Courting the virtual constituency

January 9, 2012 by Leave a comment

I had set aside a bit of time this afternoon to look around the grid and see if any of the Republican Presidential candidates had bothered to establish a presence in Second Life, like Hillary Clinton did last time. However after an hour or so spent logging in, then immediately being kicked off the server, my patience with the polished consumer product that is SL ran out and I decided to go off and do something less frustrating.

I’ll be surprised if any of the candidates have an official build anyway. Four years ago relative mainstreamers like Romney or Huntsman might have felt that a virtual world campaign HQ would be just the thing to show they were hip to where the kids were at, but the days when Second Life was synonymous with tech-savvy are long gone. I imagine that the evangelical wing of the GOP, if they have heard of SL at all, will have read about it in one of those tracts telling them that the internet is a tool of Satan, and will see it as another of the many things that consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes that should be illegal.

The exception to this is Ron Paul; his wacky brand of right-populism seems pretty much in tune with the prevailing ideology of Second Life, which, in my experience at least, tends to a mish-mash of libertarianism and objectivism, so he might feel it’s worth trying to engage with the SL electorate. I doubt he’ll be doing any virtual campaigning in person, but I’m sure there will be one or two “Ron Paul for President” resident groups, and maybe even a customised avatar, like the Sarah Palin that came out in 2008.

Back in the real world, the Iowa Caucuses turned out as predicted; Romney failed to enthuse more than 25% of the base, and the social conservatives coalesced around Santorum, for now at least. On to New Hampshire tomorrow, where the pundits are suggesting that Romney will wrap it up as Santorum’s lack of money and organisation begins to tell. There are alternative scenarios – Huntsman might siphon moderate votes away from Romney, or Paul might pull off a surprise – but my feeling is that conventional wisdom will be proved right.

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Iowa forecast

January 2, 2012 by Leave a comment

The race to the White House kicks off in earnest tomorrow, with the Iowa Caucuses, the first real test of the Republican field.

In any sane universe the GOP would already have picked Jon Huntsman, who is clearly the candidate best placed to woo disaffected Obama supporters, but he isn’t even standing in Iowa, where the socially conservative terrain doesn’t suit his relative moderation. Instead the voters of the Hawkeye State look set to choose either almost-sensible (compared with the rest) Mitt Romney, or whichever wingnut is currently in favour with the party’s influential evangelicals – as we write that’s Rick Santorum, but the darlings of the right have been coming and going with bewildering frequency over the last few months, so it’s probably too early to dismiss the chances of Newt Gingrich or Rick Perry, though Michelle Bachmann does look to be out of it.

Away from social issues all the candidates are fairly consistent on the big question of the economy, favouring tax cuts and less regulation for corporate America, disagreeing only on how low the corporate tax rate should be, to the delight of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal.

The dark horse in the contest is of course Ron Paul, who looks set to secure second place, or perhaps even win. Paul has spoken of his desire to unite the Tea Party and the Occupy Movement, and his barely-coherent blend of populism, libertarianism and conspiracy theory does seem to be drawing support from left and right. This is more than a little concerning. We have previously noted that the financial crisis in Europe has the potential to fuel a rise in fascism, and it would appear that a similar process may be operating across the Atlantic, as an economically-squeezed population, disaffected with mainstream politics, looks for a leader who seems to understand their anxieties. There does seem to be some awareness of the danger among US progressives, but the need for an organised party to the left of the Democrats has never been more pressing.

My predictions? Romney to win tomorrow, and to take the nomination. Paul to go all the way to the convention, building a significant movement along the way. Obama to win in November. Then again, this time four years ago I was looking forward to another President Clinton…

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2011: The year in review

December 31, 2011 by Leave a comment

2011 was a year of two halves here at SLS; we were posting regularly up until about June, but never really got started again after the summer break. Embarrassingly, we only managed eight posts in the last quarter, and two of those were apologies for inactivity. Unsurprisingly our traffic has fallen off a cliff in the last few months, and is now sitting around half of what is was this time last year.

