There was an article in NYT on Second Life, the online digital world and I thought it was pretty significant how much (just thinking about it) expands our thinking horizons. It essentially allows for a better understanding of our own world ( in my mind). As people log-in, societies are born. At some point they will also start to look for ways to organize - socially and economically. The exchange of goods and services take root, money is born, markets are born. Perhaps people would like to establish rules that would regulate their lives, and entrust the making (and enforcing) of those rules on some people in particular, and governments are born... and perhaps citizenships are granted... we get the message, I think it is fascinating to think about the possibilities within that digital world - it takes me back to 2000, when while in El Sitio, a 3D world was created (I thought about this endless world of possilbities), but with dial-up internet in LatAm, it was far ahead of its time:
Excerpts from the article:
When people are given the opportunity to create a fantasy world, they can and do defy the laws of gravity (you can fly in Second Life), but not of economics or human nature. Players in this digital, global game don’t have to work, but many do. They don’t need to change clothes, fix
their hair, or buy and furnish a home, but many do. They don’t need to have drinks in their hands at the virtual bar, but they buy cocktails anyway, just to look right, to feel comfortable.
"What does Second Life say about us, that we trade our consumerist-oriented culture for one that’s even worse?"
Second Life, a three-dimensional world built by hundreds of thousands of users over the Internet, is also being used for education, meetings, marketing and more obvious game playing.
Many residents have lived the American dream in Second Life, and built Linden-dollar fortunes through entrepreneurship.
You use a credit card to buy Lindens, and Lindens earned during the game can be converted back into dollars via online currency exchanges
Nobody can go hungry, there is no actual need for warmer clothes or shelter, and there is much to do without buying Lindens.
Big corporations like Toyota have set up islands in Second Life for marketing. Calvin Klein came up with a virtual perfume. Kraft set up a grocery store featuring its new products. But those destinations are not popular.
"These brands that have this real-world cachet are meaningless in Second Life, so most are ignored
But the more mundane items are what really drive the economy: clothes, gadgetry, night life, real estate. "People buy these huge McMansions in Second Life that are just as ugly as any McMansions in real life, because to them that is what’s status-y," Mr. Wallace said. "It’s not as easy as we think to let our imaginations run wild, in Second Life or in real life."
Land is the biggest-ticket item in Second Life, with Linden Lab selling islands for $1,675, plus a $295-a-month maintenance charge.)
"The money is in the real-looking stuff: making skins with red lips and smoky eyes, and stiletto boots," said Ms. Hawkins, the Second Life fashion writer. First comes something popular, then the knockoffs. Soon everyone has one. "People go for similar looks and similar things," she said.
you think in Linden dollars. When something is expensive, even though it comes out to a few dollars, a lot of people don’t want to spend that much money."
Although Linden dollars can be bought with a credit card, there is evidence that the in-world economy is self-sustaining, with many players compelled to earn a living in-world and live on a budget.
Surprisingly, many take on low-paying jobs. They work as nightclub bouncers, hostesses, sales clerks and exotic dancers for typical wages of 50 to 150 Linden dollars an hour, the equivalent of 19 to 56 cents. A recent classified ad stated: "I am looking for a good job in SL. I am sick of working off just tips." This job seeker listed potential occupations as landscaper, personal assistant, actor, waitress and talent scout.
Second Life players are evidently discovering what inheritors have struggled with for generations: It’s not as much fun to spend money you haven’t earned. Apparently, despite the common lottery-winning fantasies, all play and no work is a dull game, after all.
"People don’t take jobs just for the money," said Dan Siciliano, who teaches finance at Stanford Law School and has studied the economies of virtual worlds. "They do it to feel important and be rewarded."
It’s not just vanity that drives people to dress up in Second Life. It’s also seen as good for business. Ms. Fitzpatrick, the landlady, says she doesn’t really care about how her avatar looks. But she cares about what prospective tenants think. "I felt I had to go, finally, and buy the hair and the suit," she said, "or my customers might think I’m too weird."
THE stock exchanges and banks in SL are imposing, but they are unregulated and unmonitored. Investors fed Linden dollars into savings accounts at Ginko Financial bank, hoping to earn the promised double-digit interest. Some did, but in July there was a run on the bank and panic spread as Ginko A.T.M.’s eventually stopped giving depositors their money back. The bank has since vanished. With no official law and order in Second Life, investors have little recourse.
Some Second Life residents are calling for in-world regulatory agencies — the user-run Second Life Exchange Commission has just begun operating — and some expect real-world institutions to become involved as the Second Life population and economy expands. "It’s a horse race as to whether the I.R.S. or S.E.C. will start noticing first," Mr. Duranske said. ■
Sunday, September 9, 2007
PR Status: Don't exercise the option early
There are a number of reasons why PR should (continue to) postpone the status issue further into the future, despite its 50+ years discussion. Being faithful to my training, I will summarize the reason why PR needs to wait in financial terms: PR owns an option with unlimited expiration, and options have time value if unexercised (and no time value if exercised). PR has the option but not the obligation to decide its political destiny at some point into the future.
