Lavarisius+Afarensis



 The Hidden Factors of the Neoliberal Agenda  || Homelessness in relation to property in Secondlife  || Douglas L. Wellman  ||    Introduction  ‘Homelessness’ will be the term used to describe “propertyless individuals”—or those simply without land—but more specifically, the term will be used to account for those individuals who make no financial transactions within Secondlife. The point of this essay is not simply to validate how pervasive a theme homelessness might be in the virtual-world but to consider the many consequences that result from it not being a discernable feature. ‘Homelessness’ might be viewed as a rather bold term at first reckoning, but, in a broad sense, it epitomizes the restrictive nature of Secondlife which can be inextricably linked to the restrictive nature being brought to bear in reality: for in one instance it retains quite well how some members of society are forced to maintain themselves within excessively restrictive environments while simultaneously having to function outside of the profit-loop; in another sense, homelessness protracts the idea of there being a tremendous burden placed upon those individuals who do not actually //own// anything. So in reduced form, homelessness, we can say, requires individuals to adjust themselves to living within societies that are highly repressive and where opportunities are extremely limited to the bettering of their conditions—they are made to conduct themselves within what Lessig calls a “permission culture.”  How exactly neoliberals have gained legitimacy is a point of interest that will also have to be explored in some detail in the following pages; but to state briefly, now, that their ability to conceal anything negative has been a key factor in garnering enormous support for readjusting, or rather reducing, the modalities of constraint. By giving credibility to the idea of homelessness, an opportunity arises to confront a larger issue that ties Secondlife in with reality (or vice versa) and allows portions of the material covered in class to be incorporated into this essay. The larger issue concerns how a newly modeled conception of property, torn from its traditional context, has become instead of a safety-net once used to secure an individual from illegitimate infringement, to becoming a tool for a qualified few (owners) to extend control over the multitude.  <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1">The clear assertion of anything negative being subjected from view, in reality, is encapsulated in Klein’s work, and validated more explicitly by Lessig who explained in near anguish how he was unable to convince even our Supreme Court of the worsening conditions that stem from the new exertion being granted to property. In respect to this new vision of property, Secondlife may serve as model to show how restrictive reality might become if people do not gain a keener insight into the harm that stems from such a blind allegiance. And it is thus that Secondlife may, in a very real sense, serve as an indicator of where democracy is heading: for it embodies, in the most naked form, Freidman’s ideology of unfettered capitalism which depends on the full-fledged private takeover of government agency work that inevitably leaves those of the public sphere to disperse and seek refuge under the private sphere. The concept likewise embodies how laws are being composed and enforced, granting owners an authority to which they themselves have magnified to such a degree that they now wield considerable authority to subject the public to their wills—that is, in telling individuals what they can and can’t do. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1">Nonetheless, by property and ownership rights being extended and exaggerated, and by everything being absorbed, owned, and retained by a solid few, the great many might find themselves in a situation very similar to what the term homelessness implies as it being used to evaluate Secondlife. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1"> Part I <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1"> Unveiling the concept of Homelessness <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1">To give primacy to the idea of ‘homelessness’ being a pervasive theme of Secondlife I have had to be rather constructive in collecting data adequate enough to prove or disprove this very proposition. There was no question that it in fact existed, however, because it was a reflection of my own peculiar situation; and, hence, I knew that if I were of this position, then there would have to be others. The question thus became, “how many others?” and “how could I prove their were others?” <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1">Before descanting any further on the evidence, I feel it proper to introduce how the whole notion of homelessness came about and how it translated into the larger issues that were being discussed in class at the time. Conclusively, simple observations had led me to imbibe a sense of displacement, which slowly—but eventually—ballooned into realizing how deeply restrained I was in participating fully in the virtual-world. The full weight of restriction, though, was not at all noticeable at first. In fact, many competing factors—or more alluring features, such as creating custom avatars and having the ability to fly and teleport, etc—had distracted me, and distracted me to such a degree that it had taken lengthy participation and a good deal of time to capture the true nature of the world. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1">Things became much clearer when I realized how the entire framework of Secondlife was centered on and around ownership and that it functioned entirely off a exchangeable currency. I soon learned that every little thing and object had an owner. This was a rather quick discovery, perhaps. But it was out of this simple discovery that I realized that there was little room for personal opportunity and personal decision. I found that being penniless produced a whole network of restrictions that, when taken together, had left me in an inflexible and permanent state: meaning, I could not create a life beyond what the owners allowed. And this fact alone resonates loudly what Lessig was drawing out in his argument: that owners have gained the ability to determine what individuals can and can’t do; that they can control the actions of individuals. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1">Instead of looking at freedom—since the very word itself implies what individuals are not restrained from doing and considering that it is only valuable in connection with the governing system—I started looking at the cornerstone of human existence, particularly, that of freewill—which implies the liberty of an individual to do what one wishes to do. In so doing I had realized that I could not better my condition. And no clearer evidence could have come other than from noticing that I could not steal. Beyond the moral biases that circle around criminality, having the ability to act ‘willfully’ against the laws of a system is the most evidencing action whenever one wishes to evaluate freewill. And since freedom necessarily ties itself to a system (meaning that the freedoms we have are granted by the systems that are made to govern us) and does not condone nor allow criminal activity, we must be careful when using the word freedom. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1">Crime ties into wider theme of this essay because it, again, validates freewill; but more convincingly it reconfirms the nature of freedom, the limited opportunity and the limited options that members of society have and evidences the clear limits in which they must function. So if we had to summarize all this, we could say, as of now, that, our ‘freedoms’ in Secondlife are few and that ‘freewill’ in Secondlife is nonexistent—since what we //will// to do is not even attemptable. Regardless of the differences between freedom and freewill, the injury done to both goes unnoticed, but this, I discovered, is because they are //intentionally// concealed from view—they are blind-spots in the system. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1">Hiding what is negative allows ideas of independence to suffocate the need to assess one’s capabilities. And by what has been outlined in all of our course material is a utter reflection of this. ‘The idea of property’ has led people to blindly accept the leading worldview, despite it working against their particular interest and undermined individual capability. By falling to the idea, individuals have thus granted legitimacy to the architecture required to uphold the inflated concept and its principle. Strict measures of enforcement are necessary, which depends on a tremendous amount of supervision, constraint, and punishment. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'">It is here that the Foucauldian theory of jurisprudence becomes relevant. It expresses that the establishment of law and its institutions are somewhat illusionary, for the arrangement of authority and the dispersal of power resides in a number of acting agents that rest outside of the institution itself, yet are overshadowed by the mere conception of power being held by one prominent authority; and furthermore, that the law has weaned from judging criminal acts in a self-standing evaluation, and that rather the focus of law has now become to view and punish the criminality of the individuals themselves. The result being that law is made to correct the individual, which can only be done by governing and directing the “political technology of the body [or the soul]” (emphasis my own). In this way, Foucault, after reviewing discipline and surveillance, revealed to his readers how our societies reflect prisons. Homelessness intensifies this concept because ‘technology of the body’—the knowledge to impose penalty on the soul and thereby punish without inflicting bodily pain while simultaneously mastering the forces of the individual—has led to implementing preventive measures which can be seen in absolute terms in Secondlife. This is because in Secondlife so many preventive measures exist that there is nothing else to prevent. Preventive measures, when taken in relation to property, are the primary goal of neoliberals, and what we see in Secondlife is a full disclosure of what is being crystallized in reality. In any event, to take axiom from Foucault, “//Discipline must be understood as machinery.”// And this is no more clearer than in Secondlife. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1">Part II <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1">Research and Analysis <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1">When I searched for methods to evaluate homelessness in Secondlife, I had found only one suitable way to give evidence of its existence, and that was to view individual (avatar) profiles which tell if the member has an inactive or active account. If an account was inactive it evidenced that no transactions have been made on Secondlife—since the American money is necessary to transfer into Linden dollars in order for any purchase or transaction to take place. I selected a random sample of 100 avatars to review for account-status. Assuming that the sample is an adequate representation, the results can extend outward to account for the population at large so long as the percentages are kept equal in proportion to the number being considered. