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A digital Freemasonry - more

published a short essay that details the concepts expressed in the post "A digital Freemasonry?" You can download it in pdf format at this url

In the real world - on planet Earth, Reality - live between six and ten billion people. At any time you look, you will see that most of them is intent on building bricks of clay and lubricate your AK-47. About one billion people with enough money to prarsi a computer - they have more than all the others put together. Of this billion potential computer owners, maybe only a quarter if you buy really, and only a quarter of these have machines powerful enough to handle the protocol of the Strad a. If we add to these other sixty million if they could not afford it, but there must be the same, using compute r public or those of your school or your uf Office, it can be concluded that, on average Road is occupied by a number of people equal to double the population of New York. That's why the mess of the place is so full of buildings. If you put a sign or a building, you know it will be seen daily by people more richer, and better fashion to Inserit in the world.

Neil Stephenson, Snow Crash , Milan, Bompiani, 2007, pp. 36-37

So wrote Neil Stephenson in Snow Crash , the book from which the Linden Labs was inspired to create the metaverse of Second Life. I pause on the last words of the quote: " which will be seen daily by people more ù richer, more fashionable and better placed in the world. "

There are two points that will be studied in this brief essay: the nature of the elite world of Second Life and social status of its residents.

Second Life is to short? Yes There are two reasons for this its elitist nature.

The first : hardware requirements. The game engine needs a good processor and graphics card power of previous generations (very roughly say that the low-end graphics cards of two or three years ago is not possible to enter the metaverse). The Linden Labs is quite optimistic about it, and indicate the following system requirements: link

course distrust. From personal experience, on a PC with Pentium 4 processor in 2004 bought the jerky graphics engine hesitated and became an uncomfortable companion. With an Intel Dual Core and graphics card the latest generation instead there are delays. These requirements must be added those of the band. You expressly request a DSL connection or a fiber optic cable.

analyze in greater detail the problem with the help of a statistical study compiled by ISTAT in 2006 and can be downloaded by clicking this link

Let's analyze the data on the use of the Web in Italy and see how many people can actually get the hardware requirements for access to the metaverse of Second Life. I choose Italy as a country standard, not only for convenience of retrieval and consultation and the amount of statistical data collected by ISTAT, but also because within the European Community is ideally positioned in the middle band for what concerns the use of new technologies.

start with the analysis of the following table:

It is clear that in Italy only 40% of households have an Internet connection.

Let's see how many of those have a broadband connection, sine qua non for participation in the world of Second Life:

According to data collected by Istat only 14.4% of households have a connection of this type. Finally, considering the hardware requirements in terms of processor and graphics card (unfortunately I have not found a statistical survey on the seniority of the machines pc in Italy) we can assume that the proportion should be further creamed because not all households have a PC last and penultimate generation.

With regard to broadband penetration in the companies we refer to another study by Istat statistical download URL: link

70 companies out of 100 have a broadband access: a comforting.

must be considered that the proportion of people who log on to Second Life from work will necessarily be low. Imagine that you play as a corporate director: accept that your employees are dedicated to their business virtual rather than real in your business? It is evident that only a few aficionados of virtual reality will launch in clandestine meetings in Second Life risking criticism by management or even dismissal. And it seems equally obvious that few are even those who prefer to sacrifice their lunch in honor of the metaverse.

In conclusion, the data analysis it is clear that only a small part of the Italian population, estimated at around 10% as a percentage, is able to meet the hardware requirements required by the Second Life software.

The second: the difficulty of the installation and use of the interface. The Linden Labs has tried to simplify the task of building up an account and download the program. The site www.secondlife.com presents a guide that follows the user step-by-step.

The problem arises at the time of first use. We need a certain "computer skill" to learn how to take the first steps in the metaverse. We must become familiar with the interface and especially with the room control system. For many this is an insurmountable obstacle.

Who is the typical user of Second Life?

In the first part of this research has demonstrated the nature Second Life elite: only a fraction of population - we have considered the particular case of the Italian situation - has the necessary requirements for access to the metaverse.

The question we ask now is this: these "potential residents" who are actually members of Second Life? And who are they? We mean: what is their social class, their level of education, their age?

find the answers, once again, the analysis of statistical surveys.

start with a chart compiled by Nielsen which presents the distribution population of Web 2.0 in base the activity:

The category "Virtual Life" is the least popular but is also the one that for which the mean residence time is higher. The exploration of the area simulated, customization of the avatar, socialization with other residents are activities that require a large expenditure of time.

