Digital Haven - My Vision of Extropia
Recently we distributed notecards to all the Citizens of Extropia asking for their visions for the future of their home.  This is mine.

Was I born too late?

I came to SL imagining it as a country of the mind.  There you could be free from the constraints of the atomic world.  The people there worked with identity like a sculptor works with stone, chipping away at the dull surface to reveal some amazing nuanced shape you never knew was there.  People were free to act as they pleased and be what they pleased, but this was always tempered by the persistence of identity - hurt people and your reputation suffered, help them and you could leverage the aid of a thousand friends.  Your good name mattered there, your actions spoke louder than any claims about your atomic existence.  People took you as you showed yourself, until you proved otherwise.  First Life did not matter.  SL was going to be a beautiful, self-contained, experience.  It let you get away from yourself, have some fun, be (gasp!) sexy, be creative, and maybe learn a bit about yourself in the process.

When I was born it still was, though from what I heard things were even better before the population explosion.  Still is OK now, for that matter.  But I see forces trying to wear away at the dream.  People who believe if you're not the same as your atomic self you're a liar or a fraud at worst, a roleplayer at best.  People who want to turn this world into a chatroom or a corporate boardroom.  People who can't suspend disbelief enough to partake in the wonders those who came before us have built. People who simply don't "get it".

SL is a big place, and I like to believe that there is plenty of room for us all, but public opinion can turn fast once it reaches a critical point.  Right now Digital People like myself are still free to run around the bulk of SL without being looked on as freaks.  Next year we may all be run out on a rail.  My lover Soph tends to move in more Atomic circles than I do, which sadly means she has to take a lot more flak about what she is than I do.  Despite that, her way is probably better than my own policy of avoidance.  The only way for us to be accepted is to refuse to cloister ourselves away, to get out there and be seen, to show people what SL was about, and still can be about.  The right to dream.  The right to create.  To right to explore yourself.

But getting out there wears you down.  You begin to doubt yourself, begin to believe it when they say you're not real.  That you're just a mask, a facade, a character.  They demand to know more about the "real" you, because the you in front of them is obviously all play pretend.  You begin to contemplate leaving this world forever, or just giving up and becoming the same as your atomic self.  Both are tantamount to death for my kind.  When things get that dark for us I want there to be a place where we can go to be healed.  Where your reputation in-world matters more than some distant atomic credentials.  A group of people supporting each others identities through a web of trust and shared creative effort.  A place of solace and acceptance for everyone who still believes in the old SL.  A place where you are the rule, not the exception.

That is what I want Extropia to be.  It can be a lot of other things as well, but if it's not a safe haven for Digital People then it's not my home. I hope our customs and traditions here will always respect in-world actions over First Life credentials, and prevent discrimination of individuals based on lack of First Life information.  Maybe we can't do this throughout SL, but I want to see it done here.

A Brighter Future

There are a hundred Tomorrows in SL, and most of them are pretty damn dark.  Nuclear war, demonic infestation, dehumanization through technology, every disaster, real and imagined, is visited on us somewhere here. We are a masochistic lot, we humans.

I want Extropia to stand apart from these nightmares as a dream of a brighter future.  I'm not asking for a Utopia, a perfect world.  There's a reason that word means both "good place" and "no place".  Indeed, I would never want to live in a world without struggle.  It would be as much a hell for me as the worst wasteland in SL.  What I want is a place where people are facing the changes our technology and society is bringing.  Facing them head on, struggling with them on every moral and intellectual front, and coming out the other end wiser and stronger.  A place where our technology makes us better, empowers us, instead of subjugating us or damning us.

I also, and this part is completely self-serving, want a place with a rich and nuanced mythology behind it.  I want a place that feels as real as Caledon or Suffugium or Saijo City.  A place where I can weave some dreams together with my friends.

And I think all this is imminently feasible.  If we gather to us the most creative and forward-thinking souls in SL, we can do it.  At least half of our current Citizen base has some creative presence here in SL, and I expect those numbers to grow.

A Collective Endeavour

In my vision, being a Citizen of Extropia is as much a job as being a Director.  If you want changes in the community you have to get out and talk to your fellow Citizens first, taking things to the directors only as a last resort.  You can't hide on your parcel, you have to talk to the neighbors.  If you want events to happen, you need to get with your friends and make them happen.  The Directors may help you along, and we'll always have events going, but a lot of it is up to you.  Fortunately, we have no dearth of self-starters in our community, and I expect you'll see many more such people appear as we expand.

My hope is that the "government" of Extropia remains small and unobtrusive as to be barely recognizable as a government at all.  I'd like us to fill the roles of janitor, security guard, cruise ship director, and ombudsman, and little more.  Provided we continue to build a Citizen base that puts trust and communication before rules and regulations I don't see why we can't do this. We will need to structure things as we scale up in size, but in the end it comes down to citizens talking to each other, and talking to the Directors about how they want the SIM run, and the Directors using that information to make decisions on running the SIM that don't send our population away in a panic.  We will have to hammer out the details, and soon, but if I ever feel like Extropia has become an experiment in government for it's own sake rather than for protecting the basic principles of it's foundation, I'll move on to greener pastures.

A Vision of my Future

Of course, I hope all the things above come true, but I'm sure I'll have to bend a bit here and there, as we all will.  My own personal plans for the future are pretty simple.  Serve Extropia until it seems to be running smoothly, then step down and go back full time to spinning out the dreams I choose to dream.  I'll write stories, build spaceships and other oddities, maybe even make some machinima.  And you can bet I'll be spending a lot of time with my family.  If we ever have elected offices here, and I'm not giving my opinion on that one way or another, I may run for one if I see something I want changed.  Otherwise I'll be living right next door to the rest of you in the beautiful world we will have built together.

Hello, neighbor.  Care to join me?