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1">Part III <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1">Conclusion <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'">“//The most careful ask to-day: “How is man to be maintained?”// //<span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'">Zarathustra however asketh, as the first and only one: How is // //<span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'">man to be surpassed? //<span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'">”     –Neitchze <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'">‘//Economism//’ was a term Gramsci used to promote the idea that economic or technological circumstances do not themselves produce change, ‘//they simply create a terrain more favorable to the dissemination of certain modes of thought, and certain ways of posing and resolving questions involving the entire subsequent development of national life.’”// (Gramsci, 1971, 184). <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'">Durkheim’s term: “purposeful-rationality:” individually pursued one overriding end with single-mindedness without “counting the cost.” <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'">Weber: “One cannot explain capitalism by invoking behavior patterns that are themselves the consequences of the capitalist era.” (The Protestant Ethic of Spirit of Capitalism) <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'">Pragmatic acceptance: one consents because it is convenient (b/c one wishes not to run the risk of diminishing his satisfaction). <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Modern No. 20','serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Microsoft Himalaya'; mso-themecolor: text1">

In the 19th century, Tocqueville, having noticed how different democracy was being expressed in America in relation to how it was being expressed in Europe concluded that the two were heading down diverging paths. The same situation is perhaps unfolding today, in that the traditional American model of democracy, with all of its weighing concepts, is being manipulated to some degree to fashion a new path being built off the neoliberal blueprint. Secondlife, I believe, is clear expression of that new path, for it insinuates and actualizes many of the wishes neoliberals seek to implement in reality: attempts to construct a fully privatized world, where no distinction can be made between public and private individuals, and leaving little remaining to bear the worthy stamp of tradition. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'">By Secondlife being a virtual system, it gives us a separate system (that is, one outside of our own reality) to evaluate how individuals come to view the systems that govern them; how they become, more often than not, complacent with the “ideas” that a system creates—that is, how concepts such as authority, law, independence, and property, can be redefined yet gain legitimacy. Therefore, the essential point of this essay is to explore the leading concepts that govern Secondlife and how they mirror intimately those concepts which have been slowly crystallizing in reality. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'">Manifestly, we must be careful not to place too much emphasis on how Secondlife correlates with reality because many distinct and problematic differences are readily apparent and easy to point out. We can start with the most obvious, by asserting that the virtual world is escapable and reality isn’t. We can also say that freewill is an irrevocable feature in reality, whereas personal decisions cannot be inhibited or as entirely controlled as they are in the virtual world by its automatic and unbending architecture. Nonetheless, the specific focus is not to study the individual in connection with greater society, but to evaluate the individual functioning under the system itself, to evaluate their abilities (their freedoms) and to discover in the process the illusionary factors that work to conceal or distract the individual from realizing the multiple inabilities that the system likewise creates. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'">In Secondlife, when we evaluate its restrictions, or the application of law, what becomes apparent in one region is apparent in all. And I would argue that restrictions are so simple and noncomplex, due to the modalities of constraint being solely dominated by one authority, the property-owner, that it is almost trivial to point out the many restrictions that they create other than to use them to bolster Lessig’s argument on how the public is being made to obey and submit to the discretions and to the wills of the owners. So instead of just pointing out how incredible the power and authority is of the owners of the virtual world, and how owners are working themselves into similar positions of authority in reality, I intend to focus my attention on the illusionary factors and illusionary concepts (i.e. property and authority) that work to legitimate their positions. I will give several instances that evolve around one particular standpoint to show how it is the “Ideas” or the “Perceptions” and not the Facts, which are “hidden” that have allowed change to overcome tradition. Some of these instances might lead to an immediate conclusion that is self standing, and may not be fully emphasized or incorporated in the overall conclusion but, nonetheless, gives the reader a wider view of how the final conclusion was formed. