[extropy-chat] Any Second Life users?

[artillo at comcast.net]

This is great! I was wondering when my Second Life would intersect with the Extropy group mail, and today's that day! LOL

I am Artillo Fredericks in SL. I've been there since June 04.
Send ne an IM! :)

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From: Giu1i0 Pri5c0 <pgptag at gmail.com> 
Second Life becomes more and more interesting. Any other user here? I will try to go to the Future Salon meeting below, anyone going? Perhaps we should build a classy transhumanist meeting place there. 

I have been interested in virtual world after reading Neal Stephenson 's Snow Crash (1992) and have occasionally experimented with virtual worlds on the net since. In the mid 90s I used to visit one of the first virtual worlds on the net, Worlds Away (now VZones). But I have never been an addicted, probably because I never liked computer games too much.
Now since I bought a new sufficiently powerful PC I am spending some time in the Second Life virtual world, which is the most similar to Stephenson's metaverse that I have seen (from the Wikipedia entry on Second Life : "Many Second Life residents have noted the similarities between Second Life and the Metaverse from Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash . This is actually a stated goal of Linden Lab - to create a user-defined world of general use in which people can interact, play, do business and otherwise communicate"). 
Of the public open VR worlds that I have seen (I have seen some very high tech and very closed ones, but this is another thing), this is the first realistic enough to create a "real VR" experience (perhaps Linden Lab have been the first to spend real money). My interest in SL has been boosted by reading this Business2.0 article which explains how SL has already evolved into a real VR world with a lot of interacting users and a real economy that permits making real money in VR. See also this Fortune article. Some "evident" business models are already being exploited, other more sophisticated will be developed, and someday someone will make a lot of money.
So I have upgraded my free account to a premium one so I can purchase land and property, building a house etc. The name I have chosen for my avatar is Giulio Perhaps. For some reason you can freely choose your first name but have to pick your family name from a list, and "perhaps" is a beautiful word. Many interesting sentences start with this word, for example "perhaps in a few decades I will upload my consciousness to my SL avatar and live permanently in SL". 
One of the things to do today  in Second Life is visiting a virtual Future Salon. The Future Salons Network runs one in Second Life besides those in the Bay Area, LA, Seattle etc. More details in the article " Second Life Future Salon: Why Meet in Second Life?" on the Second Life Future Salon blog . I look forward to attending the SL Future Salon next week.
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From: Giu1i0 Pri5c0 <pgptag at gmail.com>
Subject: [extropy-chat] Any Second Life users?
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