I've seen two major news about Second Life lately, one is about Copybot — a bot that's able to copy any object inside SL, regardless of wether the object is copyrighted or not (if you create something in SL, you retain copyright). The other is about a worm that produced a "gray goo" effect, duplicating itself in the shape of rings spreading over the SL world and slowing down the servers.

Now, peoples reactions to these things are generally negative. Of course, the copybot is a form of stealing (and using it can get you sued in real life), and the worm destroys the in-world experience. But ... they just make me want to play SL more often. Even if both of these things are "bad", I think their existence exemplifies the freedom of SL. Imagine the real world without the choice of doing bad things — doesn't seem so exciting does it? Without the freedom of choice, or the challenge of opposition — life wouldn't be as exciting. It's a sad, but true reality that trouble, war and disturbances are an exponent of progress. For me, I think this set of incidences give a deeper sense of reality in the virtual.