Fragments of an interview on new forms of labor

Below are some fragments of an interview did by Nate Holdren with Michael Hardt by phone in October 2006. It was slated to appear in an issue of Greenpepper Magazine. The fragments refer to new forms of labor.

---Q: This gets at a thread that runs through a lot of the questions we have about your work -- the issue of unwaged reproductive labor, labor that is ostensibly off the clock, but is still bound up with value production. There's a section of volume one of Capital where Marx quotes some English thinker who says "the English working class are phenomenally productive today, and it's because they have leisure time";, which makes this point. So when you and Negri talk about general intellect entering into production, does general intellect enter from the space of the home and from reproduction?

---Hardt: In a way, yes, that's right. There's unwaged labor before post-fordism and you could see some capacities present there in earlier times. But like with multitude, it's not a spontaneous or immediate thing. It's important to recognize that people have these capacities, to look at what specific capacities there are today, to see how they're used in labor and how they could be used differently. And then there's the matter of actually using them differently. We have to figure that part out and it's also a matter of organization in order to be able do to that.

---Q: In response to a similar question on unwaged reproductive labor in an earlier interview you did for the aut-op-sy mailing list, you mentioned Deleuze and Guattari and their idea of desiring-production as a way of opening up the idea of production. Can you say more about this, particularly about different types of production? For example, there's desiring production and there's value production and they're not always the same all the time?

---Hardt: It's important to note that for Deleuze and Guattari desiring production is often co-opted. They understand that it enters into value production at least some of the time and that it's not always external. I think this is important because sometimes Deleuze and Guattari can be taken as being too optimistic. But they do recognize that desire has a relationship with value production. We also could look at these as perspectives, different perspectives from which to view things and to see what we can better understand from one perspective or the others.

---Q: What is at stake here is the question of practical rupture and of having the theoretical space to think rupture. It's like Tronti's point that the working class acts in certain ways that are disruptive of capitalism but then these behaviors get capitalized. Doesn't arguing that 'all life time is productive' make it hard to think about activity that doesn't -- or at least some day, some activity that won't -- get capitalised?

---Hardt: That's an important question. First, though, I think it's important to note that one doesn't preclude the other. Capitalization of activities isn't solely a bad thing. If workers demands are met by capital and capital is forced to change that means that the working class gets more powerful and new spaces and possibilities open up. At least that's what I think Tronti meant back in the 1960s.

For example, I did an interview at the last World Social Forum in Porto Alegre with a Brazilian journalist who asked "the World Economic Forum said that their agenda is to alleviate poverty, isn't that a problem?" And I said, "Why is that a problem?" It took a while to figure out what the point was, but finally he said, "they stole your ideas, they stole your agenda!" I told him, "that means we won." Being able to dictate your enemy's agenda is a strength and a sign of power.

The question of rupture is another is another really important organizational question. In some ways it's a matter of figuring out what the forms of sabotage are today that we can use to turn the capacities that we take to work and that are learned at work and use them another way. I wish I had a good example of this, though and that it was a simple as jamming a wooden shoe into a machine!

Economy recession and web 2.0

Will the economy recession influence free economy, open source projects and in a further extent the ''affective labor'' that maintains the structures of the web 2.0 social media ? A form of labor that gets not immediate pay back ( if it gets any at all). For some people, the economic crisis will ultimately eliminate open source projects and the 'Web 2.0 free economy. The economic downturn and job loss will eliminate projects as Wikipedia and much of the blogoshere. Users instead of offering their services for free, will shift their attitude toward an economic value of their labor.''The hungry and cold unemployed masses aren't going to continue giving away their intellectual labor on the Internet in the speculative hope that they might get some "back end" revenue'
says Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur book.

Others are claiming that it will occur just the opposite. Already many companies are looking to lower their expenses by going open source. After all, did the dot-com crash killed Linux, stifled production of php sites or did make people stop sending non-commercial e-mails?
True is that some people do things like programming for fun. Contributing to OSS is not about "back-end revenue" for most people, it's about contributing to a community, about pride, and about intellectual challenges. Some people do things not for the money.
On the other hand, it's difficult to "do things" like update OpenOffice, if your electric company just pulled the plug, or you lose your house to the bank.
At the end,if unemployment goes up, that just means there's a lot more developers out there with free time, and motivation to put something new on their resumes.

Global conflicts _ Latin America

You arrive in Mexico at the US border with a bag full of journalistic ambitions. Latin America is one of the most turbulent, violent and poverty-stricken places on the planet.
Yet it is only when Western interests in the region are threatened that we hear anything about the nations that struggle with paramilitary rule, extreme poverty and exploitation of the population.In a region where politicians and police are feared rather than respected, people try desperately to grab a piece of the land and call it their own. All too often, however, it ends badly. Can you make a difference by writing investigative stories?

