Professor Nesson’s final words on how law is not something to be loathed, but was originally something to be loved, supported my most recent experiences in Second Life. Perhaps SL reflects at a primitive level, why people need law and how law rather gives one more freedom and more quality of life.

Second Life, to a large extent, is almost lawless, or run on people who have mutual understanding for a decent lifestyle. As numbers of users increase in SL, however, things are getting out of control and some users abuse the lawless situations.
Because of these undesirable people, many are moving to areas that have laws and appointing governors to uphold those laws. This is somewhat like real life, but reflects more capitalistic values, since users are actually paying more in both land prices and taxes to live in those zones with strict building and conduct regulations.

I was shocked when I heard so many HLS students think that empathic argument would snub their rational thinking. I wonder what they think “winning” a case actually means. Without empathy, a case is like a war, and even if you win, there are no real winners, because of the emotional distress that is involved. Empathic argument is not the argument itself, it is the process of empathic thinking, because the subjects we are dealing with are human beings.

Thinking empathically is helping me in a case now in SL where a casino mogul has been buying surrounding land at cheap prices and building huge ads on the empty lots. First, I went eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and set up walls to block out his glowing ad towers, but no matter how high I built, he would always build his towers higher. But then I understood that he was trying to force me into selling him my lot by annoying me and I took down my walls and tried getting in touch with other land-owners who are in a similar plight as I. Hopefully, we won’t be bought out.