9uw]experimenters[/b:sxdmr9uw] tend to see the CDS as an interesting theoretical experiment in government, a useful way to learn, and to teach people, about governments, democracy, and constitutional structures, and a means of trying out new ideas in a virtual governmental sandbox. People in this camp tend to be interested in SecondLife just for, or mainly for, the government (or other social experimentation), and are often RL educators or writers. They tend to want the government to be novel, frequently changing, loosly-organised and informal. They tend not to see our government as being something that can or should try to solve any serious SL issues, and tend to be what Claude has called "enclavists", that is, they tend to prefer governmental structures that are suitable for a small community without emphasis on growth. Experimenters also, since they tend to believe that the whole purpose of the CDS is to teach and lern, strongly tend to prefer governmental instiutions that encourage direct participation of as many citizens as possible, even at the expense of effectiveness, and therefore strongly prefer amateurism to professionalism. Furthermore, experimenters tend to emphasise the importance of culture, the interactions between which they tend to see as an important aspect of the experiment.

The [b:sxdmr9uw]organisers[/b:sxdmr9uw], on the other hand, tend to see the government, not as an end in itself, but a means to another end: better organisation and conflict-resolution in SL more generally. Organisers tend to be people whose main interest in the CDS (or SL) is commerce, architecture or the arts, something other than the government itself that they tend to see the government as facilitating, or people who can bring technical, practical expertise to the running of government, such as lawyers, economists or accountants. People in this camp tend to want the government to be stable, efficient, well-organised, conventional in structure, intervening where necessary to maximise opportunities and prevent problems, but not unnecessarily to restrict desirable freedoms. Organisers tend to believe that our government, or something like it, is a useful means of solving serious SL issues and conflicts, and tend to prefer a governmental and administrative structure that is set up to solve those problems. Organisers are often what Claude calls "expansionists", people who see the CDS as not just a social club for people interested in virtual government, but as a viable and potentially effecitve means of dealing with real SL issues on a large scale, and tend to prefer governmental structures that are most suitable for substantial expansion (which tend to be far more formal structures than tend to be preferred by the experimenters). Organisers also tend to prefer a professional, rather than amateur, approach to government, since they see government as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself: they will often see citizen participation as just a useful way of getting good people into the government, and a means of providing a check to prevent abuses of power. Furthermore, organisers tend to place less emphasis on culture, preferring solutions that work over any that happen to be favoured by any given culture.

It seems to me that, even having been around since 2004, the CDS has still not worked out what exactly it is for, with the experimenters and organisers tending to have radically different views that many of them believe are shared by all. I rather suspect that, if the CDS does not adopt a singular, decicive collective vision of its purpose very soon, it will fail to achieve either of the objectives, since they are inherently contradictory. I strongly urge, therefore, all three political factions in the next election campaign to nail their colours to the mast and tell us whether their manifesto is an experimentalist one or an organisational one.

On Gwyneth's suggstion, I have recently submitted a suggestion to Linden Lab, following the recent Linden 'Blog entry about overhauling abuse reporting, to integrate governmental structures into the SecondLife software, and to have local resident governments taking over most of the function of the Linden abuse reporting system with linked ban lists and local reputation points. If that idea takes off, the CDS will not be unique for very much longer: there will be lots of organisations all over the grid establishing themselves as governments, no doubt many as democratic governments, and largely doing so, not to experiment with democracy, but to solve real problems. No doubt, if the experimenters prevail in the CDS, the organisers will find their way into one of the more serious governments.

Even if, therefore, we have been experimenting in 2004, it seems that now is the time for the SL government to come of age: now is the time to stop experimenting, and start organising, and look outwards rather than inwards, because there is an awful lot more out there than in here. SecondLife needs serious government, and, for the moment at least, we are in the best position to provide it.

[Sleazy_Writer]

A social study! :-)

This is going to be an insteresting read.

[Gxeremio Dimsum]

I think you are onto something here, but of course your descriptions are colored by which side you fall on.

Perhaps we should call them the "creators" and the "refiners."

Or the "innovators" and the "hijackers."

In any case, I do think there needs to be room for both. There is no reason to think that we have come up with the perfect system, and now others must live under it or something is wrong with them. I think the people in the first group, whatever we call them, tend to value freedom and capitalism of ideas - that the strongest rise to the top by being selected by the consuming public, and not from a top-down system of coercion and force.

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Gxeremio Dimsum":148oejgq]In any case, I do think there needs to be room for both. There is no reason to think that we have come up with the perfect system, and now others must live under it or something is wrong with them. [/quote:148oejgq]

There is a difference, however, between putting a system into practice, seeing what, if any practical problems that emerge, and then fixing those problems, and having endless debates about what sort of system is best in theory, even after a decision to that very effect has already been made. That is one of the reasons that the experimenters and organisers have conflicting goals, and why one cannot please both at the same time.

[quote:148oejgq] think the people in the first group, whatever we call them, tend to value freedom and capitalism of ideas - that the strongest rise to the top by being selected by the consuming public, and not from a top-down system of coercion and force.[/quote:148oejgq]

And the organisers tend to think that the ideas are not ends in themselves, but means to greater ends, that ideas are only useful if implimented, and if a battle of ideas is going to get in the way of implimentation, it is best to pick one, and stick with it unless the practice of it goes disasterously wrong.

