Second Life’s Social Policy Part II
It takes a real geek to stumble across social policy issues during their first few hours in Second Life (see previous post!), but my geekiness knows no bounds! (Or, from the policy end, should that by wonk/wonkiness?) It turns out that the NHS will be using the Second Life platform during consultations on the future of the health service with a virtual conference planned for Wednesday! Naturally, I had to check out the NHS zone on Second Life and it was interesting - a mock up of a future care facility and a few videos outlining options for the future - but, as with so much on Second Life, is mainly a loosely veiled marketing effort.
The same is true of yet another social policy area I came across: a Diplomacy Island where David Miliband delivered a speech last week (archived on YouTube). This area seems to have real potential (a library of UN publications looked very interesting for instance), but the only virtual embassy open to date belongs to the Maldives and, well, it is a nice PR piece that highlights recent public policy gains while skipping over some of the major issues about democracy in the Maldives.
How far REAL debate is taking place on Second Life is a question I want to explore a little more as I get further into it, but so far debate has been hard to find…
Oh, and here’s a picture of people dancing for their welfare money on Second Life’s Welfare Island..
Second Life: Welfare Island
