Philip Linden Speaks About Trump Victory

 

There's been more than a little chatter about the results of Tuesday's Presidential Election in the US, of which former President Trump won. Besides being the first President to serve two separate administrations, he's also the first Republican non-incumbent to win the popular vote since 1988. While every election has brought cheers from the supporters of the winners, and some sadness from those who didn't win, Trump's victory has had many Democrats not just worrying, but in outright despair. 

Among those concerned is Philip Rosedale, who would write a commentary suggesting that Trump's election wasn't the real problem, but a symptom of a much larger one: economic inequality is leading people to make more desperate choices at the voting booth. 

... poorer people at some point no longer believe that wealth will ‘trickle down’ fairly from the richer people, and they become more and more distrusting of each other until eventually they are only willing to back candidates who claim they will somehow restore their seat at the economic table and level the playing field. That is where we are right now - we’ve elected a president, for a second time, who has campaigned on the promise that he will restore economic equality.

Rosedale commented that a Harris administration would have been a "'rip the bandaid off' moment," involving much civil unrest and probably some violence, but there would at least be "some reductions in inequality." With Trump in power, he feels while there will be gains, they will be temporary and only going to the wealthiest Americans, "with overall inequality increasing further until some new breaking point is reached."

One can read Philip's commentary in full (here).

On a final note, one should take care when discussing politics, especially when trying to have a reasonable discussion with someone with a different viewpoint. If you say you've been trying to see why a relative with extreme views thinks that way, if they hear it wrong they may think you agree with those views.

Hat tip: Zada Bury

Bixyl Shuftan

SL Video: "Second Life's Prospering Virtual Economy Explained"

(Click here if the video fails to play)

From Luca on May 28, "Second Life is a virtual world with a prospering economy where not only content creators, but anyone can profit and possibly make a living from as long as people find value in what they do within the virtual world."

SL Video: "The Drax Files: World Makers [Episode 48: CNDG]"

(Click here if the video fails to play)

From Draxtor Despress on March 3, "Question: what if we’d tell you that in 2018 thousands of American university students traveled to the Second Life grid to learn more about environmental science, chemistry, biology and economics?"

Linden Lab Will No Longer Publish Economic Reports

The third-quarter 2011 economic report from Linden Lab will be the final one. In an article by Tateru Nino, she stated Lab spokesman Peter Gray told her they have stopped doing these reports, and have no plans to do any more, quarterly or yearly.

"We don’t plan to publish a Q4 2011 economic summary. We are discontinuing regular reporting of aggregate economy-level data, because landowners and merchants have told us that the information is of limited value to them. Moving forward, we will instead focus on improved reporting tools that help individuals better manage their businesses in SL."

Among Second Life bloggers, Tateru Nino is among those who has regularly kept up with Linden Lab's reports, the charts and statistics in her main links. Guessing as to why the Lab has stopped publishing, she noted they're not as detailed as they once were, "They’ve been cut down on something like five different occasions, and what is left can now only be properly interpreted by maybe a handful of people who know the ins and outs of the Second Life economic underpinnings well enough to translate them for others. ... Essentially, over the years, the figures have been progressively stripped of the supporting data that gave them meaning, and now hardly anyone can understand what’s left. That kind of makes it a waste of time to extract the data and generate the reports in the first place."

Another possible reason is the economy isn't looking good. Tateru felt there was no reason to believe there was a troubling drop in the fourth quarter as the Grid's economy was basically sound. Hamlet Au felt there was another reason: Second Life's long term prospects may not be good. He pointed to Botgirl Questi's article predicting as the Opensim worlds mature, their low land tier rates will start to attract sizeable numbers from Second Life and thus cause it's revenue to go on a long-term slide.

Second Life's demise has been predicted before, and so far none of the Opensim worlds have attracted substantial numbers of residents, the most populated have only a few hundred on at peak times compared to Second Life having 50-over 75,000. But Linden Lab's decision to halt it's economic reports is being seen as a bad sign. Tateru Nino concluded at best, this was a reminder that the days of the company trying to be open and transparent to the Grid's users were gone.

Sources: Tateru Nino, Botgirl Questi

Bixyl Shuftan

Eye on the Blog: SL Economy “Steady”

On October 28, LL released some of their economic statistics, with Nelson Linden giving a statement.


The Second Life economy continues to be steady, with nearly all key measures staying within a narrow range of just a few percentage points up or down over the last year. The largest changes compared to last year's Q3 were an increase of 7.2% in World Size, a decline of 11% in User Hours, and a 115% increase in Web Merchandise Sales Volume. Over the last year, the number of people participating in the economy has also been consistent, ranging from 480,000 to 496,000 (currently 486,000), as has L$ Supply, which has ranged from US$25.4 million to US$26.2 million, and was at a 12-month high in Q3.


Most of the statistics showed uneven to no growth. The exception was the total sales volume on Xstreet/ SL Marketplace, “Total sales volume on both Xstreet SL and the new SL Marketplace rose 8.5% from Q2 and grew 115.2% year over year.”

The response from the residents in the comments below was mixed, leaning to dim views, some commenting LL was using “steady” in place of “stagnant.” A minority did comment it was better than they expected, having heard no shortage of dismal predictions.

For the Blog and the following comments, Click Here.