Safety+Dance+Research+Project



**Control**
 Welcome to The Virtual Safety Dance’s work on control in both Second Life and real life. We have had a great opportunity to use Second Life and other methods such as this wikispace for our research. It is not my job or necessary to state or question the use of Second Life as a teaching/ research tool; however, I would like to mention that it has opened up large amounts of data for research. This data is not a 600 page file on the government restrictions on a foreign nation or work by a detailed expert. While we as a team will also include expert scholarly data to supplement some Second Life spaces, the data collection methods of Second Life lends itself well with our topic of control. Control is the basic need for government. As mentioned in Shock Doctrine and The Public and It’s Problems, government was founded to control certain aspects of the publics. Control is not an inherently evil action that always needs to be curbed. Control can be seen all around us in the real world; however the real world is complex and many of the greatest scholars in the world have failed to describe it in full. The use of Second Life has allowed our group to simplify reality and to intuit, feel and literally see pure methods of control. Now that we have given our idea of blended research in control we must now get into what the paper is actually about. Using Lessig’s ideas in Free Culture, we have separated Control into four categories: Norms, Architecture, Market, and Laws. During this paper we hope to make a further jump from these categories more than just examining and providing examples within real life and Second Life. We will support a claim that some of the control has gone too far and is a danger to a stable society and culture. The first method of control that we will discuss is the Market.   Restrictions in the market can become the prices of goods that we buy day in and day out. How much your bread costs or more importantly for us how much an item that you identify yourself with costs. In real life the government can use the market to discourage or encourage a particular sector of growth, such as the housing market. The idea of market control is not disputed by how many times do you hear that the market dictates how certain people look, act and identify themselves as groups? In Second Life the market is easily seen as much closer to the identification of personality. The virtual representation of yourself in Second Life is called your Avatar, courtesy of Snow Crash. You start your journey as a template character that is a basic stock model. From there you take control of your characters looks actions and clothing. Hair, skin, clothes, and eyes anything that you could possibly ever want is for sale in Second Life for Linden Dollars.  <span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">Unlike reality where you cannot buy a new pair of legs that is not a problem in Second Life. How does this effect or control personality? Or how does this apply to the real world? To fit in with certain groups within Second Life it helps to look and act the part just like in real life. You can tell at least a small amount about a person based on appearance. We do not mean this in the sense of racism, which is wrong. If you see someone wearing an expensive set of clothes and riding around in a fancy car it means something. Either that person is rich and owns those things or he has access to those materials. The same goes for Second Life where it costs money not only to get external items such as cars and clothes, but also to construct an attractive good graphical character. The Control in Second Life comes into play with the purchase of items that allow you to identify yourself with a community, say for example a Guitar. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'">

<span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">It so happens that all of the people wearing Guitars keep up with the new models and buy a new one every month. These Guitar players also believe that the current Second Life government has an unfair policy. To control and dismantle the group and its ideas the control on Guitars prices diminishes who can join their group. By raising the price of the Guitar the government could regulate the diversity of the group. In this case I can provide a real life example of this sort of control, Minorities and education control through the market. 20% more is spent on a white kid’s education than on a minority. //<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">“Perhaps this separation might not matter if students from minority races received the same education as white students. But the reality is that far more is spent on the average white student's education than on the average black student's. For example, in the Chicago metropolitan area, in the Chicago public schools, $ 5,265 is spent for each student's education; but in the Niles school district, a suburban area immediately north of the city, $ 9,371 is spent on each student's schooling. In Camden, New Jersey, $ 3,538 is spent on each pupil; but in Princeton, New Jersey, $ 7,725 is spent. In 1989-90, New York City spent an average of $ 7,299 per student, while the nearby district in Great Neck, Long Island spent $ 15,000 for each child. Not surprisingly, these disparities have a strong correlation to race. For example, in Chicago, 45.4% of the residents are white and 39.1% are African-American; in Niles Township, the percentages are 91.6% white and 0.4% black. A similar story can be told in virtually every urban area in the country. Two decades ago, noted education expert Christopher Jencks estimated that on the average, 15% to 20% more is spent on each white student's education than on each black student's schooling. The disparities have only gotten worse since then ( Chemerinsky, 1994).” // <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left">This is not the same as saying that government is specifically causing racism, but that the market based on prices of living and school districts separates those into who can pay and who cannot. What you get from this process is a mono-culturing these groups are similar both economically and ideologically because of the products and market sector they fall into. In Second Life they become even physically similar. You may think where is the harm in that? Well that is for later in the paper for now we are simply identifying and explaining how the system exists and the mechanics of its control. Another method of control that should be readily apparent is laws are a form of control. National, State and local laws are meant to control you as an individual. As we stated earlier this is not necessarily a bad thing, unless it creates problems. The market can create economic separation of people and segregation, what can laws do? To answer lets delve back into Second Life and check out some of the laws that exist within it. Like in America, Second Life is separated into categories comparable to Nations and States. The National Laws would be Linden Labs code of conduct. The State laws would be the laws that each world sets up, such as no mature content etc… on the whole these laws are very passive. They allow local communities to wall themselves up and make their own State rules as the more interesting important laws. What you see in Second Life are many small communities with their own laws and rules, joined as a whole on the Grid. In the real world we can see similar aspects in our own laws especially in our earlier topic of segregation. The state governments' role in residential segregation is one of enabler. Permissive state laws and passive state courts have allowed local communities to wall themselves off from undesirable entrants. This is the effect of control of laws; however this is helped by the control of market. Laws however have more weight than market constraints; laws are justified by the government and can require a large amount of both money and influence to change.