[Gxeremio Dimsum]

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":6i83sq57]if a battle of ideas is going to get in the way of implimentation, it is best to pick one, and stick with it unless the practice of it goes disasterously wrong.[/quote:6i83sq57]

Yikes! Really?

To the exclusion of trying other things that might work better, even?

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Gxeremio Dimsum":kbt9joop]Yikes! Really?

To the exclusion of trying other things that might work better, even?[/quote:kbt9joop]

If one group of people are saying idea A will work better, and another are saying that idea B will work better, and we have already chosen idea A because, after weighing the pros and cons of each, we have decided that we prefer idea A, why should we change our minds and go with idea B when work on implimenting idea A is well underway?

[Sleazy_Writer]

[quote:288euvaa]I strongly urge, therefore, all three political factions
in the next election campaign to nail their colours to the mast[/quote:288euvaa]

Ash, I agree that pinning this down, and acting accordingly,
for a long(er) period of time, will improve the results/outcome a lot.
(Granting 1 of the 2 agendas is chosen)

But .. What also seems very obvious to me is that *if* we run the CDS that way:
A *lot* of people are going to be unhappy about it.
Democratic it may be but it'll cause frustration.
But of course it can be argued that that's still better than having a CDS somewhere in between.

[Ludo Merit]

What bothers me about your analysis, Ash, is that you seem to think the time for experimentation is over because organization is necessary to deal with serious problems. The talents of experimenters and organizers are both needed to make CDS seriously work. And any government we institute has to deal with both of the types of people you define and then some.

As you know, I favor going ahead with what we have passed and changing it through due process. The people who want amendments can submit them now - nothing is stopping them. I am confused by the Justice proposal. Either it negates the Judicial Act and we have nothing to work on or the Judicial Act is in effect and we need to get the PJSP (sp?) working.

I do not think using an imperfect system, and the JA is not perfect - no one claims it is, is a disaster. I do not think Ash is some sort of despot who is going to impose anything on a well informed and vocal electorate. I do not think the JA will survive exactly as is, but I also don't think we know what the good and bad parts are yet. We're just guessing.

I am from the United States too, and parts of the JA rub me the wrong way. However, we did pass it and it is a better starting place than any I have seen. A lot of thought, and yes, a lot of compromise have gone into it. It is not just Ash, it is the product of all the discussion that has gone on, on the forums and in legislative bodies.

A lot of the objection I have heard has been to the idea that the JA proposes a system that will have all the inconveniences of RL law. I don't think it will. I think a simpler system would be worse than RL law because of the potential for misunderstanding and injustice.

I think parts of the JA will change. Parts may simplify as complication is found unnecessary in this context. The parts everyone is arguing about might reverse themselves. Let's start moving and see what happens. And let's remember, Ash is only chief judge. He is not the administrator and he is not the PJSP. He is not the SC, the RA or the voting public. He does not have as much power as you folks seem to think he has. I argue with him all the time and we seem to get along fine anyway.

I can predict that he will say I am being illogical. I am posting after long active silence because it's time for a little illogic here. Less logic and more pragmatism - let's try it out!

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Ludo Merit":n2zwj48i]What bothers me about your analysis, Ash, is that you seem to think the time for experimentation is over because organization is necessary to deal with serious problems. The talents of experimenters and organizers are both needed to make CDS seriously work. And any government we institute has to deal with both of the types of people you define and then some.[/quote:n2zwj48i]

The difficulty is, as stated above, the experimenters and organisers have irreconcilable goals. Both groups of people, the experimenters in particular, are rare in SecondLife: the most common sorts (by a long way) are the [b:n2zwj48i]consumers[/b:n2zwj48i], those who come to SecondLife for the socialising or the gambling or the sex or the pretty scenery or the interesting buildings, and do not really take part in creating or organising anything. There are organisers all over the place, albeit organisers who organise with instruments different from goverenment for the most part (and you, Ludo, of course, know all about StarFleet and its organisation). Caledon is a good example of a government-like organisation run by an organiser. Desmond Shang makes money for himself, and he does whatever he believes works most effectively to create a delightful (and always polite) Victorian soceity in SecondLife. He has had much success. Most of the Caledons are consumers, although he has some organisers to help him, too. Role-players are a special subset of consumers and organisers. The organisers (more or less) organise things for the benefit of themselves, other organisers, and consumers, along the lines of the usual principles of the free market.

The experimenters (at least, the special type of government/democracy experimenters that I outlined above) are rare, and tend to be concentrated almost exclusively in the CDS (with perhaps one or two in Port Neualtenburg, or affiliated with Democracy Island. There may, of course, be others scattered around).

So, it is generally not the case that [i:n2zwj48i]any[/i:n2zwj48i] SecondLife government will have to accomodate both organisers and experimenters: for the most part, only the CDS has that ditchonomy because of its history (and present status) as the grid's only democratic virtual nation. If LL does impliment government functionality into the SL software, then few other governments will have the organiser/experimenter tension that we have. No doubt, the experimenters will gravitate to a few governments, and experiment there, while most of the grid use governments to solve practical problems: the organisers working for other organisers and consumers.

[Beathan]

Ash --

Your analysis of the two camps is both wrong in its distinctions and in its descriptions.