The game is an immersive fully 3D role-playing simulation, which gives the player a chance to explore different issues in Latin America. The game is split into five missions that allow you to choose the most relevant topics. Furthermore, this allows you to run a course in less than 2 hours. The game is developed based on true stories and sources in close collaboration with teachers, students and experts.

From Serious Games Interactive

Ludocapitalism and play at work

Γύρω στο 2000 ο Julian Dibbell έγραψε ένα βιβλίο το My Tiny Life περιγράφοντας την εμπειρία του σε ένα διαδικτυακό παιχνίδι της εποχής με το περίεργο όνομα LambdaMOO
Έξι χρόνια αργότερα, το καλοκαίρι του 2006 έγραψε ένα δεύτερο βιβλίο με τίτλο , Play Money, όπου αναλύει τις εμπειρίες του σε ένα άλλο δικτυακό παιχνίδι το Ultima Online.
Το βιβλίο περιγράφει το βύθισμα ενός συγγραφέα σε ένα τρισδιάστατο εικονικό κόσμο.
Και τα δύο βιβλία είναι ένα μίγμα αυτοβιογραφίας και ευρύτερων θεωρητικών συζητήσεων.
Παρόλα αυτά υπάρχει μια ουσιώδης μεταβολή από το ένα κείμενο στο άλλο
αν κανείς συγκρίνει τους υπότιτλους στα δύο βιβλία. Στο My Tiny Life ο υπότιτλος ήταν “Crime and Passion in a Virtual World” ενώ στο Play Money βάζει τον υπότιτλο “How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot.”
Με άλλα λόγια , το πρώτο βιβλίο μιλούσε για σεξ , βία και επανάσταση ενώ το δεύτερο απλά για λεφτά.
Το Tiny Life είναι ένα χρονικό για την κοινωνική ζωή μιας κοινότητας.
Το Play Money μιλά για τα σκαμπανεβάσματα μιας αγοράς.

Τα ερωτήματα που απασχολούσαν τον Dibbell στο πρώτο βιβλίο δεν υπάρχουν πια στο δεύτερο. Εκεί που στο πρώτο βιβλίο προσπαθούσε να πείσει τον αναγνώστη πως η εικονική εμπειρία είναι συγκινησιακά και υπαρξιακά αληθινή- γιατί στο κάτω –κάτω τι περισσότερο είναι το΄΄πραγματικό΄΄από μια σύνθεση σεξ, βίας και κυνηγιού της εξουσίας;- στο Play Money παίρνει την πραγματικότητα του εικονικού κόσμου σαν δεδομένη. Μάλιστα, παλεύει να πείσει πως η εικονική εργασία , το εικονικό χρήμα και η εικονική κατοχή πλούτου είναι ήδη -οικονομικά μιλώντας- πραγματικά.
Αυτό που ο Dibbell ανακάλυψε στο Ultima Online είναι η αδυνατότητα διαχωρισμού του παιχνιδιού (play) από την εργασία, του εικονικού από το πραγματικό , και της καριέρας του σαν έμπορος πίστης (make believe) από την καριέρα του σαν freelance δημοσιογράφος. Αντί να βρει ένα μαγικό κόσμο πιθανοτήτων στο Ultima Online, ο Dibbell ξαναβρέθηκε πίσω στις βασικές γραμμές της διαδικασίας παραγωγής κεφαλαίου.

Οι διαδικτυακοί εικονικοί κόσμοι (όπως σε ένα μεγάλο βαθμό και τα κοινωνικά μέσα και δίκτυα του web 2.0) ανήκουν σε μια νέα μορφή πλατφορμών πληροφορίας, που λέγονται ανύσματα (vectors).
Με τον όρο άνυσμα εδώ ορίζεται κάθε μέσο δια του οποίου κάτι μετακινείται μέσα στο χώρο. Αν στα ανύσματα των φυσικών μεταφορών διακινούνται αντικείμενα σαν αγαθά ενός παγκόσμιου εμπορίου και υποκείμενα σαν τουρίστες ή σαν μεταναστευτική εργατική δύναμη, στα ανύσματα που αφορούν στις επικοινωνιακές πλατφόρμες αυτό που διακινείται είναι η πληροφορία. Και ειδικότερα στα διαδικτυακά παιχνίδια οι ειδικοί νέοι τρόποι επεξεργασίας της πληροφορίας εκείνης που σχετίζεται με την διαχείριση των νέων τρόπων και μορφών εργασίας.