Anyway, here are our top ten posts by traffic for the last twelve months:

  1. The Social Network
  2. Second Life demographics – a brief review
  3. On Second Life and addiction
  4. What’s up
  5. Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space
  6. Virtual alchemy
  7. 2010: The year in review
  8. Second Life, with graphics, on the iPhone?
  9. Zombie Epidemiology
  10. Plunging Necklines

Only one of these, The Social Network, is from this year, but at least it is the top post, and one of our better ones too. I’d love to think its high ranking was due to the quality of the writing, but actually it’s because Google kindly chose to link it with the search term “Sean Parker Facebook” for a while over the summer. The addiction and demographics posts from last year continue to do well, probably because no one else can be bothered to write anything on those topics. There is always a steady interest in Second Life zombies, and Olivia’s 2009 Nosferatu-themed post Plunging Necklines made a welcome return to the chart, possibly on the back of the Lab’s promotion of SL as a platform for vampire role-play.

Of the other posts we managed to crank out this year my favourites were, in chronological order:

If I had pick one post of the year it would be The Solution, which I think encapsulates everything we try to do here at SLS; spare prose, literary and political allusion, self-conscious pretension, and all in the service of an utterly inconsequential point.

But what of the world beyond this blog? What of the Arab Spring, the war in Libya, the tsunami in Japan, the News International phone-hacking scandal, the death of Bin Laden, the UK riots, the Eurozone crisis, and everything else that has been going on this year? We did manage to comment on most of these events, but brief blog posts aren’t really the best medium for considering weighty issues, so it was all rather superficial. We might try to follow a couple of topics in more depth next year – perhaps the economy, and the US elections.

Back in January I promised that we would publish more book, film and music reviews, but this hasn’t really worked out. Part of the problem is that I’ve been trying to spread my output over too many projects; I have been doing a bit of critical writing, but I’ve published it in other places. (I could re-post some of my pieces here I guess, but I’m a bit paranoid that someone might Google a passage and link this blog with my other online identities.) The main thing though is that I’ve not been terribly well engaged with contemporary culture; I’ve been on a diet of classic literature and films from the 70s, and the world isn’t necessarily crying out for my belated impressions of The Mill on the Floss or McCabe and Mrs. Miller. At least I kept up with the music scene enough to be all excited ahead of the release of what turned out to be my favourite album of the year, the eponymous debut by Wild Flag, and I also liked Civilian by Wye Oak, Angles by The Strokes and Only in Dreams by The Dum Dum Girls; the latter record’s melancholy tone mirroring the slightly depressing arc of my personal life recently. Overall though I will have to try a bit harder on the cultural front next year.

Finally, what about our core task, the mission to, in the words of our very first post, “wander around the likes of Second Life and report back on what I find, enlightening readers with erudite comments on the interaction that occurs there”? We have been rather remiss in this too. I know why; just about everything interesting there is to say about the psychology of Second Life we have already said in previous years, and I haven’t had the energy to try to put a new gloss on it. The promise that virtual worlds would open up a new understanding of the human psyche has, sadly, turned out to be hollow. There was for a while some interest in watching the dynamics of the conflict between the corporate goals of Linden Lab and the aspirations of the more committed residents, but even that has turned dull since the boringly efficient Rodvik Humble took over at the top. It seems unlikely that this will change in the immediate future, but I will keep an eye on the academic literature in case anyone has any novel ideas.

What does this mean for the year ahead? Perhaps I should accept that this project has run its course, and let it bow out gracefully, but we have been going for nearly five years, an epoch in blog terms, so it would seem a shame to give up now just because things have been a little quiet of late. Politics, culture, psychology; I should be able to make something interesting out of that if I apply myself a little more.

So I guess I’ll be seeing you next year…

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Thoughts on the Eurozone crisis

November 11, 2011 by Leave a comment

I must admit to having rather mixed feelings about the ongoing Eurozone crisis. From my leftist point of view the difficulties besetting the neoliberal Euro project should be encouraging, since they expose the democratic deficit at the heart of the EU, which one might imagine would raise public consciousness about the need for progressive social change, but, on a more personal level, the prospect of the European economy entering a prolonged period of recession, with the accompanying political turmoil, is rather unsettling.

People have been comparing the current crisis to the situation in Europe during the inter-war period, which obviously didn’t work out too well, what with the rise of Fascism and the mass destruction of the Second World War. That may have sounded a bit hyperbolic a few months ago, but events since then on both sides of the Ionian Sea have added to the general sense of gloom, and the transparent inability of our political leaders to address the problems hardly inspires confidence.

