Freedom of Speech, automated

I was at some of the speeches and demonstrations at Democracy Island yesterday, and I'll make a few comments about that, but I'd first of all like to announce a great step forward for political speech in Second Life - the Ordinal Laboratories Kinetic Metaphor Propagator v0.1.

In patriotic red, white and blue, it enables high-speed, targeted message distribution - when a Political Statement hits a free-speech recipient...

• it shouts "IMPEACH BUSH! U.S. OUT OF IRAQ! NO BLOOD FOR OIL!";
• it explodes in a shower of IMPEACH BUSH signs;
• it plays "Stars And Stripes Forever";
• it sends whoever it is flying some considerable distance. This is an important part of the message, as being pushed out of the sim is a metaphor for Bush being ejected from office. Do you see?

Now, some readers may be thinking that this sounds like a push gun and it might be in some way annoying to those people affected by it, but what harm is being done to you? You can just ignore the effects if you want, just like you can just ignore telemarketers or enormous multiple multicoloured signs floating in menacing clusters around your property 24-7. I tell you, if you find this annoying it's really because you can't accept the truth of the message. The irritation you feel is merely cognitive dissonance.

Post Scriptum: You might be interested in watching the excellent piece from BBC1's Newsnight called "Do avatars dream of electric racoons?" See Jeremy Paxman as an avatar! A general overview of MMO... well, Massively Multiplayer Online Things, I suppose, with a long section about Second Life.