Second Life may lag but its not developed like other games. It doesnt render off a CPU as its relatively impossible to force this unless you have an integrated graphics card (from intel or what have you) SL streams to you computer much like a shoutcast radio station would. Your loading the 3d objects. SWG , Anarchy Online, WoW and guild wars and all other mmorpgs store mass amounts of data right on your computer so your rendering it directly off your HD. Once things are cached in SL they tend to load relatively fast and alot of people that think they have good internet connections really dont there is the fact that for instance Cable is rubbish in High traffic areas and DSL is slow (but more stable)

It also comes down to hardware and alot of people really dont have very good computers. SL runs fine for me on the newest first look viewer with everything cranked up. I run an AMD Sempron 2400+ 2 gigs of ram and Geforce 6800 GS (overclocked edition) Not a grand computer the processor is maybe 1.66 > 1.74 ghz not dual core and it runs SL along with photoshop dreamweaver and Zbrush. Just because you couldnt find your niche doesnt make it a bad game.

 To those testing it out for like a few hours serious get over it your not gunna learn jack in that time frame and if your not willing to put anything in your not going to get anything out (by put something in i mean effort into exploring the world) SL is a grand world where you can do anything you want literally your not limited to a special path like an MMORPG like WoW etc.  If you despise it stay off and get over it its not the kind of game you like and its clear you had the wrong expectations going into it.

Well if we get down to it its almost impossible for them to operate like there. Keep in mind in there you need to upload things and then pay a fee based on what your selling and how much etc... its an absurd system that There uses and it doesnt allow real time building or any real creativity. Alot of stuff in There is also ripped off of diff models etc due to how their system is built... SL's protection system does exceed that of real life because if we get down to it the worst someone can do is rebuild a build they'd still need to sort out scripting. Yes textures can be ripped but LL cant really block that. In relative terms if a build is left mod its can be copied but in terms it still takes some amount of skill.

I dont find it that bad if people actually wish to improve on a design or what have you. It'd be hard to do a patent system since if you really look at existing patent systems they are beyond messed up to begin with...

There are seedy people in all worlds the pedophile stuff was the germans reacting to a roleplaying subset called ageplay who dressed up as kid as some of them were having sex dressed as kids but the majority of them were not. The germans investigated people and invaded their privacy in doing so. Aside from that you do have all sorts of things that you may not see people partaking of in the real world as people explore who they are a bit more in SL. There are seedy people anywhere you go and weirdos.

Also are we not all a bit weird when you get down to it we log in a world on a computer on a regular basis and by people that dont understand it we are the wierdos

Ok lets get down to brass tacks here with this the fact of the matter is if someone actually goes off and kills someone from playing a video game there is obviously another element that was there before hand. In all likelihood they have a mental problem or were brought up in a bad home or a violent household. Your normal person without problems knows to distinguish between games and reality or tv and reality.

Fact of the matter is they probably in all likelihood had some problems and exhibited warning signs but their parents, friends, teachers, peers and the like likely refused to acknowledge it. Many parents dont bother cuz they dont want to acknowledge that their kid has some kind of problems.... Anyways games, music, movies, and television dont cause people to go off and kill someone. Look into these people's medical background (yeah its privileged) but i can pretty much guarantee you that there is some red flags in their medical history and if not then the blame is really with the parents, peers, friends , teachers etc.... I've played violent games for years and I'm fine. I have only ever been violent if i needed to protect myself or someone else and then i try to resolve it without violence first.

Parenting and numerous other factors come into play with these things. Yes there are going to be wackos out there but no more so then your chances of walking down the street and getting mugged.