Things went badly wrong the 20s at least in part due to the mishandling of the situation by the Comintern, but at least back then there was an international Communist movement, with influential mass parties in most European nations, and the still-fresh example of the Bolshevik revolution to provide inspiration. Today the organised left is much weaker, and such opposition as there is tends to coalesce around disparate formations like the “Occupy” movement, which are all over the place politically, and in some ways openly reactionary.

So I’m finding myself hoping that the Eurozone leaders will pull some sort of rabbit out of the hat, probably involving the ECB issuing Eurobonds to relieve the difficulty Italy is having accessing credit at affordable rates. As these will be underpinned by the German economy, the quid pro quo will be Berlin taking over control of financial policy for the Eurozone as a whole, since the prospect of the ECB printing money to bail out the Greeks and Italians terrifies the Germans who remember the hyperinflation of the Weimar era.

It probably won’t take a great deal of time for the populations of Italy, Greece and the other peripheral economies of Europe to wake up to the fact that they are being forced to endure severe austerity by politicians over whom they have no democratic influence. What will happen then is the big question; the stage would be set for a populist neo-fascist movement, but hopefully the left will have enough time to formulate a coherent response, and to get sufficiently organised to withstand the troubles that lie ahead.

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Life During Wartime

November 5, 2011 by Leave a comment

Tonight is the night that we in the UK display our liberal values of tolerance and inclusivity by letting off fireworks to celebrate the fact that Roman Catholics are constitutionally barred from becoming Head of State.

I quite like pyrotechnics, but in recent years the ubiquity of cheap Chinese imports has meant that, in the run-up to Bonfire Night, even a quiet middle-class neighbourhood like mine reverberates with explosions for half the night. Obviously it’s nothing like living in an actual war-zone, but it does get to me a bit. Another sign I’m getting old I guess.

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It’s Summertime

June 11, 2011 by Leave a comment

Readers may have noticed that we’ve gone into our summer recess a little early this year. This is mainly because I am easily distracted by fair-weather pursuits like getting stoned and lying in the park, but also because I have a couple of other projects on the go at the moment that have seduced me away from the virtual world.

So, in lieu of actually writing a proper post, I’ll link to some topics that I would have covered in more depth in the last couple of weeks if I weren’t such a slacker.

In the wake of the Ryan Giggs super injunction fiasco, the attorney general for England and Wales has warned Twitter users that they could face legal action if they breach privacy orders. This may sound like an empty threat, since most Tweeters, myself included, are outside the jurisdiction of the English courts, but I suspect that the authorities may try to restore respect for the law by launching some selective prosecutions, especially now that Twitter have shown a willingness to hand over user details without much resistance. (To be fair to Twitter, their TOS have always made it clear that they will rat you out if the Man comes calling). It’s another reason to believe that social media is perhaps not the unstoppable force for change that its most vocal advocates would have us believe.

On a related subject, the BBC have just finished screening All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace, a trio of documentaries by Adam Curtis critically examining the effect that computers and their associated ideology have had on popular consciousness. It’s excellent stuff; if you’re quick you might catch it on the iPlayer, otherwise look out for a repeat.

And finally, as we’ve noted before, proof that our municipalities are woefully unprepared for zombie attack.

The holidays are looming, so that might be your lot until July, unless it rains a lot.

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Caledonia rising

May 6, 2011 by Leave a comment

Almost exactly a year after the UK General Election, voters across Britain have returned to the polls, to elect local councils in England and the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and to vote in the nation-wide referendum on the Alternative Vote.

To no one’s great surprise the Liberal Democrats have been given a good kicking. The Conservative vote held up pretty well, even increasing in the south of England, showing that their plan to make Nick Clegg the fall guy for their unpopular policies has worked to perfection. What did the Lib Dems get in return for taking on the role of national hate-figures? A vote on AV, which they didn’t really want since it isn’t a proportional system, and which was bound to be rejected by the electorate anyway, since it was closely associated with Clegg, whom nobody trusts now.

In England and Wales the main beneficiaries of the Lib Dem collapse have been Labour, but the real excitement has been up here in Scotland, where there has been a political realignment of the type seen only once in a generation.