First, you yourself have admitted that you came to the CDS for the purpose of testing your theory of justice system development in virtual worlds. You are as much an experimenter as an organizer. Futher, it is unfair to say that your opponents are interested in the process rather than the results -- most of the debate concerning your justice system indicates that the opposite is true. We are as much organizers as experimenters. We just use a different organizing principle (simplicity and incremental growth, rather than the creation of "over-engineered" complicated systems) -- and just want a different experimental set-up (a simple, bare-bones one that allows for growth).

The sticking point is not that some people want to experiment, while others want to create a stable system and then move on to other, better things. The sticking point is that, having seen the details of your experimental justice system, a sizable number of CDS citizens do not want to participate in it. We want to test out an operational justice system in this virtual world as much as you do -- we just don't want to test out yours because we think that is unworkable, overly labor-intensive, cumbersome, formal in just the wrong ways, too prone to incorporate things we see as defects in RL justice systems, and not at all friendly, familiar or comfortable to people who aren't British. This does not make us dilettantes. This makes us unwilling guinea pigs in your social experiment.

We are willing to engage in the social experiment -- we just ask that the test be done differently. We want to start simple -- with clear, sure rules that don't beg any substantive or procedural questions -- and then build on that basis from our experience of the system as we try to run it. We want you to participate with us -- as a colleague -- not as an overlord or string-pulling experimenter.

The difference is not that we want the anarchy of trying to live our lives as an undefined experiment. The difference is that we don't want to settle prematurely issues that affect how we live our lives -- and we want to make up our own minds about how things should work, rather than take your word for gospel that your system is the way to go.

The discussion we should have is: 1. what is the absolute minimum we need to get a basic dispute resolution structure up and running; 2. what do we need to add to this minimalist structure to allow it to incorporate lessons learned in its running into its structure, to allow it to become more complex over time as it learns from its experiences (or as we learn from our experiences of it); and 3. what resources or proven institutions do we have in place already that we can use as building blocks or levers in this project. I think that this draws the true distinction between our citizens -- 1. those who see some basic rules as the skeleton and basic muscular system of a thing, allowing it to move and grow, and 2. those who insist that an institution be fully formed as a precondition of its being used or useful. This is not a difference in goal -- but is a difference in theory.

However, I think that history favors the proponents of the simple, bare-bones approach here. Every great institution started as a bare-bones structure. The creation of fully-formed institutions is a new thing in our post-industrial age -- and most of us believe that the new fully-fleshed institutions that have been created have more than a whiff of sulphur and the appearance of the monster about them.

Laws arose from custom. Lawmaking arose from transmission of custom. Justice systems arose from the basic method of social control that gave the mores and customs of a society some teeth. This is a natural and proper way to create the laws and justice system without prejudging what it will or should be.

All we have to do is look at the post-Imperial experience of most colonies to see that it is unwise to halt this process by imposing a more "advanced" (or at least more complicated) system from abroad. Africa is a mess. Africa is a mess because of the imposition of European government and legal structure, not despite that imposition.

We have our customs and mores in SL and in the CDS. We have our mechanisms for teaching those customs to newbies. We have our mechanisms for making sure people respect those customs. This is the basis of law, lawmaking, and a justice system.

I agree that we should try to formalize this process -- to bring it into focus so that we can examine, understand, and control it, if nothing else. The CDS, through its formal lawmaking by the RA, has taken this formalization process further than I have ever seen it done anywhere else (in SL or in any other MMOG I have played). I agree, as do most of the citizens, that we should try to do the same with our justice system (enforcement of custom system). However, where I (and many others) part company from you is in your insistence that we start with a fully-formed beast, a beast that steps in and replaces (I would say usurps or hijacks) the emerging process of custom enforcement that is already here in the CDS (and in SL as a whole). Rather, I (and many others) want to determine what we have, and make it better, make it more formal, make something of it -- rather than replace it with something foreign (and wrong for being foreign) to SL. Anything from RL will be foreign to SL in just this wrong way.

This is why I think we should repeal the JA and start the process over by reforming, incrementally, the SC. In doing this reform, I would not oppose the inclusion of professionals, like Ash (and like me), in the process. I think that such inclusion would be both helpful and wise. However, I think that the inclusion of professionals should not be to the exclusion of amateurs -- just because that is not how things are done in SL or any other MMOG. To a large extent, we leave our lives behind when we come to SL, and we create new lives here on and through SL. This is how it should be -- and any system that does not allow for this changing or reforming of self in play, or stifles or suppresses it, does not fit a critical aspect (some would say [i:dhd4eill] the critical aspect [/i:dhd4eill]) of virtual culture. It is this lack of fit between the JA and the MMOG (and SL) experience that is the greatest source of tension -- and legitimate tension. It is this lack of fit that damns the JA as a misstep and mistake in our attempt to do something real and good in the development of online society and government.

Beathan

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Beathan":r0lovc6m]First, you yourself have admitted that you came to the CDS for the purpose of testing your theory of justice system development in virtual worlds. You are as much an experimenter as an organizer.[/quote:r0lovc6m]

That is not what I have said, as you well know. I came to SecondLife to impliment something practical, to use my real-life legal skills and experience to bring a working justice system to this virtual world to let it solve real problems.

[quote:r0lovc6m]Futher, it is unfair to say that your opponents are interested in the process rather than the results[/quote:r0lovc6m]

Then how do you explain Aliasi's comment likening the CDS to a research facility? In any event, experimenters are not interested in experimentation because they enjoy the process of experimenting: they are after results, too, but the results of an experiment are very different sorts of results than the results that one looks for when one seeks to apply a system closely based on systems that work in real-life to solve problems immediately in the virtual world.