Οι εικονικοί κόσμοι είναι τα νέα εργοστάσια στα οποία οι εργάτες /παίκτες εργάζονται και παίζουν ταυτόχρονα. Οι τόποι αυτοί, όπου η εργασία αλληλεπιδρά με την διασκέδαση, μπορούν να θεωρηθούν σαν οι τεράστιες παγκόσμιες βιομηχανικές εγκαταστάσεις που επιχειρούν να καθορίσουν τα μεγέθη και τις μορφές της εργασίας του μέλλοντος.
Δεν αποτελεί υπερβολή ίσως, η διαπίστωση που έχει γίνει από διάφορους ερευνητές του φαινόμενου, πως τη σημασία που είχαν για την βιομηχανική παραγωγή ο ατμός τον 19ο αιώνα και το πετρέλαιο στον 20ο , θα έχει αντίστοιχα το παιχνίδι (play) στον 21ο.
Το θέμα είναι με ποιο τρόπο, από ποιους, για ποιους και με ποιες συνθήκες διαμορφώνεται αυτή η σύνθετη και πολιτική τελικά πραγματικότητα.



Ο Maurizio Lazzarato (1996), κάνει πρώτος αναφορά στην ιδέα της άυλης εργασίας ορίζοντας την σαν την εκδήλωση μιας δραστηριότητας που παράγει το πολιτιστικό περιεχόμενο ενός αγαθού (commodity) . Χαρακτηριστικά λέει , πρόκειται για δραστηριότητες που εμπλέκονται στον ορισμό και στη σταθεροποίηση πολιτιστικών και καλλιτεχνικών στάνταρ, μόδες, γούστα, τους κανόνες κατανάλωσης, και στρατηγικές διαμόρφωσης της κοινής γνώμης.
Οι Negri & Hard στην αυτοκρατορία αναφέρονται στην άυλη εργασία ως μια διανοητική , εγκεφαλική εργασία που έχει σαν στόχους να λύνει προβλήματα συμβολικού τύπου και να εκπληρώνει αναλυτικά καθήκοντα. Τυπικά , αυτά τα επαγγέλματα βρίσκονται στη σφαίρα του τεχνολογικού τομέα της πολιτιστικής βιομηχανίας, όπως για παράδειγμα οι δημόσιες σχέσεις, οι παραγωγές στα media το web design.
Το κλειδί της διαφοροποίησης είναι η μετάβαση από το υλικό πεδίο του εργοστασίου στη συμβολική παραγωγή ιδεών.

Μια δεύτερη έννοια, αυτή της εργασίας πάθους (affective labor) ορίζεται μέσω των μορφών εργασίας οι οποίες χειραγωγούν ΄΄το αίσθημα της άνεσης΄΄ δηλαδή της έλλειψης ανασταλτικών παραγόντων ειδικά στο χώρο της εργασίας, της ευημερίας , της ικανοποίησης και της έξαψης του πάθους.
Στοιχεία απαραίτητα τόσο για την παραγωγική και ομαλή συνέχεια του ανταγωνισμού, όσο και για την αγορά και τη κατανάλωση.
Ιστορικά αυτού του είδους η εργασία παρέμενε απλήρωτη και θεωρείτο περισσότερο γυναικεία εργασία (π.χ νοικοκυρές και σε αρκετές περιπτώσεις η καλλιτεχνική παραγωγή).

Όμως αυτό που διαπερνά τους εικονικούς κόσμους αλλά και ευρύτερα το κοινωνικό web 2.0 είναι μια όλο και πιο επιταχυνόμενη, όλο και πιο έντονη, αλλά ακόμα ανεξιχνίαστη ποικιλία του είδους της δραστηριότητας που όρισε αρχικά ο Lazzarato ή που μπορούμε να βρούμε στις σελίδες της αυτοκρατορίας (και αλλού) των Negri & Hard.
Ειδικά στους εικονικούς κόσμους εκεί που οι έννοια της εργασίας και του παιχνιδιού γίνονται όλο και πιο αδιαχώριστες, εμφανίζεται το φαινόμενο της υποκειμενικής σύνθεσης της εργασίας. Η άυλη εργασία 2.0 αλλάζει τα υποκείμενα και τοποθετεί κατηγορηματικά αυτή την μεταβολή του υποκειμένου, εντός του πλαισίου δράσης μιας διαρκώς υπό κατασκευή εικονικής υποκειμενικότητας που υφίσταται και δρα μέσα στα κοινωνικά εικονικά δίκτυα. Ειδικά η εργασία πάθους συνιστά εκείνη την δεσμευτική, δυναμική ισχύ που ενεργοποιεί τις νέες υποκειμενικότητες και εξασφαλίζει δεσμούς και συνάφεια στις σχέσεις των δικτύων κάθε είδους. Με άλλα λόγια επιτελεί εκείνο το έργο που πάντα ήταν το ευαίσθητο σημείο στη διαδικασία κεφαλαιοποίησης , δηλαδή την εξασφάλιση της παραγωγής αλλά και τη συνάφεια των δεσμών του κοινωνικού ιστού.
Παραμένουν όμως άγνωστες –κυρίως λόγω των εξαιρετικά ευμετάβλητων συνθηκών-οι παράμετροι που καθορίζουν τις μορφές αυτής της νέας υποκειμενικότητας.

