About useless consumption, I think it is the root of the problems we are facing. The way we in the developed countries live is not leading us anywhere but to exploitation of the planet. And as you said, the developing countries basically want to do the same now. We are not good poster childs for them.

But thank you for your great comment. Very resourceful!

I was about to make the comment that you have totally missed the whole point of SL (in a purring voice…:-)) but I shall wait to read your next post in which you tell us all about your grand revelation.

Even real life equips you with more narrative devices and props, your family, upbringing, school, a job, etc. that propels you along the path of life. SL is more of a blank canvas with tools but at this point, it does have enough connective tissue with 75,000 concurrency that you should be able to find something that grabs you.

There are various over-arching narratives but they take awhile to become visible, the “Soul of the New Machine” or “sandboxers versus settlers” or any number of story lines that you will pick up, but it requires effort, and it requires in part you write your own story.

It's like RL: There's only some percentage of the population that enjoys making their own Halloween costumes or who have mothers who make them for them; most people buy the store-bought ones because their friends did and it's easier and often more cool.

People here telling you that you simply have to use search as you would on the Internet are right. Search/places is better than search/all which is a jumble. You have to try different key words and not be frustrated by one search, just as you do on Google (capture what you yourself do on Google, trying different words, clicking here and there, trying this or that, and replicate it).

On Google, you don't say OMG the narrative is interrupted because I magically “teleported” instantly from one page to another, sometimes waiting for a page to load. It's just…a different page. Within one site, you again will click from page to page and be “teleported”. With a paper book, you have to turn the page, and you don't say OMG the narrative is interrupted. You've simply internalized those features and they are masked and they stand out for you now in SL. It's how it works. Teleportation is the stitching between the scenes or pages, not the interruption, and in a virtual world you have the added serendipity of people's “picks” which you can browse and teleport to; objects that contain their creator names, whose profiles you can click on to bring up their picks, etc. etc.

Go to Ross infohub here and browse around all the second-level tutorials (i.e. once you have passed flying and walking at orientation) that tell you what is out there, suggestions, how to do more things like buy land and such)

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Ross/42/227/57

or search for “infohub” inworld to see all the infohubs, resident and Linden made, they are all interesting in their own way and have different aspects of SL.

Some are very crowded, but with the sort of people you find in any huge public mass and maybe not “your sort”. Others are less crowded but eventually you'll likely have to pick an event, not a place, to find the green dots (likely people, although sometimes in fact they are those NPCs or bots you reference).

You seem to have two conflicting problems with SL, which is on the one hand it is filled with all these *other people* (remember what the fellow said about hell?) who are doing what they want with their mindless and soulless consumption blah blah, which isn't taking part in a collective farm potato harvest or a rousing chorus of Kumbayah, but doing their thing on their own with like-minded people. Like *you* want to do.

So they don't tend to gather for a giant meeting of 2,000 people to pass a boring resolution, like the UN, and quarrel over paragraphs or do whatever it is you think a mass of people online should be doing. Ideas?

On the other hand, you complain that there isn't enough to do, that “somebody” should provide entertainment, interactivity, a story line, whatever. There are plenty of people who in fact do that for others in SL, but they tend to be role-playing sects (Goreans, Lycans, elves, furries, whatever) and not likely the mainstream sort of things you are looking for. So you have to then browse Events or Places or Showcase (the Lindens' own picks, which can be lame) or read blogs for various recommendations of where to go, groups to join for discussion, etc.

So frankly, it sounds to me like you are seized with the same sort of ideological problem that a lot of intellectuals who consider themselves liberals or leftists have with RL and SL: that there is all this “capitalism”, that there is all this evil “consumption” and all this souless mindless “greed” etc. If green tea and Birkenstocks are your thing in RL, SL may not be for you, although frankly, right this minute I myself am drinking green tea and wearing Bancroftstocks in SL which are almost like the real thing, but then, I guess I'm a mindful consumer.

People want to be free and do what they want. They don't listen to your admonitions that they shouldn't be consuming. In fact, a lot of people who probably have a tenth of your income in RL come in SL precisely because the consumption there is cheap for a lot of the same props, i.e. beach house, jet skis, diamonds, etc. Other people don't care about beach houses or diamonds but create art or create groups for RL discussions or start a business. And why can't they? Mass culture isn't for everybody, but people get to have it despite your preferences. In order to make the platform free and open-ended, it does have to be “empty” and “boring” for people who can't grab on to it — or otherwise it would be made-to-order and more like a Disney movie or WoW. You want WoW, go to WoW.

Have you ever read “Bobos in Paradise” by David Brooks?

Remember how awful high school was until you made a friend? Or fell into a group of people where you felt you belonged? or found an activity like the poetry magazine? Or at least found a teacher who seemed interesting? etc.

I would simply have to disagree that useless consumption is the number one problem in the world. Useless violence is far more of a problem, and that's usually something on the way to what you might characterize as useless consumption which other people wish for, especially in the poor world.

Go ahead, Kirsten, live a little. Forego your mocha skim latte this week for $3.75 US, and go all out and buy yourself $1000 Lindens and get a little black dress and some pearls and go dancing and donate to the victims of the Phillipines flood and hear a Metanomics lecture.

Last night I bought myself a pair of neat blue suede shoes for US $1.35. Yes, it was mindless consumption but I hadn't bought any new pixel shoes for a year. I also bought a new Nehru suit from Casa del Shai and half the proceeds went to the flood victims. It's just sort of one of the many things you find in SL that “go beyond themselves”.