If at first you don't succeed....

A few late thoughts on Second Life;

"I don't like the ramifications of an online universe. There are just too many things that can go wrong."


I first tried Second Life a long time ago. I didn't get the point of it and I still don't. When I first tried it, I wanted my avatar, Zobeida Deezul, to look something like this:


I remember my mother walking past and peeking over my shoulder and saying something like "That doesn't look a thing like you!" Is it supposed to look like me? At the time all I wanted to do was mess with other people on the internet (even if occasionally in bad taste, still all in good fun), but I felt safer goofing around as an orc/jedi/dwarf/zombie/wizard/campy Lord of the Rings gibberish as opposed to goofing off as a virtual version of myself under a silly name. In other words, I was immature and almost frightened by the idea of a virtual version of myself.

The next time I ever heard anything about Second Life was when I saw a news segment discussing dating and marriage via Second Life. The only concrete thing I remember about the segment is that every individual included did not look anything like their avatar. I also noticed that no one had an avatar like this:


I was wrong again. I thought about it again; maybe the point is to do whatever it is you would normally do, but if you want to, you can do it looking like this:


Because maybe in real life, you look like this:



Or maybe the point is to live in this way:



As opposed to living in this way;



Well, that's not exactly right. Second Life is just as messy, if not messier than real life. That brings to another unanswered question I have about Second Life: Is there a judicial system? I don't mean Second Life's privacy policy, I mean actually within Second Life, is there a judicial system? Maybe that's the best way to put it, but who can stop Zobeida Deezul from tearin' her clothes off all over Orientation Island if she can fly and teleport? And who can judge (and I mean critically, not legally) Zobeida Deezul when she can deflate or inflate and lessen or accentuate her jowls whenever it's necessary?

Also, I know Second Life is a venue for business meetings and classrooms.
Something like this;


Or this;


I really would love to see how that works. What if a student or business associate has that has a virus or a computer with continuous system errors?

Then again;



Looks like fun!