Τελικά τι είναι οι εικονικοί κόσμοι ; οι ιδανικές συνθετικές μηχανές-κατασκευές, τα νέα εργοστάσια του ύστερου καπιταλισμού που βασίζονται στη κοινωνική διάδραση, στο παιχνίδι και στην πολιτιστική προσομοίωση, ή μπορούμε να τους δούμε σαν ιδανικά κοινωνικά εργαστήρια πειραματισμού που βασίζονται στη κοινωνική διάδραση, στο παιχνίδι και στην πολιτιστική προσομοίωση; Σε κάθε περίπτωση συνιστούν ένα κοινωνικό και πολιτικό πεδίο αντιπαραθέσεων και διεκδικήσεων. Ένα ακόμα ‘’leveling’’ στο ΄΄struggle field΄΄ για το πέρασμα από τον ψηφιακό μεσαίωνα στην ψηφιακή αναγέννηση.

Play and Game

Play is an open system, while game a closed one.
“Second Life” is play, “World of Warcraft” is a game.

Play is non representational – Game can be representational.

A game can be described, analyzed, copied and consequently a game can be subject of control. Therefore a game can be copy righted.

Games participate in political economy of reproduction (utility, commodity, gain).

Play actually constitutes the general economy of excess (Bataille).

Desire takes forms through playful situations that become later games to satisfy the needs of capitalist world for immediate satisfaction of the remaining fragments of the primary desire.

Capitalism’s schizophrenia production processes, oppresses desires and bust them to pieces and then market comes to offer immediate satisfaction to the pieces that is usually goodies functioning as pain killers to cure the ‘’algos’’ of been broken.

Games can be the masquerades of this schizophrenic contradiction.

Games are pain killers.

Play is in excess of necessity, but also in excess of the now and here of everyday life.

Play is literally somewhere else (Lash); a separate space which Heidegger called “the there.” Not a transcendental space but the empirical space of “the there.”

Game needs always a gamespace to take place and this gamespace is something exterior to it. The frame context which generates the rules and gives sense to the game is in reality outside the magic circle of the game.

Play is spread in every day life – Game creates always a certain magic circle.

Game is a construction made possible because of the playfulness that exists in any aspect of life.

Play entails movement; the more an activity is empirically temporal in its nature, the more dialogic or multivocal, and the more play-like.

A game can be analyzed and its elements can be distinguished. Play cannot.

Play is a primary cause. Play is prior to, and the basis of culture and representation. If play is culture that means it works within representational systems, through metaphor. Play can be seen as proto-culture, as metonymy, that is, working through substitution.

Cheat is also play – cheat alters a game s character

Play has no death, there is no unplay – games have unplay (death) and play connects it to the next level

In Greek language game stands as παιχνίδι while play is παιδειά.

In play users are also creators – In games players are players.

Play can reverse the game and it s rules – A game with no rules can not stand.
These rules usually are imposed from outside, it is very uncommon for the gamers themselves to impose the rules.

In play users can change the rules but the gamers cannot change the rules of the game. Still, they could possibly turn their playfulness toward the gamespace.

In games the gamers usually fight for rating. Games are forms of hierarchies and producers of hierarchies as well, while play is the interrelations of heterierarchies.
More differences are involved in a play field more intense and significant become the play experience.

Therefore, I can play with myself but I cannot play with me.

2008 metaverse tour

Interactive 3D worlds are not anymore product of fantasies of the hippie generations or techno promises driven by industry players. Fusion of Internet and 3D virtual reality brought powerful tool that these days penetrate more and more aspects of everyday life. The phenomena of virtual worlds are becoming new social and economical territories.

