Paradise Lost
By Adam Reuters
The Los Angeles Times runs an article on the dashed Utopian dreams of early Second Life residents, featuring interviews with the Second Life Liberation Army, Prokofy Neva, and Peter Ludlow, who “compares Second Life’s current status to the ending of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, in which the Shire, previously untouched by the outside world, is destroyed.”
LA Times reporter Alana Semuels writes:
In the last year, the number of people who had visited Second Life skyrocketed from 100,000 to 2 million. As the population grows, early denizens are learning the truth of Jean-Paul Sartre’s observation “Hell is other people.”The website is facing the problem that many would-be utopias faced before it: When building the ideal world, it’s impossible to change while remaining perfect in everyone’s eyes.