//<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left">"the right to incorporate as . . . separate municipalit[ies], immunity from annexation by the central city; the privilege of engaging in exclusionary zoning; the ability to legislate and provide services solely in their own self-interest; the authority not only to tax the real property located within city boundaries but to spend the revenue collected solely on local residents (Randall, 2003)." //<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">

<span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left">According to Randall at the Georgetown Law Center these laws have contributed to the creation of mono-culturing that we spoke of earlier. The laws allow suburbs and communities the power to separate themselves from the cities. This is a blow to diversity within the city community and education. The State and the Nation have become silent to the process of segregation and the laws that they use for control are supporting the process. Another part of Laws that we have studied is Copyright. Copyright is another form that the Law takes to control and regulate; however, what does it control or regulate? Copyright is a specific law that controls media. This control of media is effectively a control on culture as it is understood in Lessig’s Free Culture. By allowing copyright laws it limits the amount of information the public can manipulate unless the can pay money to use or buy the copyright  <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left">**. In these pictures we can see a difference in the amount of books available to a small libraby and a large library able to put money into copyrights. ** This picture shows a Spirtual Library that doesn't have alot of money to put into copyrights. As such the selection is made up of copy right free works, the selection is small. While this picture does not show all of the books within the library their is less than fitiy, very easily. Here you can see a bigger library, but the cost of this information is money. The Mcmaster University has well over 300,00 books, these was just the hits i got when we searched the word "any" into the chat filter. These picture also shows a prime example of the next modality of constrain, Architecture. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">Architecture as a form of control was especially useful to examine in Second Life. Architecture can be studied from books and understood as a rhetorical idea; however the very nature of Architecture, constraint of certain actions, is exemplified in field research. A real life example of Architectural control would be a stop sign. It is designed for a certain purpose to control your actions. In Second Life however the actions that can be restricted and the concreteness of how they can do so is important. This next example is assuming you are an average person and not a specialist in either Computer Design for Second Life and Professional Assassination in real life. The way the Architecture of the real world is setup it makes it harder to do certain actions. The President is well guarded, with security cameras and teams of defense agents. The act of killing the president would be hard because of architectural controls such as building designs, weapon designs but the act could be done. In Second Life it could not be done, if it was not willed by those in control of the Architecture. Second Life is a computer program. As such architecture, the actual coding the game has, does not allow certain actions to take place. If Linden Labs wishes that people cannot protest their actions by making profane pictures they would use architecture to achieve these gains. To bring up an actual Second Life example we can take a look at architectural constraints on items. The Difference in the items above and below is how much control is being put on them by the Architecture of the Second Life System. The Guitar on the top can by Shared with a Group and any of the people in the group could play it. However the picture on the bottom has no modify options available at all. There are many items of both types in Second Life. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">Certain items cannot be shared with others. Other items cannot be modified or transferred from characters you own. This type of control has the same effects as market controls allowing certain items to be owned or held by certain individuals or groups. To phase back out to the real world, many items that we purchase have inbuilt architectural controls just like in Second Life, even if it is not obvious. When you buy an IPod in real life the way you listen, search, find and share music is setup by Apple and ITunes. If you do not like this to bad, it is illegal to tamper with their software to change it. You either accept the architectural controls or face the legal ones. This once again constitutes the mono-culturing of likeminded consumers. If the community you hang out with is based on the appreciation of music, what better way to listen to music then all the time anywhere you want with some type of device like the IPod? Even if the brand changes the actual architectural differences are little. Everyone in the group now assimilates there music in a similar fashion. What is so great about having different methods and ideas? What is wrong with mono-culturing? We were going to explain after the last modality; however in a thirty page research project you need something to keep you going. Diversity has been shown to improve learning and knowledge. Diversity has also allowed the creation and preservation of culture. Culture is an adaptation, much like walking on legs instead of going on all fours. Civilization has adapted culture to form bonds and groups to protect ideas and to transmit a way of life to a continuing generation. Diversity in the classroom increases the quality of the education students receive. Diversity in this case has become controlled just like by the Market, and Laws by Architecture. The ideas of Diversity increasing education are not new; they were used in the case of Brown vs. Board of Education to overturn of segregation. It is not just the minorities who benefit all the students improve from diversity. Diversity encourages sharing and thinking, when students interact if they need to question their own beliefs and ideas it can strengthen their own as well as help them develop critical thinking skills. Diversity is different ideas of thought, and a different interpretation of culture. Also if seen through the eyes of the market education is also important for economic growth. //<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">“According to recent research, __<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">the accumulation of knowledge, best exemplified by the level of education of residents (or human capital), is the primary driver of productivity increases in our cities. Economic growth occurs in places that possess highly educated residents __<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">. __<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">These are the residents most likely to employ technology to create the innovations that enhance productivity. The