Before I am crucified because of this simplistic and "colonial" explanation, let me explain what I mean. Nobody knows how the future will look like or what the future will bring to PR or how the world will look. There is an extreme world under which I a majority of Puertorricans would choose to become a state and another extreme under which a majority of Puertorricans would choose to become an independent state. Between those two worlds, we move and try to give shape to our world. On one extreme, a peaceful, capitalist, democracy rich, with free flow of capital and goods (and potentially people) world would reduce the advantages of statehood while granting value to the flexibility of being an independent country. On the other extreme, a polarized world, where democracy and/or capitalism are threatened, or where trade barriers are being imposed, would call f0r potentially aligning ourselves with the "good guys." In all likelihood, the world will navigate between those two extremes.
The option also exhibits additional value for PR: Puertorricans are split in half regarding the two options (although over 95% would like to have some type of monetary union with the US and would like to remain US citizens). Forcing PR's to choose is wasteful spending of money, people's time, national attention and it changes the people's focus on what should matter. What the population should be focused on is on improving the economy, our skills, the standard of living of all PRs and extracting as much of the population as we can from poverty, providing good education for all PRs and creating a peaceful and loving society.
What does the status has to do with any of this!? The status discussion only detracts from those goals. It puts common economic and social views on different camps because of ideological separation. In other words, leaders who share the same thoughts about how to move PR forward, can't agree on anything just because they have different status ideologies.
Luis Munoz Marin used the ELA, the option, as a tool for development - and he indeed showed it, but, the status discussion has been retarding our development now for close to 35 years. There is nothing we gain from statehood or independence that we can' t do with the current status. The additional federal funds (under statehood) or the ability to enter into int'l treaties or cheaper cargo costs (under independence) are just a couple of the hundred examples the two sides could come up with as to why we should become one or the other.
The bottom line is that PRs ability to produce goods and services and to educate itself with tomorrow's technologies has nothing to do with the status, but, with the willingness and the productivity of the residents of PR. In a way, it is the status "issue" is what is really holding back our development. It is this generation's responsibility to go back to the thoughts that Munoz laid out in the 1940s-1950s: setting up a path for a peaceful society that is forward looking, but, that also understands its past; a society that has an international mindset and that is committed of leaving its imprint in the world. Once a higher level of development is reached, once we have an educated society that understands and respects its past and is not afraid of the future, and once PR is confident about its place in the world, a majority of the population will see a very clear choice in front of them: be it statehood, be it independence or any other status that is internationally accepted at the time, it will be very clear. Maintaining the 50/50 fight will simply drive us farther from that goal.
Before I am crucified because of this simplistic and "colonial" explanation, let me explain what I mean. Nobody knows how the future will look like or what the future will bring to PR or how the world will look. There is an extreme world under which I a majority of Puertorricans would choose to become a state and another extreme under which a majority of Puertorricans would choose to become an independent state. Between those two worlds, we move and try to give shape to our world. On one extreme, a peaceful, capitalist, democracy rich, with free flow of capital and goods (and potentially people) world would reduce the advantages of statehood while granting value to the flexibility of being an independent country. On the other extreme, a polarized world, where democracy and/or capitalism are threatened, or where trade barriers are being imposed, would call f0r potentially aligning ourselves with the "good guys." In all likelihood, the world will navigate between those two extremes.
The option also exhibits additional value for PR: Puertorricans are split in half regarding the two options (although over 95% would like to have some type of monetary union with the US and would like to remain US citizens). Forcing PR's to choose is wasteful spending of money, people's time, national attention and it changes the people's focus on what should matter. What the population should be focused on is on improving the economy, our skills, the standard of living of all PRs and extracting as much of the population as we can from poverty, providing good education for all PRs and creating a peaceful and loving society.
What does the status has to do with any of this!? The status discussion only detracts from those goals. It puts common economic and social views on different camps because of ideological separation. In other words, leaders who share the same thoughts about how to move PR forward, can't agree on anything just because they have different status ideologies.
Luis Munoz Marin used the ELA, the option, as a tool for development - and he indeed showed it, but, the status discussion has been retarding our development now for close to 35 years. There is nothing we gain from statehood or independence that we can' t do with the current status. The additional federal funds (under statehood) or the ability to enter into int'l treaties or cheaper cargo costs (under independence) are just a couple of the hundred examples the two sides could come up with as to why we should become one or the other.
The bottom line is that PRs ability to produce goods and services and to educate itself with tomorrow's technologies has nothing to do with the status, but, with the willingness and the productivity of the residents of PR. In a way, it is the status "issue" is what is really holding back our development. It is this generation's responsibility to go back to the thoughts that Munoz laid out in the 1940s-1950s: setting up a path for a peaceful society that is forward looking, but, that also understands its past; a society that has an international mindset and that is committed of leaving its imprint in the world. Once a higher level of development is reached, once we have an educated society that understands and respects its past and is not afraid of the future, and once PR is confident about its place in the world, a majority of the population will see a very clear choice in front of them: be it statehood, be it independence or any other status that is internationally accepted at the time, it will be very clear. Maintaining the 50/50 fight will simply drive us farther from that goal.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)