And like Prok, I've also seen the "holy fury" against these sinful time wasters, but I've also met a more reasoned (and I think reasonable) worry that we'll turn into a world glued to a computer screen. Funny that many of them still spend many hours watching TV, though. Hypocrisy much?

The reasons I have listed for where the SL love/hate split lies isn't an attempt to explain the polarity with any *one* reason. Rather, it is to look at a series of reasons and note that there is a certain center of gravity.

o People who believe in *something* of some sort, God, gods, or even some kind of sectarian utopian ideal like Extropianism find it easier to believe in Second Life. And frankly, people who devoutly imagine themselves not to be religious are the ones who get most excited about new belief systems not differing a great deal from mainstream religions at the end of the day

o More women and men who wish to have female avatars seem to like SL then men

o Some countries seem to fervently embrace SL for all kinds of cultural and historical reasons

Perhaps it's easier to explain the profile of the hater than the lover: a 30-something or 40-something cynical male geek who is an expert on Web 1.0, and possibly even a widget-builder in Web 2.0 social media, but loathes this very platform that makes not him the expert, but the average user who creates their own content.

That's all it's about: unseating the cynical middle-aged geek who used to rule the world, and his seething hatred of that development.

MUDs and such weren't of interest to any large group of people in their day because they required not only a lot of fantasizing, which most people would rather have ready-made either with books and movies or with their own lives as the substrate, but they required geeky expertness to create.

Nobody needs game gods as much in Second Life, if at all, and that upsets the whole game-god MMORPG paradigm with its levels, quests, and wizards and fanboyz.

I also think that the hatred of SL as some kind of time-waster, indulgence, or even sin is very much like the hatred of sex. It's very similar in feel, this zealous, Puritanical rage about people extending themselves into an avatar freely.

But that's also something you need to experience first to maybe see the benefit.

But is this the reason? I mean people play ego shooters and the like which might be similar. Of course you don't interact in a very broad way with your environment (mostly you make it dead) but I guess you still think of the one in the game being you (I think, not playing these so much). At least the immersion should be comparable if not stronger due to the action.

I also wonder if people really think of putting your mind into that avatar. I experienced once that a client said to me "And you control that puppet there?". This was very strange to me as I think if my avatar as being me. But people not experienced to virtual worlds do not think like that. For them it's just some graphics you control.

For Germany I can also say that it's definitely not a religious thing but I guess for other countries with strong religion this might add to that.

So for me I will keep debating (or better educating) because I also experienced that some people will listen and have a different idea about what SL is. Usually they have their information from the hype press which was not very accurate (and tend to influence my view of what journalists actually do…)

In Australia at least, there is a good deal of press commentary on Second Life, most of it positive and Australia has historically had a high take-up rate of new technology. But still, when I speak to people about Second Life, it rapidly becomes clear whether they are interested and "get it" or don't. Those that don't get it appear almost to find the whole thing rather distasteful. It's the whole "get a real life" attitude we have all heard so often before, rather than any concerns about real or alleged pornography. I admit I have long since ceased proselytising Second Life to these people.

The willingness to invest your consciousness in an avatar and to actually enjoy doing so, may not be a genetic trait, but it seems to be about as black and white. It's something deep seated and comes into play long before any geeky concerns about clunky interfaces or frame rates. We could have been having this discussion in the early 90's about any text based MUD. I expect the people who used and enjoyed those and the people who found them abhorrent, would have precisely the same views about Second Life today.

On the other hand, there's positive developments too; the University of Utrecht has started a research company for 'serious gaming' and it's uses for training, simulation etcetera. Second Life is of course involved in this project.

I agree that it might be about the "newness" of this idea to walk throught a 3D world. I am not so sure about the gender thing (although I mainly remember males being that active in being against it) and of course in Germany we don't have east or west coast ;-)

I think and hope though that time will teach them that it can be useful for something.

BTW, we also had a quite rational discussion on saturday in which I said that I'd prefer watching TV in Second Life instead of watching Joost and chat with my buddies there (if I'd have any on Joost that is) just because of the immersion. This was also hard to understand for people not being in SL. And I would actually really know how many people use that chat function in Joost.
But that's maybe a topic for a different post.