The Scottish National Party swept to an impressive victory, hoovering up all the votes of disaffected Lib Dem supporters, but also making massive inroads in areas once thought to be solidly Labour, and becoming the first party in the Parliament’s history to win an outright majority of seats.

This result can be partly explained by Labour’s horribly misjudged campaign strategy – they concentrated their fire on the Tories, and explicitly stated that they saw the Scottish elections merely as a stepping-stone to regaining power in London – but it is also an endorsement of the competence of the previous SNP administration, and a sign that the Scottish electorate may be warming to the idea of independence. SNP leader Alex Salmond has promised a referendum on the issue within the lifetime of this parliament, probably in three or four years’ time, which would represent the biggest challenge to the integrity of the British State in three centuries.

I have no great love for nationalism per se, nor for the SNP, who are pro-capitalist social democrats rather than socialists, but Scottish independence would be a political shake-up on a scale that would provide a great opportunity for the left.

Interesting times ahead…

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Bin gone

May 2, 2011 by Leave a comment

So, nearly 10 years after 9/11, the US has finally caught up with Osama Bin Laden. It feels like some sort of closure, though since there had been no solid proof he was alive since 2002, he was reportedly discovered living in a quiet suburb of Abbottabad, next door to the Pakistan Army’s main training college, and his body has been quickly buried at sea, (not to mention that the timing of this seems very convenient for President Obama’s re-election campaign) there is little doubt that he will live on in the fevered minds of conspiracy theorists for years to come.

It is the end of a chapter of modern history though, one that began back in the 70s when the CIA first started undermining the Afghan government, with the intention of drawing the Soviet Union into a costly war. That part of the plan worked out, but, after the Soviet withdrawal, the jihadists that the US had nurtured needed a new enemy, and found one in their erstwhile sponsors.

It seems likely that Obama will use Bin Laden’s death to start winding down the unwinnable Afghan war ahead of the US Presidential election next year, which is clearly a good outcome, albeit one that has come far too late for that conflict-ravaged region. It would be nice to think some lessons had been learned from the whole debacle, but since the US government seems to be falling ever more under the influence of the military-industrial complex, and the generals need war like a junkie needs his fix, I’m guessing that we’ll be seeing history repeat itself sooner rather than later.

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The (Un)Freed Weed

April 20, 2011 by Leave a comment

This time last year we were celebrating International Marijuana Day and looking forward to political developments on both sides of the Atlantic that promised a brighter future for aficionados of the noble weed. Sadly, our hopes turned out to be as insubstantial as smoke in the breeze; in the UK the Liberals did end up in government, but have, as yet, failed to rationalise the drug laws, while in California Proposition 19 fell agonisingly short of success.

So, another year of furtiveness beckons. I guess the habit might lose some of its outlaw charm if it was legalised, but a more relaxed approach would reduce the risk of burning out.

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Red star shines on

April 12, 2011 by Leave a comment

Fifty years ago today, Yuri Gagarin climbed into a small capsule atop a Vostok rocket and blasted off to become the first human in space. The Soviet programme had previously launched a few dogs into orbit, and had brought most of them back alive, but, even so, Gagarin must have known that his mission was insanely risky, and his courage is still inspiring today.

Gagarin’s historic flight resonated far beyond science, deep into general culture and Cold War politics. This wasn’t just a man going into space; it was the frontier of humanity being expanded by the son of a farmer from Smolensk, the technological triumph of a nation that just half a century before had been a pre-industrial backwater, the ultimate demonstration of the superiority of Soviet planning over the capitalist economies left struggling in its wake.

Of course we now know that this confidence was misplaced, for a number of reasons. The drawn-out failure of the Soviet experiment ushered in an era where it became accepted wisdom, even on much of the left, that inequality and injustice were the natural state of the world, and talk of building a new society freed from want by the application of human intellect was utopian. The best we could do, we were told, was to let the market run free, and trust to the charity of our rulers, with some light government regulation, to spare us from the worst excesses of unrestrained capital.

The financial crisis of the past few years has seriously undermined this theory, as living standards for the mass of the population have plummeted, while the rich have continued to get richer. People are again wondering whether there may be a more efficient way of organising society; the hope of a better future embodied by Gagarin and his fellow cosmonauts still has some life in it. The Soviet model of a planned economy may not have lived up to its initial promise, but the next iteration could still take us to the stars.

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