[quote:r0lovc6m]Most of the debate concerning your justice system indicates that the opposite is true.[/quote:r0lovc6m]

How? What, precisely, do you contend indicates that I am not interested in results?

[quote:r0lovc6m]We are as much organizers and experimenters. We just use a different organizing principle (simplicity and incremental growth, rather than the creation of "over-engineered" complicated systems) -- and just want a different experimental set-up (a simple, bare-bones one that allows for growth).[/quote:r0lovc6m]

The organising principle that I use is to get it right first time, based on what we know from real life, rather than ignoring all of our knowledge and assuming that things that will obviously be the same in SecondLife may somehow be different. And you make the mistake of assuming that all of the "experimenters" think like you: you may not even be an experimenter in the sense that I described above, but somebody who believes, against all sanity, that an oversimplified system can actually work, although what problems, exactly, you see it as solving is most unclear, since you have never set out your vision of exactly what you see our justice system as doing, long-term.

[quote:r0lovc6m]The sticking point is not that some people want to experiment, while others want to create a stable system and then move on to other, better things. The sticking point is that, having seen the details of your experimental justice system, a sizable number of CDS citizens do not want to participate in it.[/quote:r0lovc6m]

The problem is that people are never going to agree on what sort of legal system that they want. That will always be true, whatever sort of legal system is adopted. Nothing that you suggest is capable of solving that issue. In any given real-life legal system, there are sizable numbers of people who do not want to take part in it: usually those who are about to lose a case. I should also suggest that a substantial number of those who dislike our present system do so because they would prefer a system in which their vision of what a legal system should be can be expressed, or in which they get a chance to do something interesting (such as be a judge), without actually having to do the serious work of getting to understand a legal system, or taking a qualification test.

The reality is that law is like medicine: to do it properly takes a great deal of skill and understanding. One can go some way towards that by fumbling around, trying to find what works: the lawyers of old were like the doctors of old in that respect. As understanding of how behaviour-rule (and rule-rule) interactions work grows, so to does the understanding of how best to do law, and the practice changes as a result. Just like the practice of medicine, the practice of law becomes more sophisticated, more functional, but, at the same time, harder to understand from the outside. Those who are advocating "simple" law (as if law could ever be truly simple, any more than effectively treating a patient could ever truly be simple) are advocating a "let's all join in and see how this law thing works" system, whereas those advocating a professional system are advocating a system that works and is built on the solid premises of legal practice that have developed in real-life nations accross the world over centuries. Those who want to go back to the beginning and start again are advocating the equivalent of building a hospital and staffing it with witch-doctors, or curious members of the public interested to experiment for themselves on how to operate on people.

[quote:r0lovc6m]We want to test out an operational justice system in this virtual world as much as you do -- we just don't want to test out yours because we think that is unworkable, overly labor-intensive, cumbersome, formal in just the wrong ways, too prone to incorporate things we see as defects in RL justice systems, and not at all friendly, familiar or comfortable to people who aren't British. This does not make us dilettantes. This makes us unwilling guinea pigs in your social experiment.[/quote:r0lovc6m]

That amounts to nothing more than "I don't like it this way, and if I can't have it my way, I'll leave, so you'd better do it my way". That is extremely immature. We have, as I have pointed out elsewhere, two groups of people, each claiming that their model is workable, and that the other's is not. We have a democratically elected government that, after long and carful debate, chosen one of the two models over the other, albeit in ways that involved substantial compromises on both sides. It strikes me that a goodly number of people who want an alternative system want it whether or not the current system is workable, so that they can enjoy working in a system that is based on their own ideas. Since I have already, officially sanctioned by the legislature, put an enormous amount of work into the present system, why should your model suddely be favoured now when the only work that you have done here is destructive, not constructive?

[quote:r0lovc6m]We are willing to engage in the social experiment -- we just ask that the test be done differently.[/quote:r0lovc6m]

You are willing to participate in this democracy - only if it does exactly what you want it to do?

[quote:r0lovc6m]We want to start simple -- with clear, sure rules that don't beg any substantive or procedural questions -- and then build on that basis from our experience of the system as we try to run it. We want you to participate with us -- as a colleague -- not as an overlord or string-pulling experimenter. [/quote:r0lovc6m]

Why do you think that a judge is an "overlord"? This is the vacuuous argument that you make inceccently without reason in support. Do you even understand the difference between judicial independence and judicial power? And why do you want to forget all of the lessons that legal systems in the first life have learnt over centuries, almost all of which are necessarily relevant to legal systems here, too, by virtue of not being dependant on their environment being real, rather than virtual, and start again at the witch-doctor stage of legal development?

[quote:r0lovc6m]The difference is not that we want the anarchy of trying to live our lives as an undefined experiment. The difference is that we don't want to settle issues that affect how we live our lives prematurely -- and we want to make up our own minds about how things should work, rather than take your word for gospel that your system is the way to go.[/quote:r0lovc6m]

It is a wholly unsubstantiated assertion that you claim that the present judicial system settles anything "prematurely": why, precisely, is this not exactly the right time to settle such issues as how to effect service, or what evidence should be admissible, or what to do if a non-citizen brings an action, or what powers that a court has to order that one of the parties makes its position clearer?