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> __<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'">THE VIRTUAL LIFE AND TIMES OF LAVERISIUS AFERENSIS __ <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> __<span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'">The Illusions of Secondlife __ <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'">A deep sense of individual liberty can be felt when entering Secondlife. In fact it was a sentiment that had distinguished itself firmly in my earliest visits. Enthralled, perhaps, by what technology has allowed, overlapped with the many places I was //free// to visit, it seemed as if I were granted an open portal to a different world; a world in which I could create—anew—a sort of social life that could either extend or conceal the life I actually have in reality. In the beginning, it seemed like Disney World in many respects. So much so that I felt that I could never see all the myriad attractions that are offered on its campus, without retiring altogether from complete exhaustion. Like Disney World, here, too, are things created and given animation—making things as real as they can possibly be. For example, ancient architectural marvels and medieval communities are erected with exactness; castles are as precise in their width and height and are as lacking in decoration as they were ages ago (as shown above). Hence, a picture which I have recently taken shows Stonehenge setting on a parcel of land adjacent a castle in perfect detail—so one needs only to peer through a window to see the historical monument and gaze its beauty. It is indeed a place where we can bring the distant world ever closer to home. We can teleport on a whim; we can create our own characters. Being able to do all these things gives us a heightened sense of independence, despite that independence being overtly limited in nature. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'">As I became comfortable with the system and learned to control my avatar, I traveled to many destinations. I was amazed at the assortment of different sceneries which were as diverse in appearances as are the looks of other avatars. I was somewhat tickled at first to see that individuals could create characters that could mimic their actual appearances or create themselves as they wished to be perceived (even in forms unrealistic). This perk provides a sense of freedom in itself. Because in a deeper respect it allows every individual to conceal certain parts of their being: allowing them to hide their scars, rid themselves of their physical flaws, and disguise much of their peculiarities that are only detectable by reading of body language. What this does, //however, is it creates a world of absolutely no insecurity//. It works to build the illusion of it being a world without fear, death, and punishment; without rampant crime or poverty—despite all of these things being features of Secondlife—and the very essence it carries forth is that of a Utopia. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'">What had grabbed my attention almost immediately was how second-life, a world modeled off reality, was to the contrary, a world without Poverty; and how this false perception did not in any way reflect my own particular situation. For behind the mask that conceals my own identity, behind the newish looking clothes that go without a speck of lint or dirt—never in need of a good wash—I am, behind that polished look, //penniless.// I am //absolutely// and //unequivocally broke//. Yet no one is able to discern this. The utter truth that, I would actually be trudging around naked and barefoot had the system not provided me with those luxuries is a truth that is kept hidden. So not only is the utopian illusion upheld but //anything negative remains invisible//. This is probably the most important symptom of the neoliberal ideology. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'">I must pause for a moment to add to what has just been said. If there is a common parable being expressed in all of our course material, we can agree that it has firstly to do with a change in the conception of property; and has secondly to do with the consequences that result from the ignorance of a people falling blindly behind this transformed idea that now, due to adjustment, remains only historical in origin because the conception comes to ignore the entire history and evolution of the idea itself—and thus deprives the idea of its maturity which has come by way of tradition alone. Thirdly, and most importantly, with respect to Secondlife and reality, the parable denotes the consequences of supporting these manipulated ideas are often, and intentionally, hidden from view from the great majority of people. There is a reason, I believe, why Klein had written hundreds of pages on the changing nature of property and how it bolsters NGO capability and validates American intervention when disputes arise between NGO’s and their adopting countries. Lessig falls to despair when he reconsiders how he was not able to convince the Supreme Court of the spiraling consequences (or harm) that has resulted from such a shift in conception; and Durden felt the only means of countering this now seemingly inveterate concept was to rid the people of it altogether! As in Secondlife, hiding or concealing anything negative is likewise a symptom in reality, and we have ample evidence to suggest that, by it being apparent in both systems that, it is a manipulating feature of the neoliberal agenda. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'">To absorb all this, we cannot help but realize the power that Ideas have in advancing processes of change, and how it is ideas, and not facts, (as emphasized by both Foucault and Gramsci) that legitimate new forms of authority. Further still, how actions taken by the leading members of society ultimately shape and mold the ideas of the masses—since the lower orders cannot really develop their own. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'">Getting back to the subject of my being penniless, which, again, was an unnoticeable truth; I noticed that there was nothing that made an individual stand-out in a crowd. I mean, Individuals could really only be distinguished by their material possessions. Without distinctions of age, profession, or religious leanings--and anything similar--individuals can easily be wedged into one grand community; albeit, a private community. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'">Everything I seen, firsthand, evidenced that it was not a public community--and not even a blend ofpublic and private. Secondlife is strictly private. Everything is owned and hence is nothing left for the public to create themselves out of. Everything that is permitted and allowed is strictly permitted for the purposes of keeping members attracted and satisfied and keep them dependent on the world and tied to the markets. A question raised in class was, “how is private interest overwhelming Secondlife?” and after giving it considerable thought, that question was either misleading or intentionally put forth to challenge us. From my personal observation, what I have gathered from the nature of the virtual world was that it was created by, out of, and for, private individuals. If we agree that this observation is correct, the question thus becomes: “how is the public establishing itself in the private world?” A topic which, I believe, another member of the research team will be entertaining by exploring the establishment of educational and other knowledge/information based institutions. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'">After a number of visits, however, I became rather irritated, upset, bored, disgusted. As I have mentioned earlier, I was broke. Without money there was absolutely nothing to do but look around, hoping to find someone (or thing) who was open enough to chat, to make my time on Secondlife more interesting and time-benefiting. Having failed to find someone to carry on a conversation with, I happened upon a store; where I learned that I could actually work! I mean, I could earn 50 Linden dollars for ten minutes work! But the exploitative nature was almost farcical, after becoming acquainted with the actual exchange rates. Secondlife functions off an actual currency that can be exchanged for actual money. Every single American dollar equates to 184 Linden dollars; so, mathematically, an hour of services reduces to a paltry amount of a little more than three dollars (logical estimation). And for a teenager unable to work due to federal-age requirement, this wage might be very attractive. But to an adult it is quite appealing at a time when a gallon of milk is nearing four dollars. Klein noted extensively how the neoliberal outlook embodies that all wage-laws be repealed or overlooked. We may deduce that such an expression in Secondlife might be of some insight to nature of exploitation that neoliberals seek to advance in reality—how government choosing to no longer involve itself in that area may lead to significant reductions in individual salary? <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'">Continuing on, I, without offering myself up to wage-slavery, had nothing to do other than walk-around; I //imbibed a sense of being homeless//! With nothing left to do but explore, I made the best of it and began to observe my physical surroundings. Beginning to see the restrictive nature of the world, I could not believe how the more and more negative things just started to stand out. On one particular instance, I entered into a tropical landscape, with towering trees and multifarious plants, with pathways that cut up between them. I tried to pick up what appeared to be a meteoric rock or what in real life would probably be a rock that had been pushed up from underneath the mantle. I could not remove it from the ground, nor could I zoom in any closer on the object; and, all the more, I was stuck in a standing position so I could not get any closer to the object without totally stepping over it. Beyond merely describing the one and only modality of constraint—the owners architecture—the striking thing about it was that the rock—or whatever it was—was actually owned! Hence, I soon learned that everything was owned; even if it were a useless item (having absolutely no value whatsoever)! Lessig had taken great concern, in reality, toward ownership of things that no longer had a profit-value. What such a fact reveals is just how the conception of ownership and the conception of property, in Secondlife, perfectly mirror how they are being viewed in reality. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'">Secondlife is certainly Freidman’s utopia being fully expressed in its most naked format. But there is a more concerning theme, which Freidman advocated, that needs to be accounted for in full. It goes without doubt how easily one can connect the idea of a clean-slate being the underlying groundwork for Secondlife. But the impact is far more extensive. Private individuals, having a clean-slate to begin with in a virtual world allows infinite markets to be created. If Secondlife continues to expand in population, impinging nature of diplomacy in the demands for depleting resources, there is no longer a need to invade and rearrange foreign infrastructures to create new avenues for profit. One needs only to purchase a piece of land in the virtual world and set-up shop. The goal thus becomes to modernize the world by inundating it with internet-ready computers—since technology has already proven the most useful and efficient tool of penetrating borders and knocking down old cultural barriers. This might be an overreaching observation, of course, but it is probable. The overall point we can make is that private individuals are attempting to dominate and monopolize whatever world they come into contact with. In the virtual world, as in reality, owner’s have unlimited reign in determining what is allowed and not allowed. Owners tell us what we are permitted to do and what we are not permitted to do (Lessig), and the architecture is created specifically to highlight their growing authority. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'">What can we make of Individuality? <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'">When I viewed a Xerox-copier setting in the middle of room, I wondered why someone had created it. After touching it and eventually sitting on it—which were my only two options—I realized that this useless devise was being sold for L$70 (roughly 45 cents) regardless of being utterly valueless. It is as funny as it is true. But again, such little observations can produce other talking points. In this case, as with every similar case that followed it, I learned that I could not steal the object. I could not steal if I where broke and wished to better my financial condition by being able to sell a stolen object for Linden dollars. I do not intend to make a habit of pointing out minute observations, but this particular one shows another hidden variable that needs be recognized. By stealing, no matter how one may chastise and traduce such an action, the action itself reflects the most salient and indisputable form of freewill. By not being able to steal, we must admit that freewill does not really exist—we have only certain and extremely limited freedoms. Looked at from another angle, we can see that our movements, our actions, our ability to travel, how high and fast we can fly, are all controlled by the architecture of the system itself. In simplified terms, this means we can only do what the system allows us to do. And in many respects we can only become what the system allows us to become; and this truth is as true in reality as it is in Secondlife itself. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'">I wish to discuss something else that became apparent after a period of time, and that is that Secondlife was in fact a classless society: having already noted how there is no distinction between one’s age, religion, or profession. By such defining features being visible, there is nothing that distinguishes us but our material possessions. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'">The narrator of Fight Club revealed something visible in both the Secondlife and reality that must be mentioned. He showed how the material possessions we cherish are only valuable in respects to the given system. Meaning that, without the system the material possessions have no worth. And since we build our lives and characters out of and on these material possessions, we must concur that if the system were to collapse, so too would we as individuals. So, if we were to strip away the system, we in turn strip ourselves of our identity, which we have come to express through our possessions—in that they unequivocally reflect our taste, our status, and our experiences. The narrator of Fight Club believed that to take one’s possessions is to take one’s soul; that, the intrinsic value of our material possessions cannot be reduced to money-terms. But our possessions are, in the strictest terms, nothing but a reflection of the system itself. This paradox is quite revealing, for if we reduce this, we fall to the heavy realization that we are nothing but mirror images of the system. Individuality is, thus, an illusion! We see ourselves in the ideas that the ruling classes create. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'High Tower Text','serif'">When we realize that there are only two actual approaches to dealing with change: to relent and revolt; and to consider how Secondlife does not permit the latter, we come to see the most distinguishing feature of virtual world. But that is not to say that this particular fact does not coincide with reality. I have taken a picture of a statue which is both relevant and revealing in this matter. It is a statue of Justice with a scale in one hand and a sword of ‘gold’ in the other, and there are night vision goggles over her eyes. It reminds me of flippant remark made against the old saying that “the sun never sets over the British Empire,” and the remark was “it never sets over the British Empire because the Lord doesn’t trust the British in the dark.” If we replace the word British with the word public, we have a summary of what the DRM is to Secondlife. And a similar attempt is being made in reality to prevent any attempt or even any future attempt to challenge private individuals and from tapping into their streams of profit. Despite all this, the night vision goggles signify a great truth. They reveal how everything is being monitored by the law, how law itself is becoming a tool of private individuals, and expanding beyond its traditional role.