So here we are facing a new conditio sine qua non on Second Life: a member of this world should have many hours of free time to spend online.

Who can afford the "luxury" to spend their time connected to the web?

us refer to the summary table (extrapolated from the Istat statistical study downloaded by clicking this link ) which I reproduce below. It shows the rates of technological possessions for employment status:

The table shows clearly that, in Italy, the broadband connection is the prerogative of the wealthier segments of the population: managers, entrepreneurs, professionals and employees of medium to high level.

the data with those of this table:

that it is clear that, in Italy, the Web is mainly used by people with a band of middle income / high and students.
It seems absurd to imagine that for the age group from 30 years on the average user of Second Life belongs to that segment of people who are likely to have an economic and decision-making particularly attractive.
As for the young?

The table above tells us that 3 out of 4 students use the web.

This table shows instead of the age group between 18 and 24 Second Life is the preferred application by users of Web 2.0. This age group is mainly composed of - in more developed countries - by university students.

What about the Linden Labs about it?

It merely states that the average age of Second Life user is 32 years, that 43% of users are women and 3 out of 4 people are American. (Link )

Conclusions

Let us return to the initial quote. Neil Stephenson is proved prophetic? In part. Second Life is still the meeting point of the elite business and culture. Probably will not be until the problem of digital divide, which excludes a large proportion of the population, will not be exceeded. And among those who have the technical possibility to access a synthetic world only a small part, for now, is really interested. We should admit that a fair number of computer engineers, contractors fascinated by new technologies, university students and emerging artists chose Second Life as a territory of the testing of their skills. This led to the creation of a micro where the sense of belonging is rooted and where all the successful people end up sooner or later to meet. A micro world populated by people who in real life are likely to have an economic and decision-making particularly attractive and well-educated middle / high.

Given the social status of its residents, their influence on society and the ease with which you establish relationships in the metaverse might go so far to say that Second Life could become in the future in a digital Freemasonry frequented by the aristocracy of the web?

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From next week I will return to update this blog. In the meantime, a Merry Christmas past, real or virtual.

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Dream Back to second life and virtual aesthetics of Diodato

The interaction with objects and residents of a synthetic world is through one of our digital transfiguration called "avatars". This is a report of two places: the subject and its digital counterpart who experience an immersive environment. Roberto Diodato Aesthetics in the book of virtual ventures a fascinating comparison. He writes, "perhaps at this level, the environment perceptually more similar to the virtual least for the complex and immediate sense of presence is that of the dream" 1.

What they have in common the experience of virtual worlds and the dream? First, the sense of presence. Continue Diodato "[...] the dream is an environment in which we participate so immersive, against which we are not spectators but actors, an environment in which we are not observing or generating events as stories, in which we do not have the impression of duplicity of the look as if a show assistessimo " 2.

In the dream we move in an environment where interaction occurs between the avatar of the subject and created a world from memory, so belongs to the subject, but at the same time transcends it, it subsumes. The memory is not a component of the mind [...] is instead a global property of our minds " 3.

Arrival therefore the second affinity between virtual and dream: in both cases, we are immersed in an environment that is outside the control of our volition.

But there is a significant differences between the two types of experience: the dream is interaction between a subject, a representation of self and a world created from his memory. A virtual reality rather results in the relationship with a computer.

Diodato concludes his reflection indicating the need for a theory of the artificial referring back to Gilbert Simondon which calls for the interindividuel couplage between man and machine. This couplage

" begins to exist from the moment in which a code common to the two memories can be found in order that we can achieve a partial convertibility of one and the other because the synergy is possible, " 4.