role of formal education is especially significant in the new economy: The more educated the population, the more human capital exists in a city and the more prosperous the city will be. __<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">While cheap land and cheap labor once fueled urban growth, __<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">the education of citizens now is the principal predictor of growth. __<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Cities with low human capital continue to fall farther behind more educated cities. Let us return to the analysis of the fifty largest cities over the period between 1970 and 2000. What were the factors that correlated with the success of a city? Was it race? No. Was it temperature? No. Certainly, its unemployment rate must be significant. No. The analysis revealed two key factors. First, __<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">we found a strong relationship between a city's per capita income and the educational attainment of the city population. __<span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">The figure below shows the relationship between the percent of the population holding a college degree or better, and the wealth of the city. (Lightbourn, 2005). “ // <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left">The consequences are linked. Diversity is a method of the people that can increase education and education can increase the economy, including the minority’s economy. How in fact do you reach or obtain diversity? The last mode of constraint can give us some insight into group knowledge and culture. Finally, we come to the last Modality of Constraint, Normative values. Norms are a form of control that is individual and group at its base. Norms rely on peers and the control that they use to shape the group or person. The actual difference of the mechanics is small between real life and Second Life; however, the issues can differ. But as shown here some issues are universal. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"> This is a poster that tries to use normative values to persuade people on Secondlife not to steal. There of course is an element of Law in this picture but that is not always the case.

<span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">In this poster there is no threat of Laws being used to control the people, or market. Prim hairs and other items slow down the speed of Second Life and can create problems for any computer that is trying to load the game. Prim hairs take a large amount of process space because of the nature of the items and the Architecture that they are built on. While it may seem that this form of control can be written off because it is not backed up by laws it has quite a powerful controlling effect in some cases, like in the case of Racism. Racism is an example of groups that believe it and use normative controls to express this to their friends, family or children. Normative values are important for groups to share an identity. They are set up so that people act relatively the same. Smoking is a good example of norms in action. Even though the market tries to raise the price of cigarettes so that people won’t buy them normative values support the chemical addiction. Smoking ads show strong attractive people having a good time to appeal to people, not laws or money or health content. This factor of smoking comes into new light with the ban on smoking in many indoor bars and restaurants. Smokers were forced outside as a result of laws and what was created in the wake where an Outside Smoking Culture. Produced by the law the people began to identify themselves and within the group the pressure to smoke outside rather than in the home or indoors begins to exist. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Some examples of where the government and market tried to employ this same normative tactic in other areas is to stop the illegal theft of downloading copyrighted music. Ad campaigns that appear on movies spouting Piracy is terrorism or communism is an attempt to control the actions of downloaders. Now that we have outlined our methods of control we will support our earlier claims that when these methods of control are used out of context or in extremes it can hurt or hinder culture or diversity. We do not advocate no Control or total control of any of the modalities on a certain issue; however it is our purpose to expose or knowledge on methods of control to find a balance that works. Mentioned in the Unsettling of America and The Public and It’s Problems we are exploring the balance of public, private, control and no control and the aspects of them. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'"> So Really what are the signs of control leading to? Should we follow the control to it's end or find a balance and harmony of control within our lives? It is important to note that at this time in our reasearch we can focus on American culture and the present course that it is taking within the system of control. In our dealings with the collection of data on the United States of America we have found that there is one overarching and deeply involved problem of this country that we noticed that plagues all of us. This problem has and will probably forever diminish the modern american being; that is the crisis of Modern American Culture. Do not misundersand the situation of american culture is indeed in a crisis. In our present state we have diminished the truly artistic and beautiful to a mere side note on the page of history and thusly started the total annihilation and all out war against all that originally made this country a thriving nation full of something for everyone. We have become a society of sheep. We are who Nietzsche was postulating would exist when he decided to pen Beyond Good and Evil. We are the herd. In this paper I will attempt to discuss this crisis offering a fuller and more in depth analysis into the problem and giving it a philosophical once over by adding in the arguments of such people as Marx, Locke, Rousseau, and Mill in an attempt to discover how we may help ourselves out of the hole we have dug thus far. In the book Free Culture Lawrence Lessig talks about the idea of copyright as being a deformed vision of what it was originally supposed to be. In the Constitution originally a copyrighted work was to stay protected for twenty years after which it would fall into the public domain. The idea was that after twenty years on the market the value of a work would have depreciated to the point where allowing it to drift into the public domain would in essence give the work a new life; one where it would be free to be molded, changed, reformed, and refitted, to best allow other people to get some use out of it. In the public domain all would benefit from the work and could transform it until it best suited their needs and became something a little more that what it was originally. Ideas and their products would flow like beer and hot dogs. They would be available to anyone who could get access to them on even the most basic of levels and even more they would be able to be broken down, dissected, and metamorphisized into a wholly new entity. It