[quote:r0lovc6m]The discussion we should have is: 1. what is the absolute minimum we need to get a basic dispute resolution structure up and running; 2. what do we need to add to this minimalist structure to allow it to incorporate lessons learned in its running into its structure, to allow it to become more complex over time as it learns from its experiences (or as we learn from our experiences of it); and 3. what resources or proven institutions do we have in place already that we can use as building blocks or levers in this project.

I think that this draws the true distinction between our citizens -- 1. those who see some basic rules as the skeleton and basic muscular system of a thing, allowing it to move and grow, and 2. those who insist that an institution be fully formed as a precondition of its being used or useful. This is not a difference in goal -- but is a difference in theory.[/quote:r0lovc6m]

"The discussion we should have is...": now who wants to be an overlord? Why do you assume that it is best to have the merely minimal? Why should we have minimal law, but not minimal finances, or minimal accountancy practice, or minimal social events, or minimal thematic decoration, or minimal differences in theme? If we can have something that is more than merely minimal, why should we not have that? If one is being offered a Rolls Royce for free, why would one want a rickshaw? (Incidentally, for reasons that I have given before, your system is far, far below what is minimially necessary to have a functioning legal system: you seem to think that your arbitration practice, that can only possibly work because it is set against the background of a proper set of court procedures that are clearly enough defined that parties know what procedural advantages that they might have in court, and can therefore agree to arbitrate on the same level of advantages, and only deals with civil cases; I note that you have no experience in criminal cases, which will be the bulk, effectively, of our workload: I deal with about three criminal trials every week).

[quote:r0lovc6m]However, I think that history favors the proponents of the simple, bare-bones approach here. Every great institution started as a bare-bones structure. The creation of fully-formed institutions is a new thing in our post-industrial age -- and most of us believe that the new fully-fleshed institutions that have been created have more than a whiff of sulphur and the appearance of the monster about them.[/quote:r0lovc6m]

"Most of us"? What is your evidence that a majority of the 65-or-so strong CDS population believes that comprehensive instituitons ought not be created by people with extensive experience of working in just such institutions in the first life? Indeed, what about SecondLife bears that out at all? SecondLife culture in general is based on the sophisticated, post-industrial cultures of its users: we did not start in the SecondLife stone age in 2003 and progress towards the SecondLife iron age at the end of 2006. Culture, the arts, architecture, all entered SecondLife fully-formed, and fully informed from the firstlife from which it was drawn.

Whilst it might be a quaint notion, therefore, from an anthropological point of view that we are somehow a blank canvas to start with our culture all over again, the reality is that we are not, and that applies just as much to law and government as it does to anything else. Indeed, if that were not so, how on earth do you think that we could have a democracy of the sort that only arose in history for brief periods during the ancient empires of Greece and Rome, and not again until the 19th century?

[quote:r0lovc6m]Laws arose from custom. Lawmaking arose from transmission of custom. Justice systems arose from the basic method of social control that gave the mores and customs of a society some teeth. This is a natural and proper way to create the laws and justice system without prejudging what it will or should be. [/quote:r0lovc6m]

This is bald assertion. You merely assume, without even attempting to provide reasons (evidently demanding that all who read what you write take you as a higher authority on the point, and defer to you uinquestioningly) that, merely because, in ancient lands in the mists of time, laws arose from custom (because people had not invented writing, or devised any other ways for laws to arise), that that is the only way of them being done here. The reality is that we know far more about how law works, how humans and their institutions work, and how to make those institutions work, than did the ancient lawgivers of the prehistoric periods to which you wistfully refer. Suggesting, for the sake of quaintly watching legal customs emerge from scratch (as if they ever could in the same way when the people who make up the society already know about how sophisticated legal systems operate, just as old medical practices that people now know to be worse than useless could not have arisen in any socieity where people know this fact), that we forget all that we know about how to make law work, and assume mock-ignorance for the sake of those who would like us to be like ants in a glass tank for them to watch is not a preference for workability, and something that will solve real problems in SecondLife: it is a preference for a fantasy, but not the fantasy of the role-players proper, but of the most dangerous sort: that of which the fantasiser has convinced himself is real.

[quote:r0lovc6m]All we have to do is look at the post-Imperial experience of most colonies to see that it is unwise to halt this process by imposing a more "advanced" (or at least more complicated) system from abroad. Africa is a mess. Africa is a mess because of the imposition of European government and legal structure, not despite that imposition. [/quote:r0lovc6m]

Are you honestly suggesting that developing a sophisticated legal system in SecondLife is like colonising Africa? Are you seriously suggesting that a society composed of people all of whom live in nations with sophisticated legal systems has any meaningful parallell with the imposition of such systems literally by force on people with a very differnet background? This is more evidence of your bizarre and frankly extremely worrying virtual stone-age delusion.

[quote:r0lovc6m]We have our customs and mores in SL and in the CDS. We have our mechanisms for teaching those customs to newbies. We have our mechanisms for making sure people respect those customs. This is the basis of law, lawmaking, and a justice system.[/quote:r0lovc6m]

More bare assertion without reasoning. Again, do you expect people to defer to you unquestioningly as a higher authority on the point?

