This was a good week for presentations in Second Life: earlier in the week Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig chatted inworld (Link), and tonight computer pioneer Doug Engelbart (see announcement with relevant links over on the SL Future Salon blog – Link) presented to both the Bay Area Future Salon group and SL residents… well, kinda; he didn’t seem to pay much attention to us avatars. No matter. I enjoyed both.

However, I’m striking out when it comes to getting questions answered. With Lessig, the full scope of my question wasn’t considered and so the answer he provided was essentially worthless to me. I asked two other questions later, but apparently there wasn’t time for seconds.

With Engelbart, the question I posed in reference to his discussion (on “Collective IQ” and augmenting human abilities) actually borrows from my previous blog entry. Here it is (as if you’re really interested):

Collective systems also facilitate negative input. e.g. Some student creates the “Million Dollar Homepage” but his success (made possible by augment systems) also opens him up to extortion and other unpleasantries. What can be done to safeguard against this kind of abuse?

Personally I think I did a lousy job putting that question together, so actually I’m kind of glad it was overlooked. Better that I go looking for some answers myself. There’s probably a gold mine of information on the issue.