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John Edwards' Campaign Enters Second Life
politics 2.0 writes "It may not be an official effort — yet — but thanks to a grass-roots effort, John Edwards has become the first presidential candidate to set-up-shop in Second Life. Jerimee Richir, whose avatar is called Jose Rote, paid-for and developed Edwards' virtual headquarters, and, on a voluntary basis, is managing the in-world campaign. Considering that Second Life's user numbers are much smaller than other social networks, such as MySpace and Facebook — aside from generating press coverage — will campaigning in Second Life actually win many votes? Rote says yes, and that 'Second Life users are a unique audience, in that, they are first adopters. It is a smaller community, but I would argue it is a more influential community.'"
From TFS:
You know, I really liked John Edwards; granted, he pulled the daddy worked 36 years in NC textile thing one too many times, but his daughter is hot.
As far as Second Life goes: you guys are just the next VRML; deal with it.
I think this guy should build a new America in Second Life and sell it to the Chinese government for enough money to fix the war problem.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
The haves in the Second Life economy and the have nots?
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Rote says yes, and that 'Second Life users are a unique audience, in that, they are first adopters. It is a smaller community, but I would argue it is a more influential community.'
:-)
Yeeesh! Smug SL user & lame* presidential candidate stories rolled into one! Thanks slashdot
Second life is great to show your "internet savvy", coz the mainstream press (newsites, tv, legacy print, etc) can report on your 'internet presence' with impressive pics of a 3d world.
Second life is not great for the direct influence it has on the American public.
*the story, not the candidate, dunno about him.
PS. A comment on the linked article said Obama also had a SL presence. But with no backing evidence. Anyone on SL want to confirm/deny this for us?
PPS. Did anyone else think the photo of the author of the linked article looked 'shopped?
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Second Life campaign team says Second Life is important to campaign. Who could have predicted such an outcome?
This sounds remarkably like a Second Lifer who's gotten an inflated idea of how important their alternate reality is, asked the campaign team for permission, and then made something. The fact that the campaign itself doesn't seem to be investing money in this is telling as to how much _they_ think this is going to help. That's not to say an Internet presence isn't important, of course - but this is just a little too niche to matter.
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
I suppose President of a VRML is better than nothing.
Oh wait....
They influenced me to stay the hell away from second life.
(Google "second life safari" somethingawful if you want to see what I mean)
CNet headline: Tonight while giving a political speech on a Second Life server the charactr Pillory Clit was attacked by wave after wave flying dildos who screamed "NO" as they approached her.
This is not the "Biggest Douche in the Universe" John Edwards, but rather the relatively-unknown outside the USA political candidate for President John Edwards.
Good thing they are not a company.
Because then it would be corporate-America astroturfing.
Its it bad that the first thing I thought of after having read that title was that the sci-fi guy would finally have to answer to all those angry spirits who watched him bilk their relatives on his cheasy tv show?
Wouldn't it be great if they moved wars to Second Life also. Wait isn't that an episode of Startrek.
davecb5620@gmail.com
This guy may be the first AMERICAN presidential candidate on second life, but we already have a few french presidential candidates there for a couple of mounthes now.
Maybe it'll a great-idea-in-practice, but i don't see why people would be interested in such things while playing-a-game.
Btw, I'm loving the latest-cool-punctuation-thing, but does it belong on the Slashdot front page?
"It is a smaller community, but I would argue it is a more influential community"
Second Life is a ponzi scheme.
http://randolfe.typepad.com/randolfe/2007/01/secon dlife_revo.html
/ 1319236
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/24
Guess this makes sense - he talks to the dead, might as well get their vote too.
...oh, Edward*s*, right.
In France we have too candidates who are on second life, the facists and the stupid Ségolène Royal
Bonjour !
Considering that Second Life's user numbers are much smaller than other social networks, such as MySpace and Facebook -- aside from generating press coverage -- will campaigning in Second Life actually win many votes?
It's not just about the raw numbers... Myspacers are spotty teenagers who can't vote, and Facebookers are hippie students who won't vote!