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1 Roberto Diodato, Aesthetics of Virtual , Mondadori, 2005, Milan, p.53

2 Ibid., p. 58

3 AM Glemberg, cf. What memory is for in Behavioral and Brain Sciences , 1997, p.20

4 G. Simondon, Du Mode d'Existence des object techniques, Aubier Montaigne, 1969, Paris, p.124

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Welcome to the virtual streets! The nature of Second Life

humans, people here and every place, you who are transported to the great movement of deterittorializzazione, you who are grafted sull'ipercorpo humanity whose gigantic pulse echoes your wrist, you think that meeting and scattered in the mesh dell'ipercorteccia of nations, you who live absorbed, torn, in this huge world events that returns incessantly If you are new to you create, you who, suddenly, you come looking to the virtual you, who will attend the huge leap that our species is making towards the source of the flow of being, yes, at the very heart of this extraordinary swirl, you you are at home. Welcome to the new home of humankind. Welcome to the virtual streets! "

Pierre Lévy , The virtual , Milano, Raffaello Cortina Editore, 1996, p.142

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I was asked to answer the following question: What is Second Life? What is Second Life?

Briefly tell

Second Life is :

- an area of \u200b\u200bmemory, a non-place

- a virtual reality understood as a space created by a computer where the human being can view, manipulate and interact with a set of extremely complex data

- a mixture of new media, a valid communication tool

- a paradigm for virtual worlds to come

- a perfect place to build a phenomenology of virtual

- a limited liability company

- a potential platform for art and business

Second Life is not :

- a game

- a world in opposition to reality

- just a chat or a meeting place

- the panacea for the ills of society

- an escape from reality

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against the royalists

Today I want to present a "realistic". Who is this?!? Ask bouncing on the chair-hey, you're so impressionable? -

A realist is a staunch defender of reality, an advocate of "real things you can touch", in short, a paladin who wants to kill all the ghosts of the virtual with the sword of concreteness.

usually is so stubbornly clinging to defend its values \u200b\u200bto reason with him around the penetration of the virtual in every sphere of daily life is frankly impossible. And do not waste your time trying to convince him that the virtual is not to be understood as the antithesis of reality but as its potential. ... Unless you have no better way to spend the afternoon.

I met realists everywhere: at the pub, the walls of the university, and alas in the streets en masse in their habitat: the rectangular box called television. Feeling a pseudogiornalista with swollen lips as boats - Tug polished with every trick permission from the television screen - Second Life denigrate and praise of the "natural" recalling his peasant origins is what the blood-curdling. Prefer not to disclose the name of that. I would also deny them the privilege of quote.

The fight becomes a virtual mission to the realist . not lose the occasion for recognizing the dangers of synthetic worlds. At a conference in Second Life I remember the intervention of a lady, genuinely concerned for the fate of her godchildren who peremptorily stated "we have a responsibility to inform young people of the threat of virtual worlds. " me the figure armed with every bell brochure busy buzz of the city to raise awareness.

Realists fall into the category of skeptics of progress. The problem of the opportunity to push our scientific research in areas of dark and potentially disastrous for humanity is complex and requires a specific treatment that will remain a wishful thinking of this blog.

I would still close the speech quoting George Steiner in his book In Bluebeard's castle gives us his famous opinion on the matter:

"We open the doors of Bluebeard's castle later because there are , because each leads to the next with a logic of intensification, which coincides with the same consciousness that the mind has to be. Leave a closed door is not only cowardice but treason (radical, self-mutilation) inquiring attitude, eager to know, leaning forward, that characterizes our species. We are hunters of reality, wherever it leads us. The risks and disasters that we encounter are all too obvious, but this is, or was until very recently, the axiomatic assumption, this was the belief in a priori our civilization: the man and the truth are companions, their paths are dialectically and Lean Initiatives. " [1]

Steiner at this point asks whether the axiom of unstoppable progress must be questioned. The answer is no. He writes:

"We can not go back. We can not choose the dreams of the unsuspecting. Open up, I believe, the last door of the castle, even if it leads, perhaps because conduct political realities that go beyond the sphere understanding and human control. " [2]

The human mind moving forward in its research and computer science has paved paths that our curiosity will urge us to practice. I will not deny the possible negative implications of a society dominated virtualized. But I believe that the "bigotry" of the realists is equally counterproductive. We

hunters of reality and this reality we're looking for - for some Paradoxically, but not for me - in the virtual. It is implausible return.

Why, and conclude with a quote from Michel Houellebecq extrapolated from an interview in Le Monde: "Some things are irreversible. All that science can provide will be realized, even though it radically changes what we consider today as a human, or as desirable. "

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[1] George Steiner, In Bluebeard's Castle, Milan, SE, 2002, p. 123

[2] Ibid., P. 126