It’s 11PM and I’ve been scrambling all day to coordinate my team of builders, avatar designers, video stream experts, educators, press people, and cadre of volunteers to get the International Justice Center ready for launch on Thursday. Clearly it’s a labor of love for a lot of people, who have gone above and beyond the call to get every prim ready for the unveiling.
Maybe I am just overtired and sentimental, but looking at the still unfinished builds, I am struck by the poetry of it. We’re constructing a new edifice for justice and human rights, using the most ephemeral and illusory tools. It sits empty, devoid of content and life, just a prim skeleton, suggesting what’s to come. Aren’t "Justice" and "Human Rights" structures that always stand unfinished, needing more planks, foundations and support?
And what will be there in a month, six months, a year? I have plans and strategies and visions. I see great potential for using virtual world and social networking tools to scale up public awareness and action on these vital global issues — from Darfur to Climate Change to HIV/AIDS. The International Justice Center seems like a great place to start exploring how that might work.
But truthfully I don’t really know what will happen. Which part of what makes it exciting!
(Here’s a secret: We’ve set the sim as public as of today, if you want to check it out here. Please pardon our dust.)