[quote:r0lovc6m]I agree that we should try to formalize this process -- to bring it into focus so that we can examine, understand, and control it, if nothing else. The CDS, through its formal lawmaking by the RA, has taken this formalization process further than I have ever seen it done anywhere else (in SL or in any other MMOG I have played). I agree, as do most of the citizens, that we should try to do the same with our justice system (enforcement of custom system). However, where I (and many others) part company from you is in your insistence that we start with a fully-formed beast, a beast that steps in and replaces (I would say usurps or hijacks) the emerging process of custom enforcement that is already here in the CDS (and in SL as a whole). Rather, I (and many others) want to determine what we have, and make it better, make it more formal, make something of it -- rather than replace it with something foreign (and wrong for being foreign) to SL. Anything from RL will be foreign to SL in just this wrong way.[/quote:r0lovc6m]

Why do you assume that? Do you have any real [i:r0lovc6m]evidence[/i:r0lovc6m] to support what is, essentially, an empirical, psychological claim? If so, what is it? If not, how can you honestly claim that?

[quote:r0lovc6m]This is why I think we should repeal the JA and start the process over by reforming, incrementally, the SC. In doing this reform, I would not oppose the inclusion of professionals, like Ash (and like me), in the process. I think that such inclusion would be both helpful and wise. However, I think that the inclusion of professionals should not be to the exclusion of amateurs -- just because that is not how things are done in SL or any other MMOG. To a large extent, we leave our lives behind when we come to SL, and we create new lives here on and through SL. This is how it should be -- and any system that does not allow for this changing or reforming of self in play, or stifles or suppresses it, does not fit a critical aspect (some would say [i:r0lovc6m] the critical aspect [/i:r0lovc6m]) of virtual culture. It is this lack of fit between the JA and the MMOG (and SL) experience that is the greatest source of tension -- and legitimate tension. It is this lack of fit that damns the JA as a misstep and mistake in our attempt to do something real and good in the development of online society and government.[/quote:r0lovc6m]

You grossly misconcieve SecondLife soceity, and in part because you
unthinkingly conflate it with the soceity of "massively multiplayer online games", of which SecondLife is most certainly not an example. Your essential argument is "We should not have a professional legal system because people in SecondLife want to roleplay things that they do not do in real life". In the context of what we are (or at least, some of us are) trying to do with the CDS, that is utterly misconceived. We are not here to play at being a government: we are here to [i:r0lovc6m]be[/i:r0lovc6m] a government, and not because it is fun to be a government, or we want to learn what it is like to be in a government, but because we (or, at least, the organisers among us) believe that a government in SL is a good way of solving the practical problems that people in SL face when doing whatever it is that they do when they come to SecondLife. As Gwyneth has pointed out on many occasions in her celebrated 'blog, SecondLife is unique because people come to SecondLife to do, very often, [i:r0lovc6m]the same things as they do in real life[/i:r0lovc6m]: journalists write, computer programmers script, businesspoeple run businesses, artists make textures, and lawyers, increasingly, practice law.

The whole point of having law or government is not for the sake of governnment or law itself for people to play-act in, as you wrongly suggest when you write:

[quote:r0lovc6m]...to a large extent, we leave our lives behind when we come to SL, and we create new lives here on and through SL. This is how it should be -- and any system that does not allow for this changing or reforming of self in play, or stifles or suppresses it, does not fit a critical aspect (some would say [i:r0lovc6m] the critical aspect [/i:r0lovc6m]) of virtual culture, [/quote:r0lovc6m]

but to create, practically and usefully, an environment where others can live out their SecondLives more harmoniously and profitably because conflcits are prevented or resolved effectively.

SecondLife has a thriving economy: there are real and substantial commercial interests here. Good law is vital for commerce to flourish properly: it is only able to do so to the extent that it is doing now because some sorts of fraud are rendered impossible by the software, but that is limited. Law will allow more sophisticated transactions, and could help to foster the growth of a thriving services industry. The commercial interests who need a stable, efficient, tested, workable legal system most certainly do not want it run by amateurs who have come to SecondLife to play at being lawyers or to learn about law: they want it run by professionals who know how to solve legal disputes precisely and efficiently, and they want to be able to be represented by lawyers who will act in their best interests.

Law in SecondLife is about helping other people to enjoy their SecondLives without worrying about unresolvable conflict, not living out a fantasy of being a lawyer. That is where the experimenters, as you most certainly are, having nailed your colours firmly to the mast in the quote above, are seriously short-sighted and parochial, and why, even if the experimenters come to dominate in the CDS, the organisers will win the day on the wider grid. The question for the CDS is: do we want to be pioneers in organising things so that people's SecondLives can be enhanced, or do we want to be left behind in an isolated government role-play sim?

Finally, I note that you repeatedly make bald and sweeping assertions about how virtual culture should be: what makes you the ultimate authority on virtual culture such that you think that you are in a position to make claims of this nature, and, without any reasoning in support of them, demand that everybody agree with you? As well as your stone-age delusion, do you also have a diety delusion?

[Beathan]

Yes, Ash, I have a delusion that I am a stone-age deity. Doesn't everyone?

I am not threatening to leave. I have paid my tier a year in advance, and I did so only after I learned about your insufferable justice system and its judge. I did so with the faith that I would not actually have to suffer it -- but I will stay regardless.

However, I think that you make multiple false claims about me and my position. I have prepared, incrementally, by accretion, this ten point rebuttal. I didn't get it right the first, or second, or even the twentieth time -- as my edit history shows. However, it is now close enough for government work.