So someone sets up a political site on second life, quotes himself and gets slashdot to advertise it for him.
It is not like this is the first time a political party or politician has setup a place on second life, and hey this is not even official.
Now it would be neat if he duplicated edwards new house
Influential? Maybe to clueless reporters in desperate need to fill airtime or page space. Second Life has maybe 650,000 real people logging in and tuning out of First Life. I can't think of one concept, product, idea or candidate the Second Life community has successfully promoted to myself, friends or coworkers (a fairly "wired" bunch). If internet savvy Edwards supporters want to assist his campaign, maybe they suggest that John paint a giant campaign sign on his 28,200 sq foot new home on 102 acres in North Carolina so it can be photographed for Google Earth. I am sure one of the two Americas will appreciate that...
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
May I point out that until very recently, the French Front National had an office in SL... It may not be something the French are proud of, but well, Le Pen was there first...
John Edward's Second Life Campaign Headquarters Griefed
MPGs at 11.
-- 3 events that reshaped the world in the 20th century: WW1, WW2, and WWW
By being active on Second Life, mr. Edwards takes a clear and unmistakable stand in favor of pornography and promiscuous sex. He's got my vote!
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
[...]first presidential candidate to set-up-shop in Second Life.
perhaps in the US but in France both the favorites candidates for the presidential election have some Avatar and "shops" in SL.
in Fact if I remember correctly it's the far-right candidate that set-up the first one (LePen).
PS: and no, thanks God I'm not French
From Valleywag.
Now that Linden is publishing actual user numbers, we can see that the Residents figure, as expected, is a big overcount over actual people (about 50% inflation, in fact, accounting for over a million ersatz users). Second Life doesn't have two million users. They have had two million users over the life of the service, and they've lost most of them. Of those users, the majority -- something like 5 out of 6 -- bailed in the first month.
Not sure if you're trolling but, "Are second lifers people who simply don't accept anthropomorphic global warming is a reality? Are they simply fiddling while Rome burns?". That word, I don't think it means what you think it means. You might have meant anthropogenic global warming. To which I suggest you look at the comic rays slashdot article from a few days ago.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
global warming and/or peak oil will rapidly deplete our ability to use gas / coal burning power stations for supplying electricity for such entertainment?
There will ALWAYS be a call for entertainment. What is the difference in energy cost between running a computer to play Second Life, versus watching tv instead? I doubt very much people will sit around and twiddle their thumbs all evening.
I do not understand why people are using virtual communities like Second life^H^H^H^H^H^H Slashdot.
Well if the future is so bleak, why don't you spare us all the trouble and shoot yourself now? After all I doubt YOU can change the way everyone depends on oil for everything - so if you can't do anything about it, quit whining about it and go live in a forest. I'm sure there are a lot of things that YOU do that I would consider a waste of time and resources. However it's not up to me to tell you how to live your life.
You're obviously trolling and deserve what you get.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I'll probably get troll rated by Edwards partisans, but he just doesn't ring true to me. When I examine candidates, I examine their history and look at what they've said in the past and what they say now, to see if there's a thread of consistency and integrity.
0 46:@@@P:
He's against the Iraq war now that it's safe and popular to be, but he not only voted for it, he was actually the Co-Sponsor of Lieberman's bill.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:SJ00
Even Kerry, who caught a lot of flack for voting for the war before voting against it or whatever the mangled soundbite was, had the intelligence to not Co-Sponsor the war. But Edwards joined Zell Miller, Jesse Helms, and Sturm Thurmond to Co-Sponsor Lieberman's bill. He defended his vote for the war and even said he "wasn't duped" by the president, and said that he would invade Iraq if he were president even after no WMDs were found. He didn't back down until after 2004 was over, because he was afraid of looking "weak" on national security. Of course, now his tune has turned 180 degrees.
He also said he's a champion of the poor, citing his work suing doctors for medical malpractice on behalf of "the little guy." And yet, when you examine his legal history, he has never done a single Pro Bono case.