The online virtual worlds belong to a new form of information platforms that is called vectors. A vector is defined as any medium through which something is moved into space. Transportation vectors circulate objects and subjects as global commerce goods and the universal labour power. What circulates in communication vectors is information.

Are Religions Virtual Worlds?

The following post comes from Terra Nova lands. Terra Nova is a weblog about virtual worlds. The post put to discussion the ‘’ ticklish subject’’ of religion and of course provoked a variety of reactions.

''Right now I’m reading about player behavior in MMOs. I keep thinking how similar those player behaviors and game worlds are to the fantastical real-world-overlays we know as religions. Both imbue players with feeling of elevated direction.

Religions and MMOs give believers/players a lot in exchange for their subscription. Believers get a realm to achieve in that doesn’t necessarily affect what most people hold to be the real world. Recurrent personalities exist at the same time as the believers, but persist regardless of the life span of any one believer. Your grandmother's Jesus is your Jesus. The NPC you met last week during a quest will be there two months from now when you sign up a secondary character. And lastly, religions and virtual worlds both contain objectives that can be broken down into steps for the believer. Religions almost always require believers to do at least one thing, even if it's only to take an NPC into their heart. That action is not much different, and frankly, takes much less time, than solving riddles, collecting items, or grinding XP.

On a daily basis, religions exist mostly as information overlays on the everyday lives of people that subscribe to them. Believers translate the information they receive from the 3D graphical world into strategic information which determines their action in that world. This action-to-strategic-decision chain can be as ephemeral a believer getting a feeling after prayer that a problem has been resolved by that prayer. The believer may continue in the world without needing to confront the problem through any other action, secure in the knowledge that ‘something has been done.’ What other human activity offers this kind of achievement?

Players communicate, often on a daily basis, with other human beings that are participating in their personal instantiation of the experience. But religions can be pretty different from each other, or at least they contain varying teachings and characters. So are religions just shards of the same virtualspiritual world that humans have concocted? If you’ve ever seen the “all religions have a Golden Rule" posters (“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” et cetera) then you’ve seen that the underlying values of nearly all religions are the same.

Players also communicate with the personalities directly tied into the fiction of the world. Saints, gods, buddhas - or NPCs? Though a very High Level of NPC is ususally barred from communicating with the believer, until a certain “level” has been reach, at some point the believer will go to heaven, reach nirvana, or ascend. Or does the believer just level up?

Religions even have their power gamers. I think of John Donne as a religious power gamer. He left the Catholic church for the Anglican church. It might be more that he left one guild for another, seemingly more powerful, guild. His poetry, in which he pleads, demands, and then cajoles with an unmoving non-player character seems as efficient a strategy as any in a world in which your turns are very limited... And he wasn’t even a self-fashioned god or prophet. Aren’t self-fashioned prophets and saints just demanding more agency in the game world? It is called god mode, after all.

Here I am not positing that virtual worlds are religions, but rather that religions are virtual worlds.''

Democratization of virtual environments_part 2

Simulation is an abstraction of the real world which is constituted by signs instead of the real.
Something that is not a brand new story, if one draws the parallel lines with the ancient theater which was a simulation of the ‘’polis’ in that era too. Concerning the democratization of virtual environments and the comprehension of the importance of virtue in simulation, it is essential to understand that rules in it are a form of narrative as well. Because these exact tools of the software that reproduce simulation, form the space of the potential, political, productive thinking and finally the democratization itself. It is the creation of spaces where the ‘ethicodesign’ could possibly expand the horizon of the user. What we have to keep in mind is that simulation is always an abstraction and consequently it presupposes that the author decides what is included and what is excluded.

To give an example, in the case of Microsoft’s flight simulator we certainly couldn’t have an airplane crash with a pilot called Joseph Beuys, who instead of bombing the Russians on behalf of the Nazis, realises that he could become an artistic shaman who makes shows in New York in collaboration with a coyote. This kind of abstraction in the experience of flying is in itself a form of story telling and narrative. In other words, inclusion and exclusion within a simulation of a system predefine both the narrative and the game play.




In most of the cases, entertainment industry merges narrative and simulation in one. Script-writing and game-play hold an important role in the overall potentiality of immersion and/or critical thinking that the user experiences. It is more accurate to examine the process of democratization in virtual environments, in a frame of critical thinking and/or immersion, than what appears to be the phenomenology of the dilemma in the bipolar of narratology and ludology.