First, perhaps I was unclear, but when I said "most of us" dislike post-modern, post-industrial technocratic government -- I was speaking of most of the people who oppose the JA. I think that most people who like the JA are perfectly at home in a Kafkaesque world of "Homeland Security" and covert surveillance on Pall Mall.

Second, SL is a MMOG. It is not just a MMOG -- it is also a platform for RL activities. However, it has the "look and feel" of a MMOG. Insofar as an activity is an activity on SL (as opposed to the use of SL to further or undertake an activity in RL), it is an activity in a MMOG -- and theories about MMOGs apply. Further, this theory is generalized to a discussion of virtual reality, not just games -- although games are a vehicle for exploration of the metaverse in concept and as currently instantiated. I have read much of that theory. I don't think that you have -- or, if you have, it did not sink in because I see none of it in any of your posts or projects.

Third, my "law arose from culture" assertion is far from a bald assertion. It is the prevailing theory in the Anthropology of Law -- even in the Social Science of Law in general. Judge Posner referred to it repeatedly in his presentation. If you want, I can give you a bibiolography -- but I don't think that you would read it, just as you do not appear to have read the works on the abbreviated bibliography of virtual world theory I gave you earlier. However, I think that it is wrong to assert that following this theory in practice throws us back into the Stone Age. American law did not start with the Stone Age, but it certainly started with the unique mixture and tension that is American Culture -- drawing on English, German, Dutch and Iroquois traditions (among others). Modern International Law similarly arose from the customs of diplomacy, which arose well after the Stone Age. Looking at ourselves for our law is not primitive -- it is rather the only way we can keep our law true to our goals, our rights, and ourselves.

Fourth, I don't think that we can divide our community between those who want to get things right the first time, and those who don't. Everyone here wants to get things right. Some of us have the experience and wisdom to know that we cannot get things right the first time -- and we want to set up a system that will not trip over its own... feet ... in getting things right. The others will learn the hard way -- but please excuse the rest of us from wanting to repeat this lesson.

Fifth, it is simply not true that the RA considered two (or more) alternative theoretical conceptions of justice systems and picked yours as the winner of the beauty contest. It has been widely lamented (or at least acknowledged -- even by Pat) that there was no alternative to your proposal made or considered at the time your proposal was accepted by the RA. Thus, it is stark revisionistic history to claim that because your system passed the RA, it was determined to be the best system. The ugliest bather can win a bathing beauty contest if she is the only entry.

Sixth, I agree that law is like medicine. Both are modern professions. However, law is very much unlike medicine in its methods and subject matter. All medicine concerns a single thing -- the operation of a human body. Human bodies are all relevantly alike or identical, allowing medicine to be true cross-culturally. Law, however, involves human behavior -- and that behavior exists only in and through a social context. This context matters -- and this context creates significant differences which mean that the law cannot be true or good cross-culturally. This is the key defect in your theory. Your theory, while it might be good in England, is not good in SL.

Seventh, I was not indicating, anywhere, that you were not interested in results. Rather, I was indicating that the rest of us are equally interested in results. Even if we think of ourselves as a lab for social experimentation, we are interested in results. That said, the Justice system you created, just like the harassment law you cited in a recent argument, seems morbidly preoccupied with process, even to the exclusion of sound definition and forward-looking, results-oriented legal policy. This is a critical mistake -- one that I describe as "elevating form over function, process over substance, legal procedure over the law." This process-orientation in your legal system makes it unnecessarily complicated and opaque -- which are flaws in RL justice systems which we should avoid, not duplicate.

Eighth, I don't think that the freedom of the virtual reality of SL -- which liberates us from limitations in our real lives -- dooms us to unhealthy fantasy. I also don't think that an appeal to native, even amateur, talent dooms our justice system to undesirability. Again, I look to the frontier experience of my own country. People came to the frontier to make new lives for themselves. Failed businessmen came west and became successful. Clerks and notaries came west and became lawyers and judges. Lawyers came west and became outlaws and gamblers. It is true that some lawyers came west to set up law practices, but many successful and talented lawyers came west without the credentials and did just fine. SL gives us the same possiblilites. Thus, while it is true that many people come to SL to do what they do in RL, many others come to do new and different things, to try to be new and different people. This is a good thing about SL -- and we should not neglect or undervalue either group.

Ninth, Ash argues that in the CDS we are not playing at being a government, we are trying to be a government. This argument undervalues the idea of play, especially play as done in MMOGs in general and in SL in particular. First, even when children play in groups, they are doing politics -- even government -- when they make decisions. A lot of play is about power. Who decides what game to play? Who makes up the rules? This is politics, even government. Therefore, there is no real distinction between play and nonplay in terms of its importance or social complexity -- so there is no real distinction between being a government and playing at being a government. Ash lacks humor, he lacks fun, and due to these deficiencies, he mistrusts and disparages play, seeing it as somehow beneath him. However, in this mistrust, he misses, rather than makes, the point. Game theory -- which is what I have in mind when I talk about play -- is essentially involved in determining how people interact in situations involving cooperation and/or competition. Surely that is exactly what we are about here in the CDS.

(As an aside, Ash and I fall into two very different groups when it comes to issues of importance. Ash is in the group of upright propriety and seriousness. When he sees an issue as important, he sees it as too important to approach with humor and a spirit of fun. I am the opposite. I think that the more serious an issue, the more important it is to approach it with humor and playfulness. I am reminded of a conversation between too Rabbis, in which the first Rabbi, offended by a joke the second Rabbi told about Torah, said, "The Torah is too important a thing to joke about" -- the second Rabbi responded, "No, the Torah is more important than that. It is too important a thing [i:39c73nnt] not [/i:39c73nnt] to joke about.")

