Newt Gingrich's Second Life Cited by Washington Post Columnist As Example of Candidate's Intellectual Failings

Newt Gingrich's Second Life has gone from New World Notes to The New Yorker's blog and now, to the editorial pages of the country's most important newspaper for the American political scene, The Washington Post. Specifically, in a column by Eugene Robinson, excoriating the GOP frontrunner's habit of glomming onto random trendy ideas, no matter how bizarre. Among them, Gingrich's acclaiming Second Life as "one of the great breakthroughs" of the coming decade. In other words, now Gingrich's SL past is being touted as a negative against his Presidential candidacy.

Personally, I don't blame Gingrich for proclaiming SL as a great breakthrough -- I still maintain it is that, because whatever happens to Second Life itself, it was a major influence on the mainstream acceptance of virtual world concepts like avatars, online community, and virtual goods. (And also, the power of user-generated content.) However, I do blame Gingrich for making statements like that so boldly and blithely and without any caveats, or much awareness of how SL actually worked. (All of which led to him suggesting that Congress should meet in Second Life. to work out the nation's problems.) Not necessarily the kind of in-depth analysis and judgement I expect from a Commander-in-Chief. (But then, maybe that's just me.)

Comments

[Pirmin Jupiter]

Still, the Gingrich and any GOP trolls are banned from my sim as soon I learn they exist!

(ROFL)

[foneco zuzu]

I would not ban the next Usa president!

[qarl]

ban the president from your sim?

better pray no one thinks that's terrorism.

[Pussycat Catnap]

Who said anything about banning Hilary?

[Metacam Oh]

Seeing the value in Second Life is probably the only thing Newt Gingrich has done right. But once again, the bad connotations that come with the name Second Life and we have these snarky comments from Eugene Robinson.

Anyway there is plenty to rip on Newt for, to pick this out of all of them is pretty lame IMO.

[Ann Otoole InSL]

Eugene Robinson appears to be a democrat party operative so his opinion is invalid and worth nothing. Same for all the political party operatives on both sides masquerading as journalists when all they really are is propaganda writers.

But hey Eugene thanks for getting SL on your paper. No publicity is bad publicity.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

Centrist Democrat Mark Warner's avatar wore a better-fitting tie in SL than did Newt. Warner's avatar was, however, still pretty awful.

Gee...wonder if the Post would make fun of Warner's avatar. And if Obama had an avie, Robinson would be calling it "visionary."

So by gum, let's be bipartisan in bashing our politicos' poor taste in avatars! They *all* reek.

Full disclosure: I'll be pulling for Warner (or Hilary) in 2016, after four more years of feckless Obama (who might find a spine, but I doubt it) or some GOP lunatic who squeaks in on the party's dwindling white-fundamentalist-geezer base.

[Emperor Norton]

I am sure the griefers would just rush to embrace the concept of congress meeting in Second Life.

[Hitomi Tiponi]

All credit to Eugene Robinson for realising Second Life still exists - it came up in a panel discussion programme in Australia and was talked about in the past tense.

[CaliginousRival]

I would like to extend my congratulations to NWN for being instrumental in creating a new means of embarrassing Second Life and undermining its existence in not one but two major public forums. Keep up the good work, ladies and gentlemen! And an additional "BRAVO!" on the extremely necessary and relevant hack article you churned out to light the fuse on all of this. You have done us all a GREAT SERVICE and you should be very proud of your accomplishments.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

You know, I wouldn't vote for Newt if you waterboarded me (an eventuality that's gaining in probability with each vote in Congress to eliminate due process).

But I have to give him credit for seeing a big future. We're so wrapped up in small, dreary, dystopian visions of tomorrow. I miss the Jetsons and the pulps and that Star Trek feel of optimistic frontiers.

Bashing Gingrich for his sole redeeming feature, that childlike sense of wonder at the potential of science and technology, is beyond counterproductive. We need to coopt that vision and double down on it, not dismiss it.

That's how we got to the moon (and why we should have set up permanent housekeeping there long ago).

[LifeFactory Writer]

I must say that I agree with the comment from Arcadia Codesmith (just above this one).

I will also confirm that in Washington, having been openly involved with SecondLife *is* a blow to one's perceived intellectual capacity. There is no question about this. It is a liability; enough to ruin one's career, quite frankly. If one was very prudent and consistently anonymous, one might be able to continue engaging SL as a dirty little secret, but it would be risky.

The conservative hack dogs, who viewed SL as a bastion of hippies and miscreants, were some of its most vicious discreditors and griefers. So, maybe Eugene Robinson is just trying to get back at them? And, maybe Newt was just trying to get those red mutts to be a bit more reasonable and forward-thinking?

Likewise, the liberal hack dogs, who also roamed around SL, belligerently, gave the place a bad and flaky name and funky smell. I certainly was embarrassed by them.

Poor Philip and the founders...I suspect they never intended to have their world caught up in political warfare.

Honestly, Washington taints everything. Really...it cannot help but introduce rot into whatever it touches. It is filled with fanatics who poison the good in, well, everything.

~ Cheers from Washington, DC, where neither light nor oxygen dare to roam...nor intellect...nor creativity... nor vision.

(for the record: I like SL, but admit my attention has turned to designing virtual worlds that can exist as webpages on one's blog or profile page.)