It is not only interactivity that makes video games a different form than the older media. Video game developers take seriously in consideration the user’s participatory creation of virtual spaces, via mods, volunteer design, and forums of radical criticism. The ongoing need for users to personalize, customize and create their avatars and in general the virtual spaces and storylines, shape them us major elements that render possibly video games as a more democratic platform than TV and Cinema. Critical thinking is not only based on the way that narrative is told but on the build-in creation of the potential space that the users could ‘imagine’.

Democratization of virtual environments_part 1

Historically all the possible practices of politics which have been invented, exercised and experienced, resulted in forms of power which constituted regimes. This categorisation, which occurred during the era of Enlightenment, defined the realm of the new born episteme of political science. The result was the definition and the study of regimes such us Democracy, Monarchy and Despotism. Among these, Democracy is still in question as commodity and at the same time it is the most demanding concept of political struggle.

In the realm of the democracy of the virtual I am mainly concerned with the image of democracy, the image of the universal suffrage and less with the action at the virtual or real public space. Consequently, the image of democracy itself results to be based on narrative, immersion and interactivity which became more important by replacing and raping the ‘public’ political discourse itself. But any public space, which asks to be defined as such, should evoke communication, and the constitution of the political life should advance and aim on coexistence.

Virtue, as memory reveals today in the infosociety’s contemporary politics, is mostly related with the designers of the software and less with the obedience or disobedience of how we act and behave in the virtual public space. It is more important how the designers of the software expand the horizon of the user and less how the users expand the horizon within the given software.

“When democratic culture becomes technological, sooner or later democratic rules also have to be hardwired into the technical systems, for example in the form of software. Instead of asking how representative democracy can be saved or renewed by using the internet, the first question that needs to be asked is how democratic the internet (and its culture) itself is.
But how the democratisation of the virtual environments and the internet in general can be measured? Is still the production of virtue, within the context of the virtual, the Achille’s heel of democracy?

By software I refer not only to programs like Photoshop, a game engine or how Wiki works but the internet itself and in a great extent the 'physical' public space with its rules of use. Software expresses itself with interfaces which tend to function as social sculpture. It is a space where the rules - that have been set up usually by the designers - are supposed to expand the cognitive horizon, the desires and the needs of the user; meanwhile they create and store the collective memory.

Interfaces for that reason become the gatekeepers of perception, knowledge, imagination and memory. Although there is an opposite perspective to that, which could be concluded in the trendy slogan that runs across some parts of European elites: How Marcel Proust can save your life from the internet.

However, the grass root participation in virtual environments appears to transform the platforms to a state that encourages critical thinking. This in its turn assures the production of the essential principle of virtue that feeds and retains democracy. But interfaces could easily transform the potential space to a participatory immersion that raises propaganda and seduction.

De Krypten avatar. Liberate your avatar from yourself.

Once, I knew a man and together we used to wander aimlessly in the streets of a dusty city of the south. Time was always afternoon, the light dim yellowish and the sounds that I could hear, two. One was a faraway wind sound of average force, accompanied by an indefinable, mechanic growl. Everything was the same in every itinerancy, but as the subject of discussion was different each time and we changed them often, it never crossed my mind the cause of this repetition. That’s how things were until one day when while we were walking, all of a sudden it got dark and astonished I turned my head searching for his eyes; I heard my voice coming out of my mouth, but now my mouth was on his head together with my eyes, my nose, my hair and my hands. Summarily, the whole of me was walking next to me inside the darkness, talking to me.

The following text, named Examinations D and E, is a transcription of a sound file named De Krypten.wav and was found as ‘’attached object’’ at the head of a corpse, that was in a rotten state. Also, two notecards owned by a certain Space Masala were found close beside the corpse. A police report mentioned the case as the ‘’first case ever, of real time murder/suicide in all worlds’’ (sic). They ascribed that to ‘’the impossibility of the world definition that took place the event’’ (sic).

Examination D 1.

‘’ How one must treat herself’’.

Examine how you treat yourself and especially if you hate yourself as if she was a treacherous person and as your worst enemy. Because this hate is holy, it is benefactory. Examine if you are one of those who think that this life was given to us for play and go on the loose.

Solomon wisdom: You considered that life is a game and the existence a profitable festivity. The passed rebellions are paid back with new kinds of obedience. Also examine, if you are adulating and loving yourself out of order and more than that she deserves. Lest you do not want to toil, neither to regret, neither to battle, to stand out against temptation, to truckle until death to the will and the commands of your Lord, as demands the profession of existence. Simply, if you are an egoist and you love yourself (in the world), then truly you hate yourself and you will loose it In all Worlds. But if you hate yourself, truly you love yourself and you will liberate her In all Worlds.