Finally, with regard to the question, do I want a Rolls or a Rickshaw? Well -- do I have access to filling stations or not? How wide are my streets? Do people where I live see status in a Rolls, or in a Rickshaw? Do I really want to live with the Rolls' horrible service record, especially if I can't easily get replacement parts or find a Rolls mechanic? Frankly, I might well prefer a Rickshaw, as might we all.

Beathan

[Samantha Fuller]

[quote:1swvknbf]*** SecondLife has a thriving economy: there are real and substantial commercial interests here. Good law is vital for commerce to flourish properly: it is only able to do so to the extent that it is doing now because some sorts of fraud are rendered impossible by the software ***[/quote:1swvknbf]

Ash this is where you are wrong and one reason why your real life adapted procedures will fail. Every sort of fraud in RL is posible in SL plus quite a few. It is even posible to defraud the tenuous physics of this world. While it is true a few types of fraud are more dificult, many more types of fraud are much much easer. Also those types that are somewhat dificult can become realy easy literly overnight (that was what the recent copybot flap was all about).

Many customs and ways of dealing with problems of resedents come from MMOGs as well as from the blogasphere, chat rooms, forums , MyPlace, E-bay and simlar venues. These customs were developed to cope with the easy fraud, increadbly diverse cultures, and sexual permisivness of the internet. Not to mention the somewhat false sense of anontmty that encorages flaming and other social phenomen.

If you adapt a legal system from the RW residents are going to use the mymerid means of fraud avalible to eather tie procedures into gordian knots or simply thumb their noses at the legal system alltogether. The only judges that will have any sucess are those that can identify and hack through gordian knots and deal emotionaly with those that thumb their noses at the legal system.

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Samantha Fuller":3h1ci9qw]Ash this is where you are wrong and one reason why your real life adapted procedures will fail. Every sort of fraud in RL is posible in SL plus quite a few.

It is even posible to defraud the tenuous physics of this world. While it is true a few types of fraud are more dificult, many more types of fraud are much much easer. Also those types that are somewhat dificult can become realy easy literly overnight (that was what the recent copybot flap was all about).[/quote:3h1ci9qw]

How can one add "quite a few" to "every sort"? In any event, it is simply untrue that "every sort" of fraud is impossible: one cannot, for example, set an object for sale but have it not deliver to the person's inventory after money is paid. Similarly with land sales. One [i:3h1ci9qw]can[/i:3h1ci9qw] defraud renters of land, and, using CopyBot, make copyright-infringing copies of objects and avatars. Some sorts of fraud are possible, others are not. In any event, that does not tell us anything about whether or not detailed legal procedures are workable in SecondLife: what it does tell us, however, is that a legal system is very much necessary to deal with such fraud.

[quote:3h1ci9qw]Many customs and ways of dealing with problems of resedents come from MMOGs as well as from the blogasphere, chat rooms, forums , MyPlace, E-bay and simlar venues. These customs were developed to cope with the easy fraud, increadbly diverse cultures, and sexual permisivness of the internet. Not to mention the somewhat false sense of anontmty that encorages flaming and other social phenomen.[/quote:3h1ci9qw]

None of this means that these methods are inherently superior to a formally-constituted legal system: just as, in real life soceities, vendettas and feuds preceeded formal legal systems, and trial by ordeal preceeded trial by jury, so, too, in virtual communities do primative ways preceed sophisticated legal systems.

[quote:3h1ci9qw]If you adapt a legal system from the RW residents are going to use the mymerid means of fraud avalible to eather tie procedures into gordian knots or simply thumb their noses at the legal system alltogether. The only judges that will have any sucess are those that can identify and hack through gordian knots and deal emotionaly with those that thumb their noses at the legal system.[/quote:3h1ci9qw]

This seems to be entirely groundless speculation, especially since you fail to give any idea as to what [i:3h1ci9qw]sort[/i:3h1ci9qw] of "Gordian knots" that you think that people will be able to tie the procedures into? Can you give any examples of what you mean, exactly? The procedures that I drafted were especially designed to take account of the potential for fraud and skulduggery, by having clear, precise rules on things such as service of documents. In real-life, I work in the criminal law, where those charged with crimes are often trying to subvert the procedures to get away with wrongdoing. The way that that is handled is not by havning vague procedures, but by having precise, carefully-drafted procedures, and skilled judges and prosecutors.

In any event, it is most unclear exaclty what you are trying to claim. Do you think that it is entirely pointless having [i:3h1ci9qw]any[/i:3h1ci9qw] sort of legal system, or just one with detailed procedures? If the latter, how, precisely, do you think that vague procedures can help prevent fraud? If the former, given that a nation is incomplete without a legal system, do you also think that the whole project of the CDS is pointless?

[Samantha Fuller]

First off id like to apallogise for posting on the wrong thread what i had in mind is related to differing objectives. Though as i see it the divide is between those who see SL as a complete platform that just needs a litle developement and those who see SL and all the instutions in it as beata software that hopefuly will become or be the basis for a platform and socitey that we can suport.

The rest of the idea and the replies will likely belong in the juduciary discusion

See post in judicary discusion,
Goals of the judicial structure thread