Now that he's wooing Labor Unions for primary support, he's done a lot of good work campaigning for raising the minimum wage, even though it doesn't take political courage for a Democrat to say he's in favor of it, since it plays well to the base. But if you look at his Senate record, he's responsible for a lot of stuff that went against Labor Union interests. He voted to give China most favored nation status and the attendant trade conditions of that status, even though we have a huge trade deficit with China and their taking of our manufacturing base. Edwards also voted for expansion of the H1B visa program that allows companies to import foreign high tech workers (such as programmers and computer engineers) to fill American jobs but deny them immigration status. This work visa is a non-immigration visa, so they end up taking American jobs but not being able to contribute to America's future by becoming citizens. H1-Bs have been blamed for helping to keep American software wages depressed.
He tries to cater to the environmentalists and the poor, but then he engages in a major act of conspicuous consumption by tearing down wilderness to construct a new mansion. I think he has the right to live however he wishes, and his house is a silly issue to focus on, but it does underscore a lack of congruity.
Now, people do change over time, and the positions of career politicians certainly do. Surely he has seen the error of Iraq by now, and perhaps he started to grow a focus on poverty and labor long after he left the Senate, thus accounting for why he didn't sponsor any anti-poverty legislation in congress. But when you see that he changes significantly on several major issues, a pattern begins to emerge.
When I look for candidates, I try to see if their past actions match their current rhetoric and pandering. I try to see if their private faces out of the spotlight match their current public faces on the campaign trail.
Unfortunately for Edwards, he falls short in my eyes. It rings false.
He voted for....nay, CO-SPONSOREd...the Iraq War and now apologizes. Two ways of looking at it...Honest mistake, in which case he lacks the judgment on matters of war and peace to be president...or disingenious jockeying to follow public opinion, in which case he lacks the political courage to follow his conscience instead of the polls.
I put a lot of thought into examining candidates who want to be my president...and I just cannot in good conscience vote for Edwards.
Okay, pro-Edwards partisans may now troll-rate me.
I'm damn glad I don't have to put up with similar shit in games I choose to play
Because Edward's campaign is so internet savvy they don't even bother to read the web site of the moonbat bloggers they before they hired them.
Fucking idiots.
Silky Pony's a joke.
Well, with all the lag on Second Life, people voting for Edwards now may see their votes effect the outcome of the 2012 elections.
Et In Arcadia Ego
What his views are on rape and pedophilia.
I've been in SL for over 2 year now and it seems to draw the worst kind of people.
For instance there are huge communities of people who are obsessed over the torture and enslavement of women, to the end that they treat women as animals. This has also leaked onto real life (ala Kaotians). Not to mention the horror stories I've heard from people who got into this after being involved in similar cults online.
I've had a friend from UK, who used to be a slave in one of these online cults. Her online Dom (Master) ordered her execution after not being satisfied with her. The order was carried out by her roommate who was also a slave to this dude (guy is in Denmark). This girl tied a rope around my friend while she was unconscious and tied the other end to her car and drove. Lucky the rope snapped and broke, but it put my friend in hospital for over 200+ days. While the girl who did this is in prison, the person who ordered this crime is still free.
Then there are the pedophiles, I've been campaigning against them for quite a while in Second Life. For the life of me, I cannot think why an adult want to have have sexual role play with another who is pretending to be a 2 or 5 year old boy or girl, and wears a photo mapped skin of real child (completely realistic with nothing censored). I do not understand these people and I think by their use of the photo mapped skin they are doing something illegal.
I've asked many times why Lindens allow this, but they have refused to answer this question.
...I expect this will be just as successful.
------ "Darn floor. Big bite." (Koko the gorilla's best attempt at explaining the experience of an earthquake.)
Step 1: Figure out some way to make Arnold eligible to run for President.
Step 2: Convince Blizzard to incorporate a virtual Arnold that wanders around Ironforge and occasionally hands out Epics.
Step 3: Size Maria for an inauguration dress.
Custom, hands-free Linux installs. Instalinux
One of the French presidential candidate for the upcoming elections, Ségolène Royale, made the same move a while ago. See a screenshot of the virtual campaign.