The first Notecard was a Real Life info profile entitled: feel me, use me owned by Space Masala.

I am Space Masala, I am consisted by polygons and I was born in a virtual environment. I use to live in Second Life. I heard people say that I am a good tool box for experiments. Virtual Space it is a Space, so please don’t get me into a tangle with your Real Life existential problems. Or with your Judeo-Christian obsessions of the fear of guiltiness.

(Out Of Character: also, please do not sleep on your keyboards. Or at least, do not let the others to understand that). If you want to get a catnap, go find a lay down or relax ball.

‘’The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, was very familiar with the mountains and he was glad to listen to the wind that was blowing there, day by day in exactly the same way, like if it was playing the same theme tune all the time. He was even tempted for a while to jubilate with this –even deficient- image of the continuity and certitude of human freedom. But he contemplated, that there was a moment in the past that the wind came unknown in the mountains and aimlessly rushed headlong inside the gorges and the glacises, at one moment sobbing, at another giving a grunt of pain or a plaintive tune and a groan of agony in the edge of the abyss; finally he managed to familiarize with its instrument and it combined all these in the melody that day by day plays identically. He says that in this way the feasibility of the person wanders around inside his own feasibility, discovering one moment the one and next moment the other. But the feasibility of the person does not want only to be heard; it is not only passing by like the one of the wind; it is a form maker also; consequently it wants to be seen simultaneously. Any feasibility is an audio shadow. The Krypten person believes equally little to the beatific glorification of the joy and to the infinite groan of desolation. The Krypten person desires passionately to listen and to see itself. All the same, it doesn’t really want to listen to itself. And so, to avoid the impression of its real self, the Krypten person demands an environment which is light and evanescent, as those forms in theater, as the noise of the words that have no echo. A theater of shadows for the Krypten person’’.

Examination E 3.

How to treat your nears

Examine yourself about the ideas and the apperceptions that you have for your nears in general. Because, everyone is looking like the image and he is a simulation of your Lord. They were made by Her /His hands and they belong to Her. For that, your near is a brother of your Lord, your near is Her commissary, Her suffragan. And the loans and the goodies that your Lord gave to you, they were given for that: so that you give them to your nears, by Saying to you that what you do even to the less important of them, it is like you are doing it to Her.

So, you must know that you do not owe less to your near from that that you owe to your redeemer. And you cannot mistreat or benefice the other, without this good or bad that you are doing to the picture, that is your near, is broadcasted to the depicted, that is your Lord.

Repeating the repetition.

A girl that doesn’t ask for attention, she believes in the repetition. The repetition is actually what by errancy, was named Mediation. By this word, it was rendered in Danish at the philosophical cycles (started by Heilberg), the term Vermittlung of Hegel’s Logic, a term that we could possibly translate as mediation. It is the ‘’movement’’ into the triune world of the contradicted and the recomposed concepts of the Hegelian logic, on its relation with the ‘’very pure movement’’ (On Nature, C)

Kierkegaard opposes to mediation on one hand the Greek ‘’kinesis’’ as the more consistent sense to the existential facts, and on the other - his basic notion of ‘’compromise’’ if we translate Mediation towards this direction.. In other words, this is his version of the Christian development of the bound (alma) and the paradox. The dialectic of repetition is simple. Because what is being repeated has already happened, otherwise it couldn’t be repeated, but exactly because of that, that it has happened, it renders repetition as a new thing. When the Greeks were saying that any knowledge is a memory, they were saying that the whole of existence that existed has existed. When we say that life is a repetition, then we say that the existence that has existed is being created now.

The second found Notecard was a Second Life info profile entitled: space _tender

SL age: born in 15 May, female, Greek-Asian, 23 years old.

Pleasure and pain are a diachronic hyper-dipole to the universe, to politics, to the personal feelings. I like to learn the human nature and to comprehend it through various ways. My big obsession is my dislike for obsessions. I am flexible and noiseless presence, except when there is a good reason for the opposite I love women, my heart belongs to them, I love to play, I love to dance, I want to get my ‘’fantasy back’’, I love to love. FEEL FREE, feel yourself, I mean FEEL YOUR AV Aesthetics is my speciality, I am a slut and that interests’ me a lot. I like to overstep the borders, I am a luxurious dancer, and sometimes I am a street hooker. The streets for me are a sense of freedom.

The ‘’true world’’, an idea that is not useful anymore, that does not compel us to anything, an idea that became useless, needless, consequently a negated idea. Let’s delete it. We deleted the real world, which world remains? The phenomenal world? But no! Together with the real world we deleted and the phenomenal one.