would look a lot like what Mill had in mind when he was first envisioned the marketplace of ideas. People would be able to pick and choose what it was they wanted to have, they would take from this give to that and exchange with others. It would be not a society, but a community; A community of people not a society of entities. Those involved in the community would benefit from their own work and the work of others. It is often said that the best way to learn how something works is to take it apart. In a community where ideas and culture are freely shared and no one entity or group of phantom giants assumes ownership, and in turn makes it impossible for us to "take apart" the pieces of our culture to discover just how it works. This "taking apart" of culture is an essential part to experiential learning. It is learning by doing. How better are you to grasp abstract concepts than by seeing them enacted before your very eyes? One can sit and ponder all day about the inner workings of an automobile, but until he takes a closer look and experiences how it works through taking it apart he really has no idea what it is that makes a car go. He is simply an observer allowed to look, but not to touch, forever a child in the world. This is much like the common man of Modern America. A being eternally locked in the infancy of culture not allowed to explore or go outside the lines, but forever trapped and encapsulated by the architecture, norms, laws, and market which rule his everyday life. The reason for man's devolution is simple. The growth of his culture has been forever stunted by those who saw a value in something and snatched it up. Much like those who Rousseau would have imagined come out from the state of nature as the rich. In the state of nature man was free and equal to do whatever he wished and he did such things. But then over time certain people began to accumulate more goods than others through thriftiness and other characteristics. Those people then began to desire what the others had and in doing such lured them into a contract of sorts in which they set the terms so that it seemed to benefit all parties involved, but this was not the case. The rich exploited the poor and used them simply as means to an end. Much like the media giants of today use the consumer to their advantage. They see each individual not as such, but as no more than another past, present, or future customer for them to exploit until their needs are met. This exploitation is what drives the almost schizophrenic nature of modern capitalist/consumerist society. Man can no longer separate what he is, from what he does. In the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels foreshadow this exact occurrence that is at present happening in America. "In bourgeois society capital is and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality." It is the items in their pristine wrappers, and individual sizes that have become just that, individual; while the worker becomes another cog in a machine. He has become the means of production. His individuality has been lost. It was forfeit for his capital, for his nest egg, for his living room straight out of an IKEA catalogue. But this is what everybody wants is it not? To have, to own, to be comfortable in life. But as Palahniuk said "The things you own, end up owning you." This is the crisis of modern american man: our culture is not ours. We did not come up with it instead it has been forced on us from above. Those who are in control and endlessly in search of the blank slate of man have pushed a culture that suits them onto us. They have understood all too well that the key to controlling those you have power over is to control their culture. When they were given power in Chile and other parts or the world they told people that being autonomous was great and that to really be free they should be individuals and put themselves above the rest. And they did not only become autonomous, but in addition became automatons; Drones whose sole reason for existence was to provide for those above them. We must rise up against the culture that has been handed down to us from on high, and that we have almost willingly accepted as our own. Those in control of the culture that we are fed on a daily basis would tell us that it is bad to go against them. That the culture we have daily been exposed to is what it really means to be American and that to abandon it would be a loss to the society as a whole. But to them Marx and Engels have already replied saying "[t]hat culture, the loss of which he laments, is for the enormous majority a mere training to act as a machine." We the people are machines, and can and will be replaced by better ones when the time comes and they are developed. This disconnection of humans from their work is something that has been a long time coming. We have slowly been pushed farther from the Renaissance men we once were and into a society that is full of experts. Each person has become something smaller and part of an indescribable whole. We have gone from being people who could do a multitude of varying things to becoming unitaskers. Now there are people who know how to make a wheel, others who build axles, still others who build this part and that part, but no one knows how to build a car. We have become separate from our work and in doing so we have become separate from each other. But as I had said this transition did not occur overnight, there was a starting point. It started when the culture that we had once embraced became changed forever. When we stopped valuing community and started prizing individuality. When we became enamored by one stop shopping. When you could pick up apples, diapers, televisions, and new clothes at the exact same place and at the same time your car was getting an oil change, and you were cashing your check without going to more than one building. The day there were more Walmart's in a town than schools. That's when the culture that was truly american became the hollow shell it is now. But why is this bad? The average person loves the convenience that this type of experience affords. They love the ability to get everything all at once. They love not moving, but instead standing in place while everything comes to them. But what most people fail to recognize is the disconnect that this produces and the harm that comes with it. It may seem as though the Walmartization of America could produce the highest good for the highest number of people as Mill wishes would happen in a utilitarian state, but the really fact is that it harms more than it produces good. It separates the person from themselves and from their place. When everything looks the same then how can you tell what's real? The artificial good that is produced comes from the harm that is placed on those who are buying, and those who produce what is bought. For we must buy to survive, and we must survive to produce, and we must produce so that we may buy. Life becomes a cycle of sweat, shop, sleep, repeat. Man becomes disconnected from the means of production in a real sense and instead simply becomes the means of production. He toils away at no end, and no avail, for reasons unbeknownst to him. He is disconnected from the land that