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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.
They influenced me to stay the hell away from second life.
(Google "second life safari" somethingawful if you want to see what I mean)
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.
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.
"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
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!
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.