So, what kind of voting machines do they have?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I was at the Feb 15, 2003 protests in Raleigh, NC. You know, the protests BEFORE the war, to PREVENT the Iraqi quagmire the Neocons dragged us all into. It was obvious as hell at that time that the Iraq invasion was based on lies. Yet Edwards would not come out and say so. The pictures in the media of Edwards holed up in his home were priceless.
... a Dean/Kucinich ticket would have stomped Bush, but the Dems couldn't actually come out and be Democrats that year.
Unfortunately it looks like NO candidates in the major parties are worth supporting this go around. Sigh
Judging by what I understand Second Life to be, I have to conclude that John Edwards is targeting furries. But seriously... it seems to me that any candidate spending any significant effort on campaigning in SL is basically saying "I have no sense of priorities but please vote for me!!!"
It brings us one step closer to a day when we can bombard the president with penises during his state of the union address!
He's a multimillionaire lawyer living in a 30,000-square-foot mansion who made his money on dubious malpractice claims channeling dead babies, but he claims he's for the little man. He acts the part of a populist, but he not only bashed WalMart - where one would think a populist's base would shop - he sent someone there to buy toys for his kids.
He actually co-sponsors the resolution to authorize Bush to invade Iraq, defends that, says he wasn't duped by Bush. Now he spins a different tale.
He spouts crap that there's two Americas, those that inherited wealth and power and those that won't ever have access to it. Yet then he claims in his story that he rose to wealth and power from humble beginnings, in direct contradiction to his claims about the US.
If he were a burger-flipper at McDonalds he'd still have more money than sense.
I think he has the right to live however he wishes, and his house is a silly issue to focus on, but it does underscore a lack of congruity.
Silly? His political wing wants us to all live in crowded cities and use public transportation all the time. He's against "urban sprawl" in the sense that he doesn't want you and me to have any space because it might "sprawl" towards his splendid wilderness vistas in his huge, private country living space.
His house is not so silly of an issue, if you ask me.
After Afghanistan and Iraq, Americans joking about how the French always surrender has acquired a whole new level of unintentional irony. Sometimes, surrendering may be the smart choice. And it's not like the Yanks did so great in Vietnam, either. Either way, I hope facts won't keep anyone from making jingoistic remarks. They just lighten my day up.
(Disclaimer: I'm neither French nor American)
Lessee, Edwards ventures into the world of blogging and hires left wing maniacs with a penchant for using the word "fuck" (in its many forms) while hating on anybody to the right of Lieberman. Now he's venturing into Second Life, a world chock a block with http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2006/11/did_li ve_help_l.html furries sporting erections, http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2007/01/agepla y_in_seco.html pedophiles and http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/Sec ond_Life other faggotry. I can hardly wait until these deviants start filling up the Edwards campagin office, trying to volunteer virtually. Maybe they should put up a sign outside that says "No shirt, no shoes, graphically depicted animal penii, no service".
If a candidate really wants to get elected, they should be using World of Warcraft rather than Second Life. WoW has a MUCH bigger community than Second Life, and WoW actually takes on important issues like war, diplomacy, the afterlife, and demon attack. Neocon globalists can satisfy their international bloodlust on battlegrounds, and cowardly Democrats can hide behind their tanks and pets when a confrontation happens. Disgusting political mudslinging campaigns can be replaced with a simple duel in front of Orgrimmar.
Never one to be upstaged, Hillary Clinton has joined WoW as level 42 gnome and can be seen tailoring and enchanting on a nightly basis. However, she has yet to reveal her position on the Scourge invasion. While she agrees she initially voted for patch 1.11, she claims her vote was based on faulty intelligence and now opposes it. She faults the Litch King and his administration for the resulting issues.
Repant. Thy end is sheer.
Hey wait, I got the real confused with 2nd life.
There are two americas and I'm not in his.
