Sunday, March 2, 2008

The Corn Field

I know that the topic of law and order in SL is kind of a taboo but since there is a prison in Second Life with a one way teleport terminal, one should expect ,that there is a legal system that is separated from the legislative and executive systems; And since we know this is not the case I wonder if Linden Lab can maintain a stable social and economical environment that would encourage major "foreign" investments in Second Life.

4 comments:

Ryan Weiss said...

Wow. That's a really good start to e-justice. I'd like to see that concept developed

Nicolas Dedual said...

Sure, this is nice... but who makes the laws? Linden Lab? They may be the original owners of Second Life, but once they become completely open source, implementing their laws becomes more difficult.

Also, does that mean that they can change the laws at their own convenience? Does that make them, in a way, a sort of absolute oligarchy?

This is what I find troubling about the corn field. Sure, right now it may seem obvious who needs a "time out", but as crime progresses and becomes more subtle, the punishment will need to correspond to the crime committed.

How ironic that through an advanced piece of technology we've reverted back to the beginnings of civilization to determine law and order in this new world.

Maybe we can get some things right this time around...

Brandon said...

This also brings up a question of what type of structure of laws to use. Should there be global laws, i.e. laws applicable to everyone and everything in SL? Or should there be a separate set of laws for each land area within SL? Or some combination of the two, like we have in the US (federal and state laws)?

Then there's the further questions of who makes these laws, and who enforces them?

Ghais Issa said...

I guess Hobbes would call this "the virtual state of nature"