I was in an advanced phase of a love story going along simultaneously in two worlds. The earthquake started with a draggy, faraway buzz, like if it was others’ concern and somewhere else happening, but all of a sudden it came straight on me and hit me from all sides turning everything into dark all around me. For a long time I thought that everything was over. At the end, when the dust settled down and the electricity returned, I picked up the keyboard from the floor that fortunately had survived, I set up the screen again and I plugged in the wires. I login, I bought a new parcel having the right of use of many prims, and I started to build a new house. As a model, I chose those old fashioned graves with those decorative rails and the multicolored little panes. My time was standing in front of me looking at me. After some hesitance I flew with it. The important thing is that everything must happen in proper timing. Everything has its time in youth and what has been done then, finds its time again later. Same goes for the debt to laughs and for something bygone that asks for tears.

Stocks tumble again

The crisis in global financial markets hits SecondLife.
Priests wander in vein around Sims asking for support and donations for homeless avatars.

A reportage ''in world''.


-- Instant message logging enabled --

[12:56] cogito Goode: good evening my child
[12:56] Constantine Rutkowski: good evening sir
[12:56] cogito Goode: how are you today?
[12:56] Constantine Rutkowski: yes I’m fine thank you and you ?
[12:57] cogito Goode: I am fine thanks GOD but I am very sad with all these things that are happening nowadays
[12:57] Constantine Rutkowski why sir ...what things do you mean?
[12:58] cogito Goode: oh my child with all this global economic crisis SL was influenced as well
[12:59] cogito Goode: and many, many avatars are feeling desperate
[12:59] cogito Goode: a lot of them are now homeless and they can not maintain their families matters no more
[13:00] Constantine Rutkowski this is very sad news indeed!
[13:00] cogito Goode: if this phenomenon expands further I am afraid that the worst things will happen to our favourite world
[13:01] Constantine Rutkowski: like what?
[13:01] cogito Goode: Sims will broke down , collapse and our favourite orgy places will disappear
[13:01] cogito Goode: login will be impossible and avatars will die in the middle of teleports
[13:02] cogito Goode: it could be the end of the world my dear child
[13:03] Constantine Rutkowski this is terrible!
[13:03] cogito Goode: don’t you think that we should do something about that
[13:03] cogito Goode: ?
[13:03] Constantine Rutkowski but what can we do?

[13:04] cogito Goode: of course we can pray altogether.. at least the avatars that have faith but I am afraid this is not enough
[13:05] Constantine Rutkowski: ?
[13:05] cogito Goode: I think we should start collecting money to help the poor avatars that are living at the streets helpless
[13:06] Constantine Rutkowski: really?
[13:06] cogito Goode: don’t you think so my child?
[13:07] Constantine Rutkowski: NO
[13:07] cogito Goode: why no my child?
[13:08] cogito Goode: I am collecting linden dollars for this aim
[13:09] Constantine Rutkowski: I bet u are
[13:09] cogito Goode: do you want to contribute some lindens my dear child?
[13:10] Constantine Rutkowski: no
[13:10] cogito Goode: you do not feel any pity for the less fortunate avatars of SL my dear child?
[13:10] Constantine Rutkowski: no
[13:11] cogito Goode: I am afraid that although your face is Angelique your heart is hard as the steal my beautiful child
[13:12] Constantine Rutkowski: and I think your just getting $ for yourself ..Sir
[13:13] cogito Goode: I can promise you my child that I distribute all the offers and donations to my poor
[13:13] cogito Goode: you must have faith
[13:14] Constantine Rutkowski: I don’t think so
[13:14] cogito Goode: don’t you have any few lindens to donate?

[13:14] Constantine Rutkowski: no
[13:15] cogito Goode: then you should find some
[13:15] Constantine Rutkowski: I think you should try someone else for $
[13:15] cogito Goode: you could sell your beautiful and sexy body and gain some
[13:16] Constantine Rutkowski: yes ..but why should I
[13:16] cogito Goode: because this act could clean and purify all your sins
[13:17] Constantine Rutkowski: how?
[13:18] cogito Goode: by giving a part of the money that you can get after selling your body, to the poor, the ALL MIGHTY GOD will forgive you.
[13:19] Constantine Rutkowski: look please go away and try someone else
[13:20] cogito Goode: you are not afraid of GOD my child?
[13:20] Constantine Rutkowski: please leave me alone !
[13:21] cogito Goode: I will leave you my child but GOD will keep an eye on you and on your ass from now on
[13:21] Constantine Rutkowski: whatever
[13:22] cogito Goode: as you wish my dear avatar child