he once cared for so it would in turn care for him. Instead of caring and tending the land we lock away small parts of what we call nature in hopes of preserving it instead of living in and with it as we once did. We strive to make nature yet another commodity that we can buy and sell. We vacation, and go RVing to get back to nature. But in reality we go to look at a postcard and then turn away to the comforts that we bring from home. Instead of enjoying nature we sit in RV camps and watch tv with the people next door. We swim in the pre-approved chlorinated, filtered pools instead of the lake one hundred yards away. We sleep on our fold out beds instead of on the luscious fields of grass right outside. We lie at night and stare at the peeling crème paint on the ceiling instead of the thousands of stars speckling the night sky. We have taken the nature out of nature and made it too a convenient and easy weekend getaway. This idea is not wasted on the real world either. Everyday millions of people log on and link up to some of the largest "vacations" imaginable. They do it in search of one of the most primitive things that we could ever want: simple human interaction. We are forgoing our real lives and immersing ourselves in our <span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left">second one's there we are free from most of the things that constrain us in the real world. We are willing, able, allowed, and even encouraged to do things we' not even dream of doing in the real world. Visiting the Louvre or Yankee Stadium is just a click away. If we are unhappy with who we are or how we look we can simply become someone, or something that we may never have had the possibility of being before. We are free to explore and do things that are otherwise illegal. We can finally let loose and enjoy ourselves in unprecedented ways. We become disentangled from the web of norms and can explore ourselves sexually <span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"> as well. In this virtual world we attain a new sense and kind of freedom that was not possible a few short years ago. We are free to be the unique snowflakes that we once posited we should be. We rebel silently with the taps of a keyboard and clicks of a mouse. We are allowed to finally attain a level of culture that is our own and that we revel in every second of it. The culture that is mass produced and shipped out all across the seas daily by huge multimedia corporations is not ours, we find in our virtual world an outlet that allows us to create and control any and everything we could have ever wanted to. Culture is allowed to us and we soak it up we immerse ourselves in the sea of vast possibilities. We create property of our own, or do we? Some people in Second Life create items and clothing that is an exact or near exact replica of items that are found in the real world. They simply copy those images that they have seen day in and day out and port them into the virtual world that is before them. Many people would call this stealing and would like to see those people in Second life who are creating these items stopped. Those people are for the most part the same ones who quash our culture in the real world every day. They see us, creating as we should be allowed to do, and instantly demonize and criminalize us for doing so. They say it is ours we made it first and you have no right to do with it what you are doing. I would agree, but something in me says that there is something different about what the people in this virtual world are doing. For John Locke property and the right to property comes about through your use, creation, and manipulation of it. In other words something becomes yours through your putting work into it. If you plow a field, and plant corn in it then that field is yours. If you take a stone and carve a statue out of it that statue is yours. So if you took an object and created it anew would it also be yours? To be more specific if you take a Boston Red Sox hat for instance and recreate it out of a few objects that you created in a virtual world, would that hat be yours or would it be the sole property of the person who created it in this, the real, world? These are the problems that plague me and other users of the software. The answer I'd like to say is yes it is yours you created it so it should be yours, but in reality it's much more complicated. Due to the strict enforcement, loose reading, and ridiculous elongation of copyrights and copyright terms. What you have done in the virtual world, though what you created is made completely through your own work, skill, and in essence materials, is stealing. You have stolen the property of the person who originally filed a copyright for the material that you have copied, even though some people would say that you have altered it in a very significant way it is still not yours. This idea starts to bring us full circle. What we had once viewed as our escape as our rebellion against those in charge, has simply become another way for them to suck value out of something we at one time found useful. Just as they always do they will come in and regulate, and change, and manipulate this world until the squeeze every available amount of profit out of it, then continue on to see what other parts of our culture, our world, and our consciousness they can destroy. Rip /Burn /Repeat. This has become the new policy of corporate america. And in turn the Rip /Mix /Burn culture that once flourished in our land has been slowly subjugated to the perverse incentives of a nation of greed and a culture of automatons focused solely on the creation of wealth. The problem is how and when can we hope to escape this cyclical devil that the corporations and their manipulation of copyright have created. When will enough be enough? What will it take for the people in charge to realize that they are suffocating those they said they would protect or that they claim to be helping? I think it just may take something like Project Mayhem to press the reset button on culture. In Fight Club the individuals who build come together in the community of project mayhem take it upon themselves to release us from our consumerist prison cells. Their incessant want to purge consumerism and our fixation with the "correct" form of culture from our minds with their ultimate goal of destroying the bank and the museum; Killing two proverbial birds with one stone. The re-evolution of man may have to come from something charred that rises from the ashes of our prior civilization. The destruction of all that confines us in our expression of culture may be what sets us free. "[T]he liberator who destroyed my property has realigned my perception." We are in need of a liberator someone who can and will break free of this perception of consumerist culture as the only culture. We need some way to explore and to delve into ourselves and come up with something new and all our own. We don't need the same things repeated day in and day out, but instead a re-evolution of man. We have come to the turning point in our culture where we must look back and say what is this and is it what we want? Do we wish to continue with tradition and keep repeating the indoctrination of consumerist /capitalist culture in ourselves, or do we wish to explore the possibilities of a free culture? Are we to finally have something we can call our culture? The avenue of Second Life is a promising one, but with new rules getting ready to go into effect it will be a chance for some truly experiential learning. As the game comes to the forefront as it promises to do will art imitate life as the saying goes? It seems as though they question may have already been answered for when i look at the research of my fellow classmates it seems as though with all our unlimited resources and choices we tend to lean more towards those that we would make in real life, with some exceptions. From the work of The Untitled Misfits and more specifically that of Garbage Dumpling and his research on Image <span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"> it seems like some people still can't escape from the consumerist nesting instinct and need to have their virtual mid-life crisis as well as a real one. And from the research of The A Team and their look at Marriage and the family in Second Life it seems as though some people will never be complete unles their virtual side has a soul mate as well. The re-evolution of culture will be interesting to watch for in the coming days and it is my hope that we will finally find something that we can call our own something free of the consumerist /capitalistic nature that so strongly purveys all the culture we have at present created. It seems as though there might possibly be something more to Second Life than meets the eye. In the end here in Second Life it will take a good look at the Modalities of constraint, i.e. the norms, laws, architecture, and market, to decipher the future of this virtual world. Will it be the corporatist dream running rampant, or will we find that the modalities are relaxed just enough to allow some form of transmission of our culture. Second life is like a separate universe in which to view and translate the ideas of conformity and control. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">The goal of our research was to explore the flow of culture in Second Life. We wanted to see how culture was transferred in Second Life as compared to real life. I first thought that Second Life would have less control than real life so there would be an easier flow of culture. This turned out to be the case, the research showed that there are very few controls in Second Life and that was not done by accident. The creator of Second Life intentionally used so few controls because he wanted information and culture to be able to be transferred easily. It turns out that Second Life is a much easier way to transfer culture than real life, this is the direct result of less controls. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">The reason that culture in Second Life is so important is because culture in the real world is very limited. It is limited by many things, the reason that those limitations don’t exist in Second Life is because the creators did not want to limit culture. It is important that Second Life doesn’t limit culture because it is the easiest way to spread culture. It is very difficult to spread culture in real life because of all the limitations. Second Life is the easier way to spread culture because there are no limitations. Second Life is the ideal world to spread culture because the access to culture is so great. Real life does not have the ability to transfer culture like Second Life. If the real world had as little limitations as Second Life then culture would be easily spread and there would be no need for virtual worlds like Second Life. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left">Second Life, because of less control has the ability to contain more culture than real life. Not only can it contain more culture but the culture that it has is more available to the average person. Because there is so much control in real life that Lessig explains through his four modalities of constraint, real life is losing the culture that it once had. Control is also preventing new culture from being spread, and developed. Second Life is a world where little control exists, especially when dealing with culture. Culture is so wide spread in Second Life because of this lack of controls. One of the benefits of Second Life is the lack of restraints, and the amount of material that is available. Things such as art, literature, and music are all able to be accessed more freely than in real life. This was not done by accident either, on the Second Life website it says that “Phillip Rosedale started Second Life on a belief that innovative success stems from self-directed creation, collaboration, and openness.” This statement shows that Second Life was created with the idea that culture would spread easily through its world. The creators of Second Life even started what they called The Tao of Linden. In the Tao of Linden it states the company’s mission as: //It's our mission to connect us all to an online world that advances the human condition.// <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left">Again this is more proof that the creators of Second Life knew exactly what they were doing when they started, and only set up such a small list of controls. Also in the Tao of Linden there are some company principals listed, they are work together, be open and transparent, make weekly progress, no politics, and do it with style. These principals again state that Second Life wanted to allow culture and information to flow easier in Second Life than in real life. They might have done this because they recognize that real life culture was not spreading as smoothly because of all the controls. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left">The reason that culture flows easier in Second Life happens for a few reasons, the biggest of these reasons are time, money, location, and self image. First is time, Second Life does not close meaning that it is accessible much more often than real life. In the real world if you were trying to go see a famous work of art, perhaps at the Art Institute of Chicago you would have to go during operating hours. Where if you wanted to see the same work of art in Second Life you would just have to find a place that had it and you can access it 24/7. Also it is very time consuming to go to museums and walk around and visit them. Very rarely can you just go see one item that you want to and skip the rest of it. In Second Life you are able to go see certain items and just those items. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">Another restriction is cost, take the same work of art in the Art Institute you would have to pay $12 assuming you are an adult. In Second Life however you would be able to see the same work of art for free. This is a very limiting factor when it comes to real life, the average family does not have the ability to go and see everything that they want to. Second Life allows them to view the culture that they would not be able to see otherwise. Money is one of the biggest constraints in life, very few people have the ability to do everything that they want when they want to. To experience culture you have to have the money to go to concerts, and museums. Many average people do not have the money that is required to experience the culture. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">Another limitation to the real world is location, if you live in the United States you are very limited to United States culture. The only way that you can access other countries culture is to visit these countries, that can be both time consuming and expensive. In Second Life you have instant access to certain information that is completely unattainable to the average citizen, with one teleport you can be in hundreds of countries. At the click of the mouse you can go from Mexico to Peru to New York City. This allows for people to experience the culture that they would not be able to in the real world. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left">Another restraint that exists in the real world is self image. In the real world everyone has to think about how others will look at them and what they will think of them. In Second Life you can remain as anonymous as you want. When people are not going to be identified they will act out how they really are, they will not try and act a certain way because someone is watching. This is why in Second Life there are such crazy things like the sex culture, or the weird animal things running around. In the real world no one would dress up as an animal and run around trying to have sex with everyone. Second Life is a way for people to be themselves, and when they are themselves they spread their culture to others. I don’t know if the real world is necessarily missing anything by not having animal people running around the streets but they are lacking the culture that Second Life can provide. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">There are some restrictions that exist in Second Life however. They are an attempt to control what happens in Second Life. The controls are not as strict as in the real life but this is because Second Life has already seen what exists in the real world. They know that a lot of controls can hurt the spread of culture. There is however a few controls that exist and they fit in to Lessig's four modalities of constraint (Norms, Architecture, Market, and Laws). Second Life tries to use as little control as possible. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">Norms is the hardest modality of constraint to figure out in Second Life. There is almost no such thing as norms in Second Life, everyone does what they want and what they think is right. The norm does not exist because people are anonymous so they have no reason to conform to what everyone else is doing. It could be argued that there are some norms in Second Life that most people follow but there are very few. The few norms that exist do not try and keep people from doing something but rather try and promote behavior in Second Life. One such norm is that everyone is themselves, people are more free to be themselves than in the real world because of the anonymous factor. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">Architecture is a very common control used in Second Life every object has only a certain number of things that can be done to that object. Some objects can be copied, taken, taken but no copy, and so on. Every object can only be used for certain things this is a control in clear form. If someone wanted to display their work of art they would let people view it but not copy it. This is the widest used control in Second Life, people are able to set their items to whatever control they think is necessary. The reason that this is not as controlling as in real life is because people in real life are not able to adjust their control on items. In Second Life however the creator chooses how restricting their work should be. Since this is the biggest control in Second Life it is also the most effective control. This type of control is very limited in its ability to stop the transfer of information and culture. The creators of Second Life in keeping with their goal of openness wanted to be able to limit certain objects but not stop the transfer of information. This is their way of limiting what people can do in Second Life, without interfering with the culture being transferred. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"> The market is another clear control in Second Life. According to Lessig the Market imposes a simultaneous constraint upon how an individual or group might behave. In Second Life the market is usually used to keep people from doing something. Since everything in Second Life is basically free and only very little has to be paid for the market is a great restraint. If there is a cost in Second Life it will prevent the average user from using that service, whether it be buying a boat or paying to get into a bar. The lack of costs in Second Life is a direct response to the creators wanting to allow for the transfer of culture and information. If everything had a cost on it and needed to be paid for the average Second Life user would not continue using. This is another way that the Second Life creators used their restraint to limit certain things while still allowing for people to transfer information and culture. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">There are a few set of laws that exist in Second Life they are listed on the Second Life website and they are called community standards. Listed on this page of the website are six basic types of behavior that are not wanted in Second Life. Listed are Intolerance, Harassment, Assault, Disclosure, Indecency, and Disturbing the Peace. These are not so much laws as they are guidelines for how people should act while on Second Life. Second Life does not have the strict code of laws that exist in the real world, because they have the openness policy. That means that they want people to do what they think is responsible and not what they are told to do. They go on to note some policies and policing, they list under that category: Local ratings, warning suspension banishment, global attacks, alternate accounts, buyer beware, and reporting abuse. All of these rules are set up not to restrict the flow of information and culture but to stop people from being harassed in Second Life. The goal is the set up a place where people feel comfortable and when they feel comfortable they will be able to spread their culture much easier. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">These lack of restrictions that exist in the real world allow culture to be created and enjoyed much easier. This is why Second Life is so diverse and contains such a wide variety of culture. With the lack of such restrictions users are free to create their own culture and can instantly share it with millions of other users. Being able to share it with such a diverse community will begin to eliminate culture of certain countries, and create a culture of Second Life. Soon it won't Matter what country you are from as long as you have a Second Life account you will have access to culture from millions of people around the globe. The real world is beginning to move to more global relationships but it is far from where Second Life is. Second Life already has people from hundreds of countries talking and spreading their culture to each other. This interaction will benefit the world in many ways. It will help with scientific advances, music, art, and literature will all be able to reach more people. This goes back to what Phillip Rosedale said when he started Second Life, he wanted collaboration and openness. He had hoped that Second Life would be a world where information and culture would easily be transmitted. And he got exactly that, because they have limited the controls that exist in Second Life they have promoted the sharing of both culture and information. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">Culture is so easily spread that almost anyone can share their culture with the world. For example if an artist wanted to share their work with the rest of the country or world, it would be very difficult in real life. It often takes artists, musicians, and writers years before they can get their work to a large audience. In Second Life they are able to post their work on the grid and that will allow thousands of people from numerous countries to access the works of art. This is possible because the sharing of culture is so easily done in Second Life. This is exactly what creators were trying to do, they wanted Second Life to be a place where people would go to spread information and culture. By being able to share your work of art whether it be art, music, or written it is possible to do this because there are so few restrictions. This is evident in Second Life even on our UK island, where in our library and art gallery hang works done by students. If these works of art were to stay in the fine arts building they would be seen only by the people who can go there. By placing them on the grid in Second Life it enables them to be seen by people worldwide. They can also be seen by fellow artists that can improve on them, and change them. This is how culture is spread and advanced, it is much easier to do in Second Life because that is what the originators envisioned when they made such little control. <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">Because money in Second Life is so "cheap" your avatar can live a life of royalty. For a small amount of US Dollars you can get your avatar a nice car, nice clothes, a yacht, a private plane, and anything else you could imagine. Because this is all so cheap it allows for people to experience a life that they would not be able to explore in real life. With the easily accessible money supply, people in Second Life can experience what only the ultra rich can. This is another example of how culture is much easier spread than in real life. Another thing that easy access to money allows is people can access the rare culture in Second Life that requires money. If something in Second Life costs money it is much cheaper than it could cost to experience it in the real life. Take for example The Louvre in France, assuming you find a way to get to France it still costs you $14.38 US Dollars to get into the museum and you are only allowed to stay until it closes that day. Then take the Second Louvre in Second Life, it is completely free and you are able to stay as long as you want. Clearly there are some drawbacks to visiting the Louvre in Second Life rather than in real life. For example you cannot say that you have been to the Louvre, also it is not the same as seeing the works of art in real life. Even though something gets lost when flying from art to art it still allows people the opportunity that normally would not be extended to them. To travel from Chicago to Paris in May of this year, staying at a hotel for four nights according to Yahoo! Travel would cost $931. This is just the Flight and the Accommodations. Since I am traveling abroad I must carry my US passport which if it is my first time getting one will cost $59 plus government fees. Assuming I ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner at McDonalds off the dollar menu spending $5 each meal. It would end up costing $60 for food. Trying to keep my trip as cost efficient as possible I will use public transportation. Paris' tourist website has a deal where they give you a pass for the Paris Metro and the Louvre which costs $21.70, so that will cover transportation and the entrance passes. This is the extreme minimum that it would cost for a trip to Paris to see the Louvre: $1,071.70 plus government fees. This is just one person if a four person family wanted to go together it would cost them $4286.80 To the average citizen like me this is unattainable, the average person in America only makes $30,000 a year. Very few families can afford to experience the Louvre in real life. In contrast it would cost me $2.50 to get a library card to my local library and get on Second Life and experience the Second Louvre. <span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: left"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">The biggest theme this semester has been the difference between the public and private. Dewey says that a private transaction exists when the consequences of an action are confined, mainly to the people who are directly engaged in the transaction. It can be as simple as a conversation, both people involved are concerned with it. One of the other can be helped or hurt by the transaction; but the advantages and injury do not pass on to anyone outside the transaction. The transaction only becomes public when the results of the transaction affect more than just the people involved. This does not mean that private transactions do not affect the public. Dewey uses the example that communities have been supplied with great works of art, and scientific discoveries. He says that there are private philanthropists who act so that needy people or the community as a whole benefit. Dewey then says that private acts may be socially valuable both by indirect consequences and by direct intention. Second Life is a very public oriented transaction. The biggest goal of the Second Life creators was to get people to be open with each other and interact. This is possible because there are so very few private transactions when compared to public ones. In Second Life almost any building that goes up is a public transaction. Since there are so few restrictions on where people can go, they can visit any building they want. This means that almost everything is a public transaction. <span style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">This research shows that culture is more easily transferred in Second Life than in real life. This is the direct result of the lack of controls that exist in Second Life. The creators wanted it like this and they have succeeded in creating a world in which culture is easily transferred. The lack of controls in Second Life is the biggest factor for this. It is the reason why so many people are able to spread their culture to thousands of others. Second Life’s goal was to allow for the easy transfer of information and culture. They have accomplished this through lack of controls. There are some controls in Second Life but they all only limit the transfer of information they do not stop it. This is why Second Life has a much easier flow of culture than real life.