Dean seemingly came out of nowhere in the 2004 because he was the first presidential candidate to really leverage the internet and attract those young eyeballs who disdain conventional media. Unfortunately a combination of being the high-profile front-runner and a bad temper undid his internet advantage. I guess lots of candidates are trying to win the internet contest now.
This is a question that's been bugging me for a while: even if you use the non-inflated numbers, who and where are the people that actually play Second Life? I do not know a single person who has played it for longer than a trivial amount of time, even though my social circle is overrepresented in practically every other area of the online world. I find it strange that SL receives so much press even though the usual reason for unjustified media hype (being owned by a media conglomerate) doesn't apply to this situation.
I had a discussion about this with my friends recently; the best answers I got about Second Life are that it's bigger in Europe than here in the U.S., it caters more to the MySpace crowd than, say, the WoW crowd, and that, of course, it's mostly for porn anyway.
At least politically. He won his senate seat running against a right of Jesse Helms pig farmer right after a hurricane dumped pig poop all over eastern NC. He ran for president because he had no chance of re-election in NC (not because he was Democrat, but because he was not representive of the majority of people in the state). The VP pickup by Gore saved his career. So you have someone with limited experience, trial lawyer, and pretty. Obama beat Keyes (not the best canidate to understate the issue) after a likely winning Republican had a sex/beating scandel around a Star Trek babe. Offtopic now, but I think it's sad when Hillary is the most stable canidate the Democrats can put on the ticket.
That's strange, I wasn't aware it had a first life.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
I can only hope that his Second Life campaign is inundated with attacks made by giant flying penises.
Launch every sig.
I think he's drunk. Heh.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Here's my first thought on reading this
.e
. s <----- Shark
Edwards ---->
.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Maybe it'll work out better than his campaign's first life. Especially, given the two foul-mouthed bloggers who were: hired, fired, re-hired, "resigned".
[Insert pithy quote here]
. . .along with the rest of the politicians and their campaigns.
No, he got it right. Most people, including second lifers, don't believe in the fifty-foot flame elemental secretly melting our ice caps.
John Edwards just officially lost whatever chance he had at my vote. Next, please.
One of the two talks to the dead, and the other one hopes the dead will vote for him... right? :-)
If I show up to a political rally dressed like a rabbit, or jackass, or a giant penis orbited by throbbing breasts, I would be immediately removed by the police, and would probably get the attention of the Federal government, in the bad way.
But what if my SL avatar is a rabbit, or jackass, or a giant penis orbited by throbbing breasts, and I go visit John Edwards online? Will the Secret Service come visit me IRL? Or will they have a deal with SL to drop me from the service? Or... What?
If I throw a rotten veggie at a politician in real life, or worse, just threaten to cause him harm, I will get into serious trouble. What happens if I do something like this to a Presidential Candidate online?
What are the rules of engagement for political figures in cyber-space?
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Yeah, how ironic: Mr. "Two Americas" campaigning in the second one.
Whats got me curious... is if there is any political benefit to using this avenue to influence votes from the furry fandom, and various other abstract subcultures on SL. The majority of the members of the fur fandom are generally not politically inclined, and considering the mass of the fandom, if somehow a politician were to tap into that, it could be of reasonable influence in the votes cast. There are those few of us that are interested in politics... but on the whole, its a rather untapped area in the political respect. Anyhow.... I think that SecondLife could be a very viable angle for a politician to take, if it is used correctly. To those who base their thoughts of furry, on articles from somethingawful and MTV, etc... I've no interest in flames based on these onesided ignorant sources. There is a happy little delete button for anyone who would like to try though.
I'm sure John 'Man of the People' Edwards ponders the problem for hours on end as he sits around his mansion in the gated community he calls home.
Second Life? Isn't that an online game? I mean, it's.....NOT REAL.
Doomed....we're all doomed.....
Al Gore, please save us....
No offense to Second Life, but people get a bit silly about it. I understand that it's a an interesting, fun site, but I remember playing it in 1997 when it was called Alpha World
He hasn't been seen in the city since...
"Where did this apple come from?"
--Alan Turing
John Edwards Crossing Over...to Second Life.